Rosanna 0:00
Welcome to season three, Episode 13 of the relentless pursuit podcast. This one is a little bit of a bonus episode. With the other two seasons, we’ve done 12 but we figured we’d add a little extra in here for you. And so we thought we’d make it a good one. So the title of this episode is, “Why is it so hard to talk about sex?” So we’re talking all about sex.

Jordan 0:48
All about the sexy, sexy time today, everybody. It’s kind of a rite of passage as like a marriage podcast, you got to have at least one episode dedicated to all the good stuff.

Rosanna 0:59
Okay so if the topic of this episode is making you a little uncomfortable, just know that you’re in good company, because I’m already feeling a little bit uncomfortable.

Jordan 1:07
It’s a little awkward talking about it in general. And, you know, go figure we’ve never really recorded or published these conversations for someone else before. So we hope that you have a good time listening to us try to navigate a what I think is implicitly just a challenging conversation.

Rosanna 1:23
Yeah, I mean, that’s the whole point. The whole point of this is to, you know, engage in conversations in a thoughtful way to address the hard things, the important things, the real things

Jordan 1:32
Are we going to laugh every time you say something like “address the hard thing.”

Rosanna 1:37
But nothing we discuss in this conversation is going to be like super personal or super risky. Risque, risque.

Jordan 1:45
A little personal and risque, but we’re not gonna get explicit.

Rosanna 1:50
I mean, I’m pretty sure parents listen to our content. So right. I mean, there’s that. But believe it or not, we’re kind of rather prude the two of us so but to ignore to ignore sex in marriage isn’t really doing anyone any good, or any marriage any good. And so part of this is important. I mean, all of it is important. So you know, if this isn’t something that you’re comfortable with, I think that’s kind of good. And maybe it’s even more the reason to listen to the rest of the episode, right? So let’s talk about it. Why Jordan? Is it hard to talk about sex?

Jordan 2:23
Well, originally, we were going to do like a combo, like we’re going to try to talk about sex and money. So eventually, we’ll talk about money, because that’s another topic that just feels very dicey for couples. And I think for the same reason, and that is that like, there’s, there’s a lot of emotion, there’s, there’s a lot at stake in those conversations. And it’s difficult to talk about because like, there’s so many like perceptions, and maybe like misconceptions that we have related to like, what we feel like, is appropriate, or what we value about it. And it’s, it’s just awkward to you don’t talk about those things in, like in in public, right, and polite conversation, they just don’t come up. So typically, you’re not hearing your parents talk about those things. You’re not really hearing your friends talk about those things. So when it’s finally your turn to talk about that with your spouse, and you bring all this baggage to it, and no experience, it’s just a disaster waiting to happen.

Rosanna 3:21
Yeah, and I would agree, like if you think about all of the negative messages that most of us receive, when we’re young about sex, like in mostly like, you know that sex is wrong, no sex before, like, all of that, right? You get this, like, You’re not supposed to talk about it, right? But then all of a sudden, it’s like, you know, we get married, right? We were pretty young 23. You know, it was like, you’re not keep your hands off each other, no sex until marriage, and then all of a sudden, it’s like, okay, you get married, and now you can have sex, but like, no one’s really talked to you about it, and what those expectations for sex and sex in marriage look like, and what they are and what’s healthy and what’s unhealthy. And then you’re kind of just thrown into this ocean of trying to navigate it without really having any insight as to like, what is healthy, what’s normal? And who else is talking about these things with you? Nobody. So I just feel like in our society, it’s just not an acceptable topic of conversation, right? Like you wouldn’t have a bunch of friends over and then start talking personally about your sex life.

Jordan 4:21
Or maybe some people do that hasn’t come up in our typical conversations with people that were close with. Maybe it should though. So, but I always remember like just even looking back at some of the conversations like we’ve we’ve tried to have, I think there’s a degree of of selfishness that kind of goes into it a little because you’re talking about what you need or what you want or what you like. And sometimes that just by itself can be difficult to articulate, but now it’s something that you can’t access without that other person. And it becomes difficult if they’re having trouble communicating what they want and they have different needs and wants and preferences.

Rosanna 5:01
Yeah, I mean, it all goes back to kind of the expectations and wants and needs. But that’s, you know, part of why we’re talking about this, you know, like, if we’re silent about it, it keeps us not in a good place. And so it’s all about like communicating. And so, you know, that’s kind of like that next part of this is like, why should we talk about sex? And according to marriage experts, sex matters a lot, but maybe not just for the reasons we think it does.

Jordan 5:23
I don’t need an expert to tell me that.

Rosanna 5:25
Well, you don’t, but somebody might. Right? It matters, right? Like we don’t, that’s, that’s part of the beauty of being married. Like, there’s a lot of great things about being married, but like sex is a part of that. And so, if sex isn’t a part of the equation, like the marriage isn’t going to be balanced, and healthy in a way that it that it needs to be. You know, research has found that couples who have strong sexual communication are more satisfied with their sex lives. And open communication can lead to greater feelings of intimacy, a stronger relationship. And there’s a lot of reasons that you should be talking about sex with your partner. And it’s not just like, because you’re unsatisfied. There are just many, many aspects that we should be talking about.

Jordan 6:09
Right? So I’m looking forward to talking about some of those with you. And I, but you’re not just talking about the act, but the communication surrounding the act.

Rosanna 6:17
So yeah, so some of the reasons to have a talk about sex with your partner could include, you know, a lack of sexual satisfaction, or a desire to try something new. You know, even just like changes that happen, like naturally, like in your body with your libido or changes after like having a baby, like being able to communicate those things, can give your partner insight as to why things have changed, or why you want them to change or why you are uncomfortable, or things like that, that can give somebody else some insight, and kind of help you through times of kind of change. But there’s, you know, if there’s a lack of intimacy, or a need for more affection, or if you’re feeling sexually rejected, or you feel like you always have to initiate or even talking about, like family planning and kids and what’s next, like, that’s all a part of, you know, conversations, like regarding sex. And so all of those things, you know, need to be talked about and addressed, but it can be kind of awkward to do that. Oh, yeah. So, you know, part of it is like, how do you and when do you talk about sex? Any, any insights for our listeners?

Jordan 7:29
I feel like this is an area we can improve on. Like, I think that’s part of what we’re going to talk about today is just how to improve upon that for ourselves. So I mean, listeners should know is probably, of all the many great conversations that you and I have, like this is, I would say probably not one of them.

Rosanna 7:45
No, because I think, for that same reason that it’s like awkward, right? But I mean, I think there are some general tips about like, how to approach the subject and when to approach this objection, right. There’s like a time and a place, right? Waiting for the right moment to address the topic can help you get around some of those feelings of discomfort or awkwardness that can be common around sex talks. So you should probably like pick like a neutral location. Right?

Jordan 8:13
Let’s drive separately to Starbucks, and let’s meet…

Rosanna 8:15
Just neutral like not not in the bedroom. You know, not in the bedroom at bedtime, right? Or not, you know, right after a sexual encounter. Also not the best time like, you know, I didn’t really like, you know…

Jordan 8:31
It’s like when you’re eating somebody’s meal, and it’s like, you know, this is okay, but –

Rosanna 8:35
I think it means a little more garlic and a little more, so you’re not there to like, critique it, right. And you also don’t want to blindside your partner with the topic, like if you want to talk about sex or things in the bedroom or even problems, right? Like you need to let your partner know, like that you want to have this conversation so that they’re not blindsided, and then they’re kind of like, Okay, what is it that he or she wants to talk about? Like, yeah, I guess I have some things that I’d want to bring up to. So it’s like, the wheels are already in motion. And people are already starting to kind of like, assess and self assess maybe where this conversation is going.

Jordan 9:09
But I think it’s good if you like, if before we talk, let’s just acknowledge the awkwardness and just say look like I want to talk about this. I already feel awkward about it. And I know you do too. But can we talk about this now. Where can we like find a time to do that? So if you acknowledge that awkwardness, then you can both kind of like giggle and squirm during the conversation, but get out what you need to.

Rosanna 9:31
Oh yeah, when you like bring that up with me I like literally want to run and hide because I do I act like such a prude and I’m like oh my gosh, what is he gonna say? Oh my gosh, I don’t want to hear it.

Jordan 9:42
Even just anything. If I just say Rosanna can we talk and I haven’t even identified the topic.

Rosanna 9:46
I’m like worst case scenario. Hopefully it’s not about money or about sex because I don’t want to hear about either but they you know experts will say have like a soft start to the conversation. Begin with your goal to feel –

Jordan 9:56
A little foreplay to get into it.

Rosanna 9:57
No – begin with your goal to feel closer and connected with your spouse. Avoid blaming, skip criticisms and focus on the things you can both do to make your sex life more fulfilling. So it’s it’s not a way to shame someone or to look for fault or place blame or anything like that. It’s like, I want to be closer to you, you know, like, for our marriage for our relationship,

Jordan 10:20
Actually, I read similar advice to and I’ll try to put that into practice during this conversation. But it said focus on what you want, or what your needs are without laying blame. So without saying you don’t do this, you don’t do that. Okay, so to help Rosanna and I actually have a productive, sex oriented conversation, I made a little questionnaire for us. And there’s actually a lot of interesting questionnaires online that we –

Rosanna 10:48
And by interesting he means like, what I would call like, completely obscene and rather ridiculous.

Jordan 10:56
Yeah, it ranged from like, yes, I’m interested in this all the way to Wow, that’s a thing? So we made our own questionnaire. That’s, I think, a little bit more based, not just about sex, but kind of just about the whole relationship and everything. So we answered these questions separately, earlier today. And for the first time, right now, we’re going to share our answers to these questions, really, just as a gateway into what I hope is a broader conversation about sex for us.

Rosanna 11:26
So we’re doing it. The questionnaire.

Jordan 11:31
Now, we should devote a lot more research for this show.

Rosanna 11:34
We can do some research later.

Jordan 11:37
Okay, so should I should I just share the questions are first, or should we just go through them? One by one? Okay. All right. So first question. So this is same questions, but we answered them separately, so we’ll see if they compare. Alright, so the first question is, what do you think you do that turns on your spouse? So I’ll write down what I did that I think turns you on. I wrote down “Clean something.” How am I doing?

Rosanna 12:05
Okay, so, so the question is, what does your spouse do that turns you on? And I wrote, takes out the garbage and replaces the bag.

Jordan 12:14
Yeah, I don’t know why that’s the thing for you.

Rosanna 12:15
That’s a thing for me.

Jordan 12:16
I’ll take out the garbage every day, if that helps.

Rosanna 12:18
Well, I mean, it used to be like, right, when we were like, kids, it’s something different. But now it’s like, when you do these things that like you generally don’t do or aren’t good at doing and then you do them. For me. I’m like, major swoon. And I was like, Okay, oh, yeah.

Jordan 12:32
I’m not sure why that is what comes to mind in that description. Alright, so but I said clean something, because I feel like you’re just your connection and your contentedness with your environment makes you feel more at ease.

Rosanna 12:48
Yeah, and I think we’ve talked about this in other episodes about like personality, and all of that, it’s like when things in my domain which are like in the house are like taken care of. So things are clean and organized and put away and all as it should be, I feel like I can relax. And when things are not like that, like, I feel like I’m preoccupied, and so then I’m laying in bed, and I’m thinking about all the things that need to be done or how they need to be done. And like I don’t turn off, which means I don’t relax, which means then it’s hard for me to be turned on in that way, because it kind of interferes. So I would agree, like, yeah, clean something or help take care of something. Okay. So if I asked you the question, What do you think I do that, that turns you on?

Jordan 13:30
What turns me on Rosanna?

Rosanna 13:32
Just me simply existing turns you on. And if I occasionally bend over to unload the dishwasher, or like, make a note on something, you’re you’re ready to go?

Jordan 13:41
Yep. It doesn’t take much, people. So I also made a list that answers that question from my end. So first of all, I wrote down that it would probably be easier to write down what doesn’t, than what does. But then I did make like a more practical list, some of the items may shock you. So the first one is bend over the dishwasher or the counter.

Rosanna 14:06
Was it really? Right? The counter?

Jordan 14:09
Then some of these are, I think relatively predictable, like wearing something appealing. And there’s various levels of that like sometimes it’s like a nice dress when we’re about to go out. Sometimes it’s much less… So along those lines would just when you’re like, like done up, you know, like hair and makeup, very tantalizing, titillating. When you just when you say something, even if it’s like, over text, like just something alluring, something a little bit out of character is a big turn on.

Rosanna 14:39
Something other than Can you pick up the kids from soccer?

Jordan 14:41
Well, so much of just the generic household conversations. Kissing also. But then there’s a few that might surprise you. I think I find I find intelligence really attractive. So like when you’re reading and not like you’re kind of like your pop fiction. But when you’re like reading to learn, I don’t know I, I find that a fan sexy. Yeah. And also like competence as well. So like you’re running your business and like, just as I see that, like, build and thrive, I’m like, hello. And also, when we’re out together in public, like seeing you interact with other people also.

Rosanna 15:23
But what about that is,

Jordan 15:25
– that’s when I think that’s when you’re at your your glowiest.

Rosanna 15:30
Oh, okay, so something about just my aura with other people, draws you in?

Jordan 15:36
Right. Just like watching you laugh and smile, watching you like interact and crack jokes, and just be as personable as you really are. It’s fun to see you kind of like in your element.

Rosanna 15:48
And we don’t really see each other like at work and so like when we go to work functions for you. And people are there and I don’t really know people but they all know you and then they’re like talking about you and like when they like, say like what a great guy you are, like when they start like kind of singing your praises and your accolades. Like, I mean that that does it for me to where it’s like, I’m glad other people see what I see. Because you know, sometimes like with your friends and your family, they don’t necessarily see you the same way that like outsiders see you right? And so when I get like told back to me, like what I see in you, but other people experience it, I’m always like, like super proud and kind of like, yeah, I’m taking that home later.

Jordan 16:29
Okay. Doesn’t doesn’t cross my mind that you have those kinds of thoughts. Okay. What are –

Rosanna 16:36
Wait you just got really shy. Like, you could say all those things to me. I said that about you? And you’re like, Okay,

Jordan 16:41
It just surprises me. It just surprises me cuz you don’t say that out loud that often. So to hear you say now it’s kind of like, I didn’t see that coming. All right. All right. So what are two things that turn you off? You go first.

Rosanna 16:54
Oh, bad breath and poor hygiene turn me off. Big time.

Jordan 16:58
So I would you rate my general breath and hygiene.

Rosanna 17:03
If it’s like right before bed, you’re usually pretty good to go. Other random times where what do we call it when you’re on summer vacation over the summers in your summer hygiene where you shave like once a week. And it’s like questionable whether you’ve like brushed your hair or are wearing the same shirt for days in a row.

Jordan 17:21
So just just general preparation of the self. Alright, so I wrote down to turn offs as well. I do have that I know. It may shock you. The first is what I call management discussions.

Rosanna 17:36
Oh boy.

Jordan 17:37
Alright, so let’s say like, you know, we’re getting intimate. And then you kind of just throw something into the mix. Like I signed Juliet up for gymnastics today. Like, what is that? That totally like what that doesn’t need to be brought up at that time? Or remind me later I need to like go like complete this thing online. It’s like what – hold… Because I could tell you your mind then is still like processing something totally different. Or even if I may be so bold as to say like, sometimes you like you start talking logistics. Like Okay, first, I’m going to pull my pants down over here.

Rosanna 18:15
Oh, come on!

Jordan 18:16
Like sometimes you just verbalize those things out loud. I’m like, I don’t know if we need a script right now. So that’s one thing. The other turnoff, I would say is self put downs. Which you do. So I might say something like we’re saying You look so good right now. And what do you say? Oh, my gosh, I’m so fat, ugly. And then then it puts me in the position of having to be like, “No you’re not Rosanna actually, you’re really attractive…” Right and then I feel like I have to like build you it kind of just kills the vibe.

Rosanna 18:45
Okay, super embarrassing to talk about this on the podcast for you to reiterate those things to publicly thank you. Okay. Do I what am I answering something?

Jordan 18:55
The next question.

Rosanna 18:57
Which are what two things that turned me on?

Jordan 19:00
Yes.

Rosanna 19:02
Smells turned me on. Smells Yeah. Like you have really expensive cologne that you rarely wear. No, it’s it’s for daily like that’s why I bought it – it’s not supposed to last 15 years like so. Smells turned me on like there’s no –

Jordan 19:17
Question – if I put it on before I go to work then I’m just out of the house all day you don’t really get to smell it then. Should I put it on when I come home?

Rosanna 19:24
No but like then I smell you before you leave and you smell good when you come home it’s not like it like disappears from you like you have a scent like i like i like that like I want you to smell like like we just smell like clean people like right like fabric softener. Right one of my friends kids always says oh was was were Juliet and Rosanna here why I could smell them like you know like we have the scent of clean clothes but like I don’t want you to smell like clothes like I want you to smell like like hot man that I want to put my hands on.

Jordan 19:52
I’ll increase the cologne usage.

Rosanna 19:55
Okay, what else turns me on to things jr on smells and I feel like moods, I feel like I’m –

Jordan 20:02
Mood lighting. And candles.

Rosanna 20:05
setting a mood is important. And we don’t really do that. But I think that would like, kind of add some ambience and maybe get me to be out of that mentality of like thinking about the next thing and kind of get me to like –

Jordan 20:20
Alright, I have a question later on and I’ll I’ll ask you to build off of all right. Okay, what is your ideal frequency of sex per week? Should we say your answers on the count of three? Sure. 1234. All right, so I said four.

Rosanna 20:37
I said two. And I would say we’re generally where?

Jordan 20:43
One or two.

Rosanna 20:43
I was gonna say two or three.

Jordan 20:47
Well, if yeah, I would. So anyway, let’s go for it. Let’s go for that four. Okay, I have another question in our lightning round.

Rosanna 20:58
Ooh a lightning round. I did not even know.

Jordan 21:00
Alright, preferred time of day?

Rosanna 21:04
Oh, for me, it would be like midday, midday. And I’ll tell you why in the morning. No, thank you. I’m like not really interested. There’s kids, ours are always up early, like no, like, I’d want it to be like a private thing. I feel like whenever mornings are not good, I don’t really like anything in the morning. Besides coffee. That’s like the only thing I want in the morning. And by the time like, at night, all the kids are in bed and everything is done whatever like, I’m just too tired. So like, a lot of times on the weekends, we find a mid day, excuse to have a meeting upstairs. And that really seems to work.

Jordan 21:38
It works. But I would – So I wrote down first why I wrote down anytime. That’s my answer, but actually wrote down night as a preferred time. So I agree. Like we’re we’re often like really too tired to have an engaging time together. So if I would change anything, or just be like, my energy level or so. So in an ideal world, it would be night. Midday is good as well, except that I feel like, you know, at that time, especially if like the kids are around I mean, it’s just –

Rosanna 22:16
It’s kind of like recording the podcast – your fingers are crossed, and no one’s gonna interrupt or try and knock on the door, right? Okay, energy level of day, but privacy of night would be great.

Jordan 22:24
So if anybody wants to watch the kids for an hour or so on a typical Saturday or Sunday.

Rosanna 22:28
Maybe like a one week, maybe like a one week vacation like that, that would help. There’d be no one there.

Jordan 22:32
Okay, I threw this into our questionnaire because this is I think, just important to define. So when you think of the word intimacy, what does that suggest to you? It’s open ended. I mean, I think of like a genuinely intimate relationship.

Rosanna 22:46
One that’s close one, that’s honest. One, that’s real insync one that includes like laughing, no shame.

Jordan 22:57
Are you you’re going way out there. I wrote down sex. We’re intimate if we’re having sex.

Rosanna 23:03
Well being intimate. Having an intimate relationship. It’s all of those things being vulnerable.

Jordan 23:09
Right? I did, right “And stuff with that.”

Rosanna 23:15
Well, I mean, think about it, like in order to be intimate with someone, right? Like, you have to, like, be vulnerable, right? You have to like, want to take off your clothes in front of someone and not just jump under the covers and close the light so they can’t see you. Right, like, so like, you have to have that like honesty, that security, right? Like, I wouldn’t do that with anybody anywhere, anytime that it’s just this very close thing.

Jordan 23:35
Okay, okay, so maybe I can I can work on improving my conception of intimacy.

Rosanna 23:44
Right, like you’re thinking of just like jump into bed and like go where I’m like to talk to me, tell me I’m pretty. All of that.

Jordan 23:57
What is one thing your partner – that’s you – What is one thing Rosanna can improve upon with her approach to sex? And I wrote,

Rosanna 24:09
Do I want to know, I get worried anytime you ask a new question for me feel like I’m in trouble.

Jordan 24:12
I wrote communication. So, and at times, I feel like I’ve tried to bring something up. And again, I’m not that like savvy with, you know how I’m broaching it. But I could see you almost like physically like recoil, and then you just like, okay, no.

Rosanna 24:34
So if you’re listening to this as a podcast and watching the YouTube video, you’d understand why I’m laughing, but go ahead.

Jordan 24:40
So it’s as I feel like we both get improve in that area. But that’s one answer to that question. So maybe one challenge for you and for both of us in that.

Rosanna 24:52
If I’m answering the same question, what is one thing your partner can prove upon with their approach to sex, and mine was similar. I didn’t say communication, I actually wrote like two things that said, ask for it and plan on it. Which have to do with communication. Because I think it was last year I had set, one of my resolutions or goals had to do with, like, our relationship, our intimate relationship, right. And in my mind, it was, like, if I wanted to show you that I loved you more I would do x or include, you know, whatever it is. Right, right. And like, there was like, a goal with it. So it was like something that I could like to strive for, like, reach, right?

Jordan 25:39
You could know if you’re achieving it.

Rosanna 25:41
Correct. And I think that that’s like, important. So if like, after this conversation, like the goal is to be having sex three times a week, like, right, like, then like, that’s on my mind when I go to sleep at night. And right, like, I’m like, it’s Thursday, and I’m thinking, Oh, crap, it hasn’t happened once like, we gotta power up.

Jordan 25:58
We should probably play it safe we should go for six. And then in case you don’t meet that goal –

Rosanna 26:04
So but I think that’s, that’s part of it is like, and, you know, I’ll say this about you like you, you’re never one to, like, ask for it. I always, always feel like I have to, like, offer it. And so if I don’t offer it, you just kind of look at me, like the dog looks at me when she wants to go for a walk.

Jordan 26:21
Alright, well, okay, so let’s talk about this. Since this came up. I feel like it it’s difficult to initiate for a number of reasons. One is like it I feel a little selfish. I feel like I’m more interested than you on any, like, typical night. So, but also kind of like the the I know, whatever question that we’ll get to, but like, I just feel like the the act of like trying to initiate is it’s awkward. So it’s a I feel like they’re just some of these barriers, like granted, like, maybe some of them are artificial to like, just kind of taking the lead with them as much as I should.

Rosanna 27:04
Yeah. And I would agree. I mean, I, and maybe this is just a perception thing. Like I don’t know that I would turn you down. Right? Because and this is, you know, you had said like, you know, do you have other questions? And so I put this one in there. It’s like, like, do you know what maintenance sex is?

Jordan 27:24
No.

Rosanna 27:25
Okay, so maintenance sex, it’s, it’s, they say that it’s very important in a marriage. And it’s one of you might not really be in the mood, but you do it anyways. Okay. And they often say that, even if you’re not in the mood, and you’re like, I really don’t want to, but you do it for the sake of like the other person in your relationship, oftentimes, you kind of start off with, I’m not really in the mood. And then you know, like, you’re in it, you’re like, Okay, well, this really wasn’t such a bad idea. So sometimes it’s more of like that idea of like, yeah, right now I’d really just rather roll over and go to sleep. But I love you enough to know that, like, you need this. And it’s good for us. And it’s I’m not going to come out like being like, well, I regretted that. But it’s important in a marriage. And so sometimes, like maybe that’s how it starts, but that’s not how it really ends. And so it’s kind of this important part of like –

Jordan 28:12
Sometimes I get that vibe, too. And it’s it’s not as appealing either. It’s like, Well, okay, like I you know, I better do this before he gets mad, backed up or something. And then if that’s kind of the vibe going into it, it’s like, you know what, like, you’re just patronizing me.

Rosanna 28:26
It’s not always the vibe going into it, right? Like, do you do things around the house all of the time because you love me and you want to do them? Or are you thinking if I do this, I’m totally getting laid later?

Jordan 28:37
Well I don’t, it’s not a guarantee. It’s –

Rosanna 28:39
It’s not a guarantee. But you’re like, well, if this ups my ads, I’m emptying the garbage and putting a bag back in? Is it not? Okay, well, and like, you know, there are times sometimes I can not that you’re not always nice, or that you’re not always helpful, like, when you’re like, above and beyond, I was like, okay, he shall be rewarded later. Like, you know, like, so it’s kind of like in that same mindset, like –

Jordan 28:59
I almost feel like a puppy. Like, “I get a treat later?”

Rosanna 29:03
But I think sometimes, you know, like, we put the kids to bed and it’s late, and we’re both tired, and like, I’d rather go to sleep and you’re kind of interested, right, like, you know, maybe not planning on it in advance, which, you know, some people be like, Oh my gosh, that takes like the this out of it or that out of it, but like having a plan for it, right? Like whether it’s like, on certain nights of the week, or it’s the frequency of how many times during like, if there’s like a plan, right? Like, it’s like, everybody’s kind of aware and is on board. And then if someone needs to communicate that, like they want more or that although it’s like we like we usually do like, I’m not feeling good tonight or I have like I have a headache or like whatever it is like so you can be honest or it’s like okay, all right. Well, then we’ll try again tomorrow, you know, like so like having some kind of plan or some kind of something where you’re not just like expecting it or talking about it like two seconds before someone wants to roll over and go to sleep kind of puts everyone on the same page and everyone has like, right expectations about it maybe.

Jordan 30:01
Yeah, we need a code word.

Rosanna 30:03
Alright. Well, we’ll develop that.

Jordan 30:04
Biscuits. Hungry for biscuits tonight

Rosanna 30:08
Are you making biscuits for dinner? No, I’m not. Alright, so do we move on to the next question?

Jordan 30:15
Okay. On a scale of one to 10 rate your overall sexual satisfaction in this relationship. You go first.

Rosanna 30:25
Okay, I wrote down seven.

Jordan 30:27
Okay I wrote on six. So it’s a hard sometimes it’s easier to communicate with numbers. So that’s why I put that question in here. Okay. So overall, we’re satisfied. But there’s room for improvement.

Rosanna 30:39
Yeah. Well, I mean, I feel like you said six, which is good, because that’s it says, guess what your partner put for their rating, right? Yeah. And I figured it was probably lower than that.

Jordan 30:48
So what number did you guess?

Rosanna 30:50
I figured you’d guess five.

Jordan 30:53
Okay so you went low? And that I came in above that? I would say six. And I’ll get into some of the reasons for that. I think a little bit later on. But yes, it’s like So overall, like, satisfied. But I also think that there is, especially since we’re kind of like talking about how to talk about it better. Like I think there’s nowhere to go but up, no pun intended.

Rosanna 31:15
Okay, I know but like, and like what five means to one person isn’t what five means to another.

Jordan 31:19
It’s just a number, it’s just a start. That’s just a start. Okay, sir. So we have a few other questions. Maybe we can help us dissect that a little bit more.

Rosanna 31:26
Well, you don’t want to talk about those numbers now. Okay, go ahead. Well, why did you put six?

Jordan 31:32
I put six I mean I already told you like overall satisfied, but I feel like for one, I feel like, like with some of the other questions like there’s actually Oh, I have a lightning round question I’ll just mention now, which is that there’s, I think, a slight disparity in our libidos.

Rosanna 31:55
100%.

Jordan 31:56
So, you know, I am. And I would also say this, too, and I’m not speaking for all guys, but I think I might be close here, I would estimate about 75% of every day, I spent thinking about sex. Which is actually it’s, I must be getting older, it’s down it, I would probably say when I was younger, it was like it had to been in the 90s. Okay, so a lot of time and attention. I wonder what I could do if I were just like, kind of like liberated from my interest in this. I could do could do so many more things.

Rosanna 32:31
You’re a high functioning high achieving individuals, right? Like you’re already like, on the upper echelon of achievement. So like, if you weren’t thinking about that 75% of time, what would you be doing?

Jordan 32:40
And so I don’t have any sort of like wild or peculiar interests or anything like that, but like, a good percentage of my thinking is going to directed towards this. So like that being said, I think the more that we talk about it, then the more we can just understand like those just needs and figure out how to best mutually meet them. And that’s what some of these other questions are for. Okay. All right. So why did you put a seven?

Rosanna 33:09
Seven – meaning that I would say that I, it’s not like, I want to do that with anybody else, like, you’re my person, you’re the person I want to do that with. When I’m with you I have no complaints, right? But I feel like other things get in the way. And I feel like I wish I could be like more – I don’t know what the word is – I don’t want to say like, into it. Because it’s not that I’m not into it. But like, like, I wish we didn’t have to worry about kids or dogs are like, you know, I wish we were just like on an island somewhere. And I felt like less inhibition that I wasn’t like, I don’t want to say that I’m tense but like, you know what I mean, like that I felt fully relaxed and I could like just be all in. But there’s like, part of you that’s always like listening for you know, someone breathing at your door. That’s all you don’t I mean, right. So I guess that’s why I would say seven. I know. It’s good. I wish some of the other stuff could go away.

Jordan 34:06
Okay. All right. This one I threw in for fun named two places outside of the bedroom where you’d be interested in making love.

Rosanna 34:14
I have no like major aspirations for like, where or what those places are. Well we did that like little survey right? There was like a survey and it asked like a similar question. And I don’t know if it like asked something specific but I was like, I don’t know like a wooded area like a forest preserve. Not like the one like that my dad is walking in or takes the dog to walk in, like, on a warm day. Nothing where like people would be but like, you know, like in the movies, you know, they’re like, in an open field somewhere like they’re on a secluded beach and no one’s there. Right? Great. As long as no one’s there, but like, Yeah, not we’re not going to drive down the road and go to the forest preserve.

Jordan 34:52
Okay, that’s one. Do you have another one?

Rosanna 34:55
It was the for- it was Yes, it was like a beach and Forest Preserve like.

Jordan 34:57
Interesting. Okay, my two places. I’ll just throw them out there kitchen and car.

Rosanna 35:05
Not the Civic right.

Jordan 35:06
The van, the van. The kitchen. Don’t worry if we have any guests over, we’ll hose everything down before you swing by.

Rosanna 35:16
Okay. Do people do that?

Jordan 35:18
Yeah. I mean, I’m sure they do.

Rosanna 35:21
Well, I don’t know.

Jordan 35:22
Maybe not. So if you guys ever do that, just let us know.

Rosanna 35:25
Yeah. I mean, if you want to just comment somewhere about interesting places.

Jordan 35:29
Let’s start the conversation. There we go. Okay. Okay. I wrote down, how can we improve our communication with one another? I think I think we’re doing it now. But I think I would propose that since we’re already like talking together every Monday night, that we just make like, a designated portion of that conversation to be like the sort of open sex question communication time.

Rosanna 35:54
You know, that reminds me of the conversation we had with the Regulas, you know, that they like everything is on the table. You know, and you know, when, what time do you like it? And, you know, I just thought that was interesting that they were, they did not feel like embarrassed or ashamed to even talk about the fact that that’s something that they talked about, because it’s important in a healthy relationship to set expectations and to know what your partner likes, and what they don’t like, and where, and how, and all of that. And those are healthy, normal things. And so I think that’s, that was one of my biggest takeaways from that conversation that has kind of trickled into this one. So that although this conversation may feel a little nerve wracking, you know, that it’s, there’s nothing wrong with this conversation, right, in the confines of you and I are married and have been married for almost 15 years now.

Jordan 36:37
Alright, I want to skip to our last question. It says what is best for your partner to do to initiate sex? You go first.

Rosanna 36:46
Well, and I had said this earlier to set a mood. And I don’t want to say that there’s never a mood but like, dim a light light a candle find music that I like, like, I don’t even think you know, what kind of music I like –

Jordan 36:57
“Don’t go chasing waterfalls…”

Rosanna 37:00
Right. And that’s what you would probably put on, which would put me out of the mood. So like, you know, I would even say, like, you know, I know, you said something about, like, what I wear, and what that looks like, like, I mean, in all honesty, when was the last time you bought me something you’d want to see me?

Jordan 37:18
I did but then you never actually wore it. So then I’m like, it’s probably not something that I shouldn’t be doing.

Rosanna 37:24
But that was but how long ago was that? Right.

Jordan 37:28
So I get scared off.

Rosanna 37:30
Okay, well, maybe it’s time to –

Jordan 37:33
So that’s what I put down for mine as well. So I wrote down the visual element. And I think as a man, it’s like, well documented, I’m a visual creature. So I think that if to whatever extent can be emphasized and capitalized on would be my recommendation.

Rosanna 37:51
Okay. And just so you all know, when I go to bed, I’m wearing like socks, sweat pants, like three layers of shirts tucked into my pants tied shut with my hood up and my blanket.

Jordan 38:01
We just look like adults in whatever, right comfy clothes, clothing we have. So I think that that is something else that we can include. Okay, I also wrote this down for initiation, I wrote down longer foreplay. So you, you just kind of – noted, move on.

Rosanna 38:20
But I thought I’d take those notes and then I and I work and I work on them. So I don’t know what you want me to say in response to that like, Okay, I’m listening and I’m saying, Okay, all right. All right.

Jordan 38:30
Can I tell one joke?

Rosanna 38:31
Sure. You want to tell one joke.

Jordan 38:32
So I to investigate this. I watched a video about foreplay, to learn how to do it better. And it was really good, except for the boring part at the beginning that had to skip over.

Rosanna 38:43
Ha ha ha ha. I’m like, What did you watch? Okay, it’s just a joke.

Jordan 38:47
It’s a one liner. Yeah. Okay. Alright. So then we have the next section here. It’s the I called it the no holds barred. Ask your partner anything that’s been on your mind. Did you write down any questions for this section?

Rosanna 38:58
Well, I had like notes about maintenance sex, and if like that was offensive to you or what you thought about that? But I have this question. That’s kind of, I would say, real. What, what hinders our sex life? And how do we need to work around that? Okay, let’s see that’s deep and so you can just you know, if you’re not ready to answer it, but it’s just a thoughtful question like, like, What does hinder it? I don’t think we have a bad one. But like know, how can we take it from good to great?

Jordan 39:27
I think talking about it.

Rosanna 39:28
Okay. And me not being a prude when you bring it up and having my shoulders go up and recoiling, right note to self.

Jordan 39:36
But I think so it’s about about how maybe how we approach talking about it. So for now, like, we’ll build it into our Mondays and maybe have a little bit more of intention with saying, hey, like, this is something we want to talk about. We do it now. We do it later. Okay.

Rosanna 39:49
Agreed. Alright, what’s in your – gosh, you’re making it seem like you have all these burning questions.

Jordan 39:55
I have a few I’ll just throw them out there. Okay. More for fun than anything else on a scale. One to 10 how important would you say sex is to your overall life personally?

Rosanna 40:07
I don’t think you like the answer to that question.

Jordan 40:09
Well, that’s why I’m asking.

Rosanna 40:10
I feel like it’s pretty low.

Jordan 40:11
What number would you know?

Rosanna 40:14
Five?

Jordan 40:16
Okay, it’s better than I thought.

Rosanna 40:18
zero. Okay, only be like, I feel like life gets in the way of a lot like right before kids and everything there was just us, right? So it’s like different. So like, we’re kind of like shifting through this child rearing raising kids, we have a junior higher, almost like it’s like this, or whatever. And we never really lose each other in it. But I think there are times where we go from like hot and heavy to like, a little less than we’d like. So it’d be good just to be kind of a little bit more consistent, or even so much so that you’d say that you don’t want any.

Jordan 40:53
Right, that would be a good goal to have. I’m actually good for now. Check tomorrow, but actually, I’m good. Yeah. All right. So follow up question I revealed to you the percentage each day that I probably am estimating that I dedicate to thinking about sex. What percentage would you say you think about it on your typical day?

Rosanna 41:11
Do you want the real answer?

Jordan 41:13
Yeah that’s what I’m asking.

Rosanna 41:14
Like, 2%.

Jordan 41:15
Okay. All right. But it’s a little lower than expected. That’s okay. That’s good. We’re getting out there. Okay. This one’s for fun. I don’t even know why I’m asking it. But are you familiar with what a hall pass is?

Rosanna 41:28
Yeah. Isn’t that like, if this person –

Jordan 41:31
So who’s who’s your celebrity hall pass?

Rosanna 41:33
I don’t think I have one. Okay, I used to be into like celebrities and all that, like, in my 20s. But like, now, I feel like I’m like, so far out of that, like –

Jordan 41:43
My answer would be the same. And so people are listening to me, like, it’s so lame, like everybody…it never really crosses my mind.

Rosanna 41:50
You know, what, there? And I think there was a time, especially when we were younger, right? Like, because we were married young and all that, like be like, Oh, you know, this person? Oh, yeah. But like, it maybe it does sound lame. Like, I do love you so freakin much like, and I might like, acknowledge, like, this person is witty, or that person is like, attractive. That like that you’ve like, like, you know, like, make you like laugh or smile or like you’re like drawn to but like when I think about sex, and about anybody else, like, No, thank you.

Jordan 42:23
For me. Okay. I would say it’s, I think we think of it as a physical thing. And I think that’s secondary. I think, for me, at least the primary function is psychological. Right? It’s mental, and you can’t just fabricate that with anybody. So that’s why I can’t think of anybody else. Because with you, you’re the one that I have that connection with. That actually, like satisfies that need.

Rosanna 42:46
Yeah, and I would, I would hope that to be true, but I would be like, well, if you know, this person walked in, like, Yeah, go ahead, I feel like I’m too like, what’s the word like protective? Like your mine? Like, I’m sorry. Alright. I think I would beat whoever that was up. I like you that much.

Jordan 43:05
I just threw the question out there.

Rosanna 43:06
Why do you have one? You say no.

Jordan 43:09
No I don’t. So, alright, so you’ll laugh at this. And it’s my final question. We just so everyone knows, we started dating, when we were 15. We got married at 23. And we waited to have sex until we were married. It’s like our wedding night was night number one. So Rosanna like now knowing, like having to have that experience prior to being married. And then, you know, having been married for almost 15 years. Now, if you could go back to our pre-marriage phase of the relationship. Would you wait, again until we were married?

Rosanna 43:46
So that’s a good question. I think there’s a there’s a lot there to answer. Because I think in a lot of ways, like who I was, like, obviously, when I was a teenager, and in my early 20s, like, I, I think there’s a lot that goes into having sex and you know, part of that is like, giving a piece of yourself away. Okay, so to speak. And so to have left that with someone, right? That wouldn’t have been you like, I don’t, I’m like so like, loyal. And so like, I’m

Jordan 44:16
I’m talking about us.

Rosanna 44:17
I know what it’s you I know, but it’s you, but like, I don’t know that I would have been ready. And so the fact that we got married like young, it’s not like I think it’s a different story if you don’t get married until you’re 40. Right. But we were young. And so like,

Jordan 44:32
We were pretty committed from early on and cracked and decided that from early on.

Rosanna 44:36
And I was super hot for you. And you were super hot for me. And you know, there were times it was hard to keep our hands off each other. Like, you know, God bless being a teenager. I wish that was like, I wish that was kind of still a problem. Like, in some ways, you know what I mean? Right. But, you know, I I don’t know if I would have been ready earlier. Maybe maybe like by the time we were in or out of college. But I think like, had we done something like that in high school? I don’t. I don’t. I think it would have ruined a few things for me.

Jordan 45:11
Okay. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, I think, from my standpoint to having that been the only way we really experienced the trajectory of our relationship, I don’t regret it.

Rosanna 45:26
I know. But sometimes, sometimes now, when we like, we’re in bed together, whatever. I’m like, Don’t you feel like we wasted so many years not doing this like this? I mean, it’s nice that we were playing the long game. We were playing the long game. Life is a marathon not a race. Not a sprint.

Jordan 45:45
Not a quickie. Okay,

Rosanna 45:50
That was one of your questions: quickies or marathon? Thoughts

Jordan 45:53
Yeah, that was one of my questions, quickies? I mean, I like both. It’s all about variety. But if I had to choose.

Rosanna 45:59
Oh, I didn’t think you would say that. Because you’re like, the more like, kind of romantic ideal one.

Jordan 46:03
Yeah, but I was just kind of like, you know what, I want this. I want this now. And then I’m gonna move on.

Rosanna 46:08
Alright, there you go. So yeah, I mean, how do you want to want to end this, I mean, we’ve talked about a lot. We did like kind of like a little precursor in the beginning, and then kind of did our questionnaire which I don’t even know that anybody is going to listen to this episode. But if we had some takeaways, I think there are some, some really good takeaways. And I think the first is that you have to communicate, right? When we’re talking about sex, sex, and marriage relationships, you have to communicate your wants, your needs, your insecurities, like you have to, you have to talk about all of that. Because otherwise, like, you’re not putting things into context, and people will not understand where you’re at. I think the second thing that’s pretty important as to share desires and expectations. And I think when we were younger, that was harder to do. Maybe not knowing that that’s like a part of it. And so sometimes, when you would share your expectations with me that I wasn’t already meeting, I would get defensive and feel guilty. Instead of just like, knowing that I needed to listen and then like, try or, like, you know what I mean? Try and figure that out. So communicate, share your desires and expectations, and then like, make a plan, right? Like, so if we talked about this, and like, you know, the number is 4, 12, or whatever it is for the week, right? Like,

Jordan 47:25
Twelve times a week, right?

Rosanna 47:26
Make a plan? Why are you laughing? You wish right? You know, initiate, don’t just expect that someone’s always gonna volunteer. Right? But initiate, you want it, initiate it, and do your homework, know what your partner likes, what know what they don’t like, you know, what kills it for you?

Jordan 47:44
And just knowing but then actually acting upon it too, which requires a little bit more effort. Or obviously, if it’s not the same as what it’s like, if what you like, or what you turns you on, is different than what I have any sort of interest in. Like, it takes a little bit of extra effort to actually make that happen. But it’s worth it.

Rosanna 48:02
This is one thing we didn’t talk about. But I saw this come up when I was just kind of reading about the topic is to take care of yourself, like physically, right? Like, no one wants to be in front of somebody else and feel ashamed about like who they are, or what their look like are their insecurities. Do I have insecurities about somebody? I sure do. I always have. But like having kids, having had four kids, right, like I’ve gained and lost weight, like multiple times. Like right after I had a baby, I did, you know, I was uncomfortable with my body. And so when I was uncomfortable with my body, it was hard to share my body with you. And so there were barriers a lot of times before, after and during kids because of that. And so like, like, if you want to have a healthy marriage and a healthy sex life, you have to take care of your body. And so that’s a little bit different for everybody. But I think that’s part of it. And it’s important. Avoid comparison, right? Like are three days a week is maybe you know, not the same as your one day a week or your nine days a week, like, everybody’s normal is a little bit different. And so like, although you can talk about it with friends, or ask opinions or whatever, like you have to do what’s right for you and your relationship.

Jordan 49:09
I have a final question. And that is like, do you feel like, like we said at the beginning, like we don’t really this is not common conversation with friends or with family. In your opinion do you think it should be?

Rosanna 49:21
You know I think it depends on the type of friends that you have.

Jordan 49:25
Or do you just just bring it up with it? Oh, by the way, I was thinking. I think that’s that’s awkward to to bring up with anybody.

Rosanna 49:31
I don’t think that…

Jordan 49:32
– but if somebody brought up with me, I would be interested in talking about it.

Rosanna 49:35
Yeah. I mean, and I don’t think you have to talk specifics with people, like nobody needs to know, like, to the tee what’s going on, but like, you could talk about, like, you know, I feel like, you know, we’re not having as much sex as we used to, like, did you ever feel like there were points in your marriage that like it was like, more or less or like, you know, like, What got you out of like, I think that’s I think that’s healthy and if you have like those people in your life, right? We talked about my person, my people, that it’s an intimate group that knows you and knows your intentions and knows your values. Like they’re gonna respect a conversation about that. And it’s, you know, not to be nosy or not… So I think you have to know who are the people that you can go to to talk about that.

Jordan 50:15
Yeah they’re all good thoughts are Well, thank you, everyone for joining us for this bonus conversation that we’re sharing with you. This wraps up season three. So as has been our custom at the end of any given season, we’re going to go off the air for the next several weeks, but we’ll be back live with you in June with the beginning of season four.

Rosanna 50:36
Thanks for joining us this season, guys. It’s been a lot of fun.

Jordan 50:38
Thank you, everyone.

 

Rosanna 0:15
Welcome to season three, episode six of the relentless pursuit podcast, “Live what you Love” an interview with Shannon and Greg Buth. In January of 2020, I saw a post by someone that has done photos for us before, and she was promoting House of Shan. And so I had started following this business just a little over a year ago. And House of Shan is empowering others to live what you love on a daily basis. Shannon has designed apparel that includes an imperfect heart on every piece. And the heart signifies a daily reminder to Live Your Passion, laugh every day, love deeply and to never quit your day dream. House of Shan also donates $5 from every purchase to a local women’s charity.

So the company was founded in January of 2020. We’re kind of closing out to the end of January 2021. And in that year, Shannon has donated over $20,000 to organizations.

Jordan 1:08
That’s a lot of money. This was one of my favorite conversations. And I felt privileged to speak to you know, sometimes we talk to just one person, it’s kind of an expert in the area or running with their vision. So this is really nice to talk to a couple and to see how they make it work behind the scenes and are still thriving as individuals and as a family as well. So we’ll tell you a little bit more about Shannon and Greg. They’ve known each other since they were just kids growing up in Minnesota, they’re highschool sweethearts. – It’s just like us – who found their way back to each other in their late 20s. And now they raised an incredible spirited, crazy crew of four boys together in Chicago’s Roscoe village neighborhood. Shannon made a career out of her passion for fashion, and worked for a California-based clothing company for most of her 20s. And then was the very first stylist at Trunk Club. She stepped back from work after the birth of their twins who were born 19 months after their first son. And Greg has worked in the trading industry for the last 20 years and has traded everything from soybeans to the euro dollar options on the floor of the Board of Trade.

Rosanna 2:16
So what I really loved about this interview is that Shannon started this business that wasn’t intended to be a business. And now her and Greg are working together to help build this brand. It’s been more than just some retail items. But it’s a business, a brand with a mission. And it’s inspiring other people to love, love people around them.

Jordan 2:38
Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of really positive elements that have come together last year, it was really refreshing to hear their story.

Rosanna 2:45
So during this episode, you’ll hear about how House of Shan got started and how it evolved into a brand people are getting behind. You’ll hear about the role that having a mission and charity play in what they’re doing. Like you’ll also hear them talk about juggling business and family, especially during a pandemic, and the role that making mistakes plays in getting better learning and thriving.

Jordan 3:06
That’s right. So a lot to learn from. We hope you enjoy this interview. And as always stick around afterwards for a few of our thoughts and takeaways as well. All right, Shannon, and Greg, thank you so much for joining us here on the podcast today. Welcome.

Shannon 3:21
Thank you.

Greg 3:22
Thanks for having us. Yeah,

Rosanna 3:23
it’s so great to have you on the show about a year ago. Someone that I used as a photographer once for my kids that was a friend of a friend had posted that she was taking photos for this new business House of Shan had posted a little bit about it with some photos and you know, right away when someone posts about a new business I’m always curious to see you know, you know, What is she talking about? What is she what is she standing and getting behind and so I clicked on it and had started following you and over the last year have just seen House of Shan and live what you love explode. And so I reached out to you, and you reached right back out right away like a personal email from the like the woman behind the business. So kind so sweet and was like, Yeah, I’d love to do an interview. So thank you guys so much for being here today. Tell us a little bit about what house Shan is what the backstory is and a little bit about like this past year for you guys.

Shannon 4:15
Yeah, so um, well, basically, I would say House of Shan started as more of a community more than a brand. I started this moms group when my three oldest were babies and life was seems really hard. It seemed isolating. And so I started a moms group and it kind of grew and grew and basically the premise of it is getting women together to connect. I would have speakers come in and talk about relevant mom topics and we had a chance to have a glass of wine, have dinner, and be away from our kids, and, and just talk. So I feel like over the years that connection has grown into this, you know, kind of huge community of women and I decided in 2019 I decided I wanted to put it online, and kind of marry all the things that I love, you know, this community of women talk, you know, kind of post some about some of these topics that we, we share in our mom’s groups and have some of the speakers write articles. And then of course, share my love for fashion, kind of just put it all in one spot and reach more women. And it was really fun year in 2019, just kind of kind of exploring new things and doing new things like from, you know, my position is like mom, and you know, manager of the house and all of that. So, to kind of get out of my comfort zone. And the blog, it has this imperfect heart. And that’s always been kind of like the unofficial, I guess, logo for my blog that Greg’s brother helped me create. Greg’s brother’s a creative and he works in design. He’s awesome. And so it’s in the imperfect heart just kind of exemplifies, you know, nobody’s perfect. We’re all just doing the best we can. And, you know, just kind of like living our lives, even though, you know, social media will tell you a different story. This imperfect heart is just kind of embracing that, imperfect. So with this moms group, we do I do a mistletoe market every holiday season. And it’s a way to get everyone together for a little holiday party. And then kind of showcase some of the women that have different companies and small businesses, people make things, different ornaments and artists and things like that. So I had this idea this past holiday. I’m like, Well, what if I made this hard into a sweatshirt? So I talked to Greg’s brother. He was like, he was my ear. He was in town. Yeah, he was in town. Yeah. And so I was like, hey, Kev, what do you think about this idea for this sweatshirt? I have, you know, putting this heart onto a sweatshirt embroidering it on there? And he was like, Well, yeah, just do it. Let’s just go for it. And I feel like sometimes you need that person, right? To just force you to do something like that. Like he, I feel like if he would have been like, I don’t know, I probably would have done it.

Greg 6:59
He had a wholesale account due to his business with Alternative Apparel, and they got on and they picked on they like and ordered like 20. And they gave us the, you know, the vector file, and we found an embroidery shop and just made it.

Shannon 7:13
Yeah, so it was like it was like that. It wasn’t like some obviously, it wasn’t some big business plan. It was more of like, I kind of want to share this on a sweatshirt and just like in called the Live what you love sweatshirt. And I have a story behind that too. And I just I had this idea. I think it was just kind of like deep in my head. And I finally said it out loud. So and even then, like 20 sweatshirts seem so daunting. I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s a lot. You know, what if nobody buys them, and then this mistletoe market, I had this donation component where we kind of partnered with a shelter where we wanted to raise some money for them. And so I decided I wanted to put some of the proceeds, if anything sold back to this shelter, and we had a raffle anyways, we ended up raising $1,000 for the shelter. All of my sweatshirts all 20 of my sweatshirt sold, which I couldn’t believe it. And there was a waitlist after. So I had a talk with Greg after and after going to the shelter, and it just made me feel so good to just be able to donate that, you know, small amount of money, but it felt like I kind of made an impact. And I was like, I kind of want to just keep going with this and make some more sweatshirts, put them on my website, and then and then see what happens. And then honestly, I couldn’t believe it. Like if they just started selling and people it was word of mouth. People shared it I think because of the message behind it. And I always say when I went to write the card, because I wanted to have this meaning behind it. I went and I wrote down what I wanted it to mean. And I just I wrote it and I didn’t change a thing. And I can say it by heart because I know I you know I say it all the time. It’s an imperfect heart stitched over your heart, as a daily reminder to Live Your Passion, laugh every day, love deeply lift, others up, and don’t ever quit your day dream. And it was funny because I wrote it and it just like came out of me. I feel like it’s just been in there and I just, you know, so I feel like that is why this has grown over the year. I feel like this has been a tough year for all of us and we all kind of missed connecting with people. And it’s kind of been a way for people to share love with people in the mail. I’ve wrote so many sweet notes for people over the year and one of my friends said to me today she’s like, I feel like your your notes that you write could be a coffee table book someday I’m like, oh, that’d be kind of cool. It’s just so genuine like these the you know, when people are sick people have gathered around people and bought sweatshirts for all their friends to support a friend or celebrate something or just you know, send a birthday gift and it just it means so much to me.

Rosanna 9:52
I saw I saw an Instagram today you had like I looked like 20 boxes that one person bought something for like 20 people that like it was for Valentine’s Day or something like that, that she was sending out because there was like a meaning and a purpose behind it that it’s, you’ve created a brand but it’s it’s what it stands for is that what is impacting people and what people are flocking to at this point.

Shannon 10:15
Yeah, it’s so cool

Jordan 10:18
I was gonna say it just seems like that the the community that you had had started organizing is just like expanded through house Oceana through the like, just being able to have like something that you can gift and the message that that represents to one another.

Shannon 10:33
Yeah, absolutely.

Greg 10:35
Yeah. I mean, obviously, people love to buy something that has a purpose, right. And the way that it started even with like, those sweatshirts donated to that shelter, became, let’s donate $5, from every sweatshirt to the shelter, then it’s become let’s do it to feed the frontlines when the pandemic happened, and then it was my block, my hood, my city. And like you were saying, your network of people and the people you’re touching changes every month, because you keep picking different charities. And you keep spreading this message and this love and like, that’s part of the reason why I think it’s been so successful. I mean, who doesn’t like helping other people when you’re like buying something? Right? Like TOMS Shoes does that right? Every time you buy a pair of shoes, someone else gets a pair of shoes.

Shannon 11:30
Right? Yeah, it just feels I think it feels good. I feel like especially this year, it feels good. And I think people right now are wanting to support small businesses more than ever, you know, this holiday season was so great. And I think, you know, that’s attributed to people want everyone wanted to shop small this this holiday season. So yeah, it’s been it’s been incredible. And, and also, it’s really cool, like this House of Good Shepherd shelter that we donated to, and then we, our first couple months of when we started, we donated to them. And we were able to give them I think $3,000 is is what we started with. And then I decided every every year around November, December on the holidays, I want to circle back and donate to them again. So we just were able to donate another $3,000 to them. So it’s it’s been really cool. And they they’ve been so welcoming to me and make me feel like such a part of it. Like next week, I get to go and do an art class with the with the women at the shelter there. And yeah, so there’s like some meaning behind it. It’s been super cool.

Rosanna 12:32
So I mean, it started with the market that you did that you donated $5 for sweatshirts. And then once this grew, I mean, it would have been very easy for you to keep everything that you made for yourself. What inspired you to want to continue to give? Was it just like, you didn’t think twice about it? Or was it? Was it hard? Was it hard to let go?

Shannon 12:50
No, that’s that no one’s ever asked me that. That’s a great question. I feel like it just feels good to give like I’m definitely I feel like that’s a part of who I am. That makes me feel good is giving gifts to people and, and that sort of thing. So to be able to like to be able to do what I’m doing and be able to give back, it’s been awesome. And like right now we’re donating to Betsy Blankets, which is a dear friend of mine who is also our neighbor. And she started this Betsy’s blanket in honor of her mom after her mom passed away. And they give brand new bedding and blankets to the homeless, to shelter animals, to cancer patients. And it just feels good. And like, you know, we’ll try to do like every month or two change change. And we haven’t been you know, it’s not really planned out. It just kind of all happens organically, kind of with, you know what’s happening.

I don’t think we ever talked about. I mean, like we said, This wasn’t like, let’s start a business. Let’s start a brand. Let’s have an apparel brand or whatever. It kind of just has continued to grow like those 20 sweatshirts turned into 50. And I think then it was like, oh, let’s keep giving money to this charity. And then it became like, oh, people are really getting behind this. Right people not only did it turn into by, you know, by the middle ear, you’re selling really comfortable sweatshirts during a pandemic, that also are giving back to charity. Right? Like, there’s to that to everyone’s home. And now no one’s getting dressed up and –

Rosanna 14:32
You need seven days worth of sweatshirts!

Jordan 14:35
It did wonders for my sweats collection.

Greg 14:37
Exactly. So like, the timing of it wasn’t bad. Like, it wasn’t planned that way, but like you’re selling something that has a purpose and a meaning. And we have never struggled to figure out what the next charity is going to be. It’s all become super easy to like shift. And it just has made sense every time we’ve moved to the next charity, like, someone will contact us and we’re like, Oh, that makes sense for breast cancer awareness or that makes sense around winter to give to Betsy blankets and during, you know, the protests and unrest this summer, my block my hood, my city who I have relationship with the guy who started that. So that was super easy for us. And we’ve been involved with them before. So like, it’s all just like, figuring out how to do the sweatshirts after the market, what charities to donate to, and how we’ve grown that way. Like, it’s seemingly been like, it’s just made sense.

Jordan 15:36
Yeah it strikes me that, you know, a lot of businesses are, you know, they have a business plan, right, we need a product, and we need to sell it and we need to hit these like revenue targets. And then when we’re at a certain point, maybe we’ll look at, you know, giving back somewhere. But it seems like your story is the opposite, where you’re a lot of like building community and building into people. And then think of like, you know, how can we give How can we spread love and, you know, from that emerges, you know, House of Shan into the business that you’ve been building since then.

Rosanna 16:08
Yea. Kudos in 2020. You know, I saw that you gave over $20,000 to various organizations. I mean, that’s just incredible. So that is amazing.

Shannon 16:18
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, no, it’s been really cool. I think that is the best part by far. And then just seeing how proud people are to share when they’re wearing the imperfect heart or holding it in a cup with a cup of coffee. Hey, cheers, cheers.

Greg 16:37
Part of the draw of what Shannon has done, like, and is that basically everyone that gets one wants to share it. Like, someone gets one in the mail. It’s like, Instagram, or however they want to share it. But like, it’s people all over spreading the word because they just get behind, like, the logo and the message and the charity is just like, people do your advertising for you when you’re putting something out into the world, I think that they like, think is genuine and like authentic. Yeah, that’s seriously what it is. So that part has been awesome.

Rosanna 17:20
So obviously, this was kind of Shannon’s idea. It stemmed from this community of women that she had built and then the 20 sweatshirts, you know, bringing your brother in with almost like that permission of Yeah, you got to do it. So what is your role in all of this, Greg? Like, are you just the happy husband who was like, sure make a sweatshirt?You know, was it was it hard? Was it easy? Yeah, transpired?

Greg 17:41
At first? Yes. Like I said, it was like, Oh, well, she’s gonna do 20 sweatshirts and it was you know, I was just happy to see her getting into something I knew she loved because I know you know, she’s been in fashion her whole life and then it turned into Wow, like oh, that’s kind of nice. Like you’re making you know, like some extra money like grocery money whatever. And then it’s turned into Oh, we need to order like $5,000 worth of sweatshirts. How do we do that? Right and then like –

Shannon 18:18
And then it’s turned into oh my gosh, I need help I need help…

Greg 18:23
As its as its progressed, my role has changed a lot but like, you know, yesterday when you saw those boxes like I was part of the assembly line helping to do that.

Shannon 18:33
I should have probably showed that huh.

Greg 18:36
I’ve taken over like doing our all the taxes that go along with it and figuring out like when when we need to be charging sales tax and, you know, I bought way too many sweatshirts paying tax on on the wholesale side, because of the way we were using my brother at the beginning. Like –

Shannon 18:55
Just things you learn as like things you you know, it’s all these mistakes that people talk about with the small business all these like growing pains. We’ve you know, I mean, gosh, we’ve had a ton of mistakes. We’ve had tons of things happen already. You know, like, that’s, that’s real, but honestly, I feel like you’re not giving yourself like he helps with everything.

Greg 19:15
I do a lot of the customer service stuff like I’ll help out on her email like in responding to people that want to exchange and do all that stuff because she’s super occupied with people coming at her from all angles on Instagram and text messages and I think many people don’t realize from afar how much she’s actually doing. Like everyone thinks they’re like Shannon’s best friend, which is awesome. People text her being like, Oh, hey, can I get this show me like 10 of me like to go the website. Right and and that’s fine. Like that takes her away from a lot of like the other stuff.

Shannon 19:55
And to be honest, like filling orders. I mean, I’ve got my my table right there. Like I mean, that takes up, which is a good thing, because we have orders to fill. But I in Greg’s like, okay, at some point, we got to streamline this. These are like, again, the growing pains with small businesses, but I want to write a note with each with each, you know, I have my note card and I want to write everybody a personal note and Greg’s like, I think there’s probably going to be a point where you can’t do that anymore. I’m like, No, but that’s the best part, like a handwritten note, even if it’s something small, because I appreciate that. And I think that’s why people are buying this from us, as well as because they know it’s a small business. And we all appreciate a handwritten note. I mean, you know, like, we don’t get those very often anymore. So those types of things I take a lot of pride in, and I, you know, probably take way too long to pack each order. But we’ll streamline that we have, you know –

Greg 20:49
So, so, to that, I think we’ve also, you know, at the end of last year talked about what we wanted this year to look like. And I think the reason it’s worked is because we haven’t said, Oh, we want to double our sales, or we want to make this much money or what have you. It’s been more like we’re growing at our own pace. And we’re creating stuff as we go, like different sweatshirts and drinkware. And all this stuff, kind of just keep adding on to itself. But without the pressure of setting these expectations for ourselves, we’ve just been able to kind of continue to grow at a pace that like really works for us. And like that takes into account, kids being at home, me still having a job, things like that. Right. So like, being able to like run a business on your own terms like that, and not set expectations. Also, the fact that I’m helping her part time is a really good thing. Because if it was full time, and this was our only source of income, I think it becomes a job. And we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do Oh, my gosh, we need to sell this much this year to support our family. Right. And at some point, I think it’s going to become that I do think at some point, this will be something that we’re doing together and like growing, but like, thankfully, it hasn’t been something where we’re like, oh, by the end of next year, we need to have this in sales so that we can.

Shannon 20:53
I think I think a lot of people that I’ve talked to that have small businesses where that that is obviously the stress, right, like you have a job where we can get insurance and things like that where this is this has been like we’ve been able to grow at our own pace. So yeah –

Greg 22:35
Like we need to hire an employee because she can’t be packing bags all day, because we can grow in better ways and do better things and touch more people. And she can do all the things she needs to do if she’s not standing there packing bags.

Jordan 22:50
Yeah. So not that it’s a hobby necessarily, but it kind of emerged from just this, this this this passion that you guys share in this vision that you had, and like you said, like organically evolved. And so now at this point, this time last year, you didn’t really know like, what was going to be come of it. But now that you can, now that you’ve lived that last year, you can better kind of maybe define like, Okay, this is what we enjoy, and want to retain. And this is where we see this going over the next year too.

Greg 23:19
Totally, I mean, I’ve realized I’ve had the same job for 20 years. I like it, I love the people I work with. But now that I’ve been doing this, like I didn’t think I would love trying to grow an apparel brand. But like it’s turned into that because like, I let people ask me, oh, you know, someone who’s not on Instagram or someone who’s brand who doesn’t really follow what’s going on? Oh, like, how Shannon’s like little business. Like,

Shannon 23:47
Like hold on, I’m doing our customer service!

Greg 23:51
It’s kind of like turning into a full fledged brand and a full time job for her. Which is amazing. But like that has its own challenges. So yeah –

Shannon 24:01
Yeah, I mean, especially with the boys at home all the time, right. I mean, that that’s kind of the, you know, where we’ve been trying to find some sort of balance. And that’s really hard for me, because I feel like I’m very type A like that, like I woke up at five this morning and came down here and immediately started working. Because, you know, as we all know, like we’re all trying to find these little, you know, gaps of time where we can get something done because we’re trying to do all the things there kids home all the time. So yeah, you know, it’s just trying to find some balance.

Rosanna 24:34
I was gonna say when you live what you love and you love what you do, I mean, which is very evident from the both of you like is it hard to walk away and set boundaries, especially when your business is in your basement? Yes, right. Like I can wake up at five like no makeup on in my pajamas looks like a hot mess, package orders get the kids fed.

Jordan 24:51
I give Rosanna a hard time because she’d be like, you know, on her phone in the kitchen and she’s like I’m working right now am. I’m like Well, this is kind of an awkward time and place to do that, but we really because you know, thanks to technology and just thanks. So it really the conditions for this last year like we have tried to find the ways to do that. So what’s what’s that looks like for you guys?

Greg 25:09
I’d say that’s the one thing that we struggle the most with, like, her job, besides packing orders stuff is being on Instagram responding to people, you know, scheduling different events, and it’s full time and like she could she could be on our phone or on our computer responding to people all day.

Shannon 25:28
Yeah, I know, you just have to put I mean, you I mean, which, you know, it’s easier said than done. You just got to put it away. You know, like, last week, we were watching movies, every, every night of the week with the boys, we watched a couple of good classics, and I’m like, I am putting my phone on the other side of the room. I mean, otherwise, I you know, you’re sitting and looking at your phone while you’re watching a movie. I’m like, I’m not even paying attention. So like, it’s, you know, with your time, it’s like, you know, just be in the moment, right?

Greg 25:56
We struggle with that. It’s hard, like, targeting time alone with the kids. Right? Like, one of the things we we always say, all the kids need more of is like, one on one time. And let alone us getting time with each other. Because

Jordan 26:16
God forbid.

Rosanna 26:16
I know that that was on my list. Like, how do you how do you keep your marriage thriving and not surviving? When, right this booms, but then you’ve got the boys. And we’ve said the same thing. Like they need one on one with each of us. But there’s four. So you’re like, totally outnumbered. Right?

Shannon 26:32
I don’t know the answer to that. Do you guys know that?

Rosanna 26:34
No. So but that’s, you know, we like asking people that because we’re like, well, they certainly they must know the answer, or they have it all together.

Jordan 26:41
But I think there’s something to not, you know, have something that you can like both be working on and working towards. And, you know, I don’t think that a lot of couples necessarily have that or we have like homes and you know, with with our kids, where, you know, we’re kind of working on parenting together. But to have like a united vision that you guys are collaborating on, it’s like an excuse to come together. And it’s sometimes it probably feels more like work than others. But I would say that that’s that’s a great excuse you have right there.

Greg 27:10
You guys are seeking it out. And it’s having the awareness of wanting to do it, right, like, very easy to like, come home from work and get into a routine of making dinner and doing the kids homework and going to bed and like but to step back and have the awareness of, hey, as a couple, we want to spend time together or as a couple or as a family. We know we need to get one on one time to each kid having that awareness. And then like you said, working towards something like that. That’s more than half the battle. Right? Like it makes you it makes it happen, right? Because if you don’t even think about it, then it’s just gonna go by the wayside.

Rosanna 27:47
So what are your boys think of all this? Like, you know, I, you know, I follow you on social media, and y’all know that it’s always prettier and more cool online? Do they know how cool You are? Are they? Are they repping the brand? are they telling their friends? Like how on board are they? How part of it are they?

Greg 28:05
A couple of them were the heart sweatshirts more than others. But all their friends are like in our neighborhood, right there, their circle of people, it’s so small, and all their parents and all those people are like such huge supporters of Shannon. So like, it’s, it’s rare that one of the kids that they hang out with comes to our house, or I see him when one of them doesn’t have a hard sweatshirt on.

Shannon 28:29
That’s that’s the sweetest I mean, that, and and honestly, when I, you know, obviously, when we first started doing this, and they were like, oh, let’s do some, some kids. I was thinking, I mean, I was I was thinking I didn’t think men or boys would probably wear the heart. I was more you know, a heart, it’s feminine, it’s on your chest. So many dudes wear the heart. It’s so cool. I mean, it’s all the time in these boys that are you know, at the age where they’re trying, you know, they’re kind of age or they like, want to be cool and whatever. And they’re all wearing my heart all the time. It just like, it’s, it’s the coolest. And I think, you know, also going back to what we were saying, I think, to for our boys to watch us do this together and to see Greg kind of take the backseat and like support what I’m doing and and for them to hear these conversations. I like, I think it’s great. You know, I think it’s, it’s great for them to see, you know, and I mean, sometimes Yes, there needs to be more balance. Sometimes. I work later than I should at night or whatever. But yeah, for the most part, it’s it’s, it’s, I feel like they’re fully on board. They’re, they’re really into it.

Greg 29:36
Maybe they think it’s cool, right? Like, yeah, they’re wearing their mom’s sweatshirt, like when their teacher will be wearing the sweatshirt sometime. And they’ll like come and tell us or it’s just, it’s it’s one of those things that there’s not a whole I mean, minus, you know, the time it takes for us to do it. There’s not a ton of negatives to it, right. Like you’re you’re teaching your kids that You can create something from nothing, you can do something you love, like your mom loves fashion, she created this out of nowhere. Your parents can work together. Like, they couldn’t be more like, excited about super cool.

Rosanna 30:18
I mean, what example that’s, that’s for them as, as young men like as they grow older, right? And then they get interested in girls and they’re looking for a partner someday, like, you know, like, Oh, I want someone like that my dad has in my mom, like, you know, and I’m going to support them, and I’m going to build them up, and I’m going to push them to do great things. Like, those are going to be some really cool, cool kids some really great men.

Shannon 30:38
I love that. You know, that it’s a good example like,

Greg 30:41
And it’s not taught, but like, it’s, it’s good for them to understand their feminine side to understand that there is it’s okay to wear a heart or to wear pink or to feel be sensitive, or do the quote unquote, like, those kind of things like, men don’t teach their boys those things. Right? at all. Like that’s, I mean, I should say, most men of like, our generation didn’t get taught those things by their parents. And this, that’s not at all why this started, but I’m just saying that through this conversation, it’s one of those things that like, they’re gonna absorb that with without even knowing it. Yeah.

Jordan 31:30
So do they, do they help with any part of the business the process at all?

Shannon 31:35
A little bit, like once a while have them

Jordan 31:39
It’s a little awkward

Rosanna 31:40
Sometimes you help by staying out of the way.

Shannon 31:44
No, like, put a bunch of like, pins in a jar.

Rosanna 31:52
Age appropriate types of things.

Shannon 31:54
Right? They’ll be like, oh, Caden full there, okay. Oh, yeah. My type A and me, but yeah, they’re great. Like, I feel like they’re always drawing pictures of hearts. And they’re just they’re into it. They’re always they see in perfect hearts everywhere. That’s what I love to mom look a heart, you know. So it’s, it’s been cool. From you know, from that perspective?

Rosanna 32:15
So what motivates you on the hard days, and the days where there’s a lot of orders, and people are constantly asking you for things and looking for referrals, and the kids are everywhere, and Greg’s busy with work? What what gets you through? What part of all of this kind of keeps you centered?

Shannon 32:33
That’s a good question. I’d like to know the answer.

I mean, I think it’s truly just because most days, I still pinch myself, I can’t believe that this has grown into what it has, and that people, you know, are sharing this and so I think it’s the message and the community. I think that’s what that’s, you know, what keeps me keeps me going. And honestly, I I take pictures often of notes that I write to people, because that all those just melt me, like some of these notes that I write when people you know, sending love to someone like and I get to do that, right. I get to be the person I get to send this love from this person I and be a part of this, like that makes my day. You know, like packing all those boxes of love last night? Well, we did sorry. I don’t give them enough credit. Um, so yeah, that’s what keeps me motivated.

Greg 33:29
I think. For for Shannon, who was in the fashion industry. Yes. Like selling that gives a Midwest rep for a clothing line. To have people like say to her, like, you believe you have your own brand. Like that’s the pinch yourself. Someone told her like a little over a year ago and she’s this woman who’s she’s not a clairvoyant or anything like that. But she’s like one of those kind of mystical people that got to know Shannon a little bit. She’s like, really tall. She’s like, you’re gonna have a clothing line some day.

Jordan 34:10
What? When was this?

Shannon 34:11
Yeah. I think she is a clairvoyant.

Rosanna 34:14
So a little over a year ago. Oh, wow.

Shannon 34:16
Yeah. So anyway, yeah.

Rosanna 34:20
Well, right, cuz when you started House of Shan How old were you?

Shannon 34:23
I was 40. Right. I was 40. Yeah. So I mean, that’s,

Greg 34:29
That’s when it started? Yeah right around there.

Shannon 34:30
Yes. Yeah. But I’m 40 so that’s the other thing too, is I feel like, you know, for people listening, it’s like, you know, I feel like a lot of times women, you know, especially, men too, but you know, when we’re home, we’re home for a number of years and you kind of feel so out of things like you feel out of the workforce you feel out of, you know, like, Oh gosh, what do I have to offer right? And I think like with for me at 40 like I got this like new confidence. I did. I was like, You know what, like, I, like I, who cares what other people think I’m gonna I’m gonna put, you know, like, and I think that I kind of had that going for me too. It’s just like, just do it, you know, and I feel like, I think, like I said in the beginning, we talk ourself out of things and like, this is proof like, you know, at 40, you know, 41 years old, you can start something. And, you know, just believe in yourself, I guess, right?

Jordan 35:26
Yeah, I think it’s funny because in to an extent, like, we almost realized at that point, then like, the world is waiting for someone to, to, like, help bring us together and help give us you know, common cause and inspiration and to love and to be. I mean, I would, I would argue that this is more than I got a message for a brand, but you are genuinely like leaders of that, you know, people are following and inspired by and I think probably being able to, not to spread love, but live better lives according to like, just the model that you set for them.

Shannon 36:00
Thank you.

Rosanna 36:02
Well, yeah, I mean, we’re so we’re not yet 40. We’re both 38. And, you know, like the idea for a lot of the things we’ve done, like, you know, you go to school, right, you have your degree, you work in that degree. Same thing with me, I had kids, so I was a teacher at one point, and I stopped that and then just have dabbled here and there with like an Etsy shop. And now I do wedding and events like is like, what am I? What am I doing? What do I have to offer? And you know, someone saying, like, you know, I could see you doing this, why don’t you just try it, or, you know, someone hired me to do something one time, and then it became something and it’s, sometimes we hold ourselves back from trying, because they’re like, well, I can’t do that. But then just figuring out that, that you really can –

Jordan 36:42
Like I’ve offered to help with her event planning, I’m like, I could totally, you know, help you decorate. This one, I think I’ll go solo. I’ll have a role to play some day.

Rosanna 36:56
But you know, you know, in our 20s, we would have thought like by 40, you’re supposed to be at a certain spot, or get all together or have worked this many years in your industry and then be at the top of your game. And what I’m finding when I look around is a lot of people have reinvented have totally shifted have found something that your 20 year old self is not the same as your 40 year old self. And so knowing that those opportunities are there, or if there’s something in your heart that you can create that opportunity for yourself too.

Shannon 37:23
Absolutely. Love that.

Greg 37:26
I mean, for me, it’s like I’ve been doing the same thing for 20 years, like you said, and aren’t my industry at being a trader has totally changed. So like now I’m at the point where I’m like, deciding like, is this? I don’t really like this anymore, right? Like, why do I like it? And do I want to keep doing something I don’t like? Or do I want to keep doing something, you know, for X amount of time? Or do I want to just dived in headfirst with what she’s doing, because we love it. And right, and like, that gets a little scary, right? You’re like, Oh, no, I only know. Now I’m learning how to do other things. But like –

Shannon 38:08
No, but it’s it’s funny though, because like, again, like we just got new tissue paper. Very exciting. You guys. And I’m like, and it’s you know, this cute, like imperfect heart printed paper. And I’m like, that was all Greg, like he does these like he he’ll be, he’ll be on you know, a website and come out. It’ll be like, Oh, we should get this. I’m like, perfect. Like, he’s a creative too. You know, he’s just been using this other side of his brain for so long that I feel like it’s all coming out.

Greg 38:35
I think one of the you had asked earlier, what some of the roles. I think one of my roles too is and I’ve gotten her to take a little more risk with

Shannon 38:45
He pushes me.

Greg 38:46
In a good way. Like, she’ll be like, I’ll be like, how many of these should we buy? And she’ll be like, Oh, it’s

Rosanna 38:54
Two is probably more expensive than 12 or 25. So…

Greg 38:58
I like to be somebody like, Alright, we’re gonna buy 25 Beach. Yeah. And you’re gonna sell them because everything you bought, like you shown that you’re gonna do it and like, and then it’s gonna be easier as we move forward, because we’re not gonna have to worry about ordering again and going through this again.

Shannon 39:14
Yeah, so like, and then I typically say you were right.

Jordan 39:19
Those magic words.

Greg 39:23
And that’s the fun part for me, too, is like, I have helped with some of the stuff. So like, for me, it’s been fun, like, the drink where the tissue or something like that, like, I like figuring out how to find it, how to get it made, how much we need to order to make it cost effective. You know, figuring out like that side of it. Like that part’s interesting to me. Yeah, I don’t think that’s interesting to her at all. You know what I mean? Like, right,

Jordan 39:50
So you found it a nice way to compliment one another?

Shannon 39:54
I feel like that’s like marriage and now it’s like, you know, finding your role to like in this new you know, business to it’s like you figure it out as you go, right? Yeah.

Rosanna 40:04
So well, and even to Greg’s point about, yeah, working in the same industry for a long time, and now it’s changing and kind of even having that moment of, do I want to keep doing this. Sure. Like, sometimes I even think of like, our parents generation probably worked the same job, or the same career for their whole lives, was never questioning Is this what I really want to be doing? And saying no to a sure thing, instead of leaping for something that may or may not work out, but when you’re the husband and you carry, like, he’s got great insurance, and benefits, it’s like, how do you? How do you say no to that, you know, is the risk worth it? So I think sometimes, as the men in our lives, that’s, you know, you don’t want to close the door too quickly. Right. But if if things are trending a good way for House of Shan how exciting, you know.

Shannon 40:52
The company that I work at, to smaller trading company, and some of our best friends, you know, from our early 20s, through our to now and they still are like our best friends like, and we had all of our life events together, right? We had marriages and kids and we went through all the same things together. Some of those people, some of my best friends that I worked with, for 15 plus years, have started to leave. They’ve started to leave to do other things. And so…

kind of following their passions –

Following their passion, doing the type of stuff that you’re talking about. So like, prior to house Shan, I’d always been like, well, maybe I would consider doing that too. But I just have no idea…

Rosanna 41:38
Hadn’t found your thing.

Shannon 41:39
Right, like would it be. I’m pretty good at what I do. I’m not great, otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing anymore. You’re a great trader, you don’t have to trade. But prior to seeing her kind of create this and working with this on her, I’d always been like, well I would have no idea what I want to do. So that’s been kind of cool for me to to understand that, like you guys have said like, toward at 40. Like, there is more stuff out there. And I can do more than what I’m doing right now. And I have the ability to do it if I want.

Rosanna 42:19
So what would you say are your biggest takeaways from the last year? If you like what made it like an aha moment or something that maybe was like a, you know, a light bulb went off? And it was like, this is this past year? This? Is it? Like, what would it be? Is there anything that really stands out?

Shannon 42:35
I mean –

Greg 42:37
I, for me, it was a couple of times, and I was like placing orders for sweatshirts. And I and I looked at like the amount of inventory we had bought over a very short period of time. And I was like, kind of took a step back and be like, I didn’t even blink. Like I didn’t even think about it. I was buying it. I was like, that was a lot. That was a lot of sweatshirts. And I kind of had those moments where I was like, this is really like, this is going to turn into like a real business. To me, like the moment where I realized it was like, went from hobby passion project selling 50 sweatshirts to like, I was witnessing it become a brand. That to me was like and there wasn’t a one moment, but it was some of those moments where I was like, okay, like, we just bought a lot of sweatshirts, like, this is more than just for fun at this point.

Shannon 43:39
Yeah. And I mean, gosh, I mean, I think I’ve had so many over this year, because I, you know, like I said, I still pinch myself. I think there’s been so many beautiful moments within this year. And I feel like a couple that stand out are like, you know, I had a group of women in Simpsonville, South Carolina, it like makes me cry thinking about it. One of their friends is going through a pretty, pretty intense cancer treatment right now. And they all they bought, I think there was probably 60 or 70 people that bought these green t-shirts with a pink heart on them men, women, kids, they all bought them to wear every time she had a chemo day. And they still wear them every time she has a chemo day like that, to me is so cool. Like they bought the imperfect heart to signify their support and their love towards her right so for me, like, I like I you know, I can’t believe that like it’s, it’s so beautiful. And that’s why this all is happening. So like, I’ve had a few moments like that or several moments like that over this year that touched me so deeply.

So that like t shirt, when you made it was called the Chris-T which is two Her best friend’s name, and it was like, it was like a friendship t. So like, people get behind it. Right? Like 60 people. Yeah, never wearing the friendship t when their friend is having chemo like, it’s cool. I’m getting teary eyed thinking about.

Rosanna 45:16
Well, because it’s not just a T shirt, t shirt, especially now when people can’t be together. And if you’re sick, you can’t be with someone else. And you can’t write a text sometimes doesn’t do it. But you know, to get a text of somebody else wearing that T shirt on that day. And people are rallying it’s it’s life changing to have that kind of support.

Jordan 45:34
Well, it’s really special to to note, like, just to know those stories as well. I mean, I don’t think very many brands can do that a lot of times. So it’s like you, you bought a T shirt because you needed something warm. But in this case, there there is a story behind a lot of the purchasing, and you get to hear those and be a part of how they play out.

Shannon 45:52
Yeah, yeah. It’s pretty cool. So I’m very grateful. Yeah, it’s been so much fun.

Rosanna 45:58
So if people want to learn more about House of Shan where, where should they go? How can they find out what charities that you’re donating to each month? How can they order? How can they help you spread awareness about living what you love?

Shannon 46:09
Yeah, um, you can go to house of Shan calm. And we have a charities tab so you can see all the charities we’ve donated to you can see the current charity we’re donating to, you can hit the shop button, if you want to check out our shop. We also have a really cool tab that was just added that I love looking at too. It’s the LWYL tab, or LWYL love tab. And it’s just showing all all sorts of different families and kids and people wearing the imperfect heart. So –

Rosanna 46:38
I think I saw a couple celebrities on there some Chicago celebrities wearing wearing that sweatshirt.

Shannon 46:45
That’s been kind of cool, too. There’s been a couple people that have gotten behind it. Yeah, I mean, pinch me right.

Greg 46:53
Like our friends who knows celebrities give it to them. But it’s still always cool when people –

Shannon 47:01
A friend of a friend Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, what is that? Yes.

Rosanna 47:04
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, you just gotta share. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us today for telling us about your story the way that you guys work together how you’re you’re doing this amongst you know, a pandemic and and kids and still spreading these messages of love and positivity and and really being you know, exactly what people need right now, even though they didn’t know they needed it.

Shannon 47:30
Thank you. It’s so great to be here.

Greg 47:32
Thank you for having us also, like, I think we feel honored that people like yourselves that are doing something so cool and following some of your dreams and having a podcast with think of us. And like I read the email that you first sent. And it was so thoughtful, like and well written and just made us both feel super proud. So thank you.

Rosanna 47:58
Yeah, well, hopefully when this pandemic thing blows over, we’ll come down to the city and meet you in person.

Jordan 48:04
Big day for us when we suburbanites get to come down to the city.

Rosanna 48:10
Well, thank you guys both so much. We will make sure that all of our friends and followers, check out House of Shan and see what you’re up to in 2021.

Shannon 48:18
Thank you.

Rosanna 48:19
Thank you, guys.

Jordan 48:23
Okay, well, we hope that you are feeling as refreshed and as inspired as we are after that conversation with Shannon and Greg.

Rosanna 48:31
Yeah, you know, it’s funny, sometimes what you see on social media isn’t always what you get. But I felt like what, who they really are, as a couple and what they’re doing with their business and as a brand is, I mean, they’re, they’re even cooler than than what they’re putting out there.

Jordan 48:46
Like, we talked for an hour or so. And it’s like, you know, I could I could spend a little more time with you. Yeah, well, I mean, like, I’ve learned a little bit more from you.

Rosanna 48:53
That the fact that they do live close, and hopefully once the world is back to normal, I definitely look forward to meeting them in person and hearing more about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.

Jordan 49:01
Yeah, and seeing where it goes from here. So there were several things that we both kind of took away from this conversation and I I almost don’t know where to start but I think maybe the thing I’ll start with what what struck me the most and to maybe earlier in the conversation was that Shannon had talked about even you know before House of Shan it really became a thing she was just kind of on her own finding ways to just bring people together and House of Shan is not doing something different now it’s that’s kind of what’s emerged and continues to I think bring like rally people around one another and rally them around some I would say some positive concepts and positive feelings of love and togetherness and community. And so I was I was really just interested in in in that aspect. And I’m inspired by people who you know, almost like for the I want to say for the fun of it, but like, just because that’s what they want to do they want to bring people together and create something good. And obviously, she’s been doing that for some time. And that really kind of took off in the way that it did over the last year.

Rosanna 50:11
Yeah well we live in a world now where people can be pretty independent. We don’t need to rely on other people for things like we used to. But what she found after being at home with the first three boys is that she felt lonely, and she needed to feel connection. And so knowing that she needed that she, you know, that let her know that other people needed that too. And so then that’s kind of what she’s doing now with her merchandise and with her brand. I mean, in a time when small businesses have been closing their doors, and have been, you know, just overwhelmed by the pandemic, and what’s happening, House of Shan not only launched during that time, but is growing and thriving.

Jordan 50:47
Yeah, I think that tells you something, I mean, because you can, you can get certain types of apparel from almost anywhere, but you can’t get what House of Shan really offers. And that shows you to just go and if what you’re saying that it is, I think I mentioned this in the interview, like that is a type of leadership as well. Like if you know, like, there’s a bunch of people who are all kind of thinking or feeling the same thing, and to step forward and be the one to rally those people together, behind like a common cause, and to build that community, I think they really says something.

Rosanna 51:16
Well, and they mentioned this, too, is you know, Greg has a great job that affords them, you know, insurance and benefits and a roof over their heads. And so House of Shan has never been about, like hitting a certain number of sales, you know, sometimes when your business is around, you know, making a certain number of sales to hit a certain point so that you can feed your family like the pressure is on. And sometimes maybe you get lost in like, what your mission and what your message is. But this, you know, they just kept following this. What she had started with House of Shan, you know, to the next thing into the next thing and just kept saying yes, when it felt right. And so it continues to be about a mission and people and when a mission, and people are your focus, it’s easy to find fulfillment, it’s easy to find purpose. And it’s easy to love what you do.

Jordan 51:59
Yeah. So how did you phrase it to me? It’s like moving, moving towards the vision, right? Because as, as they continue down this path, they realized, how do we describe like almost accidentally, or almost like reverse? They didn’t really intend on starting, what has become over the last year. But as that emerged, like, moving towards that, embracing that and finding ways to more intentionally build into it.

Rosanna 52:24
I mean, it’s there wasn’t a plan, a clear plan for this or a direction or like, a year from now, this is what we’re going to be doing. But but now they’re starting to look at that, because it’s it’s continued to emerge. So they just keep taking steps in the direction as doors open. They continue to say yes, as it leads them by doing podcasts and, and other things and spreading the word.

Jordan 52:42
Yeah. And I think we talked about this too, when we brought it up, like, Alright, so you’ve donated $20,000, within the past year. That’s a lot of money, don’t you…right, in that sense, I think like man, like, what, what could I really do with that? And just their sense of like, no, like, that’s the question almost didn’t make sense to them. Like what, you know, what else could you do with that? Or is there any sense of, of, you know, wanting to, you know, with, I guess, like, withhold that in a sense for your own benefit? Because no, it’s like that – doesn’t, that’s that’s not the point. The point is to bring people together and to do good. And what has emerged from that is a business that were kind of figuring out as we go. And to me, that’s also inspiring to to be to be like that. The point is to give to in a selfless kind of way, find how we can enact some good within our community.

Rosanna 53:36
Yeah, I mean, what it’s so obviously, she’s, they’re both able to donate large sums of money. And they pick a different organization and nonprofit each month, kind of depending on the season, and kind of and what’s going on. But living what you love, like the brand and the merchandise people are sending and spreading love to others while supporting great causes. So she talks about stories of people going through cancer treatment, and family and friends all buying the same sweatshirt. And when that person is going through treatment on Thursdays, they all wear it. So it’s people are rallying behind other people and the people that they love, you know, even they’re getting their kids on board. They have you know, little boys and little girls things. They have other merchandise like people are sending love with the intention of also spreading love, right and a message of giving and a message of open open handedness instead of closed mindedness.

Jordan 54:24
Yeah, yeah, I really like the way that you’re putting that into to me and hopefully to you as well. Like that’s, that’s inspiring, like, my take away is just like, okay, like building sort of a platform or a way to facilitate love in community. That’s a beautiful thing.

Rosanna 54:38
Yeah, I mean, it really stems from what we’ve been trying to talk about during love month with loving our neighbors loving each other loving ourselves and you know, even how to love people that we we don’t yet know, right? buy, buy something from her and $5 from that purchase is going directly to a charity and you can hop onto her website and see, you know what charity is being supported that month and maybe that even you know, gets you to Thinking about well, why not just make a donation to that charity as well?

Jordan 55:03
Absolutely. And that is a little bit of our model this year as well. And like one of our goals, I think, is anything that’s maybe is motivation, for me, at least to like, stick with our goal this year and to see it through and find a charity each month that we can get behind and we can support financially as well.

Rosanna 55:23
Yeah, so they can, if you guys are listening, you can check our website, and you can see what charities we are donating to each month throughout 2021.

Jordan 55:31
Absolutely. All right. Well, again, we hope that you enjoyed the conversation that we’re able to share with you with Shannon and Greg. And, as always, we hope that you give us a little bit of feedback and love about what you’re learning and what you are pursuing as well.

Rosanna 55:46
Okay, have a great day. See you next week.

 

Rosanna 0:16
Hello and welcome to season three, Episode 11 of the relentless pursuit podcast “Exploring Our Biases.”

Jordan 0:23
Yeah, so going into this conversation, I’ll admit up front that I feel a little nervous or hesitant going into it, because first of all, no one really for being honest, like wants to admit that they have biases, and so we’ll do some of that admitting today. But it also is just a topic that’s very, it’s, it’s very rife with, I would say, like, with stress, and with, you know, feeling judged from all different kinds of people. And I just I, I think our, our approach here is just to be really sincere, and just to explore what biases we have in the quest of hopefully becoming a little bit more aware and ultimately becoming better people.

Rosanna 1:06
Someone recently asked me like, how do you determine the content and the topics for your podcast? And I told them, you know, we just actually, sometimes we’re just talking and having a conversation, we’re like, oh, this would be a great episode for the podcast. And we’d like write it down in our Notes app. Right. So –

Jordan 1:18
So these are all based off of conversations that we’ve had. And then these are, the shows themselves are real conversations, we’re exploring these things.

Rosanna 1:26
But when you brought up this idea, I think we like had seven or eight, like right off the bat. And then this was one of the ones you proposed, and I was like, ooh, I don’t want to talk about that. But I think after just if you think about the last year, with whether it’s like political, whether Democrat or Republican, right, searching for the truth, and candidates and what they stand for, or, you know, what’s happening in like, the black community or in the Asian community, and all of these kind of racially heightened tensions and, and killings and all of that, like, I get, I realized that it is important to talk about these things and bias and where it comes from and what we believe to be true and, and really pushing back and challenging ourselves to like, examine, what is bias? Do we have some and being okay to acknowledge that it’s there?

Jordan 2:12
Yeah. So before we get into it, I want to make sure that we are not committing the Dunning Kruger effect. Are you familiar with this?

Rosanna 2:22
Tell me more.

Jordan 2:22
The Dunning Kruger effect is when you learn a little bit about a topic, and you feel like since you know a little bit, the topic seems really simple and comprehensible. And you almost oversimplify it, because of your actual ignorance about what everything includes.

Rosanna 2:40
I feel like I’m claiming that I know nothing about this topic, that we’re just having this conversation as a way to, like, really get more acclimated to like, what what this topic is about, and, you know, kind of giving a taste to our audience to get them to like, really experience this conversation, and then get them to search and learn more.

Jordan 2:57
Yeah, so I wanted to bring that up, because that’s a type of bias. And I think that that’s the case here, where we’re really just, you know, just learning about this, and just exploring this together. So, for anyone listening, we invite you along with us, hopefully, you can learn a little bit from us as well. But this is maybe the beginning or the continuation of your own exploration of how you want to learn more about bias and confront some of your own. So why are we talking about that? I heard this quote from Verna Myers, she gave a TED talk. She’s a, I believe, she said, diversity consultant. But she said, “Stop trying to be good people, we need real people.” And that struck me because I think we want to talk about this, because we imagine that we are good people. And that’s I think part of our quest, in a sense is to like become better and better versions of ourselves. And, you know, I think there’s a point where we kind of want to tell ourselves that we already are a good person. And I would agree with that.

Rosanna 4:09
Sure right. Like we don’t Yeah, we don’t rob banks, we don’t hold up people at gunpoint, like, we don’t do these bad things.

Jordan 4:14
We’re nice to people who you know, we interact with and so on. But I kind of don’t want to stop there. And I think that’s where the second half of our quote comes in. Like, we need real people. So we’re going to be real. And a portion of that is acknowledging our weaknesses. And I think along with it, acknowledging our biases, as well. So we’ll get to more applications. But that’s really like one of the applications that we’ll touch upon at the end is just the idea of being real.

Rosanna 4:43
So why do you think it’s hard to talk even just like we bring up the topic bias and like you and I already like, kind of uncomfortable and feeling like we might say something wrong, and people might take it the wrong way. Like why do you think that is?

Jordan 4:55
I think there’s a few reasons. For one, we like it. Like we already imagine ourselves as good people. So if we were to open up and be vulnerable about some degree of weakness or shortcoming that we have then that, that kind of flies in the face of who we think we already are. And I also think the idea of being judged as well, right? Like if someone were to admit, like, I’m biased against, like these types of people,

Rosanna 5:28
Old people. Uneducated people

Jordan 5:30
Year you can fill in the blank with with anything, then, right then that, that opens us up to the scrutiny of others. And that’s really uncomfortable to, so it’s a little bit easier just not to broach it and not with ourselves and not with others, and almost pretend like it doesn’t exist, so that we can maybe more easily get along. Meanwhile, bias persists and nothing has really been solved.

Rosanna 5:56
Okay? Right? So if we’re not really talking about it, or even acknowledging it, right, like we’re not held accountable, and then we’re not growing or getting better in any way. We’re basically just hiding some of our deficiencies – for lack of a better term.

Jordan 6:10
Yeah. Well, and also like being labeled as biased or being labeled as racist, it carries with it some very real consequences as well. I mean, people are losing careers, and they’re losing reputations. There’s, there’s really a lot at stake. I mean, so I’ll just put it out there from now like, I’m biased, I’m racist, I don’t want to be. So I’m going to kind of get the denial out of the way, so that I can actually try to make progress in these areas.

Rosanna 6:38
Well, that reminds me of our book club episode in season two, we read by Ibram X Kendi, How to be an Anti-Racist. And in the book, you know, he is a black man. And he discusses, like, I have done and said and thought racist things, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m a racist, right? So you can do bias things and not necessarily always be biased. So it’s like kind of checking yourself checking your attitude, checking your interactions at the door, and calling them what they are in doing better than next time that you don’t have to be in this like fixed state of holding things against people. Right. All right. So should we define what bias is?

Jordan 7:16
It’s my favorite part of every show. You got to break out the definition.

Rosanna 7:20
Alright. So bias is the tendency tendency to favor one thing over another. Which if you think about like that definition, like that shouldn’t scare us into having this conversation. Because scientists who study human behavior, say that bias is a natural normal tendency, and believe that it is a human survival defense mechanism. Therefore, everybody is biased, right? So like, you shouldn’t have to be afraid to say I’m biased, right? Or I shouldn’t have to be able to be afraid to say I’m biased. Because the same as nature, we are all biased, every single one of us.

Jordan 7:50
It’s just a part of a natural part of human psychology.

Rosanna 7:52
So you know, here’s the question, what types of things do people favor? If you boil this down to like a very basic understanding or a very basic level, we favor certain flavors, right?

Jordan 8:04
Favor the flavor.

Rosanna 8:04
Favor the flavor, certain colors, certain textures, certain sports, maybe even certain cities or teams. But people don’t get bent out of shape over that, right? Like you like a chocolate shake. And even though I love chocolate, I like a vanilla shake, right? Like that’s, that’s what I favor. But most biases, therefore harmless, the problem doesn’t come from favoring a certain music or food, people will most likely admit that it’s when we have biases against other people.

Jordan 8:35
When it’s directed towards people, yeah.

Rosanna 8:38
So that’s kind of, you know, kind of a little bit about bias. I know you have this quote here from a time interview in 2019, do you want to kind of really just plays along with what I’ve just said.

Jordan 8:49
Yeah it is fun to read about this. So the quote that I have is that the, “the brain needs to sort everything, the food, we eat, the furniture, we use, whatever, we also sort people and that sorting can lead to bias. Once we have categories we have beliefs, and feelings about what’s in those categories.” And that’s by Jennifer Eberhardt. In a time interview from 2019, and a lot of what we quote, we’ll try to make sure that we provide links in the show notes for all of you if you want to check out a little bit more. It was fun just reading and exploring a lot about what’s been said about it. Another thing that I’ve heard too and so this, this, the brain needs to categorize things we can’t otherwise we really suffer from decision fatigue when we have to like scrutinize every individual sensory input from the ground up, right. So our brain creates these shortcuts. So we can come to conclusions a little faster. But when it pertains to people, and we are taking a unique human individual and then placing them into a predetermined category that creates problems. I also heard bias described as not necessarily as a way to categorize things, but as a way as a way to connect things and so like someone made the statement that when I say jelly, your mind most likely is going to be connected to peanut butter. And so like we automatically draw different kinds of connections between all kinds of things. And it’s, it’s just because like those, those two, peanut butter and jelly don’t really have anything in common with one another except that culturally, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is, at least for me, like a staple of my classroom lunch times growing up. And so it’s natural at someone growing up in that environment would make that connection. And so you got to think about what other connections now when we bring in, you know, a human element, whether it’s their skin color, or their age, or their race, or…

Rosanna 10:46
Class or religion, right, so it’s the association that we’re making with whatever that object or person is. And so would you say that biases are inherent? Or do you think that they’re learned? Or is a little bit of both?

Jordan 11:01
Well, this is that I don’t know if I can answer that question. Because like, on the one hand, we’re saying that, like, biases are like natural human is a natural part of human psychology. But on the other hand, I’ve heard biases described as kind of like this, this invisible fog that we all breathe in. So it’s, it’s kind of in the environment. And I don’t want to say like, it’s, it’s, it’s like, I guess they could be explicitly taught, I’m sure there are some if we were to scrutinize ourselves enough, but at the same time, like, it’s almost like, it’s a way of thinking that we probably would even, it would even be hard for us to admit to ourselves that we’re thinking in that way, but it kind of manifests in certain actions or, or certain decisions. So it’s so yes, like, it’s both like it can be taught because of the way like some of those statements or actions are manifesting those underlying biases. But at the same time, that, like, our mind is going to make connections in one form or another.

Rosanna 12:18
So are there varying sorts of biases? Or is it just like you’re just bias like there’s an overall bias? Or is there kind of a breakdown of different ways that people are biased or things can be kind of deconstructed?

Jordan 12:30
Yes, there’s a lot – Well, first, we can list like, we’ve already started to list like some of the different, like, categories, or like ways bias can be directed towards different people, I guess what it breaks down to is, for one, anyone who’s different from you, right, we tend to favor ourselves and people like us. So the more different I like in literature, and like sociology, you talk about “the other,” or the person kind of outside groups, so we can talk about that. But then also, like, what you find is that like, there are sort of these these implicit biases that reach a cultural level, where even if you’re in that group, you still may have negative biases towards others in that group, too. Okay. So what I’m saying is like, you can have racial bias, you could have bias against someone’s gender, someone’s gender identity, so against someone’s age against someone’s body shape. There’s a long Actually, I didn’t print out a list, but there is and I’ll references again, at the end to there’s an Implicit Association test you can take. And it actually like lists, these different categories, you can actually take a it’s called a touch test. And you can see, at least according to this test, how biased you are towards these different groups of people,

Rosanna 13:54
And it will calculate that for you. Like, based on what you –

Jordan 13:57
Yeah, it calculates, as best as you can. I’ll describe the test later. So we’ll put a link to that in our show notes, too. It’s pretty interesting. So let me walk you through a few different types of biases that we can have. The first one is the maybe one of the bigger ones is confirmation bias. So this is this is a really insidious kind of bias because when we hold a particular belief or perspective, then we tend to find the facts that confirm our belief or perspective. Okay, right. Okay. Right. So if you look like back, and you’re like, let’s go just go back to the stories we tell ourselves. Like, we can be like, Oh, I am a would you say like an athletic person. Maybe somebody believes that about themselves, then the way they look back at their life is they remember a lot of the highlights of their athletic experiences that can reinforce to them that fact. It works negatively to where someone might say, I’m not that athletic of a person, they look back and look at the lowlights of that to even if they have had identical experiences. Or if you have one person who’s religious and one person who’s not religious, like, they can look at the same experience, and one person can say, like, Oh, I know, I attribute what happened. and you know, that’s from God. And the other person might look at that and be like, no, like, this is this is how I interpret like, so you’re going to interpret in facts along the lines of what you already believe. So this, it relates to a lot of different things. And so it’s, if we were to apply it to people, like you might say, like, say, if you have a, a, an existing implicit bias towards a specific racial group, let’s just say. So a confirmation bias would be if you were to see someone from that racial group engage in some kind of behavior that you would is negative, or Yeah, you disapprove of, or you have already connected with it, then you would use that to be like, see, like, that confirms my perspective.

Rosanna 16:05
All this kind of people do this.

Jordan 16:06
Exactly. Even if it’s not true, or you’re misinterpreting what’s actually taking place or what not. The next one, I have a list here, I’ll try to go a little faster through these. There’s a self serving bias, which is attributing success – so anytime we personally experience success – we attribute that to our own skills, like we can take responsibility for the successes that we experience. But the failures we experience are attributed to other factors.

Rosanna 16:39
Never you’re never because you did something wrong or didn’t deserve it. It’s because your boss hates you, or because you didn’t, yeah, yeah, somebody else’s problem. Okay.

Jordan 16:48
So then there’s the going along with it is the fundamental attribution error, which is the I you know, I may be oversimplifying this, but it’s the opposite of the self serving bias. When we, when someone else exhibits a flaw of some kind, we blame it on them on like, their personal character or attributes. And when someone else experiences the success, we attribute it to environmental factors and not that person.

Rosanna 17:13
So we don’t want to give them the credit, right? We want to give them all of the faults. Awesome. Great.

Jordan 17:18
So an example that I read about this is drivers, let’s say there’s someone who’s driving kind of like, slowly or erratically. And you know, there’s, there’s some critique that you have, and then you drive, you’re able to pass them up, and you can see who it actually is, like, we then like place, whatever driving flaw we witnessed, like, I’m like them personally.

Rosanna 17:40
Because it’s a woman, because it’s an old person who can’t see over the street like, right, and doesn’t

Jordan 17:45
matter who it is, we come up with a reason for it. It’s a woman, it’s like, it’s pesky, like woman driver, or if it’s a teen, this punk kid, if it’s, you know, it’s just a white guy, like this arrogant, you know, you know, prude, like whatever the case may be, you can come up with a reason.

Rosanna 18:02
We’re not just blaming the fact that that person is a bad driver.

Jordan 18:06
That’s because of their category. There’s also in group bias, which I referenced a little bit of its failure favoring those who are most like you. There’s the curse of knowledge, which I thought was interesting. I never thought about it like this before this is true. Once we know something, then we assume others know it, too. And we pretty quickly forget about the time when we didn’t know it.

Rosanna 18:35
So because we’re older and wiser. Because you’ve experienced it, or we’ve gone through it, like…

Jordan 18:42
We forget there wasy a time we didn’t know that information. So we just assume everybody must know this. There’s the optimism pessimism bias, which we over, we overestimate outcomes based on our mood. So if we’re feeling really good, we tend to be overly optimistic about an outcome. And if we’re kind of in a cruddy mood, then we become overly pessimistic.

Rosanna 19:02
And that’s the type of bias? I never really thought about this.

Jordan 19:04
This is all coming from a list I found on Psychology Today. Published a few years ago, there’s the decline bias. Now, we’ve talked about this too, I think when we’re talking about kids, but it’s favoring the way things used to be over the way things are or we project that they will be. So we’re always talking about the good old days, and remembering, like, kind of crystallizing the way things were. And then projecting some kind of decline. And that’s I mean, you can track this over 1000s of years, people have always said like, things are going down the tubes. Alright, so those are different types of bias.

Rosanna 19:25
And you know what, I don’t mean to make light because we’re kind of like laughing at some of these. But I think the reason why I’m kind of laughing at some of them is because I’m guilty of, if not all of them, pretty much most of them. And sometimes when you realize how silly it sounds, and how silly you’re being like it’s like laugh cry at that point, you either have to like cry because you’re so guilty or laugh like, Oh my gosh, like I’m an idiot, right?

Are there any of those that we could say like, oh, that doesn’t apply to me?

No, I’m no, I’m pretty sure. I’m guilty of all of them.

Jordan 20:10
Yeah. And so like, Oh, you know those again, like, as we examine human psychology, these are pretty natural defaults that we have. So we think it’s interesting, you could come up and there’s even an even longer list I didn’t even list all of them. So there’s, there’s all these shortcuts that our brain takes or all these avenues that it tends to want to go down. And again, like a lot of it might be innocuous, but a lot of it, especially when we attribute it to the people that we encounter can become rather harmful.

Rosanna 20:42
I mean, that’s hard to me, or hard for me to hear. Because I think something that we’ve talked about, and this is probably well in season one is I love to hear people’s stories. And I love to hear about where they come from, and like learn about what they think and how they feel just because I’m genuinely interested. But when we do things like this, and put people in categories, and then like exclude people, because of these categories, or our associations with these categories, we’re like, missing out on this, like greater human experience, this greater human story. And I feel like that’s kind of what’s at stake with this conversation. Like if we can’t openly and honestly say like, yeah, I’m totally biased, not because I want to be, but because I just, you let your mind think the same way as always thought, and you’re not, you know, you’re on autopilot. And so it’s easier just to kind of continue forward than it is to like, pause at the yield sign, look around, take a breath, like, really examine what’s really going on before proceeding.

Jordan 21:39
So, you know, and the, there’s a lot of stuff like this, you know, some of these sometimes we think about like maybe a smaller interaction. And, you know, if whether we’re biased or not maybe that that small, single interaction doesn’t have a lot of bearing on life or on society. But for one, these, these add up, and especially for people who may be in certain demographic groups that are more subject to bias, like, and that’s why it’s, it’s a little harder for me to talk about, because I feel like, and I’ve been asked the question like, Can you name times in your life that you felt like you were subject to bias? It honestly, like, it is hard for me to think of those times. And I’m sure there are, but I’m looking back and being like, actually, I guess, at least in regards to this, like, I’ve had a pretty good.

Rosanna 22:35
well, you are a privileged individual for a variety of reasons.

Jordan 22:40
Right? Being a really good looking white? Yeah,

Rosanna 22:44
I don’t know, not the right episode for charming people.

Jordan 22:45
Okay. But yeah, but being like a white guy, it’s, I have difficulty putting myself in the position of someone who, you know, I really might deal with or be the recipient of others negative biases on a daily basis. But that’s why I think it’s even like, it’s even more like, on my shoulders to acknowledge that and to be proactive, because, you know, I could continue to coast and autopilot and just be like, yeah, life is great, it’s great for me, it must be great for everyone else to where that’s not really the case. And if there’s something more positive that I can contribute, that I want to know what that is, and do it.

Rosanna 23:25
But I mean, it’s not just your race, either the class that you’re born into the access and the education that you have, I mean, how many degrees do you have? Right? Some people don’t even get the chance to pursue one and you have three, you know. So it’s, it’s that it’s, you know, even freedom to, you know, exercise any kind of religious belief or non belief, like, it didn’t even matter, like you have had the opportunity to like be who you are in an environment that accepts you for who you are. And some people don’t have that. And, you know, yeah, I mean, you’re straight, and you’re married, and you have a family, right? So those are all things that people like, lumped into this good category, whereas anyone that deviates from that is not always in that same category.

Jordan 24:06
Yeah. And so, you know, and then there are bigger consequences that come as a result of that, too. And you think about I think about like the in group bias, for example, right? We tend to favor people who are like us. So you know, for those of us who may be in a position, a position of hiring others, then we kind of think about if we look at the array of candidates, well, is it more likely, even without are intending it to be that the candidates who are more like us tend to rise to the top, you know, is the likelihood of them getting hired more likely? And so and when you can think about that and array of categories too where there’s an opening for some degree of opportunity, who wields the controls to grant the access to those opportunities and who is left out?

Rosanna 24:57
Okay. I think, and this may be I don’t want it to sound ignorant.

Jordan 25:03
But I think I think we already do, let’s just get it out there.

Rosanna 25:07
But as we talked about this, like when we talk about like positions and candidates or jobs, or even like, where we buy things, or how we buy things, you know, we want, right, kind of like you want the best of the best when you do all of those things. So, is the goal to hire the best? Or is the goal to be diverse? Is the goal to be inclusive? Like, if, you know, candidates, A and B are different, and one is better than the other? Who do you give the job to? The best? Or do you? Right, like, Are you trying to be diverse? Like, I guess I wouldn’t know like, what what the right answer is in that situation?

Jordan 25:47
Yeah I think it’s a fair question to and and I don’t have an answer, what comes to mind is also thinking to like, you know, one, like can’t your, you know, minority candidate also be the best? But like, what does it do for your overall organization at the same time, if you have everyone who can acts the same thinks the same, versus having, you know, diverser organizations that word “diverser,” or a more diverse, diverse organization? So I feel like that helps in the the organization and in you know, other ways than what can maybe be so strictly broken down quantitatively on paper.

Rosanna 26:28
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that’s, that’s fair, for anybody listening to a conversation like this is like, you know, consider what your organization needs, or consider what your school needs are what like what kids need to see and factor that in as a high level of importance, in terms of like, the people around you, right? Like that you, you can you can coach anybody into anything. And so like, like, what what do you want people to see? Do you want them to see someone that looks like everybody else? Do you want them to feel inclusive and a part of it, like, I think those things are important. But for a long time, those weren’t important, those were kind of scary or different. And so now, like, I think we just have to open our eyes to that, that that is important, right?

Jordan 27:09
And just a brief aside about ignorance too like, if we if we don’t already sound ignorant, then we will just lay it out there that we even feel rather ignorant about this. I was reading a book The other day, and it said that actually, the the greatest scientific discovery of the last few 100 years was our own ignorance, right, we used to think we had it all figured out just as human civilization. But once we kind of acknowledged that there’s more to learn then that’s where we really saw growth. And so I think that that’s working right now, too, I hope, like I can acknowledge that. There’s a lot that we don’t know, and a lot to continue to explore. But that is going to lead to our growth, rather than just feeling like we already figured it out a long time ago, and things are fine.

Rosanna 27:54
I can’t imagine that anybody thinks that they figured anything out in this life. Like the older I get, like, the more I feel like I don’t know, and the things that I thought were so sure are so understandable or not. And so and maybe that is a result of like questioning why I believe the things I believe or how I feel towards those things, or you know, what I’ve been taught that doesn’t really sit right with me anymore. And so I think that’s a great challenge from this conversation is like, you got to stop and ask yourself some of those questions.

Jordan 28:25
So I have a list here of because I literally like have run this search. I’ve run it a number of times, I’ve read, you know, a bunch of books and articles and things to try to help me answer this question. Or it’s not a question, I guess, but a statement like how to overcome bias. All right. So we’re sitting here we’re talking like alright, all these biases exist. It’s really no crime to say like I am biased because that’s like the same as saying I am human. But we tend to hide that. So how do we acknowledge our bias and then how do we overcome it? So I have a list here –

Rosanna 29:04
okay, in my mind, sorry. Maybe this is an aside and it’s kind of silly because when we were talking about bias at the beginning, it was like we have a preference for flavors and tastes and all of that and so when you when you ask that question like how do we overcome it you know, I was thinking about you and pizza on Friday nights

Jordan 29:22
Myy positive disposition towards pizza.

Rosanna 29:23
Your positive disposition towards pizza because Friday night is takeout night or it became takeout night during COVID to support local and all of that and we’ve we’ve carried that on God bless I have I love how one less night to cook but let’s listen –

Jordan 29:35
I’ve gorge on on greasy food is is you know, we code by saying support local.

Rosanna 29:42
You know, your your preference every Friday night is pizza. And while I don’t mind pizza, like I don’t want pizza every Friday night. And so like you know, you have that predisposition to like pizza and want to enjoy it. And I think if we’re trying to overcome bias, then it’s sometimes it’s not about what you want, it’s about considering others and what they want? Or what’s beneficial for everyone.

You’re telliong me you don’t want pizza this Friday?

Yes. But that’s kind of my thought is like, we need to step outside of ourselves more often, instead of thinking we know best, or that we need to pursue what we want first.

Jordan 30:17
Alright, so this wasn’t first on my list, but I’m gonna list it here anyway. So one of the just going off that one of the recommendations, and I’m listing these almost as, like action points for us, okay. And for anyone listening that’s inspired by any of these. So the first one is to have a growth mindset. So there’s a researcher, Carol Dweck, I think she was from Stanford, kind of coined this term growth mindset. And she contrasted it to fixed mindset. And growth mindset is basically the posture of I have more to learn. And, and I’m capable of learning it. And the fixed mindset is that it was saying, like I am I,

Rosanna 30:58
I am not a morning person, right? But I could be.

Jordan 31:02
It’s a, it’s a strict way of defining yourself kind of closing yourself off to more knowledge and more growth. So I thought this was really interesting. But we tend to have a fixed mindset when it comes to how we think about and engage our, our biases. And we tend to be fixed and saying the kinds of statements like oh, “I don’t have biases,” or “I’m colorblind.” And because that’s, that’s a very safe thing to say, like, it’s, it’s safe to say, I don’t have biases, or I’m not acting on my biases, because then one, we confirm who we are –

Rosanna 31:44
Through bias, confirmation bias, right?

Jordan 31:46
Right, we’re confirming that we are a good person, right? We don’t have these character defects. But it also like, I think it makes us a little bit more comfortable as well, like, it’s, it’s uncomfortable to admit that you have something to work on. So anyway, so that’s one of the suggestions is just to have a growth mindset be like, look like, I am not a perfect person. I have my biases, but I’m working on them,

Rosanna 32:19
And then actually work on them.

Jordan 32:20
And actually working on that, right. And I don’t know, like, I didn’t read this anywhere, I don’t know if you can ever get to the point in life where you have, like, overcome your biases, because it is such like an inbuilt. I will get to some suggestions that maybe can help us like, circumvent that a little bit. But it is such like a built in feature of the human psychology, that I think you’re always going to have to develop the wherewithal to examine yourself and identify biases as they arise.

Rosanna 32:56
And I would agree like that natural inclination is probably always going to be there, but it’s like, are you processing it? Are you attuned to it, right? And then do you move past it like or work on moving like, right? You can’t, you can’t just say that you’re not like, okay, I am, this is what the bias is, alright, instead of doing this, I’m going to it’s choosing to move past it, it’s, you’re never going to be bias free.

Jordan 33:19
Yeah. And I’ll bring this up too. And I probably mischaracterizing it but I’ll go here anyway, you know, I’ve heard the term woke like, over the last few years, especially over this past year. And to me, like, and maybe this is just my own, you know, like reading into the term. But it kind of seems like, like, it’s it’s like so binary, like I was asleep, at least in regards to my my racial awareness. But now I am woke or I’m awake and aware of it. And I tend to picture it more in a spectrum, where, you know, I was, I was never totally like asleep, or you just tuned out to racial awareness and biases. And I am continuing to, like, move along the spectrum to become more and more aware of it. I don’t know if I could ever understand someone else’s point of view so well, that I like, unless I’m them, right, which, which I can’t. So it’s just an ongoing process of trying to work, like, you know, improve myself to try to obtain as close an understanding of someone else’s perspectives and experiences as possible.

Rosanna 34:30
And maybe that’s where you are now, but what if you were in a scenario or in a different position where you do undergo the same scrutiny as somebody else, and then you can understand their situation in a new way and really understand and move at a much quicker pace or, you know, move towards that. So, I mean, I know that term has been overused, but I don’t think that that should discredit someone who may be was very much on one side of the spectrum. Very wholeheartedly you know ignorant and, and harsh and and now sees the light like I don’t just because that’s not your experience doesn’t mean that’s not theirs. But yeah overusing that word I think is a problem.

Jordan 35:12
Yeah. So and maybe that’s why maybe I don’t feel like I really like understand my own use of it right now as much as I’d like. Anyway, back to our list here. We have other ways to overcome bias. So we’ve heard this before, like don’t don’t say that you’re colorblind, that doesn’t really help instead –

Rosanna 35:32
Because unless you literally cannot see color like right you’re I mean, your your eyes and your body actually, right, like, notice difference as we should.

Jordan 35:40
Right. It says like, you can’t identify your biases, if you pretend like you’re colorblind, because we’re, we’re as much as we can try to be colorblind, we’re not like we have these biases that are we’re our minds just automatically take on. So instead, like go looking for your biases.

Rosanna 36:02
Okay, and what happens when you look for them?

Jordan 36:05
I do have that next step. Alright. So but that’s, I wanted to wanted that to sink in. That was my pause for effect. Alright, so for go looking for your biases. And it’s okay to ask yourself, like, man did like, “Do I have a negative bias like towards this individual towards this –

Rosanna 36:21
Community, group, subgroup…

Jordan 36:24
Or, you know, did I just, it was my interaction, you’re biased in some way did it did my my bias manifest in some way during that interaction? Alright, so. So once you do that, and just like looking for it, it’s self examining, then look for what I have in quotes here is disconfirming data that negate existing biases. So let’s say you have just a negative implicit bias towards black men. Look at awesome black men, seek, like seek them out whether in real life or I mean, there’s no shortage of, you know, I’ll use the word celebrities. But I mean, even politicians and writers and thinkers, journalists, scientists, right. And that has the effect of kind of counteracting the negative association that you might automatically make. You can – so that’s another tip there. Another tip is take a test. So I referenced this at the beginning, none of us want to say that we’re biased. But if you take these tests, they’re called, I think they’re called touch tests. And so one link is at implicit.harvard.edu, slash implicit slash ticket touch test, we’ll put a link. But what it does is it flashes, certain types of people, and then certain like words or objects on the screen, and you have to respond as quickly as you can, to the images that are appearing. But what basically what it reveals is, towards which type of person you have a positive disposition, and towards which type of person you have a negative disposition. And you can do this for like, all different kinds of people like we’ve listed already. So it’s pretty interesting because you’re like, Well, yeah, like I have, in my in my head, like a positive disposition towards all these people. But when you take the test you it what it reveals is that were you to link something negative towards somebody, that it shows you towards whom you would like it to. I’m probably not explaining that well… just go take the test. Another fun activity that we can do is just do an inventory. So this is very concrete for like, what can I do that’s concrete, I’m trying to list some very concrete things. In other words, you can take an inventory. So this is a literal inventory. Who do you read? Right? You’re about to read 21 books this year. And I’m constantly reading as well, books or articles or podcasts, things like that. So just like who are you exposed to? Are you exposed to the same types of people over and over and over again, not necessarily bad, because they I’m sure they’re thoughtful and inspiring in their own ways. But if we want to try to overcome our biases, we also want to be exposed to a diversity of people who are influencing us in that manner. So you can do that with who you read. Also, just take a look at your social media, who do you follow? Who are the people you’re allowing to share their thoughts and ideas with you? So just go through your Instagram feed, you can go through your Twitter feed, and so on. And also I put this one down. No one suggested this to me, but I thought this was interesting is this question of who do we invite on our teams and I mean teams in the broadest sense. So this is at work this is in our community This is, wherever we may inhabit. are we seeking out? Or do we feel like the most comfortable with? Or like the Is it the safest to approach people who we already know? Or people who are just like us? Or are we are we being a little bit more intentional, trying to diversify the range people that we’re working alongside.

Rosanna 40:23
But also not just for the sake of trying to be diverse, but like, understanding that everybody has a lot of different experiences and a lot to learn from and so like, wanting to learn from other people who are different than you, and have a different perspective, because once we learn to like, listen and understand their perspective, like we can tap into, like another source of like, thinking and believing and feeling that is reflected in, you know, a diverse world around us, where it’s not just everybody who’s just like us.

Jordan 40:53
Right. And so that’s another suggestion to this one’s a little harder, but it is like, just, like, make more diverse friends. And that one to me like it, it seems very practical, because then you have a way of like genuinely understanding someone who’s not identical to you.

Rosanna 41:12
But is it disingenuous to seek out someone who is different than you to start a friendship?

Jordan 41:18
So so that one, obviously want to be authentic with as well. But this is where I think like some of the other things I’m listing come into play like, Alright, so I can’t, you know, you really, you can’t have a deep relationship with really that many people in general, but you can like, we’re talking about like, who you’re who you’re reading, who’s whose stories you’re hearing, and so on. So that’s why I really like this book, Tell Me Who You Are, which is just a book of like, really like short stories, people from across all 50 states, all different demographics, just telling their stories and experiences. It’s like, I’m never gonna meet any of these people. But and I wouldn’t call them my friends. But I would say like, I’m really genuinely to open my mind to what people’s experiences are other than my own, or people just like me, yeah. Oh, I wanted to show this to a little overdue, actually. So I brought this book with me called thinking in bets by any Duke. I mentioned this on the show before, I’m pretty sure because there’s a lot of good thoughts on it. But any teaches better decision making, using she’s a poker champion. So she uses poker as a like an analogy for a lot of the decisions here. One of the things that stood out to me was this, she gives an optical illusion here. And what’s funny is that, even when you know, it’s an optical illusion that you’re looking at, it doesn’t make the illusion go away. And she ties this to bias into decision making. Here’s one quick quote of hers about it. She says being aware, being aware of our irrational behavior, and wanting to change is not enough, in the same way that knowing that you’re looking at a visual illusion is not enough to make the illusion go away. So I’m saying is like being aware of your bias, and wanting to change it? Is that enough? Like you actually need to it doesn’t make it go away? A step? Yeah. So these steps that I’m listing are ones, it’s like, you actually need to do something, because you know, the bias is so insistent, so persistent, that it’s –

Rosanna 43:27
It’s like a natural default.

Jordan 43:28
It doesn’t just go away on its own.

Rosanna 43:30
Right. So you have to kind of make a new, a new path or a new What do they call like? What do they call it in your brain? Like it’s like a new like route for your, you have to train your brain to think differently, so that you’re not stuck in that same pattern?

Jordan 43:44
So here’s another one, too. This is again, from Jennifer Eberhardt. She says “There are certain conditions under which we become more vulnerable to it” – to bias. She says “when we’re thinking fast and moving fast,” so we just think like in any given moment, like when there’s a certain uptick in the speed at which we’re interacting or responding to whatever the circumstance may be, that is going to that’s especially what our brain needs to take the shortcuts. So she says, “we can slow down and make a shift, so we’re less likely to act on bias.” So just slow down. That’s what I took from that. So that we can like take a you know, if possible, like take a pause, take a step back, and then we can maybe better understand the kinds of decision we’re about to make.

Rosanna 44:35
React more appropriately. It makes me think of your car scenario, right? Someone’s weave in and out of traffic, you’re driving fast, right? Cars are swooping in whatever right? And like, what’s your first what’s the first thing that you say, right? You’re blaming, you know, some kind of bad driving on a certain group or a certain person for a certain reason, because like, that’s the quickest reaction. It’s just kind of like that gut reaction, as opposed to like, calming down and thinking about what you say and what comes out of your mouth.

Jordan 45:00
And so we’re really talking about like being rational, which sounds really simple. But when we have, you know, like chemicals and when to have emotions, like starting to flow through us, it’s really difficult at that moment to just analyze our own thinking and behavior and say, like, “Wait, am I operating under any sort of bias at the moment? Or am I…” you know, so, but that’s kind of what it takes. And it takes we almost have to gift ourself, you know, the ability to slow down and to think through it.

Rosanna 45:30
I appreciate that about you. Because even sometimes, like, when someone upsets me, or something upsets me, you’ll say like, “Yeah, but is this because like, they really did something wrong, or it’s because you’re like, going on this bias, like this perceived bias of like what they’ve done, because they’ve done things wrong.” And like, it’s like, you always get me to like, stop and pull back. And that’s good, because they’re like, you kind of helped filter me a little bit. And I’ve said the same thing to you. Or it’s like, you know, someone who has has done wrong, right, like, you’re going to just continue to blame them. But it’s like, Is that is that really fair? Is that really what the case is? Or is it just easier to blame someone or something? Right? Or some group of people? Because it’s like, because of one interaction one time? Right? Because I have fundamental

Jordan 46:14
It’s so easy, that’s your fundamental understanding of at the beginning and right, you never –

Rosanna 46:18
I’m a woman driver. And so if I cut someone off, right, like, right, is my driving like, you know, on display for every other driver that’s like, it’s, you know, I’m just one person, I’m not at fault for everybody in my category is not at fault for the way that I drive.

Jordan 46:33
Yeah. So, you know, ultimately, there’s, there’s other steps there as well. And I think it just requires this awareness, and then this commitment to, or sorry, for, like, and awareness. And then I would say, like getting getting past the denial of it. And just saying, like, yeah, like this, like I’m human, I have biases, I don’t want to have biases. So you know, I’m going to continually work on myself in this regard. And so the last one that I wrote down, is just love the person in front of us see them for the humanity they possess.

Rosanna 47:12
Which reminds me of our leader love thy neighbor episode, right? Just looking at someone and seeing, seeing the commonality between you instead of what’s different, right. Right, whether cubs or Sox fan, right? It should not be matter.

Jordan 47:27
Sure. So again, like a lot of these are easier said than done. And it takes work. And I think that that is, you know, another thing that makes it so challenging too like, I would love to just flip a switch and be the kind of person I want to be and make society the kind of place it ought to be. But it’s not that simple. So I feel like if you and I can talk about it and work on ourselves in this regard maybe that can, you know, help spur more conversations, and more work in others as well.

Rosanna 47:55
Right? Well, and like we said, we don’t have it all figured out. Right? Like some of the things we’ve said today are, you know, probably sound ignorant or right. What was the first bias that you had mentioned?

Jordan 48:07
I forgot the name? The Dunning Kruger effect, right?

Rosanna 48:10
Like, yeah, we –

Jordan 48:11
We think we think we know so much.

Rosanna 48:13
And we’ll be the first one to tell you, we don’t have it all figured out. We’re trying just to move in the direction of figuring it out a little bit better, and doing a little bit better so that ourselves our family our community this, this little part of the world that we call home can move to being better. So do you have some takeaways? You had all of those steps. But –

Jordan 48:34
Yeah, I listed those action steps. It looks like you listed some takeaways, though.

Rosanna 48:37
I did. There’s two and they’re they’re pretty quick. The first one is no one is immune. So check your blind spots. We’re all biased. If you’re going to, you know, tell me that you’re not biased. I feel like I’m not sure where to go from there. That means you have nothing left to learn. So we all have blind spots. They might be small, but they’re there. Number two.

Jordan 48:57
So are you biased against people who…

Rosanna 49:01
Yes I am biased against people who say they don’t have a bias. Yes, but I can admit that right. Number two biases are natural. We make 1000s of decisions every day, some more important than others. Make sure that the ones that do matter are not based on a bias but rather on reflective judgment and critical thinking. I think that’s that. All right, short and sweet.

Jordan 49:25
Well good, well this is obviously like, it’s not something that we can just like check off list. But it’s almost like once you’re aware of it, you almost have to be perpetually aware of those biases, and do your best to counteract them. So I’m looking forward to having those moments where we can continue to talk through this and work on ourselves.

Rosanna 49:45
Yeah, I think accountability is huge with it. Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us for Episode 11. And we look forward to seeing you next week.

Jordan 49:53
Yeah, and you know, this is the kind of conversation that obviously spurs a lot of I hope, good thoughts and also feelings. Well, and if you have experiences or if you have advice that we can learn from then we’re all ears and so keep it coming our way. We’re always grateful to hear from you. Thanks for listening today.