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This podcast is hosted and edited by Sara Kobilka.
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Transcripts
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You're okay. You're, you're not too much. You may be too much for a lot of people. But there are those of us who can handle you.
(sung) Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People
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Hello, Renaissance People and folks who want to cultivate a Renaissance mindset. I'm joining you for a very special holiday episode of Connecting the Dots. And for this episode, I'm doing something a little bit different.
A couple things that are different.
One, I am not in an ideal setting for recording. I'm using my headphone microphone. I'm at my in-laws house in Minnesota and I decided not to travel on an airplane with a microphone for podcasting because we have enough junk that we brought with us when you have a 6 and a 9-year-old. So instead, I'm just using that microphone, which may pick up the sound of my family, who is basically separated from me, by a single thin wooden doorway.
So if you hear background noises. That's what it is. And it doesn't matter because I'm making this a simple episode. I'm probably not gonna do a ton of editing. So you get what you get. But why make things even more stressful when the holiday season itself has plenty of stress? So, I just wanted to record this quick episode to say a huge thanks to everyone who has been listening and supporting, reaching out to me.
It really has meant the world to me. It has been a dream for me for many years. Uh, someone asked me, why did you start this podcast? And part of the reason that I started it is because of my background. My first degree is in broadcast journalism. I like to talk, I enjoy microphones and recording, and I really do enjoy editing. Spend lots of hours doing it, but not this time, I promise.
So that was part of it, getting back to my roots of enjoying talking and interviewing with people. But the other thing is that it's about building a place where Renaissance People, folks who are interested in all sorts of different things, who rarely find a place of belonging, can feel like, no, you've got a spot.
information for joining me in:
Take a drink of whatever you want to drink. It can be water, it can be whatever you feel like drinking because that's my little running gag. Take a drink with the show notes. ' cause I do like show notes and all the lovely resources that we get to share. That's another thing I enjoy doing with this podcast is sharing resources that I know about. Sharing resources that my guests know about so that we can all learn together.
I was very excited, folks who have signed up for my email list for the Renaissance People community already know this and if you've seen social media posts that I've made, you are now joining a global movement by listening to this.
I know it's very exciting. Uh, so here's how it happened, why I can say global. When I put out, it was after my second episode, which was my very first guest Nancy Scales Coddington. I realized that between the trailer, episode one and two, we had already reached four continents without any effort on my part other than posting on social media and, and inviting Nancy, who obviously has a national, international following. But anyways, I thought, well, that's, that's kind of cool. There's, there's only three more continents to go. Hmm. Well, one of them is Australia and one of my very good friends from journalism school who's also a fellow Minnesotan who moved away. She actually lives there. So I shot her a message and Alissa was so kind as to listen, which checked off both the continent and another country. And then I still was looking for someone to join who to listen from Africa and looking for Antarctica because you know, you have to get all the continents.
hope is going to be one of my:
And I was like (gasp) Hmm...I've got a four minute, uh, trailer. Would you mind spending four minutes of your time in the Antarctic to actually listen? And she did, and I, I can verify it. I got the message back. And so checked off another continent with that one, which just was highly entertaining to me.
But then I realized that the map that's created by Captivate, which is the podcast hosting platform that I use, doesn't even include the Antarctic, so I didn't even get to see it! It doesn't even show up in the list, but I know, I know I got it! So it counts.
And then there was Africa, which ended up being the most difficult. Um, it's a place where I've got a lot of second degree connections. I've had a number of friends who have stayed over there, traveled there, who are connected there.
But I just was not having luck trying to find someone. And then I finally did get a connection with someone who I realized, oh yeah, they're a first degree connection. Marina was wonderful enough to listen. She was also traveling in France at the time, so it wasn't a listener on the African continent while they were listening to it, but it was someone from Africa listening.
So I'm still putting out feelers if you know anybody in Africa. This is a very artificial thing. It's so I could say I got every continent that I have a listener. Not that I am, you know, thousands of people, millions around the world are listening to my show. No, no, it's not that. But I don't know. It was just kind of fun.
Very quick update. Since I recorded this episode a couple of days ago, I have had a listener in Cameroon, so now I can officially say Africa has had a listener on the continent at the time they were listening. So every single continent has been achieved. Yay!
And then the next step is how many different, uh, countries around the world can I get? But that'll take a little bit more time. I wanted to share something that Marina gave me in feedback though, that I thought was really interesting and it brought up a question that I would love to any of you who have answers to it, um, to share it with me.
So, what was said was basically that it was pretty clear that the audience for, the primary audience, for my show is US based. Particularly because of episode 2 when I talked with Melissa Vining, advice about career centers and resources available in the United States and that sort of thing, which is absolutely a valid statement to be made, and I didn't necessarily set out making this podcast to make it an internationally renowned podcast. That was just a little fun on my end, but. She suggested, you know, offering advice and resources available outside the US, which I think is really great.
And I look forward to sharing that type of thing when I have guests on who have those types of resources or if I have them, or having international guests. I've already spoken with a friend in Canada who said that she'd be willing to come on and others, uh, would be great, would be wonderful!
But the question that it made come up for me was, I was thinking back to a few years ago. I've been involved in diversity efforts for very many years. I was involved initially in girls in STEM efforts when I became involved with SciGirls, the TV show out of Twin Cities Public Television in Minneapolis. My home PBS station, in fact, which is was a wonderful relationship with an organization that I continued to work with for more than a dozen years.
So I got involved, it was girls in STEM initially, which spoke to me as a woman who had gotten a degree in atmospheric and oceanic science, which was a degree program that had a fair number of females. But, uh, the ratios there were more males than females in that. And that's okay with me. I wasn't uncomfortable by any means. But then as I learned more and I began to do trainings for girls in STEM, I got to learn more about the challenges and some of the areas where there were major issues, uh, such as fields like engineering and computer programming.
But that was just kind of like the starting point for me. And we started with girls in STEM, but then, you know, what about being a black girl, being a Hispanic girl, being of a Native American girl? Then you have that second layer that is challenging you. And you get this idea of intersectionality.
And so I just kept expanding my idea of diversity. What does it mean? What are the conversations happening around it? I got interested in disability and accessibility awareness, really dug into that a couple of years ago.
But another area that I was very much interested in and passionate about was what started off when I was younger as LGBT. Then we had a And over time I also came across 2, the number 2, being added. And 2, representing two Spirit, which is coming from Native American tribes, Inuit tribes As as another way of talking about, L-G-B-T-Q-I-A, but their, their framing in their own culture.
And what I wondered was, are there phrases for a Renaissance Person in other cultures? Renaissance is not a word that comes from English. But we have, you know, multipotentialite, we have multipassion, Jack- and Jill-of-all-trades, boundary spanner. We've gotten, we go through all those phrases when I do the question at the very beginning of everyone's episode. But I would be interested, particularly for those of you who speak a foreign language or have spent significant time in foreign countries, whether, um, or in other cultures, what, whether there would be a word for us, us Renaissance People in your language.
So, if you have that from a different language, if you have that from a different culture, I think that would be just another great way to expand the definition of who we are, what we are, what we value. I'm always thinking about those things and always looking for opportunities to take that broader, wider, deeper, all the things.
look forward to doing that in:
nk you very much and bring on:
(sung) Connecting the Dots with The Renaissance People
