Optimize for Joy: The Sea is Medicine Podcast by Naomi Olson

Welcome, Derek. I am so thrilled to have you here. And you are one of my water person heroes, and I would love to just start off. Did you grow up near the ocean? How did you get so involved with the sea? How did it come into your life?

Yeah, so thank you very much for having me here, first of all. And what better topic to talk about than the greatest love of my life, which is the ocean. Yeah. So I grew up in Long Beach, which is an interesting place because I didn't grow up on the water, but near the water. But Long Beach has a breakwall in front of it. So it's actually it's a really big beach without waves. So they built a breakwall in front of Long Beach, I think probably in the 50s? I'm not sure about that, but sometime before I was born. And so I grew up on a beach or in a beach that had no waves except for there's one little window where boats can go through and if the swell is just right, it would come to that swell window and hits it a couple of different spots. But I learned that much later on in my kind of venture in Long Beach. But my grandfather, so I grew up with my grandparents, first of all. So my grandfather absolutely loved the ocean. He wasn't a surfer, but he loved the ocean. And so every, not every holiday, but every time he wanted to go somewhere, it was always to the beach. It was never like camping like if the family was going somewhere, we went to the beach. And he was an avid body surfer. If you see me, well, you have seen me, actually, if you see me now on the water, I'm at home and he was like that. He was just I remember watching him and going, "Wow, my grandpa is just killing it, body surfing." And it was the most beautiful thing to see because it was so natural for him. And so that was really my introduction into water, the water world, yeah.

That's beautiful. So what was it about the sea? Was it just the experience of your grandfather or was there an energy or something you felt? What drew you to create a whole life revolved around the water and surfing?

Yeah. So being a child, I didn't know, like now I can rationalize it, right? And I can kind of explain it. But I think the feeling that I have now is the same feeling I had then. It's just now I can talk about it. So as a child, I feel like, well, now I can say that there's something about the energy, the liveliness, the beauty. And I think about this a lot as an adult. In the water, if you're looking at the horizon, you're not actually looking at anything manmade unless there's an oil tanker or a boat or something in the horizon. But most of the time, especially as a surfer, when you're waiting for a wave, you're looking out towards the swells. Your eyes are seeing only nature, right? And think about, the rest of our lives we're always looking at buildings and skylines and cars and telephone wire, there's always something in the way, we're always reminded of all these things. And I think now and as a child, I felt this immense beauty of the ocean and it was powerful. And I didn't know why I was attracted to it. I was like, "Oh, my grandpa's doing it. Must be cool." And I remember being thrown around in the waves and loving it and never being scared of it. I never had fear of the ocean. Sometimes I have fear of really big waves to this day. But that's different, right? It's not really the ocean. It's more like I know that wave could really hurt me, so it's kind of like that border between order and chaos that runs through my whole life. So the ocean was yeah, it was always this magical land, really. So yeah.

Yeah. I feel that there's something really magical about the expansiveness, right? There's such a freedom. For me also it's almost like going back into the womb. You know what I mean? As we start, we're mostly water, right? And so when we get submerged, it's kind of this return to our source in a way.

Hmm, I love that.

That has been really powerful and magical in my own healing journey with the water. Now, I'm interested in this between chaos. And you were just talking about this chaos and this water or this ocean theme that runs through your life. Will you elaborate on that a little more?

Yeah. So a lot of people, I think, they either fall on the order side or the chaos side, right? You have people who are very orderly, like engineers and they're scientists and they're very anal and you go to their houses and it's like everything's in order. Like everything has a place, everything's clean, everything's like it's orderly. How I think of order like military style. Bounce a quarter off the bed sort of thing. And then chaos would be the opposite of that. Would be like just a mess and disheveled and spontaneity and no routines and no schedule, no meetings, right? And so I am both of those things. Much like the ocean. So the ocean on some days looks so orderly, right? No wind, super maybe calm, it could be some swell but it just looks orderly, it just like the waves are marching towards the shore. It could be in a very timely way. And then other days, it's absolute chaos. It's like the winds blowing and the swell's all over the place and the tide's low, and there's water going 20 feet in the air. So that is absolutely my life. My life is both orderly and chaotic. And some days you look at my office and it's spotless. And other days, like right now, it's a mess. I'm just throwing stuff all over the place. And so when I when I'm chaotic, I think I need to be more orderly. Like orderly is calling me. And when I'm orderly, I'm like, "I need to be more chaotic." So I'm always being pulled between these two polarities in my life. And I love it. And for the longest time, I really tried to be only one thing and usually was probably more on the orderly side just because society I think dictates that kind of lifestyle more often than not. And I like to get stuff done and I run a few businesses. So, like, you have to be a bit orderly. You have to file your taxes and talk to your employees and do all those things. But I love the chaos side. I absolutely love it. And I think that's where I thrive. Right? So, yeah, that's kind of a long-winded answer.

No, I love it. I love that you're finding this really embracing both. Right?

Yeah.

Embracing both, all sides of everything.

Absolutely.

And that's something beautiful that the ocean does for us all the time, right? It's just really embracing all of these different sensations and feelings and sometimes it's calm, sometimes it's crazy. So that's really it's like embodying the ocean.

Yeah, exactly it, right? And I think as we move through life, we hopefully learn to embody what is most true for us. And if I look back at my life, the one thing that has been most consistently true, most consistently whole, was consistently filling is the ocean. The ocean, it's given me some hits along the years also, it hasn't knock me out yet. So yeah, I totally respect it and I probably don't respect it enough actually. So yeah, the ocean is amazing. It's absolutely amazing. I was just thinking I just went to Palm Desert this last weekend. There's some hot springs that I like to go to every couple months just to kind of retune. They're beautiful hot springs called Two Bunch Palms: Desert Hot Springs and the water's lithium. And so there's something about the lithium in the water that I absolutely think it's healing in a huge way. So when I come back from there, I feel great. But as I was driving, you have to go through San Bernardino, Lancaster, right, like the concrete jungle. It's about 2, 3 hours from the beach. And I was driving through there and I was saying, "Oh, my God, do these people know about the ocean?" It's right there. What would it be like to live a life without the ocean? And I was thinking I would probably not be alive. Like the ocean, it's because of the ocean that I'm still alive. For sure. For sure without a doubt. So I was thinking about that this weekend.

Wow. That's really powerful.

Yeah! Yeah.

Well, I want to know about the businesses, right?

Yeah.

Because the ocean is really important in your life. So you ended up creating businesses around that. Correct?

Yeah. One. Wave Tribe is the business that I created around my lifestyle. But I also am either a partner in or have other interests in some other businesses that aren't ocean-related. So books is another one and the literary world. I have a partnership in literature. So I also love books, right. So I would say on that list of why I'm still alive, ocean one, books two. And yeah, and a few other non-ocean-related businesses. But Wave Tribe really is and was my true inspiration for attempting to marry my livelihood with the ocean, right? And it has not been easy. It's been a total upward battle and in many ways has been very difficult just because I think I needed more order when I was adding in chaos in a lot of ways. And, for me, I'm obviously interested in money because we all need money to survive and like have rent and get on a plane and buy surfboards, right? But, for me, today, I got up, I meditated, I did some journaling, then I checked the surf and then I went surfing. And then I went to lunch with a friend and then I got back at 1:00. So my workday kind of started at 1:00 and it's now 3:30. So, how interested am I in making money? I'm interested, but not at the expense of how I want to live and what brings me the most joy in my life. Right? So I think a lot of people in our society are struggling with that. They think that they got to get the money to have the happiness to live the life that they want to live. And okay, yeah, maybe that's true for some people, but I actually think it should be reversed. You should think about life in reverse. Like how do you want to live? Do you want to surf, do you want to be near the ocean, do you want to move to Mexico? That should be the first question is like what brings you the most joy every day and then embody that and then figure out how to make some money along the way.

Yeah, that can be difficult for people to swallow. However, I love the quote, "If you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life." Right? You heard that?

Yeah, I have heard that. I don't know if I totally agree with that because some people just like to play golf, I mean I love to surf, I guess if I were on the tour, right, then people could pay me. But that's kind of different.

Yeah.

So I love that quote. And I think it really represents a beautiful way to look at life. But at the end of the day, we know we all have to figure out a way to make money. And so that's a really difficult question, right? Like how are we going to spend our energy in exchange for money? And that's an important question to answer because our life is energy. We're just balls of energy moving around. Right? And so exchanging that life force for something either that you don't believe in or that brings you a lot of stress or that's going to kill you, right, it's not worth it. Absolutely not worth it. But on the other hand, we got to figure something out, right? You got to figure something out.

I guess they're kind of circling back to order and chaos in a way.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, in a way we are.

There's always this balance.

Yeah. I don't know, what do you think?

I think that it is possible to do what you love, and I would agree with you, my life has been more about following my heart or following that wave in my life and going for experience and quality of life as opposed to searching for validation and money and material things. I was actually in a business meeting not too long ago, a little group, and they were talking about the metrics. And my metric is actually joy. So that was nice for you to bring that up and hear somebody else actually use the joy metric in their business.

Absolutely. And I use that with people, too, like in my relationships. If I have a friend or a partner or somebody, if that joy meter is not tilting towards a hundred percent, obviously they're not going to be hundred percent all the time, but we deserve to surround ourselves with joy, with people that are going to either be joyful or bring us joy or have joyful conversations, whatever it is. I think that word, we need to bring that word back into our metric talk because, yeah, who cares how much money you have if you're miserable, right? Joy is such an important part of happiness. And I think the two are different. I'm still trying to figure out what the difference is, but I really do think there's a difference between the two, like happiness and joy, they feel different to me. I'm not sure in what way, but I definitely would use them. I would rather optimize for the joy meter in many ways because happiness feels like, I don't know, it's more dependent on states of thinking or emotional triggers maybe. There's something about happiness that it's more fleeting than joy. Joy seems more grounded, more heart. It's more connected to the heart and not desire. Happiness feels like it's kind of connected to desire. But the heart, of course, the heart desires things, but not so much. It's more like, yeah, let's just align with what is right for us in this moment or who is right for us, something like that. I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm trying to.

Or you can let us know when you figure it out.

Oh yeah, I will. I'll text you from the coffin. I'll be like, "Ohhh Naomi, I figured it out." But yeah, I got it!

Yeah. Enlightened.

Yeah, yeah. Not quite yet.

So, joy, is that what got you to start shaping surfboards? I want to hear a little bit about shaping surfboards.

Yeah. No, so I've always been super creative, always creating stuff with my hands, and just at one point I was like, "Man, it'd be cool to shape my own surfboard." And so I just started doing it and I still only really do it as a hobby. I will do it commercially every once in a while, but not really. I just do it for myself and friends. And I'm kind of I'm getting to the stage where, yeah, I feel like it's easier to buy them these days than it is to shape them. But I still do get in the shaping room and knock some out. In fact, I need to get in there, knock one out, because there's a certain board that I ride, which is called a Mini Simmons. And they're difficult to find in the way that I like them. So I would say that's the main reason that I do them, is because I want a board exactly like I want it. And I know exactly what I want because I know all the nuances of riding that particular shape. And it's not a mainstream shape. There are some shapers that are doing Mini Simmons, but not like I do them. And I could try to give them a file, but I'm like by the time I get to that point, I could just do it myself. So, yeah, I love the process. It's really like sculpting. It's like in some ways it's like pottery because you're taking this foam block and you're kind of just roughing out the edges and working on the angles and the shape, so it's very much like pottery. I don't do the glassing part. I've done once or twice. But that part for me is I don't want to be around the chemicals. And I try to obviously use the best eco chemicals that are available. But even the eco resins that are on the market are 60 percent chemical-based still. So, this is the other thing about surfing. Wave Tribe, we've been going in the right direction and using eco materials, but still, the majority of surfing is, it's full of resin and plastic and a lot of contaminants from the wetsuits, right? Wetsuits are basically petrol. Most of them are made from petrol. Patagonia and a couple others are using limestone and plant-based. But most, 95 percent of the wetsuits are made from petrol and the boards are fiberglass. And fiberglass is just gnarly on the environment. Small steps are good steps, but there are a lot more steps that need to be made for sure. Yeah, but I'll get off my soapbox on that subject.

No, that's okay. I was going to actually ask you about the eco-consciousness that you're bringing also into the business. And it is amazing that you are saying. My feeling is that people aren't even aware of you have this sort of natural sport of surfing and being in the water, yet it produces all of these chemical resins and fiberglass boards and waste and all of this like you need these wetsuits that are petrol. It's kind of crazy, right? That again, it's those two forces in a way.

Yeah.

So I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you got into the eco-conscious or eco-movement and using those products. Can you make hemp wetsuits?

No. You could maybe insulate the inside of the layers with hemp, but the outside layer has to be something that is water-resistant and will hold in. Maybe you could, but I don't think so. Yeah. It's a really interesting subject. So I had eco clothing/retail business before Wave Tribe. So I started one of the very first all eco vegan clothing stores in Ventura, which is near Ojai where I live. And we had a small clothing brand at the same time. And so this is early 2000 so I was really early kind of on the eco train before it left the station for most people. So there's this big show, and I know you were connected with fashion for a while, so maybe, you know, there's this big show called Magic in Las Vegas every year. And it's where all of the fashion brands, basically, that's where they exhibit. And all of the clothing stores, Macy's, all of the buyers, they go to Magic every year and that's where they buy. And so I can remember going there my first couple of years and there were like maybe 2 or 3 fashion brands or manufacturers that were even using eco-materials. Like there was Ecollusion. There was like just a couple. And I think Bono, he actually launched his brand around that time, which he was doing some really nice organic cotton. But it's super early days, right? Nobody was doing it. And then by the end, I sold that business a couple of years later. And I remember the last Magic I went to, there was like a whole pavilion and then it was like a thing. There were probably 40 now, new manufacturers and fashion brand and now, I don't know, there must be hundreds or thousands, perhaps. So, I've been an early pioneer in a lot of ways, in a lot of things, sometimes too early. And Wave Tribe was one of those things. I was way early. So 2007, I had the idea and it was on this trip to Mexico that we took with a bunch of friends and everyone had a few board bags and I was pulling these board bags out of U-Haul and I was like, "Oh my God, there's so much plastic here. There's got to be a better way." Even if it's the bag is a different material, that'll be a huge impact on the industry, right?

Right.

And so that's when I thought about hemp because I had been using hemp in the clothing business. So I was very familiar with hemp. So that was kind of the progression. And then I was like, oh, hemp would be great, right, for the bags. And then I did the recycled leashes and the cork deck pads. But when I first launched the brand, I really thought just what you said a couple of minutes ago, you're like, we're in the ocean. If it weren't for the ocean, we wouldn't be able to do what we do as surfers. Right? Or as lovers of the water. So you would think it would be on the front of our minds to be eco-minded. And it has really been an upward battle in the surf industry, you know what I mean? Even if you look at the tour, right, there's been a little bit of change in the last year or 2, maybe. Year or 2, right? But before that, nobody was talking about eco. There's no, none of the pros were like promoting ecology. Now you're seeing it a little bit, but it's probably because some of the bigger brands are now kind of on the bandwagon, right, on the eco bandwagon. It's good for the bottom line, right. It's good for business. Which is great because if it's good for business, that means that customers are there demanding it. Right? Which means there's a change afoot. But it hasn't been that way for a long time, yeah.

Yeah. What is it like working with hemp? What makes it an eco-product? What makes it sustainable? And what are the qualities of it?

Yeah. The most important part of it is that there are no pesticides are used. Hemp is so resilient, so right off the bat, your crop has no pesticides. Right? And so you can say, okay, that organic cotton kind of gets you at the same spot. But hemp was originally before petroleum came around, we used hemp in America for everything, like all of our rope, our paper, our sheets, flags like the first American flags were hemp. The Declaration of Independence is on hemp paper. So are all of our paper goods were hemp. Like we were basically all hemp. So Ford used hemp to make the back glass in his cars. And then the petroleum industry came along and then plastics just blew. The petroleum blew hemp out of the water. And then the legislation was passed which made growing hemp, which hemp is not marijuana, we have to be clear about that. So they made legislation early on that made growing hemp in America illegal. So as soon as they made growing hemp illegal in America, which is now only illegal in a few states like 3 years ago, they just passed the Farm Bill, which said now you can grow it in America. So imagine from, I don't know, from the 40s until 2015, it was illegal to grow hemp in America. And a lot of that was because of course, the petroleum industry has legislative power and money and all that good stuff. So, hemp is, it's an amazing product. There's so many things good about it. But yeah, there's a long history in America of hemp being our favorite product to it being made illegal until just recently. So we're really just rediscovering it again as a society. And now that the laws around marijuana are also loosening and all the ideology around marijuana is. People are realizing, well, it's not great to spend all this money to put people in jail for something. They can go buy a beer, but they can't smoke a joint, which is crazy, right? So anyway, all of that stuff is super exciting, but we've come a long way in that aspect.

That's really crazy. I didn't realize that they basically buried the whole hemp industry so that they could have plastic take over.

Yeah, for sure. Yup.

That is so disheartening.

I know, dude.

Oh, brother. However, yeah, thanks for pioneering and bringing it back.

Yeah, you're welcome.

I know you mentioned vegan too. Are you vegan?

I'm like 90 percent vegan. And so I've been a vegetarian for 25 years, dude. 25 years. I've been a vegetarian a long time. And I'm mainly plant-based now for probably last year-ish. And the main thing, so I've always loved cheese and eggs. And then about a year and a half ago I had my blood panel done and my cholesterol was just not looking good. Dude, I'm super health. I exercise every day, I eat really well. But I was eating cheese and eggs. I was eating cheese almost like just a little with bread or a spread or something. And I cut all of that. I didn't cut it completely out. But I would say I'm now 95 percent plant-based and it's made a huge difference on my energy level, on phlegm, or an inflammation that I have in my body, my cholesterol is way, way down under control. I come from a long history of high blood pressure, and so as soon as I went vegan, my blood pressure equalized. So, vegetarian is great, but I feel way better being mainly plant-based. And I love that idea. Getting back to chaos and order, right? And I think if people out there are listening and they're like thinking, "Oh, there's no way I could be vegetarian or vegan." No, but you can for a day or you can for a couple of days. Is there a way that you can incorporate more plant-based, especially today, dude, there's so many wonderful products on the market. I just heard on NPR yesterday there is a new company that's doing plant-based fish. I have no idea what it's like, but they're doing plant-based fish, right, which is, now they have the plant-based hamburger, which is great.

I don't know. I'm a little bit apprehensive of those burgers, though, because I think they're using pesticide crops and stuff and it's so processed.

Yeah, they might be. And they actually are super high in saturated fat. So the Beyond Burger and what's the other one, the Impossible Burger. Those two, if you look at the ingredients stack, they're pretty high in saturated fat. As high as French fries or something. But if you look at some of the veggie burgers that are more bean-based, that are like beans and grain, you can get at Trader Joe's or whatever, those are way healthier.

Oh, okay.

I still do have some of the other ones once in a while, but yeah, you definitely always want to like saturated fats are really something you want to keep away from, I think most of the time if you can. But I mean, I love potato chips once in a while, too. Everything in moderation. So getting back to chaos and order so plant-based, yeah, you don't have to be vegetarian or vegan, but try a little, try to be plant-based for a day and see how you feel, right? This is the beautiful thing is our bodies are they're living laboratories, right? Just experiment. It's crazy. You could do like a week experiment and see what happens.

Yeah. That's great. What's your latest experiment?

Well, I haven't experimented with it yet, but I was just listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast, and this guy was talking about life extension and so using some nutrients and other things for extending life and reversing or slowing down the aging process, which I think is interesting. Not that I don't like being the age I am because I feel great, but still, it'd be nice to slow it down just a tad.

I know. I was going to say these are like amazing vehicles and vessels, these bodies that we have. Yet at the same time, they just don't last forever.

No.

You have to deal with that. Finite, I don't know.

Unless we come back. What do you think about that?

I think it's possible. We're just continuing to come back and come back in different forms and different experiences.

Yeah, I want to come back as my cat next time.

Oh!

Dude!

Do you have more than one cat or just one?

I would love more than 1 cat. I could probably have 3 cats and be super happy. But the cat I have is very sensitive. And so I got it at a shelter when it was young and I think it was abused pretty badly. So it's super skittish and has digestive issues and if it's windy outside, it goes under the bed. There's no way I could. Like another cat would just destroy it. So I have to just bow down to the cat's needs, basically.

What's the cat's name?

Millie. Millie the cat

Oh, Millie the cat, hello.

She came with that name from the shelter.

Oh, sweet.

Yeah.

That's really wonderful.

So tell me more about Mexico. If you want to talk about like such an amazing decision and how you came about it and yeah.

Well, I basically have a whole new lease on life. When I actually met you a few years ago, I was starting a health journey.

Yeah.

That put me into the hospital a few times. And then actually last year, I was in the hospital for like 2 months and got out at the end of March and then got out into this weird COVID world. However, I have come back. I had an emergency surgery and I no longer have a colon. However, I have a bag, but I have completely come back to life now.

Nice, nice.

And all of these challenges that we have can be super empowering, right? If we allow it and we're looking and we want to grow from them. And so it's really empowered me and I really feel like I'm shit-free in my life now.

No pun intended.

Figuratively and physically. And so I don't know. I was ready to change. A lot of things sort of fell away in my life. And I was looking for a more sort of a less expensive quality of life near the ocean, near the sea and it was Mexico. And yeah.

Awesome.

I'm really glad that I did it.

Yeah. I love Mexico. It's one of the places really close to my heart for sure.

When was the last time you were there?

So I was there in October, but just across the border, in Northern Baja, which is pretty close to me. It's about well, depending on L.A. traffic, 4 to 6 hours. But I do go down to Northern Baja quite a bit. But my next trip is scheduled for May, which is Sinaloa. I'm going to Sinaloa, which is on the other side of the country from you.

No, it's just north.

Just north, just north. Yeah, just north. So I go to this trip every year. This will be my sixth year, a place called Patole, which is so it's a group of guys that I was invited to take this trip 6 years ago. And so we rent the whole camp out. So it's just us. And so it's our group on the wave and it's a private wave. Mainly because it's Mexico and they can do that. So it's only us surfing the way, which is amazing, right? Just you and your buddies. And after 6 years, I didn't know a lot of the guys in the beginning. And now, we're all really good friends and it's just a great time and it's like a reverse Rincón. It's basically a left into a big bay and it's not super critical, but can be really fun. And yeah. So that's coming up in May. So I'm really excited about that.

That sounds great.

Yeah.

Do you have a favorite break?

Not really, I think my favorite break is whatever break I'm on at the moment would be my favorite break. Yeah. I have memories of waves around the world that I've surfed, that I have loved, but I don't know if I could rate them above others. I surfed today. It was like waist-high, not glassy and super cold, and not very good. And I had a great time. I just loved it. It was me and my buddy and in some ways, it wasn't any better than an epic wave I pulled into it, JBay or in Indo. It's just different. It's just different. But yeah, all the quality waves on the list are definitely the ones I really remember, like, oh, now I know why everyone talk or has been talking about that wave or why that wave's an endless summer, right? JBay is one of those places for me. JBay, that wave, it's like it's kind of like Mecca in a way. It's amazing. Yeah.

It's a nice idea, though, that the favorite doesn't have to be just one, that the favorite can actually be a dynamic and flowing experience.

Yeah, like the ocean.

Derek, do you have any advice or closing comments about this love for the ocean and the way that it transforms our lives?

Yeah, so I would say if anyone feels like they resonate with my description of what it's like to live and be in the ocean on either a daily or a frequent basis, you need to change your life and make that happen. Like now. Don't wait until the time is right, till you have enough money. You're a great example. Do whatever you need to do and find a place that resonates with you so that you can just be near or and in the ocean daily and it will change your life. I guarantee it, I absolutely guarantee it. So that's like my biggest, for any of my friends, I have a lot of friends I grew up with that surfed when we were young and now they don't surf much anymore because they're busy, and it's all an excuse. We create our lives. Our life is what we create. And you can come up with a million excuses of why you can't do something. But it only takes one decision to make something happen and just make it happen. And if you don't resonate with the ocean, then that's fine, too, right? Everyone's on their own journeys. And maybe the mountains are your thing or golfing is your thing or whatever it is. Just make that thing really important in your life. Because, joy, if we're looking at the joy meter, optimize for joy. Yeah, that's it. Just erase what I said and say optimize for joy.

That's beautiful. Great closing words.

Thank you so much.

Optimize for joy. I think we got the title now to the episode.

I love that, I love it.

Where can we find you? What are your links and contact information?

So you can find my surfing chaotic side at wavetribe.com and then you can find my personal writings and some art and other things that I'm doing on my name derekdodds.com. So yeah, people can check those out and I do some writing and some poetry and some art and some other stuff. So that can be fun sometimes. Yeah.

That's wonderful. I might have to do this again because now I want to know more about the writing and other thing.

Yeah. Let's do it again for sure. I'm in. All in.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It was such a joy to connect with you and to hear your truth.

My joy meter's going off the charts.