I survived a healthcare conference in Las Vegas… and honestly, I’m still a little surprised.

Hi, I'm Lauren Howard. You can call me L2. Like other people do. And in this episode of "Different, Not Broken" I'm sharing my story of peopling in sin city.

Between the cigarette-tinged air, the giant hotel that somehow has no sunlight, the time-zone confusion, and the very real possibility that I could’ve wandered straight into a meetup hosted by people I’m literally in a legal dispute with, this trip shouldn’t have been fun — but weirdly, it was.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why Vegas feels like a desert with no actual sun

• How I almost RSVP’d myself straight into the lion’s den (yes, that lion)

• My team acting like emotional support humans so I didn’t melt into a puddle in the middle of the crowd

• The bizarre networking moments where founders, lawyers, and random strangers kept appearing out of nowhere

• Why meeting listeners in real life makes me want to slide between the cracks of a sewer grate and disappear forever

• And — shockingly — why I’d actually do this whole thing again

Also, Alison brings us another listener question in Small Talk all about productivity.

Useful stuff

Stuff that helps you become awesome even if you're different: https://stan.store/elletwo

My grown up job: https://lbeehealth.com/

Timestamped summary

00:00 "Time, Smoke, and Healthcare Irony"

05:30 "Almost Entering the Lion's Den"

07:12 "Introvert at the Party"

13:12 "Dateline Rule: No Second Location"

13:49 "Conference Reflections: Fun & Validation"

17:11 "Overcoming Exhaustion and Enjoyment"

20:20 Checklist Productivity vs Mental Effort

23:55 Redefining Daily Productivity

Mentioned in this episode:

Build Your Better course

Build your better course - https://stan.store/elletwo/p/build-your-better

His first response was, wait, you actually went to a conference?

I was like, yes, I got dragged here against my will.

You have one of the largest healthcare conferences in

the world in, like, the one place in the country that still lets people

smoke inside. Like, that doesn't make any sense. She was like,

I am so impressed when you have this thing on your face that looks like

a smile and you haven't

yelled anybody and you haven't fallen down and you haven't

tripped. And I was like, well, now I'm going to do all of those things

because you jinxed it. Hi,

everybody. I'm Lauren Howard. I go by L2. Yes,

you can call me L2. Everybody does. It's a long story. It's actually not that

long a story, but we'll save it for another time. Welcome to Different,

Not Broken, which is our podcast on exactly that.

That there are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken, and

the reality is you're just different, and that's fine.

So it turns out that not everything that

happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Many things

do. But when you are boring

old ladies who have no desire to gamble

and are not interested in going to the Magic Mike show

and are really actually there to get work done, positive things can

come out of Vegas. I did realize that somehow Vegas is

in the middle of the desert, but there's just not a lot of sunlight. It's

because they've mastered. They, meaning the people who build these, like,

palatial buildings have mastered the ability to make it appear

like you're outside so that you stay inside. So you'll go to the

casino and you can go, like,

36 hours without ever breathing air that isn't

tinged with cigarettes. So we went to a conference last week. Last

week. I got back yesterday. I don't know what day it is. Listen, being

three hours ahead behind, I don't know how that works. It's just

three hours difference than where I live. Still having to do

work at east coast time, having a client who works in

central time. The whole time we were there, I was like, is time even a

thing anymore? So we went to a really big healthcare conference.

And by that, I mean we crashed a really big healthcare conference because we couldn't

afford to go because it was really stupid expensive. What's super funny

is that you have one of the largest healthcare conferences

in the world in, like, the one place in the country

that still lets people smoke inside. Like, that doesn't make any sense.

Like, you're, like, huffing it across this giant

multi unit hotel thing. And

every so often you just get punched with a wall of

cigarette smoke as you're trying to walk very quickly to get between

sessions. It just doesn't seem correct.

I mean, I know why they picked Vegas, I guess, but also

like maybe putting the world's, you know,

foremost experts on health and wellness

in a giant building filled with

addiction potential and actual carcinogens was like not

the most smartest thing. That's totally English. The other thing

is really important. I didn't go to jail, didn't end up in jail. Not for

anything that I did, Vegas related, not for anything that I did, conference related, not

for anything that I did, conference attendee related. Because as

much as the majority of the people there

are fairly scientifically minded, they still

felt the need to have a session for the Make

America Healthy Again crowd at a health care conference

about health care. So again, didn't end up in jail. There

almost ended up in a situation, an

ugly situation that I caught right before it happened.

There's all sorts of like parties and events and breakfasts and teas and coffees and

whatever they go to. And usually

the goal is startups to meet investors

and vice versa. There are other reasons. There are, you know, there's people who go

there for education, there's people who go there to like meet people they might want

to hire or whatever. But that's the. A lot of it is small

startups, big investors. How do we, you know, how do they meet each other? And

so they come up with all these different ways to have these parties. And so

I got invited to one through one of the communities that I'm in and I

signed up for it. I'll be honest, it really didn't occur to me how many

people I was going to know there. Like health tech, there's a lot of people,

but it's also a pretty incestuous group. Like, I

don't know why it didn't occur to me that I was going to know people

there, but it didn't because I am a very smart person, but also not a

smart person at all. And so we got invited to a breakfast by our

attorney early the second morning. And I was actually

kind of nervous because we had the breakfast and then I had this

founders meeting. It was like a founders and investors meet up.

And then I had a marketing meeting that I had to go to.

And then there was something. So it was like five or six hours of like

we had to leave everything on time. And that always makes me nervous to like

Especially when I'm, like, traversing a place that I've never been to before. So we

sit down at the breakfast, which is full of lovely, lovely ladies

who are all somehow involved with the legal or compliance of a health

tech company. It was hosted by my attorney, who is one of my favorite people

in the world. And I get a notice that says, like, don't forget this is

coming up in 45 minutes. And I'm like, okay, cool. So I open it

so I can make sure that I know where it is, because if I don't

know where it is, it doesn't exist. And then I get anxious, and then. And

so, for whatever reason, for the first time, the

hosts of the event pop up underneath the location. As I'm trying to

figure out where it is, I read the names of the hosts, and one of

them was somebody I worked for before, who I would

end up, at least in Venetian jail if I was in the same room as.

And knowing that my attorney, who is two seats

down for me at this event, is in a huge dispute with these

people, I was like, my next thing just got canceled, so I don't have to

rush out of here. And she's like, really? How'd it get canceled? And I just

held up the phone and showed her the host, and she goes, oh, that's either

very canceled or we're definitely going to that. And I was like, I think you

and I should show up arm in arm, and you should wrestle that. But

anyway, I almost walked into the literal lion's den. I would have either had to

control myself and pretend like this wasn't the devil incarnate,

or just be myself and deal with the fact that this

was the devil incarnate. So there were almost some messy things, but

overall, it was a really good experience. And I didn't die, and I didn't spontaneously

combustion, and I didn't have any sensory meltdowns. And I was around

enough people who have not the same sensory limitations,

but experience with their own and other people's sensory limitations that we're all kind of

able to balance each other in what is a very chaotic environment. Otherwise,

we have a new person who is handling business development for us

and partnerships. You know, I always say that we are terrible at sales

because I only hire neurodivergent people. That is

officially not true any longer because she is neurodivergent. No question

about that. But I have never seen somebody who can make

friends the way that she can. Like, we were sitting at a party one night.

I went To a party. That's probably the headline. I went

to a party, and it was an actual party where there was, like, a

huge amount of people convened around a bar, and I

didn't know any of them. And I have lovely, lovely friends

who knew that I was not going to talk to anybody unless I was walked

up to them and introduced. They basically, like, took shifts of like, all

right, who are we going to go take L2 to introduce?

So we went to a party, and I know this is gonna be shocking. We

found the quiet corner where there wasn't anyone, and that's where we sat.

It was actually funny because I was looking for our attorney while we were there.

The party was hosted by actually our attorney and our

malpractice company. They hosted it together, which was very funny.

I was like, everybody who protects me is in one room. We were looking for

Lisa, and we're kind of, like, weaving through the crowd, and there's so many people.

And I looked at Natasha, and I said, I will bet dollars to

donuts that Lisa is in that quiet spot

over there that is separate. She's like, okay. And so

we walk over there, and sure enough, there's Lisa. But it was so

funny because there were so many people I knew in that room who I had

never actually met. And so I would see somebody that I knew and

walk up to them, we'd make eye contact, and they'd be like, why is this

person making eye contact with me? That's weird. And I'd be like, I'd, like, get

ready to, like, do the handshake. And then you would see the recognition and go,

oh, my God, that's the person I've only seen on screen before.

And then there was the moment of, like, oh, my God, she has pants on.

And, like, every single one of them did that. And so I got to meet

a guy who's who I launched. I helped him launch his startup. I

didn't know he was going to be there. I just happened to run into him,

helped him launch his startup several years ago and worked for him for about two

years. We had never met, happened to be in the same place. He

gave me the biggest hug. I got to meet Lisa for the first time. Lisa

is our attorney who takes every one of my calls, even though she should send

me to voicemail far more often. I got to meet our malpractice insurance

guy who saved my ass. Not for malpractice reasons,

but saved my ass so hardcore this summer. So hardcore. And

I got to give him a giant hug. And then I also, you know,

like. Like, you know the guy. Like, you have somebody

who you work with, and they have admin staff, and most likely

you deal with their admin staff more than them. But, like,

for some reason, the one who has a human form

is, like, the main guy. And then the admin staff are just copied.

Like, it just. That's just the way my brain worked. Like, it never occurred to

me that his team would be there. And so I'm talking to him, and she

goes, wait, are you Lauren? And I said, yeah. And she goes, I'm

Maddie. And I was like, congratulations

for being Maddie. And then I, like, went through my mental Rolodex

and realized that there's somebody I've been emailing with for literally four

years whose name is Maddie, but it's spelled differently. And so I. I don't think

I ever pronounced it Maddie. And she was adorable and so sweet,

and she was like, oh, my gosh, it's so fun to meet you, because I

literally talk to you, like, every three weeks, and I

never thought I'd get to meet you. And so we got to chat for a

while, so that was fun. And I got to talk to Lisa

for a while, which was fun. And she, like, grabbed me by the hand and

was like, here's a circle of women that I think you should meet. And she

just shoved me into the middle. And she was like, this is Lauren. And then

it turned out that, like, some of them worked for my old attorney. Some of

them work for Lisa. Some of them have worked on our stuff before. So

Natasha came up to me after, like, the third go round, and she was like,

I'm. I'm so impressed. I am so

impressed by, like, you're social, and you have this thing

on. Your face that looks like a smile. And you

haven't yelled anybody, and you haven't fallen down

and you haven't tripped. And I was like, well, now I'm going to do all

of those things because you jinxed it. Anyway, so Nikki, who is with

us, I finally got to a point where I was like, that crowd is too

much. It's just too many people. Lisa had said to me, if you want the

people with money, they're in that corner. And I was like,

okay, I don't know that I want them, but thank you for that. Heads up.

Nikki overheard that. And then we are sitting in the corner,

and she goes, can I get you a drink? And I was like, sure. Something

fruity. I don't care. I don't. She's like, do you drink? I was like, I

really don't drink wine. I'm not a grown up enough to drink wine. Even just

a water or a coke is fine. But if you feel like she was using

the, like, going to the bar as a reason to stand next to somebody at

the bar. So she wanted to be able to say, oh, I'm getting a drink

from my boss. So she goes over and gets

everybody's drinks, drink order. She's away for maybe three and a. Half minutes.

Comes back with a guy. She's holding two drinks,

he's holding two drinks. He hands me my drink,

and she's like, here's so and so. He actually lives 20

minutes from me. We just met at the bar. He does this thing

that is completely aligned with what we do. You guys should talk.

And so it was just like this, like, revolving door

of, like, I was sitting on my throne and being presented with the

vendors, basically. Like, I sat and they came and

like, I would be like, there can't possibly be another person in that crowd

that you're going to meet and bring over. Like, there's. You've. You've been through the

whole crowd now. And she basically looked at me and was like, challenge accepted. 45

seconds later, brought another person back. I got to meet one of our partners who

runs an organization called To Gather, and she's also the chief clinical officer at

an organization called Kindred. Kindred is health care for black women by black

women. I'm so in love with their vision. And I just, like, turned around and

she was standing there. And it's the first time that I can legitimately say that

I met someone who looked exactly like their

picture. Like, there was no question who I was talking to.

She gave me the biggest hug. She actually lives overseas. And

so she came across the pond for this. And she got to

speak at the conference, which was really cool. But, yeah, it was a wild experience.

And then I got back to the room, and Nikki's like, are you exhausted right

now? And I was like, I'm actually kind of okay. She's like, oh, well, do

you want. To go back out? And I was like, no. They did try to

get us to go to, like, a second party. And I

kept saying. I kept saying to Nikki, like, you don't watch enough Dateline

because the Dayline says never go to the second location. Because the Venetian, which is

the hotel that it was held in, is this giant. It's

two giant hotels that are basically, like, connected by a shopping

mall and casinos. And so

there are 40 restaurants in the hotel, and so

all of the big companies were, like, hosting mixers in all of these places, and

so you could just basically party hop. And I was like, this is not an

experience I ever want to have again. But it was really interesting, and it was

really fun, and it did prove that I don't fully hate

being in a place where there are a bunch of people. And there were a

lot of people that I saw who live far too close to me for

me to have to go to Vegas to see them. Like, one of the people

I used to mentor literally lives less than half an hour away from me,

and I have not seen him in years, but he was in Vegas. His

first response was, wait, you actually went to a conference? I

was like, yes, I got dragged here against my will.

There were some problems with the hotel that I'm still dealing with, with the hotel

and some other silly stuff. But for the most part, it was actually a really

good experience. Very much validated what we're building. Very much validated the

interest in what we're building. Very much validated that I do have the

capacity to put on pants and shoes and go talk to people.

Please don't let that get out. Also validated the thing that has always

been a thing, which is, like, when people come up to me as

fully formed humans and talk about my content or my podcast, I

want to die. I want to fade into the wall

and just melt. And I get so

uncomfortable. And I'm like, what are you even talking about? I don't have a podcast.

While they're, like, telling me about the episode they listened to last week, and they're

like, no, I listen every week. And I'm like, you can't possibly listen to something

that doesn't exist. I don't know what you're talking about, but I just, like, was

like, please make. Please let me disappear. And somebody was like, why are

you so uncomfortable with this? I was like, you need to understand that my

podcast is between me and 40,000 of my closest

friends, none of whom have names. I'm talking to the void in

the Internet. And then as soon as you are a real person telling

someone else about the fact that I write on the Internet or talk on the

Internet, I am so deeply uncomfortable that all I want to

do is fall between the cracks on a sewer grate. So

that was an experience. And I talked enough on the second day that my.

I lost my voice. That tells you how much I peopled

because, like, I talk to myself constantly. And I never lose my voice. And

I got on a plane twice, and I didn't cry either time. And

Natasha held my hand like she's supposed to. And Natasha is

such a good mom. She. She's like everybody's mom. Like, I would be like,

oh, my gosh, I forgot my. And then she would just hold it up in

front of me, and I'm like, I love you so much. You're so great. I

think if I had. If I went on a trip and had both Allison and

Natasha, like, I don't think my feet would ever touch the floor. These people

attend to me so well. My brain no longer functions because

these wonderful people are completely doing it for me. Oh, and

Dr. Oz was there. I did not see him. It was very weird.

Every time I asked somebody if they knew when Dr. Oz was speaking,

nobody would give me an answer. And Natasha and I were talking about how

Natasha was like, well, we both can't see him because we can't end up in

jail together because we need the other one to bail out. And I was like,

no, that's what we have Nikki for. And then we thought about it. We were

like, nope, Nikki would be with us. Hmm.

And then we realized that my literal attorney was there. So I was like, we're

actually fine. Like, we are set. I literally have the phone call to

make, and it's. She's right here, so we're good.

We learned that in Vegas, when you find one thing that

overwhelms your sensory processing system

and you try to remove. Yourself from it to get a break. You are

99% likely to find a different thing that

overwhelms you. And so you have to decide which

one bothers you less and then make a full exit to get away

from it. Other than that, it was a cool couple of days. And I proved

to myself that I could actually leave the house with the intent of

wearing pants for several days and not be miserable,

because I really did actually enjoy myself. And I wasn't so

physically and emotionally exhausted that I was like, if I don't get home right now,

I'm gonna die. I was exhausted, but that was because we took a red eye.

And when you leave Vegas at 11pm

to go to Orlando, your

technically four hour flight gets you there at 7am

and so not only have you, like, been in like a

semi comatose state of non restorative sleep for a very short

period of time, you have to give yourself credit for seven hours of sleep when

you only got maybe one and a half over a Four hour period at best.

And it is disorienting as I'll get out. So I'm still recovering from that

part. And I'm saying this today and I'm saying it on record so that

all of you can remind me when I say I'm never gonna do it again.

I would actually do that experience again. It was not that bad. I would do

it with those people. I would do it with that level of control.

Control is a thing with that level of planning.

But in six months, when somebody says, hey, I need you to go to

Dubuque, and I'm like, no, I don't do conferences, I don't do pants, you can

be like, remember that time that you said in front of the whole Internet? And

I can be like, shut up. Things change.

And now we'll go to Allison, who has this week's

small talk. Today I finished my schoolwork early, met with

the manager of the inpatient facility who thinks I was unfairly denied

full time work, saw my therapist, got a room set up

for my cat that urgently needs surgery, and went grocery shopping.

But when my dad asked me what I had done today, I answered, nothing

productive. Because the only thing I did that was on my to do list was

the homework. Everything else on that list remains. Why does

my brain think I didn't do anything today when the

reality is I did very important and necessary things,

even if I hadn't written them down. I do this too.

Some of the less active work is the most

productive work that we can do, but we don't give ourselves credit for it. I

do that too, all the time. If it's not on a list

and I'm not checking it off a list, it feels like

nothing got accomplished that day. And beyond that, the

times that I spend

doing deeply contemplative work, which is

still work, even though I don't give. Myself credit for it. But the times that

I spend deep in thought, trying to fix a

problem, design something, build something, get over an

obstacle, whatever, those are the days that I

am exhausted at the end of the day. The days

that I have, like a. Super highly, quote, unquote productive day using the

wrong criteria there, and I get a lot checked off on my to do list.

And I feel like I have done a lot of

tactical, tangible stuff that I can actually describe. Like, like

you said, I did homework. You know, I took trash out, I made

sure that the laundry got done, I went to pick up the rental car, whatever.

The days that I feel like I can go check, check, check, check, Check off

the list. Those are the days that I quantify to myself as being or

qualify to myself as being highly productive days. But those

are not the days that wear me out from work.

The days that wear me out are the days that I really spend

thinking hard about a problem or stressing about a problem

or doing things that require all of my

brain power, which knocking things off a

list usually does not. And so I think it's a.

We just have to reframe this conversation around what productivity is.

Rest is productive time. Rest is not

sloth. We tend to say, I did nothing today

when we're sitting on the couch and not doing a lot of movement.

But your brain requires rest to

allow you to have those very tactical, tangible,

active days. And then not only that, just because you're not physically

up and moving around doesn't mean that things aren't happening. You

still burn calories. Whether you sleep all day. Things are still happening

within your body. I used to feel really guilty when I would

take a day off to do something like a puzzle. You know, I

really, really like puzzles. I like that there is something I can do with my

hands that doesn't require me to do anything

with the more complicated parts of my brain. We

take a lot of road trips because we go from Florida to New Hampshire and.

And the days that I spend behind the wheel of the car where I can

do nothing else. There's nothing else I can do other than drive that car, except

occasionally change the radio and maybe bitch at

whoever is in the passenger seat next to me. It's usually an adult who

deserves it. It's fine. Those days feel so wildly

unproductive. But they're also the days where my brain is

the most creative. They are the days where I come up with

the best ideas, the best solutions to problems. I can sit

there and try to force my brain to come up with a solution to a

problem, and it will deliver absolutely nothing. But when I,

quote, unquote, turn it off to do something that requires

very little of my active brain and my hands to be busy or

is lumped in with rest in some way, that's when

the ideas start pouring out of my brain. And so we just

have to change what our idea of creating productive is. Do we need

the days where we knock everything off a list and

we feel like we have achieved things and the house gets cleaned and the

laundry gets done and the email box gets cleaned out? Like, do we need those

days? Absolutely. Those are important days. Those things need to

get done. But are those days Inherently more valuable

than the days where you're in meetings all day

achieving things, but not in a way that you can mark things off a list.

Or the days where you are allowing your

subconscious to do some reformulating so that it can get whatever

the ideas out that are not coming through when you work

so hard to get to them. Are those less productive? No, they're just

different. They're just a different kind of productive.

And so we just need to try to redefine

productivity. It is not marking things off a list,

even though sometimes it is. It is achieving

something within that day that was something you

needed to achieve and that might be rest,

that might be watching trash television, that might

be having a two hour session that

is not tactical at all, but helps

unlock the parts of your brain that you need to achieve the next thing. I

get really frustrated on days where. I have back to back calls, which. Is

ridiculous, because days like that I. Need, I don't have calls that I.

Don'T need to be on. I don't like other people enough to. Just get on

academic calls just to waste time like it doesn't happen. But I'm

always frustrated because there's always a pile of things on a list that need to

get done and I feel like I'm not doing it. And I say that my

work is. Distracting me from my work, the work that I have to do is

distracting me from the work I have to do. And I don't like it and

it makes me mad. I need to be doing both of those works.

And until we figure out cloning and. One of my

versions can just put my feet up on the couch and. Then have multiple

other variants running around. Doing all the hard stuff.

Like there are days where the list is not going to get a lot of

attention and that's gotta be okay. But does that make it less frustrating?

No. I still get really frustrated when I can't be tactical during the

day because one gives me a dopamine reward and. The other

one makes me feel exhausted. But both of them are valuable. So

the reason that you're not giving. Yourself credit for it is because we treat

more ethereal, more thinking based, less

tangible tactical work as less important because. We don't have anything to show for

it. And the reality is that the things that we have to show for it

come later. And they are very rarely the instant

gratification that we're looking for that we get from pen to paper

saying, aha. This thing is done. That's actually the noise I make when I mark

things off my list. Aha. This thing is done. Thanks for being

here, guys. Have a good day. Love you. Mean it.

Dude, I just actually drooled. I just actually drooled on myself. Those are the

kinds of things that only happen when I'm recording. That's the kind of thing that

I'd be like, oh, my God, that's so embarrassed. Don't tell anybody. And then I

would immediately go tell someone.