This week on the podcast, we are featuring Gail Robertson, the Chief Curiosity Officer of GailNow! She is a whirling dervish on social media and a networking super-connector, and I’ve been amazed by her energy and success for years. Listen in as Gail helps us to uncover what it takes to realize the potential of our curious brain and accomplish our wildest dreams by signing up, suiting up, and showing up.

Join us as we discuss:

01:57 Great work is about helping others to show up and stand out by sharing their story.

02:35 The 3 Steps - Sign Up - Suit Up - Show Up.

04:25 How Gail used curiosity, as a way to find the stories inside the world of manufacturing.

08:28 Being curious versus being judgemental.

11:01 Overcoming fears with curiosity and mindset.

16:20 Work with the right clients - Sometimes you have to say no to certain things so you can say yes to the great opportunities.

19:34 The biggest hurdle to get over is to get out of your own way - You can be the hero of your own story!

23:37 How Gail helps her clients get into the right mindset, get over insecurity and start sharing the stories of their great work.

26:57 Curiosity is like a muscle, you have to exercise it, you have to utilize it.

33:45 The muscle of curiosity led to the muscle of courage.

About the Guest: 

Gail Robertson brings an unfamiliar and fresh outlook to the more traditional Manufacturing Industry. This (recovering) journalist knows how to use curiosity to celebrate innovation - and turn obstacles into opportunities. She helps transform businesses for extraordinary results! Curiosity is the foundation of her 3 step process: Sign Up, Suit Up and #ShowUP! Gail has always been curious, which led her into journalism. She now uses storytelling (developed as a journalist), in her manufacturing world. Her transferable skills have assisted her as she transitioned from journalist, to bed-and-breakfast owner, to fundraiser, to Marketing Manager at an insurance tech company and now, “Chief Curiosity Officer” at GailNow. She is a social media strategist and Keynote Speaker, who can help just about anyone exercise their Curious Brain! She and many others have found that with curiosity, so much is possible: step out of your comfort zone, overcome fear, do things you’ve never done before, meet amazing people and ShowUP with joy, passion and enthusiasm.

www.GailNow.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9jTAajk7XaEYerR5ZqrWWg

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gailrobertsonkeynotespeaker/

https://twitter.com/gailnow

https://www.tiktok.com/@gailnow

https://www.instagram.com/gailnow1

https://clubhousedb.com/user/gailnow

About the Host:

Dr. Amanda Crowell is a cognitive psychologist, speaker, author and coach changing our perspective on the world of work. It IS possible to do Great Work-- launch a successful business, make a scientific discovery, raise a tight-knit family, or manage a global remote team-- without sacrificing your health, happiness and relationships.

Amanda is the Author of the forthcoming book, Great Work: Do What Matter Most Without Sacrificing Everything Else, and the creator of the Great Work Journals. Amanda's TEDx talk has received more than a million views and has been featured on TED's Ideas blog and Ted Shorts.

Her ideas have also been featured on NPR, Al Jazeera, The Wall Street Journal, Quartz, and Thrive Global.

Sponsored By The Aligned Time Journal

The Unleashing Your Great Work podcast is sponsored by the Aligned Time Journal! The Aligned Time Journal is here to answer the question "But HOW?" How can we figure out what our Great Work is? How can we get started, stay with it, and finish our Great Work so it can go out in the world and have an impact?

Click here to learn more, and try it out for yourself!

For more information about the Unleashing YOUR Great Work podcast or to learn more about Dr. Amanda Crowell, check out my website: amandacrowell.com

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Welcome to unleashing your great work, a podcast about doing the work that matters the most to you. I'm your host, Dr. Amanda Crowell, a cognitive psychologist, coach, and the creator of the great work journals. Every week on this podcast, we are asking the big questions. What is great work? And why does it matter so much to us? What does it take to do more of your great work without sacrificing everything else? And how does the world change when more people are doing more of the work that matters the most to them? So whether your great work is building your own small business, or managing a remote team at a multinational company, you'll find insight and answers here.

Welcome everybody to unleashing your great work. I am so excited to have Gail Robertson on the podcast today. Gail brings an unfamiliar and fresh outlook to the more traditional manufacturing industry. This recovering journalist knows how to use curiosity to celebrate innovation and turn obstacles into opportunities. As a social media strategist and a keynote speaker, Gail can help just about anyone exercise their curious brain. She has found that with curiosity so much as possible, you can step out of your comfort zone, overcome fear, do things you've never done before. meet amazing people and show up with joy, passion, and enthusiasm. Welcome to the podcast, Gail.

Woohoo. Can we hear an Oh, yeah.

You don't know this, but she just did a little dance. So it's great to see you. We're gonna start where we always start, we're gonna dive right in. And I'm going to ask you, Gail Robertson, what is your great work? Tell us a little bit about it.

Okay, let's start with diving in a little Splish Splash. Great work is about helping others to show up and stand out by sharing their story. Mm hmm. It's so important that more people start doing this and migrate work centers around curiosity, and how to sign up, suit up and show up. Because when we start to show up, that's where the magic happens.

Okay, say those three again. Stand up suit up. Now, and I enough, sign up. Tell me that. What are these three things? Yeah.

So let's sign up, suit up and show the sign sign up is probably hard for some easy for others. It's all about mindset. It's about starting to, you know, shift where you see those limits in your mind and working to remove those and also believing in it. And I know this, you know, it sounds easy when you say it's a lot harder to do it. So that's that signing up. It's it's that first step. And it's can be sometimes a lifelong process. So that's a sign up, then the suiting up. Now this is where it gets really fun and interesting for me and where I help others to start doing their research, to start doing the preparation. This is where you use curiosity to prepare yourself because curiosity, the more you're learning about something, it will help you overcome some fears. Because a lot of times we build up in our minds how difficult something will be we build up in our minds that we think we can't. And when we suit up and we start digging down and really delving into whether it's listening to podcasts, whether it's talking to some new people, it's reading a book, it's, you know, it's it's really preparing yourself for then final step, which is showing up. So once you do your signing up, you change your mindset, and then you get prepared, that's where you can then step out into the world and show up. And I often say sometimes you have to do a little bit of a fast forward through the first two steps to actually get out there and show up. And showing up can mean many different things. And it can mean showing up on video. But it can also be showing up on engaging on social media, it can be showing up in an event. So showing up can mean different things. It can be some those showing up can be easier for some than others. And then that's where we back up to looking at what your goal is before you're going to tackle these three steps.

And so the people you're helping to sign up suit up and show up are largely in manufacturing. Is that right? Yes. Okay, so is that a group of people that you feel really need help to, to really show up in the world in this way that you're talking about?

Yes, the short answer is yes. And, you know, I came out of my background, I've had a few different careers, and it's led me into manufacturing. Before this. I had also worked in the world of insurance, insurance and technology. So I like to you know, take the easy groups to tackle So, and within manufacturing, you know, here is something that a lot of people, even for myself didn't really understand, like manufacturing seemed like this gray area. Because, you know, we all understand when we get in a car when we're using our end products, we understand that. But if you start asking Hmm, what about all of the things that go into making the car? What about all the things that go make into making all of our products? So then we back up to the world I'm in which I specialize also in mold making and the plastic injection molding world. And you know what I say that at a cocktail party, that's where people want to lean in and learn more, for sure. And if I just started there, they would go, Oh, no way. But you know, where I've come at it in terms of, you know, the world of plastics. So plastics is right now, there's a lot of controversy around plastic, because we hear about banning plastics. And instead, what we need to do is embrace how are we going to handle the world of, you know, disposing plastics, as opposed to getting rid of them. So go back to the world, I got into manufacturing. So when I started, you know, pulling back that curtain and looking at, okay, we're asking questions, okay, tell me about mold making. Well, the mold makers, make the tools that then make the molds that then make the final products that we're going to use from everything from our car parts to you know, those big totes that you put stuff into our cell phone covers, our water bottles, the medical devices that save our lives. Well, that all comes from plastics. So once I started going back into this world, Wow, there's so many stories. And we we talk about this industry as the people who make things that make things. And once I started looking at it from that perspective, you know, that great work idea is about how can we start understanding where does everything come from an answering more questions. So we don't just come to this, you know, resolute response, banned plastics, like don't do that. You know, there's much more for us to learn. And when we learn more, that's when we can have a better understanding.

Hmm, so what you're saying then Gail was right, it means you don't know what you're saying, I know. You used curiosity, as a way to find the stories inside the world plastic, mold, injected manufacturing. Yeah. And that's really your great work, isn't it? It's very, like finding the humanity, the human story, the interest in a space that you find yourself in?

Yes. And it applies to more than for anybody listening, this isn't just about manufacturing, it can be applied to anything that we're doing. It's about looking around corners. And a famous quote from Walt Whitman, that became very popular on the TED lassos show is Be curious, not judgmental. And that is that is part of my great work is to really start exploring and understanding better about whatever client I'm working with, which right now is in manufacturing, but I also do work with the Canadian Mental Health Association. So there is other groups that I work with, and a lot of these same rules apply.

Yeah. So what is it about being curious and non judgmental? Like, why does that matter to you? Why does that feel to you like your great work to help people be curious instead of judgmental?

Well, you know, when we, when we judge, we shut down, we don't want to necessarily hear another perspective. And it it closes us off from seeing another way of looking at things. So this applies to all relationships as well. So I use it with clients. Because when I got curious, instead of judgmental about, you know, Ban, you know, banning plastics is one example, imagine if we banned plastics, no more plastic, let's say banned plastics, no more plastic, what would our world look like? Well, that would create so many other problems, you know, from, you know, health issues from you know, making sure we have the right. You know, cleanliness, like there's a reason we have plastic. So instead, when you start digging into this world, I realize it's not about banning plastics, what we do have to do is advocate for better disposal of them using recycling. And then the other part of that being not judgmental is applies to other relationships. Because if we say, you know, oh, I'm not gonna listen to another view. We don't progress forward. We don't have innovation and curiosity leads to innovation. So if we say I'm right, and no one else is right, then we can't see. You know, one example would be you know, Albert Einstein said, you know, I'm not read basically said, I'm not really all that much, but I'm passionately curious because he was all about, you know, asking questions and not accepting the status quo.

Yeah, yeah, I like that what I think is really interesting is that all of the the world that we live in is so much more complex, then it is reflected to be when people are talking about in social media, of course, or any media really, because when you are really trying to explore the depths of any problem, banning plastics, policy issues, education, health care, all of it is really complex, and there's all these push and pulls, and you would shut that down. If you didn't activate curiosity, if you weren't, like, I need to know more, I need to see what's really going on. And as you pointed out, that is where innovation lives, that's and in, that's where the solution lives. So I think it's a really important piece of work that you're doing.

And it it applies to so many others doing great work, because there are, if you look at, you know, the most successful people, the most successful people have often failed the most. And we we do have, we tend to have this fear of, you know, failing and fear of looking silly, and we have so many fears. And instead, when we can get curious, we can maybe realize, well, you know, if you looked at a lot of the failures in world in the world, there's a lot more people that have it like they did out of the gate, did now success. You know, John Grisham his book, he was rejected from his early transcripts, I think, like 28 times, Jack Canfield Chicken Soup for the Soul. I mean, I think he had like 100, but he just didn't, but he didn't give up. And, you know, we often want to just think that, oh, you know, that person is successful, I can't achieve that, because we may try to do something, and then we may drop the ball, we may fail, we may not have success. And this is where when you start digging into that scene, seeing the world from a different view, you can then realize, oh, all of these people failed a lot. So what happens if I fail? What will happen? What if I go out on a limb? What if I, you know, make that call, I try doing something different? What will happen? What will really happen? Not not our perception of what will happen and not what we fear will happen? What will really happen if we try something different?

Right, in a matter of fact, kind of every day kind of way? what would actually happen if we tried? And is this does this resonate with your personal experience that, you know, have you failed at anything? Gail Robertson, like have you had the experience of trying and failing and try new things? Like what has your path been to this to this place?

Well, I, you know, when I see, man, I have had your lots of things I've done, I've failed, I've made mistakes. I've, you know, there's there's examples of you know, you, you something goes out with a typo. There's, you know, from my journalism days, there's, you know, lots of mistakes. And I think for myself, what I see as you know, there was a great quote from Thomas Edison, you know, think it took like, 1000 times try to, you know, come up with the light bulb idea. And a reporter once asked him, you know, how does it feel to fail 1000 times, he said, I didn't fail 1000 times, I had 100 steps towards coming up with my lightbulb invention. So, you know, it all depends on perspective. So I guess when I look back, my recollection of failures is I usually just see it as well, that was an interesting approach. You know, what, what did I learn from it? So I'm on my fifth career. So I started out as a journalist, worked in that world. Now, when I was going to journalism school, one of the the sayings we had was, you know, out to change the world on deadline. I went into it with that mindset. I thought I was going to change the world. So I got into journalism. Well, over the years, I was there just over a decade and realize maybe that wasn't the place that I was going to be able to change the world. So I took a little detour. And I left that world and I went and ran a bed and breakfast, totally unrelated to anything other than I, you know, I thought I may be running away to an island with you know, I'd have like, magically, the world would change. And it was a great experience. I learned about running a business great, great opportunities. Then after that, for a bunch of reasons I left that I went through a divorce. So I guess that could be seen as a failure. You know, I didn't plan to have a divorce. I mean, you go into it thinking you're gonna have success, so and then I decided to take Another shift another turn, I went into, I was hired as a fundraiser. Now I had no experience as a fundraiser. But I was hired because I utilized transferable skills. And when I went in for the interview, that's what I talked about research, asking questions, being able to pick up the phone and call people all things I could do, as a reporter, really translated well into being a fundraiser, had a goal of a million dollars reach that goal after a year, then I went was hired by one of the campaign cabinet members was a marketing manager for just over a decade again. And then when they were selling to an international company, I knew there really wasn't going to be a role. So I decided to go to my own as Gale now. And now I'm Chief curiosity officer, deal now.

Chief curiosity officer, that's my favorite title ever. Maybe? I love it. And so the kinds of work that you do now for people, you said, you know, you help them show up suit up, and no, I messed it up again. Sign up, sign up, nude up, boot up, then show Oh, wow. And what does that actually look like? So that's the that's sort of the catchphrase. But what kind of work are you actually doing for them?

Well, it is about, you know, working with the right clients as well. So that's another thing that's really changed for me at this point in my life. And my career is that, you know, sometimes you have to also say no to certain things, because then you can say yes to the great opportunities. So the people I work with now all have embraced the signup part, they have the right mindset they have, I'm not convincing them, especially in 2022, that social media and using marketing is needed. So they get that the suit apart. Well, that's about me digging in asking questions. So I'm that pain in the butt, that's going to be asked them lots of questions and trying to figure out things, so they want me on board, because I am the person that will deliver to them, options, opportunities, and also push them forward to recognize their great stories and their great work. Often, they don't acknowledge the idea of the great work. And what you're doing Amanda is so great, because you're putting a spotlight and yes, thank you for putting a spotlight on me. But my where I shine, my spotlight is on people in other industries, insurance, now manufacturing, and helping them to then show up. And I have to give them a nudge sometimes. But when they do listen to me. And when they take my direction, because of my background, as a journalist, as a journalist, you are in service to the audience, or you should be. That's not always the case. Currently, I'd say but your i Your goal as a reporter is to go out and deliver a story to your audience. My job in manufacturing is to help deliver their story to their audience. And quite a few times I say it's not what they want to share. It's not what they think it's important, what will your audience thinks is important. And that is part of the great work I do and the great work that I'm helping shine a light on? Yeah,

I think that's a hard mindset for a lot of people who haven't worked in marketing, or journalism or any of those sort of communication industries, where I mean, I haven't done much of that either. You know, as a psychologist, we think a lot about the person that sitting in front of us. But I had a communication undergraduate degree. So I had to take as an undergrad like PR and marketing and what have you. So I remember really thinking like, this is a very different way of looking at the world, anticipating who might hear it, what's going on in their lives, what are they going to hear and what you say, because what you say isn't what matters is what they hear. That is what matters. And I think that's quite a difficult shift. And along with it comes the worry that the person listening isn't gonna care it all right, like I don't have anything that they would find interesting. So I'm wondering if those are things that you have to really talk to these guys about? And when you're sort of finding their stories and what other struggles do they have, as you're trying to get them to sort of share their stories, their perspectives, their you no humaneness to their audiences.

That is the biggest the biggest hurdle to get over is for them to get out of their own way. And, you know, I think we all face that we all need to at times, get out of our own way. I often say when my talks I say, you know, just take the damn cold shower, because that's something that I do as a habit. I've developed the habit of taking a cold shower every morning. That was a habit that I developed, but I did research about that about how Well, that not only helps with your immune system, your skin, but it actually, when you do a difficult thing first thing in the morning, it helps you do other difficult things. So part of my role is to sometimes get them to take the cold shower. So it's about also, there's someone that I know through my networking world named Osama, and he said, every person is the hero of their own story. I need to help my clients get to that point where they can see themselves as the hero and also see their great work. And then show not tell, because I'm helping them with some of the posting, I can go back in this comes in with the data and analytics and show them posts that have done really well get lots of engagement, lots of impressions, because it's not just how many eyeballs but how many people stopped the comment how many people make, you know, say a like or give? Hey, yeah, I love this. And once I can show them that they go, Oh, okay, maybe she does know what she's talking about. And I am able, I think, to things like Google Analytics and things to tracking and data, I can show what are the posts that are important. And we there was one post one of my clients did it was a piece of machinery, it was a very simple video, like a really simple clip. And I just said, put some words then and you know, I can help edit and dB and it was posted. And it it blew up. It was so successful. And he said after he says that just seems so commonplace. Exactly. We overcomplicate so much in life, we, you know, it is something we need to get past. And I know one of the things that helps with that is something like your aligned time journal, because that helps. Yes, it does, yes, get out of their way. And, you know, we have to sum this, put those processes in place. So my three step plan, or your lying time journal, all of these things are to help people to move forward to achieve those goals. Because I listened to I do this online, you know, strength training, and it's called has fit, I'll give a plug to them. And it's a husband, wife, team. And they always say, You know what, whatever you're doing right now, you're further ahead than the person sitting on the couch. That is very motivating for me, because I'm like, even if I just do have the training today, I'm further ahead than the person doing nothing. Right? That applies to so many things around our great work.

Yeah, it's true. And what's interesting about it is helping, like you said something about taking a cold shower, like doing the hard thing. And it's interesting how quickly, we forget how good we are at doing the hard thing, right? Because what's hard, what was hard three weeks ago isn't hard anymore. And we just rewrite history as though it was never hard. And then we look forward to the things that we don't know how to do. And we have the same kind of fear about it. Even though if you look back in time, you realize you've overcome so many things already. And so really like as humans, one of the things that's really interesting, in your approach is like when we are curious, not just about you know other people, but also about ourselves, we can discover that we have everything we need to do our great work, because it wouldn't be your great work if you couldn't do it. And so that's I find that also really, you know, being curious about yourself can be a very empowering thing. So how do you how do you help your clients kind of get into that mindset, get over that insecurity and start really sharing the stories of their great work

with a great deal of patience and grace. This is where it is also about for me, you know, finding the right clients to work with. And it's like any relationship, you know, it takes to to have success in a relationship. It can't be one sided. And we see what happens if it's one sided, there's going to be problems. So if you have both people going in the right direction, you can have success. How do I help them? It is about providing the steps. It's providing things like things don't happen overnight. I'm the kind of person one of my, one of the salespeople I work with. He said, You know, you come in guns blazing and that can be overwhelming. Part of me coming out with my three steps is to break it down for people because I am working with a lot of engineers. So it's helpful to not get ahead of ourselves. And I have to remember what was easy what is easy for me because I've been doing social media I'm immersed in and I'm interested in words and I'm interested in storytelling. They have expertise though in their industry and about their process steps, it's about finding that balance of here's what I bring to you. And here's what they bring to me. And then instead of expecting them to do a post, say on LinkedIn every week, often what I say is Okay, start with going in and engaging on other people. So you don't have to start with new content, you can go out and engage and support other people. And that may be step one, then step two, could be what if you did one post a month? Can you do that? Consistency will always trump, you know, out of the gate, doing 10 posts the first week and then going, this is too much, right? So it's, it's about that mapping out. And again, you know, that's where having those process steps and having a good planner, and I know, you know, not to give too many plugs. But I mean it it does help to have, you know, guides or a way to plan out how you're going to get to those goals, because you can have a goal. And without having that longer term view of things. You can start out of the gate strong and then falter. Insurance

fizzle right away. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So that's interesting in when you and thank you for plugging the journal.

Because you are and you are someone who in my life helped me to, you know, really unearth that whole idea of curiosity. To be honest, I didn't think I didn't really think curiosity, because I thought it was just normal, or I thought it was, you know, everybody had this. And what I'm learning is yes, to a certain degree, it's innate for me. But it has grown over the years, I didn't come out of the gate like this, but I, I've developed it, and I talk about curiosity. It's like a muscle, you have to exercise it, you have to utilize it. And you know, in my role of chief curiosity offers, or I want to get other people to start exercising that muscle, because when you get more curious, that's when you can get outside your comfort zone, and then into that growth zone. If you want to move forward, you're sometimes going to have to do the things that are tough. And usually, the tough things are more in our mind than in reality.

It's true. Yeah. And I like what you what you said there about curiosity, sort of being a natural thing for you. And you starting out thinking like, oh, everybody's got curiosity. What's interesting about that is it's very similar to what your manufacturer people are saying, like, this is so boring and normal. Meanwhile, I've never seen an injected plastic molded thing be made, right? It's kind of like, I don't know if you watched Mr. Rogers as a kid. But when he would take you to the factory that made the crayons and I was like, what is happening? What, what but a guy who works at Crown factories, like, it's just life, it's just my every day, yet to the rest of us. It's fascinating. And so I think like, getting curious about yourself, and sort of looking at yourself from the outside and realizing the things that are very normal for you very every day, are probably the things that would be most interesting to other people is a really big mindset shift.

It is and for anyone listening and if you're on LinkedIn, I would strongly encourage you to follow Jake Hall and known as the manufacturing millennial, he posts the coolest videos about you know, everything from making donuts to making he just didn't want to how pretzels are made nice on one and how Legos are made. And it's just, it's it brings it down and he is a girl that he has two little girls and what he's working on doing to is trying to get more girls into STEM and open up this like how can we expand, getting more girls and more people overall into manufacturing, there is a great need, there is jobs, there will be you know more and more job openings, career openings in manufacturing. That's another passion kind of a another part of my great work. I want to make a change to open up the door. Give everyone a backstage pass to what's happening in the manufacturing world and say Hey, everybody, parents, parents of children and young people coming up. Here's an opportunity for a great career that is only going to expand and it's no longer just you know, dirty shop floors. I've been out on a lot of shop floors. I just came from, you know, a mold maker today. I mean, it's there's, it's not what everybody perceives it to be. It's actually there's a lot of things done all now by computer. There's people working at desks, you know that are connecting up with Tapping on the shop floor to designing parts. It really is fascinating. The degree of job opportunities.

Fascinating. So Gail, what is it about all of this? The full gamut of it from the helping people, you know, find their voice and share their stories and putting bringing, you know, the spotlight back on manufacturing and adding nuance to the conversation. What is it about this world that you've created for yourself and your business here that you love? What is it that lights you up? What what's your favorite part about it?

Well, I do like a challenge. And I like success. I am, you know, people would say I'm somewhat competitive in some areas. So I like to see change. And where I'm able to see a lot of change right now is in manufacturing. Because there's so much opportunity for me to bring my skills of storytelling, and, you know, that showing up into this world. So I start to see some of these positive changes. One of my clients has had success now, not only because of the marking world, but it's a whole gamut. But during the pandemic 2020, they had their most successful year ever. And I came on board sort of 2019 Oh, coincidence.

You know, it, it's also about, you know, the people I'm meeting, I've always said, you know, meeting someone that also has passionate about this, it's sort of infectious, you know, it starts to spark something in my brain. And when I talk about curiosity, because I've done a lot of research around this, there are things that when your brain is sparked, with something new, then you want to learn something else new. And then once you learn that new thing, you might take a chance doing something different. I've had, I've never liked heights, and I always say, Oh, I'm afraid of heights, greater heights. So if you recall, when we were in Toronto, remember the CN Tower story that glide? I do, how many elephants can jump on top? Well, that young man that we met, I connect with LinkedIn, he sent me a message and said, because remember, I was afraid to but I said, What if we both go and walk on it on this glass floor? And we do this, I remember this. He said that was so almost life changing for him. Because for him to try something like that. It's a memorable moment. And he said out of the blue just sent me a message thanking me for that. Well, I was just on a trip recently with friends. And they wanted to go to the Skywalk at the Grand Canyon, and I'm like, oh, boy, and they're talking about how many Boeing's can sit on this. And I'm like, so we're gonna walk on glass. Canyon, are you kidding me this? So I said yes. And I'm gonna do this, went ahead and did it and went to the green cat. And you know what it was? So I actually looked down that they had this crack in the glass. And I was like, I didn't have the same fear. In between all this. I've actually also gone ziplining Oh, wow. So it's about, you know, I did all my research, explore this. And since I've been doing these things, now, I'm like, Hey, I could go on the Skywalk of the Grand Canyon. Now, I'm not going to jump from a plane or do anything like that. I don't have any desire to do that. But it's, it is about challenging our brains. And when we do that, it helps us to do other difficult things. Because if you can do this difficult this difficult. It is again, it goes back to mindset.

Yeah. And it's you talk about the muscle of curiosity. And I think that the muscle of courage, there's also a muscle of courage, like, in part because you realize, actually, the risk is not so high. You know, you realize that, yes, I'm a little nervous. It goes in your brain, it goes down. And at first I was like, I'm terrified, then it's like, I'm very nervous. And it's like, I'm kinda nervous. And it's like, I would rather not, and then it's like, okay, if you want to, and then it's like, let's do it. You know, like, that's, and then we look back and rewrite history as that was never a big deal. forgetting how courageous we've been.

That's actually a really good point, because the muscle of curiosity led to the muscle of courage. And you can also realize, like I said, I don't have to, okay, I could have lived my life, probably not liking heights and not do this. And, but when I looked into it, I said, Yeah, you know, they're built, if you look at engineering, you look at how all this is built, how many? Okay, how many people? How many people have gone crashing through the glass to their debt? Okay, not right. Nobody? None. Right. Good news. It's that is not now. You know, just sidebar story. This is just an interesting thing when I was at the grandkid, because this is being Canadian. And when I go to the States, here's what's interesting on Wednesday. In Canyon, Davis flimsy little rope, that's all there is, is a little a little sign that says danger. And I'm looking so I of course I appear over a little. That's it. This this rope is all it's stopping us. So it really is interesting about the states. It's like, there's a bit more of like freedoms, I would say to, you know, make some decisions or not. But I just found that really fascinating how, how little, you know, there was no barricade, there was nothing there. There was no big massive signs. Just a little rope. That was it.

That rope is very important. You know, Gala, you know, I was listening, you know, so you were telling that story about so Gail and I, she lives in Canada, but not in Toronto, in Windsor. Yes. And so we met in Ontario for a conference and we went to the top of that tower and look at that's what she was talking about. Now, you're telling me the story, which of course, I know that you and this guy, this random stranger person got went to the top of the were like jumping on it. And you had this big moment, I think I was videoing it, because I'm actually not afraid of heights. Okay, so that's where the story ends for me. And that's where the story would have ended for 99.9% of people, but not for kill Roberts, oh, no, Gail is going to find you on LinkedIn, she's going to connect with you, you're gonna thank her, she's gonna be telling your story on a podcast. So you know, I think it's one of these things where like, actually, your great work has got to be partly about the ability to see people connect with people feel known by people stay in contact with people remember them and the moments when they need to be remembered. It's just remarkable how well you are able to build relationships.

And I would say that does tie back to the showing up in curiosity, because I'm using curiosity I am showing up and part of showing up is making those connections. And, you know, I also do definitely advocate for the use of social media, digital marketing, even though I came from using, you know, a manual typewriter at one point. And again, it's really about those transferable skills. And now using social media to stay in touch and finding the positives of social we can find a lot again, mindset, we can find lots of reasons to dislike social media to come up with reasons why I don't want to use it. And instead, I look at reasons to grow from it to us and Jay Cole being an example Jay Cole has become a mentor of mine in the manufacturing world. I'm now part of, you know, a group that he invited me into the manufacturing mafia group we're known as, and that started because of social media. I was also invited to the plastics technology expo, as you know, and I use the term rather loosely as an influencer. But they invited me to come because they wanted help. You know, they wanted to spread the word about the show and about plastics. And at one point, when they asked me, I kind of looked over my shoulder like me, and all because of social media, and it's about curating your social media, you don't have to follow everyone you don't have to you can, I said there's a scroll button for a reason. You can choose who is in your circle. If you remember back when we were at heroic public speaking, I also talked about never social network theory, yeah, highs and strong ties, so we can still reach out to those weak ties, which is are actually people that can cross our paths that we're just meeting and learning about and it can really add so much joy to our life when we find other like minded passionate people. That's how I use social media.

Now, I love it. Well, I think a lot of people are probably wondering how they could learn more about you see what kind of work you're doing Follow Follow Gail on Twitter, she has a Twitter storm all by herself. So tell us how can we get to know you a little bit more?

Well, Twitter for sure. I also do I'm on LinkedIn and I do have a show up with gale now live show every Wednesday 1pm Eastern Standard Time. And I have people on that are showing up in various aspects of manufacturing or they are showing up in a way that can help people in manufacturing show up so I have different guests that I talked to I'm also on Instagram Gail now one not as much in there but I still have some fun there do the odd boomerangs and sites on tick tock

Oh, you're on tick tock,

I am on tick tock is Gail now more for fun I sort of it's a bit hit and miss what I do there. I'm kind of exploring. It's a great way that I've learned how to test out some things and it's sort of my fun thing right now. And on my YouTube channel now is where all my past shows are housed as well. So if anybody wants to go back and listen to one of my previous shows, YouTube is the place to go and I have my website, Gail now.com. But if you look up Gail now, you'll find me.

That's you. And I'll put all of the links in the show notes as well. So thank you so much for your time. Gail, this was really interesting. I think people are gonna have fun, you know, just sort of inspired to do to wait, let me see if I can do it to sign up, suit up and show up. I did it. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Amanda. Great work.