So my yesterday, christian race was vaulted into the public, conscious as in twenty seventeen when he and his partner descent to share their non traditional pregnancy story on a podcast they figured. Maybe a few hundred people would lessen, but within hours tryst in who had transition to be a man years earlier became known across the internet as quote pregnant man, mainstream media picked up the story and spun it in a way that lead to not just global awareness, but also mass scale. misunderstanding backlash and just incredibly hateful comments behind this moment, though, a year's, long, powerful and profit story of awakening and acceptance agency advocacy and love that, to this day, continues to be at the core of

in and his family lives and it fuels the incredible work that he has done both now and he continues to do as the director of family formation family equality council, which is a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting algae bt, q plus families and those who wish to foreign them? That bigger, story is where we're headed today excited to share this conversation with you. I'm jonathan field, and this is good life project. the So the ten percent happier podcast has one guiding philosophy. Happiness is a skill that you can learn, so why not embrace it and it's hosted by dan Harris a journalist who has

a panic attack on national television and then send out on this journey of transformation and he's now on a quest to help. Others also achieve peace and happiness, and every week Dan talked you top scientists, meditation teachers. Even the odd celebrity in wide ranging conversations that explore topics like productivity, anxiety and lightness, psychedelic and relationships. The interviews cover everyone from bernay brown to cerebral ass to SAM Harrison more. I love learning from his questions and experiences and incredible guess think of listening to ten percent happier as a work out for your mind, fine ten percent happier where every listen to pot casts library is supported by the economists who the world seems to be moving faster than ever climate economics, politics, a and culture after you look, events are unfolding at a rapid pace and it's hard to stay on top of it, which is why I love that now, for the first time, you can get a one month, free trial of the economist, so you won't miss a thing. I have literally

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How does a I even work where it is creativity come from? What's this where to living longer, ted radio, our explores the biggest questions with some of the world's greatest thinkers they will, prize challenge and even change. You listen to me. I had radio, our whatever you get your past. There was a very strange child I mean you know mom dad super supportive. Both of my parents grew up extremely poor. So my dad is the son of a coal miner, thirteen brothers and sisters from northern liao I'll get, which is appellation, canadian appellation, basically and then my mom is the daughter of of a single mom, who was a nurse amongst dad died, which was very young, would send out here. As you take of newfoundland to the desert in California, and he decided as a kid

Looking around you know, in a very very by product backwater, place, healthcare was a huge concern. they just and have it, and with that many brothers and sisters, you can imagine money was a huge issue. Healthcare was a huge issue in my dad actually had very bad eyesight, and no one really knew until he was a little bit older and an aunt did like the whatever the nineteen fifties. Version of crowd funding. Is she like always even nineteen forties, gosh we're She like ass, all the relatives to pitch and to get my dad glasses and once he got class as they realize he was extraordinarily bright and looked since he could see, and he did some exercise in like fifth grade. asked: what did you want to be when you grow up and he wanted to be doctor and so he just decided at each ten. He wanted to be a doctor any put himself through medical school located, Any met my mom and undergrad in Montreal he got into medical school. I guess one day he was like well janet, I'm going to

in school. We show the break up or get married, which we do and mom get married, and so that the romantic way that I take a very practical livestock. I think my mother might have even had to break up with her her other boy. Time. You know because I think in in the fifty in sick a little bit like you know, you just sort of casually saw a couple of people, and you know it wasn't a wasn't quite as official as it can be today, but yeah. So that's that's how they met and the in medical school and then went to vancouver. They had me and decided they were sick of the rain and moved to California, not knowing that they were moving to a very conservative in a very sort of ah military idea sort of area yet was, was that their their bent their belief system they're, not at all. No, no! No, no! No. I mean they're, very canadian, so, like it's they're, not like they're, not ridiculous, they're, not hippies. You know, they're, not leftists they're, just very pragmatic

progressive like in canada. It's like you to you. Just do your thing. You don't judge other people, you don't stop them from doing that. And so there very accepting and that's a pragmatic way, although they fighting taken in some extreme left turns raising me and my sister's, so sisters humming, to one younger one, older gotta yeah, so you go open it in this town in a radically different value system and your office, Interests are looked at me when you really young. You have a sense of of gender, at all hours. Is it even in he think about? I mean I don't remember, feeling like there was something going on with my gender as a kid, and I know that that's like it's like an inconvenient experience, because we ve sort of ta mainstream americans that what is true about transgender p, well as that were born in the wrong body. We knew it from the second. We barber sentient and our whole lives since there has been a fight to get

her body's right and then we're cured and we can just keep moving on, and I think that that narrative is true, for some trans people sure served us pretty well so far, but I think now you know we're at a place where is a little bit more room for different stories in my story is different, like I just whenever a member thinking about gender as a kid, and because I had these in a pretty open, Parents I was never force in any particular box, so there was so much to rebel against. Maybe if my mom and put me in the? U, no kids beauty pageant circuit at age I have yeah, maybe I would have had an early memory of being like. Oh, this is terrible. I don't wanna wear a tiara, but I I don't. you know I had you know it skin these and I was barefoot and climb trees and see you don't chase due notice, my sister, around and is normal childhood things. I guess I mean it's interesting than that in the context of on the one your parents like Kennedy, what and but then also living

in a town which is certainly a very socially conservative, and you didn't feel- anything surly any any meat expressing the identities or anything, I realized it just across the board. Even that town I mean There were so many other ways in which I was different from my classmates. You know I was an obsessive reader. I mean my mom still jokes, I would have a book in every room of the house, I have like the bathroom book. The kitchen book mean we delete my mom. I remember had to one day say: ok, I'm putting my foot down, you cannot be right well we're having family dinner like put put the book down talk to us and then go back to your stories, and so that was very strange in my school like it was very weird that I read in school, then I was super into you. like word, games and puzzles, and then I was really in the theater and plays, and in plays and learning musicals and adjusted? That was just like so fucking, weird and me ways that it was like kind of my

there was the least of the worries I was just have. You know it was just a very different type of child than all the other children around me, and so you know that really drove me to do from a very young age. Doing theater I mean when I was nine. Oh, I knew that I loved musicals God bless. My mother. She didn't know anything about music, but watching milos was really start to like them age. Five, six, seven, you know I saw Annie the movie or something and from the eighties. They just loved it, and so she would just go out of her way to you know drivers. on to allay and or the panty just theater and see cats. The musical see lay miss, see miss, I guess she's, just like worked so hard. She didn't have apparent really our mother worked so hard in and she I deal isis her mother, the single mom, who is the nurse who do you know where the only woman in their town who drove a car and would drive to work before the kids were up and

come home after they were already in bed and then stay up late, doing the laundry cooking, the food, you know what checking their homework only to get up and go to work. The next day says she just thought. You know she wanted to do the things that you know that her new that her mother that she could have done and just go above and beyond, to give us a childhood and to support all of our dreams in the ways that she distant? Really gatt knock has reminded one or two, but just cause you couldn't practically swing it yeah, so I think theater really became a place where you start to find a sense of acceptance and belonging just because that was passion of yours. It's interesting to hear that I'm thinking better my high school experience and yet, with their always, the group shi Ite there, they then there are no less than that, based largely on interest or or activities and stuff, like that. I didn't see that maybe that may be so the theater was a refuge for kids. You felt like didn't fit into sir, like all other parts of the general community. I discuss them that wasn't me group I don't really know, but maybe

Has it been your experience because they know you then went on like stayed real involvement in theory me that that is, can replace serves not just as a sense of belonging, but also a refuge. To a certain extent. I mean no question I think any end, im miss fit kid who had the least bit o creative talent, and even if they didn't they did the lights. You know it really did become the refuge, and I think there is something really powerful about We know theater really means embodying different stories in which means your open, a different stories, and I think that does sort of set set the set the stage and so to speak for it being a community of of kids who just answer a fit in other, in other places yeah. It was really was really important to me, both in school but especially outside of school, doing community theater and then going on to do professional theatre. It was the place where I was seen and accepted. I also got to play all these boy parts and I played the

well dodger. You know I got to do and what, as a kid in a small town, it's like there's already a shortage of male actors, and so I just once I cut my hair. I just got to do all those parts which was another place where I could explore masculinity ends and have it be super safe and nick, except that I found an old review me as artful dog at age, leg, fourteen or fifteen, and I think they even said, like those do not know this actor is not mail, you know, will be you will. Never. I guess all those Do not know this actors not may all will never be the wiser or something, and so they basically caught complimented me on my instability at fourteen, which again is like major foreshadowing but sir That's amazing- and I know that you share that that am, I guess. Certainly around the time of of puberty, for you was was a time where you started to actually ok. So let me grapple with the fact that an I'm now we do,

and these otherwise, but also a kiss- and maybe this is where I structures or like explore: gender yeah, yeah and as super safe way. It was affirmed, you know, it's me doing a good job at acting, and I had all these adults around that, like you, know, treated me with respect and thought that I was like interesting and funny and smart and- and that was really really helpful for me- to have this question I shall relationships to yeah. So how does? How does your realising it there's something beyond me playing the roles and exploring this in the context of theatrical performance. Tapping into another person's identity, another person's role and were started touchdown. That that may be about my own identity and not stepping into another roll butts tapping into my own, like the stepping into my own life as differently yeah. I know Somebody when you ask that question I thought of it has like you know going vacation throughout your life to a place and be like no actually want to move here and

When I actually have often thought about the sort of similarities between a trans identity and and that of an immigrant of of going from one place to another, in what you give up when you move somewhere with the different, totally different cultural and what you want to keep, but our sort of pressure to leave behind, and it was slow transition for me really realising what I want to move here. You know, in fact I you know this. Is this who I am, and so I think there are just fits and starts and putting a foot out of the closet and trying to tell people. You know I'm action, I am actually transgender- and this is like your two thousand two thousand wonder that does the dark ages and in trans community time was told in so many large and small ways that I could not possibly be a man could not possibly be transgender. You know I was too feminine. I was attracted a man. It was just like

where such a conflation of gender expression and gender identity and insects orientation all of those things, even within the trans community, even within the eligibility community And so you know I was just you know- I believe that may be, wrong, and so there's like it was a. It was a messy and slow process and I think all the way up until I started taking testosterone, wasn't exactly sure have always telling me that you know that you couldn't possibly being and have any role models to be the kind of man that I wanted to be in the country and for us, and I wanted to be ended- someone in a little older than me in a trance community said you know just try like a lot of us, aren't sure you know what we just we don't have a lot of models and you know just try and if it feels great keep going and if it doesn't stop and figure out a new path. once I started transitioning medically, I was like. Oh thank god like this fixes. So many and securities I had illicit, it was like it was coming on and

a day along that way, which is coming more and more home and be more and more myself and more and more authentic and being able to get rid of all the stuff and just be I myself in the world yeah, I mean idea of undertaking almost like a baby steps? and early this kind of see like you. So I think this is I want to feel. I think this is how I want to be in the world, but I do you don't really know until your actually physically start to make transition how you Ashley will feel and to get an idea jane, I thought about the aid that the notion of eating your way into it. Verse Just making idea and saying okay, I'm going in and I'm going to have the physical changes and a gonna have surgery verses contesting the one slowly bit by bit and just as a series of from almost say like how do I feel now? How do we shall now hear yeah everything as a spectrum. You know some people who are trans they absolutely no from very early age. They are very, very clear about that and they want to transition medically

and they know and that's fine, and then there are some. We're like we are definitely trance, unlike we just didn't happen, to know from birth, and we, and to have like other things going on like we know we weren't super masculine and we didn't like women. You know there were lots of other things that lead to other people to believe you know to, I guess, to lead us to doubt ourselves and so those little steps, we're really helpful, so azure as you're, making these decisions yourself and say: oh cat, this this is about them. to travel and I'm gonna go getting more more committed, what's up happening conversations with your parents, because this is this is gonna, be you got parents sounded the really cool and really progressive and very open are also living in a place which is too conservative and tom. a little bit about the conversation that unfolding between you during this window. I mean just like the rest of us, it's really messy. No steps forward steps back. Let me at this point,

I had moved out of the house. I was spent twenty twenty two. You know I'm I'm in private. Portland by then ass. You know so I just wanna visited visited with them some time, times and wasn't sure how much to share and how they respond, and sometimes I sort of drop a little hint and then get a really bad responds then I just sort of like not share for a little while, and I think there was just you know. You know, even though, just one day when I said you know it, it's mom it's time and I've I've, given you the space to come to these realizations on your own, but you know his my expectation moving forward. You know my name is trust in now, and I want you to refer to me your son and by you know, use male pronouns and- and I know it's going to be a a journey for you- I mean- that's, that's not true. I definitely was not that accepting an open impatient with her at the time I was in my own process. You now, as I think there may have been a couple blow. Ups, the two of us figured it out and and came back together and and now I really close but yeah what what

was her beyond. not understanding beyond having to learn and just a new way to relate to you. What were her concerns mom I mean, as very meagre parent also sake, what what was going through her head. About concerns, so many men, so many I mean number wine. Like I'm a please her. You know. I want people to like me think she was just really really worry that I had fallen in with some kind of crowd in portland, right that leg in was tricked me into thinking that I was trans, I was doing it to impress somebody or something like that. I know she was you know it's like. bad or a trend in. Oh, my god. What? If I change my body and then I want to go back there was that concern. The concern about like just minimizing my chin, it's a relationship. You know it's like you who is going to date, you you know who who will ever love you and did she express that to you? Yes many times, ass many many times that it was just narrowing the pool

to be so small that it's like you know, gay men who are also to be with someone whose body isn't like other a gay man who I'm also attracted to whose attracted to me as a person. I think she was just worry. It was winnowing. You know the once you play those filters down, it's like the results. After the address zero- and I you know, I think, every parent and talk to her about this recently in a first. You think you are your kids to be He knows wildly successful, and then you think you want your kids to be happy, but by the tender adults you want them to have lives that bring the meaning. And I think first, she was worried. I wasn't going to be successful, then she was right. I was going to be happy and I think she was right that wasn't gonna be able to find meaning in the seen in my life. You know it was just time it was just time in and her seeing me be happy and find meaning and when I went performing at school, and that was the first real place that had a full community of affirmation around me run been trans. Around my identity as a man, and I was just you know how,

than and loved and supported, and I think once she saw that we know for me, that was the real tat was the real turning. Yeah. She saw that we were fine, we refined everything else was just pronouns. so as I she realizes. Ok yeah, like he actually he's got people who love him will be around him. He's got like its yeah, I mean it The other thing that it then I wonder about, is whether partly conversation or listen to her I maybe the conversation you had was run safety, a huge part, and I mean the complicating factor, as my father is, physician and his action in okinawa technologists and he treated treasure. People in the seventies and canada frozen been born before there was any protocols I mean he was. just kind of making it up and that to my dad is like. If someone comes my dad and needs help like he will move,

Heaven and earth to just find a way to give them what they need and support them responsibly. As a physician- and you know, people think o thou must mean that they would have an way more supportive. That's not true, parents, when you come on, you say you're transgender, like what is that my parents knew what transgender was and you know being trends in the seventies and eighties. My mom, I'm my parents were interacting with these individuals like it. Extremely hard, and- and so I think you know that that embodied experience of supporting people who are an extremely and you know I know a lot of my my dad's patients here. They they died of aids. They were murdered, they killed themselves. They they had, they did not. There were not a lot of options available to them and I think when night came to my parents- and I was trans- they were if they concerned fur my safety for my health, for which is what is my trajectory? Where am I gonna end up and they didn't want that for their kid, and so they try to talk manner that many times and and we know, there's you you can't

someone without being trans. You can't believe them out of being trans against shame them out of being trans. You know you can you talk them into hating themselves. You can bully them into wishing that their lives were over and you know, and and and that's pretty much what ends up happening is. Is people end up? You know miserable and hating themselves and not expecting any better from the world, and I'm really lucky. will it taught myself out of that yeah? I know I think I she heard from you originally and tell me forget this on the day the at bay life lifespan of someone, who's transit, slowly, thirty, five years old is still valid fact. Yeah, I mean the data, harder than the huge nerd and, yes, I do to education. You know I tried really hard to to find the best evidence you know, and so the the data is imperfect, but, according to what we know currently does seem as though the average life expectancy is thirty five,

for transported in america and certainly lower for trans women and certainly lower for trans women of color selling me. When we look at the interplay between sexism and racism, you know we look at and there are lots of things that we do know factually to be true. You know, trans people are four times more likely to live on ten thousand dollars a year or less in amerika. You know me, look at him rates of incarceration homelessness. I mean those. things. There is very clear, unequivocal and data on that and its extremely difficult to to live your best life and to be able to. She's your goals and bring all of your gives to the world when your constantly facing you know these, that these barriers, not. Yet global private aviation leader is known for personalizing every detail of your travels, because not yet standard is not just meet their definition of perfection, it's to exceed yours discover more at net jets dot com.

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Oh, you know, having studied shakespeare for two years, and all these it was a pretty class com performing arts school. So I did like Dan vocal performance textual analysis, classic american playwrights lot to shakespeare, some sort of postmodern as well, but not too much modern. but I was really excited to do theatre for social change, You know swam like feeling just like on my game: get to allay, could ethic where I know people stay with friends acting during the day bar tending at night, and just like you know, a book, some gigs and their jobs, their just terrible. You know it's a good guess bought on a comedy central show what you just like things run like this is not contribute. the world being a better place in. In some cases it making the world a workplace and desperately trying to do

theatre on the side that I loved it was just really hard and then meanwhile and bargaining and gay bars, unlike in bars or just a worse places for people at their like them Most insecure other, most judgmental and petty. You know just like so much It comes out, and so you know I ended up having coffee with a friend of mine and said you know I I feel really bad, but I just really hate gay people right now. I was like you do. Something like Activism right? Can I like volunteer or something he's like yeah. I worked for the national, gay and lesbian task force, we're working on all these campaigns in l, a the common volunteer and I gee. I look. I just love tat, I loved it so much and it like doing organizing, instead of making art that you hope people will come and like draw conclusions from unmake inferences from and then go home the connection that they should do something different in organizing

Just stand in front of a group of people and you like, hey here's what's wrong and here's how we can fix it. Let's do it together. You know it's like, so much more direct and straightforward and clear, and I my own way to take the the acting skills of like being able to access, vulnerability and honesty and storytelling to build a reach, even a large, people in an emotionally compelling way and use that emerge that, with all the skills of gaining from doing organizing a kind of do a new model of organizing which you have then I stopped doing theater and I ended up getting hired the task force, then spent eight years travelling. The country supporting local djibouti communities who are facing really vicious attacks at the ballot box, when the time came for us movement we realise, like we just don't have enough people on our side. We just don't you know we ve been riding harvey milk wave of just coming out for so long and the the just showed us that if it wasn't it

have any more a goddess, we're a goddess, but then what's next and we found it even people who knew algae bt people would still shop at the ballot box and end vote to take away marriage and voter dino, not pretty people from discrimination, and we realized we needed to be having different conversations with the strict people in our lives and with that should people that we didn't know, and so then I became part of a team that really the movement invested in us learning. How to do that? How to change people's minds and get them to be pro. Marriage and programmes crimination and pro transcend again so nice, but a few yeah I mean I am fascinated by that too, because there is there. I mean you're literally going out into the world looking for people door to door who who not only disagree with what you believe but disagree with your very existence, yep and then, and then saying hey. Can I talk to you with the intention of completely changed her mind

not a minor yeah task and it's kind of fascinating I've heard Despite that there is, there is actually a fairly linear step by step says of having their conversation that is incredibly powerful. Guinean break it down a little for me, cause really curious totally. I mean there's like really interesting social sciences, us on this as well, because, like not all Is there a linear way that you can have the conversation but its act pretty linear of its action spiral than anything else, but there's a but there's a way that people move forward through, like total and two like rejection and defence tools or of color blindness. Can we just get along. I don't see you as being different. You know too, like ok, fine with a mere differ. And the ok too it really does mean oh celebration and acceptance again I think, just learning the science of that I mentioned already, I'm a nerd, so that is for a goal but yeah. You know the way that these conversations would go. Is you know you're? Really

rushing. Nor has no gb t person the way that the psychology of bias works. I can't actual reach, someone who is in the very beginning stages. So if I asked molly You know how you gonna vote on the gay marriage law. If these like yeah. You know I hate those gay people. I would never cool by. I can't reach that mean over received someone. Then they have a message that need to hear and they also have a messenger. They need to hear it from right. So those like soup, super super anti people, I'm never gonna reach them. I'm not gonna waste my time, but those people I don't know just similar where'd gay great though that's my people or local. Will you know it's not that I'm a big it or anything. I just think that, may it means something in its in it, and it means something it's for straight people great, that's my person, because that all shadow of openness. You know that's what I won the metaphor there, actually give us it's like your walking side

ass? I was someone through the woods you looking for the light. You know often there's no path, there's no clearing, but there's a light, where the where the sun is coming through an you know, that's the way to go, and so yet. always just enough. It's on me, Is there really anything you just ask them about themselves? You you're, open and curious. You want to know who they are. What do they care about? What do they value? And it's you know it's both a strategy You want to know what their values are, so you can frame your conversation in line with their values, but it's also it's also a self because sometimes I feel have experienced, arm or a wound around your identity or on a particular part of identity. The amid la you know that part of your brain is trained tat you only sees in black and white, and it's going to, if you let it you know it will it will lead you to see someone as an enemy because of its job and so by.

Asking someone about themselves. You also hack your own defence mechanism to get out of the amygdala and into the bigger the better breaking the rebel cortex so that you can connect with them as a person. So I dont see you as someone who is bad the big it you're like a human beings on a journey like me, and I want to know you, and I want you to learn about me and so then what figure out like what are they care about. You know if they say they care about tradition of they say they care about family. They can but love they care about community whatever it is it they care about, and there are three core american values all of us hold in varying degrees you know, I have my story that can be told through all those lenses. So whenever I hear them say you know if it is about community, talk about. How important it is that everyone in the community have access to the same rights and privileges that they do, including there. You know there are gay lesbian, ypres and then I'll say you know in your community. Do you have any? Do you have any neighbors? Is there anyone at your church? So when one of your work, you know if, if it's community, if it's Emily I talk about my family in over, in my view,

growing up. I was taught that when a kid needs a home, you show up for them and that's what algae bt people over the country wanna, do they want a short for these kids who need them, and it is really hard to have a safe home for a kid when the parents can get married if it is that their values, are that's where we want to live, live in that the cross open. The Van diagram I mean it sounds, as your your develop. The ability to have these conversations and going out into the world and and becoming really effective, changing other people's minds. Part of that process is necessarily holding yourself open to the possibility of having your mind your perception change as well hundred percent, and that that openness, I would imagine, is important to either side surely say ha. I never thought about it that way. Yeah I mean an its fascinating, I don't know if it's true today, but definitely ten years ago, when I was doing this work honestly lot of ST people, just never believe father bout it so he even it

ask them. Like soul, you said that you have a friend tom at work. You know who it is gay, so if Tom in his partner got married well, how do you think that might impact John Jago, your data, if not asking it in a of aggressive way, but truly like. Let's think about this together, you and me to them, had never actually thought about it. Sound so ridiculous for those of us who are more progressive, you know, but you have to you know you just have to let go of that judgment. Pardon just be with them on the journey and be open to being changed there. You know: that's it. That's a big part is free. You as the person that wants to change their mind. You have to have that openness and say: oh, you know thank you so much for sharing that story, and potentially also his pardon. What what what seems like is happening. There too said you're the one who's initiating this conversation was. I wonder if a lot of people don't initiate the conversation, because their terrified of getting it wrong?

saying the are three of entering the conversation, the wrong way of of quote making the problem worse, whether that certainly part of the self talk that eliminates that stops to people sitting dancing, oh We both of us are going to get it wrong in some way, shape or form and and we'll figure it out. Yeah yeah, and I mean it it's funny, because the work that I did became it's own nonprofit and it's own project, which is doing persuasion work. It was actually this american life episode about it. The data, shows? The longitudinal data now shows that, having a one. On one conversation with someone and having this, I have what's called long form persuasion, but having this kind of conversation is the single most effective way. You can change someone's mind, analogy, beauty issues, it's the most resource, intensive, it's hard to scale. And it doesnt work everything they tried it with. Abortion doesn't work on abortion, so there are some things: it doesn't work,

on and something that works great on an eligible issues is one of them. I am because last year we hit the ten since that no one, a campaign that was a research put, get out of the university who went back and found those voters. We talk to not only where their minds still changed tenure later compared to voters who did not get this treatment. This conversation, remembered who we were no care and they may not. Remember like oh, I talked to trust, it'd be like oh yeah. I talked to the skinny guy who had a lip ring because that's how I handle or bring my gun. Remember those conversations, because when do we do this work? twitter verse. Now, when does someone sit down and say? Look I I care about what you have to say. I care about your prospect and I'm opened a hearing. If, if something you they comes out messy if you say as- and I dont know and I just think, being gaze kind of gross like if I'm opened a hearing that I'm not gonna, judge you and be like screw. You dude, you know if I say,

you know what I totally get that this is new indifferent and to be honest with you I don't really want to know what you do in your bedroom either, but at the end of the day I would never stand in the way of you being able to marry the person that you love and being able to have the family that you wish you had so to talk to me a little bit about like like let's forget about what it is. I do in my private life. Let's talk about who I am as a person cause, I get from you that I don't think that you would ever want to prevent me from just like doing my thing. and like finding my own little version of happiness and in my house, is that right man? You know Having that that conversation, I don't take the bait, you don't mean right, don't you know, I don't let that part of me That is like angry and scared. It's almost like the reactive part. It's like just like breathe and like okay, huh yeah, and I tried to just like let go of the words and get to the core of it, which is you know, fundamentally like usually those dude like they're just so scared in others, so- scared about a different way of being man they ve, had beaten into their heads. literally.

That there is one way to do being a man and a purse comes along that has liberated themselves from that and how scary and how frustrating? And how does pointing at how sad that they were lied to you're gonna, be they were lights you there isn't one way of doing being a man, fundamentally anyone mainly in the twitter verse, like that's a fat fragile masculinity, is its men who ve been told over and over and over again that they are failing a boy at being a young man at being a man. They are told in so many ways and so its fragile there. Since a man who does not become ask escalates fragile. It can be broken easily and queer people break it, and that's where that anger and the retaliation comes from break. I mean. If, if your model of the world is one way and then that gets shattered, then your grappling in space uncertainty and then you, then your brain probably also goes well what else? What else right yeah it's the house of cards, yeah yeah as with religion too, you know, there's like that

three things that people would say when a big one was religion, and that's that's another thing that I call my god of the church, told me that being is wrong and being gay isn't wrong, then, what's right what what else is what else is new? and I think, having that compassion, it's it's very hard to access and you have to have done a lot of healing so you're speaking, your score and not your wound, but having come passion for someone who has told by people they loved entrusted very much that being gay was wrong. There will to be with you in that struggle there willing to reach out half way too ok, I'm gonna consider this, even though it's really hard you after then reach out half who and say I mean. I know it's hard. I know it's hard not to be with you, and I hear you and like let's work through it together, Fortunately, in art, in a sort of thing we ve gone even further, from the ability to have this kind of vulnerable

conversation now, because we're in cancel culture, because we're in the twitterverse because being know our executive branches model, thus the exact complete opposite and people who will and people in the if you are taking that bait and who are pointing fingers and cancelling people they're are being lauded as warriors, and it's like cool man that feels so good for you. It feels really good, but it is not eliminating transphobia and homophobia and racism and, like that's what I care about, and I just want to do strategically. Whatever gets us there and there's data on what we do, what we can do that gets us there. I don't care about feeling good. I don't know I don't care about. Someone else down so that yet more likes on social media. No, I why to live in a world where every trans person gets to do all the things that they could ever dream of and be free. unlike screaming, at a transfer of pursuing the internet, doesn't get us there so like. Why would we do it? Will I would we do it

so, as you are you're out in the world. Having these conversations spending time with people From conversations a lot of it is around marriage, equality right, what's happening. In your mind, about your own possibilities for relationships and for marriage, you I mean it was both cause. I did a large transaction and a lot of marriage stuff and even in doing the trans work that Did you know mostly in small towns? You know there was really really brutal campaigns coming out to try and keep like retain laws that made it legal took fire some transfer some person from their job kick them out of their house, not let them in your unit. city right, and so we have been doing both of those works. It was really fun. I loved it was super good at it good challenge like a hard puzzle. You know, but young. You know, I think, Certainly there was really the struggle of like you know, I'm fighting for marriage, but what will I ever be able to get married? and I definitely didn't that there was an I'm fighting for trans rights. Whence, like you know, do I even believe

I'll have a life worth living as for me, like you know, I wanted to be They wanted to have a family, and I didn't when he trans people who had who had done any of those things, and so it was real yeah, it was. It was hard because the work is hard and it was also hard. Personally, As you know, I wanted to get married, and here I was fighting for this thing- that I thought I would never be able to exercise that changes. The yeah you meet someone and yeah, I'm his friend remember if it was actually Two, two thousand and nine or two thousand and ten. When I, when I met the person who would later you know, become a partner but yeah yeah at that point, my young adult life was a twenty five twenty six I really had just like. I once had given up, but I just decided like ok, I can keep beating on this door of liquor. serious relationship- or I can just like- do a lot of internal work inside you. You know why don't I just get awesome select when and if

Person comes along, like I will be someone that they want to be patient, and so you know it's sort of like before you If not you're still be awesome site. I've read total win, win well yeah, but it is like the free open, your store. It's like you know you want to. You, want the foundation to be good. You want the lights to work, you know it's like. I went to therapy. I, like you, know continued to read a lie? Got I try to travel as much as I possibly could and is really to be solid, you know and this before the self care moving, it's so there wasn't as much self improvement sort of out there, but I tried really hard and then yeah just one day like quite literally out of the blue like turned around a corner on the way to a friend's party, and was literally buntin to venus. Who had just like it was just like the movies like I saw him and it was like the clouds parted and the angel saying, and there was this

There was just something about him that just called to me and felt you know it just felt. I just felt like family just felt like home, immediately sofa here- and he did not feel that way about me at all. So as they completely one sided, which is fine, I was not to be deterred. We're gonna, we're goin seem event. We had this mutual believe me to a friends and we went to the branch and and and yeah I just he was just in everything. He was just everything from the beginning to you and falling in love. He changed his mind with that's right. He came around, we became as you know after he was not really interested in me. Am I just decided okay well up I'll, prove it to, and in all proved to him that I'm the person who was to be worse than the wheel and then there was seen I with my made twenty so courses flirting with him. Mirth Fifthly, and I found out, he had a boyfriend which I did not care about in my mid twenties did not have good boundaries around those kinds of things

you know one night we actually had opening out a group of us, and I was had had a couple of drinks and was really particularly agreed just flirtation, happening and as I was walking home, you know here, he sent me a text message. That said, you know I. I sense that maybe there's an attraction towards me on your pardon very flattered, but I'm in a relationship, and I owe it to him to let that relationship play its course and so respectfully as much as I appreciate the attention you know, could you please you know back off and and let's just explore our future together as friends and sir and I was just like- oh my god, I tell you marry, you know, that's who you mary and in a moment of course, I was like Ro back at me, I'm so sorry I ve made you uncomfortable. I you know, I truly apologise. If I have

in this respect, for you and your relationship and and I'm excited to be friends with you and then I just waited. You know I just waited because I was like that makes me like you even harder and as what he was. Twenty five is a twenty five year old gay man living in l, a who had that level of emotional maturity healthy boundaries. I was just like, oh my god, you know this is the person and I just waited and waited, and eventually the time came. How long I don't know we. We we try to trace it back, and this is a kind of prey putting everything on social media and facebook somewhere between six weeks and three months, I'm just being like I went below he ran this group. The social group for eligibility men cause here

move to l, a hoping for community amongst gay men from a very small town, and then there wasn't any outside the bar, so he just created it with just him. It's just him. You know he wants something, that's not there and he built it, one else and yeah, and so I just go to these events and stop flirting and just showed him that I can be respectful that I'm healthy too. You know and they just didn't. You know Literally, I was on a break at work. I went onto facebook and it said that he had gone from being in a relationship to being single, and I picked up the phone and even text him. I picked up the phone as soon as it showed up. I said what are you doing for dinner tonight and he said nothing. I said we have dinner with me. He said yeah, and that was our first date and I don't I mean I don't think that we spent a night apart after that. If I wasn't traveling for work, I think we've basically been together every night

the last nine years and he fell in love and you're a little while into that when you also get a call I guess his sister yeah yeah. You know one of the most in the the things that I have outdoor about. My partner is that he is very close to his family, Unfortunately, it happened because of some trauma and their house growing up. You know he had to take care of his siblings and his mom and so he's very, very close to them, and we will do anything to stop the thumb and there's a lotta dysfunction that family in and we had no and that his sister who what became a mother as a teenager, we had known that she was struggling to care. Her kids in a way that they needed it in and then you know yeah one day that sort of situation came to a head, on call from her social worker, actually an off the books. Courtesy call because you know my partner or

was a social work was a little bit that professional courtesy. You know where we have. We reached out to her to let her well that we were out there and we were happy to support. However, we needed to, and and she let us know that you know things had come to a head in that home and the kids were going to get taken away, and you know it would behoove us to see if we could offer support urgently before that happened cause. She was pretty sure that you know my sister in law wouldn't be able to get things together in time to get the kids back and that they may get stuck in the foster care system. Which we just couldn't you know just and an unfathomable that we would have let that happen. So, even though we'd only been together for a year and we had just moved in together- and this had not been our plan- and you know I was raised in a family where you show up and- and so you know he called me up- he called me on a friday and I was at work and he was like I used to down, and let me what is this like a joke? Is this a movie like yeah,

and now he's like you know we have. I think we might have to go an antique healing riley and I don't know for how long I was like okay, let's go Was there even a second thought in your mind, you've just said: nope nope, not even a second, and that's me, you know, like a very you know, just like it's just me and he's much more pragmatic and balanced, and you know we had a sort of had the idea that maybe this was gonna. Go this. and- and he had just been so automatically just like- I don't wanna, be apparent this way I could wanna be apparent in it in crisis at the cost of somebody else losing their kids losing the right to be apparent. He's, like you, don't know what becoming entangled in my family permanently, really would look like and so we had a long conversation while we were driving up to pick them up. You know in and beg pardon Precision is about us as a couple. You know

only been together for a year, and we want to be careful. There was a time, pre marriage, a call eddie, where there was so much undermining of of queer relationships happening culturally. That way, meant, is that queer people would go really overboard. You know so people who had only been on a few dates outward college had apart, you know him and were and we're getting married we're having kids. If they could, you know biologically, and there was just someone rushing that we thought was really it was, reactionary and not healthy, because, like ok, you start dating you that the flutters you fall in love. You become where's you moving together, you get married and then what for the next fifty years, you know we wanted at each stage precious and alas, as long as it could? Even though I think people knew felt from very early on it like this is that you know this is the one, but if this is the one

we have our lifetime to be each stage you now, and so we had never talked about getting married and we'd. Never talked about forever, and so you know and I had to have a little bit of that conversation in the car I going up and can only just basically say, and we have never talked about forever or a lifetime comment or anything, but you need to know if we take these kids and they end up staying with us. My expectation is that you will be with me for the next eighteen years even if you're, not in love with me, even if it is a funny anymore. Even if none of that could we don't take these kids out of one unstable situation, put them in another. You know What I'm really am asking you to commit to being with me for the next eighteen years, and I was like yeah, I'm in never thought you'd asked me, you know I've been waiting, yeah and again, not a hesitation. I was ready to do that from where

I bumped into him on the corner at hollywood and vine that spring day yeah I even question the syrian. You end up picking up the kids, bringing them home and raising them as as yours, basically yeah it was horrible, horrible. If I had any idea how incredibly difficult it was something I wouldn't have taken them, but I would not have said yes in that lake immediate way like I definitely would have called in the troops. You know I would have called all my friends and said we need a ton of support. I would have called my employer and said I need to take all the leave that I have available I would have called every therapist, I knew and said I need a therapist. Both kids need a therapist, There was so much they needed, and so, Little we had going in that it was just a minute, was just chaos. Fer a year was just chaos and, having demanded the relationship with their birth parents,

and there was drugs and there was domestic violence and there were legal things. It was so Much and meanwhile, we had these lists. One year old in this three year old, who had been in a drug house remaining dog food off the floor they they had so little and had experienced such stress they needed so much from us. I mean it Y yeah, I mean my partner. Now he knew and I didn't have trusted his opinion of reserve yeah. So eventually I mean it takes time, but it sounds like that through a lot of love, a lot of attention and in harnessing the resources in the community, things start to stabilize as much as they can stabilize and then you both get point or is it? Was it really you as the deprived persons can if we were

using these two kids? Now, what would expanding our family, with like yeah yeah et mean that it had been so hard being a queer person being a trans person have to deal with investigators, judges, lawyers, social workers and in the whole process of getting to adoption with the big kids, it was so hard and so deeply traumatic. That you know I really did after our adoption became legally final, and we could really just put a beau on that and just vote and being a family and being parents and raising them? You know I did if we examine the idea of family and building a family and having the child and bring the child into the world or into our lives and thought. How can we do that at didn't involved? all of these hoops that didn't involve all these people. Looking at us and trying to decide. Do we look like what a family looks like to them all these people with power? I mean it was really really hard and yeah

So I just thought you know I wanna go or family. We talked about growing orphan lee- and you know I thought well what if we did it on her own and for me, as a transgender ma am I had taken horror? but I had not any surgeries so actually have like a perfectly healthy working, uterus and eggs, and all that things in my partners, not trans, am so he's what they this gender man or non transgender man, and so you know he has all the parts that would be needed for a baby. And at this point it had become deeply captain. The trans communities have known hundreds transgender and who have given birth themselves and gotten pregnant and given birth themselves and to renew was possible, and so I went to the doktor on my own and just said so is this because it's a good idea medically, like what do we know and the reproductive and acknowledge that attacked was actually in there's quite a bit of data. There have been academic sais, been medical staff,

there have been beaten retrospective research projects that have looked at medical charts and all those things- and you know oddly enough testosterone, it impacts many systems, but not the reproductive system permanently. It does stop off nation the same way that any birth control, that's our population, would, but once you go off it after a few months, your cycle, turns, and everything from theirs is very straightforward and just like any other pregnancy process, so that okay, so there's metal, we pass a ball. I have friends, I've done it so, like is, was bright, tat my partner. What to do this, and so I thought about it for just like me, I mean I agony, for months and months and eight for they had all this data and then one day in our at a writ work retreat for my work at a camp and my kids were playing and we were clearing brush in the woods- and you know just him at the right time when you know

Just the two of us were super close nice, no one around, and I just said even what, if in what would you think about having having a baby with me, and he was like a I mean immediately. He is like this. This is a terrible idea. We know I don't know why would you ever wanted to do this? The big we are adoption is got final the big kids are finally old enough that, like I can go back to work, you know he's the frontline parenting and I'm the I were you. I would fulltime and and then some so he was like. You know it's like it's a big burden, you'd be putting on me to take care of a baby and just start from scratch, just when I'm getting a little free and I'm really worried about you being a pregnant man in the world. Like that the sums terrible and then of course, he's stopped himself was like I'm sorry. I love you very much and if you want to do this than I will consider it, but now himself all

yeah, and so it was many months of discussion, and then I have a very good friend and in in toronto who who recommended a moratorium on discussion. He said you know just stop just take a month and just commit we're, not gonna talk about with each other. You know, so it doesn't become this weird thing and just think about it. Talk to your friends. Have him talk to his friends and then come back and and and see see where you're at and and that september we went to a music festival and im back from a workshop or something yoga retreat or something I dunno and he was like okay, I'm in I'll, do it, and so that was the beginning of that next journey. Were you surprised? Yes? Yes, I was very suppressed, yeah he's really like the decider in our family. Unlike the dreamer vienna, whatever, then

yeah, and so I had expected he was gonna, say now and then I may have to fight him on it, but that came out came a little later on, so you go. you're, both in at that point and then so generously catalysts do this and then you get pregnant once you know that a machine curious up until then, it had been, a conversation had been theoretical ray and then your they were in when you actually realise, like you, the day you learn our monsieur pregnant. This is hundred percent gonna happen traced. What that moment is like for you. I mean is it sucks so complicated? You know because for us. We really we had willed decided like we're. Just gonna remove the barriers and if pregnancy happens,

it's one great. If not we're not going to do any more, you know we're not going to go to the doctor, we're not going to do. I af we're just going to remove the barriers band, so when the happened. It was like. Oh it's meant to happen. Then you know this is. This is where our lives are supposed to go, and I was just no in some ways, just like such elation alike, it's happening like can to be a baby, and I can do it in my body- can do it and yeah it was just likes just like such overwhelmed and overjoyed and again like. I was also super excited about the science of it like what does it feel like to grow a person, and I thought this was so cool like most men, don't ever get to have that experience. I am a man who does get have an experience so that they can, so cool. You know. Yes, it is, exciting and then also really nerve, racking of like oh, my god. What is this actually mean? What is actually mean for, like my work life,

and my day to day life and the burden I'm putting on my partner to really step up and take care of the big kids. While I'm going through this process- and they might not be at full capacity and at that time we were planning to keep the pregnancy completely private, and so there wasn't a discussion like the public stuff, so yeah it was yeah, it was complicated, exciting scary things all the things yeah, so you get it. I guess about six seven months in and and that that decision to keep it private. Just among your close friends family that changes. What what happens to make you feel like we, we we actually can't just keep this between us yeah, I mean was a little earlier. I think it was like. Maybe three or four months I mean it was that it was at a time when he sixteen were really this discussion about transgender people is that kind of a fever pitch

were pre election, so we're not in that whole thing yet, but it really is like you known, orangist renewable. It is a big thing, and you know liver and cox and janet mark or out there on the front lines to train gender women of color to black, trenchant or women. Doing all this education doing all this work of journalists, trying to talk about the difference between them, identity and gender expression and teaching. You know Katie Couric, that it's not appropriate to ask about what the surgery was like tat. You know there are just wearing this enormously heavy burden, and then I just had a crisis. You know a real crisis where I was like I'm a white transgender man living in portland Oregon. You know like if there is a hierarchy of privilege and the trans community, literally no one

is more privileged than me, maybe like whatever angelina julian brad pitt. Have a trans get? Ok, maybe the trans kid is more privileged and me, but really there's still a youth. You know like really If there is anyone who should be bearing the burden of being on the front lines, doing education work, moving the conversation forward. It is unacceptable for me to be expecting transom of colored between network and the. The other part of it is in the trans community. For a long time, trenchant or men really have worked to stay in the back you know what we get invited to to do a keynote at a unit at a university conference for a decade. I had said no like an here. france on the color that you should be listened to. Instead, for years we have done because they are the ones who are or really sitting at that crux of violence in the train, community. They their voices are the ones who should be elevated, and so this was all

What time where it was like? Ok, we have some incredible transitive. Color rather do in doing the most is so have felt more ethical. To put myself forward as someone who could also be in the necks of telling the story so lose those too Miss converged, I think you know a guy just sat down with with Beth my part, and I just said you know. I think we should be telling our story. I think, a good position to tell a new kind of transfer. I think the pregnant man hook is gonna, be tough. eliza enough for us to be able to use that as the door tat more conversations about trans lives, families fertility all those things and he was like I mean if you want to do it, it's it's your pregnancy, it's your body, you're, the trans one amongst us. I will support you, but this is really a decision to make yet so we partner with a upon costs actually are

never favour podcast, who told our adoption journey, and I made a little video on facebook about being a pregnant man and then all of it blew up so that podcast airs. it seems that he was a matter of hours, it will you in or out this went from. Ok, it's on a package where, maybe you know like whoever elicited the pot, guess the regular listeners listen to explodes all over the net mainstream media? All of a sudden it? This turns into something so much bigger than you ever imagined, yeah, and it was so we're cause again like I've known hundreds of transmit all over the world have been doing this. My friend matt his A baby post transition has centred twenty last month. Twenty years trans have been doing this.

so. I did not think that this was a big deal. I really did it and I was sorely mistaken yeah that pregnant man story was exciting to a lot of people followed for me to do some people for alive, nice reasons, but then I guess he I picked up. lands and cosmo on their social media, that it ends in the daily mail here within hours of the pot cast airing cosmos had, can we re the story? it's, I said sure and then daily mail took it from their right and that's where things can go south samuel yeah. I mean they went south for me emotionally for sure, because no the daily mail, it's the world's number one tabloid, it's the national inquirer on steroids, digital and you know that

So they took my story and wrote it and just the most salacious. Ah, you know tabloid ask away, and it was just you know they used all. It was just bad, it felt horrible, and you know there were like thirty three thousand comments on the article when I first saw it and it'd been shared, just like you know, hundreds of thousands of items and was like got it just felt awful in and because it has been written in such a salacious way so irresponsibly. The comments were just I mean they were just brutal. They were brutal, I mean, I don't if you can imagine like everything that your insecure bow and have always been secure about, like literally thousands of strangers are saying those things for everybody else in the world to see gap, and it was, it was just a it was you know it's like I was just get. It were and ended up

you're the one that came out the. So this was a couple months later from the first like the early decision to pretty close towards the end of their pregnancy. That point to elect halfway through, maybe like, like fact now, five or six months of this year, What do you do with that? I mean when that happens, how at where do you go from there? Yeah I mean so many things. I mean my number one concern the first thing that came to mind as I've made it. I've made transphobia worse, my goal is to tell the story is that more trans people could see what I didn't see when I was a kid when I was a teenager, that you know that their that the doors, are closed for you, like you, can be loved, you can be celebrating, you can have community, you can adopt kids, you can have biological kids like you don't have to, but those options are there for you all the things that were always told were giving up. You know

and so when this happened, and I saw all the brutal transphobic comments. I just thought. Oh, my god, like I had just horribly misjudged people, I thought people were ready. I thought this was going to be good for trans people to see, and I've made it worse, and my first call was to the my friend nick Adams, who works at glad w a glad they do. The tramp, the lgbt media work he's the transmit in director he's like the heat of the quiet hero of trans media for the last fifteen years, he's been doing this work, maybe twenty every positrons trans character you ever He nodded tv show a movie, anything nick is behind it. I called him- and I was just ass. I was just bawling I mean I was just bawling. I said nick like I, I messed up a mess up really bad he's like okay hold on when you pull up the article okay and he looked at it. He's like. Okay trust me. I need you to hear me. This article feels painful to you, but this is

it pretty good article four, the daily mail like they get your pronouns right. You know they do I'm your relationship to be correctly. The you know they do. You know they there. They call you the by re protyle. This is this is ok and the comments. Yes, your bad, but sweetheart, we've known each other for a long time and he's a little older than me and he's also transit. You know there's a little bit of a mentor thing that he's like sweetheart. You did not create transphobia. you do not have the power to make transphobia worse single handedly so like, let's just let them go, and I was like ok you're right, that's all eco stuff and he's like, but I can help you figure out like. If you want to keep telling the story, I can help you figure out how to tell it responsibly and who you can tell it with I'm so that it is moving the movement forward and not making things worse, and that was in. That became lots of just where I put all the hurt and the pain is into ended, just like being released routine

can be like ok like this heart, so bad. So how can I do a better? How can I be more responsible into it, taking all of that and using that as the fuel, the hurt, the anger using that as the fuel to just like, be excellent at telling the story moving forward. yeah. I guess I mean assumes that you had to really yet there was it is to be made when that happens, which has one may retreat from this as fast as humanly possible to china and remove the pain and just make it I'll go away or the opposite, which is what you dead witches. Let led me ray embrace, embraces, fully and and find out. How do I, how do we cultivate the craft, the wisdom, the intelligence, the ability to actually continued push this forward, but tell it in a way where it is more compelling more relatable, more useful, more helpful, wiser where you know

and become this source of connection, rather than run in the opposite direction, which is that moment in time you know I must have, cleared and astonishment. It astonishing amount of bravery. I mean I don't know, people say that its village being called brave thing. It is hard and I can see you're, certainly weird about. If I mean it, you know the like this is, there are so many intersections between marginalized communities. This is like an intersection between transfix and people with disabilities cause. They are always called brave just for existing, and this has happens to have the transit for like a tenth person, people you're, so brave and I'm like I'm just literally not dead. That's like there's nothing grave about that and at the time it really didn't just for braver, I didn't feel I just did that can about that way. I guess I want to do the right thing. You know at the end of the day,

it's like. You know I care more about the trans community and making the world better for them then, just like, neither really anything else, my life under the my family, and so I just I like, oh my god, what I knew if I retreat added that it would be only the irresponsible tabloids that would spin the story out from there and there's. There are still examples of really awful weird myths. Tellings of my story out there, which are really it's just like very icky and strange. The internet is a very strange place, but I knew that it would get worse if I stopped telling the story, and so it was like. Okay I just have to keep going their swords lessons of bravery. It's more sense of this. This seems like their late. just through lie in your life of doing the right thing, just feeling like Is this there's something in you which says this is the right thing to do like this you do a sensor duty, almost yeah, yeah totally and also

like this is what I am was what I was trying to do here. I could literally look at america and be like, whereas America, on the scale of understand. Trans people what skills that I apply face to face with the door. This is a chance to do the face to face work with millions of people all at once. You seeing media using the new york times and Washington post an cnn and b c like using these people at this giant. Microphone diagnosing where america is where's, that movable middle. What are their values? What are they care about, and then how can I tell my stories in those values and move them all forward all at once, and so that's what the next six months of my life was in the end of the presidency and then and then for the months beyond So you have them. You now have a beautiful family, a three kids and

we're in new york right now cause you're doing sort of like a whirlwind of educational stuff cause it's. So it seems like you've just continue to build on that early momentum and said like had how do I keep telling this story? How do I keep telling it in a way that is the most inviting most open bills? A conversation, and that has really become this is, is what you do This is your profession. Is your livelihood, its you're? More than that for you This has been long and not do yeah. It's my calling here, as we sit here in this containers of the good life project. If I offer up this phrase to living life, what comes up. I mean from me it's like its living in the intersections of like what are your gifts, What are the world's greatest need, and what brings you joy and living in that space where a year great at what?

Do we are giving the world what it needs and you find meaning in it to me? That's what a good life! Thank you and that's what I get to do it. Thank you so much for listening and thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included, intraday show notes and while you're at it, if you ve ever ask yourself watch it, With my life, we have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it add, a spark, a type dot com. That's s, p, a r K, e t Y p e dot com.

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