And we are live. I'm Anthony dream Johnson president dream president Johnson CEO and founder 21 studios the 21 convention and several other organizations Today with me have special interview one-on-one with the one and only dr. Taylor burrows She's the second woman ever. I've interviewed live on the air for Janice Femenko recently Dr. Burrows welcome to the show. Welcome to the channel. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. I have no idea What we're gonna talk about today We're gonna talk about a lot of things up to about an hour all of the live chat to you guys continue live or those You're watching live. You can chat ask questions and we'll get into it. So dr. Taylor burrows is a semi-retired Marriage family therapist. She's a PhD in marriage and family Counseling you spend 14 years doing that and I think due to licensing issues and just kind of government bureaucracy a couple years ago She got out of that and as she's an independent lifestyle and dating coach She is well aware of the man's fear and involved of it through Twitter and things like that and some of our speakers like AJ Cortez Pat Stebbin guys like that So we're gonna talk her today about masculinity femininity men women make a woman great again Pretty much any fun topic that comes to mind that I have a list up here that went through them So first things first What are your what's your thoughts on the man's fear you've been I've heard about you for years now on Twitter and stuff You've obviously seen a lot of the events we do a lot of speeches What's kind of your general impression as a woman as a former marriage and family therapist? Well, I just want to clarify something real quick. There were no licensing issues I just really was having my own personal inner conflict with the issues of the profession and With what I wanted to do as a therapist and so instead of trying to change the system I decided not to bother with that headache and to just let my licenses expire and work Independently as a consultant and when I talked to my my colleagues They're like, oh my god It's so scary to even think about doing that because you put in so much time and money and effort Into getting them that to think of letting them go is is hard to believe So I kind of like when I I see people's faces when they say you're retired. I don't understand That's exactly what I meant and I probably should have put some more effort Articulation into that because I get it. I'm not a fan of government licensing at all I get that we have it through many industries not just yours. Obviously well beyond that And I get the bureaucracy and the headache that that can bring so that's exactly what I meant And I've no doubt it's a pain in the ass I know we were the speakers like Ken Curry and Sean Smith that have to deal these organizations and I don't like that I know these men personally. They're very intelligent very sharp They had to deal these bozos and clown worlds that oversee the stuff So totally what I meant and did not mean to put anything else into that not to worry But so back to your question about the man a sphere. Yeah, I kind of stumbled into it I think Kyle trouble was the first person that I was exposed to actually and then from him He referenced Rolo Tomasi and so then you know as an academic. I wanted to do my research So I dug into his website and his articles and essays and everything and then that kind of quickly spawned You know offshoots to pretty much all the the big wigs in the in the man a sphere But I was really searching for some answers myself because of a lot of that You can call it cognitive dissonance if you want to like just sort of being a person that who is supposed to be an expert in Relationships, but having been through a divorce myself. I was really wondering what did I get wrong? Why did everything that I learned and what I teach to people it didn't work for me? And I was wanting to self-examine and see how I could get to the end goal of being in a happy and healthy Relationship and a lot of what I heard there were at first some things that sort of took me a back And I was shocked that it was being said But something made me intrigued and curious about wanting to understand it and once I got to Rolo's Content it made sense to me. There were definitely things that I sort of didn't agree with completely But for the most part it rang true in it and it sort of was like the missing piece of the puzzle for me Got it. Yeah, and how was it just finding a community of men so large on the internet that we're talking about this stuff I mean, you weren't just like the average woman You were a therapist a family and marriage therapist must have been pretty bizarre finding this huge group of dudes There's ranting about this stuff on the internet all day. Yeah, I didn't get into the reddit stuff Which I'm glad that I kind of avoided that. I've only been doing like reddit Chats for professional reasons like to kind of get My content out there and maybe get people marketing to people so that they can sink me for for hire But I avoided a lot of that really dense stuff But wasn't until people Rolo in particular kind of targeted me that I got Hacked Online and I'm like, where's this coming from?  It's like Pat Pat's an amazing guy Well, thank you. I haven't met Pat yet, but I'm looking forward to meeting him. It'll be great I think we do share a lot of the same perspective We have our differences, but I think for the most part there is a big crossover But you know going back to my experience of sort of being targeted that way. I don't I don't like that word, but It felt like I was being bullied for no reason like I really didn't know why And it was strange coming from him in particular Like I was a little bit honored at first because I'm like, wow this like major guy Who I'm admiring his work is like spending a lot of time talking about me but it you know, I was kind of new to the whole online thing and it was kind of hard, you know, my my my own sort of confidence and anxieties would get triggered by it because they could be pretty harsh and mean and It did kind of seem like a mean girls, but it was like men So I kind of blocked a lot of people just for my own sanity because it was hard to take And I let a lot of lot of that go and just sort of focused on my own business because I you know It was kind of hard. It's still hard to be on your own and make it work with your own business online It's a new thing for someone I kind of late trailblazed in that sense like coming from a formal private practice or You know a practice setting and then trying to translate that to online Consultations. Yep. It's pretty tricky Which is very different right as I understand it coaching is different from therapy. Absolutely. I'm actually Where I was the deputy chairperson of the Cayman Islands Mental Health Commission for five years and before that I was on the task force to help write the mental health laws and my passion was regulation so there are a lot of ways that I've kind of Come full circle and seen things one way and then realized its faults and then tried to Correct what I you know understood before and make the best of situation So now I understand why things are really tricky from that point of view but from like an entrepreneurial standpoint and Capitalistic standpoint this seems to be like the best way for One the client or the customer to get the best value and service and For the person who has the expertise and the talent or the skills to offer what they have to offer. That's unique Yeah, that's awesome.  Do what you love. Yes. Yes It takes a lot of courage You know someone called me anti fragile yesterday, and I think that that's probably quite true quite accurate But I am blessed I have my support system now is pretty much You know my boyfriend, and I'm really grateful for having him in my life, and yeah But it does feel like you know a blessing because there were there were a few years of being single and on my own Where there were pretty hard and so I definitely never take it for granted and I appreciate it each day I wake up Well, let's take a step back.  I wasn't aware of that That's right And that's kind of what I was referencing coming full circle because when you listen to that TED talk I sound very SJW and At the time I would never have considered myself because I didn't really know the jargon I didn't really sort of identify as feminist or SJW or It was 2014 actually So it was the year the month that I finished my dissertation and got my doctorate And so there was a lot going on for me But it was a big event for me because I disclosed publicly in the TED talk that I was a survivor of abuse and I didn't really you know belabor the point But I did reference it and so it was a big a big moment for me From that standpoint and being a specialist in sexual abuse recovery You know, it was it's difficult. It's it's something that you know, you don't always want to Advertise but at the same time it plays a big role in the work that you do with trauma survivors as well And if you're not healthy, you can do a lot of re-triggering and to yourself or to them So, you know, it's it's been it's been a long road, but Coming full circle from that. I Realized that it wasn't the patriarchy's fault and it wasn't misogyny But at the time that was pretty much what my dissertation Was framed that sort of perspective it was framed in that perspective because of my profession and my academic Institution and the faculty committee. I wrote 10 topics. I went through 10 years of writing six years I think total writing and Each time it got rejected. It was because I wanted to do something more sort of I don't know like unique or idiosyncratic and then and they kept trying to push me back into what they wanted me to say And so like a framework of dogma. It sounds like you're having operate in right I mean, there's a lot of red tape and a lot of brown nosing that you have to do when you're going through that And so I understand the the validity of being rigorous in your academic and research You know steps, but when it comes to that type of profession where I realized they were really enforcing one Perspective and if you thought outside of the box if you were more conservative or more traditional or more directive in your value system Then you were written off or you were chastised and you were sort of you know redirected back towards what what they want you to instill in your clients and they would sort of package it as You know what you are meant to do as a health care prep professional But I just didn't like the way I felt my clients would not my clients in particular, but people in general You know had to sort of get dependent on the system and get pathologized so much and a lot of the Relationships they weren't working because you know you kind of had to placate the woman a lot and as soon as I started speaking my mind That's when the tension started, you know, yeah, I can imagine I hear I talked to Ken Curry a lot and sometimes Sean Smith and Dr. Glover They're all therapists different degrees like you were a family marriage and they're kind in Glover's case And they're all rebels in their field. I mean the fact that they want to think for themselves and you know practice How they what they believe is true. It gets you I'm sure a lot of flak Yeah, I mean my clients that I aligned with I have such amazing outcomes with them and they get it But I just don't fit with everybody, but the thing is I don't want to fit with everybody I want to target those people who align with me and who I can help the best that I can help I don't want to be some sort of cookie-cutter therapist that just sort of says, you know The same sort of self-help guru things that you can buy on a bookshelf My my goal is not to to work with a million people My goal is to work with that handful of people that I can help along the way of transformation When you want to help them heal to especially from use. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've been through I mean, I'm a deuce experience of my ex-wife. I don't know if you've seen that but that was a whole thing in itself I'm also a survivor.  True my French They no doubt that it's very serious And I think a lot of people that have been through it don't understand that it's hard to understand if you haven't been through it And seeing a firsthand like how severe it is and what the what the consequences are both physically and then psychologically too Yeah, it's when you only know it by a textbook or Even if you're a helper and you're helping that that person through it It's it's still hard to connect completely to what it's like to be in that position as a victim But at the same time, I don't think you can't help if you're not so if you haven't experienced the same thing But it's just hard to to really get like visceral Impact if you haven't been through it yourself. That's right visceral in your face and real Let's just give yours a little bit. You've seen recently you had a young video on a similar subject So you got some traffic out of that which is pretty funny But what are your thoughts on make women great again? This is a whole media explosion You saw go down in January and a little bit of February. I mean this one very viral We reached almost with this idea in this convention coming up that you'll be at on a press pass We reached nearly a hundred million people Which was you know, awesome Like I hoped it would do well when we announced it and that of course was way beyond what I was thinking at the time I thought I might get picked up by some feminists and some blogs and get angry and before I knew it I was like on the news and all over the place even my neighbor yesterday was talking about it So what are your thoughts on it just from a conceptual standpoint? Well, we need to get yeah I mean there's definitely a lot of pushback Like I like the word is vitriol right like when they come at you like that But I try to avoid that as much as possible But so I can I can only understand like times a hundred or whatever that you've been getting and I admire your Nasity to stick to it, but yeah, I mean to me I'm looking forward to to this sort of inaugural experience Whatever it is like I really I don't really have like Expectations because you never know what can happen. I mean look at like the coronavirus right now and that's sort of changing a lot of things and We we can't predict how it's going to unfold But I think the intention of it is honorable obviously since I'm like Participating and I'm excited to see people come together who are like-minded and it's it's it's really just about the Facetime with people, you know, I don't know who who all is going to be in attendance But I know the speakers and I know that the significant other others of the male speakers are people that I know and Familiar with and I'm friendly with online So I'd love to be able to be in person with them and have a collective voice We're collected energy really, you know, I don't want to sound cliche because at some point we kind of sound like the SJWs Talking about us advocating for our position, but it's really just you know, trying not not to be afraid to I mean I know in such a bad time to be sick, so just take care of yourself but I was actually reading Jack Jack Murphy's Democrat to deplorable book. Yeah, and a lot of what he was talking about Sort of his relevance, right and and that kind of effect interviewing him tomorrow. Oh, man group. Yeah, awesome He's awesome. I like him a lot. I'm excited to meet him and his girlfriend as well. So So I think that experience is probably similar, I mean obviously not in the presidential Campaign aspect but being able to come together and congregate in a way that we feel like we're free to do so like it We don't we shouldn't have to Be afraid of our our livelihoods or the reactions of people. I mean, we're not doing anything wrong We just have an opinion or have different values And it only impacts, you know us and and what I put some some meat to this I mean, we're not just getting vitriol. I've been getting like death threats of violence All kinds of disgusting comments to voicemails Like I got a lot of this last year when I have my spat with Rolo and he's like really hardcore is really hardcore fan base Not the wider guys who just like the book but the guys who are like dedicated That was my first experience really getting some serious hate and then make women great again was like a hundred times that But it's not just the hate. It's like pretty serious stuff They're trying to find the venue and trying to cancel us Petitioning the mayor of Orlando try to cancel us Not surprised See, it's it's just nuts that they can't even I'm gonna do an email about it a newsletter to the 22 convention fans There's like a whole little email list. I think you're on it. Okay And I'm gonna talk about that that they have it's just amazing how little respect they have for freedom of speech freedom of assembly Like we just want to get together and talk. It's a conference.  You just want to talk to be honest. I made this term up I think I'm not sure like some people Stealing ideas, but I just used it spontaneously about value driven Therapy right like we need to have an avenue to create variation in Perspectives and if you don't give people an option to sort of choose what's best for them Then you're really you're really enforcing that dogma that that you know indoctrinating people into one mentality And it just seems so distorted But I don't know I think that you know when we're there and we're we're we're able to talk in that sort of Well-organized setting because I've heard really great things about the way that you organize your events I know you are but you know the countless amount of Conferences that I have attended in my professional career Eventually you just tune out because it's just the same Repackaged stuff and half of it is just you know things that you have to do it like hoops you have to jump through in order to continue your licensing or Just networking and feeling like you're you're active in your profession but when we don't talk about the values of how to be a happy and healthy individual and how to live fully and how to Facilitate a relationship, you know, whether it's a family relationship or an intimate relationship or a friendship It doesn't matter like if we don't talk about the values behind that we're missing a huge huge part of the human experience Just to intellectualize it it makes no sense That's what I didn't like about therapy as a formal profession And so the rebels are the ones that are infusing those value Driven perspectives into the work that that they're doing Yeah, you bring up a good point about 21 convention It is really well run like I'm not surprised that you heard that but more than that There's like a magic to it and it's hard to explain or market that in the internet But it's really powerful and it's real at the events I think a big part of it is the freedom that you're talking about these speakers have to engage in things like talking about their values Not just intellectual content, but like why do they believe that why is it important to them? And what the magic is is I don't really dictate Anything they say there's a few limits like you can't endorse communism feminism racism Like really extreme shit at the convention outside of that the speakers are free to talk about whatever they want Sometimes they'll ask me about cursing and stuff and I kind of laugh because I curse typically the most me and Hunter 100 room But outside of that I I'm firmly not only do I not dictate what the speakers say I'm like fiercely opposed to that any kinds of censorship or cold censorship or silencing or what they want to talk about I'm like no speak your mind now use common sense to stay on youtube but beyond that Right speak speak your not just your mind speak your heart Like what do you actually believe? That is so important And I think we need to have opportunities to do that other than just real private You know intimate settings where you can feel okay I can let my guard down and say what I really think right like being able to have some kind of not public But you know you're not sort of you know on a soapbox and announcing it in the street But you know you're having a private event, but it's it's public and you feel like you're a normal person You're not being marginalized But you know you you mentioned the sort of magic to be events and it reminds me of TEDx So if you've ever been involved or if someone's ever been involved in TEDx There's like a huge momentum a massive energy about it And it you can't really explain it unless you attend and when you attend sometimes It's like a small group of people like for mine. There are only a hundred attendees allowed But at the same time it's globally live streams, right?   Yeah, you have TEDx coaches and the TEDx coaches are Coach you are they're trained and they they begin to make it homogenous, right? So this is the thing is like like the things that you know You can have good things about it, which is the energy and sure it helps a lot of people But then there's this other side to it And so to be able to have both is so important to be able to have common sense common decency But no real restrictions on the expression of values and thoughts and to have it presented in a way that it's not just Grassroots, it's a proper well-organized event that helps to elevate its significance for the people involved I'll say this compared to what you experienced that I agree with you hundred percent I'll say this compared to your experience with TEDx. I'm a dictator for freedom That makes any sense because I really hate that group think dogma. I think that's why some of the feminists got so angry They really fixated for example in the sales page.  I called it toxic toxic feminist dogma I think those are the actual words toxic feminist dogma and just putting those together It's not that complicated toxic feminist dogma, but it's rare that you see that on the internet Especially like on a website. That's like this big thing Speakers involved and because I think it just hit the nail on the head It hit it really hit the truth and it made them so angry because it was true not because it was false So it's just fun to see them poke it poke the bear. Yeah, I mean all power to you I really I try not to trigger them and I block them as much as I can But when I speak my mind I still get a lot of pushback and funny, you know coming from a small country You know the Cayman Islands is 65,000 people. Is that where we're born at risk? I was raised until I was 12 and then I went to the states for School and then I went back after I was an adult for the last 10 years. So I just moved Again to the states. So my father's Jamaican or was Jamaican I saw a picture of him today on there. He's really he would have been really old 106 right 106 today So, wow. Yeah, he was born in 1914, but Caribbean background I actually just sent off my ancestry calm DNA So I'm excited to see all the the intricacies of my my background But all I know is my father was Jamaican with British influence And so I'm very Caribbean even though I spent so much time in the States Which is why I sound the way that I do but being from Cayman and practicing in Cayman and and you know having a life there People are highly Involved in your life and so with Facebook and stuff when I make my posts some of these women who are very Sort of verbal about their feminist Perspectives they really push back on me and they they shame me, you know, they they're like, how dare you you're a professional You're making women be like go back to the 1950s and all the hard work of feminism is is reversed in and I don't know It's like there's something about And you're a coach and a former therapist You're not like I mean I can get why they hate me organizing a lot of you together But you're just you do what you're doing is basically a simplified former therapy or just coaching counseling. Yeah I mean, it's it's I might be Very clear to the people I work with that these are the values and they seek me out because they agree with them So I'm not trying to convert people or force people to think a certain way But I'm allowed to state my opinions like their fact. It doesn't mean that I'm a you know being Prejudicial or being at miss massage misogynistic, right? Like they love to throw that out at you But it's it's this weird thing like as if you're you're taking what away What they've sort of sacrificed themselves for over the past 20 30 years Well, there's an irony there's an irony to it too because these people that scream at you and scream at me They're gonna tell you they're gonna scream two seconds later about choice choice choice choice All you're doing is presenting different choices and options to people and ideas and the reality is they they hate that They do and I think a part of it and this is I don't know if this is a big part or not But part of it is they don't understand entrepreneurial Businesses they don't understand how marketing works and they don't understand that branding aspect that you can't speak all tentatively and and wishy-washy and get any type of success in your business like you have to stand for something and Aside from spiritual Twitter, I guess they're the exception but um, you know for someone in in our position I think it's important to to just be a okay standing by your opinion and Presenting it in that way, but they're responsible for taking offense and we can't control that. Yeah Let's get in some more smart nitty gritty details here. Sure You know your channel some of your ideas and stuff so I'll say you talk about grieving and That came to mind. Well, there's a couple reasons that came to mind something I've been looking at lately and studying a different self-help books or psychology books things like that But grieving came to me or struck me as a term and a concept that is kind of taboo in the man's sphere And there's a few of these love romance even beauty to an extent AJ Cortez would be an exception to that But generally these ideas or these concepts like love romance grieving their taboo They're not considered maybe masculine enough or a bro enough or whatever the fuck part of my French, I don't know if I'm a cheat curse, but Talk to me about grieving like why should young men or even older men? Why should they care about this idea? And why is it important? Especially to say heal from a toxic relationship or something like that Well, just to be blunt unfortunately mental health effects or mental illness affects men Tremendously, it's not a female issue Right like if we look at the the rates of suicide men commit suicide or I should really say kill themselves more frequently than women do and We have to not just understand why but we have to be able to to give them an opportunity to Prevent it and that means they have to talk about their, you know experiences if they're struggling and I don't think he will he will mind if I mention it but you see how goldman went through an experience tragic experience this week with his his brother and You know, he's a good friend of mine and we saw him recently and I spoke to him We actually I'm this might be a little bit strange to hear but my mother is she's quite esoteric And so I believe in in a lot of stuff and and I'm like Dennis. We need to call Goldman Let's check on him. Maybe he wants to meet up with us and that that happens. He was in Arizona where you're at Yeah, so anyway, I'm glad that we reached out to him that day and he was like, oh my god You're not gonna believe what happened and so I'll just summarize because he's posted about it like I won't say the whole thing but just his brother killed himself last week And so he's been going through grieving and Goldman is a very Strong masculine man who's been through a ton of experiences who understands the human You know dynamic and he even was Unfamiliar with this process of grief and he needed to process it and reach out and ask questions And it's not easy to know what to do when you experience it. It's like should I be angry? Should I be sad? Should I talk about my feelings? Should I rage? Should I go sleep with women? What do I do? So we need to we need to make it visible. We need to help men who are struggling Understand what they can do. That's healthy Yeah Yeah, we're going through is pretty serious and to see that team. I've seen talk about it to him public and it's good to see that The one thing I actually should take a step back on those that the grieving process is usually applied for the red pill stuff Just, you know, just taking down this red pill that concept in that idea But it's nothing like what you're talking about which it for example in Goldman's case is a loss of a family member Yeah But yeah, I'm glad glad you could share that. Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's important because I'm not a mental health professional Officially anymore, but it doesn't take away my PhD and my expertise in the matter And so, you know, that's part of why I mean some people might call me like a men's rights Advocate or something like that. It's it's both. I'm both for healthy women and healthy men And I don't like to see anyone in trouble and struggling without the help that they need And when it comes to in your situation, let's just get more specific to the being married to someone or being with someone who had BPW or someone who's very toxic and unhealthy the grief that comes from Having to deal with that situation is it's it's horrific and so I know that first hand being a therapist in couples counseling with people who were in that situation and It was never never an easy case to deal with and whether you end up getting divorced or The best you can sort of salvaging what you can with custody with finances or whatever it's still a process to heal from that and then just in general like Having the red pill experience where you look back at your life and you have to kind of grieve the loss of all that Investment emotionally in the blue pill and and everything that's happened like all of that is all very it's like the shifting paradigms Right and so we can relate to each other probably more than we're different I mean some of the hate that I've gotten has been well, you know You were an ex-feminist and you were an SJW and you were divorced and like yeah, but I've I've Brought it all together. I've taken the red pill. I understand now More about the mistakes that I made and how to correct them and how to share that with people so that they don't make the same mistakes So I I wouldn't I wouldn't villainize anyone for trying to speak about their experience to help people And I I'm surprised when people do that with me or with you or with whomever Yeah, even Janice Fumango gets a lot of that we're talking about Professor Fumango before this the one I you know the woman I interviewed recently in the red man group. She's a feminist for a long time. I Think in her 20s even into her 30s, so a very long time and she eventually became a professor of literature on Canada and stuff Excuse me But for her to now be she's one of the most prominent Female anti-feminist in the world especially as a professor and she still I think it's like, you know Some hate from this especially from the feminists who see her as a traitor and whatnot or even people in the Manusphere is skeptical of a woman advocating so vehemently on behalf of men. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty interesting But I think you I think it's a carry is actually a lot of credibility like you're saying you've been on the other side You've seen a lot of that stuff firsthand you get why and so with Janice said she said the same thing You get why they think this way because you've been there you've been through that same kind of thought process. Yeah In terms of breathing I Think with my own experience of my ex-wife and that whole debacle of a BPD chick Who turned out to be a prostitute and also other crazy stuff. I went through in the speech It was a lot more That was the first time I ever had to grieve from a you know intimate romantic relationship failing at such a colossal speed and severity And it took a long time to heal from that. I'd say this point. I'm it's been a little bit over four years As of the other day. I'm a four-year single anniversary That was kind of interesting Yes, congratulations. Thank you But it took you know initially I was in a rush to get over it that was kind of the emotional or instinctive urge Looking back on it was ridiculous. I mean that was a four-and-a-half year relationship Which isn't too long but pretty significant amount of time and took time to heal from that and get over it and You know banging chicks did not fix that overnight because in the manuscript There's no pickup artist saying go bang ten or the women after relationship fails And I had that a long time ago and that does not cure all the pain and the kind of trauma from that That's gonna linger.   And I would ask you, uh, you know, what was it that helped you heal from it? A big issue would just be time and patience Um, yeah, I kind of knew that even at the beginning that time is something that's a commonly You know, it's a common idea a common phrase and it was actually some weight to it Time maybe doesn't heal all but it's a big factor in healing So just the amount of time that's gone by In addition to that, I'd say the patients did not rush into another relationship I've had several opportunities to do that with girls that I actually cared about and had an emotional investment in And for better or for worse, I refrain from doing that. I think it was ultimately for better I wasn't at a point where I was ready to get into another relationship. That was exclusive like that Just wasn't ready for it.  I need to understand what's in front of me I had to become more introspective and understand that like why did I get into that relationship? What kind of weak points or you know kinks in the chain from a very severely traumatized childhood led me to this happening And didn't happen before I didn't have any toxic relationships before her to speak of I was just in college when I had to pick up girls at bars and stuff having a good time And then I landed up with this crazy hooker After a couple years of just going out picking up girls at bars and stuff So it was it's just taken time. I think to really Step back and appreciate all that and even not just time and patience, but also study Exactly.  Okay. It focuses a lot on cptsd complex post traumatic stress disorder Which I think the medusa experience contributed to but I had pre-existing before that And I would also say too as a final note that the experience of being with her and then splitting up and leaving her That was really the awakening point ultimately to realizing I had pretty severe trauma that was still lingering Then she was really just like an expression to that more so than a contributor to it Although she was a contributed to as well or the relationship Yeah, I mean you're hitting a lot of very complex points in a very articulate way that I don't know All the audience is going to understand the complexities up, right? But they can buy a ticket and learn And that's true But when you talk about trauma You can feel or think that you're healed from trauma because it's sort of repressed or suppressed And you can go about your business But you make mistakes and it's because of this suppressed trauma The reaction to trauma that you make those mistakes And the only way that you can heal From from that is to do that self-examination and to take the time and exploration to do that to take responsibility For your choices to and it's so hard to to and I get in trouble so much for for saying that like I'm not saying it's the victim's fault Trust me. I'm not but if you don't take responsibility for the mistakes that you've made along the way Then you will never be able to To sort of wrap the trauma up into a resolution for you to go forward in a healed perspective So I mean that's what you need to do and you and you described it so well Yeah, that's um a resolution that that's a really good way to put it Makes a hundred likes makes a lot of sense and I think I'm starting I'm getting to that point in four years now People think I'm like this playboy, which there is some truth to like I like women a lot And if I'm not in a committed relationship, well, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna go out and Have a good time to to put it simply But I think actually relationships are a really great thing. I look forward to doing it I really want to have a family That's actually one of the main reasons probably the main reason that actually married her in the first place In addition to being loved so I thought and all these things And you know even at 31 Especially as a guy I'm at peak fertility Uh, I'm not my eggs are not dying So I'm not in a rush and I'm really taking my time to be patient And it's funny because the longer I'm single and the women find that out the girls find that out They get really the longer that period of time is which is four years now They get like curious like why are you so single? Why are you so single? Well, it's really like it's it's captivating to them because now they they want to pry They want to learn which is good that works in my favor At this point I'd say I'll probably be in a relationship Um, I had this conversation with the girl the other day that wants to date me Who's a pretty good candidate for it like a lot younger than me. She's like 22 23 Uh, we've been seeing each other on and off for a while, but I'm like look I'm still like a year one to three years out from even, you know, seriously considering a relationship What what is that one to three years contain that you need to have happen? Two things in a simple level. It's this time. I want some more time to kind of be on my own I'm starting to enjoy that more and really really be okay with that at like a deeper and deeper level In addition, that's want to be older I want to be closer to 35 and I want to take that time in between then and now to continue working on myself Super super hardcore from lifting weights and working out to just building a business and being an entrepreneur I've done that for a long time about 13 years, but I still I think I'm still even I think I'm still beginning to hit my stride and make women great again As an example that I've been successful for a long time reaching millions of people a year, but not 100 million in a month So I'm still I'm still very young. I think at 31. I'm not as old as I think or feel sometimes. No, that's very young And and plus, you know, you're being very selfless and letting her know that because you could very easily sort of You know have a gray area like this will be a fun relationship for now But at 22 if she's a good candidate, then you're saying I don't want to keep you from finding your Forever guy your real relationship. So, you know carry on. Let's let's just move on and and and say what it is Yeah, no, that's 100 true and she recognized that and I just have enough woman in my life And the I'm confident enough for myself to go find new women too and I want to that I'm just not worried about it So I really enjoyed the sex and being with her and stuff like look, I just want to be alone And if you're not okay with that, you know, it's fine Well, it'll probably end up happening. She'll boomerang back. Honestly, she'll boomerang background in my life I'll see her again in six months when she misses me or something and that's fine Well, you never know Yeah, you could be ready then you could be like, you know, I've I've hit all the the the points that I need to hit And I just I I care about her enough and she's perfect enough that I'm gonna go for it Perfect enough. That's pretty good. Perfect enough. I like that. That's a good concept Yeah, it's hard to get to that point and uh, you know, we we read so many things on Online and reddit and twitter and whatever it is all these blogs about what type of woman you should be looking for What type of man you should be looking for that's something too that I'm still even at 31 I'm really starting to even independent of actually Uh, physically and you know firsthand experiencing women.  It's my theory that actually men should really apply a lot of what they see in these feminist magazines All this strong independent mantra that I don't think it's very healthy for women No, I agree But for men, they should actually look at these magazines to kind of reverse engineer it and it's actually pretty good advice if you're a man I have a strong independent Exactly. I know I think I see the the rationale there that that might actually work is as a good sort of default mode to to get some advice, but Speaking of advice, I have this this new mens on like a telegram chat group And you know people criticize me all the time for being like the female Dating coach or whatever talking to men, but I'm very clear about, you know, I'm not a man I'm not going to tell you how to be a man and I'm not going to replace your male role models But if you want to seek my expertise because you know, you feel comfortable with me You feel like we relate a lot of men are like I really ring like what you say rings true to me I'm aligned with your your values and how you talk about these things and I'm just really good at working with men And when we're talking in this chat group, it's really nice to see the relevance from other people's experience Right, it's not just me talking one on one with a man It's them talking to each other And so that's another way to get that That increased access to masculine influences that they can they can you know have that camaraderie and and learn from But it's a very common thing that they have a hard time Keeping to their standards and sort of having a firm line on their boundaries and expectations for women It's almost like Men who are there I I think they're masculine, but they've obviously been influenced by blue pill Thoughts growing up or whatever in society. And so they have this guilty conscience about Creating this sort of hard line with a woman or saying no to a woman or having these expectations with their favorite their favorite word Yeah, exactly. So it does take some some time to Deconstruct that and allow them to assert themselves and feel like they're worth it that that they should be expecting better for their significant others and it's so easy to And I don't mean this in a contrite way But it's so easy for these women to get their hooks into these men And it always really saddens me when I when I'm hearing stories about These women who who want to run their lives and just control them and belittle them really break them down And then they become attached and they're in love with them That you know that it's so hard to get them to a place where they they let it go and they move on It's really unhealthy and dysfunctional I know and it's becoming I'd say more and more common with feminist blue pill type thinking in America and the western stuff And it sucks and when I go to places like I spent a lot of time last year in poland I went there twice for the convention. That's right once a scout it wants to do the convention and you don't see well Generally speaking, you don't see any of that crap you see you see it was interesting You saw a lot of pda a lot of you know public displays of affection That I hadn't even seen probably since high school at this level since like the early 2000s or mid 2000s I was in high school And it was just so awesome to see it. It was so positive And fundamentally I believe that a place like poland places in eastern europe these countries They have much better gender relations between men and women Write down not just from family formation and marriages and stuff like that But write down to just boyfriends and girlfriends walking around They get they get along and in orlando where I live you don't see that anymore. It's a weird It's a really weird Yeah, I don't know that I've seen much of that being in the states and in phoenix But you know people somebody was asking me not too long ago about the relationships in asia because denison I went to like vietnam, thailand Bali so like indonesia And you know There are a lot of expats obviously in those areas digital nomads and stuff But looking at the local people, you know a lot of the dating coaches talking about kyle He talks a lot about dating and you know foreign places and looking for for girlfriends or or wives in asia europe and whatever but um It was hard to really to get a good read on what the relationships were like generally I only really spoke to or spent time with The the friends that we were meeting up with and a lot of the friends that we have over there from twitter Have asian girlfriends so it's more of like The people that we knew we could kind of observe them But the just general people that were in thailand and vietnam it was I didn't really see a lot of pda Yeah, yeah, i'm poland I did and I got I made it a point to uh go out to the bars and the clubs at night and stuff like that My name the time zone was all screwed up for me for a while Yes, so I was just I was out till three four in the morning every night I'd work all day, you know Going to the towels and doing whatnot and emails and stuff And I spent a lot of time at meeting a lot of people I wear my hat make them and grade again make america grade again They loved it. Uh, sometimes they were skeptical. They thought it was a feminist thing. They were like, are you feminist? Yeah, they were they they hate feminism like generally they make fun of it the women and men both So they they'd ask me very aggressively like are you feminist? Uh, almost like like they were investigating me. I'm like, no not even not even a little bit I'm like, okay. We like you then I think what I was just thinking one of the questions that reporter asked me in the email that you you linked me with Was what what is feminism to you and I'm like that's going to be a good one to answer There are a lot of interesting questions. She she posed but I'll have to take some time and and really answer them But I don't know like for us. I think it's become something so volatile and violent But I think if you you ask a lot of people that um, they'll they'll They'll say some some things that are probably outdated, you know, like women's rights and Having a vote and stuff like that. But it's it's gone so far beyond that now. Yep. I agree Yeah, feminism today the the reason she's asking you that it's like it's very shape-shifting Slippery thing that you can't even define because it means this whatever they want it to mean If they're hardcore feminists and if you ask Us saying recently to somebody if you ask 10 feminists, you know what they think about feminism or what it means to them You've got 10 different answers Because I think and one of the reasons is it's hiding an agenda It's hiding a lot of toxicity and violence behind it like I've been getting I've been getting more death threats from feminists I've never had in my life threats of violence protesting they're really trying to find me and like where I live like the convention it's sick stuff And it they all want to and then they want to talk to you about tolerance and choice and all this crap And it's all it's all not just nonsense, but it's you it's hypocritical nonsense That's opposite of what they really believe they're really prone to violence and screaming at you It's weird. Yeah, I don't know if this sounds a little too macro, but coming from my background and expertise in trauma And it's actually the it would be like the the TEDx talk to that I would do.  It is feminism as it's morphed into A traumatic experience that's been internalized in most women And so this this this anger and this vitriol that we're experiencing from these types of feminists is a traumatic response If you think about someone who's been traumatized being triggered like a flashback or something they get Crazy And so you want to you want to understand that they are like that because of a trauma that they experienced and not blame them Because it's a symptom of the trauma, but at the same time, you know You kind of have to identify it first and they're not willing. They're in denial about the trauma that feminism caused Inside of them. I agree. And so it sounds like you're saying if I'm understanding correctly, they're basically Transferring or weaponizing their trauma into a whole movement that's supposed to be this, you know Glamorous very positive very feminine nice thing And I think the reality is very very different from that. So they're kind of like almost like Filling it with this with their trauma and then they're just like, oh, it's a nice thing But it's super toxic. Yeah, I mean, it's it's a little bit like the How the victim identifies with their perpetrator often, you know, like the Stockholm syndrome kind of thing Where so they've kind of aligned with feminism. They defended to its death, you know But honestly, it's more that feminism is the perpetrator for these women in their lives And I wrote very early on I wrote a blog post or whatever about my dear Joan letter to feminism and that got some traction But I um, I probably have to still edit it or revise it But it was true. It was like my sort of grieving letter to myself after breaking up with feminism because this is what yes It took for me this and it's not about that's a big that's a big breakup. Yes for you. Yeah, thank you But it's not about blaming all my choices on feminism It's explaining them and there's a difference when someone isn't willing to take responsibility for their choices And I'm asked all the time Even now that I'm not practicing formally, you know, how could you be a marriage therapist and be divorced? How could you be single and be a marriage therapist? How could you like it's never enough for people, right? Like you're never good enough to tell people what to do unless you live it yourself And there's obviously truth to that but I think that you know, for the most part, um, There's just a lot of pressure. There's a lot of pressure to achieve a healthy stable lifestyle, but no no kind of, um, map To that's given to us to teach us how to do that anymore Yeah, let's shift gears a little bit. I have more my little notepad. I was uh right down as I was going through your content So how talking to me about how women today can do better Young women today that are still Other than just abandoning feminism and saying, right, this is actually a pretty negative movement What can your average 20-something young woman today in America? What can she do better? What is she getting wrong with say her dating life? That might include a lot of swapping on tender or the short-term relationships the last six months at a time Sure about serial monogamy and things like that So what are some of the issues you see young women today doing with from that perspective? Well, I love that I'm getting some young women in my practice will not practice but in my business now Um, I have I have a lot of like yes. Yes. I know it's it's it's hard It's a long time But um, I do my best to be transparent there Uh, I have a lot of like, you know, women my age or older like 35 to 65 whatever that I have worked with but now I'm getting younger women in their late teens early 20s Which is a really good sign and I'm really grateful for that opportunity to help prevent things in their life from going awry And so with those women, I'm trying very hard to to help encourage them It's not that they have to choose either or because You know, I it might seem like I'm saying don't strive for you know a professional career I'm not saying that I would I mean there is validity in Having an intelligent woman who is successful But my whole point is do not let that interfere with your personal life Always make sure that your personal life with your, you know, if you're married or if you've got kids Don't let that take the place of your spouse and your family.  What can you win? What how do you need to prove yourself? And so women are really put under this microscope to prove themselves That they're capable and that they're good enough and so teaching women that they are good enough just Focusing on themselves being healthy women Uh prioritizing their family of origin a lot of times it's so your people are so quick to leave the house and go to college That they leave all that behind and then they're just focused on individual pursuits So it's about the connection between what's what really matters in life who you care about and Maybe even your community or church But honestly, it's about really creating that healthy equilibrium so that you're a stable woman Who values the simple life? Like you don't have to go out and party You don't have to go out and win awards or or make tons of money It's amazing. I hear a lot lately from women on the internet. They they message me usually sometimes in public You know people like you and others on twitter I follow about a lot of them in private instagram dms facebook dms things like that And a lot of them that there's actually a lot of women out there, you know surprise They actually really value motherhood and family and marriage and they're they're almost ashamed to say in public For whatever reason in the first place feminism and whatnot But even if they do speak up like on my facebook profile or whatever i'm posting about how stupid feminism is They get yelled at Yeah, I mean these it's just the internet. It's on your phone or your computer But it's like people will scream at them. These are their feminists and stuff and even men these white knights They think these are fake accounts. I think these are women that actually want to start, you know Because because what you're talking about it sounds to me a lot like just prioritization Which is what i'm advocating like i'm doing my speech at 22 con about motherhood first Like america first so mother first And if you if a woman doesn't want to do that and prioritize motherhood at 23 years old and family information I'm not you know forcing you not to but I think for most of them and a lot of them will be happier doing that Just due to biology and fertility and eggs and all these things like a very simple stuff You can learn in high school that they're not taught anymore and they're they're told They're told the opposite with an agenda You know choice choice choice choice as long as you make the choice I want you to make And it's like I think that's actually not a good choice and this is a better choice in most circumstances or many circumstances So yeah, it's a better lot to me. It sounds like you just prioritization Yeah that and and I focus on vetting so really teaching women how to vet for a significant other Versus dating because I think dating is so subjective and you can you can learn a lot about a person prior to even meeting them You know it used to be that things were arranged or your parents would sort of know Twitter actually I think yesterday or today.  Oh, yeah, definitely.  They shouldn't just go on tender and just bang whatever they want left and right No, definitely not.    So you might not have a guarantee Yet from that guy that he's exclusive, but it shouldn't matter You need to know what you stand for and ultimately if you vetted him appropriately He should have integrity and you should know that he's choosing you even if he's not explicit about it Yeah, you actually say you tweet too a thing about earning exclusivity from men or is that a video you didn't have a channel? Yeah, that got some attention too I'm sure it did. These are not topics that young women are talked about or told how dare you Even say that a woman should earn his exclusivity. Exactly. Exactly. This is the right Never never mind whatever you said in the video for however many minutes you went on about it You can't even talk about the subject because it's that's his treason to the vampire I mean, how dare you how dare a woman do anything to earn a man's affection or his exclusivity Or do anything to please him and make him happy like making the sandwich I was telling you that jenis came mango jokes with me about that a lot because she knows it's just funny Which actually does it she's actually married and she makes her husband sandwiches all the time Yeah, that's what they do and that's that's I think it's actually very positive I agree too And I've been posting pictures of the the meals that I'm making and stuff and and that reporter actually asked me something about That and like what does it mean to be a trad wife or whatever? And I do not consider myself that at all I I hope that that's not the impression that people have of me I consider myself more an like a middle grounds like I'm a modern woman who achieved the phd in a successful career But I've you know corrected the things that I needed to correct and I'm able to prioritize my relationship and my future family right So that's that's the way that you can you can kind of try to not have it all because I would do things differently if I could start over But I'm definitely not a trad wife. So um, yeah, I think it's important to You know, you don't have to be the one that cooks But I said this to to my to my group in my men's group. They were asking about it Is it a deal breaker if she doesn't cook and I said it's one thing if she tries to cook She's not that great at it But she wants to get better Then that's good if she refuses to cook and she wants to just go do things that you know Take her away from the the home or whatever just to be selfish and self-indulgent That's no good But if she's someone who like you're a team and you're trying to juggle everything and so you kind of You you sort of make a compromise where if you like to cook you'll cook sometimes or she'll cook sometimes or maybe like You pick up food or you get home delivery So, you know, you don't have to cook all the time in order to be a good partner But it's important for you to be willing to pick up the slack or to serve your partner if you love them Yeah, that sounds uh way too level-headed and rational for the atmosphere. Sorry that totally we have to boot you out now Actually, there's this guy. He's saying you should be a speaker at our next convention. Oh Well, that would be an honor Yeah, that would be uh, why I'd get some flak for that We'll see and I actually as I told you I actually intend to have female speakers at 22 convention in the future after the inaugural one And I think it's gonna be a lot of fun We might do an all-womens one so the ultimate woman's explaining event I think that'll be pretty that'll be really awesome to do the man's planning convention century And then follow it up with the woman's planning convention century Um, I love these terms. I love actually taking the feminist these toxic terms that they try to vilify us with and just beat them Over the head with it. That's why that's why I did all that with the sales page Yeah, I yeah, I mean I get the marketing and the branding aspect to it But to me, I mean, I would never want to to to invade male space. See that's that's not my intention at all But I also think that like I went to one of my first sort of Manisphere events was um, Mike sternovich's gorilla mine seminar in new york And that's when I met oldman originally and and alexander and dr. Ralph and mike and uh and ed And we had a great time and I was even sitting there thinking like These guys are great. I would love to jump in and have a presentation as well because I mean I'm very trained in present presenting to groups of people with like Law firms and accounting firms, but they're all men partners and you know So I know how to hold my own, but I'm still feminine and female But I think that if the opportunity arose I would just do my best and and I could you know try to To make it relevant to whoever was in the audience But I no longer feel Ultimately the need to go out and achieve Whereas I used to before and that's kind of where I've come to my balance as a woman That I feel like I've Proven myself and I didn't really need to do half the things that I did to prove myself But all that really matters to me is having a simple peaceful lifestyle With denis and being happy and healthy It's that simple Sounds like you're you're a victim of internalized patriarchy and misogyny. I'm I'm sorry. You have this condition We have to carry you with more horrible. It's what can I say? I want other people to experience it Yeah, it actually reminds me a few minutes ago. You were talking about the sand concept Um, basically you said that you didn't want to speak to men From the perspective of being a man because obviously you're not a man And that actually makes a lot of sense to me and I got this I got a lot of flak from these women that hate, you know, make them great again 22 convention and stuff And they're like, how dare you talk to women about being a woman? It's like One of the reasons I didn't do 22 convention sooner because I had the idea in 2015 when I bought the domain and Basically thought about doing a woman's convention I held off for five years on it because I didn't have the concept like this to where we could actually speak to women In a way that made sense because we're not women. I have no idea. It's like to be a woman I don't know now. I didn't know yesterday. I won't know tomorrow or ever And I'm not the whole convention is not coming from that perspective. It's mansplaining So it's what it's what we think about women what we think about female nature what we're observing and culture Things that we think women get right they can say they get wrong today Maybe in the past they did better And you know also too like jennis femango. She's focused a lot observing what we're doing with this conference That it's just men having preferences men husbands and fathers most of speakers are are married and stuff And you know men of course know have an idea of what they want Sometimes we might actually see better than that they see through things But the end of the day it's it's men are speaking up in public and we have preferences and opinions about this stuff And of course they can't stand that and that's really I think why the mansplaining thing was so triggering to them Because I was actually I think mansplaining as a concept has been used to weaponize or as a weapon To shut down all masculine voices in the west And especially in public public speaking entrepreneurs Politicians anything like that as a man you're not allowed to have an opinion about women I think one of the things that comes up is um a healthy relationship with your father right like i'm And you might have seen what I posted today about my dad, but I'm a girl who adored her father like I was just mesmerized in in in awe of who he was as a man and If he ever wanted to explain something to me, I would sit there and just absorb everything that he had to say And he's you know that high quality mansplaining exactly so for women who don't want that in their lives I just feel like they had a bad relationship with their father or something happened That was probably traumatic and that needs to get resolved I agree Yeah, I have two sisters that I love very much when they come to me We talk all the time and they ask me for advice even my older sister who's five years older than me She respects me as a man, especially now that we're both in our 30s And it's a very positive thing and to me that's that's basically the heart of mansplaining It's not all this, you know, who how it's so rare that you see a man talk condescendingly to a woman This is ridiculous. This is like a cartoonish bullshat But there's plenty of fathers and grandfathers and uncles and brothers. I'm an uncle now Congratulations. Thank you. It's pretty awesome And um, yeah, it's it's a very positive thing that's why feminists want to shut it down so hardcore They're very in my opinion, they have a philosophy of the zero.  Yep.  Yeah, of course things You know sometimes, you know, if you're in a dick mood or something or you just pop off I mean, there's a level of uh polarity between men and women that makes someone that's natural I think on occasion to happen But by far and large it doesn't happen in family relationships or in intimate relationships Unless it's toxic and unhealthy in which case you have a larger problem Yeah, and I talk a lot about um genuine desire and that comes from rollo as a reference from his stuff, but I He's stolen from david de angelo probably attraction is not a choice True But now I my piece is that I talk about how logic plus desire plus love equals an ideal relationship And that's really because we when we talk about genuine desire We don't really talk about genuine interest and I thought you heard pergamy just controlled everything you did Are you sure about that? I know right? Well, I'm a divorced woman Later in life. So of course, you know, I don't know That whole story it's it didn't make any sense to me then I understand what what it means, but men have similar tendencies I know he's tried to debunk that But we all try to upgrade until we look at ourselves and we try to correct Ourselves and be the best person that we can be and recognize that we can only Require of other people what we do ourselves And when we realize that we become responsible and then we earn what we deserve And so until someone is willing to do that, they're going to be unhappy Yeah, this has been a fun conversation. I think we need to wind it down. I realize it's past four o'clock. That's true You too. You have a lot of appointments. Yeah Um, this has been a lot of fun. Uh, we should do it again sometime for sure And I look forward to meeting you this year at 22 convention. It's gonna be a good time Are you bringing your boyfriend, uh, Dennis? He said he's supposed to come so I mean he's got to prioritize his family He's got two young nieces. So we'll see hopefully fingers crossed Cool. Yeah, he's an uncle. Yeah, there you go. The uncle's good stuff. It is I appreciate your time. Everybody watching the channel. Uh, you can go to her We'll put her twitter profile and website. It's already in the uh video description. Check those out follow on twitter Follow on instagram. We'll put a links Taylor, I appreciate your time. This has been genuinely like a lot of fun and pretty interesting You too, Anthony. Thank you very much Thank you the villain. Dr. Dr. Taylor Oh gosh Yeah, I'll see you guys uh next time in the next live stream tune in tomorrow for the red band group of jack murphy and others And we'll see Taylor again probably in the channel in the future and we'll talk about more mansplaining and things like that Besides guys. Thank you. Taylor


Hello and welcome to Dataversity Talks, a podcast where we discuss with industry leaders and experts how they have built their careers around data. I'm your host Shannon Kemp, and today we're talking to Shannon Kemp, Chief Digital Officer at Dataversity. Wait, what? With a robust catalog of courses offered on demand and industry-leading live online sessions throughout the year, the Dataversity Training Center is your launchpad for career success. Browse the complete catalog at training.dataversity.net and use code DVTALKS for 20% off your purchase. Hello and welcome. My name is Shannon Kemp, and I'm the Chief Digital Officer at Dataversity, and this is my career in data, a Dataversity Talks podcast dedicated to learning from those who have careers in data management to understand how they got there and to be talking with people who can help make those careers a little bit easier. To keep up to date in the latest in data management education, go to Dataversity.net forward slash subscribe. And this week, we're going to mix it up a bit. Several of you have asked me about my bio when I'm going to be interviewed, and well, today's the day. So please welcome Tony Shaw, founder and CEO of Dataversity. His bio was the first podcast we published. You can check it out online at Dataversity.net forward slash podcast. So Tony, hello and welcome. Thanks for stepping in here. Hi, Shannon. Thanks for asking me. Yeah, I guess it makes sense that if we're going to turn the tables here, then I should be the one to do that. And if I stick to the script, I should say that today we're joined by Shannon Kemp, Chief Digital Officer at Dataversity, and normally this is where we would read a short bio about our guest. But since that's the point of this podcast is to get into your bio, then we're going to skip that part and get going on some questions. So are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. So Shannon is the Chief Digital Officer at Dataversity, our CDO, not the usual context that we use those letters in. But really, Shannon is the person who runs all of the digital activities for Dataversity. So it's a very appropriate title. And she is sort of our Chief Data Officer also. And we might get into some of that later in the conversation. But so this seems a little weird for me to be asking this question. But for anybody who may not know, perhaps just listening to us for the first time, I'm going to ask you about the organization that you work for. And what exactly you do? So what is Dataversity? Great question. So Dataversity is a company that specializes in the education of data management. And that's a very broad spectrum from the end to end from the data architecture and managing the database to the analytics and everything in between. We do a lot of education and data governance. That's been kind of our core topic lately in addition to data architecture, data modeling, lots of interesting aspects of data education. In terms of what I do, as you mentioned, I manage all the digital aspects of the company and the digital programs that we run from creating and building and managing the website to the webinars that we produce, the online conferences that we produce, and our online training center with more in-depth education, which is very exciting. And yes, and lots of data I do also. I help when face-to-face conferences need to go to a digital aspect. And through all these things, I do work with a lot of our data. I try and keep us up to date on the latest in data privacy and policies. So I'm in contact for that as well as dive into our analytics often so I can make good decisions on how to build out these digital programs. All right. Well, I'm actually going to come back to some of those things that you mentioned a little bit later. But I know this was exactly the job that you wanted to have growing up. Actually, it's something that... You can see the tongue in my cheek there. Because none of these jobs existed when we were growing up. But what did you want to do when you were growing up? Well, when I was very little, I either wanted to be Ella Fitzgerald or Wonder Woman. But those weren't really in the cards. But then when going into... I did it was involved in a lot of theater. I did a lot of theater growing up. Actually, I went to college to major in theater at Southern Oregon University, which is in Ashton, Oregon, famous for at Shakespeare Festival. But when I got to college, I discovered I really didn't... It wasn't for me. I didn't have the passion to start over and do all the networking. I didn't love it as much as I thought I did. So I went... I discovered physics. So I switched my major to physics. I took a couple of business courses as well, because I'd always wanted to get in business. But business, that was not the right university for business. The first class that I went into, I fell asleep in. And then went, showed up for the midterm and the final and got an A. So it was not for me. So I wanted to learn. I just really wanted to dive into some other passions. And physics, specifically quantum mechanics and theoretical physics, was really exciting to me. Lots of data there. And then a minor in music, ultimately trying to create the best sound system possible. So but yeah, so that's what I wanted to be. I know you've continued to pursue your music interests through some current day activities. Why don't you tell us about that? Ella Fitzgerald, I'm not, but I do love singing blues and gospel. I'm in a choir right now, a church choir. So it's a no audition, but it's a fabulous program. It's one of the most amazing programs. We're very blessed to have a huge choir, almost 100-person choir with some amazing musicians who are a part of that. So I get to use those talents. I forget exactly what Summit was that you sang when we're in Atlanta for Enterprise Data World.  Do you recall the song? Three Little Birds, Bob Marley. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. I mean, we all knew that you were in the choir, but I think it was a wonderful surprise to everybody to actually experience that little performance. So maybe when we get back to in-person events fully again, we'll we'll do that. All right, so bring us up to, there's a chunk of time between school and when you eventually joined Dataversity. So why don't you give us a little bit of that? We can just get a sense for the context under which you actually joined Dataversity. Sure. Yeah, so I think it started a little bit younger, but before I used to work with my dad a lot. He worked from home. He was a wholesale rep for shoes sold to companies. It's rep different brands and sold them to companies like Nordstrom. And I kind of grew up in the Nordstrom stock room. He worked with Nordstrom before he became a wholesale rep. And so I would help him with his P&Ls. I would help him with this and that. I learned a lot about business. I wrote my first business plan when I was 12. I really wanted to start and grow a business. And that has always been in the background. A lot of the stuff that I did was discovering what my passions were outside of that. I started working for Nordstrom when I was 16. And in and out of college. And as soon as I left college, I went back to Nordstrom. I was going to work for a year to earn some cash and do some traveling. I wanted to travel the world. And I went back and a few months later, I was promoted to an assistant buyer in the Men's Shoes in Bellevue. At that time, the buyers were at each individual store level and department level. And then within the next three years, I ended up with nine promotions and moved all over the country. So I ended up just working my way through Nordstrom and ended up working there for 11 years. I was a buyer and worked in various different jobs and had a lot of really great mentors in terms of learning business. And as a buyer, we were encouraged to treat it as our own business. It's kind of a singer swim. You learn and it was great. I was very lucky in getting the opportunity to work with Blake Nordstrom. And him being one of my mentors, he was just such a smart human being. He could meet somebody and never forget their name. And out of all the employees that Nordstrom has, it's really impressive. Yeah, yeah. So really, it was great.  I got to Ireland, fell in love with Ireland. And I went back a second time, not much later. And on my way back was a plane full of Microsoft employees from the office outside of Dublin, flying in for the company, the annual company meeting. Like, oh, well, this is awesome. Okay, so I'm going to go work for Microsoft. So I gave Nordstrom my two weeks notice and found a temp agency that that temp to Microsoft, I didn't even know what a browser was at that point. I just decided I'm going to go work for this company that has global offices. And got in through a temp agency to as a customer service rep, was hired full time, six months later as a group admin for a general manager. And spent another I spent 11 years Microsoft work my way through lots of different great learning experiences. I became a telecom analyst for the call center, managing over 1000 KPIs for the call center, which is crazy. Lots of things that we did there, forecasting the volume, the call volume traffic, organizing forecasting the call volume down to 15 minute increvels. So we could determine how many staff we needed on the phones by 15 minute intervals. And it was it was a lot of fun, loved. So I got a lot of exposure and data there. My mentor there was CPA, an accountant. And then I learned Excel from a lot of the Microsoft accountants, which was great, which is exactly what it was built for, who it was built for. And yeah, and then I was in 2007 part of the massive layoff that the company had when in the recession. And at that point, I'm like I decided that instead of looking for another job within the company, because I certainly had the contacts, I just decided it was time to take a break and do my own thing and work, if I was going to keep working that hard, I wanted to do be more involved in something creative and be have it be more visible and more hands on to something evolving versus this tiny little piece and a big corporation. So I, yeah, so I decided after many after a couple of months of thinking that I was going to go into freelance writing, I love to write, I wanted something creative was one of the many business plans that I had. So I started and that's how I met you. Well, yeah, I, not to tell your story, but you know, I have, I have my version of how we met, of course, I'll let you tell yours, but if it doesn't match up with mine at all. Do you remember how we, do you remember how we met? Yeah, I do. Yeah, you posted an adding Craigslist. Yes. I was, and I was searching, you know, part of being a freelance writer to be to make any money, you just have to apply to as many jobs as possible. Yes. Do you remember what the project was? Yeah, yeah, it was to convert EDW talks into articles. It was, yeah, it was taking transcript, making transcriptions and then trying to make them into articles. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, the first one I did actually was for was one of John Ladly's talks. So I here is where I am going to embellish for you because I remember, I mean, even back then we were, we were communicating by email of course, but I remember one of the first phone calls we had and I gave you a little bit of background as to what we were looking to accomplish, because we had only just renamed the company as Dataversity at that point. And I want to say that this was on a Friday that we had this conversation. And I think we agreed to talk the early the following week. And over the weekend, you had created an entire new website for us that was, you know, aimed at some of the strategy, strategic direction that I had outlined on the Friday. So you know, at that point I was sold. And I think we started talking about coming on full time almost immediately. So yeah, I don't remember how good the transcription was or the article, but I certainly remember the website. And yeah, then we were off and running. Yeah, yeah, we did. We launched the website April 1, 2011. Okay, I didn't remember that part, but but it was EDW. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that part I yeah. Yeah. So, um, all right, let's start talking more about data then. And um, I guess, you know, did you did you come into the job with some idea of what what data was or what, you know, what it meant to be working with data? Some other jobs that involve data analysis, but you know, did you have a concept of what it was to manage data? Oh, none, none at all. I mean, I had done some projects to for data quality projects at Microsoft. When I was the telecom analyst, so we I certainly familiar with many individual pieces of it, but I never thought about it holistically, right? I knew how to generate data and you had to pull data I knew how to create a chart. But in terms of the big picture, I didn't know how that fit in with everything with everything else. More and more companies are considering investing in data literacy education, but still have questions about its value, purpose, and how to get the ball rolling. Introducing the newest monthly webinar series from Dataversity, Elevating Enterprise Data Literacy, where we discuss the landscape of data literacy and answer your burning questions. Learn more about this new series and register for free at dataversity.net. So let me ask you then to sort of reflect on what you knew back then to what, you know, now. And yeah, I'm not even quite sure what the right question to ask is, but, you know, how has has that perspective changed? And, you know, how do you how do you see the data management space now after a dozen years from the perspective that you've had? I have a definitely a more holistic view of what's going on, you know, and even it's funny because with all the webinars that I've produced and conferences and events that I've attended and listened to, I'm still learning a lot. And when working for a smaller company, analytics are still, like I mentioned, really important to us. So I had to had to get a grasp of the end to end of, you know, where are we storing our data, how are we pulling it, how are we, what's the architecture behind it, what's the metadata behind it so that we can keep it consistent across platforms and and make it super efficient. It's, yeah, I just have a more holistic view. I know what data governance is now, I know how to implement a process, which, which is good and necessary to achieve any of the other things that we need to achieve in in the analytics, then I still, you know, of course, dive into the analytics religiously. But yeah, I think it's interesting for, you know, one of our customers tend to think that we are experts at everything that that all the experts teach through data.  I understand where it fits in. But it is interesting to me how even at the scale that that we operate, which is really very small compared to, you know, some of the enormous organizations that that we hope educate through what we do. You know, all the principles still apply. And, you know, the things that we learn through listening to the largest organizations and how they manage the data can actually be applied even in a, you know, a small organization like our own. So, yeah, those, those principles are really, I think, you know, universal. Yeah. So, all right. So, based on this, this perspective that you now have and the position that you, you have sort of sitting able to look at a whole bunch of different aspects of data management and data application. Where do you think things are going in terms of, you know, the significance of data management, data governance and the type of jobs that people are going to be working at in the data space in years to come? Do you have a view on that? We do. You know, I haven't been lucky in being able to interview a lot of people and get their take on it already.  But from my own business perspective, I definitely see the trend of the jobs increasing through in the role of data has become, it's so important to understand what data is, how to use it, and especially as more chief digital officers emerge and it's a fairly new role and become prevalent in companies in terms of to initiate that digital transformation that's happened since, especially since COVID and since, you know, so much has gone online. It's even more important, companies are realizing that they need to get a grasp on their data and they need to digitize a lot of their data that hasn't necessarily been digitized. They need to organize, structure the policies, the processes, implement data governance around the data. They need to, in order to have data quality, a lot of companies are way ahead of that and are initiating, you know, machine learning concepts and programs. But so we've seen so many companies who try to stand up machine learning, but stand it up on data that isn't organized, isn't prepped, isn't that there's where there's no quality and the machine learning projects fail because the data wasn't good to begin with. So as these things continue to evolve, there's definitely going to be a lot more jobs where an awareness data needs to exist. And you plus you have the additional jobs of that have always existed like the analysts. But you need that data architect to help bring better data to the analysts, no matter what. So I wanted, I mentioned this earlier on, I wanted to branch off into a couple of specific roles that you have at Dataversity. The one in particular that I'm curious about is the, or that I'd like you to share with people anyway. Obviously, but you know, at a very early stage in the in the privacy, in the world of privacy as new regulations came out, we of course always felt that it was very important that we followed those regulations and practices very closely and tried to set a good example for others. And we certainly didn't want the potential embarrassment of being caught out not complying. So you raised your hand and said, okay, well, I'll take this on.  So why don't you tell us a little bit about that role and how you how you perform that on our behalf. So data protection officer really is what that's that is. And it's really just being a point of contact for anybody who has complaints or questions about how we manage their data. So of course, we collect data for people on when people somebody fills out a form to download a white paper or fills out a form to register for a webinar or one of our events or for our purchase of something from the training center, you know, we collect data. And in like you say, I mean, with a company name like Dataversity, we should probably get it right. So yeah, it's, you know, I really work hard, it's hard to keep up with these days on the data privacy, but I really work hard to keep up with the laws and what's happening and what we need to the how we, the communication that we publish and make sure that it's really transparent on what tools we're using, where data is being stored, how it's being stored links to, you know, any software as a service link to their privacy policies and how they are staying compliant. We vet all of our software companies that we use for their compliance with data privacy and it's we vet them before we buy the tools. It's one of the most important RFP components for us is to say, how do you store the data? Who has access to it? Are you compliant? And how are you staying compliant? Because it's so hard. Is that an important thing to you? And of course, all the companies we work with say yes. So it's yeah. And then also mention, if you also mentioned, if you would, so your part of your role is to educate the rest of the staff and make sure that, you know, they are also following the protocols. True.  So we have a lot of really tight and we talk about it all the time in company meetings. And, you know, everybody's had to sign a privacy policy contract and how and where they'll send PII. So yeah, I mean, as the CEO of the company, you know, probably like any CEO, I get kind of irritated by the level of, you know, regulation that some of these things impose. But thankfully, you are always the head keepers on track. And more importantly, you know, to keep keep the folks who are actually handling the data on track. But I understand both sides of this issue very well. You know, somebody trying to run a business and also as somebody who has a lot of respect for the goals of the legislation and as a data user myself, you know, as somebody who is information is out there. So what I will say is that, you know, I think the structures that you've set up have enabled us to be compliant with actually relatively little effort, as long as everybody is well educated and informed about what they have to do. It's not that difficult for us to be in compliance. You know, we just have to stay vigilant. And so, you know, I think in a sense, we're actually pretty good example for other small businesses. But so, you know, one of the things that I know that you ask people about typically in these in your interviews with them is how would you advise somebody to get into a career like yours?  That's part of your job. You're also a media professional at this stage. So I'll ask you how would you, from what you've seen and heard from others, how would you advise somebody to get into the data management profession if that's what they would like? That's if, you know, if that's their career goal. Now, I I've loved everything that I've done in my career. And the thing I love about data diversity is I get to follow my passion. I get to have a role in in a lot of say an input into how the business gets developed. I can see visions of what's next and have what's going on. And you are so gracious in letting me try everything, especially at your expense and all these different things. And, you know, and I bring that up because the number one thing that I'm finding from a lot of the practitioners is that's the best advice is to get into be passionate, find the area of passion, right? So if it's analyzing the data, you know, really just keep get into it, find, you know, find a way to develop that skill. If it's architecting the data end to end and saying, okay, what is how is this going to flow? What is that going to do to find that deep passion? There's so many different areas, whether it's on the IT side or on the business side. That is the number one thing that it's just it's going to make any job better, not just in a career of data management. But it's just following that and being honest with yourself about what you love to do and honing it and keep learning. Okay, so my pot B question is going to be how to get into a career like yours specifically. Does your original answer cover that as well?  You know, it's a very mixed it can somebody design a mixed skills kind of career, do you think? Or does that just come along with being flexible in whatever job that you that you take on? I think it's a lot of both actually. You know, I certainly would not have received the promotions or moved to the next level if I wasn't constantly learning and being flexible, as you say, in, in what I was doing, I, you know, if you're going to do something, do it well, don't just don't just kind of do it to the minimum level. So find that thing that you're willing to do well. And so yeah, it still applies because my passion is what's taken my career and so many different directions and taught me so many different things like I didn't know anything about podcasts before we started doing a podcast and other than I've listened to a couple, right? But you know, being willing to learn and just how do I make it the best I started listening to the best podcasts or that have the most followers or rated the highest and okay, what do all those have in common and then figuring it out from there and listening and reading to blogs. Tim Ferriss has a podcast that I listened to and he had a podcast on how to set up a successful podcast and I learned a lot. It's just being willing to learn. It's the only way to achieve anything I think and to not and to never assume I certainly had reached those moments where I assumed I had learned everything, especially in my youth. I think that's a folly of youth sometimes. But there's always more to learn. Everybody has something to teach us and the more open you are, the more curious you are, the more you're going to learn and more you're going to discover about yourself about what you love and where you want to go and where you want to take it. And I love that I have so many roles and so many things to do. It really keeps, there's never a dull moment in my job and that is the best part for me. I'm just, it's the fact that I get to wear many hats and be creative as well as be linear and have used both sides of my brain often. Well, I have to assume there are some hats on the horizon then that you're, what's next? What would you like to be working on next? Growing this company has just been my whole focus. I'd love for us to be a Fortune 500 someday. I want to take over the world. I think my favorite part of this job actually, sincerely, is that we've created jobs. You and I together work so hard to create jobs. And I think that that's just, that's an amazing, that's the biggest reward that there is. And I would agree, there's a great deal of satisfaction from doing that. And I think you could probably take more credit for that at this point than me, because our digital operations are two thirds of the business now, whereas it used to be the other way around compared to our in-person events. So, all right. Well, I'm gonna, is there a question that I didn't ask you that you'd like to answer anyway? Okay. Ask yourself a question. I don't know about that. It's, it's different being on the side of the table. So, all right. All right, then I'm gonna return to the script for a minute and say, Shannon, thanks very much for our interview today. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me to interview you. And to all of our listeners out there, if you'd like to keep up to date on the latest podcasts and the latest in data management education, you may go to dataversity.net forward slash subscribe.  That's all we got. Okay. That's all we got. It's a Friday afternoon here. Not when we'll be sharing the podcast, but I wish you a good weekend. And we'll be talking to you very soon, I'm sure. Well, Tony, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I appreciate it. Okay. All right. Thanks for my next time. Bye bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Dataverse City Talks brought to you by Dataverse City. Subscribe to our newsletter for podcast updates and information about our free educational articles, blogs and webinars at DataverseCity.net forward slash subscribe.


We only have, may I have your attention, please? We only have about four minutes here. We deeply appreciate of this great crowd here at Concord. I'm Luther Hodges, a Democrat from North Carolina. I want to present a hometown girl that's made good here. Margaret Irving, the wife of United States Senator. And Mr. Charlie Cannon and other group of distinguished people from this district have come on the train and are getting off here. Thank you, Mr. Charlie. Now may I, as these distinguished visitors get off, may I present to you, for the presentation of the first lady of the land, may I present to you your own congressional candidate, Bob Davis. Thank you, Secretary Hodges. Let me say how pleased we are to be here with you today and what a fine turnout this is. And we're going to have this same kind of celebration on November 3rd because the Democrats are going to win. We couldn't have a finer visitor in North Carolina than the lady I'm to present to you right here. I want to present to you at this time the first lady of the United States and the lady who will continue for four more years to be the first lady of the United States, the Ladybird Johnson. Thank you. Thank you, Bob Davis. With every turn of the wheels, with every stop, it gets better, more colorful, more wonderful. I just can't tell you how this trip warms my heart and how happy it makes me. I bring you greetings from my husband, the president. He'd like to be here so much. He'll never forget our trip four years ago through this same part of the country.  There's all of you people out there with all of the intellect and all of the hard and all the steadiness and stability that's in him to keep this country on a prosperous path and to keep us at peace. And I am proud of his record. I hope that you are and I hope that you will want to continue it in November. Thank you one and all.