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Sarah Krasley is Disrupting Gender Norms in Manufacturing
Episode 6520th June 2024 • The Uplifters • Aransas Savas
00:00:00 00:36:41

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When Sarah Krasley was a little girl growing up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, she witnessed the collapse of the local steel industry and the devastating impact it had on her community. Hundreds of thousands of people, including members of her own family, lost their jobs seemingly overnight when the factories closed down.

That experience planted a seed that would eventually blossom into her life's work - finding ways to uplift and reskill workers displaced by automation and technological change. After an initial failure with a custom swimsuit company, Sarah started Shimmy, an industrial EdTech platform that uses engaging video games to train workers in the global fashion supply chain.

In this uplifting conversation, Sarah shares inspiring insights about her entrepreneurial journey, the value of curiosity and lifelong learning, and the power of surrounding yourself with courage-boosting voices.

5 Uplifting Lessons from Sarah Krasley

1. Reframe "failures" as learning opportunities that combust like stars, generating new fragments you can cultivate into future successes.

2. Listen for where you feel flow and joy rather than forcing things. That's a sign you're playing to your strengths.

3. Plan and get clear on your intentions before difficult conversations. It builds courage.

4. Cultivate self-awareness about past hurts so you don't project them unfairly onto new situations.

5. Prioritize restorative practices like sleep, creative outlets, and nurturing supportive relationships.

The Great Web of Uplifters

Sarah was nominated by moi!

Today’s opening features

Alison Relyea author of the wonderfully uplifting book Soundtrack: Liner Notes from a Pandemic Mixtape.

Sarah Krasley is a social impact entrepreneur who designs equitable and future-focused manufacturing systems. As Founder and CEO of industrial edtech company Shimmy, she creatively applies technology to upskill and reskill millions of workers in the global fashion supply chain so they stay relevant as automation changes what it means to make things.

Transcripts

Aransas Savas (:

Welcome to the Uplifters podcast. I'm Arances Savas. And when I started this show, there were a few women in my life that I knew for sure I wanted to introduce you to. And one of them was Sarah Craisley. Sarah's a social impact entrepreneur. She's the founder and CEO of an industrial ed tech company called Shimmy, where they're using technology to upskill and re -skill millions of workers.

in the global fashion supply chain. And they're helping these workers stay relevant as automation changes what it means to make things. And Sarah's been through a few iterations on this journey as a social impact entrepreneur. And in the course of this conversation, I'm excited for us to explore with her what

it means to learn and adapt and to grow and to find opportunity and challenge. Sarah, thank you for being here.

Sarah (:

Thanks for having me. I'm so glad to be here.

Aransas Savas (:

I'm so excited that we're finally having this conversation. So let's just start by talking about Shemi and what you guys do.

Sarah (:

Me too.

Sarah (:

Yeah, so we're seven years old. It's hard to believe my little startup is, I guess, in first grade or so. And our focus is thinking about workers in the industrial supply chain and how to make sure that they have the skills they need to stay relevant. So.

Aransas Savas (:

Wow.

Sarah (:

Many workers in the fashion supply chain have never done all the things we do all day long, which is tapping and swiping our phones and computers to get them to do certain things. so we need them first to have a level of digital literacy that they need. And then second to have machine skills. So we get down with video game, technology, we deal with industrial equipment, which has been fun to think about how do you make.

industrial equipment approachable? How do you make running it something that doesn't just look like a man running a big machine? And how do we really feel a lot of empathy for people who maybe haven't had formalized education and just need like a delightful experience, you know? So that's really what we work with every day. Our customers are huge brands and factories.

And it's been a great privilege of my life to get to work on this problem.

Aransas Savas (:

, when you say men running a big machine, what does that mean?

Sarah (:

Yeah. I mean, I think if you, if, if everybody listening to this podcast right now would type in industry 4 .0, they would probably get a lot of pictures of like men and industrial settings, you know, with like, helmets on their heads and protective glasses and yeah. And maybe that like weird, like light blue robotic.

Aransas Savas (:

some orange vest maybe.

Aransas Savas (:

yeah.

Sarah (:

that seems to show, it's like when you're saying, okay, I'm a, I'm a factory worker and I'm working here. And I, I know that these automated machines are coming in and I see men getting access to the training to run them. I don't really know how I can get involved in that. And I don't know what it looks like to be feminine and run one of these machines. I mean, I think I've.

worked in male dominated industries my entire career. And I needed women to occupy those one or two or three levels above me to show how it is to be a leader and to be true to who you are. And that's been a big journey of my life and figuring that out for myself. And it's been so wonderful to get to expose some of those role models and help inspire other people to get interested in the technical career path.

Aransas Savas (:

And you talk about the privilege of helping to address this problem. How did you even discover the problem existed, Sarah?

Sarah (:

It's been, it's been part of my life since I was really little. I, I grew up basically in a Billy Joel song in that song, Allentown, which my grandmother told me just as an aside, like that, that like steam whistle. Yeah. I've heard it's like a good BPM for running. Actually. I had like a.

Aransas Savas (:

Now we're all going to be singing in the background of this conversation.

Sarah (:

venture capitalists who cared very little for what I was selling, but was very interested in going deep on that song with me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, bud. But, but, that song is all about,, a city in the United States that is famous because it has factories and jobs that, if you work hard and you behave.

Aransas Savas (:

Alan. Thanks. Super helpful.

Sarah (:

You will have a nice income, you'll have a pension. And it's basically the American dream that was sold many decades ago. And what happened when I was little in the eighties was that Bethlehem steel, which was the big steel plant there, went out of business and like 300 ,000 people lost their jobs very fast.

Aransas Savas (:

Wow.

Sarah (:

people in my family lost their jobs, neighbors lost their jobs. And there was this general feeling of like, this factory didn't take care of us. They didn't think about how do we make sure we take care of our people? And I feel like that rhetoric is alive and well in political conversations now, which is why Pennsylvania is such a swing state and is really on everybody's minds as we lead into the election.

Aransas Savas (:

Mm -hmm.

Aransas Savas (:

Mm -hmm.

Sarah (:

So I think growing up that way, seeing people in my family struggle to find other work, it's always been very present in my mind of like this equation of making things involves people, it involves machines and it involves materials. And as technology changes, that ratio changes, but you shouldn't just, lift your hands up and say, it's too bad. I guess we'll just be more automated. Why can't we bring a workforce along as those shifts?

take place. So I think seeing that as a little kid was really important. And,now that automation is everywhere. I mean, we hear about it in the entertainment industry and you know, everywhere now that AI is becoming, it's on a growth spurt right now. It's an important thing to pay attention to.

Aransas Savas (:

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, and I think that intersection between the human and the machine is the most interesting space for innovation because it lets us see how we play to the strengths of each. Shimmy though, in this iteration was not your first baby.

Sarah (:

Thank you.

Sarah (:

No, it wasn't. I mean, the whole thing began as a bathing suit company. So I had a corporate job and I left and I said,, I really want to focus on women and then next stage of my career. And I'm interested in the textile and apparel supply chain. So why don't I focus on a category that brings a lot of misery to women and.

I remember just a mentor in my life at that point. I said, gosh, I don't know if I'm going to be able to pull this off. There's a lot that I don't know. Should I really do this? And I remember him saying, well, could you learn this anywhere else? Like, is there any company around where you could go in with the knowledge that you have now and learn what you want to? And I said, no. And he said, well, is there a PhD program that you could go to?

where you could learn this specific thing. And I said, no. And he said, well then, why don't you just view this as a PhD program? And if the worst happens and you're not able to get it off the ground, at least you learned and you have like a PhD level of mastery about this particular thing.

Aransas Savas (:

Mmm.

Aransas Savas (:

That's so interesting. And the thing that you were trying to learn was

Sarah (:

I was trying to make custom bathing suits. Cause like, you know, you and I had all these wonderful conversations about it when I was trying to wrestle with it of like, there's the you that you think you look like. There's the you that you see in the mirror. There's what you actually look like. And then there's this very antiquated grading system that says you are an L or, you know, or an S or a two or a four or a,

14 and it's all BS and it just makes people feel really badly about themselves. So I thought, could we show that empathy to someone and say, you, you don't have to be one of these numbers or letters. You, you are who you are and let's use this simulation technology to try to make a pattern that's perfectly suited to you. And, I think it was a great idea, but I I ran out of money very quickly. I didn't realize like how much you actually need to get something off the ground. I just ran out of money and there were people like you and other people who really were so kind and generous to me to just try it out in the beginning. And like those early bathing suits failed miserably, but like.

people showed me that, that kindness and, it was really, you know, it was a failure, but it kind of got me to, to where, where Shimi is now, which isn't a much, much better position, thankfully.

Aransas Savas (:

And I would say, I have to reframe the idea of failure a little bit here for anyone listening, because I think the more we reinforce those messages of things that don't go as expected as failures, the more we reduce our courage to try. And I was in a group last night with some uplifters, and one of the women, I asked her what she was excited about with our group, and she said, look.

Sarah (:

Mm, yeah.

Aransas Savas (:

I want to do big things and I am on the verge of big things. And what I need to do right now is raise courage capital. Isn't that cool? And she said, the way I'm going to raise courage capital is I'm going to spend time around women who are courageous. And I think in your story, there is such a courage capital boosting story. And that story to me is one of.

Sarah (:

Mmm... Yeah.

Sarah (:

Mmm.

Aransas Savas (:

I did this thing. I learned a lot about the process. You got your PhD, you reframed what it meant to go into a learning journey instead of the end result or the goal being I reinvent the swimsuit experience, which that would have been cool. And there was some other bigger problem really that needed your attention that you never could have been prepared for without that first.

journey.

Sarah (:

Yes, yes. And I think like, I'm thinking about a star combusting and how when that combustion happens, those little fragments go off and become something different. And I think every failure I've had, that's happened. And then what happens to those fragments that break off.

become new stars.

Aransas Savas (:

Yeah, and it's the ones that you cultivate and then it's the ones that the rest of us cultivate. And so that for me was the output of your first journey is you boosted my courage capital. And it never dawned on me to think of that as a failure because I was like, wow.

Sarah (:

Mm -hmm.

Sarah (:

No.

Sarah (:

Mmm. Mmm.

Aransas Savas (:

I think retail is and apparel is one of those industries where we've seen a fair number of female entrepreneurs, not that they make up a big percentage of tech entrepreneurs at all, but we see them in a few common categories, wellness, apparel. But that pivot that you took to really focus on technology and the worker,

To me, that felt like an even more male dominated category.

Sarah (:

little did I know. But yes, that's true. That's true. Yeah. And like, I think, yes, now I look back and I say that star combusted and these pieces moved here. But I just want to make some time for like, how the shame feels when you realize it's not going to work out. And like, I get

Aransas Savas (:

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah (:

caught under the collar and like, you just sort of feel your cheeks flush and you're like, man, you know, I let these people down or I said I was going to do this and I didn't and that passes before you know it, you know, but it's, it's an uncomfortable feeling. And I think that's what keeps people sometimes from really pushing and trying and trying to find one of those fragments that fell off and turn that into something new.

Aransas Savas (:

Hmm.

Sarah (:

I'm also a person that I just, I analyze everything. Like I feel like everything happens for a reason. And when I was looking for money and trying to get this thing off the ground, I flew to San Francisco and I presented in front of Athleta. And I had a whole pitch and I had spent time with their team and we were ready to go. And I just failed spectacularly.

It was, it was not the best pitch I've ever given. And I got on the plane back to New York and I said, okay. Like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And I said, you know what, let's just have a good time on this flight. Like let's watch a movie. You know, let's get a, some wine and some crackers and cheese and just like, let's get back to New York, but let's just suspend all that and just rest a little bit.

Aransas Savas (:

Mm -hmm.

Sarah (:

And Hidden Figures was playing on that flight and I'd never seen it before. And that was what helped me figure out what to do with one of those pieces of, of star like Octavia Spencer's character in that movie as Dorothy Vaughn, who was one of the women at NASA. And she saw these big IBM mainframe computers coming in and she said,

And she also looked at her department of like 300 black women who were doing the written computations and said, I need to teach them how to run that. And that was the moment where I connected back to my childhood. I said, this bathing suit thing isn't going to work, but that's interesting. Why don't I try and do something like that? So it was a really special little moment high above the.

Aransas Savas (:

Hmm.

Aransas Savas (:

night.

Sarah (:

Ozarks or wherever I was. I didn't know.

Aransas Savas (:

What I'm tearing up now. I think that's it. It's such a beautiful movie and such a beautiful moment. how did you know that it was time to pivot? You say, well, I knew this wasn't going to work. But that to me, that decision is one that I don't know how anybody really makes.

Sarah (:

Hmm.

Sarah (:

Yeah, you don't know. Like so many times, even in the first years of Shimi as it is what it does now, asking my friends and advisors, should I stop? You know, is this enough? Like I must've read that Seth Godin book, The Dip, like a hundred times,? How do you know,, have I learned what I needed to, or is this just not going to work? And I quit and,

Aransas Savas (:

Mmm.

Sarah (:

I wish I could tell you, I remember exactly what it was, but I remember I felt like painted into a corner. Like there wasn't another move, there wasn't another chess piece I could move to, to make it happen. And I also just wasn't feeling much joy in it. I, I didn't like going to the markets on the weekend and pitching people on this thing. And I really am pretty.

Aransas Savas (:

Hmm.

Sarah (:

not great at social media. So, you know, it was just like, I wasn't even playing to my strengths we all have big,, ranges of skills. And every time you work on a project, sometimes you turn this dial and you turn that dial and some of the dials are turned down real low. But I feel like most of my dials weren't really,

and like the reaching and the sacrifice and the stress just wasn't getting me to where I wanted to be. So that probably contributed to the decision.. Yes.

Aransas Savas (:

It's like the difference between reaching and grabbing in a sense, right? Like in the second piece, you were grabbing an idea, you were grabbing a hunk of star. But in the first, it's, and I identify that because I get it. And I feel like it's something that honestly, well beyond entrepreneurship, people experience in relationships, friendships, work.

you name it, there's that difference between I'm receiving what I'm really excited about and what is coming to me and feels natural and organic. And I'm trying to wrestle or muscle something into reality.

Sarah (:

Yeah. And like, I don't yet know, like I'm still learning about what I'm still learning about how to be more curious about that. You know, I have, a mentor who I just admire so much. She's been, she's maybe 10 years older than I am. And she said, you know, Sarah, there just came a point where just there was this flow and I didn't have to push so hard.

to get things to happen. And I remember hearing that and being like, I'm pushing hard to make everything happen. Like I have my shoulder to the grindstone here. And there are some moments at Shimmy where things just flow in. Like,, I had a call yesterday about an opportunity on a continent that we've never worked on before. And it was just this wonderful uplifting thing that happened.

play somehow, Aransas Savas (:

Mm -hmm.

Aransas Savas (:

Yeah.

I agree. I think though it, I think it goes back to what you were saying about gifts and what feels good. Those two pieces to me are really important to that equation. where do I feel like I'm playing to my strengths, as you said, and where do I feel like I'm enjoying the process and I want to do more versus I have to do more.

Sarah (:

Mm.

Sarah (:

You

Sarah (:

Yes. And having a sense of humor with yourself along the way, I learned this in an accelerator we did, it's something called like take a failure bow. And when you're just like, I really blew that, you know, just kind of saying it and laughing and,, figuring out what you learned and moving on from it. And that's the culture I'm really trying to set in my company because I don't.

I don't want anyone on my team to shy away from those moments of just calling it what it was and laughing and moving on.

Aransas Savas (:

Yeah, owning it, right? Again, it's courage capital.

Sarah (:

Yes, it is. I love that. I'm probably going to think about that for the next two weeks. It's really good.

Aransas Savas (:

Me too. Share a hail. Thank you. It's really good. So for you right now, what does Shimi look like as its leader?

Sarah (:

Really good.

Sarah (:

Hmm. Well, it starts very early in the morning. So, we are a global team now of 21 people. so a lot of people, like it was just me and Octavia Spencer, you know, on the screen back in the day. and that feels really surreal sometimes to be like, Whoa, this was an idea on a plane. And now.

Aransas Savas (:

Wow, that's a lot of people.

Aransas Savas (:

Yes.

Sarah (:

21 people are paying their rent and school tuitions and stuff like that. It's pretty cool. Yeah. And it's like figuring out how to make sure that Shimi's values are at the center of whatever we do, but thinking about how that changes in the different cultures where we operate. So, you know, when I was getting to know my teammates in Honduras,

Aransas Savas (:

Wow, that's pretty cool.

Sarah (:

You know, one of the first things they asked me was like, what are these, what are the charms that you wear on your necklace? And I had worked with people in the company for six years and no one had ever asked me a question like that. And, in Bangladesh, they'll, you know, go really deep on, on family. And it's like, you're very aware of your American -ness in those circumstances of how do you continue to.

Aransas Savas (:

Hmm.

Sarah (:

make a company run with an American based culture, but open it up to those other cultures at the same time. So there's just, that's a lot of, that's a lot of where I am really throughout my days is kind of operating there, which was a surprise.

Aransas Savas (:

Hmm. Yeah, that is a surprise to me as well. When I think about your business, and maybe this is based on an earlier iteration of it, I think a lot about the Bangladesh women. That's who I picture as your customer, just based on your travels there and what you've shared in social.

Sarah (:

Yeah.

Sarah (:

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Sarah (:

Yeah. And they are a big part of our user groups. So these are women that are either employed already in a factory or they're unemployed and they're not having a lot of success in the job market because they just don't have that level of skill. So, you know, our team will work with them inside of factory classroom or a break room and we'll.

have them play the digital games and give them training that way. We've been doing like pop -ups in these neighborhood training centers, which has been super fun to go in and give it kind of lists like shimmy vibe. And we have these amazing women on our team who themselves are advanced machine operators and really become those, those role models. in a place like Honduras.

This is a really interesting new area for us. We, we're working with male and female workers and there's quite a bit of migration from Honduras into the U S and a lot of the reason for that is because it's just so hard to find a good job there and something that's going to get you to your financial goals. So the work there has actually started just a storytelling of like,

here is what it means to be this advanced machine operator in this mill. And here's what she likes about the job. Here's what she doesn't like. Here's how she gets there. Here's how she's helping to provide for her daughter. And yeah, just showing that population of folks that respect. So that's been a really interesting new project. It's part of a...

project from USAID. So it's our first time like really supporting an initiative from the White House and helping with the migration crisis that's happening right now, as well as making the supply chain more resilient closer to where people are buying things. So that's been really cool to try something new.

Aransas Savas (:

It sounds like there are so many huge ripple effects from this work, too. what gets you excited about the effect of Shemi's work?

Sarah (:

I hope so.

Sarah (:

Yeah, I heard Jerry Seinfeld interviewed this weekend on another notable podcast, the New Yorker Radio Hour. And he was saying, you know, people think that it's really just like about making as much money as possible. And a lot of rich people are pretty miserable actually, when you get to know them. He said the sweetness of life is really having skills and having mastery of skills and.

Aransas Savas (:

Hmm.

Sarah (:

I am so happy when a worker tells me, thank you for giving me these new skills because no one can take them away from me and they're with me forever. And they're going to be this lever that I can use to make more money or feel more confident. Or if I really hate working in this factory, go to a place that is nicer to me or allows me that mobility. So I feel grateful that we can help people in that way. And like,

I hear awesome stories about people, getting rid of family debt and being able to invest in their kids' educations and,, taking more of a control in the household because she feels more confidence and like, my goodness, I'm so grateful that I get to help people in that regard. And I also get to like help the industry too, you know, we've.

Aransas Savas (:

Yeah.

Sarah (:

We've done some studies recently on what is the difference in efficiency or accuracy in a factory when we come in and we can jump a factory's efficiency by about 20%, which is like a huge jump and is really related to a bottom line concern. So even if a factor doesn't care about gender equity or, you know, helping people, they do care about making money and saving money. So.

That to me is really exciting to build a social impact business that is addressing a bottom line concern as well and is in a good position to scale. Yeah. Yeah.

Aransas Savas (:

That's huge. And for those workers, it sounds like in a word, you're giving them freedom. Right? I mean, that is the outcome, that people have the freedom to remove themselves from unhelpful positions, to gain upward mobility, to feel confident, security. Yeah.

Sarah (:

trying. Yeah, yeah.

Sarah (:

Financial security, yeah. You know, until wealth and power are disaggregated, like, you just have to help people earn money and have a safety net. And if we can do that in some small way or contribute to it, great. That's time very well spent. Yeah.

Aransas Savas (:

and it has to be intentional. It's not going to happen by accident.

Sarah (:

No, I can't just let that flow. Not yet. Yeah.

Aransas Savas (:

No, no, that's right, that's right.. So going back to this idea of courage, it takes a lot of courage to do what you're doing, to lead, to change. somebody asked me a couple of weeks ago, they were like, what do you think you're good at? And I said, I've become good at having difficult conversations, I think. Like, that's also the higher you get up or, you know, the more you're trying to do something different in the world, you come up with friction and boundaries and figuring that out is important too.

Aransas Savas (:

What a skill for all of life, too. And it ends up, I joke with my one -on -one coaching clients often that at the end of the day, what I'm coaching them to do is have difficult conversations most of the time.. So it makes me super curious what techniques or,

Aransas Savas (:

practices you use to help you face those. Because as women, we really are trained to just suck it up, cover our eyes and ears, be nice, hope it'll change on its own, accept, tolerate, carry the burden. And so that facing head on is really uncomfortable for a lot of us. And it's a huge part of what stands in the way of us becoming more impactful leaders who can...

Sarah (:

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Aransas Savas (:

Make big change.

Sarah (:

Totally. Totally. And it's not something that you learn overnight. It takes years and years to be able to have that posture and to own it and do it repeatedly. So it takes a long time, I think. And so much of it is planning. I think as I've come more accustomed to coming into these conversations and knowing, like we had a...

Aransas Savas (:

Hmm.

Sarah (:

Congress, a meeting this morning that I knew was going to be challenging. And I never go into a meeting without a plan. Like I always, and the plan sometimes goes out the window because the meeting goes in a really different direction. But I'm always clear on this is what I want to say, or this is what I hope that they understand by the end of this meeting. And that planning, just like a sports coach would do is really.

really important. It may seem boring, but it's like, that's so much of it going in and having an intention and a clear purpose. And this is what I want to happen. Yeah.

Aransas Savas (:

Yeah, I think it often comes back to having a tough conversation with ourselves first. And that's sort of what it takes to have a clear intention is the courage to be honest with ourselves about what we really want to have happen.

Sarah (:

Hmm.

Sarah (:

Yes. And getting back to what you said before, you made that great point about how women, we do all of this, you know, meeting and stuff ahead of the conversation. And I think a few years back, I might've said, you know, am I being too brash or am I being too demanding or whatever? And starting with this is what I want to happen. And this is what I.

would love for this person to understand, puts at least that stuff aside. And then you're like really clear on the intention. And then you can say, you know, I've, I've had some PTSD from conversations like this in the past. And I know I get a little bit raw when it comes to this particular topic or that, like, Shimi pitched for seed funding two years ago and I pitched 174 times in an entire year. It was.

the worst year of my life running this company. And I got to tell you, when I talked to venture capitalists, they could be the loveliest person in the world, but I still have those raw feelings from that experience. But I know that about myself and I make sure that I really try to be more open or generous when I go there. So I'm not unfair to them because they weren't the ones.

making that a very difficult year for me.

Aransas Savas (:

Yeah, I think that's true for so many of us that those assumptions that what happened in the past will be repeated get in our way of creating a different future.

Sarah (:

Yeah, and our brains are conditioned that way, right? Like when one shoe drops, the brain is exactly, I think you had a guest on a few weeks ago who was talking about how fear can really protect us. And that's true. but you also have to say, well, maybe that shoe won't drop or maybe that shoe will drop exactly on my foot and tie itself magically. And that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Aransas Savas (:

Yeah, it's a safety mechanism.

Aransas Savas (:

the shoe I've been waiting for. So Sarah, with so much going on in your world and a lot of responsibility, you've got these 21 people who are paying their rent and millions of workers who you are showing up for that's a lot.

Sarah (:

Me too.

Aransas Savas (:

What are the non -negotiables for you in terms of how you care for your well -being so that you can care for everything else you care about?

Sarah (:

Yeah.

Sarah (:

Well, sleep is a non -negotiable for me. I, I, yeah, I go to bed really early and I love that. And, sleep is just a wonderful time to recover. I've heard it described almost as like a cleaning crew for your brain to come in and reorganize what it saw during the day. And I love thinking about giving my cleaning crew some time and.

Aransas Savas (:

Amen.

Sarah (:

some dreams can feel like a vacation.. I love good sleep. Having really deep relationships with the people I love is important to me. Like I've had time over the last few years, I think the pandemic did this for all of us to think about what parts of myself can I really show other people and what clues does that.

Aransas Savas (:

Mmm.

Sarah (:

tell me if there are people that maybe I can't be my whole authentic self in front of. And is that how I really want to spend my time? So that also brings a lot of richness to my life. And I love my walk into the office because I can play music and I can just,, space out and let the thoughts come in and out. And swimming does that for me too. I think swimming is my number one favorite thing in the world to do. So.

Yeah, those are, I think, my non -negotiables. What about you?

Aransas Savas (:

thanks for asking. Yeah, I mean, not dissimilar. Running is a huge piece of it for me. Running alone, running with other people, running while on the phone with my good friends, processing. It's amazing. It's honestly life changing.

Sarah (:

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Sarah (:

Wow, that's like a Taylor Swift level of stamina, right? She was like running on the treadmill and singing all her songs. And that's amazing that you can do that.

Aransas Savas (:

We run, I least, I don't know if she's running in Central Park, but I'm over here in Prospect Park running very slowly while we talk. And that's a huge piece of it, sleep. Honestly, cooking is a big piece of it, having some sort of creative outlet, usually while listening to a podcast. I'm a person who tends to...

Sarah (:

that's cool.

Sarah (:

huh.

Aransas Savas (:

be hyper responsive to stimuli. So if I can hear my children calling for my attention, I will respond. And they don't always need me to be so responsive. And so I've actually had to learn to sort of trick my brain into focus by intentionally tuning them out, either by listening to something or sticking in earplugs. And the less responsive I've become, the more self -

managing they have become and the less anxiety and responsibility I feel. So yeah and routines, sleep routines, food. It's funny, it is, it's like all the old stuff, There's nothing new. It's just how we do it and how we fit it into our lives, which hey, it's the whole mission of Shimi, isn't it?

Sarah (:

That sounds great. That's really cool.

Sarah (:

Yeah, we've been doing it forever.

Aransas Savas (:

to evolve what is ancient, working hard to produce something and doing it in a way that is right for now.

Sarah (:

Yeah. And I think, you know, if we think about the theme of your podcast, like the world is speeding up and becoming more complex. And yes, since the beginning of time, we've been sleeping and cooking and deciding how to care for children or,, let them become, self -actualized adults. I was thinking about like, well, what is the term uplift?

mean for me and what is an uplifter. And I think it's like, you know, just making it a little easier to be in this moment we're in now. We're in an enormous transition of technology and geopolitical forces and like, how can we just be that little crinkly eyed smile of somebody you see on the street or somebody that, you know, you provide some ease to a neighbor or you're nice to a friend. Like it doesn't have to be.

a huge big thing. being that for that each other is going to, I think, help us through this really wild moment we're in right now.

thank you, Sarah, for being here, for what you're doing in the world. I love watching it.

Sarah (:

Well, thank you for inviting me and I love hearing the stories of the amazing women you have on this podcast. It uplifts me. It makes me think about things in a different way. It makes me think about, you know, corners of my life that maybe haven't had some good care and feeding lately.

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