#29 Letting Go

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Transcript

ORIGINALLY AIRED 09.11.2015

Note: Designing Yourself is produced as an audio podcast. We encourage you to keep in mind that emotion and emphasis may be lost in the written word. Transcripts may contain errors.

Paul McAleer: Hello. This is Designing Yourself. My name is Paul McAleer.

Whitney Hess: And this is Whitney Hess.

Paul: All right. And Whitney, we were talking before the show about what we wanted to talk about, as we do.

Whitney: Wow, that never happens.

Paul: Wait, wait, wait. No, this is actually the very first time this has ever happened. So, the thing we really wanted to focus on was this concept and idea of surrender. So, tell me a little more about what you see in that topic and what resonates about it for you.

Whitney: Yes. So, as I was saying before we started recording - and we really should just hit record when we turn on because so much good stuff happens.

Paul: That’s true.

Whitney: I was beginning to tell you what I’ve been up to this summer. So, it has been about, I think, five weeks, six weeks since we published, if that’s the right word, our last episode. And so we took a little summer break.

And I was just, you know, telling you a little bit about what’s been going on this summer. And one of the things that I had determined to do this summer was to take time off. Now, I’ve gone on vacations over the years, and I’ve had breaks of different kinds before.

But something I haven’t ever really done is take a significant time off of work so that when I’m on vacation there isn’t a client or a project or something on my mind that I’m grappling with. So, pretty much every vacation I’ve had for the last, let’s say, seven years, I’ve still had things happening. I just was choosing to not work on them that week sort of thing, like what I imagine most people’s vacations are.

This summer I was really determined to wrap up a lot of my client work and then take a significant amount of time for travel and self-care and self-reflection and then start my next batch of client work and projects in the fall.

So, June 13th or something like that, mid-June, we packed up the boat, meaning we put everything away. We cleaned it up. We got it ready to sit for a while. We packed our bags. And we drove up to Seattle for a couple of weeks. We had this really fun road trip from San Diego to Seattle without the boat.

And I did have some client calls, so a couple of days on the road camping and then a day or so with back-to-back calls and then a couple of days on the road and then a day of back-to-back calls, that sort of thing. But there was some space in between.

And then I had a birthday. And the week after my birthday I went to a nonviolent communication intensive where I spent a week in a monastery in a very sparse room with very limited cell service and limited Wi-Fi, basically learning all about nonviolent communication for a week and really didn’t do - I had maybe one client call, I think, the whole time.

And then I went to Sweden to celebrate Fredrick’s mom’s 70th birthday. And in that time that I was abroad I had a couple of calls. But I really didn’t do much. And now here I am. I’m actually back in New York hanging out with friends and family and here for a wedding. And in this whole time I have maintained a few client connections because there are some ongoing projects. I wasn’t able to fully end everything and then start up in the fall.

But I have really not been doing a lot work-wise. I’ve been doing a lot to care for myself, my physical health, my mental health, eating well, exercising, reading, relaxing, lots of TV. And in telling you all this earlier, what was really striking me was that the thing I’ve really been doing for the last two months, almost 2.5 months, is learning how to do less and letting go of this idea that my whole value in the world is measured by how much I work and how much I contribute.

Because, I fill my calendar all the time. I make myself very busy. And when I see that I have a slow week coming up, yes, part of me is relieved and I think, oh yay, now I get to do a bunch of things for myself. And then this other part of me kicks in and starts suddenly organizing all of these other things that I have to do because I can’t stand the idea that I’m not busy or that I’m somehow unwanted or not needed in the world. All these crazy ideas and feelings start emerging.

And so, I don’t sit with them. I change the situation. And I get another project or I find another client or I make myself busy with something. And I’m now in this practice of just kind of surrendering to the break and allowing myself to have the break and allowing myself to say what if my value in the universe has nothing to do with how much I’m contributing? What if I don’t have to contribute to your - what if the universe does not need me to save it? What would that look like?

And so I’m really in this space of just figuring out - it’s friggin’ hard and every day is a challenge. But I’m trying to figure out how do I just let go and stop trying to control everything and stop trying to have this existence where I have to insist that I matter by filling my schedule with everything imaginable?

And so, here I am. And I have another few weeks left. And I’m already noticing that I’m starting to plan for when I’m going to get busier. What’s my next group coaching program going to be? How am I going to market it? How am I going to change what I did before? What new clients am I going to - like, already my mind is going to this place where it’s insisting that I become relevant again, like I don’t lose my relevance in the world. I make myself important again.

And I’m trying to not go there yet because I still have a few weeks left in what I had really scoped out to just chill the eff out. But, man, is it hard. Have you ever had this problem where it’s like you know that you need the break and yet it’s so hard to just let go of being in control all the time?

Paul: Holy smokes, have I had that? Yes. Yes I’ve had that a lot. So, a lot of the places I notice this are maybe in smaller doses day to day. So I’ll start there and then talk about vacations, too. So, really what I’ve noticed is that whenever I meditate, which admittedly has not been happening as frequently lately because I’ve had allegedly so much to do, that really the first part of getting into that meditative state for me is my brain starting to plan out what it’s going to do later.

That is where I almost always go first. I won’t say always, but I’d say the majority of the time there’s a part of my brain that’s like, okay, everything is quiet now. Now it’s time to plan out what’s going to happen next or that meeting that I have later today or when I’m going to get around to finishing putting up the window shades or things like that. Like, any things on my to-do list that are just kind of hanging out there, that is my planning parts time to say this is my chance to really keep planning.

But the thing that I noticed overall, though, is that, yes, that was hag on more of that day-to-day basis, and it was happening in kind of those quiet moments, those moments that I would devote to self-care or any kind of nothingness, kind of like this, you know, chill-the-eff-out time that you’ve got.

What I’ve found often is that that time would be taken over by that planning part. I would allow it to take over and say, okay, well, I’ve got half an hour to myself. Maybe I should do something or maybe I should plan out how I’m going to do that thing in an hour or maybe I should just take care of a few things now and then relax when I’m done with that because then I know I’ll feel more relaxed.

But I’m not sure if that’s exactly true or not. So, for me part of that surrendering has been surrendering to that part of me, right? And part of what I need to do and what I’ve kind of been working on in a broad sense is understanding what’s driving that part. Why do I feel this need to plan so much? Why do I need to be productive? Why do I need to now work on another project? What really - what am I tying up in that that goes beyond just the making of something new or the doing of something else?

And those are the ways that I’m kind of investigating that a little bit more. Now, I’m in the early days of that, admittedly, because part of me is saying, well, yep, that’s something you’ve got to plan out. So, you’ve got to plan out. So, the planning part’s really excited about investigating itself. But there’s a part of me also that just wants to kind of work with it and do it in more of a holistic and meditative way versus let’s have a schedule and all that shit. So, that is something that absolutely resonates with me. And I think about it on that day-to-day basis.

Now, when it comes to vacation, that’s really interesting because I’ve been first of thinking about how few vacations I’ve had within the past five years or so. And not coincidentally that has to do with, you know, I have a five-year-old kid. I mean, and that’s okay. I mean, it goes - frankly, it goes - for me and my family and my life that goes with the territory. And that’s fine.

But now whenever we do get some time, you know, my wife and I to ourselves or we go on a family vacation or whatever, I think one of the things that I’ve seen change over the years is how my mindset has been towards them. Definitely when I was younger, probably, goodness, before, frankly before the Web, vacations of that nature were pretty easy, it seemed like, because I didn’t have a little thing in my pocket that would go buzz-buzz whenever I had a Tweet or an email or whatever.

Whitney: Yeah.

Paul: That wasn’t there. It simply was not there. So, I might watch a little TV in the hotel room. But it was mostly getting out and about and sightseeing and stuff like that and hanging out with family or finding new friends or whatever.

And so, it felt a little simpler. It felt like I had to be more in that moment. I just had to be. And even though I could distract myself it was with other things. And for some reason I put a different value on those other things like reading or drawing or whatever versus a phone.

And then I found, you know, when I got a little older I started to get distracted by those things. So I would not fully relax. I would go on vacation and just be in a different place doing some of the same stuff. And that was maddening to me because, like some of the things that you were talking about, I didn’t have that clear separation of this is my time that I need to really recharge. Heck, I couldn’t articulate what that meant or even extrapolate that in my head.

So, that whole concept of, wow, this is really relaxation time was something that I did not get. I just didn’t grok that. Now, I think where I am now is in, I think, a healthier place with that in that like you I might not be able to stop all my project work before I go on vacation or take a day off or what have you. But I feel that generally speaking I can set stuff aside and know that, yes, there will be a time when I can address that. And that time is when I’m back not on vacation or when I’m in the office or a little of both.

But part of that is just that focus for me and being able to say, yep, I am going to surrender to this moment without that arguably defeatist attitude that sometimes the word “surrender” has around it, right? Because I think there’s something there too in that “surrender” could be read as a really negative thing if you want. Like, I’m really giving up and I’m going to do this.

Or, it could simply mean that you’re saying, hey, this is what the moment really is. And I am going to be in it. And I’m not - I’m going to work to not be distracted or just let the flow go as it may. So, really I’ve seen - as I say, I’ve seen that happen with me definitely on those smaller moments and definitely on those bigger moments, too.

So, I’m curious. You know, you spoke about your fantastic travels and vacation. And that was great to hear. And I’m curious then. When it comes back to, hey, I’m back in, you know, client mode and project mode and work mode, how do you handle those things at those times?

Whitney: Yeah. I mean, the key word that you said that really hit me was to relax. I really have felt for many years that I’m incapable of relaxing. Even when I’m lying on the massage bed at a spa and all - I have nothing to do in that moment. It is the other person’s responsibility to do something. And I just lie there. My mind races so much with all the things I have to do, what I’m going to do next, trying to figure things out that I’ve been grappling with, that my muscles have a very hard time literally relaxing.

And, I love the dictionary, so I’m going to go right to it. This idea to become less tense and anxious that we talk about , like, oh, you should just relax when someone says to you, “Relax already” which drives me crazy because I want to scream back to them, “I can’t. I do not know how to relax, so do not tell me to relax because that only makes me more tense.”

Another definition is to cause a limb or a muscle to become less rigid. And what I really take from that is this idea that the practice that we have in our vacation time, in our break, is to learn how to make the muscle, whether it’s the physical muscle or the emotional muscle even, less rigid.

And if we can practice that fully in our breaks, then we can bring that new strength, new skill, into our non-breaks. So when we’re on vacation and we’re staring at our phones or we’re over-scheduling ourselves on our vacations like you’re sightseeing and you have to see 50 things in a day or you’re really going to miss something out and you’re checking off the to-do list of sights that you have to see, or you have a project, a list of projects that you want to work on on the house and you just make work out of this other thing during a time when you’re really supposed to be letting go.

You haven’t practiced how to be less rigid, and you’re not as capable of taking that into when you go back to work. And so, what I’m really trying to focus on is how to not engage myself with something else but almost how to be disengaged or be less rigid in my schedule, be less rigid with myself.

And for me rigidity has a lot to do with being in control. Like, when things, when I’m trying to control everything in my environment, when I’m trying to control my business, when I’m trying to control my relationship, when I’m trying to control my parents, my friends, myself, it’s very tight. It’s very structured. It’s very logical. It’s very linear. It’s all very unforgiving.

There is a real straight arrow way of approaching things, like this is the efficient way to do things. This is what we need to be working on. Here are my goals. Here are my success metrics. What am I working on next? Here’s my to-do list. It’s all very kind of practical and tactical and unforgiving.

And to let go and surrender feels very fluid, very flexible, ever open, very nonlinear, unpredictable, kind of releasing control. It feels like physically, mentally, emotionally quite the opposite. And so, my intention is to learn how to bring those things into my work because I put so much pressure on myself to succeed. And I put so much pressure on myself to better myself as a person, better myself as a businessperson, take my business to the next level.

I’m constantly in this mode of better, better, better, more, more, more, go, go, go, that I’m probably missing a lot of opportunities to be flexible and adaptable and respond to the abundance that the world is bringing me because I have such a set agenda, a rigid agenda, that doesn’t leave room for serendipity. It doesn’t leave room for other people and what they can bring to the table because I’m so set.

And it’s like when we talk about baking. It’s like waiting for the cake to set. Once the cake is set, pretty much nothing else can happen because you can get it cold. You can get it hot. You can warm it up. You can put it in the fridge. It’s hardened. And it really can’t be reversed. It’s not going to turn into batter again.

But when you’re still batter you have an opportunity to create something new. And that’s something I’ve really been struggling with with my business, that it’s like I’m so dead set, as they say, on getting it right that I’m really not allowing space for the unknown to make its way in.

And so, I really am finding - I’m trying to ease into it and allow myself to relax and find ways to bring a relaxed way of being into my business. And then when I look up the definition of “surrender,” and as you said there’s kind of a negative connotation in our society, or perhaps in a lot of societies, with that word, “surrender,” in that it could be taken to mean “giving up.” So, you know, the first definition is to cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.

Paul: Oh.

Whitney: That sounds really negative. It’s like, I give up. Hands in the air. It’s kind of like my hands are up. I am vulnerable to you, which we also - that word “vulnerable” we mean very negatively a lot, or we think it has a negative connotation. You are in charge.

And I am trying - I think that out of fear of submitting in that way I have refused to surrender. I’ve refused to relax. And now what I’m starting to see is that I’ve played this whole story and I’ve perpetuated this story about how that’s a bad thing.

But what if it’s a good thing? What if ceasing resistance to the enemy is a good thing because it helps me to recognize there is no enemy, that it isn’t me against the world, that I am one with the world, that I don’t have competitors, that they’re my partners in the world, that they are just like me, you know? There’s no separation between me and the rest of the world. I’m not fighting. I’m not - this isn’t like a fight for survival. But life is about connection.

And so, what if I surrender and I say, you know what? I’m not in control of this. I’m not in control of life. I’m not in control of death. I’m not in control of my business even. What could happen if I just did my best and I showed up fully present and ready to let go every day and allowed my clients to dictate where my business goes?

I mean, is that not what we’re trying to do in user experience is to tell our companies be less rigid with your own agenda and allow your customers to dictate where your business goes? I mean, that is the central message of user experience.

And yet, so many of us individually, those of us practicing it, and I’m going to include myself. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I see this with my coach and clients - is that we are so in need of being in control of ourselves.

So, what would it be like to abandon ourselves entirely, to just trust that the right things are going to happen, to still show up and do our best, but the showing up is about being present and truly listening to all of the cues that are happening around us and the cues within ourselves to be ready and open to whatever comes our way rather than having to stick to the rigid plan that we’ve decided is what we must be following in life?

I know that’s a mouthful, but I mean, that’s where I am in trying to reconcile the way that I’ve acted for so long and that it has led me to success, quite honestly, with the fact that it doesn’t really feel that good to be so stressed out all the time. And it doesn’t really feel that good to have such a negative reaction to when someone says to me, “Just relax for a minute.” That makes me want to stab somebody.

Paul: Well, that’s good to know. So, I’ll never say that to you ever, ever-ever-ever.

Whitney: Well, I don’t think you ever have.

Paul: Well, maybe. But so, the idea of surrendering, then, to me lines up really well with this idea of attachment and being attached to a certain outcome and a certain way things are going to be. And I know that’s something that we’ve talked about in some detail before. But one of the things that I want to bring into the conversation is this idea of you think about business, right?

And you mentioned specifically your business, and also UX work, because what we do is, generally speaking, we listen to business stakeholders. We listen to users. And we act as the voice of the user. And we say this is what we heard. This is what we saw. This is what you should do in order to best address those needs.

And maybe you make people happy or empower them or whatever verb of the week you want to put in there. Those are the principles that we can take and apply to ourselves as well.

Now, when you think about that in the context of surrendering, there’s so much that can happen there because when you look at it as an enemy - you know, I’m looking at the definition too, looking at an opponent and submitting to their authority - that suggests that whatever we’re being attached to and whatever it is we’ve allowed ourselves to be attached to, it’s something that may be running us for some reason or another, right?

It may be because we want our business to grow. It may be because we want to feel better and we associate that with profitable business or successful business or X number of clients or this type of project or doing this type of work, right?

And we start to say, okay, well, I am doing that type of work now. But how do I feel about that? And how is that impacting the way that I actually feel about my work and how I am and how I am in the world and what my actual presence is in the world?

Because, I know that when I am planning stuff out, boy, there are parts of me that feel great. I feel so good knowing that there is a plan and there is a way that I’m going to get through this project or a way that I’m going to do all the stuff around the house or whatever is on my to-do list. Like, knowing that I have a getting-things-done system and I can put it in a place and know that it’s there is very comforting to me.

And it’s weird because at times the comfort is knowing that the system is there and I in theory don’t have to think about it. But the other is that I’m not necessarily surrendering to that system. But I’m saying like, oh man, now I can think about all these other things that I need to do and keep filling that bucket and filling that list with more and more stuff, right?

And that, in a way, really gets me out of that place of what's happening in the now. Instead of thinking about all these future things, right? And that can be a distraction. That can be something that I get too attached to. And then my natural inclination is either to get really attached to it further or push off altogether and say, well, I’m going to disconnect and disengage entirely and go to a place where I don’t even think about that stuff.

Now, that might sound good. But it makes me extremely nervous. And it makes me extremely on edge knowing that, you know, there’s stuff that I should or could be doing that I am not currently doing.

Now, that is a little different than this whole vacation mode idea because I know we talked a little back towards South by Southwest when I was in Austin. There was a time there - I think it was the day we recorded an episode, actually - where I was completely blessed out. I mean, I felt so damn good.

And that feeling was - it was a combination of, yes, I had given a successful talk with my friend Elysse the day before. That was great. It felt like I had nothing to do. It felt like I didn’t have to care. It felt like the agenda could totally be set by me. And I felt like, wow, whatever this moment is bringing to me and whatever this day is going to bring to me, I can go with that. That’s pretty cool.

Now, I had that feeling then. But I certainly didn’t have that feeling a couple of weeks ago when I was in the middle of some extensive client work, lots of interviews with client folks. I was doing the video course for O’Reilly. I was doing a lot of travel. I was going to Chicago. And it felt like I had no sense of control there. It felt like that agenda, that list of stuff that I had agreed to do, was just running me in that moment and in those moments.

And as a result of it I felt so disconnected from what was going on. So, in that case I really was letting - I was letting that list of stuff to do and those obligations which, you know, to be fair, are obligations. I let those kind of have authority over me. I let them control me. And I really de-prioritized myself in those moments.

And for me that is the stuff that is a continuing pattern for me. That’s something that feels like, well, I need to continue working on that. And it’s true. I do, because when I get caught up in those lists, I get caught up in those priorities of what I need to do or what I should be doing, I often surrender to those lists and things I should be doing. And I don’t allow myself necessarily to feel good until I reach a certain break point or I reach a certain level of success or what have you.

And that is something that, you know, is pretty common because when we start thinking about and positioning the stuff in our lives as projects - which, to be fair, is something I have talked about - it’s a double-edged sword because on the one hand it can give you the clarity and the focus that you may need to really see what’s going on within yourself and within your life.

On the other hand, it could go too far, and you could lose that humanity. You could lose that sense of connection with other people. You could lose that sense of community and higher purpose and all of that, all in the interest of getting something done.

And I think that is where it becomes really interesting and it becomes a little scary in that we may not want to let go. I certainly don’t want to let go sometimes, because then, wow, what could happen? I don’t know what could happen. And it freaks parts of me out. But other parts of me are super-excited by that notion.

Whitney: I love that you’re saying that because it feels like we should all over ourselves, you know? You know that saying? You're shoulding all over yourself.

Paul: Yes.

Whitney: It feels in the moment like we’re doing what we’re supposed to do because who the heck knows what we’re doing here? What are we doing here? We don’t know. But we come up with all these constructs that try to tell us what we’re doing here so that we get up and get out of bed every day, basically, and we become contributing members of society.

We all are just figuring this out as we go along. And there are a lot of systems in place to get us to do things all day every day in large part because if we didn’t we’d probably go insane.

But I think what has been happening as of late, the way that the world has felt like it’s been moving, and I hope that we’re gaining more consciousness of this and we can maybe pull it back a little bit, is that we’ve created a world in which everyone thinks there’s a to-do list that has to be checked off before they die.

Paul: Mm-hmm.

Whitney: To be allowed to exist, to be accepted by your peers and your family, to be a worthy member of society - and that’s very much how I’ve felt, that there is - that if I don’t contribute I don’t deserve to be here.

And I remember several years ago my therapist said to me, “You have nothing to prove that you deserve to be on this planet.” And that was a revelation for me because I had secretly always thought that I did have something to prove, like I had to justify my own existence.

The reality is none of us asked to be born. I’m pretty sure that’s impossible. We just were made. And we appeared. And some of us were made in love, and some of us were made under duress and everything in between. But none of us asked to be here.

And then we show up and we’re supposed to figure out what we have to do while we’re here. And there is no answer. And there’s a lot of people that think they have the answer. And some of us are attracted to the people that think they have the answer because we just need answers. Any answer is better than no answer. Others of us are totally un-attracted to people that think that they have the answer, so we stay as far away from that as possible. Whatever it is for each individual, we’re looking for these answers.

And what feels so exciting to me is the idea that we can let go of trying to find the answers and just be. That doesn’t mean that we stay in bed all day, and it doesn’t mean that we don’t care for one another and take care of our fellow human beings and that we don’t contribute. But that contributing equals worthiness of existence, that is an equation that I’m trying to break.

And I think that the should that you were talking about - I should be doing this, I should be doing that - has a lot to do for me with believing that other people are not going to accept me if I don’t do all the things I’m supposed to do. And I’m not going to be connected then to the rest of the world if I don’t do the things that I’m supposed to do. That I’ll be alone or abandoned is really what comes up for me.

So, I’m going to get cheesy in our last couple of moments together, if I may.

Paul: You may, of course.

Whitney: Have you seen the movie “Frozen”?

Paul: Of course I have.

Whitney: Okay. So, I hate to admit it publicly, but I have not.

Paul: Oh no. Well - 

Whitney: I know. And I’m probably going to make a point to watch it tonight or something.

Paul: Yeah.

Whitney: But I am a big fan of the song “Let It Go.”

Paul: Sure.

Whitney: And it’s very catchy, and I’m pretty sure that everyone listening knows it. So I’m not going to hurt anyone by singing it. But I thought it would be interesting to just read the lyrics because I feel that they speak so well to what we’ve been talking about today. Would that be okay?

Paul: Of course.

Whitney: Okay. The snow glows white on the mountain tonight, not a footprint to be seen. A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like I’m the queen. The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside. Couldn’t keep it in; Heaven knows I tried.

Don’t let them in. Don’t let them see. Be the good girl you always have to be. Conceal; don’t feel. Don’t let them know. Well, now they know. Let it go. Let it go. Can’t hold back anymore. Let it go. Let it go. Turn away and slam the door. I don’t care what they’re going to say. Let the storm rage on. The cold never bothered me anyway.

It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small. And the fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all. It’s time to see what I can do, to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I’m free.

Let it go. Let it go. I am one with the wind and sky. Let it go. Let it go. You’ll never see me cry. Here I stand, and here I’ll stay. Let the storm rage on.

My power flurries through the air into the ground. My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around. And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast. I’m never going back. The past is in the past.

Let it go. Let it go. When I’ll rise the break of dawn. Let it go. Let it go. That perfect girl is gone. Here I stand in the light of day. Let the storm rage on. The cold never bothered me anyway.

Paul: Nice. You know, it’s a song - love or hate the song or the movie, but the lyric is really, really lovely. I mean, there’s so much in that.

Whitney: So much. It gives me chills. And to tell you the truth the idea that this is being taught to children gives me hope because I think for you and I it’s an uphill battle because the messages we received, whether they were, you know, well-intentioned or ill-intentioned, was that we had to be somebody.

And I feel hopeful and excited and a tremendous sense of relief that there could be a young person that hears this and takes it to mean they don’t have to be anybody but themselves. And they don’t need to should all over themselves. And they don’t need to be what the world expects of them. And there is no such thing as perfection. Let it go. Be who you are. And let the storm rage on because that’s life.

Paul: Love it.

Whitney: Thanks for letting me read it.

Paul: Well, thank you for sharing it because in this context it was even more powerful. And now of course I will have the song in my head all day, and I’ll probably have to listen to it several times today.

Whitney: Sorry.

Paul: No, it’s good.

Whitney: But not sorry, not sorry.

Paul: Sorry not sorry. It’s an excellent song, really. It’s a great pop song. It is. I mean that. But, thank you so much for talking with me about this topic today, Whitney. I mean, I really appreciate how much you shared and just getting your insights and feelings on this idea of surrendering.

Whitney: And you always share something that makes me realize a deeper level to things that I’ve been thinking about on my own. So, always a pleasure chatting with you, Paul.

Paul: You as well, and we will talk again soon.

Whitney: Take care. Bye.

Paul: You, too. Bye.