Julie Hilsen

Creating Endless Joy and Empowering Conversations

I’m overjoyed to welcome this panel of experts in empowering conversations of hope and opportunity. So just so pleased to have everyone here, and you know just I feel the energy of love and inspiration coming off of everyone. So I’m very excited to get started and I’ll just let whoever wants to jump in. Can someone share how this group was started? What was the inspirational? The backstory of how six people get together and do podcasts as a group. This is really fun.

Amy: 0:45

We were all part of a public speaking coaching class and we were all online and we were breaking into little accountability pods and breakout rooms and we kind of noticed one another and gravitated to each other because of our themes and because of our desires to want a better life for everybody and for people to take ownership of their lives. And I actually accidentally popped into a podcast, a pod room I wasn’t supposed to be in and we still, we just gravitated. It was kind of like the universe pulling us all together. So we haven’t met in person any of us, but we plan to in October and we just have become a family. We’re working together every week, every day almost, and this is who we are Becco.

Julie: 1:41

I love that. So it was a synergy, it was. You had like energy and you just decided that, hey, let’s keep up this good thing. I love it because so many times you do an online meeting or zoom and it’s just one and done, or you think about that person but you might not experience them in your life again. So I I honor that you guys have created this special space and thank you for being here.

Debi: 2:06

Well, I think it’s really important with where we’ve been in life all of us and I think it’s nice when you can work with a group of people that have the same idea of wanting to make this a better planet, a better place to live, a better place to communicate and be involved with other people and, luckily, becoming a speaker. I think we all went into thinking we were just doing something for ourselves and we never realized how much it was going to be. We were doing something together for other people. We weren’t just trying to carry our message, it was all of our messages that meshed very well together and it was really important that I felt personally myself, that all of our messages come together and be told as a whole, because everything we talk about can benefit every single person. There isn’t a thing we talk about that couldn’t help Someone feel better today, maybe today, or to take a look at how they look at their life and what they want to do and how they want to treat their neighbor or whatever, how they want to approach their job, how they want to approach their health, how much joy do they have, how do you get through those difficult times and how do you think outside of the box, and that’s something that we all do, and so our messages just really fit together and belong together, so that we’re just so happy to be here as a group and to be able to share all this information.

Speaker 2: 3:27

Super, and that’s sort of what drew me to you guys was the message of joy and the idea of endless joy. I mean, sometimes we think, oh, we’re going to have joy when we go on this vacation, or I can’t wait to meet up with my friend for dinner. It’s going to be such a great time and we put these expectations on things and we might have an agenda, so to say. And so that’s my message is to be curious and live in everyday moments as much as you can. But does anyone want to chime in as to how they’ve experienced endless joy and what that means to them?

Sean 4:02

I would definitely say that we all have a very unique take on how specifically we synthesize joy, but we all are unified in sharing our synthesis, our ideas to bring that joy into the future. Of course, I think I have the most obtuse subject in relationship to joy because I’m from a technology background and I want to help bring hope and opportunity that the internet has always represented back into the future. I want to perpetuate these ideas of curiosity and discovery. So that might have a limited appeal or bandwidth for certain qualifications for how to experience joy. But Amy’s story in particular is incredibly motivational and affecting. So I think you have your expert right there, amy.

Debi: 5:06

Well, that’s the whole point. Thank you, sean. You know that’s the whole point, though I’m not the expert, we’re all the experts. We are all the experts, and you know the point is joy. In this very moment, julie, something resonated with you about us. We’re here because everything about us resonated with each other. We’re kindred spirits. Joy is about connection, joy is about communicating, and joy is fundamentally we all agree on this First is the mindset that our lives matter. And once we have the mindset that our lives matter and that joy is within us, we’re not waiting for externals, because we’ve all been through so much, especially through the pandemic. It’s not external. We can create the joy within ourselves. And I’m thinking more and more as this evolves. This whole platform, thanks to you and the people who are listening to us right now, we’re embodying echo, we are empowering, we are conversing, we are creating hope. We’ve in fact created hope for one another. We’re a tremendous support group for each other and we’re creating opportunity. We’re doing it right now. It’s so simple and that’s joyful. I come from a background of being raised with an older sibling who had Down syndrome and my sister Joyce. He taught me the most about creating joy, and you know when you come from a survivor mentality of how blessed you are just in the daily, things like oh, I can drive a car, I can get married, I can do this, I could go to school. She was kicked out of kindergarten because there were no programs for her. So everything is a source of joy, but it comes within us and I beg to differ with you, sean. I’m not the expert, but I’m learning with us and we’re all the expert. Look at the smiles. These people are pure joy. They generate joy wherever they go.

Julie: 7:12

Yes, that is so, it is so true that it’s within you. And if you spend five minutes with a Down syndrome person I haven’t met one, and I hate to profile a whole population of people, but they’re always. Every person I’ve met who has a diagnosis just wants a hug. They just want to be seen and they’re just so full of pure joy and anything that comes at them. They’re seeing the good in it and it’s magical. I mean, it’s just absolutely. And I know that Lisa had something to add to that. So I’m excited to hear you, Lisa, thank you.

Exploring Unintended and Unexpected Joy

Lisa: 7:47

I do have something to add to it. I would say that I like to talk about unintended joy and ask a person when was the last time that you felt joy? Unintended, because a lot of times people are really big on oh, I’ve got to find joy, and how do I go cultivate joy? And there’s a whole movement to do that. When? If we just look back to our childhood, that’s when most of us will say we felt unintended joy and that’s when we were playing and being carefree and being kids. So if we can just channel that into the future, we don’t need to keep cultivating things. It will just happen. So that’s what I wanted to add to that.

Julie: 8:26

Yeah, Debi, you have something to add.

Debi: 8:31

Well, I like to talk about the unexpected joy, which is something that you know I. One of the things I say is that sometimes the answers lie and what we don’t want and what was unwanted, but those are what help us develop and grow and that’s how we find joy. Being told that you have probably only five years to live and just to accept this is your life. That’s where I was and I could have there. I had to make a choice at that moment, and everything in life is about a choice. We’re making choices every single second, where we’re choosing to be here, to share this. That’s a choice. So I could either sit down and just say, okay, they’ve given me no will to live, they say there’s no hope, just do this, or I can do something different, and I chose to do something different and develop joy. I’m seven, almost seven years in now with that diagnosis and I’m living a better life than I’ve ever lived, and over three decades, and being able to sit here and share this is amazing and it brings me such joy and I hope that it can bring other people joy, because it is the unexpected is when it really can make you rise.

Julie: 9:41

I just want to hold space for your journey, Debi, that is, uh, such, it’s a heart-touching and inspirational thing and to me you got that diagnosis and you said you’re just gonna make the most of every day. I’m, or did you like research different ways to be? Like? How did you take your vibration and make it one of hope versus trepidation?

Debi: 10:07

Well, I Say like this I was sitting on the curb with no one to help me and I knew there was one person that I can count on. That’s always been there for me and it’s me. So why don’t I turn inward and figure out what I can do? And taking my medical background and being willing to explore what, outside of the box, on any medical treatment that could be possible, and I encountered and engaged with a system that we’re all born with. It’s called the endocannabinoid system and it works and functions as your main regulator of all of your body, and this is something no one knows about. So I’ve taken the last Six and a half years just studying this to be able to make the improvements in my health that I have and Doing things that no doctors ever thought possible. But it’s because I’m connecting with my system. That lives inside of me. It lives inside of you. You can do it. There is hope.

Julie: 11:04

I say make the impossible possible and I hear that, I hear that in you that you are going to be a victim. You’re going to own your situation it wasn’t happening to you as happening for you or through you and that that gives you a chance to be curious. Oh, exactly, to explore and and trust.

Debi: 11:25

Well, yeah, if I just had taken the doctor’s advice and gone down through all the training I’ve had and said, okay, this is the only system and that’s where we get into trouble. And we have to learn to advocate and be in charge of our health from very young age. This is something I think that should be taught from the time you’re born about how to be in charge of your health, because no one lives your health but you. So why don’t we start teaching that? We teach you to tie your shoes, to read a book, to brush your teeth. When do we start teaching you how to be your own? Amen?

Julie: 11:56

sister. Well, I would love to have resources in the in the show notes we can go to find out more about Canna. Would you call it can up? Can up Ballet, I’m sorry. So I hope that we can connect with that, because it seems like that’s a whole. That’s a whole podcast on its own, and I do want to respect your journey and actually get that message out, because how many people Don’t realize there’s other options? You know they think it’s woo woo or you go to the hospital Like they don’t know there might be something in between or different options. So it’s important, yeah.

Debi: 12:38

Well, and that’s what’s so beautiful about everybody’s message here, it’s not just mine. We’ve all had some similar journey, but we’ve come through it a different way, so there’s not always just one way To go about creating all this, but when you have all of these is one complete package and you’re taking them into consideration, oh my gosh. But you have choices. So we’re not just sitting here saying you can only take this choice. You have five choices sitting here of how you can start changing and making a difference in your life, and each one of them Actually care about you, who you are, and that you are important, any matter.

Speaker 2: 13:13

That was a huge, a huge part of the whole thing we went through is, you know, that individual like you should make a choice Individually, based on what resonates with you. It seemed like anybody who was talking about individual health they sort of got a pushback, you know, with that, with the narrative that was being placed on our society. So it took a lot of champions of hope and courage and self-regard to hold space for that Individual choice. You know, because there was a lot I mean I could go into a lot of details about things that happened in my household that you know I Was getting phone calls from the government to do to take a certain action. I was like why are you involved with my medical choices? Like it’s not your business. I know what I need. I, my doctor, knows what I need. I don’t need the government cold calling me, pushing something. And that was a red flag for me. I was like, wait a minute, we’re all individuals, we don’t have to prescribe to one thing. And that was is illuminating to me that we need to own our choices, we need to own our health care and that just be. I Don’t want to say compliant or just we can’t be medical zombies. We can’t just follow doctors without asking questions, because they don’t. You’re right, they don’t know everything. We can only tell them our experience. And, Mikaela, you have. You have Triumped in difficult situations and and losing your, your dear one, and Persevering and I would love for you to share. And our episode that we recorded hasn’t even published yet, so this one will be behind that. I’m really happy to hear from you again. I.

Michaela1: 15:00

Yeah, I’m glad to be here again and with my other projects that we do together collectively, collaboratively speaking, if I said that word right. I think for me we’ve touched on two things throughout all of our messages. Like we said, they’re very much aligned. I feel like life oftentimes tries to say you have these two options or the specific that you have to follow. Often times there’s always another door or another avenue or another option, door numbers three. And then also, I feel like, yes, there are anticipated joy, there’s an intended joy, there’s unexpected joy. But then I think there’s also an element that we’ve touched on so far today about choices. Life is about choices. So I think, especially in the times of life and in seasons in life when things are really challenging and it seems like you’re surrounded by not positive or not good things or just trials and tribulations, that it comes down to a choice, that you kind of have to find it for yourself and even though it may be really hard and not easy, but there’s always something to see, the good and something. So it comes down to, like Amy said and some of everyone else on this team feels like, I believe, a mindset or a choice of where are you going to find it for yourself, instead of just focusing on what seems to be in front of you.

Julie Hilsen: 16:23

So wise, that’s so wise, and what I hear everyone saying is just be open to joy. Have the intention to experience joy, whether it’s intended or unintended, accidental. Just the idea that you’re available, that you’re a divine being who you deserved, is your birthright to be joyful. If you’re not joyful, you got to start looking at. What choices are you making? What are you letting in that’s blocking or confusing or confounding joy? Because it’s there. I mean, birds can come and sing and they can fly by you and you can be like that is so cool, you know, like just being aware of the breeze can bring joy. If you just let the smell, the flowers be in the breeze, like there’s so many ways you can just stop and just connect with it. But I think we’re all. I think there’s a condition of overwhelm or overstimulation, that maybe you need to be bored first to feel joy. You need to put everything down and just let things settle. Lisa, do you have any insight? I mean, everybody’s been contributing and Mikaela really synthesized all the other parts of joy. But what are you thinking?

Lisa: 17:38

Besides what I was talking about earlier with the unintended joy, I would say I agree with what you were just saying. Like we just have to maintain our awareness of it, because I think a lot of people kind of tune out and think and it’s everywhere we look, joy is everywhere. I mean, it’s you get up and you’re alive in the morning. That’s joy. So I think it’s it’s like just maintaining that awareness is what I would say about it and then making sure that you’re recognizing it, because some people I think are I don’t want to use the word turned off, but they’re not as as aware as some other people that it exists. Like if you talk to somebody that is considered to be a glass half full person and then you go talk to somebody that is considered to be a glass half empty, they have a totally different perspective on the same topic. So I always find that interesting and I can use my family as an example, because I can talk to my mom and I can talk to my grandma and their perspectives are very different and it’s actually kind of becomes comical. So they can look at like bananas. The bananas were on sale at the store for 49 cents but, but they, but then my mom paid regular price and she was upset about it, but they, but she still got bananas at a relatively good price. It just depends on how you frame it. So framing joy is what I’m trying to say.

Julie Hilsen: 18:56

I love that framing it and then you can lose fat lose, like the idea that you had money to buy bananas and you have bananas. So, yes, that’s a privilege.

Speaker 6: 19:06

You still have the at the end of the day, you still have a banana, julie, and that’s all that matters. And then you combine it with peanut butter and that is pure joy in my, my assessment of joy.

Julie Hilsen: 19:15

I just love that bananas came up, because my father-in-law who I told you he had a tragic accident his favorite thing was bananas, and he obviously, so I’m holding space for Neil right now and his love of bananas. I love that that came up.

Lisa: 19:30

Does he put peanut butter on them? Because if he didn’t like you, can tell him about being more joyful and adding peanut butter.

Speaker 2: 19:35

Oh yeah. Well, he’s in heaven now, so he’s having all the bananas. There we go.

Lisa: 19:41

He’s probably putting peanut butter on everything else on it. Every day is a different joy.

Spreading Joy and Finding Gratitude

Julie Hilsen: 19:45

He liked, um, he loved to put saccharin on stuff. I’m like that’s cancer causing. You can’t put saccharin on everything. You didn’t have to worry about cancer, oh my goodness. But Amy, yes, Thank you.

Debi: 19:58

I want to segue from what Lisa said. The mindset, the awareness is so important, but it’s our language, it’s, it’s the recognizing in our words about celebrating and honoring each other. Neil was just honored in a beautiful synchronicity about bananas, and that is so precious and that’s part of the magic of us coming together and you were calling in your beautiful um meditation at the beginning. So I come from an English teacher background English and journalism and finding their voice was what my goal was for my students. So when we find our voice, how many of you just remember something somebody said to you that was positive and lifted you up and you you’ve never forgotten it. Once my cousin’s fiance said oh, you have pretty eyes, and I was a teenage and I thought I was ugly. And then I looked in the mirror and I said you know, those eyes aren’t too bad and it’s something so insignificant maybe, but those words, the words of my high school English teacher, which she put in my yearbook, and then I become a teacher years later it’s our words, it’s our celebration, and not just at a funeral, not just at a eulogy. It’s telling people constantly. And that’s what my project involves your life matters, a journal of celebration and gratitude that we’re constantly acknowledging people and writing them and putting it in words and it’s it’s going to stop bullying, it’s going to build self confidence, it’s going to create self awareness and it’s going to help us find who we are, because why did we gravitate to these people? Why do we celebrate them? So it’s all these things combined. And Mikhail is a multi published author, and Lisa gets on the stage with her comedy and her, her talks with humor and putting games and play into what she does. And Debbie encourages people through a newsletter, and Sean is creating awarenesses with so many things that the new frontier, the new horizon and all of this is joy. But it’s all language and it’s all telling each other. That’s good stuff. Get it out there and that’s why you’re the instrument you said the vehicle. It’s communicating. That causes the connection and it’s telling people you’re on the right track. I like that. You know I’m going to follow you. This is good, but it’s got to be written down, it’s got to be shared immediately, because life is too short. You got to do it now.

Sean: 22:42

You know if I could piggyback on that, on that thought, amy, the thing I’ve noticed, you know I coming from a sort of masculine position here, I’m always I got the inner voice that says what am I going to do about it? I want joy, I want joy in my life and sometimes you just don’t know. You don’t know what that means or what that exactly entails, or your or your scope is is limited due to the context that you’re in. There’s no way to be seen, there’s no one around or whatever the case may be. So I’m I’m always interested in the cortisol effect, the fear that we put ourselves through as a way to deny the joy that we can find a way to contextually realize. So you know, that’s, that’s the sort of hope I find in communicating joy is helping people understand that their scope is limited, perhaps contextually, or their or their efforts or their thoughts or their ideas are not being discovered, which is a quintessential aspect of being seen and experiencing joy in one capacity. But we can improve those things and spread the good behavior, the good idea about the, the eventual recognition of joy, despite the limitation, as I have in my life.

Julie Hilsen: 24:14

I like that, so it might start with gratitude, gratitude that you’re, you’re alive and you have breath in your lungs. You know, like start from there.

Debi: 24:25

That’s all that you need.

Speaker 2: 24:26

Yeah, Debbie Okay.

Debi: 24:29

When this kind of goes with something about you know we tend to or in general in society, we’ve been pushed so hard to push, push, push, get to the next moment, get to the next day, get to the next week, get to the next year. We’re so far out talking and thinking about things that aren’t right now, and I find, and I have learned by living in this moment, taking in everything that is being shared here, listening, being fully engaged in whatever I’m doing, if it’s just throwing my legs off the side of the bed in the morning and breathing for the first time and taking that breath in and just saying you know what? I’m here, I love this moment, I’m thankful for it and I will not waste it. And I think that’s where we have all got lost as a society worldwide is we don’t take and value those special moments, because every breath is important, everything you can hear is important, everything you can see is important, because some people do not have that ability. So, you know, we just take for granted the things that we just naturally come with and are said that you know you can do these things, but until you are limited by them, you don’t understand how powerful they are and what a real gift they are to you from the moment that you’re born.

Michaela: 25:55

I would like to echo and, like Sean said, piggyback on what Debbie just said, if that’s okay. I think that was one of the things no one has denied. Right, the pandemic was bad. There was a lot of bad that came in the pandemic horrible, and there’s a reason why, and no one denies that worldwide affected everybody. But there’s a reason why I think a lot of times we hear in society the expression blesses in disguise, and I think that’s one of the maybe the blessings that was disguised by the pandemic is we all kind of were forced to stop, I mean screeching all of a sudden, halt, stop, there was no, nothing, you couldn’t do anything, so there was only but to just be and figure out okay, what now? But while we were all kind of having to pin it and figure out what now, we had some time on our hands, maybe for the first time ever, to go. Oh, maybe I can be aware of some things, maybe I can notice some things that and the hustle and bustle and overloaded and overwhelmed pushing all the time, like Debbie said, plates that, oh, this is kind of cool, like we didn’t want it for this reasoning, obviously I’m not saying that but it gave us an opportunity that maybe all of us, as humanity in it together, would have never had to figure out. I’m getting some time, I’m getting to slow down and I’m getting to appreciate things. If I choose, in that horrible moment, to see those opportunities that were given although be it disguised, but all the bad that was going on. It gave maybe a time, a small window of reflection and consideration and considering new possibilities that came out of a really horrible time but maybe allowed for some people to find better ways of doing things that they thought. You know what I might want to try this, because now I’m seeing it as possible that I never did before, and so it made some improvements, maybe for some people Beautifully said and, like you said, it gave us a chance to realize we have choice.

Julie Hilsen: 27:50

We can choose to be prisoners in our house or we can choose to enjoy our homes and maybe take up hobbies. And I wrote a book. Like lots of stuff happened. I got to meet people from around the world that would never. Connected internationally with different meditation groups, I became a part of all around the world, so I did see the blessing in disguise. I definitely it’s interesting, but I know a lot of people had a hard time, so I hold space for it all. But you know this you can just continue to make choices for a higher outcome, right? So I love that. Thank you.

Amy: 28:30

Yeah, lisa, when Debbie was talking, I had another thought that popped in. And it is kind of that space in between, like when you’re listening to somebody talk a lot of us. That whole listening component a lot of people don’t do well, and if we focused on trying to improve our listening skills, we would let a lot more joy into our lives, because that’s when we can truly hear what the person is saying. If, instead of you thinking like somebody was mentioning, oh, you’re thinking about what’s going to happen next, we’re constantly thinking about what’s going to happen next. If we’re thinking about what they’re saying, listening and not thinking, oh, I’m going to tell them. Oh, that reminds me I got to tell them about my, my beach trip too and we can compare notes, like, instead of you thinking ahead of what you’re going to say, truly listen to what they’re saying. It’s not about what you’re going to say next and then pause. And then the second component to what I was thinking is the power of the pause, because a lot of times we speak so fast that we’re missing important things that people are saying. And if we just slow down, we can also find joy in the pause, and that’s kind of what McKellow was saying when we stopped, like we’re pausing, we’re stopping, so if we do that regularly, then that can allow more joy in our lives. So that’s the additional thought I have.

Power of Silence, Positivity, Joy

Julie Hilsen: 29:45

The power in silence is something I explore a lot. I got my master’s in speech pathology, so I studied all the ways you can communicate, but we never talked about the power of a pause in a look, there you go. It’s gorgeous, it’s gorgeous.

Debi: 30:04

I also think it’s important when we give ourselves recognition for what we accomplish because I think a lot of us go to bed at night and talk about all the things we didn’t accomplish. I’ve erased that from my book, so I end every day with what I did accomplish and how proud I am of what I’ve done today, because if I just sit here and talk to you guys or I go out in the backyard and listen to the birds sing, I accomplish that today, and being able to enjoy that moment is what makes me so proud of that and learning to do that and that there is a place for everything to fit into your life and you have to make it happen or you have to make that choice. Again, the word choice continues to come up. We’re all making choices of how we want to live our life, and no one lives your life but you. So if you’re living it for someone else or based on somebody else’s story, you’re not living your life. Figure out what’s your life and live that life, because you’ll be finding all kinds of joy once you can do that.

Julie Hilsen: 31:14

That’s such great advice.

Lisa: 31:15

Having that checklist that Debbie has. At the end of the day, celebrating, acknowledging what she’s grateful for doing, is not only about celebration and gratitude but it’s also about modeling something that we could say to ourselves. On that list, what did I do or say today to at least one person? What little sound bite did I plant with somebody that’s going to be a source of joy and a source of confidence and a source of happiness, building up that person? Because we model our behavior. And when somebody hears the power of our words and maybe someone’s contemplating suicide and our words come in a moment this has happened in life many times when somebody is saved by the power of that phone call or somebody is being bullied and we don’t know it, and it’s often the most successful, powerful people, sometimes the star athlete in high school, and nobody suspects that that person is suicidal. Or somebody’s being bullied and we don’t know it. When we counteract that with words of joy and positivity, we have no idea even the impact, the effect that we’re having. It’s so far reaching that if we knew what effect it had, we’d be doing it more often. I think, modeling that that’s why I use the word endless to create endless joy. It’s exponential and it’s just something that is a legacy that we create by. Hopefully, some of the things we’ve said that are out in the universe right now are going to ring in somebody’s mind. I’ve done a podcast once about the pause, the power of the silence, about hope and opportunity, about overcoming so many challenges that we’ve had, and I’m hoping that that’s where that checklist every night is going to be empowering.

Speaker 2: 33:26

I do believe that the higher vibration always wins If you can enter a room and be that person that acknowledges, instead of wanting to be seen. You see other people and just, even if they’re not ready for you to say something, your presence with an open heart is definitely felt and you can raise the frequency of any situation and, like you said, it’s a ripple effect. It affects the next person they encounter and even if you acknowledge that someone’s having a crappy day, say, man, that sucks, you’re having a crappy day. You made space for them. You allowed them to have a crappy day, it’s okay, it gets better. Everybody has crappy days and everybody has down days, but just acknowledging that’s okay. You don’t have to be this productive hamster wheel your whole life. You’re enough because you’re here. There’s nothing to prove You’re a great person, you made bad choices, but this judgment or polarization, that’s not going to get us where you want to go. It’s the acceptance and, like you said, the willingness to just be with somebody. Hold space for them. It’s very, very powerful. When you’re around someone who does that, like you guys are in this space. It’s magical. I just hope we can inspire someone to just go out and play with it. Play with the magic of positivity, of just coming in a situation with love. Even when you buy your groceries, ask the person how they’re doing. Talk about how beautiful the bananas are. Today they’re so ripe or maybe you got them on sale because they’re half brown, but you’re going to make this banana bread and it’s going to be awesome. You can just bring in a dimension to your life that just feeds. It’s like a continual fed. Get the momentum going. When you present yourself in that way and people associate joy with you, they give you joy before you even say it. I encourage people to just play with it. See what happens. What do you have to lose?

Sean: 35:34

Speaking of new dimensions. I can’t wait to see what AI is going to contribute to this conversation. Imagine in the future, not too long from now, when the data points necessary for an AI to replicate the joy that just. We’re talking about simple things. We’re talking about a breath in the morning, a memory and a banana. These things are powerful and simple and they’re replicatable, and we exhaust ourselves with explanations for why we don’t have these things. But an AI could be that Jiminy Cricket on our shoulder, helping us recreate joy on the exponential basis that Amy’s referring to, squared Amy’s exponent to an exponent.

Julie Hilsen: 36:23

I’m excited about that too, Sean. I think it’s a horizon that’s going to. I believe it’s our consciousness, the mass consciousness, because we’re putting something on the internet and it’s collecting everything and we can get a feel for what’s going on in the collective consciousness. I don’t know. That’s sort of how. I’m not scared about AI. I know there’s things to consider and hopefully you know that and you can help us with that. I’m excited for what it can do to help bring us together Absolutely.

Sean: 36:54

I completely agree. I’m not particularly concerned. The weak link is the human being, unfortunately, who needs to put space between what you said. There’s error sometimes in those responses. You have to still be aware of what you’re taking advice from and I think regulation will help make that a very trustworthy space. I’m not concerned about AI. I just look forward to its many benefits.

Debi: 37:24

I wish it would come in and sometimes just say stop a minute, take a deep breath, smell the roses, the bananas, whatever I mean if you’re talking about bananas, I can sit here and actually start smelling bananas because you guys are talking about them. So it’s just taking that time and really allowing yourself to enjoy some moments, because I think we’ve all walked past moments that we can’t get back and we wish we had taken the time, and I think that AI is if we had a little button on our chest or something that could just say, hey, did you catch that? Because I think we’d be more connected if we were doing that.

Julie Hilsen: 38:03

Well, that’s funny. That brings me back when Sean said something earlier and I was like, wouldn’t it be cool if we had a cortisol monitor? It could say, hey, you’re stressed out, your cortisol level is really high. What are you doing? Let’s chill out a minute, get grounded.

Sean: 38:22

You wouldn’t even need a monitor. You could essentially use tests and activities to guesstimate where your cortisol would be. I mean, you would expect it to be high at an amusement park, for example, so an action could dictate the cortisol response rates. And yes, absolutely, you could have AI, insert a happy path for you there to experience things that provide you balance so that you can have the extreme of the adrenaline and recover without the loss of plasticity over time to your neural cortex.

Speaker 6: 39:05

I’m over here laughing because it would be even cooler if AI could prescribe one banana as a cure to make you more joyful.

Julie Hilsen 39:17

There you go. I remember back in. This is a banana story. It’s just coming to me to say it, but in the 90s we didn’t have cell phones, right. I was driving and there was a guy in the car next to me and he had one of those fancy suitcase phones and he was on it and I pulled up next to him and I had a banana in my phone. I pulled up and I was like, hey, I put my banana up to my head like I was on the phone. Oh, that’s great Bananas can bring so much joy. I almost caused an accident because he was laughing so hard at me. I got all the connection I need here. Got my banana.

Debi: 40:04

Maybe we should install a banana in everybody’s car today and maybe we would have more attention to what we need to pay attention to. Less accidents no texting on your banana.

Sean: 40:20

Literally the last thing I ate before we got on this podcast.

Amy: 40:23

Well, I’m going to go get a banana after the podcast. So there you go, Sean.

Julie Hilsen: 40:31

I think we found the title for our podcast this episode is called.

Amy 40:35

Bananas.

Lisa: 40:37

Go bananas with Echo.

Debi: 40:42

And I have one here in my shake.

The Power of Empathy

Julie Hilsen: 40:47

I love it. I love it. Well, thank you for all the inspiration.

Speaker 3: 40:52

I just wanted to say that at the root of everything that we stand for, that we aspire to, that we hope to spread its empathy is at the root of all of it. Empathy and when we have those conversations and checklists at night, it’s a conversation in our head first, and our heart most importantly, and then we could go out and be receptive to all the wonderful bullies in the world. But empathy is the source of joy and we are empathetic people and because we all have taken our experiences and turned it into joy, we can model that for others and that’s why we can have so much fun as we have the past hour.

Julie Hilsen: 41:40

And just cut yourself some slack. You don’t have to be perfect. You can show up as your messy self and it’s okay. You don’t have to pretend to be somebody or not, because you’re perfect just the way you are. I just keep telling people you’re perfect, it’s all good. It’s all good, thank you, and I can’t wait to share this with the audience.

Sean: 42:04

Beautiful.