This is a full transcript of the episode with James Tamplin. You can find the podcast here.
Brody: [00:00:00] Hey, all Brody here with a new episode of Titans as Teens, a podcast where I have detailed conversations with interesting people from all walks of life, about their teen experience and the knowledge they have for teens today. Today, I had the pleasure of speaking with entrepreneur and developer. James Tamblin.
James: [00:00:25] We grow through taking more and more progressively, more and more, more responsibility. And I it seems like a daunting challenge at the time. Responsibility causes a little bit of stress and a little bit of pressure and that stress and pressure forces us into areas or modes of thinking or ways of being that we aren’t quite used to. But by pushing those edges, we’ve become, we’ve become better at those things.
Brody: [00:00:49] At the beginning of the pandemic, James saw that most of the United States was going without enough information. So, he started the nonprofit website. COVID Act Now instrumental tool for many in the past year. Previously however, he was the co-founder and former CEO of Firebase, a web infrastructure that powered over 2 million iOS apps. James is more than just tech tips, however, as his meditation and why array of knowledge lead to some fascinating points. To start, however, I simply asked James to summarize himself in under a minute, and this is what he said.
James: [00:01:29] (laughs), okay. So, a minute summary of myself. My name is James. I was born in the UK. I bounced back and forth between this town called Redding in England and Minnesota, when I was a teenager. I went on to college at the university of Wisconsin. Then I moved to California. Well, then I traveled the world for a year. Then I moved to California before tech startups. The fourth one was called Firebase. Uh, sold to Google and yeah, I left Google about two years ago and I kind of went on a big like health and healing journey. So that’s the. Yeah. That’s the nuts and bolts. I’m super passionate about connecting humans with each other technology. That’s like my, my life’s passion and purpose. And if I consider like, yeah, call it a mission if you want. Um, I think that’s probably 60 seconds.
Brody: [00:02:27] Yeah, you were very close. Super interesting though. Um, you are pretty much the exact opposite, not the exact opposite, but pretty close opposite to one of the people I talked to right before this, or, I mean like two days ago, it’s kind of funny.
You’re talking about yourself being like more of an internet connection guy. And this guy was more of a get off the internet, kind of reconnect with yourself guy, which I guess now that I’m saying it, you have gone on that sort of journey. So, forget everything just said.
James: [00:02:56] (laughs) Yeah, I think human connection is, is really important and like it’s really difficult to connect with other people and until I think you’ve like got in touch with yourself and you know, what do you like? What do you want? Like, there’s the seemingly innocuous small questions, but being able to answer to them will help guide you towards hobbies and passions and relationships and work. I think connected people is the, is the high order thing there. Like, if I was born like a hundred years ago, I would be, I’d been doing it through some other medium, but it just happens that, you know, I grew up in the nineties and early two thousands and it was the dawn of the internet. And so that was the cool new thing to play.
Brody: [00:03:41] It’s still is. I can’t really think of a better place for someone like you meant to be born in.
I mean, I don’t know the future, but considering the past, this is, pretty top tier.
James: [00:03:53] Yeah. I feel really lucky to have been born when I was, born. The number of people you can meet the diversity of experiences that you can have, the amount of information that’s available at your fingertips is greater now than it ever has been.
And so, yeah, I feel, I feel really lucky to have been born now.
Brody: [00:04:09] Do you have any idea what you think the next 10 years are going to look like? How, how is tech going to change in the next 10 years?
James: [00:04:16] Yeah, I mean, I think the dominant theme will be artificial intelligence. So, there’s several for-profit and government entities racing towards enabling machines to do smarter and more intelligent things.
From self-driving car to, you know, speak as if they were like humans or being able to, to process natural language and in a really efficient and seemingly human way. And in the same way that kind of you, you can interact with most companies and businesses through your smartphone. And it’s kind of like the smartphone has become something like a pretty big point of view of equity.
I think artificial intelligence will, the same thing will happen there. Um, Yeah. So, I think that that’s like the big trend, I think. Um, I think we’ll probably come to some form of reckoning. Hmm. Um, around social media. When used well, I think it becomes a source of information, dispersion and learning and connection, like, with current incentive structure. i.e. the ad-based business model. Like companies are just incentivized for people to kind of continuously keep scrolling. I, there have been several sociological and psychological studies done about like number of times, like spent on Facebook or Instagram correlating to negative emotions. So, like, I would imagine like the pendulum swing back a little bit and we’ll be, will either shift our behavior or somehow become like a little bit more judicious, move away to a system that kind of prioritizes, um, mental wellbeing. I think, I think like heading for sort of a, a bit of a mental health crisis.
It’s not just social media, but to other kind of influencing factors going on throughout society, whether that’s kind of the bi-modal distribution of income, um, or the, the polarization between, uh, political parties. I think they’re all symptomatic of, uh, of some large underlying shifts. That’ll. That’ll be happening soon.
Brody: [00:06:31] Do you think these like shifts, you mentioned, um, there’s going to have to be a change in social media. Are they going to be people changing the algorithms? Are people changing their behavior as a whole?
James: [00:06:41] I think in general, like it’s a, it’s a tug of war between two things. One is it’s network effect.
Everyone’s on Instagram because all your friends are on Instagram. . So, network effects is pulling you in one direction. Things pulling you put, like pulling in the other direction is like new, interesting products. So like Snapchat came along with disappearing photos and then TikTok came with TikTok came along with like, you know, cool, interesting videos set to music.
And so, there are these like new twists on social. And so, I wouldn’t be surprised if, if, there were some new services that popped up that were more like respectful of your attention. Or made you more cognizant or aware of the emotions that you’re feeling. Yeah, or somehow develop product features that, that engender other emotions.
I don’t quite know. And I’m like totally speculating at this point in time, but so yeah, will be an interesting tug of war all around, but young in your generation, Brody is, really going to determine like what is picked up, um, you know, Teenagers, uh, typically the super early adopters and like once a platform is saturated, the, you know, you’re the first that moves onto like the cool new thing.
So, yeah, I think there’s a, there’s a lot of power in the decisions and choices that you make, and you and your peers have the ability, you know you can learn to program fairly easily from tutorials and there as much as services that help you do it. So, um, just like creating the thing that you and your friends want to see if you’re like tired of Facebook or you’re tired of seeing some of these other services, you can just go and create your own, which is immensely awesome.
Brody: [00:08:26] Yeah. And of course, this is all speculation, but in your mind, what would you think the maybe one or two skills, that if one were to have for the future would massively impact their quote unquote success.
James: [00:08:42] Yeah. Empathy for others. And then, uh, ability to critically think. They’re like very few careers, thing can contribute to the world, but don’t involve other humans.
And so deeply understanding other humans and like how they think or what they hope for is always going to be extremely useful., um, it gets you, you know, if you’re, if you’re building a product service, you need to understand your customers. If you’re leading a team, um, you need to understand your team and what drives and motivates, not just the individuals, but humans collectively. If you’re creating a, a political message, like being cognizant about what’s going to resonate or like all of these things require sympathizing and empathizing. And. No matter how, like technology evolves, like that is still going to be like at the crux of everything., There’s oftentimes it’s called like hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills being like, I’m going to become a mechanical engineer and design a cog that goes into a machine.
But I think, yeah, I think soft skills will become, well, and have always been, um, you know, will still continue to be like of paramount importance. So that’s the first thing is like you interface with, with humans and then with other people. And then the second, um, yeah, the second is, is like ability, like ability to reason well. Ability to critically think. Ability to think from first principles, it’s called a bunch of different things. But there’s so much information available and coming at us from all different angles, whether that’s, you know, social media, like we were previously talking about your friends, the internet, like, like all over the place. And being able to sort of sift and winnow and filter, uh, that information, uh, I think is going to like just, become more and more important as time goes by.
And it’s, it’s those things. If you, if you’re able to. Yeah. I think if you’re able to like adeptly, like filter and learn and reason, um, you can apply that to basically any field of study, and you can apply that to how you navigate the world. And I know both of those are like pretty high level and abstract.
But I, I like, and I think there are a number of ways you can go about like developing each of those skills. But yeah, if I had to pick two, those would be the two,
Brody: [00:11:20] You mentioned also leadership. And as part of that, and in my researching you, I noticed how you pretty much led Firebase from its inception to being acquired by Google.
And I’m really curious, what was maybe like the one or two things you did as a leader that provided the most positive impact?
James: [00:11:47] Uh, I think the first thing is defining the why. And I think this kind of stemmed from my own sort of personal experience, observing my father. Um, he worked really, really hard and we’re all the product of our social conditions. And he was back to, you know, his parents and, you know, growing up in the UK in the 1960s. But yeah, he worked, he worked extremely hard and didn’t, didn’t come home from his job appearing, particularly happy, um, a lot of the time. And so, I think that inspired me to really think through like why, if I was going to work really hard, like I needed a really solid why.
And so, I tried to set the why for Firebase, very crisply and very repetitively. So, at the beginning of every all hands meeting every week, I would say, why are we building Firebase? I’d say we’re building Firebase to help developers create extraordinary experiences. And just for some context, so Firebase is a, it’s a set of tools, that software engineers can use to build iOS, Android, and web apps.
And so, I was really passionate about sort of democratizing tools and technology to help more people build apps better and faster and quicker. And what that freed you up to do is refocus on, on the experience and what you were creating. Uh, and it kind of made, yeah, it democratization is the word. I, I think I use, but it allowed a broader swath of people to build, bring their creations to life.
And so, I’m really passionate about that. And I think the rest of the team did too. And by reminding, by reminding them of why we were doing that each week. It kind of kept front and center, why they were getting up every morning and why they were pushing through the hard things that we need to push through.
And so, so yeah, I think defining that, why was, was the first big thing that I think a leader needs to do. Like it also works for like, I think like this works as a human principle as well, like. Like Apple’s why is like, you know, or at least it was, you know, 20 years ago, uh, was like, you know, how do you help creatives? How do you help people think different? Was that, that big advertising campaign slogan. It was the, how was these like cool, sexy, like gadget , really easy to use and user friendly. Um, you know, you can get cool stuff on them, but, uh, the why was, you’re empowering these creators.
Brody: [00:14:31] I want to start talking about something you’ve done, I believe it’s four times now starting a company. Um, recently I had a conversation with Jared Friedman from Y Combinator. Um, and we talked a lot about, what it takes to start a company relating to teens of course, cause that’s what this is about. And I have a couple of like nuggets from him that I want to run by you and see your thoughts on.
James: [00:15:01] Yeah, Jared’s uh, Jared’s a good friend. So, I’m excited to hear these nuggets.
Brody: [00:15:05] He was awesome. His biggest and Y Combinator’s, biggest thing is they will not except a person, if they don’t like the person, even if it’s the greatest company idea they’ve ever heard. However, they will accept a terrible idea if they are enamored with the person behind it. Do you have any thoughts on that kind of thing?
James: [00:15:29] Yeah, I, life is all about the people. I mean, this goes back to the empathy thing we were talking about earlier, right. Like if I could give, if there’s any one piece of advice, like if you’re stuck between difficult decision, like. Always just go with the choice that has the more higher quality people, like the people that are acting with more integrity, the people that are, you know, liable are going to be more honest with you.
The people that are, you know, passionate and patient striven. Yeah. Uh, so I, I fully agree with that.
Brody: [00:16:01] This is another thing that we kind of talked about, but never reached a final conclusion, but I’ve noticed while researching you, I noticed you touched on this a lot. So, what we were talking about is how you create a culture in a company. And why do you create that culture?
James: [00:16:18] Yeah. Um, I was really afraid of the real world. Like I, after high school, I was like, ah, God, all right. I got to like go to college and like, figure out what I want to do with my life. And then I need to like go and get a job. And like the real world doesn’t seem like a whole lot of fun.
Cause like I’ve seen my dad come home and like, it seems like 40 years of your career being unhappy and like. So that’s kind of what really caused me to go and seek and to understand like how can, how can you spend those 40 years with people that you love doing things you love? Like being excited to go to work and like, it fully is possible.
It didn’t seem like it at the time, but like totally is. And I think, yeah, I mean, I think from an individual level, you kind of need to, this goes back to the knowing yourself thing. You need to kind of understand like where your passions and talents are on. Like what can you get excited about and then find an organization way that you can be like, you can work on those and then.
The, the culture bit is like how the people in that organization interact with each other, the best definition of culture that I’ve heard is like, how, how do the people treat each other when like the leaders aren’t present whether it’s the CEO or whoever isn’t around. And like, that’s the, that’s kind of the definition of, uh, of culture. And how you grow that culture, I think is largely, is largely in the micro-moments. It’s well, I guess it’s twofold. There’s one, it’s like setting up the structures and systems. Uh, and then, then, then two it’s the micro moments. So, in terms of structures and systems, like we did a whole bunch of stuff at Firebase. You know, we had team lunch every day, you know, like bonding over food, the thing humans have done for millennia. You know, we had a thing called experiment week, you know, we all just like stopped what we were doing and went and like built the things that we were passionate about. You know, the features weren’t prioritized or the thing that needed to be cleaned up, but we’re just like an art project around the office.
And so that’s is an example of the structures we created and then the micro moments. So, like the little things that show you care. So, like all things being equal, like he or she who cares most tends to, yeah, I guess win is maybe not the word I’m looking for, but like tends to get the, the better outcomes. And like going the extra mile to show that you care, like ends up kind of, kind of like compound interest, isn’t just a thing for finance.
It’s a thing for, you know, other systems as well. And culture is one of those systems. So, for example, we do like a number of things. So, every person’s first day, I’d sit down with them for the first half hour, uh, on day one and explain to them like why we were here and what we were up to and get to know them. I asked them what were they looking for at Firebase. And so, it was, as you said, at the beginning of the conversation, like, conversations, are the things that we strive for. And if it’s, if it’s just me talking at you, it’s less exciting. Um, and in the same way at a company, just the company, asking you things that you feel like you’re trading your time, then that’s less exciting.
And so, uh, you know, we went the extra mile and tried to understand what. what, the individual was looking to get out of the experience as well.
Brody: [00:19:42] Yeah. And one of the favorite things I, um, found when I was looking around was “Bring Your Pineapple to Work Day” started by your, um, co-founder Andrew Lee I remember, um, listening to a, an, an interview that you were on and I thought that was just a really good example of like not taking yourself too seriously and making sure silliness is acceptable in the office, you know?
Yeah, totally. And the “Bring Your Pineapple to Work Day” actually spawned not just from pineapples, but it like, it was a bunch of other days as well. The points here is we had like a full entire day, like Wear Your Snuggie to Work Day and the cultural baseline, made Firebase a great place to work.
And if I’m kind of understanding this just right. It sounds to me like employees are very similar to leaders in a way, where you, aren’t just going to hire the most skilled employee, if they’re a total asshole. You want to look for people who have the right skills, but are also good fits, right? Because then they’ll only grow the other people as well as themselves, as they progress in the company.
James: [00:20:50] Yeah, I think, I think, you know, looking for people who want to want to grow, and then that growth translates into seeking responsibility. I think we, we grow through taking more and more progressively, more and more, more responsibility.
And like, it seems like a daunting challenge at the time. Responsibility causes a little bit of stress and a little bit of pressure and that stress and pressure forces us into, to areas or, you know, modes of thinking or ways of being that we aren’t quite used to, but by pushing those edges, we’ve become, we’ve become better at those things.
And so, yeah, if you have, if you have a group of people in your company that, uh, that are excited to do those things and are motivated by the, the why, of the organization, and then you end up with a, the recipe for success.
Brody: [00:21:41] So I think I kind of want to know the story of how you met Andrew Lee, right? Cause I know that was in high school after you moved from London, I believe it was to Minnesota?
James: [00:21:55] Yeah. So, Andrew, Andrew was my Firebase co-founder, and we started three other companies together as well. I moved to Minnesota for middle school. And then I moved back to England for freshman year of high school. And then I moved back to Minnesota for sophomore year of high school. And that’s when I met Andrew. He and I were in French class together. I think we took a couple of other classes as well. Minnesota, it gets pretty cold in the winter and I would oftentimes be driving to school. I had a Ford Explorer SUV, that was my first car. And I would often find Andrew like biking to work. in like in like 10-degree Fahrenheit weather. And I would stop on the side of the road and be like, hey dude, like put your, put your bike in the back of the car and I’ll give you a ride.
Um, so yeah, that’s how I, that’s how I met Andrew.
Brody: [00:22:43] It’s really astounding or not astounding, but like kind of cool to me how a bond you formed in high school just ended up being so impactful later in life is the word I would use. I mean, would you recommend not recommend a better way to ask this question maybe is. What does it take to make a good co-founder? Like, how do you know that this person is a good co-founder for you?
A couple of things. One is, as we were talking about earlier, it’s optimized for the people. Do they have all of this, you know, honesty and integrity and work ethic and ambition and intelligence, and you know, like, do they have, do they have the raw materials?
Is I think thing, number one. And then number two, do they have, do they have, um, like, are you aligned in what you’re trying to build? You know, I think both, both Andrew and I really care about connecting people through technology and so like thematically, like three of the four companies were all about that.
The first one was, was a little bit different. It was a fingerprint sensor for the iPhone. Um, yeah, those I think are what make a good co-founder and then like regarding high school angle, we were, we had a lot of shared foundation, shared history and, um, I think shared history builds, builds a lot of trust. And trust, no matter the relationship is a key component, whether that’s, you know, a romantic relationship or a friendship or a business partner, you need that, that foundation of trust. And the more history you have with somebody, the, the more likely it is to build up, you know, patterns of how they behave and what they’ll do in certain situations and to understand and learn about their character.
Yeah. Okay. It’s sort of like a, uh, applies to everything really. Like that’s just kind of a characteristic you want in everyone that your close to. What was the hardest thing that you realized while building companies? Or the hardest thing to realize, I guess,
James: [00:24:49] I guess I just came from the, um, it was actually after we sold to Google and it took me a long time to realize I had sold company.
Like my identity was so wrapped up in Firebase. Like when I’d go to places in San Francisco, Silicon Valley or other places, I was sort of like known as Mr. Firebase. And, and so I behaved, I behaved as if that was still the case, even after we sold. And I think that caused me a lot of, caused me a lot of anguish because I could no. I can no longer, uh, kind of no longer had the same influence and authority that I once had, um, it was now kind of Google’s product.
And so that, yeah, that was, that was pretty difficult. And I think while I probably worked as hard, as I did, you know, before we sold, after we sold, um, the time after we sold was, was more frustrating. Because, you know, there was a number of the people who had, uh, a significant number of, you know, different incentives and motivations. And I could, I couldn’t just, you know, get the team aligned and go and do something I had to get buy in from a whole bunch of other people. And it would have been much less mentally taxing if I would’ve made the mental mindset shift that like, this isn’t this isn’t my company anymore. I’m now a Google employee.
Brody: [00:26:16] You started COVID Act Now, obviously it’s your most recent thing. It’s a nonprofit. When did you come to the decision where you were just like, I’m going to make this thing because…X.
James: [00:26:29] Yeah, so I, I wasn’t. It didn’t like germinate with me. It was actually, um, it was actually a good friend of mine who ran Go to Market at Firebase after the Google acquisition. His name’s Max Anderson. And Max had done, Max was kind of a data geek, he really enjoyed numbers and spreadsheets, and like did a lot of that during, during his career. And he kind of saw the pandemic unfolding and made just like a really kind of simplistic model, which is a, I guess, fancy term for like, a prediction about how the virus would spread. And he saw like, oh my gosh, this is going to be bad.
And so, he called me, I think, like 24 hours after he had this idea to start it. And he had chatted with a couple of other folks as well, and, and just pulled us all in. And then, and I was, you know, I had, I’d kind of, left Google about two years ago at that point. And I’d been on this whole journey of recovering from burnout, fixing my health.
And I was, you know, I was in the process of looking for what to do next and yeah, so that’s kind of how it all started and it it’s just been really meaningful work. Like this, I mean, this seems to be a theme in our conversation, but it goes back to the why and the why of the organization was to save lives.
Like that was really compelling. It was, you know, working with great people, I think at the high point, that was like 11 ex Firebasers working on COVID Act Now. So, it was like getting the band back together, plus, you know, doing, doing meaningful work that could have an impact on, on human life. So that, yeah, that’s kind of why.
And, and for those of your listeners who don’t know COVID Act Now, is, COVIDACTNOW.ORG, is the website. It’s a, it’s a website that, uh, provides data on every state and county in the US and how they’re doing with COVID right now. And we, you know, we take data from all over the place from various state and county and federal governments.
Brody: [00:28:29] When COVID is over quote unquote, when there’s so little risk that it no longer matters, is there a plan for the website? Is it just going to be deactivated?
James: [00:28:39] Yeah. It’s one of these really interesting organizations where like, we would all rather like, not be doing this and instead be, you know, living our best nonpandemic lives. I mean, the code is, is all open source. And so, you know, it will continue to live on if anyone wanted to do anything with it, but the organization itself would cease to exist.
There might be some opportunity to continue to do work and build such that if we get hit with another pandemic, there’s like an off the shelf thing that. Yeah, we can pull in and just take, take and run a use. Um, so that we don’t spend like, you know, four or five months, like fumbling blindly around in the dark before we figure out what’s going on.
Brody: [00:29:22] Think the last thing I want to ask about, and we’ve been kind of referencing this entire time, is your, journey when you quit. How did you start that? How did you decide that you wanted to start doing that?
James: [00:29:34] Uh, well, I didn’t really have a choice. My, my body was kind of screaming at me. Okay. Um, so I, I left Google in December 2017, and then I broke up with my girlfriend of five years. Uh, we dated for five years, total, uh, in January of 2018. And typically, people, you know, you have a good job, you have your, your relationship and you have, uh, your home. And I kind of table flipped on all three of those, uh, pretty simultaneously. And yeah, my, like my health was, was in a really bad place. I was getting stomach pains, uh, kind of a catch-all diagnosis called IBS, which is, uh, irritable bowel syndrome. Hippocrates, I think it was who said, we take our emotions out on our intestines or our digestive system. And then my, my left leg, my, my left knee had just kind of stopped working. Um, it got this just like incredibly intense shooting pain for no apparent reason. I had MRIs and, and kind of the whole, the whole nine yards. And it was just inexplicably inflamed. And so, yeah, my, my body was just not, not in a good place and I was. I, you know, I’d have conversations with, uh, with Andrew, um, my business partner and just not be able to keep up intellectually. Um, so I, I think I was clearly not functioning well. Um, and so I took all of those things together as cues that I really needed to, to take a little good, long, hard look at myself and my patterns and how I’d gotten into this, uh, this situation, in this position. So that, yeah, that’s how it started. And it’s, it’s been, uh, yeah, it’s been quite the ride over the past couple of years.
Brody: [00:31:24] What are some of the most impactful things that you’ve done? So, we don’t have to just go over the entire thing all at once.
James: [00:31:31] (laughs), yeah. So, I think the most impactful things that I’ve done have been when I’ve immersed myself in, in something uh, for a period of time. I did a 10-day meditation retreat called Vipassana where they take your phone away for, I guess, 10, almost 11 days. And you don’t talk to anyone. Uh, they feed, feed you all your meals, uh, and it’s just time that you can be with yourself. And it really, at the end of those 10 days, I didn’t want them to give me my phone back.
Um, my mind felt like it was sort of functioning again in a way that it hadn’t in a long time and it was, you know, being creative and making connections. And it felt like I was controlling my mind again, as opposed to my mind controlling me.
Brody: [00:32:22] Interesting.
James: [00:32:23] That’s the first one. I think the, the second one is, just really getting like, uh, like taking care of my body in terms of exercise. Like, uh, every day without fail now I exercise, um, in some form or fashion. Um, and it just keeps all of me working in a, in a really, yeah, in a way that I can bring my full self to other tasks. Kind of like previously I’d be like, ah, I’m too busy to exercise or like I’m too busy to eat well. And like shifting those. And now that like the first couple of hours of my day, like, all I do is like self-care stuff. So, this morning I went out on a bike ride in San Francisco and then I came and made a healthy breakfast. And then I did like a little bit of journaling and meditation. And so like, yeah, it usually takes like an hour and a half, two hours each morning, but like, really getting that routine nailed has been, has worked, worked wonders for me.
Brody: [00:33:23] Yeah,
James: [00:33:24] The third is sort of, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s been the most impactful thing and that’s, um, this notion of self-love. And so, like really accepting, um, myself in a way I hadn’t before. And like, you know, I think a lot of people can be really hard on ourselves. Like. Uh, I was doing that to myself in a number of different areas and like, it just wasn’t, it wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t helping me. Like it pushed me to, you know, I think, I think it was one of the things that pushed me to create companies and, you know, try and prove that, prove that I was good enough or prove that, uh, you know, I was good enough to other people.
Um, but I think really just like, the main person, you need to prove that to is yourself. And that comes in the form of, of self-love. And I think like I’ve developed that through a number of different practices and habits like the, you know, the exercise and eating right. And meditation have all really helped there.
But, but yeah, I think, I think good. Yeah. Just to be very honest, like a lot of, uh, a lot of deep introspection through, uh, through therapy has been, has been really useful as well. And I used to think therapy was a pretty stigmatized thing. And I think as time has gone by, it’s been less stigmatized, but, um, there’s kind of a, uh, really a high value to digging into some of your patterns and habits.
And like, why does my brain keep telling the story over and over again? Well, what’s the origin event? Like, is that actually true? You know, what emotions is that story kicking off? Like those emotions I really want to have, like, if I can just direct my brain to, towards a different version of that narrative.
Like I’d spend less of my time in these like mental loops in like feeling anger or sadness or grief, or, um, just like a litany of emotions that, uh, while, you know, good and like all part of the core human experience, like are our, of my own making. And don’t need to be.
Brody: [00:35:30] Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Titans as Teens. If you want to learn more about the podcast or other episodes, visit TitansAsTeens.com for tons of information and further reading and make sure to follow on whatever platform you’re listening on. Thanks again.