I’m back with another guest episode and revealing the answer to a mystery for long-time listeners (listen for the moment 12 minutes into the show). Marley Parker is a science communicator and an adventurer who can frequently be found exploring the deep ocean and climbing mountains.

Marley is the fifth guest with a background in SciComm, a realm that frequently attracts Renaissance People, as we discuss during the episode. It combines analytical math/science with creative artistry. We discuss how we strive to live expansive lives of check boxes, not multiple-choice answers. If you’re a complex, multi-passionate or you once were and want to get back to that, sign up for my newsletter for Renaissance People. There’s where I share updates on this podcast, my experiments in expansion and opportunities to work with me one-on-one to help you confidently live an expansive life, whatever that means for you.

Promised Show Notes Materials (take a drink):

• Sign up for my newsletter to get updates on my podcast and what’s happening in the Renaissance People Community.
• What’s this Renaissance Mindset I keep talking about? This “quasi-manifesto” episode explains
• Work with me to Find Your Golden Thread and explain your wide-ranging background
• Ep. 9: A Mind for Memory with Brian Skellenger, Survivalist
• Ep. 10: The Forever Revolution with Jenni Gritters, Multi-Passionate
• Why Curiosity Beats Perfection — Lessons from the Deep with Marley Parker (Blue Collar | White Coat podcast)
• Nautilus Ocean Exploration Trust and their Science Communication Fellowship Program (for educators)
• Association of Science Communicators (ASC)
• ASC Mentorship Program
• The Growth of Growing playlist YouTube
• Awe Psychology (WONDER) with Dr. Dacher Keltner (Oligies podcast)
• Marley’s website

Follow Marley on Social Media:

LinkedIn | Instagram

A few things Marley and I discuss:

• Why Jill-of-all-trades and Versatilist align with Marley’s freelance career but how her mantra aligns with an Evolutionist identity
• Marley’s niche in the field of science communication
• Ocean Exploration Trust and their Science Communication Fellowship
• Marley’s special connection to Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People
• Getting into the field of science communication
• The importance of mentorship, community and human-to-human connection
• How social media impacts science communication
• The kinds of people found on research vessels
• An elegant answer to “what do you do?” with a caveat
• Improv Game
• Off on a Tangent – Why self-care is critical for Renaissance People
• Rapidish Fire Questions
• Preparing for adventures in harsh, remote environments like the ocean and mountains.
• Marley’s unique way of going down a rabbit hole

Quotes from the episode:

(Marley) One of my mantras over the course of especially my freelance career as a freelance science communicator has been "the future is unpredictable." That's one mantra. And, you have to just figure it out as you go, and that we are always learning and growing and evolving.

(Marley) I specialize in documenting ocean science and specifically ocean science research expeditions. So as a professional photographer and videographer, I often join teams of marine biologists and oceanographers and other deep sea scientists, and I will go out to sea with them for several weeks at a time and document and produce stories about the research that they're doing in the deep ocean. So it is a very niche thing. It is not something that fits very succinctly into one title, like I said earlier. But it is a phenomenal job, and it's also a job that I did not know existed until about a decade ago. So it's been a wild but very fulfilling journey.

(Marley) I've interviewed so many oceanographers, people who study the sea floor. And their go-to example is we know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the bottom of the ocean.

(Sara) Yep!

(Marley) And at this point, we even know more about the surface of Mars than we know about the ocean floor on our own planet! So lots of things like that just to be able to get people to kind of raise their eyebrows and say, "Oh, wow, that's crazy."

(Marley) The biggest, common denominator with anybody working on a ship is we're all very adventurous people. You cannot work on a ship and not be driven by a spirit, like a fundamental spirit of adventure. Ha! We are literally going thousands of miles offshore, sometimes sailing across the entirety of an ocean, very, very far away from home. It's people who are absolutely willing and not only willing, but keen to get out of their comfort zone and go explore and to go find and see things that other humans have never seen before. So yeah, that very deep, profound sense of adventure and exploration is a huge part of working at sea.

(Sara) And that love of adventure and new things and being curious absolutely matches, like you said, with my definition of the Renaissance Person.

(Marley) I think one of the biggest challenges for Renaissance People is they invest a lot of their energy and their personality and their value goes into the work that we do. And so it can be sometimes hard to differentiate between your work and yourself. And so doing things like gardening or going on a hike or being outside or whatever it is just a really good way to reconnect with yourself and to maybe not be thinking about work and not be thinking about all of the projects that you wanna do and all the ideas that you have. Just be here now, be in the moment and enjoy yourself and take good care of yourself.

Follow me, Renaissance Woman Sara Kobilka, on LinkedIn, where I put most of my social media energy, Facebook and Instagram.

If you’re extra curious, check out Renaissance Woman Consulting to learn more about some of the many types of work I do.

And should you care to support the production of this podcast, I’d love it if you’d buy me an oat milk cappuccino, my caffeinated beverage of choice.

This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.

Theme music is by Brian Skellenger

Podcast distribution support provided by K.O. Myers of Particulate Media

Mentioned in this episode:

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[00:00:23] Sara Kobilka: Yeah

(sung) Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People

Today, I'm back with another guest episode. I'm keeping a promise to longtime listeners, so listen in for the big reveal. I'm not telling you just yet. My guest is Marley Parker, and Marley and I run in similar circles for one of my areas of interest, science communication. She's actually the fifth guest with a background in what we call SciComm. We talk about how it's actually a realm that frequently attracts Renaissance People. I think maybe it's that perceived inherent dichotomy that some people have of science and communication. You have to either pick. You're either the analytical math and science person, or you're the creative artist. You can't be both of them.

But hey, we're Renaissance People! We strive to live expansive lives of checkboxes, not multiple-choice answers. So if you're a complex, multi-passionate, or you once were and wanna get back to that, I encourage you to actually sign up for my newsletter. That's where I share opportunities to work with me one-on-one to help you confidently live an expansive life, whatever that means for you.

For some people that I've worked with, it's coaching during a job search as they're trying to change industries or sectors. And in those coaching sessions, we can get really tactical about how do you focus your efforts 'cause there's so many different opportunities that you could take advantage of. But you really have to have focus.

Other clients of mine have been looking more strategically as they planned for a pivot in the future. Or maybe you're somebody who's looking for more of an a la carte option, a choose-your-own-adventure style of coaching. Anybody else here a huge fan of the Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid? I loved them. I just recently passed on my entire collection to my oldest daughter. But I always seemed to get frustrated when I was reading them because I didn't have enough fingers to place in all of those choice pages so that I could actually go back and see what would have happened if I had made a different choice. Renaissance Person problem.

I'm also opening up a new coaching program soon, and that one is going to be focused on expansion. So this program is for people who want to live more expansive lives, even when the world feels like it is trying to crush you. And man, are there a lot of crushing things out there right now!

Maybe you're seeing a peep of light at the end of the mommy tunnel, as someone so eloquently described it in a comment on one of my friend's Facebook posts, and you're wanting to expand your identities. Perhaps you're recovering from a health challenge that seemed like a black hole absorbing all of your energy and light. Maybe you're leaving a job or completing a degree that demanded all of your attention and focus. And perhaps, Renaissance Person, it's some combination of all of the above or more.

What we'll do is we'll work together, using the Renaissance Mindset of learning and curiosity, to reject the world's attempt to keep you in your narrow lane. Let's embrace the whole freeway and maybe take an off-road tangential adventure. So sign up for my newsletter to learn more about that.

But back to the path that we're on for this episode. Focus, Sara. Today's guest is Marley Parker, a science communicator and adventurer who can frequently be found exploring the deep ocean and climbing mountains.

Over the course of today's episode, we talk about how her personal mantra aligns with an evolutionist identity, Marley's niche in the field of science communication and how she got there, the importance of mentorship, community, and human-to-human connection, especially in our AI and virtual-centric societies, how social media has impacted science communication, the kinds of people found on research vessels.

Marley gave an elegant answer to that dreaded question, "what do you do?" But it came with a caveat, a little bit of an asterisk, if you will. We also play a new improv game that I'm calling Off on a Tangent and ended up talking about why self-care is critical for Renaissance People. And also, Marley shared her unique way of going down a rabbit hole.

Hungry yet? Here we go!

Thank you for joining, Marley, and I'm going to kick things right off, going full throttle, for the throat with the question that some people have a struggle with, but I'll be interested to hear your answer, and that is something that I think is really core to who we are, which is our identity.

And I gave you this list ahead of time, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. From this list, which term aligns best with your own identity? Renaissance Person, man, woman, whatever you choose; multi-passionate; generalist; versatilist; Jack, Jill, Jay-of-all-trades; boundary spanner; polymath; or something else related to your complexity.

I like what you just said, though, versatilist. That definitely resonates with me. I didn't really think about that when I was reading through the list that you sent, but that really resonates. And I think if I could come up with my own title, I don't know.

I don't do titles so much as mantras. So one of my mantras over the course of especially my freelance career as a freelance science communicator has been "the future is unpredictable." That's one mantra. And, you have to just figure it out as you go, and that we are always learning and growing and evolving. So if I could have a title that was, like, evolutionist or something , you know

[00:07:19] Marley Parker: Like always growing and evolving and changing and learning new skills and having new experiences, that's been a big part of my experience over the past several years.

He was a manny in New York City. He just had all these different things that he did. He learned new skills in all of them, but he just basically did them so that he could keep going, and that led him to have this whole diversity of different skill sets because of that. So that was what he, uh, was getting at.

And Jenni Gritters, when she was on this, the show, the title of her episode is all about ever-evolving and how, you know, we're lifelong learners, we're constantly changing because the world changes. That's, like, just the nature of the world. And so to thrive in it, especially when you own your own business and you're doing your own thing, you have to be ready to handle that.

So well, you started to talk to us a little bit about it, but Marley, I'd love you, to have you tell me a little bit more, what are some of your areas of expertise and where you are a known quantity right now?

[00:09:43] Sara Kobilka: How many people would you say could share that unexplainable title of science communicator who specializes in ocean research? How many of you are there out there?

[00:10:13] Sara Kobilka: Yes I do!

It was originally created for classroom educators, so teachers, could go out to sea with us on our ship called Nautilus for two or three weeks at a time and really get firsthand hands-on real world experience about what it's like to work on a research vessel and work alongside deep sea scientists. And then bring those experiences back to their students in the classroom. So that's how it originated, but the program has grown and expanded, and we've had lots of different types of people come out to sea with us. And that's just one example of how I've gotten to know people and, you know, learn about all different kinds of people and all different kinds of deep sea science. So pretty fun.

I heard an interview that you did, which I will throw into the show notes, and I've got my water here. I know you've got your beverage for drinking as well, cause we celebrate sharing resources like Renaissance People. And I was listening, what is it? Blue coat white... Oh, what is the title?

[00:11:49] Sara Kobilka: Thank you. Yeah, it was a fun podcast, and I was listening, and I'm, I just was like, "Marley. Marley is totally a part of this Renaissance Person, uh, community that I want to build." And so I reached out to you and said, "I'd love to have you come on the show," and your response was, "Well, I'd love to, but in a few days I am going to Antarctica and I, I can't do it."

And then I responded four days later and said, "Hi, um, I've had listeners on almost all of the continents. Would you like to help me make it so that in my first," I think it was my first month of existence as a podcast, I could say that every single continent had had a listener. And you were so kind as to take a few minutes to listen to that very premiere episode.

And it, it tickled me, uh, to no end. I thought it was so, so fun. And then I went onto the website where they have a map, and it's, it's lit up and it shows you what countries people are listening from, and I realized that they didn't even have Antarctica on the map. And I was like, " No!" And it even, didn't even come up on the text list of, like, places where people have listened to your podcast.

So I, I sent a slightly, not mad, but, like, an email to them, and I was like, "How dare you?!?"

[00:13:08] Sara Kobilka: Yeah, strongly worded email. "How dare you not include Antarctica 'cause I had a listener there." But it was one of those just, like, small little things that gave me so much joy. So thank you, for helping me achieve that.

And I'm curious, you are actually similar to me in our pathway that we got into science communication in that we started in that field of journalism and then moved into the science communication field. I think most of the... I've had quite a few science communicators who have come on my podcast, and I wanna say all three of those other guests started in science and moved into science communication.

What has been the pattern that you've seen of people in science communication? Is it more of them came from science and then became communicators, or more came from communications backgrounds and moved into science? And does moving from one to the other, does going in a particular direction bring a benefit, or do you bring something unique because you started in communication and then added the science part?

I tell people all the time when I give presentations and talks, they often ask: Do you need to have a science degree or a scientific background to be an effective science communicator? And I say: Absolutely not. I have a bachelor's degree in journalism. That's it. I never got a master's degree. I only took, like, two or three science classes in college. I had no idea at that time that I would become a science communicator. If I could go back to college, I would be happy to take more science classes.

I am very personally grateful for my foundation from the journalism school. I went to UNC Chapel Hill Hussman School of Journalism and Media, and it was a phenomenal program, still is a phenomenal program. I've gone back to give presentations and talks there a couple times over the years. And I'm always very, very impressed with the caliber of the program.

I think so much of being a good science communicator really just comes down to being a good listener and asking really good questions. And there are so many different ways to produce compelling stories about science. So yeah, I don't know, that's a long, rambling answer. But I think, whether you're coming from a scientific background or a communications background, the most important things are, what I just said, listening, asking good questions, having a really deep curiosity about how the world works and really caring about these things. And just wanting to tell good stories and make science more accessible for more types of people.

[00:16:21] Marley Parker: Yes! You'll love this. I grew up on the coast of North Carolina. Very beautiful area to grow up. We got to go swimming in the marsh and be around, you know, the beach and the ocean very regularly. And I said at a very early age, "I wanna be a marine biologist." And I think it was a year or two later, I was diagnosed with a learning disorder. I'm basically dyslexic with numbers, and was kind of pushed down the path of, "Don't do science and math because you're a young woman who can't understand those things.", So I did excel in writing and English, and that's, you know, pretty quickly led me down the path of pursuing a degree in journalism and did really well in all my advanced placement English, history, language courses in high school, but really steered away from math and science. Which i s a shame that I didn't even really give myself the chance to pursue those things. I just was told, "You're not good at this, so you shouldn't do it, and you should pursue what you're good at."

I don't think I would've done very well pursuing, like, PhD-level science, because of the way my brain works, but I am really grateful that my career has looped back around into the world of marine science and working with ocean scientists. Um, a little bit of a roundabout way, but it's really cool that it's worked out how it has.

And one topic that I felt was really important to bring into that conversation was dyscalculia, which is, I'm assuming, what your diagnosis is. And for people who haven't heard of it, there is actually a couple of different disabilities that can impact a person's ability in math class. So you can have dyslexia and you can have difficulty reading math problems.

You can have dyscalculia which is related to math and numerical thinking. And then there's also dysgraphia which is basically like sloppy handwriting, but it is a, a disability related to that. And getting people in out-of-school time to understand that a student might be struggling in math because they actually have a learning disability, but simultaneously letting them know that math ability is a muscle that can get stronger as we practice it as opposed to getting that message like you did of, "Oh, you're just not good at it, so just don't do it."

And it's just, it's so sad to hear stories like this, and I've heard them other times. I've had other friends who have been specifically told, you know, "You shouldn't do this because you have a disability." Did that knowledge, does that knowledge impact the work that you do in any way?

And we are always telling them, "You don't have to be a scientist to go do deep ocean exploration science. You don't have to be an engineer." You know, we do have scientists and engineers working on the ship, but we also have people like me who are photographers and writers. We also have cooks working in the ship kitchen who work extremely hard and make really delicious food while we're working out there. We have deckhands on the back of the ship. We've got people running our data and internet. You know, that's a whole job in and of itself. So we really try to show that your dream is to be a deep sea scientist, that's amazing. If you don't get that one specific job title, there are lots of other possibilities out there. And that's something that I promote in my own work when I'm giving presentations about my career, but that's also a big initiative of several of the ships I work on, is showcasing the diversity of careers and possibilities.

[00:20:54] Marley Parker: Yeah!

With the work that you're doing, when do you feel like you have the opportunity to connect the dots because of your unique background, your unique interests, that sort of things?

So how do we make this relatable? How do we get away from the scientific jargon language? How do we come up with good metaphors and analogies to explain this work and make it meaningful to people, even if they don't study this or don't know much about this topic at all? So that's just kind of basic fundamental science communication 101, right?

And that's a big part of what I do is connecting non-scientists with the scientific research that we're doing, often in the deep ocean, and how and why that should matter to someone, even if they don't live anywhere near the ocean, right? So that's one big part. The other big way that I think I connect the dots is through the mentorship work that I do, and I run the mentorship program for the Association of Science Communicators.

It's another thing I would love to link to in the show notes. It's a fantastic program.

[00:22:35] Marley Parker: We are just going into our third year, and it's a really, really fulfilling, affirming, empowering thing to help connect young, up-and-coming, early career science communicators with experienced people. So I've done a lot of mentorship just one-on-one with individual people, but starting this bigger program where I can connect more experienced folks with these early career folks who are really trying to learn more about science communication and just about how to have a maybe not so traditional career path and how to navigate the wild world that we're all living in and all of the constant changes and just very kind of volatile feeling job market right now, honestly.

I think having mentorship and support and community is really, really helpful. So it's been really wonderful to make connections in that way as well.

And while we can do all we can to, like, try to make the verbs in the job description match the verbs you have in your resume, if you can get a real human being vouching for you, bringing up your name during the hiring process, just having that network of people with this whole AI taking over and filtering out anybody who doesn't seem exactly right for a job, I think it's so important, the networking. It's such a critical thing with AI.

[00:24:36] Sara Kobilka: I wanna go back to, um, what you were talking about with the scientists when you were interviewing them. One of the challenges that I've had because I have worked with scientists trying to communicate, is occasionally you'll run into somebody who's worried about dumbing down, and will specifically use the phrase like, "I don't wanna dumb down my research."

How do you handle it when they give you that sort of response or put up that block to your suggestions?

So I fortunately haven't encountered too many chief scientists or directors of labs or institutions who have the mindset of, " Oh, we're not gonna, you know, omit our jargon because we don't wanna dumb it down." They recognize the value of having accessible language and having compelling stories about their work. And if somebody needs to access every data point from their research, they can go read the hundred-page paper they wrote, you know?

[00:25:56] Marley Parker: So yeah, just if I need to gently remind someone of that is what we're going for, that we are trying to make your research more accessible and relatable to people. It's not about dumbing it down. It's about simply using different language. Or instead of using very specific data points, using a really solid analogy. And I do really appreciate the scientists that have already put in a lot of that work over the years, and so by the time I interview them, they already have their go-to analogies. They already have their perfect examples. They already know how to talk about these things to make it interesting and relatable.

I think the classic example is I've interviewed so many oceanographers, people who study the sea floor. And their go-to example is we know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the bottom of the ocean.

[00:26:49] Marley Parker: And at this point, we even know more about the surface of Mars than we know about the ocean floor on our own planet! So lots of things like that just to be able to get people to kind of raise their eyebrows and say, "Oh, wow, that's crazy."

[00:27:02] Marley Parker: Whatever draws people in.

Or I know some people that I worked with. I did a program at the Science Center of Iowa where we would train scientists to come on the floor of our museum and talk about the research that they were doing, and some of them were a little bit nervous about having a negative response from people, being accused of things. Someone was worried about PETA 'cause he was involved with animal research.

Do you find that there's ever fear in scientists when it comes to communicating, whether it's because social media allows people to blow things up or take you out of context and be seen as being inaccurate as a scientist, which is like, oh, the worst thing ever?

Or why do you think people might have fear related to communicating their science?

So then you have to ask the question to these folks, "Well, would you rather not say anything at all and just not be interviewed or not be on camera or not even participate if the fear is that debilitating?"

And in that case, honestly, I never force people. If someone really feels fearful or insecure and they just don't have the confidence or the willingness to share their story or be interviewed or participate in whatever science communication initiative we're trying to do, if they're really fearful or just not into it, I don't ever force people. I just say, "OK, that's fine. We will find someone else." For every person who's feeling kind of not into it or worried about it or insecure about it, there's plenty of other people out there who do really want to have the microphone, who want to be able to talk about their science. So never force folks. That's just my personal approach to those sticky situations, I guess.

[00:29:43] Marley Parker: Oh, man, that's a huge question!

[00:29:48] Marley Parker: Well, social media is such a complicated beast. I enjoyed sharing my expeditions and my work on social media a lot more 10 years ago than I do now, honestly, just because of the way the algorithms work. And sometimes I share this, like, really phenomenal, fascinating tidbit from one of our expeditions with some beautiful photos, and it's like hardly anyone sees it because of the way the algorithms are.

And I

[00:30:17] Marley Parker: also don't wanna be on social media all the time, so I'm not a science influencer or anything. I, I do some pretty cool work and do occasionally share what I think are pretty interesting things from our expeditions and some really beautiful photography and videos and those sorts of things. But I don't have like a million followers or anything, so I'm not really the social media guru.

On the other hand, on a more positive note, I do think that, looking on the bright side, it has created more accessibility. I've even sailed with some young interns and, fellowship recipients who say, "Yeah, I first saw this deep sea video on YouTube when I was in elementary school, and now I just graduated college and I'm here working on the ship that I was following on social media for the past 10 years."

And that's really crazy and really cool that we now have kids who are old enough, and our programs have been around long enough that we inspired them when they were young. We got to them early. And now here they are working on the ship. There's been multiple examples of that, so that's been a really, really special, really cool thing. But yeah, again, social media is such a complicated thing. I could go down a dark rabbit hole with all the issues that, especially with AI content and everything else. I mean, I don't really wanna go down into the dark hole abyss of all of that. But, yeah, there are still definitely some good things that come out of it, and that is one of them.

[00:32:01] Marley Parker: Yeah. I find Renaissance People in all realms. Lots of science communicators, are definitely Renaissance People by your definition, with multiple job titles and multiple experiences and areas of expertise. And they're just so curious and always looking for new ways of doing things and new projects and new ideas and just that abundance of curiosity and how to share things and how to do things.

And yeah, I certainly see it among many of my shipmates as well. I mean, the biggest, common denominator with anybody working on a ship is we're all very adventurous people. You cannot work on a ship and not be driven by a spirit, like a fundamental spirit of adventure.

[00:32:43] Marley Parker: We are literally going thousands of miles offshore, sometimes sailing across the entirety of an ocean, very, very far away from home. It's people who are absolutely willing and not only willing, but keen to get out of their comfort zone and go explore and to go find and see things that other humans have never seen before. So yeah, that very deep, profound sense of adventure and exploration is a huge part of working at sea.

Another aspect of my own idea of Renaissance People that I keep coming back to, is thinking about the false dichotomy between left brain, right brain. We know that that's not true by neuroscience standards.

But I think there is also an aspect of me that when I decided, "Oh, I'm just going to focus on my journalism side and theater side and all of that, and I'm done with the, my math and science side and interests there," and then I realized I missed having that combination of those things. Do you think that a lot of the people on the ship in particular are people who do a really good job of combining an interest in kind of analytical math, science side of things as well as having that storytelling, creative side to them? I mean, maybe not the chefs, but for particularly the science or the science communicators on the ship, do you think they have that beautiful combination of interests?

[00:34:57] Sara Kobilka: Love it

On the ship, we each have our designated roles and some of the folks are engineers, and they drive the remotely operated vehicle and tinker on all of our engineering equipment. And when they're not on the ship, they are in a workshop also tinkering. But then some of us are doing totally, totally different things. ,

I think what you described is definitely most true amongst me and my fellow science communicators, having a deep appreciation of the science and the engineering and the work, and then also knowing intuitively how to mold that into a compelling story. That is kind of our specialty. But there's just such a incredibly broad spectrum of personalities and interests represented on any research vessel. It's really hard to delineate people into categories.

[00:36:16] Marley Parker: Definitely.

[00:36:34] Marley Parker: This is a great question, and it took me a long time to figure out how to do that without, you know, speaking a whole paragraph of information at people, right? So the most concise way that I've come up with when I first introduce myself and want to briefly give people an idea of what I do is I say, "Hey, I'm Marley. I am a photographer, videographer, and science writer, and I specialize in documenting deep sea research expeditions." That's the

[00:37:04] Marley Parker: most concise...

[00:37:05] Marley Parker: ... specific way I can put it.

[00:37:17] Marley Parker: Oh, I mean, probably like the first year or two of my freelance career, for sure.

[00:37:25] Marley Parker: No, I didn't think that hard about it. I think just part of it is being a writer and writing descriptions on my website, you know, like updating my website, my About page. I think it's also a helpful exercise whenever you are presenting at a conference or you're being featured on a podcast or whatever you're being featured on. When people ask you to send your bio, they say, " Hey, can you send us two to three sentences of your professional background, who you are, what you do?" And so I've had to do that for multiple conferences and presentations, and that's also a really good way to just get it down to two or three sentences. This is who I am.

This is what I do. This is my professional area of expertise. So being a writer is the short answer.

And I think it's also getting back to what we said before about the scientists. I think one of my concerns when I introduce myself to people is I don't want to, quote, " dumb myself down." I don't want to seem less complex than I really am. But then probably, like, way too much of the time I end up overwhelming them. But that's when I say, "Go to my LinkedIn profile. You can always read a whole bunch more there if you wanna really dig into it."

And I think, again, it's great to just send people to my website where you can find all of this information well organized in different tabs for all the different identities that I have.

[00:39:47] Improv Game

[00:39:51] Marley Parker: For sure, always.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna complete the sentence, "You know you're a Renaissance Person if..." And so, I will go first, and I, seriously, I haven't been thinking about it at all, so now this is gonna be full improv coming off the top of my head based on the conversation that we had. You know you're a Renaissance Person if you can create a spectacular, elegant, two-liner description of yourself, but that actually only covers 50% of what you do. How's that?

[00:40:46] Sara Kobilka: There you go.

[00:40:58] Sara Kobilka: Yeah

[00:41:06] Sara Kobilka: ' Cause we operate in many boxes. They're not boxes though, they're circles. They're walking Venn diagrams of us.

[00:41:13] Off on a Tangent

And so I am going to share one thing that I am currently doing or interested in, and your job is to go off on a tangent about it. So you, the, the starter sentence can be something like, "Oh, that makes me think of..." And then you get to go off on a tangent.

But the rule is, I was talking to a friend about this idea of going off on a tangent and how I think it's really valuable because similar to your scientists who are using metaphors to explain things, when you can talk about something and compare it to something that another person already knows about, as long as you can make the connection of why those two things are similar, then it can open up a new way for a person to think about something that maybe they didn't understand before.

So you have to take off on a tangent, but you must also be able to land the plane and connect it back to what you were originally talking about. ' Cause sometimes people go off on a tangent and they're like, "What were we talking about?" And, and then you're, you're gone.

So I will share something that I'm currently doing. Oh, OK. So I have, going back to our interest in creating videos and our frustration with the algorithm, I have been creating videos this summer for the fun of it, my little sparkly project. I call it The Growth of Growing. They're all less than one minute, and they're all about my garden, and I'm talking about the gardening as a metaphor. I'm talking about the actual garden. I'm kind of relating to anything with the process of gardening to my life. So does that make you think of any tangent that you could go off on?

And so yeah, today I was literally earlier today just pulling weeds and relishing the feeling of dirt under my fingernails and connecting with the earth. Because my shipmates and I had to endure some pretty rough seas on my most recent expedition, which is mentally and physically very draining and exhausting. And, being at sea and doing the work we do is just very fulfilling and affirming, but it's also very, very draining and very tiring. And being able to engage in the self-care and the simple joys of things like gardening or pulling weeds or, you know, just being outside is incredibly important.

And to bring it back to this idea of what do Renaissance People do? What do they need? I think a big thing is for us to prioritize that self-care and that time to enjoy life and not just be wrapped up and consumed with our work.

I think one of the biggest challenges for Renaissance People is they invest a lot of their energy and their personality and their value goes into the work that we do. And so it can be sometimes hard to differentiate between your work and yourself. And so doing things like gardening or going on a hike or being outside or whatever it is, is just a really good way to reconnect with yourself and to maybe not be thinking about work and not be thinking about all of the projects that you wanna do and all the ideas that you have. Just be, be here now, be in the moment and enjoy yourself and take good care of yourself.

[00:45:13] Rapidish Fire Questions

[00:45:30] Marley Parker: Like I said, I have a lot of mantras. I don't know that I have a ton of metaphors. Figure it out as you go has been one of my biggest mantras for all of these years. And then my other, you know, very concise, way of describing my work is I translate scientific jargon into compelling narratives. That's just my brief, concise way of describing what I do as a science communicator. but I don't know that I have any, like, perfect metaphors off the top of my head. I'll have to think more about that one.

But then sometimes it's just really nice to be on solid, non-moving ground that isn't changing a lot. Do you think of the ocean itself in a kind of metaphorical way at all?

Like, yes, they are beautiful, majestic parts of nature. They also do not care about us and our measly human existence, and they need to be respected. I think people often get into trouble out in the ocean or on a mountain because they do not have the proper humility, for engaging in these very harsh, remote environments.

And so I could go off on a whole tangent about safety and, first responder training and being prepared and having the right equipment and the right experience to be going on the adventure you're going on. But that's, that's a whole separate thing. So,

[00:47:56] Marley Parker: yeah.

[00:47:58] Marley Parker: mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm a wilderness first responder and have done just basic scuba first aid as well and other just kind of basic st- I'm not an EMT by any means, but I, I do try to keep up to date with some basic first responder medical training for emergency situations.

And that's just yet another example of people maybe... I mean, there was nothing they could do about it. It was a force of nature. They're doing research now on how much climate change had an impact in what happened with the collapse of the ice. But when a wall of mud and water like that is coming down the side of the mountain, there isn't anything you can do by that point in time in that particular case. But as much awareness ahead of time that you're getting into one of those situations is at least, I guess, the best that you can do for people.

So that is, definitely something to keep in mind, especially for folks like me who work in really remote parts of the world, where we don't have direct access to medical care and those sorts of things. So

[00:49:56] Marley Parker: That is a heavy but important part of it.

There's something that we couldn't even possibly comprehend. And he talks about, he has eight different areas that awe happens in, but nature is one of those categories of things where there is awe. And you can be in awe of mother nature for that beautiful sunset, and you can be in awe of mother nature for the total destruction of villages because of a landslide.

And, and that's the same thing. It's, it's awe and realizing we're, we're that little blue dot in this vastness, and that's pretty small.

[00:50:54] Sara Kobilka: Yeah, highly recommend it. I actually had my brother listen to her theme song when I was having him write the theme song for my own podcast, 'cause I'm like, "This one's so cool," but I can't copy it, but it's so cool.

[00:51:07] Sara Kobilka: I know. I love making those connections. OK, I got two more quick questions and we are done.

Do you have time for that?

[00:51:14] Sara Kobilka: OK, excellent. What is one rabbit hole that you have gone down recently? And it can be work-related, it can be totally just a random interest that you got into.

But yeah, so I guess the rabbit hole, for lack of a better term, that I've been down recently was learning a lot more about the Cook Islands, as an independent nation and what their culture and history and food and, you know, livelihood and economy, just learning a lot more about that very, tiny but very special corner of the world. That was really special.

So just one example, after I got back from the expedition, I came home, and two days after I got home, I wanted to make dinner for my good friends who I hadn't seen in a long time and, you know, just be with my people. And so I made them ika mata, which is one of the main traditional dishes in the Cook Islands. Basically like an island-style ceviche. It's made with raw tuna and coconut milk and fresh veggies.

And it was really special to bring literally a taste of the islands back to my friends, and it was really fun to go look up those recipes and to figure out what to serve with it and to, yeah, to just kind of bring some of my experience from traveling to the far corners of the world back home with me.

[00:53:18] Marley Parker: Yeah, the Cook Islands are just such a special place. Their version of like aloha, what everybody says to each other every day is kia orana, which means greetings and hello, but it also means to your health and happiness, and that is kind of just the energy of the place. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to make a meal for my friends and talk about some of the, you know, things that I learned in the Cook Islands because it's just such a, again, very, very special place.

So yeah. Some things you have to go and experience to, to really know the value of them.

[00:53:55] Marley Parker: Yeah

[00:54:06] Marley Parker: In my background as like a... In my professional background or my experience

[00:54:18] Marley Parker: Yeah. Um, I don't know that this would come as a huge surprise, but it's something I didn't mention when, you know, I talked about the value of my education at the journalism school and how I've continued to use obviously things like photography and video throughout my whole career.

Another thing that I did study in college and that has served me incredibly well throughout my career is I minored in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish fluently, but I speak it enough to communicate and to communicate in a polite, friendly way and to get around. And, yeah. I've used Spanish many, many times over the years in all of my travels. I even worked on a Spanish research vessel off the coast of Spain a couple of years ago. And I've worked a lot in Central and South America.

So that's-- Yeah, that's something that my dad told me when I was a kid. My dad, his entire career, he was an international airline pilot. He's retired now, but he told me when I was very young, he said, "You know, if you do anything, learn a foreign language." And he didn't say which one I had to learn or anything, but I chose Spanish and that's been really, really wonderful to be able to communicate in another language, both, you know, in far off places around the world, also right here in the United States.

I've helped people at the DMV when they didn't have Spanish-speaking people working, you know? So, yeah, I think that's a really valuable thing is just being-- I am a professional communicator, and I can also communicate in more than one language. So that's an important thing to note.

And so the fact that I know German has actually helped me in my moderating and how to pronounce things in some of the American Chemical Society. So finally, finally it's, it's helping.

[00:56:16] Sara Kobilka: Didn't help in Tucson. My husband took Spanish, though.

[00:56:22] Sara Kobilka: Yeah

[00:56:24] Sara Kobilka: Exactly. Wonderful. Well, Marley, I know you said you've got some of those really amazing videos and pictures and stories from your travel that you did put out on social media. So how can people follow you, see some of the stuff that you're putting out into the world?

I also send out a newsletter, and I will include a link to this podcast episode in my next newsletter. And all of that information is on my website, so that's probably the easiest place.

[00:57:22] Marley Parker: My next expedition is scheduled for September 10th, so just over two weeks.

[00:57:39] Marley Parker: Of course. It was a great conversation. Thank you so much for having me.

(sung) Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People