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Do you think I could fit this in my purse?

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Take the time. Take as much time as you need

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and then immediately get a million dollars for being a nice person.

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That means I am actually going to win the lottery faster than he is,

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because that's how karma works, right?

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Hi, everybody. I'm Lauren Howard.

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Welcome to Different, Not Broken —

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our podcast on exactly that.

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There are a lot of people in this world walking around feeling broken,

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

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I got a call — God, it was a couple weeks ago now —

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from one of those friends who doesn't really call.

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I don't have a lot of friends who call because ew.

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But this one in particular, if he's calling, there's a thing.

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Most people, I would probably just text and be like, in the middle of the...

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Mostly because I don't want to answer the phone.

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But him, he's calling, like, there's a thing. And so I answered.

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He's usually one of my emotional support humans.

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I don't usually serve as his emotional support human.

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That is not a complaint. I am happy to do it for him at any time.

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However, he does not tend to need me as an emotional support human.

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He has a very logical, very goal directed,

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very dark and twisted view on life, which I appreciate.

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And I could tell by his answer he just needed something.

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Something grander. Like, he needed something.

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So we start talking and he basically says...

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Business is really hard right now.

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Not hard because we don't have enough business — thankfully we do.

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I'm trying to run a business the way that I think businesses should be run

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and the way that they are not traditionally run, and it sucks.

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He had multiple people out at the same time

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for things that were completely out of their control.

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So he was doing a bunch of their work —

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and paying them to get to not do their work, which can be really hard.

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He really thought I was going to say, well, here are the five ways to handle that.

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And I was like, no, dude. This sucks.

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I don't have another way around it. It's hard.

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There are days when doing what's right by the humans in front of you is really hard

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because it's expensive and it's time consuming.

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And it puts a lot of work on, in essence, the boss.

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Because who else is going to pick up that slack?

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Sometimes it's a confluence of so many things at once that you feel like you're drowning.

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But if you're going to give the freedom and flexibility to your people,

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you have to give it to all of your people.

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And I was like... yeah. It sucks.

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I didn't have anything more intelligent to say.

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If this were the easy way to do business, everybody would do it that way.

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We know we're doing things the hard way. We know when we make this choice.

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You don't realize how hard it is until someone has been out of the office

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for week seven of what was supposed to be a one-week sick leave.

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And you're picking up the slack because you're not gonna go to this really sick person and say, I need you back.

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And you're not gonna replace them. You're not gonna fire them when they're dealing with this personal tragedy.

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So it just has to suck. And I wish there was a better answer, but there's just not.

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There are humans in front of you who need things.

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And sometimes those needs have to come before the other important business things.

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What I said to him is — this is temporary.

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Right now, while you're waiting for this person to come back from leave,

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it's really hard. There's no way around it.

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There are some states where the cost of leave doesn't fall on the employer

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because they have state-run programs.

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So nobody gets screwed. The business isn't getting screwed.

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The person isn't losing access to their funding. That's a win-win.

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And I reminded him — this part is temporary.

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It sucks. It's awful getting up and going into work

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when you know that you have to do the job of four people.

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But the long-term effect is that you're going to have loyal employees.

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Employees who pick up the slack for you when you can't pick it up for yourself.

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If this were easy, everybody would do it.

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If running your business this way were the cheap way to do it,

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every company would do it and you wouldn't be remarkable for doing it.

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And mind you — the stuff that he's doing is like the bare minimum for humanity.

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We're not talking about giving people five years of paid maternity leave.

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He's giving them the human responses that humans need.

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And that somehow has become wildly revolutionary.

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We're talking about a job that accommodates your humanity. Shocker.

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I promised him — when he got to the other side of it, there would be a reward there.

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I don't know when the other side is, and I don't know what the reward is.

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But it's there. I promise you it's there.

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He called me again maybe a week or two ago and he was like...

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All right, I gotta tell you something.

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And I was like, oh God, what did I do now?

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The person who was out on leave came back.

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The other person who had to take an unexpected leave

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is now my chief operating officer

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and is handling most of the day-to-day stuff.

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And I was like, so you got through the suck?

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And he was like, we got through the suck.

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And I was like, and it was really hard and felt impossible.

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And it was really hard and felt impossible.

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And I was like, and now you see why you do it.

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And he was like, I see it.

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Like, I did make some policy changes.

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I sprung for a disability policy that we didn't have before —

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it's expensive out of pocket, but cheap at the price if somebody needs it.

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I see it now. I see it.

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And this is not at all about being right.

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But this is one of the things that I talk about all the time.

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Most of what I do is not proprietary.

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We need more people in the world doing good work, not less.

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You're never gonna be in a situation where you do something really cool or kind or compassionate

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and then the next day win the lottery. That's not how it works.

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But you will do all of those little tiny pockets.

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There's not a road sign that says "other side."

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You just get there when you get there.

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We had an employee who was gone with very little contact for a really long time.

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Business says the right thing to do was to put her on documentation.

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I was not going to bother this person when I knew she was going through

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maybe the hardest things she had ever been through in her life.

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Our HR person asked if she should keep running payroll for her.

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And I was like, yep. But she's not working. I know.

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There's always a part in the back of your brain going —

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you know, this is not how you're supposed to do things.

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Well, this is how I choose to run my business. So shove it, boys in the back of my head.

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The only communication she got from me during that time period

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was just — don't worry about your job. It'll be here when you get back.

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When she did call me, she told me the whole depth of it.

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Basically they thought it was a stomachache.

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And it turned out to be very much not a stomachache.

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I asked her for her address and I sent her fuzzy socks and a blanket

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and one of those hospital-type tables that raise up and down and slide over your bed.

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I don't care how old you are, everybody should have one. They're amazing. I have one.

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She finally came back to work, I want to say, like six or seven weeks later.

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And I said, I don't want you to come back on my account.

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You come back when you're ready.

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Meanwhile, I'll be very honest, I was drowning in her work

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because we only have one of her, and the only person who does what she does is me.

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She wants to be working. So I just set the expectation.

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Tell me what you need. We'll be here when you need it.

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When she called me and told me about this really horrible situation she was in —

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we're in the US, so obviously my first thought was,

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oh my God, what are those medical bills gonna be? That's gonna be awful for her.

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And then I had this flashback to a decision I made almost two years ago —

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where I purchased insurance for our company that we pay 100% on.

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It was three times as expensive as what we were told to buy for our size.

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And I just went — I can't give people startup chaos AND a $5,000 deductible.

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I just can't do both.

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A friend said to me: doing the right thing for your people

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is never the irresponsible decision.

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And I was like, oh yeah. It's true.

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But it has been hard every month to look at that bill.

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Flash forward just over a year.

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That's why we paid for the health insurance coverage.

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Because everything she was going through is covered.

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All of her doctors were in network.

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Her out-of-pocket was very minimal compared to other people

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who have gone through the same therapies.

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And I went — oh, this is why we do it. Right here. This is why we do it.

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Then moment two: she called me again — not a person who calls me very often.

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She said...

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I just left the doctor and all of the treatments are working.

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The fact that I had immediate access to this care —

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the fact that my treatment wasn't delayed — is probably why

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I'm having such a fantastic response.

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And I was like, oh, that's why.

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Right there. That's why. Got it.

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Because this has been hard as... well, you know.

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But that's why.

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Last Christmas, I opened the front door to this giant box.

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And the note basically said — I wouldn't have been able to get through

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what the last year looked like if you hadn't been so supportive. Thank you so much.

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There was a mug that said Chaos Coordinator.

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And I was like — oh, that's me. That's what I do.

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That was not immediate, right?

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I didn't say, take the time, take as much time as you need,

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and then immediately get a million dollars for being a nice person.

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We went through a whole ton of suck to get there. But a human has her health because of it.

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In his case, it led to promotions and expansions and more hiring

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because he got through the suck.

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But that doesn't mean it's easy.

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It doesn't mean that we wake up and we're immediately edified by our choices.

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In fact, you curse your own name a lot when you're looking at the bank balance going,

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why did I spend so much on my employees? This is awful.

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But you find out why. Life shows you why in lots of different ways.

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And in both his case and my case, life showed us why.

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Yes, it sucks. And doing the right thing is hard.

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Doing the right things by humans is atrociously bad so often.

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And is still the thing to do.

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That is probably not going to be tomorrow.

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But you'll get there. You sometimes have to hold your breath and get through it.

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Don't hold your breath too long. 'Cause then I'll have to call the ambulance for you.

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I have a couple of control issues.

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And I want to control the stuff out of these situations.

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But there is no tree. There is just time and universal balance.

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And you'll get there someday. But I can't tell you when.

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So sorry. Not sorry. But also sorry.

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

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We have a question from Becca in Asheville, North Carolina.

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I keep replaying conversations in my head long after they're over —

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not just awkward ones, but normal ones too.

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Is that anxiety, rumination, or just my brain refusing to shut up?

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And how do you get it to stop at 2am?

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As somebody who has done a million mental health intakes in my career —

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racing thoughts at 2am: you should go talk to somebody.

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That's a sign of a lot of things. But if that's the way you're feeling at 2am,

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it might be time to talk to somebody.

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That said, I replay conversations in my head constantly.

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And I'm usually pretty good on my feet.

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But there are still some aspects of the social experience that just totally flew by me.

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I sense manipulation really fast. That gets my spidey senses tingling.

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But there are other more subtle things — like somebody asking for something

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without asking for it — that I will totally miss.

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I tend to take things at face value maybe more than I should.

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Because I just don't want to do the work to figure out what the underlying thing is.

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I don't know if we ever stop torturing ourselves about the way things happened.

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I do think as you get older, you care less.

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I had to make a choice at some point that if somebody wasn't going to tell me what they actually wanted,

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that's probably not a person I'm going to communicate with well.

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In general, you have to take people by what they say.

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Assume that what they said is correct unless they tell you otherwise.

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You do get to a point where you're like — I do not have the energy

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to dissect this thing 700,000 times.

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If somebody needs something or wants something from me, they'll tell me.

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But if the dissecting things in the middle of the night is actually keeping you from sleeping —

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that's a different conversation. And one you should talk to a clinician about.

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

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Oh God. That was way longer than I meant it to be.

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That was supposed to be like a five-minute one. Oh well, Sam.