PART ONE
[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Ross: Hi there, and a very warm welcome to Season 6, Episode 8 of PeopleSoup. It's Ross McIntosh here.
[00:00:06] Debbie: The VA has a national training program in ACT and I started as one of the first participants in that. I think I was in the maybe second cohort ever to train in ACT within the VA and then I myself became a trainer and it's just like a lot of people.
[00:00:24] I mean, I don't, I think almost everyone I've met who's an ACT therapist. got into ACT because they learned about it and realized this is what resonates for me personally. This is what I want in my life. And I was the exact same way. I mean, ACT just really, it fit with my experience more than any other therapy I had trained in up to that point.
[00:00:46] Ross: Today, my guest is Dr. Debbie Sorenson, clinical psychologist, podcast host, and author of the book, Act for Burnout.
[00:00:54] The ingredients Debbie brings to PeopleSoup are curiosity, exploration, act, and omelettes. You'll also hear Debbie's song choice and how we have more things in common than our birthdays, including the joy of dancing at weddings and conferences.
[00:01:11] For those of you who are new to PeopleSoup, welcome! It's great to have you here. We aim to provide you with the ingredients for a better work life, from behavioral science and beyond. www. peoplesoup. com For those of you who are regular PSupers, thanks for tuning in again. We love it that you're part of our community.
[00:01:40] Let's take a quick scoot over to the news desk. Hot news is that I have a new brand and a new website, which you can check out at rossmcintosh. co. uk. That's rossmcintosh. co. uk. Let me know what you think. You might even want to sign up for my newsletter. My brand and website were [00:02:00] designed By Ross from A Modern Remedy. I'm delighted with the outcome. And there's a link to find out more about A Modern Remedy in the show notes. Right, let's crack on. So for now, get a brew on and have a listen to part one of my chat with Debbie Sorenson.
[00:02:21] Debbie Sorenson, welcome to People Soup.
[00:02:24] Debbie: Thank you, Ross. I'm so happy to
[00:02:26] be here. I really appreciate it.
[00:02:28] Ross: Oh, I'm delighted to have you here too, Debbie. And you'll be familiar, I have a research department and they've been looking into you and they've come up with a few things. So I just want to read them out to you to check they've got it right,
[00:02:42] Debbie: Okay.
[00:02:43] Ross: So it says here, Debbie is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Denver, Colorado. she's a co host of the popular psychology podcast Psychologists Off The Clock and author of the books Act For Burnout and the Act Daily Journal. We're going to be coming back to Act For Burnout in the second part of our chat I spoke to your friend Diana Hill about the Act Daily Journal a while back,
[00:03:09] Debbie: Yeah, that's right. She came on to talk about it and so far the, the facts are checking out.
[00:03:15] Ross: Excellent. Debbie has a bachelor's degree in psychology and anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a PhD in psychology from Harvard University. Now it says here that you specialize in providing individual acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy for adults.
[00:03:33] Your approach centers on helping your clients live a meaningful life, engage in effective behavior patterns, and have a healthy relationship with their thoughts and emotions.
[00:03:42] Your career has involved working with veterans with spinal cord injuries, neurological conditions, and chronic pain.
[00:03:49] You then worked for about two years in an organization dedicated to the study of suicide, with the goals of reducing suicidal ideation and
[00:03:56] behaviors in the veteran population.
[00:03:59] Debbie: Yes, [00:04:00] that was something I was actually working on for a while as kind of a, you know, a small part of my work and, and there were other people who were doing that full time and I was, I was involved, but, um, yeah, which was a, I think a very important thing to learn about. Yeah.
[00:04:14] Ross: yeah, we'll probably come back to that when we, when we delve in a bit deeper into your career.
[00:04:20] Debbie: Okay.
[00:04:21] Ross: You started your private practice in 2019, and you are passionate about teaching and training mental health professionals too.
[00:04:28] You are an internationally recognized trainer and training consultant in ACT. You supervise the work of doctoral students and you have presented your work nationally and internationally at conferences and you formerly served as a lecturer in the psychology department at Harvard University.
[00:04:45] Debbie: That's right.
[00:04:46] Yes.
[00:04:47] Ross: And it says here you are an ambassador for all there is to love about your home state, Colorado.
[00:04:55] Debbie: I'm very enthusiastic about Colorado.
[00:04:57] Yes. Mm hmm. In fact, this past
[00:05:02] weekend, I just went up to one of my favorite mountain towns, Crested Butte, and was enjoying the fall colors, and it was gorgeous.
[00:05:10] Ross: Wonderful. Now, for P Supers, we're recording this on the 30th of September, and what we discovered last week is that me and Debbie are birthday twins. 24th of September.
[00:05:23] Debbie: That's right. Happy birthday, Ross.
[00:05:25] Ross: happy birthday Debbie. Next year we should maybe have some sort of simultaneous activity where we blow out cakes or sing to each other.
[00:05:33] Debbie: Let's do it. That sounds good.
[00:05:37] Ross: Now, there was some slightly more sketchy research. It suggests you're in talks to have your own TV show about bringing act, humanity and practicality to cooking.
[00:05:48] Debbie: Ooh.
[00:05:49] Ross: it says here the pilot episode will be the perfect omelette
[00:05:52] where you
[00:05:53] will pay homage to Julia Childs.
[00:05:57] Debbie: Oh, you really did research me, didn't you?[00:06:00]
[00:06:01] Ross: A little bit, yes.
[00:06:03] Debbie: The part about being in talks is
[00:06:05] technically not correct, but I do know how to make a good omelet. Yes.
[00:06:10] Ross: Well, I'd direct everyone to your sub stack because there is a beautifully photographed and detailed process in how to get the best out of your
[00:06:20] omelette, and it does pay homage to Julia as well.
[00:06:24] Debbie: That's right. Yes. Who, which is how I learned how to make omelets from watching her cooking show about, gosh, probably 15 years ago or more.
[00:06:34] Ross: Yeah. What I loved is the way you described it, so you won't get a kind of rubbery, matte type thing
[00:06:40] That you typically get in restaurants there.
[00:06:43] Debbie: Yes, that's right. That does not, I rarely order omelets at restaurants because I don't trust them to be, to make them right. Yeah,
[00:06:52] Ross: I hear you and I agree.
[00:06:53] But I did love, love the detail and the photos for that, so thank
[00:06:58] Debbie: thank you. Do you.
[00:06:59] like omelets too?
[00:07:00] Ross: Oh, I love omelettes.
[00:07:01] Debbie: Oh, good. Okay. Another
[00:07:03] similarity.
[00:07:04] Ross: yeah, Because I live in Spain, they specialize in particular types of omelettes. Not, not your, what my husband calls French omelettes.
[00:07:12] French omelettes is what you and Julia cook. But they have something called tortilla de patata, which is a Spanish omelette with, typically with, uh, potatoes and sometimes with onion. And it's thicker than your
[00:07:26] standard omelette. You can cut slices of it, but it is delicious.
[00:07:31] Debbie: I am not familiar with that. I'm going to have
[00:07:33] to try it, That sounds really good.
[00:07:35] Ross: it's kind of throughout Spain, uh, well known. Really traditional dish. And there's always debates about should you have onion in it or not.
[00:07:43] Debbie: What's your stance?
[00:07:45] Ross: I'm easy. I'm, I'm flexible on that.
[00:07:49] Debbie: You like
[00:07:49] both.
[00:07:50] Poss Spoons
[00:07:50] Ross: I've given a little taste of your, your career and your working life, but I just wonder if you could help us unpack that a bit more, Debbie. Tell us [00:08:00] maybe about how you got into psychology
[00:08:02] and some pivotal moments along the way in your career. Yeah,
[00:08:06] Debbie: OK this is a long story but I will try to only hit the, the important points. So I, when I was in college, here's how I knew I needed to, to major in psychology. I did double major. I had a hard time narrowing it down, but I found myself using my psychology homework as a reward for doing my other homework.
[00:08:30] So I would let myself read my psychology textbook only after I had finished all the work I didn't want to be doing, which was every other class. And at the time I was planning to go more into biology and I wanted to go to medical school and I, Realized maybe I should just do this. This is what I love.
[00:08:50] Anyway, then I went into graduate school. I finished my undergraduate degree, took a little bit of time off, went to graduate school, and I was in more of a research program when I started. My PhD was actually not in clinical psychology. And I had another pivot moment when I realized I really wanted to be a clinician, which I went into career counseling over this.
[00:09:12] I looked at all different options. I considered more academic jobs and in the end decided I needed to. Make that pivot. And so I went back and did my clinical training at that point. So I had to respecialize. So I ended up being in school for about a million years or so. By the time I, from the moment I started graduate school until the, you know, I finished my last day of training was quite a long process because I did not do it the most efficient way.
[00:09:42] and then I became a clinician and I'm so glad that I did because I really feel like it's a good fit for me and it's work that I absolutely love and feels fulfilling to me in a way that a research career definitely would not have.
[00:09:56] Ross: sounds like quite, uh, non [00:10:00] linear. Career
[00:10:00] path, but you persisted.
[00:10:02] Debbie: Yes. Yes. And it wasn't a complete change. I mean, I do think that there were a few pivots along the way, but they were all, I think they were all within the general field. Um, and actually my background, my research background, which was more in developmental psychology. And I was, you know, in a psychology research lab and everything.
[00:10:25] I still think about everything that I learned doing that work. I think it, it still informs me as a clinician to this day. So it wasn't a complete waste. It was definitely not the most efficient path to get there.
[00:10:36] Ross: Yeah, but I think that as you're indicating, I think that non linear path brings richness to what you do and a broader perspective from your, for example, your developmental
[00:10:46] psychology background.
[00:10:48] Debbie: yes, I think that's true. I think that's true. I don't know if it was worth all the years of, you know, student loans and, you know, not, not having a professional income, but it was definitely, yes, I agree. I think there was richness to that.
[00:11:04] Ross: And tell us about you at school. Was there any indication that you'd be a future clinical
[00:11:10] psychologist in your school days, do you think?
[00:11:13] Curiosity
[00:11:13] Debbie: Uh, that's a good question. I don't know about that. I think that, you know, I was a, good student my whole life. You know, I was kind of an early reader. I always liked school and really invested in my schoolwork all the way through and worked really hard in high school and college. And so I don't think, at least to me, I don't think it's a huge surprise that I stayed in school a long time and that I did pretty well in school given how invested I was.
[00:11:40] as for a clinical psychologist, I'm not sure. I do think there were certain events related. to my personal life. For instance, my parents got divorced when I was a kid. We ended up moving around a lot. Um, there were just some challenges along the way that I think made me very curious about [00:12:00] people and about relationships and emotions.
[00:12:04] And so I think that I was in part drawn to the field because of some of those types of personal experiences that got me curious, I think. And clinical psych training really does teach you about yourself a little bit. And I think it helps me understand some of what I had been through. None of which was, you know, I'm not talking about anything majorly traumatic here, but just some complicated stuff that I went through as a younger person.
[00:12:32] Ross: And that curiosity comes
[00:12:33] out.
[00:12:34] Debbie: Yes.
[00:12:35] Ross: Is that what led you to anthropology
[00:12:37] as well?
[00:12:38] Debbie: Uh, yeah, I mean, I think that for me, a part of the reason I double majored was because I loved both of those fields, psychology and anthropology, and it was really, I didn't want to give either of them up. And so I think I just have this fundamental curiosity about human beings and anthropology and psychology are both tackling that big questions about what make us humans.
[00:13:04] And Looking at humans through very different lenses, and that's another thing that sort of enriched my understanding of people. And I think understanding people in historic. And cultural context, I think, really helps me. Get people better I'm sure a lot of us have a sense of that, but I think the anthropology. Anthropology. Courses that I took really helped. For instance, I took a class called the human animal. That was a physical anthropology class and we talked. For an entire semester about human evolution and why do we have culture and how did we learn how to symbolize and do we have free will or not?
[00:13:43] And it's just these really interesting questions about humans as an animal. And I think about that. In my clinical work as well, I think about humans as social creatures, and you know, how we are sort of wired [00:14:00] as, animals.
[00:14:01] Ross: again, look, it brings a richness to what you do and your writing and your blogging and your speaking. I think it, I think it does deliver that insight and perspective that perhaps you wouldn't have got with just that straight linear.
[00:14:18] Debbie: Yeah, and I love that way of framing it as exploratory and I think I still do that a little bit. I'm pretty solidly grounded in my work as a therapist and clinical psychologist, but I still do meander a bit even within what I'm doing as a clinician. You know, I changed from my work at the VA and to private practice.
[00:14:38] I became more specialized in burnout. I'm pivoting a little bit to focusing more on. Midlife and midlife existentialism. And so even over the course of time, I feel like I need to sometimes shake things up a little bit and try something new.
[00:14:54] Ross: Absolutely. Now you mentioned the VA, the Veterans
[00:14:58] Association. I'd love to hear more about your
[00:15:00] work there, please.
[00:15:02] Debbie: Okay, yeah. So I started working at the VA out in Massachusetts where I did my internship and really loved the work. It's great training and ended up my first job after internship was back here in Colorado, which is where I grew up and I came back home, but moved to Denver. I grew up in Boulder my first job there was working with veterans with spinal cord injuries and other conditions, as you mentioned earlier, neurological conditions, chronic pain, that type of thing.
[00:15:33] I was in health and rehab psychology and. Yeah. I mean, I loved it. It was really, really interesting work. I loved the people that I worked with there. I love my population of veterans that I worked with and, I was there for about, probably about 12 years. And then kind of faded out. Like you mentioned, I was doing some work with a program focused on suicide [00:16:00] prevention for a while after that part time.
[00:16:02] Ross: Did you find that work rewarding?
[00:16:04] Debbie: I did. I think that, especially
[00:16:07] working with people with disabilities and chronic health conditions, a lot of them were really people who, who I think needed support. You know, these are people who had been through trauma. Many of them had disabilities, didn't have enough financial resources. I mean, not universally true, but for the most part.
[00:16:29] and I mean, I learned so much from them. So many of them were just, you know, really wonderful people to work with. And I think, you know, had some very unique challenges in the world. And so it felt very much like, um, you know, a privilege, I think, to be able to work with that population. It had challenges, of course, too.
[00:16:52] I mean, it could be hard. There were parts of it that were, you know, sad and hard and also just very, interesting and life affirming work to be with people through, through those kinds of challenges.
[00:17:07] Discovery of ACT
[00:17:07] Ross: Now this, this might be a related question or it might be
[00:17:10] separate. I'm not sure, but when did you discover ACT, Debbie?
[00:17:15] Debbie: Well, I was very first exposed to act when I was doing my clinical practicum at, Massachusetts Mental Health Center mass mental. We always called it and that was a state funded hospital in Massachusetts. And a couple of people knew I knew there were people there. into ACT. And I was doing dialectical behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy there, which are cousins of ACT, you know, behavior, all in the behavioral family.
[00:17:42] And so I just got a, a little bit of information about ACT there and it, it kind of sparked my curiosity, but I didn't know very much at all. Just, Cursory level. And then during my internship year, I had more exposure to act. There were a few people there that were interested in act, and I was able to [00:18:00] do a an act workshop, which really Lit something within me.
[00:18:06] And so at that moment, I just wanted to learn more and Then when I moved to Colorado, I was able to get involved in the VA. The VA has a national training program in ACT and I started as one of the first participants in that. I think I was in the maybe second cohort ever to train in ACT within the VA and then I myself became a trainer and it's just like a lot of people.
[00:18:33] I mean, I don't, I think almost everyone I've met who's an ACT therapist. got into ACT because they learned about it and realized this is what resonates for me personally. This is what I want in my life. And I was the exact same way. I mean, ACT just really, it fit with my experience more than any other therapy I had trained in up to that point.
[00:18:56] Ross: I agree. I think that's a commonality about people who use ACT in different sectors, whether it's clinical, whether it's educational, whether it's organizational. I think there's a point about people Discovering it, applying it to themselves
[00:19:11] and then going, Oh, Oh, I need to share this with more people.
[00:19:16] Do you think that's unique to act?
[00:19:20] Debbie: That's a great question. I don't know.
[00:19:24] I don't think so, but I will
[00:19:26] tell you, I'm sure other, I'm sure that's true of other therapies as well, but for me personally, by the time I came to ACT, I had trained in a number of therapies, and I didn't feel that. I personally didn't feel that way about other approaches, but maybe other people did feel that way, so I'm not sure.
[00:19:44] What do you think?
[00:19:45] Ross: I, I've got a limited perspective on it, to be honest, because the main approach I've been trained in is
[00:19:52] Debbie: Yeah.
[00:19:53] Ross: So I don't have the wider perspective of, uh, for instance, CBT, or [00:20:00] DBT for that matter. So I definitely see
[00:20:03] it from my limited view. No, it's just a curiosity, really.
[00:20:08] Debbie: Well, I'll tell you, I, I probably did resonate with certain elements of both CBT and DBT and I, I had studied some existential therapies, psychodynamic therapy, some other different therapies that I trained in along the way and ACT really did pull everything together, including my antrhopology degree, because it's a contextual behavioral science and the, the I didn't get the contextual part as much in other therapies that I trained in.
[00:20:37] You know, how we as humans operate, our ability to symbolize and to create abstract meaning about things in our minds and what, what are the pros and cons of that, right? That's what makes us uniquely human, but it's also what causes us suffering. pulling in values, just the way that ACT approaches thoughts and emotions.
[00:20:59] It really tied together so many things that I resonated with and no other therapy had done that in that way for me before.
[00:21:08] Ross: Mm, thank you. and can you tell us about the point when you
[00:21:12] decided to set up in private practice? How was that?
[00:21:17] Debbie: You know, I, okay, so what
[00:21:19] happened was
[00:21:20] that I was happily doing my VA job and then I had two delightful children and decided to go down to part time because it was just a lot to Manage full time work at a job like that, too, because it's the kind of job where you're supposed to be there at certain times, and it doesn't have a lot of flexibility with your scheduling and, you know, child care is hard to come by.
[00:21:45] But not only that, I didn't really want to be. working that much at that point in my life with my family and my kids. And so I went down to part time at the VA and, and I did that for quite a number of years. And then I got to the point where my kids were both in [00:22:00] school and I realized I realized I needed to make more money. And so I thought, okay, I need to either go back to the VA full time or start a private practice on the side. And I decided on the private practice on the side because I, I just felt like, I loved my job at the VA, but I also kind of felt like I wanted to change a little bit.
[00:22:20] I had been doing it for a very long time at that point. And also there is something about that. In flexibility of the scheduling at a place like that, which everyone who's worked in health care, at least here in the U. S. knows what I'm talking about. It's like, you know, you can take days off, but it's like, your schedule is pretty set in stone and, you know, there's not a lot of wiggle room.
[00:22:41] it was really I agree. Partly to have a change of pace and also partly to have more flexibility. I did a couple days a week at the VA and a couple days a week of part time private practice. And then at some point, I couldn't sustain that anymore because my private practice was going and I really got to a choice point where I needed to decide either I'm going to make a big change and go into private practice or Stay here, you know, and just keep this private practice small and at that point in my career, I had been through a period of burnout, which I came out of and I was doing okay.
[00:23:15] So it wasn't a decision that I made out of burnout, but I think I just decided I was ready for something different. I had been there for so many years. I needed a change of pace and private practice was exciting. I was really lucky. enjoying that work. And so I left my job at the VA, which happened to be right around the time COVID was starting up, which was a interesting time to make a career change.
[00:23:38] I think it was scary.
[00:23:39] Ross: mm.
[00:23:41] Debbie: but in a way it was also great timing because I was able to very easily just start seeing private practice clients virtually at the time when everybody needed to be doing that. And so, In a way, it worked out really well, but it was a very strange time to leave a job I had had for so many years.
[00:23:58] I didn't really get a [00:24:00] goodbye party. I actually had one planned, but it was canceled because of COVID, and the world was just so bizarre at that point. It was a really strange moment of my life. And so that was, you know, four years ago when I fully made the switch.
[00:24:16] Ross: sure, I like your reflection that the, timing, that it was actually, it could be viewed now as quite useful.
[00:24:23] Debbie: Yeah. It was. And it was stressful. I think it felt a little scary to be making that leap and to be doing it when the world was so scary. it was a stressful moment of my life, that's for sure. As it was for many people.
[00:24:39] Podcasting
[00:24:39] Ross: And another role you've taken on in recent years is one of the hosts of Psychologists Off The
[00:24:43] Clock. As a podcaster to a podcaster, Debbie, how did you get into
[00:24:49] that
[00:24:50] Debbie: That was a complete fluke because what happened is that I knew someone, so when I was in graduate school at Harvard, I knew this, Guy Marshall Poe, who was a friend of mine, and we were both at Harvard at the same time and got to know each other through Lowell House. I was a resident tutor, and he was the assistant dean, I think.
[00:25:11] I can't remember his title. Marshall and I got to be very good friends. And he, after we both left Harvard and went our separate ways and did different things, he ended up starting a podcast called the New Books Network, which is a huge podcast.
[00:25:26] They interview authors and they have all these different channels. And Marshall asked me if, I'd be interested in Doing some psychology interviews for him. And so I started doing that and at the time it felt like I don't think I would have ever thought of doing that if it wasn't for Marshall. And so I did a few of those.
[00:25:44] But again, that was around the time I was starting to have kids. I did a few, but not too many. And then I kind of, you know, just wasn't focused on that for a while. And then I had this group of friends that came together and we were talking about psychology as we always do and [00:26:00] therapy and being clinicians and just some of the ideas we had seen.
[00:26:03] And we had this thought, well, maybe we should start doing some therapy. Interviews for the new books network and we can make this our thing and then it occurred to us. Well, we could actually do our own podcast
[00:26:17] Ross: Hmm.
[00:26:18] Debbie: we were kind of affiliated with the new books network. We would post cross post author interviews, but we kind of again wanted a little bit more flexibility to just be able to do what we wanted to format the interviews how we wanted and.
[00:26:31] Do some interviews, but some that were just, you know, our own content. And so, you know, we had to do, as I'm sure you're familiar with Ross, we had to do all the work of trying to figure out how to launch a podcast, which is. You know, it's easier today than it was back then, because now there are some, it's still hard, but now there are some very good programs to help you get going, that didn't exist back then, and so, you know, we just had to put in the work that it takes to figure out how to do this and post our episodes and, yeah, and the rest is history.
[00:27:04] I've been doing it since 2016, which is almost eight years now. In November it will be eight years.
[00:27:09] Ross: Wow.
[00:27:11] That's a great achievement.
[00:27:13] Debbie: Well, thank you. It's just one of those things. Now it's rolling along and, you know, different co hosts. We've changed co hosts. I'm the only person who's been there all along. I've just kind of stayed the course. and once you get a good system in place, and right now we have four co hosts. I'm one of four.
[00:27:29] we also have help with editing and posting our episodes now, which really helps. We have some administrative support for that. So that saves a lot of time, which is great, but I love doing it still. And if you would have asked me 8 years ago when we were just starting it up, how long we would be doing this, I would have never thought we would be still doing it at this point.
[00:27:49] Ross: Now, Devi, there's a question I like to ask all my guests, which is about a song choice. And the idea is that this song choice would announce your arrival in a room. [00:28:00] When you arrive home, when you arrive in the supermarket, when you arrive at your practice, when you arrive in a virtual room, anywhere you are, it will start to play just as you arrive.
[00:28:09] And it won't be forever, it'll
[00:28:10] just be for the next two or three months. So I wondered if you had a song choice.
[00:28:15] Debbie: you know, I've been putting a lot of thought into this since I knew you were gonna ask me your famous question. And the first song I thought of is the one that stuck, which is a song by Rihanna called, I think the title of it is, I Found Love in a Hopeless Place. Or maybe it's just love in a hopeless place.
[00:28:36] Because it's a dance song and I cannot stop myself from dancing when I hear it. I just physically can't contain myself. I love to dance. And it has such a positive message. And want that to play. And I walk in the room and everybody dances because you just can't not dance to it.
[00:28:55] Ross: yeah, I, I,
[00:28:56] is it, does it go something like, I found love in a hopeless place. I can't go any further than that line, but I do know the
[00:29:03] song.
[00:29:04] Debbie: Yep.
[00:29:04] Ross: I'm with you, I like it.
[00:29:06] So the idea is that you'd walk in and everyone would start dancing
[00:29:09] with
[00:29:10] you.
[00:29:11] Debbie: Yes, that's the
[00:29:12] Ross: Nice. And,
[00:29:13] where do you love to dance?
[00:29:16] Debbie: Well, most of the time I dance at weddings nowadays, because I don't go out dancing the way I once used to. I will say my husband is not a huge fan of dancing, and so, you know, I had hoped to maybe pick up some real, you know, like, dance skills someday, like, Maybe I'd take classes on how to tango or something.
[00:29:37] Well, that's not happening with my husband at least. Maybe someday I'll do it on my own, but I used to go, out to dance clubs and sometimes I would take, you know, salsa lessons or swing dance lessons or something like that. But these days I don't dance as much, but I did recently go with a couple of friends spontaneously.
[00:29:56] We had been at a little gathering. And we were [00:30:00] playing music and dancing and the gathering came to an end and a couple of us Just spontaneously decided to go to a dance club on a Saturday night at like probably 10 p. m And I mean for this old lady, it was I was just so happy I was like I still have that in me And now I want to start doing that more often because it was so much fun and I hadn't done it in
[00:30:22] years
[00:30:22] years
[00:30:23] Ross: Oh, I'm feeling, feeling the power here, Debbie. And
[00:30:27] There's nothing I like more than a good wedding
[00:30:29] reception.
[00:30:30] Debbie: tell you an ACBS conference story?
[00:30:33] Ross: Yes, please.
[00:30:34] Debbie: So, the last time I went to the conference was a couple years ago in San Francisco. And my husband came with me on the trip and he was working from the hotel and he has family in that area. So, you know, we made a trip out of it. the last night of the conference, they have the Follies and then they have dancing.
[00:30:54] And I said to my husband, I don't think I'm going to dance. I'll just turn in early, get some sleep. I'm presenting in the morning. You know, seems like the smart thing to do, but we were walking, and he was kind of like, yeah, right, uh huh, sure. And we heard music and I just said, okay, I'm just gonna stop it.
[00:31:10] And he didn't want to come. So he's like, okay, I'll see you back in the room. You know, meanwhile, I pretty much stayed till the end. And sometime around 1am, he was sound asleep. And he was like, of course. You know, he knows me better than I know myself. I thought, oh, I'll just stop in, maybe just see what's happening and call it a night.
[00:31:29] He knew. There's no way.
[00:31:30] Ross: That's it folks, part one of my chat with Debbie in the bag. Next time we'll be chatting about Debbie's brilliant book, Acts for Burnout. You'll find the show notes for this episode at peoplesoup. captivate. fm or wherever you get your podcasts. if you'd like this episode, we'd love it if you told us why.
[00:31:53] You can email at people soup dot pod@gmail.com. On Twitter, we're at Ross [00:32:00] MyCoach. On Instagram, people do soup. And on Facebook we are at People Soup Pod. You can help me reach more people with the special people soup ingredients, stuff that could be really useful for them. So please do share, subscribe, rate, and review.
[00:32:15] Thanks to Andy Glenn for his spoon magic and Alex Engelberg for his vocals, but most of all dear Lester Thanks to you. Look after yourselves pea soupers and bye for now
[00:32:26] and near to where we live, we live near Seville in Spain. about five minutes walk, there's a petrol station. And just on the side of the petrol station, there's this, it's called El Tete. it's a cafe, it's a very small cafe, you can get coffee, and it also makes omelettes, these Spanish omelettes, tortilla de patata.
[00:32:47] And they produce about 300 a day in the smallest kitchen you've ever seen. And they are delicious, but they have about 12 different varieties.
[00:32:56] Debbie: Yum.
[00:32:57] Ross: So you should, you should check this out, and um, you should come to Spain, frankly.
[00:33:03] Debbie: Yeah, I'm thinking I need to. Now that I hear about this, maybe I'll come out for our birthday next
[00:33:08] Ross: yeah,
[00:33:09] Debbie: We'll meet for an omelet.
[00:33:11] Ross: it's a date.