Episode 51
I Put on Makeup. That's The Big Win.
We're back. I put on makeup today. Seriously, that's where we are right now.
I took a break — a self-imposed silent hiatus you probably didn't know about, because I had a backlog and I'm nothing if not someone who runs her mouth into a microphone first and asks questions later. But the break is over, and I was not ready to come back today. I was very, very not ready.
And yet here we are, because I can do things scared, and apparently that includes walking downstairs and getting in front of the microphone when all I wanted was my best friend. (My kids confirmed my best friend is my bed. They weren't wrong.)
In this episode, I'm talking about:
— Odin, my 175-pound Great Dane who has exactly one person in this house and it is not me. Until he got scared. Then it was very much me.
— A listener question from Talia in Berkeley about how you grieve versions of yourself you never got to become — the careers, the relationships, the risks you didn't take.
— My dad's passing in 2016 and what happened in the four months after: every service line that was paying our business's bills disappeared. Every. Single. One. The universe was done with that chapter before I was.
This episode is 18 minutes. It's also a little unplanned, a little raw, and exactly what it needs to be. Come back with me.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 — War Paint On: We're Back (Armed with Makeup)
01:30 — What Counts as a Break When Your Brain Never Stops
02:09 — Content Brain Doesn't Take Vacations
02:50 — I Was Not Ready (But Here Anyway)
05:44 — Odin the 175-Pound Great Dane Who Only Loves Me in Crisis
09:02 — I'm the Safe Parent, Apparently
09:55 — What It's Actually Like Having Giant Dogs
12:24 — Small Talk: Grieving the Life You Didn't Live
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
I have makeup on my face that is somewhat of a victory
Speaker:because I have not done that in a while because I've just wanted to sit
Speaker:in a comfy hole of my blankets. I do not want
Speaker:our children to have a preferred parent. That said,
Speaker:all of the dogs should like me better because I am better.
Speaker:Can you go away for a minute? Hey, stop bullying me. Stop. You're bullying me.
Speaker:I don't like it. Hi, everybody. I'm Lauren
Speaker:Howard. I go by L2. Yes, you can call me L2.
Speaker:Everybody does. It's a long story. It's actually not that long a story, but we'll
Speaker:save it for another time. Welcome to Different Not
Speaker:Broken, which is our podcast on exactly that. That
Speaker:there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken, and the
Speaker:reality is you're just different, and that's fine.
Speaker:So we took a little bit of a break, which doesn't reflect the
Speaker:episodes that have been posted, because if there's one thing I'm fairly good
Speaker:at, it's talking. When you put a
Speaker:microphone in front of me, I tend to just do that. And so we had
Speaker:a backlog of episodes so that we could post. But I took a bit of
Speaker:a break because the last couple of weeks, months, years, this year,
Speaker:past year, five years, decade, something like that. Every
Speaker:time I try to quantify what part of my recent life has
Speaker:been wild, I keep having to go back further. Last
Speaker:month, well, probably the last two months. Mostly this year.
Speaker:Well, since 2016, it's kind of
Speaker:hard to, like, figure out what the stopping point is. But we did take a
Speaker:break, which, if you have the capacity to do, I highly recommend doing it
Speaker:because it was good to have less to think about for a short
Speaker:period of time. And let me be honest, like, less to think about is like
Speaker:saying there are fewer drops of water in the ocean. Like,
Speaker:by magnitudes, not that much. But it did take a couple of
Speaker:things off my plate and also turned off the part of my brain that is
Speaker:constantly generating things. Like, once you start. If you've created content,
Speaker:you know this. Once you start creating content, everything has
Speaker:the potential to be content. And then there's just a part of your brain that
Speaker:is, like, constantly mining for it and just being able to say to that part
Speaker:of my brain, like, take a nap. Did release
Speaker:some stuff, so that's good. But I will be very honest, and
Speaker:I think it's probably important to say this, because I'm sure there are
Speaker:other people in very similar situations. Maybe not with podcasts,
Speaker:but with jobs. And responsibilities and family
Speaker:and all the other things that are probably more
Speaker:important than podcasts. I was not ready to come back this morning. And
Speaker:by come back, I mean walk down the stairs to where I keep my
Speaker:makeup and put that on my face and get in front of the microphone
Speaker:and start recording. I was not ready. But I also
Speaker:knew that once we started, I would feel more like myself
Speaker:and I'd really like to feel like myself. That'd be so great. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker:So I really had to, like, push myself hard. I've pushed myself hard for
Speaker:many, many things. I push myself every day with work because I always have
Speaker:way too many things to do. But I'm also not a person
Speaker:who, like, deeply dives into this idea
Speaker:of, like, you can do things scared, but that doesn't mean you have to do
Speaker:things you don't wanna. Like, if your gut's telling you not to do something,
Speaker:if your body's screaming at you and you're trying to do something, maybe you don't
Speaker:need to do it. So I fall somewhere between there. So not to say that
Speaker:I have not forced myself to do many things that I need to do as
Speaker:a grown up adult in my life, but the fact that I was able to
Speaker:see through the fact that all I wanted to do was lay in bed, that's
Speaker:all I wanted to do. The other day I was walking upstairs,
Speaker:it was Friday night, and it had been a really long day. And I said
Speaker:to my kids, I'm gonna go spend some time with my best friend. And
Speaker:my oldest said, your bed? And I was like, yes.
Speaker:So even my kids know. But the fact that I managed to pry myself away
Speaker:from my best friend in the world, my bed, and come
Speaker:downstairs and put the war paint on my face and
Speaker:get here to yap into this microphone for
Speaker:whatever reason. And to be clear, I have zero idea what's coming out of my
Speaker:mouth today. None. There is never a plan.
Speaker:Which is kind of impressive when you consider how much content I have
Speaker:recorded without a plan. That really shows you my capacity to
Speaker:just run my mouth into the ether and hope that somebody listens to it
Speaker:eventually. But there is no plan. But we are back.
Speaker:Because these are small steps to get back to
Speaker:feeling like my normal self, who,
Speaker:regardless, all of the shit I like to talk about her, I kind of like,
Speaker:this is just one of those things. So if you're still here. Thanks, man.
Speaker:And if you've been listening for the last couple of weeks while I've been on
Speaker:self imposed silent hiatus that you didn't even know about.
Speaker:Thanks. Appreciate you a lot. And we have a lot more
Speaker:cool stuff coming up, but also, like, we're gonna talk about some
Speaker:tough stuff because first off, I know I'm not the only person there.
Speaker:I won't pretend like I ever have any idea what episode is coming out
Speaker:when, like, I literally just run my mouth into a microphone and
Speaker:then forget that I did it. And until I listen to the next
Speaker:episode, which I actually do. And I can't believe I do, but I actually
Speaker:do, because if I don't, I don't have any idea. Like, I have
Speaker:zero recollection of what we recorded or what was said.
Speaker:So much so that I'll be listening to it and I'll be like, oh, man,
Speaker:I really wish I said this after the thing that I'm saying currently.
Speaker:And then immediately say it and go, oh, like, good job, me. Good job. Past
Speaker:me, who? I have zero recollection of doing this. We were on the
Speaker:same page when things come out. I don't know. But
Speaker:we're here, and we're doing it because we can do things scared and we can
Speaker:do hard things. I have makeup on my face. Whether you can see that or
Speaker:not. That is somewhat of a victory, because I have
Speaker:not done that in a while, because I've just wanted to sit in a
Speaker:comfy hole of my blankets.
Speaker:Two nights ago, I'm laying in bed, and Odin. Odin
Speaker:is a very sweet dog, and he will take affection from everybody, and he is
Speaker:very, very snuggly. But he is bonded to my husband.
Speaker:He is bonded to my husband in ways that I am not bonded to my
Speaker:husband. Like, that is his person, and
Speaker:so he will come hang out with me. But the second my husband comes along,
Speaker:he's like, fuck you. I'm out. And he runs away, which, like,
Speaker:I've just gotten used to. Whatever. It's fine. I can. It's not fine.
Speaker:It breaks my heart every time because I say this a lot. I do not
Speaker:want our children to have a preferred parent. They should know that
Speaker:they can come to both of us about everything, that we're both there for them,
Speaker:that we support them unconditionally, that we love them unconditionally. There is
Speaker:no difference in the quality of parenting that they will
Speaker:get from either parent. I want them to know that. And we spend a lot
Speaker:of time working on that. That said, all of the dogs should like me
Speaker:better because I am better. The dogs should like me better.
Speaker:I am the superior person. The dogs should like
Speaker:me better. So it Breaks my heart every time that this dog runs away to
Speaker:my husband. And for everybody who does or does not know, Odin is
Speaker:175 pound Great Dane. So you don't passively
Speaker:snuggle with Odin there. It is a contact sport. But
Speaker:he's a very sweet boy and we like him a lot. So anyway, all that
Speaker:to say he never, never comes to me first if he's looking for somebody to
Speaker:snuggle with, he's like, where's my dad? And then if he doesn't find Kyle, he's
Speaker:like, all right, whatever, man. The other night I was laying in bed. This is
Speaker:like two nights ago. He runs upstairs without stopping,
Speaker:jumps up on the bed and snuggles up to me, which does not happen
Speaker:usually. It's like, if he jumps on the bed, he's like, where's my dad? My
Speaker:dad's not here. All right, let me see if
Speaker:I can get comfortable on this king size massive
Speaker:fabric that I, as a dog, should not be allowed on. But I get three
Speaker:quarters of because I'm a giant dog. So he has to, like, decide where his
Speaker:spot is. He has to get comfortable. He. And sometimes it's like
Speaker:he's, like, laying on top of me, but often it's just like,
Speaker:you are. You are the substitute human, and it's fine that you're here, but
Speaker:I need to rest. Right? Except that is not what happened. He ran right
Speaker:upstairs, jumped on the bed, snuggled up right next to
Speaker:me, like, on, like, next to me. Like I needed to protect him
Speaker:or like he had been waiting for me all day. Would this does not happen.
Speaker:So I was like, well, that's weird. But also, I was tired and I
Speaker:didn't think that much of it. And then he was next to me, like, basically
Speaker:on top of me the whole night. So I didn't really think anything of it.
Speaker:And then last night I went to go to bed and I was like, well,
Speaker:where's the dog? And he was doing the thing where he was like, I definitely,
Speaker:like, he was definitely looking for my husband. So I was like, well, I guess
Speaker:I'm old news. Whatever. So Kyle happened to walk in and I was like, do
Speaker:you have any idea why Odin was, like, all in for Snuggles last night and
Speaker:acted like he had been looking for me? And he goes, oh, yeah. I got
Speaker:mad at him because he was eating the other dog's food and he ran away
Speaker:scared. And I was like, oh, oh, so I'm the one who
Speaker:protects him is what it is. And he was like, no, Definitely. He was looking
Speaker:for protection. He was. He was scared that he was in trouble and he was
Speaker:being a chicken shit. And so he ran upstairs and jumped in bed with you.
Speaker:I was like, oh, so technically he does like me better.
Speaker:That's fine. I'll accept that. Everybody in this house comes to me when they're in
Speaker:trouble because I'm supposed to get them out of trouble. They come hide underneath the
Speaker:covers of me because apparently I am the protector of all small things
Speaker:and my husband is the enforcer.
Speaker:Having Great Danes is an experience. Like, obviously, they're giant dogs. They're human
Speaker:sized dogs in the house. So that is an experience. I tell people, like,
Speaker:imagine you're walking through your house and at any moment,
Speaker:like, a transparent knee wall pops up and
Speaker:you just. You just go knee first
Speaker:into something that was not supposed to be there.
Speaker:And all of a sudden it's there and it doesn't move. It doesn't respond,
Speaker:it doesn't react. It does no damage. It just, like, looks up at you.
Speaker:Like, that's what it's like having great dates. Because they have no spatial
Speaker:awareness. They have no idea where you are in reference to them.
Speaker:They have no sense of urgency for anything. The only time
Speaker:they get scared is when, like, something. Well, they get scared all the time, I
Speaker:think is more the point. But it's always, like, stuff that shouldn't scare them. Like,
Speaker:if they see the neighbors, they get scared and bark. And I'm like, what are
Speaker:you gonna do? What are you gonna
Speaker:do? Like, you, you. You would get close to that person and be like, can
Speaker:I have your pets? Like, why are you barking?
Speaker:Why are you alerting me that the neighbor is there? Because
Speaker:you're gonna protect the house. That's not gonna happen. You are the last
Speaker:thing in the world that is gonna protect the house. You can't even protect yourself.
Speaker:Who are you gonna protect? We had a bullmastiff when I was a kid, and
Speaker:this dog was huge. He was like 160 pounds. My dad used to say that
Speaker:he got so big because they had the same attitude about exercise,
Speaker:which is that if you get the urge, just roll over until it passes. He
Speaker:just, like, got bigger and bigger. I will never forget. We moved into a new
Speaker:house and this repairman came over and the dog ran down the stairs,
Speaker:took one look at him and was like, nope. And ran up to the third
Speaker:floor and was like, nope. So that's our guard dog, right? But these dogs, like,
Speaker:they will. They will at least go through the show of barking and Then I'm
Speaker:like, what are you gonna do? There is no part of you that is a
Speaker:guard dog. You might be an alarm, but you are certainly not
Speaker:gonna tear anybody up. That's our 160, 175 pound dogs,
Speaker:right? The 30 pound dog will read you for
Speaker:filth and tear you to shreds. We've had so many shar peis
Speaker:that I've been like, you probably shouldn't be allowed around people. Let's go
Speaker:move you away. They're mean. It might be why I like them, but
Speaker:they're mean. We had one dog who passed away last year that if anybody knew
Speaker:how many times he had bitten people, I would be uninsurable. Our
Speaker:homeowner's insurance would just nope out. They'd be like, nope, get rid of the dog.
Speaker:That dog lived with my brother for an extended period of time. There was
Speaker:a time period when he saw my brother when he wasn't living with us. He
Speaker:saw him at least weekly, but likely much more
Speaker:frequently. He was very well acquainted with my brother and he
Speaker:still bit him every time he saw him. So anyway, if you want a guard
Speaker:dog, not the big ones, make another choice. But if you want a dog that
Speaker:will run to you when it's scared and is scared 97% of the
Speaker:time, something over 120 pounds will probably do it.
Speaker:And now we'll go to Alison, who has this week's
Speaker:small talk. We have a question from Talia in Berkeley,
Speaker:California. I feel grief for versions of myself I never
Speaker:got to try careers I didn't pursue relationships I
Speaker:avoided risks I didn't take because I was just trying to survive.
Speaker:What do you do with that grief when there's no one to blame? Why do
Speaker:you need to blame anybody? That's the point. There's nobody to blame. Sometimes
Speaker:life is life. I'm in a group with some mentors and I have
Speaker:bonded really well with one of them specifically. And we were texting the other day
Speaker:and I was talking about some consulting work that I have gotten lately and how
Speaker:consulting has changed so much since 2023. Beginning of
Speaker:2023, when Ukraine was invaded. Basically,
Speaker:like instantly all of the venture capital money dried up or it became much
Speaker:harder to get. It went from being like, we're gonna go raise capital to like,
Speaker:is anybody gonna be able to raise capital? And people still have. But it
Speaker:has really changed the space that I exist in as a professional
Speaker:because it has changed completely. Changed what
Speaker:contracts look like, what engagements look like, the length of contracts, the Amount of
Speaker:contracts, what people are willing to contract for, how long people
Speaker:are pre revenue, how long. You know, that basically means how long people
Speaker:don't have money for and can't afford somebody who does what I do.
Speaker:It's just totally different. And I was saying to her as we were
Speaker:chatting, I was like, this is just. It's really hard to go in and
Speaker:do this every day knowing that it's so different. And
Speaker:it was like this before, and now it's not.
Speaker:And she just looked at me in my face and said, why does this matter?
Speaker:Like, why does it matter? Why does 2023 matter? We're not
Speaker:there anymore. We're now in 2026. Why beat yourself up over something
Speaker:that you had no control over? Like, sure, it was that way before. Things
Speaker:change. And so, yes, you absolutely. You can grieve that version of the
Speaker:life that you thought that you would have, or you can grieve the things that
Speaker:didn't come to fruition. Like, that's. That's valid. Grief is
Speaker:a real thing. And not especially in those situations, but I think in those situations,
Speaker:we're kind of taught that, like, you're silly for having feelings about it. And the
Speaker:reality is, like, you're probably honoring yourself better by letting yourself have
Speaker:the feelings about it. But just because it didn't happen then doesn't mean it can't
Speaker:happen now. It doesn't mean you can't find new opportunities or new things that you
Speaker:can engage in now. Also, like, who knows what the outcome
Speaker:would have been if you had done those things. If you believe that life
Speaker:is a string of events that all lead to one another and that
Speaker:everything's a little bit random and also somehow connected.
Speaker:You might not be living this life at all if you
Speaker:didn't have that life. You know, what happened in the past matters in that it
Speaker:gives you experiences, it gives you
Speaker:expertise in things, it gives you
Speaker:stories to tell. It gives you memories. In some cases, it gives you trauma that
Speaker:you get to keep all for yourself. It's like a gift
Speaker:from the universe. But the fact that it didn't happen then
Speaker:doesn't impact what is happening now. What you're in
Speaker:control of now, what you can do now. Those words which she said ring
Speaker:in my head constantly. 2023 doesn't matter. We're in
Speaker:2026. I always want to go back and like, well, it worked before. Let me
Speaker:try to do it again. And then if it doesn't work again, I feel like
Speaker:I've failed. And it's like, well, it worked before, so it's not a failure. Maybe
Speaker:other things have changed. Maybe the universe has changed. This is sort of the
Speaker:opposite of what you're asking, but it's something that sticks out in my head as,
Speaker:like, the way the universe, or if you're a faithful person, how your
Speaker:faith kind of drives you in that direction. But my dad passed away in 2016.
Speaker:I ran his practice for, like, 10 years before that. And we.
Speaker:For the last couple of years of his life, he did mostly consulting, mostly
Speaker:forensic consulting, utilization review consulting, helping other people build their
Speaker:practices. And we built a really, really successful practice doing that.
Speaker:We still had a handful of patients, but we. You know, it was getting harder
Speaker:for him to go to the office every day, but he still wanted to work.
Speaker:His brain was still working. So we built a different kind of practice. Obviously, I
Speaker:was sitting around grieving for my dad, but I was also grieving for, like,
Speaker:this practice that we built that was. That was very niche. I
Speaker:don't know that anybody else could have done it based on the opportunities
Speaker:that we had come to us, based on the people who we had interacted with,
Speaker:et cetera. Like, I don't know that anybody else could have done it the way
Speaker:we did it. And it was super successful. I was really hung up on the
Speaker:fact that I didn't get to do it anymore now that he was gone, because
Speaker:I really enjoyed what we did. I always make friends or colleagues with clients
Speaker:so that when they know, when they need something, they just reach out to me
Speaker:and I'll have it for them. And so I had fairly good
Speaker:relationships with the people who we worked with. We would chat, they would
Speaker:check in. Within probably between four and
Speaker:six months after he passed away, all of the programs
Speaker:that he worked in generating all of our revenue for the company
Speaker:closed or changed status in a way that we would not have been able to
Speaker:do them anymore. And I certainly would not have been able to, like, open a
Speaker:new practice with someone else who could do those things. Literally
Speaker:every single service line that was paying our bills through the work that he was
Speaker:doing changed. Some of it was insurance changes. Some
Speaker:of it was one of the companies just shut down their review departments.
Speaker:They were all gone. And so it was like the universe was saying,
Speaker:like, it's time to move on. This isn't an option anymore. We're moving
Speaker:in a new direction. You can't fight with that. Do I miss it? I still
Speaker:miss it. To this day. I still. It was some of the most fun I've
Speaker:ever had in my career. Doing that work, working with attorneys all over
Speaker:the country and building out cases for them and building out practices for people. It
Speaker:was a blast. But things end. Things don't happen the way you think they
Speaker:will. People die. Not only did we close down our practice because my
Speaker:dad died, but within four months, the way that we were running our practice anyway
Speaker:would not have existed. We couldn't have done it. And
Speaker:I could have stayed there, stuck and sad that we lost all these things, or
Speaker:I could have taken it as the sign that I think it was to just
Speaker:say, like, time to move on in a new direction. And
Speaker:now it's been almost 10 years, which is terrifying,
Speaker:horribly terrifying. And we do new things now. If there's
Speaker:something back there that you want, go get it. Otherwise,
Speaker:that doesn't matter. You've got today. Thanks for being here,
Speaker:guys. Have a good day. Love you, Mina.
Speaker:He knows I'm talking about him, so his head's, like, right underneath my microphone right
Speaker:now. Can you go away for a minute? Hey, stop bullying me. You're rude. Stop
Speaker:bullying me. Stop. You're bullying me. I don't like it. You're loving me
Speaker:too much. Hey, I love you a lot, but I also want you to go
Speaker:away, which is how you could define every relationship I've ever had with any
Speaker:living being. Somebody needs to come get this
Speaker:dog.
