What happens when a two-time Emmy Award-winning television executive decides to flip the script on her career? In this episode of the NOT REAL ART podcast, host Scott "Sourdough" Power uncovers the remarkable story of Shannon Malone-deBenedictis—a creative entrepreneur transforming the media landscape. From sharing the screen with Hollywood legends to forging her own path with the artist mentorship organization Padlin Creative, Shannon’s story is a powerful testament to resilience and authenticity. 

Throughout our conversation, we explore Shannon’s history in documentary filmmaking, where she’s had the privilege of working alongside legendary figures like James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver. It’s fascinating to hear her reflect on her transition from the bustling world of television to launching her own venture, Padlin Creative. This new endeavor is more than just a career shift for her; it’s a heartfelt mission. With the media landscape in constant flux, she’s deeply committed to mentoring creatives and providing them with the essential tools they need to thrive. 

Shannon also opens up about her experiences as a plus-size woman navigating an often critical industry. She bravely shares the societal pressures she's faced and advocates for a culture that promotes acceptance and self-empowerment. Her workshop, Fully Unapologetic, is a powerful call to action for women everywhere to embrace their true selves without fear or hesitation. It's a refreshing perspective that encourages confidence and self-worth, and it highlights how essential authenticity is to the creative process. Whether you’re an established artist or just starting out, Shannon’s insights will inspire you to embrace your identity and cultivate your creative journey unapologetically. Join us as we explore her mission and discover how embracing your true self can redefine success.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Arterial

ArtsvilleUSA

First Friday Exhibitions

NOT REAL ART

NOT REAL ART Podcast

PADLIN CREATIVE

Remote Video Series

For more information, please visit https://notrealart.com/shannon-malone-debenedictis-padlin-creative

The Not Real Art podcast is intended for creative audiences only. The Not Real Art podcast celebrates creativity and creative culture worldwide.

It contains material that is fresh, fun and inspiring and is not suitable for.

Boring old art snobs.

Now let's get started and enjoy the show. Greetings and salutations, my creative brothers and sisters. Welcome to Not Real Art, the podcast where we talk to the world's most creative people.

I am your host, faithful, trusty, loyal, tireless, relentless host. Sourdough coming at you from Crew West Studio in Los Angeles. Man, do we have a great show for you today.

We have a two time Emmy award winning television executive, the one and only Shannon Malone, the Benedictus. And I'm so grateful that she took time out of her busy schedule to come through and talk about her new venture, her new endeavor, paddling Creative.

So before we get into that, I want to thank you for tuning in. I also want to thank our presenting sponsor, Arturial.

Arterial.org Arturial is a nonprofit arts media organization and they are now our fiscal sponsor.

Which means that you can support our work and you can support the show and everything we do here at NARL Art with a tax deductible donation that you can make through our website and through Arterial's website if you go to arterial.org so no pressure, but please, please consider supporting the work because of course that helps us pay our bills. It makes life a little bit easier. So thank you. Anything will help. Appreciate support.

So as always, of course I also want to encourage you to go to notrelart.com check out all the good healthy stuff we got for you there. It's gluten free, it's organic, it's fresh, it's free range, it's incredible content dedicated to art and artists.

And you're going to be so inspired to learn and discover amazing art and artists. Notrealart.com you'll be able to of course check out first Friday's art exhibitions, new shows every month.

You'll be able to check out Badir McCleary's exclusive original series remote, only available@notrealart.com so please go check everything out. All right, now, Shannon Malone Dubenedictus is in the house. Shannon and I go back. Oh, I don't know. One, two. Yeah. Three decades.

Yes, that's right people, three decades.

And she is an incredible human for starters, but incredible filmmaker, documentary filmmaker, two time Emmy award winning and you know, she created an amazing career for herself in television. But she's pivoted now as an entrepreneur into this new endeavor, Paddling creative.

So we're going to talk about this, we're going to see what's going on over there. Paddling. But here's a little bit about Shannon that you might not know. She's been a leading television development production figure for years.

She's collaborated with the BBC, James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Sella Ward, James Spader, Dennis Quaid and the Jackson Fork Ranch. She's won, as I said, two Emmy awards at Red Rock Films.

Outstanding documentary series for Disney Plus Secrets of the Whales, an outstanding nature and adventure series for Netflix, Penguin Town. She has developed and produced programs in several genres from science and natural history to embedded reality and children's programming.

With an extensive career as an editor, producer and in house development executive, she excels in taking a 10,000 foot kind of approach to every project with a passion for problem solving and an ease in grasping both creative and business interests. The same passion applies to ecosystems, native cultures and our planet.

Shannon's expertise in being behind the camera, storytelling and producing nature or location filming will educate, amuse and inspire passengers on special interest in destination cruises. Herself an experienced cruise passenger, Shannon understands the importance of engaging audience by merging animal science with human behaviors.

It's not all about facts, people. It's humor, it's fear, it's understanding.

Shannon built her career at non fiction film production and companies such as Red Rock Films, WAG tv, Nat Geo and Warner Brothers Discovery. Shannon is a native of Washington, Tony and avid newsreader and proud Nationals baseball fan.

She's always been a huge baseball fan, you know, and I've known her a long time and I'm just so grateful that she took time to come. I'm grateful she's still my friend. She knows she knows me. She knows me really well. The fact that she still calls me her friend is kind of a miracle.

So I hope she continues to keep me around and I'm just grateful that she's here today. So without further ado, let's get into this conversation I had with the one and only Shannon Malone. Duh.

Benedictus Foreign welcome back to Not Real Art.

Good to see you. It's always good to see you, dear.

Oh. Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

You're not sick of me yet. I mean, it's been 30 years.

Coming up on 30 years. And look, and here's the deal. You are aging magnificently. I'm a. I'm a 55, 54 year old woman. I'm allowed to say that now.

I'm at that age where I can kind of make those inappropriate comments to. You're aging well.

Well, this is a good time to point out. Thank you for that.

It's a good time to point out that I do live in the plastic surgery capital of the world with the best plastic surgeons to the stars here in the City of Angels, Los Angeles, AKA Hollyweird. So, yeah, of course I look great.

Yeah, you look fabulous. You look fabulous. Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you, it's all the whiskey and we have stories, lots of drinking stories that we could go, we could go back on. But yeah, let's, let's, let's leave those, let's leave those skeletons in the closet.

That's probably best. That's probably best. That will be for the all drinking episode marathon. Like, we'll just get a whole bunch of people.

Artists on here and just throw, start throwing back some on Glen Fiddich and we'll, we'll, we'll exchange stories. That's what we should do.

I love it. I love it.

Well, look, I mean, as you already know, and just for the sake of our listeners, you know, I wanted to have you back on the show because, of course, you know, you are a dear friend and, and, and longtime friend and colleague, but really, you're at this interesting trans. Time because last time we spoke, last time you came on the show, we were celebrating your Emmy win.

I don't know if it was that your, if that was your first Emmy win or your second Emmy win, but you have two Emmy wins. Who's counting?

No.

Oh, wait. You're flanked by your image.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

What do I got behind me? Just a bunch of trauma.

Anyway, so here you are, accomplished filmmaker, accomplished storyteller, and now you're pivoting into kind of a new phase of your career, a new, new endeavor. And I just, I'm excited to hear about it. I want to help. Anything.

Help we, Anything we can do to help amplify and promote this, this, this new endeavor.

But, but, but, you know, obviously given your track record, given your legacy and your in your accomplishments, I mean, it feels like the perfect time to go out and try to help people.

That's really what motivated me. And like you said, we've known each other three decades now, and how we met, how we worked together was helping talented creative profess.

And, you know, sure, sales is great. Sure, meeting clients and going into boardrooms is fine.

But for me, what motivated me the most, helping people was helping people, particularly creatives, find work and feel inspired in what they do. So, as many people are aware of, the television industry is under a huge amount of flux.

I think it started as a dumpster fire, and then it became like a brush fire. And I'm sorry. Oh, no. Not meant to bring any fear in people from la, but it's been pretty awful.

And one thing that I saw, and I think a lot of experts like Josh Shapiro and others would agree, is that it's not coming back. This is not going to come back to the way that it was a few years ago.

The media race is over and now it's contracted, and there are a lot of really creative professionals out there who are struggling. And I love mentoring, I love helping. So I launched my company, Padland Creative, which Padlin stands for.

My mother's nickname was Patty Paddy and her real first name was Lina, and I combined them together and I created Padlin Creative.

Love it. Shout out, Mom.

Shout out to my mom. It's my company started as being this.

I'm going to help creative professionals, help creative companies overcome hurdles, overcome snags, because one thing that I have an expertise in is coming in 10,000ft and saying, okay, this is how we want to rearrange things. This is how we want to do things. And then working one on one with producers, artists, writers, editors, et cetera, and helping them find a path.

So you get that, because that's what we did. That's what we learned when we were at Aquent. We learned how to do that. But in doing this, I wrote an article on LinkedIn about being fat.

And I have been heavy my whole life. I've always been an overweight woman, but I like to think of myself as a running, jumping, overweight woman.

You know, you're an athlete, man. You're a better athlete than I am. I mean, you know, I don't mean that. That. Doesn't that probably sound like a sexist thing to say?

I didn't mean it that way, but no, you. You've always been incredibly athletic and active. That's incredible. Yeah.

Yeah. I remember one time upsetting our buddy Dave when we played a basketball shooting game at a bar and I beat him.

And he was really mad because I beat him. You know, Shout out to Dave.

Shout out Dave Burkett.

Shout out to Dave Burkett. You know, so, I mean, but I've always been way.

And I wrote about my experience of being in boardrooms, being in sales meetings, being the only woman over a size 8 in media, and I got a huge response to it. Huge. And I said, there's Something here. Yeah, there's something here.

And so I started a public speaking workshop initiative called Fully Unapologetic. And it's talking about how women in particular, and plus size women, we're. We're made to feel like we have to apologize for everything. Everything.

We apologize for our size. We apologize for not fitting a perfect ideal. We apologize for maybe not responding to an email as fast as we think we should.

Right.

And. And it really eats away at you and also undermines your authority and undermines what you're. What you're. You're capable of doing. And I. I know even I.

I looked at myself for a long time, and I would start emails and I'd say, I think you should, or, I'm sorry to ask you this, but could you. And I'm like, why am I being so passive? Why am I being apologetic for just asking people to do their work?

And like I said, 54 years old, I don't care that much anymore. I want to help people and make people better.

So I've launched this webinar workshop public speaking initiative not only to help media professionals, but help people and women in general of saying, hey, it's okay. You're good. You're good.

Yeah. Yeah. Right on. What was it like writing that? I mean, that's such a poignant story.

I mean, you wrote this article and sort of like, I guess if, you know, if a kid were gay and they were, like, coming out to their family or if, you know, if you're voicing your truth to the world and, you know, putting that article out there, I mean, have you ever felt so vulnerable as you did in that moment? I mean, how vulnerable did you feel? I guess I shouldn't. I shouldn't assume you felt vulnerable, but, like. Like, that's. That. That was. That. That was.

Must have been, I don't know, a milestone moment for you on some level just to, like, come out with. With that personal story, you know, it was.

But what was interesting was discovering the things that I had compartmentalized and I hadn't really thought about and breaking it down and acknowledging how it had affected me.

So what I realized was that from years of dealing with just really obnoxious behavior, being a heavy woman, going to happy hours, going to bars, et cetera. And, you know, I, you know, I have a very clear memory of going to a bar and some guy just blatantly saying to me, you don't stand a chance.

You know, fat bitch. And I'm like, I never even talked to you. I. Who are You. You know, I was at a.

I was at an Orioles game with my pal, and we were sitting there, and there were some guys in their 20s sitting next to me, throwing back beers. And they were. This guy was sitting next to me, and his pals were harassing him, heckling him because he had to sit next to the fat chick.

Now, contrary to what people might believe, heaviness and obesity does not cause deafness. So I'm hearing it the entire time. I'm trying to enjoy the game. I'm trying. And those who know me as you see with the bobblehead, I love baseball.

And here I am just being mocked mercilessly like I am invisible. And so what that did is that actually caused behaviors in me to avoid networking happy hours.

It caused me to avoid going to events because those things would come up, those things of, like, you know, I don't want to feel that way. I don't want to feel vulnerable like that. So a lot of things I had compartmentalized and it add. But what it did is opened up these other things.

It made me realize that some of my behavior in the professional world was being tainted because of what had happened. Happened to me personally. You know, I think there's always this presumption, and I know I grew up with this of.

Of heavy woman, confident woman, while she's loud. She's a big woman, so she's loud.

Yeah.

So I would find myself just being quiet in board meetings or quieter meetings. And. And here. Here I will acknowledge this. And Scott, because you know me, right, Is. I think you probably say, no, Shannon, I work with you.

I don't remember you ever really being quiet in board meetings. But there were times that I was. There are times where it was a hurdle that I had to kind of overcome because I was worried about that stereotype.

I was constantly worried about being viewed as a bowl just because of my size, just because of who I was. Yeah.

And the. The outpouring. I mean, you. You published this. This article, and the. And the response was immediate.

The response was immediate. And what was even more startling was the private messages I got from women who experienced very similar things but couldn't talk about it publicly.

They couldn't talk about what they had done for fear of retribution in the industry, for fear of calling somebody out, you know, showing up at a meeting and being completely ignored by a client because the client didn't feel that they were worth the time of day. And. But still feeling like they couldn't express themselves, couldn't express the fact that they were treated like shit.

And, and it's just bad behavior. But that, that kind of muffle was still on. It was still being stifled. And, and the response was also overwhelmingly. It was overwhelmingly positive.

There were a lot of people who hadn't really thought about it, which it was, it was funny. There were people who would say things like, well, I never viewed you as fat. I never see you as a fat woman.

Which any person of color knows when they're saying, I don't see you as black, I don't see you as Hispanic. I don't see you. It's like, but I am. No, no. You know, and so that was even more kind of eye opening of. But that is my reality.

That is exactly what's going on. And so let's talk about it. I'm all about getting things out in the open. That is, that is having lack of subtext helps.

It's like, let's just talk about it. Let's kind of address it.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting. I mean, we've, as we've gotten older, right. We met our 20s, we're now in our 50s.

And you know, as you know, I'm deaf in my left ear and I have gone out of my way over the years to make sure no one knows that I'm deaf in my left ear.

Now at 54, about to be 55, I look back and I think about all of the energy and time I spent managing around that when I could have just said, oh, yeah, I'm deaf on my left ear. Let me, you know, just so you know, or whatever. Right. And, and it's, and why are we.

Is it that it's just so maddening that we develop these narratives in our mind, these insecurities and, and, and some of them are quite real and some of them are imagined. But, you know, here we are, right? Humans dealing with our humanity, you know. Yeah.

And I was just, I, I just wrote another essay for LinkedIn and, and my website, a blog entry, and I was talking about the recent death of Gene Hackman. Really hit me hard because I just, I have been, I know, such a fan. And.

Yeah.

And there are just too many roles to talk about about his work. And it got me thinking about legacy. You said that earlier. And thank you for saying about my legacy.

And I'm reading all these things about Gene Hackman and Maggie Smith and people who've passed away and, you know, nobody's sitting there and going, you know, well, Gene Hackman was a little bit on the husky side Nobody. His legacy has absolutely nothing to do.

Yeah, they talk about how you kind of have, like, everyday looks, but his legacy really had nothing to do with the fact that, you know, he wasn't Paul Newman, he wasn't Robert Redford, he wasn't that. You know, they talked about what he brought. He was a great neighbor. He was all these things.

And so you think about your legacy and it's like, are people really going to remember you because you were fat? Is that going to be the first thing they think about? No. So don't let it occupy so much time in your head as well. Yeah.

When you're setting your legacy.

Yeah.

And also sort of like, you know, it's, you know, in this culture, American society, and what we value and what we, what we prioritize, you know, youth over age, skinny over big, you know, what, whatever, you know, white over black. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

And you, I mean, dare I say, Republican over Democrat.

Yeah. I mean.

Right.

Capitalism over, over community, you know.

Right, right, right.

It's, it's, it's all that. And I think that, you know, one thing that, that just from the factual side, and I'm a documentary filmmaker, so I like doing research.

I like finding out what the facts are. And there's this myth that if it. Weight loss and weight is all about just what you.

What you intake and what you don't intake, and if you really kind of think about things in that simple manner, that's it, then cancer won't exist. Cancer. I mean, if everybody just does.

If you just do blank, then nobody will get cancer, nobody will be born with diabetes, nobody will have autoimmune disorders. But we're not machines. And, you know, anecdotally, I was raised in a family of three kids.

My older sister, who was six years older than me, my brother and myself. My sister and I were heavy. My brother had a nickname of Bones because he could not put weight on skin and bones.

We all ate the same diet, the exact same diet. And he was a swimmer. I played soccer and basketball and swam equal levels of activity.

Yeah.

So they're just angels. Like, guys, we're not things. Our bodies run function and some function differently.

And to say, well, you have to be skinny, so you have to eat like a bird and only have 500 calories a day for the rest of your life. Is that living? No. I want to see the world. I want to taste the world. I want to see everything.

I'm not saying sit down and be like the character from Meaning of Life, Monty Python's Meaning of life. No, I'm not saying that that's gluttony, but I don't want to not experience what the world has to offer. Yeah, yeah. So.

Right on, right on.

You know, and you know this, too. One thing, one. One trait about me is I hate bullies. I hate bullies. I really don't like bullies. And part of that was.

And a lot of it was because I was bullied as a kid, as being a heavy kid. But, you know, there's a. There was a story like when I was about six years old, my brother went to the same elementary school as me.

And he walked by and he saw me sitting at a table, and all of a sudden I reached over, hauled off, and punched this K. And my. My brother was mortified, just absolutely mortified. And I guess I got sent to the principal's office and whatnot.

You know, how dare you take justice into your own hands?

And what it was is my brother was like, you were bullying that kid. I said, no, Nolan. I was fighting back. I wasn't taking it. I was being bullied. And then I said, no, I'm not going to take it anymore.

And he was like, yeah, good for you.

Yeah, right? Oh, now I get it. Okay. Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. You're right.

Yeah, you're right. You're right.

You want me to punch him?

You're absolutely right. So this has been fun when it's been really nice, just like you do with the podcast and the workshops and the lectures and the shows you give.

It's been really nice being out there and working and talking to people and just reassuring them and telling them, look, you're awesome. You're beautiful. You're fantastic. Stop apologizing. Not only to others, but stop apologizing to yourself.

Yeah, right.

You're. You're. You're great. You're absolutely great. And. And that has been a real.

Just kind of boost in a time right now that is in television, bleak for many of us. Very gloomy, because we're all in this together. Seriously. We're all in this together, and we got to boost each other up. We got to support each other.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And we get to choose, right? We get to choose.

Well, I mean, maybe some people don't get to choose, but you and I were lucky enough, privileged enough that can make choices and, you know, towards self determination and this.

The choice to give back, the choice to help, the choice to, you know, lean into things that we're passionate about or we feel important that are important. For the Commonwealth. You know that. I mean, what. You know, how rich are we, right? To be able to.

To say that and do that doesn't mean we can always pay our bills. But. But, you know, some people are so poor, all they have is money and. Right.

And so anyway, so the fact that you're, you know, you're able to leverage, you know, as you said, sort of our. Our. Our history, because we did meet, you know, you were. When we met, I was a freelancer and you were helping me find work.

Then when I told you I was sick and tired of being a freelancer, I wanted to find a full time job, you said, well, why don't you come work for me as an agent? I think you'd be great. And. And then we start working together.

And it was at that point, at least speaking for myself, that I discovered my joy of what I like to say, helping artists tell their stories and promote their work.

Yeah, and you're very good at it. You've always been good at it.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And. But it's that symbiotic relationship of like, one plus one equals three sometimes. Right? And.

And so, you know, here we are now, you know, three decades later, doing it in different ways. But. But it is. It is.

You know, somebody was asking me the other day why I think art and artists are important and why I'm passionate about art and artists. And. And I said, well, you know, I think on a.

For me, on level, I mean, in a world where so much feels compromised, you know, in a world where so much feels corrupted, you know, we're looking for truth. We're looking for pure cultures. We're looking for things that, you know, have integrity.

And to me, generally speaking, art, artists, have integrity, are true tellers or at least aspire to be truth tellers and aspire to have integrity. And so they're sort of. They give me hope, they give me joy, you know, in a world where, you know, there's so much to be, you know, concerned about.

But. But anyway, that's what animates me every day.

Yeah, I agree. I think that what art does is art reminds us of our humanity. It reminds us of what makes us human.

You know, when you look at a painting or you listen to a symphony or Kendrick Lamar's halftime show, when you see that and you get goosebumps and you get emotional and you feel something. I. I've never felt that way looking at a spreadsheet. I don't know. That's just.

Maybe not me, you know, that's just, you know, but when you've experienced that, that is what makes us human. I was. I saw a thing that was posted last week on Instagram, and it was a. A person who finds old cameras, and he takes whatever.

If he finds film in it, he tries to. To. To develop the film. And he had found a.

Now that cat has made an impression to all the people who looked at this little video. It's made a moment, just that moment.

AI is a technological tool that is. We've always had technology come in. You know, people are scared about photography with threatening.

Threatening a painting and people scared about video threatening photography and et cetera. But the fact is, is that that's not going to replace the creative drive.

You're not going to, you know, AI is not going to replace Christopher Nolan, is not going to replace Jane Campion. You know, that's not going to happen.

You've got to have those creators, those artists, those people who find the way to make colors and make the world seem as beautiful or as ugly or whatever, to touch that, those emotions inside of you. I know that's what I try to do with my work, is if I can make people laugh, cry, angry, I've succeeded.

Yeah. That's the thing I've said several times in recent months. It's like, guys, the one thing AI can never be is human. So lean into.

Let's lean into our humanity. That is our ultimate competitive advantage. And let's think of these things as a tool.

And let's not stress too much about it until it develops opposable thumbs at the end of the day. Right?

Yeah, we're a long way from ex machina. I think, you know, that. That is. We're a long way from that. And. But it's Yeah, I mean, we. What's the phrase. What's the line from Willy Wonka?

We are the dreamers and we are the dreamers of dreams.

Yes. Right. Yes. Basically, that's it.

It's something along those lines. We are.

Yeah, that's us.

We're the ones who are going to create.

As I've said many times, you probably heard me say, it's like I sort of think of artists as. As true magicians because they create something out of nothing. Right. They see something we can't see. You know, they're, They're.

They literally pull rabbits from hats because, you know, like, there's nothing in the hat now. They're pulling something amazing out of it. And, you know, they're seers, right? They.

They see things that we don't see and, and, and, and our magicians, because they're able to persevere, to manifest things that. That didn't exist.

Yeah, well, I was. Last year, I was in both Madrid and Barcelona, and they have just, like, a really good graffiti and mural game going on there. That is fantastic.

And it. I'm sure people are like, I. And I think I was on a tour, people were like, look at all the graffiti.

It's like, the graffiti is the people, the graffiti is the culture. The graffiti tells you what is important, what is alive, what is on the minds of locals.

And, and knowing how graffiti is impacted in terms of politics in Spain, et cetera, it's just, again, it's inspiring. They're the truth tellers. They're the ones who are telling you.

And like you said, seeing insight, getting insight into something that maybe shows us something we need to know.

Yeah. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that.

So, as you might know, maybe you don't know, but a couple times over the years, we've gotten calls from the US State Department, and they've wanted us to work with them to do cultural exchange work, first in Panama and. And then most recently in Nepal.

And so back, you know, 15 years ago, whatever it was, my business partner, artist man one, they sent him to Panama to do. Be in country for about a month and create murals and work with local kids. And, you know, he was on national TV. He met Ms. Panama.

Like, you know, it's just like diplomatic. He had diplomatic immunity. Like, it was. It was really cool. Right? Well, because we are in the system, or we were vetted through the State Department.

We got a call two years ago to go to Nepal and create murals in Kathmandu and then down further south, close to India, and the. The kind of. The premise of the whole mission was they said, well, you know, we want to. We want to talk.

Teach them and talk to them about how, you know, artistic expression and graffiti. Graffiti can be used to. To. To. To drive discourse and civil disobedience and, you know, so on and so forth. And. And.

And then we started realizing that, you know, because we started thinking, so wait a minute, graffiti art is a felony in America. And. And our. Our government is sending us to Nepal to promote graffiti. I. Like, this is.

Well, remember Argo? Remember Argo? He was an artist.

Totally, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was. It is a powerful art form, you know, and everyone knows it, and it is an interesting place. It was funny.

They made sure that the biggest bureau we did was literally across the street from Parliament in Kathmandu. It was amazing, you know?

Well, I mean, what a crazy concept, using art as a diplomatic tool to build international relations and understanding. Who would have thunk it, Scott?

No, no, that's woke. That's wokeism at its worst, and it must be eradicated.

Yeah. Because, you know, it's just so much better just to have a diplomatic policy of punching someone in the face for no reason whatsoever. Yeah.

Especially your friends, you know, Especially your friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're in the punching our friends in the face phase of American diplomacy.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, anybody who's been bullied. Anybody who's been bullied recognizes this 100%.

Oh, that's such a powerful point you're making, because that is exactly. He's a fucking bully, and he bullies. That's how he. That's how he does what he does through business, through the last 50 years, 60 years of his.

Of his life. Anyway. Yeah. So fuck him. Fuck bullies. Speaking of, you know, bully in Chief, you're in D.C. yes. You know, this isn't a political podcast.

We don't have to spend much time talking about the current state of American politics. But you are in D.C. you've been in D.C. a long time. Clearly, D.C. is, you know, the front lines of the. Of the current chaos. The hot chaos, that is.

How are you faring? How are you feeling? What's the mood like in your neighborhood these days?

Oh, the mood's horrible. Let me. Let me just. To be clear, you know, clarify. I am one of the few people. I am born and raised in Washington, D.C.

and I've spent the majority of my life in the D.C. area. My father worked for both USAID as well as on Capitol Hill as an aide in the House of Representatives.

My sister worked for the State Department and my husband works for the DoD. So civil service is in my family and just very connected to it.

People who work in civil service are privileged and feel honored to do a duty of providing their expertise to support our. Support our country, to support people. They work really hard. And one of the. One of the things that, you know, I can.

I can say this is that my husband and I've been together for eight years. Ten total. Married eight.

And when we met, one thing that we decided is he decided to move from being a contractor to a government employee because he was willing to sacrifice the amount of money that could be made as a contractor for the stability of working as a civil service. Man works his ass off. My husband's job is to ensure that everybody in the military gets paid. I think that's a pretty vital job.

That's a really vital job. That's what he does. He works his ass off and he does this and he took this because he knew that my industry was good. It was. Could fluctuate.

And obviously that is what has happened. So the mood in D.C.

is a lot of really hardworking people who've dedicated their lives to supporting our government and the American population feels misunderstood and feel damaged, harmed, like under assault. And the idea of being gleeful at people losing their jobs unexpectedly, I don't. I don't. I'm not gleeful about anybody losing their jobs.

I don't care if you're a truck driver. I don't care if you're a movie star. I don't care if you're working down at the office. Nobody should lose their jobs unjustifiably just because.

Out of spite. And that's what it feels like here.

It feels like it is done recklessly and that these are people who have children and mortgages and loans and families that they need to support. And as the Washingtonian, our city feels very much under assault because I think a lot of people think Washington, D.C. is just an amusement park.

And people don't live here. People don't actually have a home here.

I remember when I went to the World Series in Houston, the people sitting behind me asked me if I lived in Seattle. And I went, no, I live in Washington, D.C. and they're like. I'm like, the Mariners are in Seattle. And they're like, oh.

And it was like, nope, there's 7 million people who live in the D.C. area. And we all work hard and have hard working lives. We're not sitting back eating bonbons saying, yay, this is great.

And we let those people vote, which is like what a democracy is about. That's it.

You know, you get to vote.

Doesn't matter if you know geography or not.

You know. I asked a question of Chris Liza, who used to be, used to be at cnn and he now runs like a weekly blog.

And I asked him a question, I said, do you think it's too late for people to truly understand what civil servants do? And he said, sadly, yeah.

He thought that it is too late that people do not understand the work that many people, overwhelming majority of people do as civil servants. You know, it's not just park rangers, it's studying how to keep water clean.

It's studying what's the best way to zone a city to make sure that there's not too much growth. All that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's too late for this generation.

You know, they'll, they'll, they'll be reminded in a generation or two when, when you know, the, the country is completely dysfunctional and isn't, isn't working. They, they think government isn't working now. Just wait till government stops actually working.

Well, I, I would, I would counter with this and yeah, yeah, again we're gonna try not to make politic political. But one can say everything is political. How is it not working?

Well, exactly.

No, no. If you're sitting in your home, of course.

Yeah.

And you have three cars and you live in a nice neighborhood. Yeah. And you get to go out to eat three times a week and you have Internet and you have five streaming services. Tell me what's not working for you.

Totally, totally, totally. You know, well, it, well yes. And you know, unfortunately, you know, obviously the so called right has done a great job of brainwashing people.

And, and, and it's probably worse now, or maybe it's better now, maybe it's the same now. But the point is most Americans don't travel abroad.

They don't have a fucking clue how good we actually have it, you know, compared to the rest of the world.

Oh, they have no, no idea. Once when I was in high school, my father, my, we went out to San Diego and we went down to Baja California to get some lobsters.

So we had to drive through Tijuana and whole thing. I was 16 years old, brother was 21, 20. And we saw.

And here were some really rundown shacks on the way, heading out towards the water and just, you know, not good. I. And I. I can't remember which one of us said it, but one of us said, look how poor they are. And my father said, no, think about how rich we are.

More people in the world live like them than live like us. Always remember that.

Yeah.

And when you put that in perspective and you think about how unbelievably rich our country is. Unbelievably rich.

And I have met some of the most wonderful people who didn't have around the world, who didn't have indoor plumbing, who, you know, live in. Live, you know, having more than one car, and that car is still held together. A car is held together by duct tape. And they live happy lives.

So how is government not functioning for you? What is not happening for you? That's not making you happy?

And if it's because you're not an Instagram influencer with 2 million followers, you know, let's really, really talk about that.

That's right. That's right.

Now I feel like I'm yelling, you whippersnappers. Yeah.

So I'm going to put you on the spot here because you've launched this new venture, Padlin, and you have an incredible list of services. You have creative Idea Generation. You have strategic collaboration and workshops, Obviously, you speak and do media like we're doing today.

You produce long, short, obviously, problem resolution for teams and projects. Right. Mentoring young creatives. Emotional support, Auntie. I need that. That's what I need.

I was wondering if you could do emotional support, Auntie. Yeah, that's it.

And by the way, I'm now that I'm scrolling down. Yeah, your page here. I'm wondering if your colleague, Carol Tomko is my friend John, Tomko's sister. Does she have a brother in la? John Tomko, Carol.

He might used to. She used to. She's responsible for many really successful documentaries.

She used to work in Seattle. Right, for. That's it.

Yeah, that's totally interesting.

That's John's sister. That. Talk about a small world. That's hilarious. So I haven't met Carol, but when you talk to Carol next, just say that your friends.

Scott is friends with her brother.

No problem. I'll bring that up, Carol.

Shout out. Tom Coast. Yes.

Anyway, so I'm putting you on the Spot because, you know, you've got all these incredible services and so let's, let's play, let's do a little role playing here.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be your client and you're going to help me workshop some things here because as we've already indicated, you know, the media landscape is, is been hugely disrupted. It's incredibly fluid and dynamic. Nobody really knows what the fuck is happening.

They, they, they, they, they, they want, they want to act like they know, but that's because, you know, that no one knows. But here I am, a lowly little independent, you know, media publishing and services company dedicated to the arts, right?

I'm, you know, my whole passion is, you know, helping artists tell their stor work, right? If it was 30 years ago and I was trying to do this, I'd probably start a cable network dedicated to the arts, right? So 40 years ago, right?

Because, you know, when the cable, when cable television came on, it was like all this new, new bandwidth capacity and they had to fill it with content.

I mean, people forget that ESPN was launched because basically they needed to like, they needed content and they started broadcasting local high school football games or something, right? Like that was like the original origin story of espn, right?

So, you know, and so then you could get into lifestyle, dedicated, lifesty, all channels, right? So it's like, oh, mtv, music, eventually things like, you know, Food Network and so on and so forth, right?

And you know, cable business is still a good business. It's a shrinking business.

It's a, you know, it's changing certainly, you know, but as if I'm trying to be, you know, a sort of contemporary kind of next gen kind of media organization serving, not just serving artists, but serving people who love like us, love creativity, love art, love, love artists and want to keep, you know, stay informed, be entertained and, and be served, you know, interesting content. I mean, you know, Shannon, how do I do this? How do I do this in this crazy fluid landscape?

I feel like, you know, I have to be everywhere all the time.

Yeah, I feel like, I feel like, oh, I need a presence on YouTube, I need a presence on Instagram, I need a presence on Pinterest, I need a presence on what's the. Well, anyway, I need to be everywhere, right? How does one, a media brand in such a fluid, dynamic media landscape?

Well, I think one of the things you said kind of struck it. You said that you're, you help artists tell stories. That's what you do. And through promotion, through. How do you Express that.

Well, if you want to tell stories, then you're getting a little bit beyond just static imagery. Sorry about that. Static imagery. You're getting more into dialogue like this. So I would shove Pinterest aside. I wouldn't deal with that.

I wouldn't deal with things that are just static. I'd look at what is going to be a way to keep it in the dynamic.

The way that you're strong and you're strong, your strength is interaction with people. You walk into a room, everybody likes you. Scott, you are just got this personality, a genuine personality. You are not full of shit, right?

You have a genuine personality that is warm and welcoming and people like you. So how do you expand on that?

And one of the things I talk to clients about is moving away from roles and focusing on what your skill sets, focusing on what your strengths are, and then building from that. So I think that the older generation, our generation, we think of everything in roles and silos, and the new generation kind of have it figured out.

It's more like this is my skill set. Where can the skill set kind of work?

So that's interesting.

Yeah, it. Because.

Because I saw this great thing where it talked about, like, what Santa Claus does, and two different posts on LinkedIn, and one was, santa Claus delivers toys. Then the next one was like, six sentences long of, like, global distributor of joy, you know, organizational mastermind of factory.

It's like all these things, all the skills. So I think for you, you have that connection, and I think what you bring is a discovery of something new. Who wants to discover that something new?

Well, I don't know if it's necessarily the artists themselves, but it's the people like me, people who have disposable income, people who want to buy art. I know my midlife crisis was buying artwork, right? Is getting to them, is how do you bring that to them? So I.

I'd identify that audience, target audience, probably through YouTube or sadly, Facebook, because Facebook, our generation's still on Facebook, not the younger generation. And deliver that to them in a regular basis. And then you work in finding ways to monetize that. You know, I mean, there's.

That's the things you can bring of, like. Like, you know, do you do little movies? You sell a subscription thing like Patreon?

You know, my favorite thing on Patreon is you must remember this podcast. It's. It's just fantastic. So I think it's identifying those two things, pivoting with that, and knowing your skill set is people like being with you.

And you bring that joy. You bring that, that joy is infectious and people catch it and then they want to go on the ride with you.

So what's the best way to bring that to them? Because that's the skill set you bring.

Well, thank you for that. And, and yeah, that's such an interesting way of thinking about sort of, because you're right.

Like we, you know, we're, we're of a certain generation, Gen X bitches anyway, we're Gen X. But we also come from a tradition that, you know, definitely is more classic, right.

In terms of, you know, kind of hierarchical, kind of, you know, structures or, you know, maybe siloed kinds of organized whatever. Right. And we're living in a time where, you know, it is sort of dog eat dog, every man for themselves.

Everybody can be an entrepreneur, everybody can be a brand, everybody can be an influencer now. So it's like, okay, well how, how, how am I going to break through?

Well, to your point, you know, double down on your uniqueness, double down on your unique skill set, capacity to bring and, and, and, and then, you know, figure out how to monetize it from there. That's. Yeah, I appreciate that. I hadn't really thought of it quite like that before.

And yeah, it's just, you know, it is, it is fascinating time because, you know, I, part of it is also you, you kind of, we're taught. Well, we're talking a little bit about, you know, our generation versus younger generation, what have you.

And it feels like on a certain level you have to be really clear about, well, who, who am I actually trying to talk to? Right. Because if I am trying to talk to fellow Gen Xers, well, I better well be on Facebook, right?

But if I'm trying to talk to 15 to 25 year olds, I gotta be on Tick Tock.

Yeah, that's it. Yep.

Right, yeah.

And there's no difference, there's no difference between that and the way it is in television. You know, if you want to talk to older generation, you get on Viacom Networks. If you want to talk to the younger generation, well, now it's YouTube.

Everybody's on YouTube. Who, you know, they don't have cable or streaming whatnot.

If you want to feel comedy, you know, Peacock likes to identify themselves as being the kings of comedy and you know, those, those events. So it's the same thing. It's identifying where your audience is and identifying what your skill set is. And you're right.

Everybody thinks they can be an innovator, they can be an Influencer. They can be an entrepreneur.

You know, you can be, you can be the train wreck entrepreneur, you know, the people who post train wreck stuff, or you can be the one that genuinely connects with people, that builds a much longer type of building relationship, much longer element of, you know, you know, look again, the reason I hired you 30 years ago is because you care. You know, and, and, and I can say that some people pretend they care and they don't, but you care. You actually care.

And so even offering kind of a webinar where everybody pays 10 bucks to say, here, this is the best way to get your artwork out, because I believe in you. Yeah. Yeah. Because.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks for that. No, it's, it's. We, yeah, we all have our strengths.

And, and you know, it's, it's funny when I, you know, if I'm honest, like, you know, like anybody else, right. Like the amount of time that I've. That I've looked back and I, and I think about how, how insecure really, you know, that, that I've.

How much time I've spent feeling insecure. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not this, I'm not that. I'm not this, I'm not that.

We live in a society where we're constantly being told we're not enough. We don't have the right car, the right thing, the right, you know, this, that or the other. And it just makes it just.

The net effect is, is one of insecurity. It's like, okay, you know, and yet maybe we're just perfect as we are.

Well, the people who think they're perfect are people we don't want to spend time with.

Well, there's that.

There's that. No, there's this. There's this great book written by author named Alison Forgale. I think it's. I don't know how to say her last names.

F, F, R A G A L E called likable, Badass. And it's about female dynamics in the boardroom, about how many women feel they can't. They either have to be likable or they have to be a badass.

And the deal is you can be both. Like, well, badass. You can be both.

But one of the points she makes about imposter syndrome, that thing of like, I don't belong here, I shouldn't be here, I'm not worthy enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not good looking enough, is a way to view that is. That's for creative folks, that's just our inner drive saying, you can do more. Come on, let's do more. Let's do more. Let's do it.

Let's.

Let's push forward. And for me, look, there are days where I wake up and I'm like, what am I doing? Oh, my God, this is crazy. What am I doing?

Just, you know, just do whatever. Make widgets. It's fine. So those are days that it's like, I say I have 30% confidence, 70% feel horrible.

If I can just the majority of time be 60, 40, maybe 70, 30. That's what I'm aiming for. We don't. We're never going to reach perfection, but we want to avoid being.

Feeling like completely lost is if we can just tilt the scales enough.

Well, but the other. Yeah, I mean, not to interrupt, but I mean, the other thing is, it's.

We're sold this narrative that, that, well, if you don't have a million followers, for example, then you're a failure. The perception that a million followers equals a million dollars. Fame equals fortune. Right. And that's bullshit.

You and I both know fame does not equal fortune.

No.

And. And just because somebody has a million followers on something doesn't mean they're making a million dollars.

You know, this idea that all you really need are, you know, there was a book of, I think, a thousand real followers or whatever it was called, but this idea that you have a group, maybe by some numbers, a smaller group, but it's quite. It's quality over quantity. It's.

It's just that rich, you know, working towards, you know, developing rich relationships and rich, you know, rich content or meaningful, you know, versus, you know, you know, content that has mass appeal or something.

Yeah, that's exactly it. I mean, and we learned this when we were. When we. When we worked at a staffing agency.

You can go and you can get a hundred people that you pay $20 an hour to, and that takes how much time to manage a hundred people? Or if you get 20 people that you bill $100 an hour, a lot less man hours, manage 20 people over a hundred. So if you identify. I mean, that's just.

I'm not an economist. I'm not, you know. What's his name? Galloway. Professor Galloway. So that's just kind of. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

That's just kind of simple economics.

And the simple economics is you can go and hustle and try to find a million followers and work every day, do churn, churn, churn, but if you find 200 who are really committed to what you do, you know, they'll pay. I mean, I'm spending, I'm spending 20 bucks a week buying tokens for a game I play. And it's toss away money on my phone. Right.

But if it's $20, like, to be a part of a group that you feel you welcomed and you're heard and inspires you, that works. And, you know, it doesn't have to be the Paul Thomas Anderson of the world. Be that. Don't be Marvel. Marvel's fine. I'm not dissing everybody.

I'm not dissing superhero. I'm not doing that. I'm just, I want to make that clear. I don't want to get in that fight.

Yeah, but it, but it is how. It is interesting how really smart, experienced people are, are, are forgetting or, or, or being fooled. You know, I'm.

By this new digital reality that, that we live in. You know, I'm, I'm remembering very specific examples. So years ago we got hired.

You may not know, there's a trade show in New York that happens every year at Javits called Certex. Insertex is the. Well, at least it used to be anyway. Sort of. I don't know if it's the world's largest. I think it was sort of art licensing show.

Okay.

Okay.

So if you're a manufacturer, if you're a brand, if you're whatever, like, and you're looking for artwork for your fabrics, you know, you know, wrapping paper, whatever, you go here and you meet artists and you license their art, right?

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah. And really cool. And so we got hired several years ago. They were curious. They, they didn't know. It's all.

They're, they're owned by Emerald Exhibitions and, and they were seeing the kind of explosion of kind of what we might call urban art, graffiti art, street art.

And they didn't know how to bring those artists into Java, into Surtex at Javits, because, you know, quite frankly, most of the artists there were female artists that were doing, you know, rainbows and unicorns and owls and all that stuff. Right.

And so there's a market for that, by the way. There is a market for this huge market.

I mean, that's a huge market for that.

Yeah, yeah.

But they, but they, but they saw this kind of emerging thing. And so anyway, they hired us to, to help them bring this art form into Surtex. Right. So they gave us a thousand square feet.

We curated this Big exhibition we had, you know, all these artists set up. And I'll never forget this woman from Macy's came in and she pointed to this artist, Kodak, that we had, and his name was Kodak.

And she says, oh, my God, he's amazing. You know, perfect for us, perfect for Macy's. Tell me more. And of course, you know, putting on the old consultative hat, you know.

Yeah, a consultative sales hat. I said, well, that's wonderful. I'm so glad, you know, that you're, that you're interested.

This is Kodak, and, And, you know, he's, you know, based in LA and so on and so forth and, well, you know. What company are you with? Oh, I'm with Macy's. I've been with Macy's, you know, 18 years. And, you know, I just really. He'd be perfect for us.

And I'm like, well, that's great. I said, be happy to, you know, talk to you about him and set up a meeting, whatever the case might be. And then she interrupts.

And I said, well, I think he has about 30. Only 35,000. Yeah, I don't think. And I said, wait a minute. I said, you just had a visceral reaction.

You know, your 18 years of experience, you know, told. Tells you that this artist is right for Macy's, the brand.

You had this visceral reaction and now you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna undercut your own good judgment because he has 35,000 followers. I'm like that.

You know, it's just this cognitive dissonance of like, like, like, oh, followers equals risk, you know, or, you know, like, it's a metric for risk. It's, it's just, it's such a. We're just, we're, we've. We.

We've just waited into this world where, I don't know, we think quantity means quality, and that's not necessarily the case.

Yeah, we think, we think that there's going to be those synergies and things where that person in Macy's is thinking, well, look, if they've got a million followers, then that's a million people who might come to Macy's. And it's like, what makes you think that that million followers who follows that artist is going to be a client who would ever go to Macy's?

Exactly.

You know, what, what are you. They're not, they may not even go to Macy's. The people who follow them on Instagram. Right. And I mean, I know I ran into this in television and I'm.

You know, and is. We would bring in. This is a decade ago, we'd bring in someone who was a YouTube.

YouTube artist, and they'd say, no, that's not really appropriate for the television marketplace. Or they'd say, okay, well, we want to own everything. And it's like, okay, no, no.

And then I think slowly people are realizing the YouTube audience is not this audience. They're not the same. They're different audiences.

And if you have someone who's gonna appeal to both, there's enough room for everybody to make money on both platforms and they can feed each other. Right. But I think we still get into these mindsets of no. Nope. They're either this or they're that, or if they own this, then this supports that.

And it's like. Like, no, you again, you just had a visceral reaction. It made you stop.

It made you excited, and you talked yourself out of it because you didn't have the vision. You didn't have. Have vision. And that. That's what I always get on about. AI.

It's like, AI would have told you never to make everything everywhere at once. It would have said, no, absolutely not. Don't do this. Yeah, yeah, look how great that is.

Yeah. I sort of, you know, and after that conversation, as I've thought about it over the years, it's just sort of like. Like, you know, it's sort of.

It's lazy thinking, right? Yeah, it's lazy thinking. It's like, oh, this, you know, X. X equals Y. No, not. Not necessarily. You know, And. And so, yeah, it's. It's a.

It's a fascinating time, you know, I have a confession to make. So. So I hope that before I die.

Yeah.

Which, by the way, could be today. Today's. No, I have a confession. Before I die, whenever that is, I. I hope you and I are able to collaborate and work on a project together.

Oh, that'd be awesome.

That'd be great. We gotta find something. It just would be such a delight. I don't know what it would be. It's funny.

I, you know, saw the key art here on your website, Inside the Mind of a Cat, and the first idea that came to mind was, oh, Shannon and I should do a project called Inside the Mind of an Artist.

Oh, that's chaos.

We need a lot of booze for that one.

This is a challenge because. Did. Did you see a complete unknown, the Bob Dylan bio?

Not yet, no.

Timothy tried, you know, he tried, but it's so hard to get into the Genius of an artist. It's so hard to really kind of recognize it and what it is. I think like one of my all time favorite films.

It is such a great movie. Right. That is one of the best movies ever seen about, about what it is to be an artist.

And I would love to do something like that because I think it's provocative and I think people, people want to know what inspires people to do it, what, what gets, gets that itch. And one thing about art, I want to hammer on this. I know we need to wrap up is, is art is about failing all the time.

All the time.

It's, it's. You fail so frequently and I think that's actually good. I think it's a good lesson, good life lesson to learn is to learn how to fail.

Yeah, no, that's so true. It's so true. Well, because that's the thing. Because I mean, the, the answer I was.

Well, one of the answers that we know about, you know, the mind of an artist is that there is no such thing.

No.

Right. Like, like, like it's not a monolithic community. Right.

And, and, and, and every, every artist is just, you know, this, this unique reality and, and, and, and, and yet it's these, these worlds, you know, of, of just this exciting, dynamic worlds. That's why I love going into artist studios. Right, because you're literally walking into their mind on some level. Right.

It's like you walk in every, in every artist studio is unique and different. It's idiosyncratic. Right. For them.

Yep.

Anyway, I don't know.

Well, let's, let's figure out something. We're all on new journeys. We're evolving. We're constantly evolving.

So we're evolving to, to our truest selves in the highest consciousness, which may.

Be me being a blind cutter at Lowe's, which if I'm a blind cutter at Lowe's, I'll be happy at it. I'll be happy doing it. Yeah. Let's just do that.

So what do you. So, okay, so I know the high, the highlight of your day was of course, talking to me.

Oh, absolutely.

So, and when we, when we adjourn here in a minute, what's the rest of your day look like? What is the. Is the founder of Padlin Creative going to work on today?

Well, the, the founder of PAL Creative flew in from Idaho last night because I gave a lecture at the University of Idaho on Monday about how scientists can better express the work that they're doing in a much more creative and narrative way. Which again, I love it. It's just a lot of fun. So I'm going to recover, still recover because I'm old and get jet lagged easily.

And then I'm going to go to the gym with my husband who has gone from triple bypass to doing box jumps. And I'll just sit there and be in awe of him and amazing. Be so thrilled.

So that is a typical day of paddling creative and oh, my laptop will be up and I'll continue to be writing a script as well as organizing a webinar I've got coming up in two weeks and a coffee clatch I have coming up. You know, one thing about doing this is that you have so many balls in the air. It's like, what are you going to address today?

Yeah, that's right. You better know how to juggle.

But you are you constantly like me where I'm like. And I'm literally looking up in the air of like, okay, that ball, that ball. That. What am I going to do? What am I going to do now?

You know, and people like, are you okay? I'm like, yeah, no, I just thinking that's just the way my brain thinks.

Yeah, no, I'm the same, you know, I'm the same way. And you know, yeah, it's, it's.

We could talk an hour just about this issue in particular because I kind of feel like I've developed adult ADHD because, because it is really hard to stay focused on any one thing because when you're responsible for so many different things and then you don't turn your reminders, your notifications or your email off, you're focused on something and then, and then, and then an email comes through about something completely different. But that's hot too, and urgent because you know, it's got to be resolved. And if you don't deal, you're the only person that can deal with it.

So you got to deal with it. So you're constantly just doing this and. Yeah, and it's, it's certainly not for everybody.

I think some of us do it better than others and you know, maybe not as good as we could, but it is. Yeah, it every day is an adventure and it's, you know, we don't get bored, right? Yeah, we don't the problem.

It's funny. When things go wrong in certain things, we just kind of handle it and we let it roll.

Yeah.

But if my computer gets glitchy, then rage monster comes in. It's amazing the little things that come out. You know, the tiny, itty bitty things that'll cause the rage monster to come out.

Rage monster.

I mean, I could have a broken down car be like, oh, that's fine. You know, my computer reboots randomly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. You and I are the same. You know, Channing will say to me, and for those who don't know, Channing's my wife.

Channing will say to me that, you know, she's like. Like, she's like. This hits the fan in some major way and you don't freak out.

She's like, but you lose your keys and you think that the world is coming to an end. I'm like, yeah, yeah. Because would you want me to freak out when the is real, or would you, you know, like, I. You know, you prioritize your battles.

It's like, totally fine. In terms of a big crisis, it's okay. I lose the remote, which is daily. I lose the remote.

Exactly.

And I've gotten to that age now where I have multiple remotes now backup remotes, because I keep losing the remote. Why do they make them? So now again, I. It's like it needs to be like a giant brick.

We need to go back to the old kind of like, you know, Remember back when it was, like, 120 channels and it was this big platform and you had to push the button?

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So. Well, this has been fun. Anytime. Maybe we should just do something where it's just wacky hijinks with Scott and Shannon.

Oh, my God, that'd be so good. That'd be so good. You know, we could be the Scott Galloway and Cara Swisher of our. Of our space. Like I was going to say, we'd.

Be the Shields and Yarnels of our generation. And that's really dating for people who are.

I tell you what, I'm just so grateful, Shannon, for our friendship of all these years. I'm so grateful for you and. And what you've meant to me.

I'm so grateful that, of course, you took time out of your busy schedule to sit down and good luck living your life in. In D.C. during these tumultuous times. You know, we are. You know, I don't know. I mean, we. We. We have a choice.

Some people, you know, want to Be negative. Some people want to be. Feel like. People like us, you know, we. We compelled to put out positive energy in the world. So let's just keep doing that.

And we're not afraid to throw a punch if we have to, for bullied.

You know what some people say? Fight, fight, fight. I say resist, resist, resist. And stand up for truth. Stand up to bullies. And.

Yeah, you know, it's funny because, you know, in this particular environment, I mean, you've known me a long time, never necessarily been a very political person, but by the way, our generation Gen X was very unique. We sort of grew up in a special time of prosperity and peace and, And, And. And when I graduated high school, man, my.

I couldn't wait to get out into the world. My future was bright and. And kids graduating high school today, I don't think feel optimistic about the future like we did.

No, again, I don't. Maybe it's Hunger Games. I mean, there was a lot of dystopian novels when they were growing up, a lot of dystopian things.

You know, I think that it's too much information. I think also sometimes we just need to step back and really appreciate what we have.

Totally.

I mean, when you appreciate what you have, and they say, see the world, read, get to meet people, experience other things, be very thankful for everything.

You know what? You know, the one thing this. This, this I have the. The solution for all men's problems.

Okay, let's do it.

More dancing. Yeah, more dancing. If people would just dance more. Yeah. I think, you know, some of these problems would be solved.

And you know what to call out to dear friend of mine who passed away. Keith Kozell, just. He was an incredible creative genius, just an amazing human being.

When I was in college, I was worried about dancing in clubs, dancing at bars and whatnot. And he said, just be yourself. Just do. Feel. Feel confident in who you are.

And our friends were playing on the stage and they were doing a cover Pixies dance. The manta Ray and Keith grabbed me. We jumped up on the stage and we did the manta ray for everybody at the bar. Just do the manta ray. Be yourself.

Dancing. It'll make you feel great. I agree. I agree.

More dancing people. You heard it here.

Love it.

Shannon, you're the best. Thank you, my friend.

Thank you. You're very dear to me. Thank you.

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