Lindsi Gish: Putting Meaning at the Center of Work and Life

For Lindsi Gish, the key to success is unlocking potential. Whether it’s creating moments of joy with her son, or helping shine light on the work of a non-profit through her agency, gish&co., Lindsi is focused on doing her part to make a difference in the world every day.
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Lindsi Gish

Owner, gish&co. 

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Highlights

Due to the massive expense of In Vitro Fertilization in the United States, Lindsi and her husband traveled to Barbados for IVF to conceive their baby boy, spending a month at a beach front VRBO getting treatments.

In stressful times, Lindsi tries to focus on what she can control, such as working to bring a moment of joy to her son every day.

She credits her success to teachers and bosses who saw talent in her and trusted her to rise to challenges, and she tries to do the same for others.

She founded gish&co. to use her talents to assist organizations that are doing good in the world, to help them accomplish their goals.

Transcript

Intro

IVAN STEGIC: Hi there! You’re listening to ONE OF 8 BILLION, a podcast about all of us! I’m your host, Ivan Stegic. This podcast is supported by TEN7, a technology studio whose mission is to Make Things That Matter. Online at ten7.com

We all have a story, don’t we? We’ve all had successes and failures, joy and disappointment, love and sadness. And yet, we’ve all made it to here… to right now! Our stories are one amongst eight billion others… eight billion other stories, each of them unique, each of them grand in their own way, and each of them a window into the humanity that connects us all. ONE OF 8 BILLION tells the life stories of people from around the world… let’s listen!

{Music}

Guest

Our story today is about Lindsi Gish, a digital and social media marketing expert who has forged her own path, using her talents to help nonprofits and small businesses through her company, Gish & Company.

Lindsi calls herself an “insatiable problem solver” a “jane of many trades” and a “self-aware extrovert.” She is also an inspiring leader who has made it a priority to find meaning in her work and in her life.

Interview

IVAN: Welcome to ONE OF 8 BILLION, would you please introduce yourself.

LINDSI GISH: I am Lindsi Gish. I try not to define myself by my career, but I'm a solopreneur, business owner for about eight years doing marketing and communications execution for cause based organizations, and that's my day to day. I'm a newish mom, my son is turning a year next week, which I have no idea how that happened. They tell you time goes quickly, but you don’t know.

My now I guess, is just trying to survive the soon to be post pandemic, I don't even know what we're calling the phase we're in anymore with a little one at home who is unprotected with extreme extraversion tendencies and having to moderate that behavior for the past couple of years trying to celebrate all the upcoming things that are happening, whether it's holidays, or a baby's birthday, everybody getting sick and causing exponential infections, and just all the existential dread that we're all dealing with right now.

But generally, happy, feel super lucky to have been secure for the past couple of years in my business and working with organizations doing really great work in the world and to have employed another human being with her own family and concerns and considerations during that time and have a great partner and a great family support system and all the things.

IVAN: Congratulations on your child, on your, I think you said son, right?

LINDSI: Son. Yes,

IVAN: Wow, that's awesome. It encapsulates the whole idea of the podcast, One of 8 Billion. For me, it makes me feel small and large at the same time, when I think about being one of this huge number of people. It makes me feel connected but also disconnected from everyone. Keeping in mind, you just had a baby, how does it make you feel? What thoughts come to mind when you think about being one and bringing one into a billion of us?

LINDSI: Yeah, that's so interesting. I had some of those exact same thoughts when I was thinking about our conversation this morning. Yeah, probably depends on the day of when I feel large or when I feel smaller, or what’s happening in the world. Right now, even just imposter syndrome joining your podcast, I'm like, Why do you want to talk to me? I'm like, not an interviewed Kenji Lopez-Alt, for God's sakes, why are you talking to me? But I have something to say. I can offer up something.

IVAN: Yeah, for sure.

LINDSI: And then I guess baby started as embryos. We did IVF in Barbados, which I'm happy to talk about if you want to, but I just think about he is this living, breathing creature with his own opinions and tendencies and preferences and demands. And he started in a petri dish and was frozen for six months, and now he's a person who's going to ideally outlive me, and we're making all these decisions right now about his future and his life, and should his face be on the internet? It is, buddy, I’m sorry in advance if that’s detrimental to your career [laughing] in the future, but we go to live right now.

So, I think for me, I feel sometimes small when I think about that. And then for him, I just go, who is he going to be in that massive sea of humanity? And what can we control? What can we plan for? What can we make sure to set him up with that will ensure the most happiness possible for him and make sure he's a good person? And as many of those 8 billion whatever 7.99 billion people that he intersects with in his life, that he's nice to them and helpful towards them, and hopefully falls in love with one of them, or a couple.

Yeah, I think having a kid just changes, I don't know. I always knew that I wanted to be a parent. And I knew that I didn't know what I didn't know, which was true. And there's so much about it that once they come, you're like, oh, yeah, I get it. I get how they say time flies. I get how they say, there's a nature versus nurture argument. I get how they say, your hearts walking outside your body. Like all the things. It's all true. It's all true.

IVAN: One of my prized possessions is a picture of my daughter when she was a blastocyst, before she was born. And so, I can totally identify with IVF and your experience and just being so connected to this other human that you don't really have any control of, actually you have no control over. But tell me about Barbados and IVF. What happened in Barbados?

LINDSI: So, we knew we had to do IVF. My husband had a failed vasectomy reversal. I'm sure he'll love me talking about that publicly. Not that we haven't told all of our friends on the internet, so it's fine. So, we knew we're going to need to do it because it's physically the only way we're going to be able to have a baby together. And we had a consult here in Minneapolis, and like anyone going through any fertility struggles, the costs are outrageous. It's absurd how much it costs.

And we're like, maybe there's a different, better way. Maybe we just bite the bullet. We didn't know what to do. So, on a whim, pretty much, my husband started researching just alternative approaches to doing it. And we knew you hear all the time about people going to Tijuana to get plastic surgery or to South America to get dental surgery. We were like, oh, yeah, IVF tourism is also a thing.

IVAN: I did not know that.

LINDSI: Yeah, oh, it's a whole thing. So, I think, the cheapest place in the world to do it is in the Czech Republic. So, Europe is bigger, but even certain places in Europe, like I think in the UK, it's still expensive so they all go elsewhere. But there are a few places, I think there's a place in Spain we were looking at, and they were all half the cost of doing it in the United States. So, lots of implications there.

For those who don't know how IVF goes, it's lots of drugs, you basically juice up your body to make it produce a lot of eggs before they take them out. So, there's testing and checking, doing blood tests throughout to see how your body's responding. All of that. Obviously, if you do that elsewhere, you’re not going to have a clinic nearby to be able to go in regularly to see how my body's responding to the whole process. So that was an implication. But then, I also thought, well, if we're going to go if we're going to travel to do this, they're probably going to do a fresh embryo transfer, not a frozen embryo transfer, if we're fortunate enough to get a blastocyst, obviously, and we're probably going to have to be there a while.

So, we're probably going to work while we're there. We're both self-employed, so we wanted to find somewhere closer in our time zone. And then it was like, I would rather be on the beach, then packing it around Europe, like as much as I would love to go to the Czech Republic, it’s not in Prague, it's in some small town. And I don't really want to be walk like doing tourism, I'd rather feel more like a vacation. So, I looked in the Caribbean.

Long story short, Barbados was the only kind of internationally accredited clinic in all of the Caribbean at that time. So, we did a consult and wound up doing it there. So, we got to go for almost a month. We stayed in a beautiful beach side VRBO for the entire time, two bedroom, my mom and stepdad came down for a little while too. The entire procedure, all of the drugs that entire trip, all of our flights, everything was still cheaper than doing one round of IVF at home.

IVAN: Wow.

LINDSI: Yeah, it was pretty epic.

IVAN: That sounds like an epic decision and an epic trip. And what a wonderful story for your son.

LINDSI: I know, and I can't buy him a made in the USA shirt, because he wasn't. That’s the only problem. Those cute made in Minnesota shirts at Bettina or whatever, can't do it, he wasn't made here. And then he was frozen, and we went back and had him here. And it just was like, how did this happen? It all feels like a dream in some ways.

IVAN: And what amazing beneficiaries of science and the scientific method and all of the wonderful technology and people that came before us, that built the knowledge base to do this. And it's actually a thing. I bet if 30 years ago you had said something like this to someone that you could fly to Barbados and do this, they would not have believed you.

LINDSI: Yeah, it feels pretty unreal. And I've read about a few people, I know there's a place in New York called CNY. I don't know what it stands for, but I think the doctor, the head of all of those fertility clinics started it because he really cared about it and really believes that it should be accessible to more people. And so, they pride themselves on being the least expensive in the country. I don't know how they do it.

But yeah, I think about all the people who have done all the incredible work to make it possible. The doctors and nurses who make it work today, but then also how, the entire way our healthcare structure is built and incentivized and everything else, still makes it really grossly inaccessible and profit laden and that feels really icky. So, I try to remember that I'm very fortunate to have been able to do it at all too.

IVAN: Where did life start for you? What in the world did that happen? Who was around you? We talked about your son's beginning. What about yours?

LINDSI: Yeah, not in Barbados. My parents were both from Minnesota. My dad is from northern Minnesota. My mom was from the suburbs of the Twin Cities. They met at a New Year's Eve party, and she left her shoes there, and he brought her shoes to her waitressing gig at Embers the next morning. Yeah, they're adorable. They were children when they had me and my stepchildren now are older than my parents were when they had me, so my proliferate age of dysmorphia, when I think about that.

So, they met, they got married, they had me, they only stayed married for a couple of years. They've been divorced since I was two. I guess coherent life narrative, they are not people who have ever been a unit even though I know they technically were before. So, I was born in Minneapolis. I have always lived nearby and went up north to Bemidji for college but came back down. I have always thought maybe I would move away at some point, but I just didn't.

I think I'm a pretty just Midwesterner at heart. I know what I have here, I've traveled enough to know that I really love it here. And also, just probably haven't ever been enough of a risk taker to just leave it all behind and move somewhere else. So yeah, I'm still here. We live in Richfield. We've been there for 13 years. My mom and dad both still live nearby, which is great. And yeah, I have step kids and aunts and uncles and cousins and lots of folks who are here in the Midwest.

IVAN: I lived there for 10 years.

LINDSI: I remember your mid-century modern house photos. Yeah. I love it actually. I bought my first house in Richfield when I was 23. I was a child. My friends rented from me for a while. We sold that a couple years ago and we were looking in South Minneapolis. I thought I wanted to be in walkable proximity to the lakes, who doesn't, and then I was like, for the house that you can get for the price that we wanted to pay, I was like, I don't want to have to duck to go up the stairs. And I don’t want my son's bedroom floor to be slanted.

I’m just not going to do it. And Richfield’s great. We have Minnesota's first Latina mayor, Maria represent, it's a great little town. We live four blocks from the Minneapolis border between all the freeways, easy access to everything. Aside from the plane noise, which is annoying until you have a baby and then it's really fun because he really likes to spot them in the sky. It turns out it's a great spot for us.

IVAN: I've always thought of Richfield as Minneapolis light.

LINDSI: It’s true. Although you know what it’s not? The coffee shop haven of the world. There are zero independent coffee shops in Richfield.

IVAN: Oh, is that right?

LINDSI: Yeah.

IVAN: I didn’t know that.

LINDSI: The only one that has local roots, which is great, but it’s also like a diner, deli situation, and it’s not just coffee, if they have coffee, but there isn't one. It's bizarre.

IVAN: Maybe that's another thing you could do as a solopreneur, start another company at the local coffee shop in Ridgefield?

LINDSI: I would have to learn how to use something beyond my Breville Barista Pro, whatever I have at home. Bambino Plus, that’s what it’s called. I probably would have to use something bigger and more substantial.

IVAN: Tell me about your earliest memory. Tell me about how you think you're creating those memories for your son right now.

LINDSI: That's deep. It's funny, I was just talking to a couple of my stepdaughters last night about memories. They have these really vivid memories of elementary school, and I was sitting there listening to them thinking, how do you remember that level of detail about the time in your life? I just do not at all.

The one that came to mind when you first asked the question was when I got my first dog, when I was five for my birthday. I'm sure it’s just a standout moment so that's why it sticks in my brain but backyard birthday parties, fluffy dogs running around, tiny bunch of little kids grabbing at it. That’s what I remember. I don't remember much else about it; besides it just was the best and I was so excited to have him.

IVAN: You remember a puppy. What kind of puppy was it?

LINDSI: He was a Lhasa Apso and poodle mix, and his life ended tragically actually which I will talk about if you want me to, but first create Louie’s memory, I saw this Tik Tok the other day. This guy’s speaking about the memories that we create for our kids and what you were saying about, we can't control anything. Really, like we think that we're controlling things and we can plan as much, I'm a control freak, and I'm pretty Type A and I'm a planner and I like to think that I can orchestrate a perfect future for him even though I know that's not true.

But his point in this Tik Tok was, you can control today. We spend all this time thinking at the meta level of how are we making sure our child has a happy life and a happy childhood? We're giving him a happy childhood every single day and every single day that we live ladders up to that childhood, those memories. So I try to be human. So, I get irritated or tired or stressed out or whatever.

But I try every day to remember that there are going to be things that are implanted in him that he maybe isn't super conscious of, but that are changing the way his rapidly evolving brain is structuring itself that if I can create some laughter, some fun, some silliness in every day, that's the best way I can guarantee that he has a happy childhood. Even though I can't control what the specific things are that he's going to remember, I can make sure to create as much happiness as I know how to each and every day today.

IVAN: Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up?

LINDSI: I always say I wanted to be a marine biologist until I realized I had to like biology.

IVAN: [laughing] We use biology as a verb. That's awesome.

LINDSI: Yeah, I just wanted to play with dolphins. Yeah, that's the one thing I can remember. I thought I wanted to be a teacher. That’s when I was little. When I got to college, I thought I wanted to open a magazine. And then I got older, and the internet became a thing, and I just knew that magazines are hard and you have to do a lot of sales and running a business is not all like beautiful advertising and writing articles about your favorite lipstick shade or whatever. So, I think it was marine biologist, teacher, magazine editor or founder. So probably yeah, those are probably the primary three that I can think of.

IVAN: Did you have that idea about being a magazine editor at Bemidji? That's where you went to school?

LINDSI: I did. Yeah. So I was a BFA student in creative and professional writing. Mostly, honestly, I was a lazy student. I've always been naturally smart. I'm not a valedictorian level person, but I haven't been someone who has to study really hard to do decent in school. I also knew in high school that I was never going to go to a college that needed me to have a 34 on my ACT and a 4.0.

I was like, I'm just going to get out of school, and I want to start working, learn better by doing than I do by listening to lectures and such. Anyway, so I went to college, I had a writing major, mostly because I was like, I'm good at this and I can probably get done with school, fairly easily, learn some stuff, sort of bolster my skills that I've had since elementary school and then see what to do with it.

So, part of it was probably a result of my just going like, besides every job you write in, what does a writer do? What type of job does a writer have? And so, I think magazine was the obvious version of that, without my understanding of business. Neither of my parents were businesspeople, neither of them went to college. My dad was a barber for 40 years. My mom's a really talented graphic designer, but mostly self-taught. She took some kind of professional ed classes when she was an adult. But I didn't really have an understanding of the business world. So, it was probably my limited exposure to some extent, just knowing that it included writing.

IVAN: And as you got out of school and started in the business world, and started having a regular job and started participating in the economy, did you ever have a memorable boss or a leader that sticks out in your mind that you learned from?

LINDSI: Yeah, My primary experience with my bosses has been that they have recognized inherent talent and potential in me and supported me in the ways that I needed to be supported. So I don't think any of them have necessarily been like that's what I want to be when I grow up, and I want to learn from them and learn these particular skills from them. It's been more like they see in me some potential things and they're able to put up bumpers for me and give me opportunities and go to bat for me when necessary, and that kind of thing.

So there's two; one was my first big girl job out of college, at a small IT reseller, and his name was Cory. He was always coming up with harebrained ideas of new things we could try with marketing. And so, I was doing design, I was doing writing. He taught me some early SEO and HTML stuff. I was doing Constant Contact back in the day, I was going to trade shows, I was doing lead gen. Anything that you could call marketing, that would have been 2006, he’d let me try all of it and let me test out my skills.

So he was always really great and an advocate and helped me see beyond maybe what my education said I could do or my specific experience that I could do. There's a networking group in town called Social Media breakfast, he knew about that when it first started and encouraged me to go. I'm on the board of a tech organization called Minnestar now. I went to the first mini bar, which is their annual unconference way back then, it was the second mini bar ever, I think, and now care about that organization, obviously, to this day.

So he, I feel like, really opened my eyes to the broader community and gave me some good visibility and insights into maybe what I could be or some things that I could try. And the next person was at the next job I had at a nonprofit in town. And I got that job in part because of the skills Cory helped me figure out and really, that was early social media. That was, I would say, it was like the year Twitter was announced at South by Southwest -- this is available to the public now -- people were like, what's a tweet? And I got hired by the nonprofit, and it handed me the keys to the entire digital kingdom and said, “Can you please go run all the things,” and I was like, 23, 24, I was a baby. I don't know. I would never hand a 23 year old the keys to the whole kingdom now but thankfully I was a responsible young person.

And so yeah, I learned a ton there. And the boss that I had there, she didn't really understand anything about what I was doing, but she had worked at enough agencies and had enough experience in the function that we were running to recognize my talent and capabilities. And so, anytime that I needed her to go to bat for me, whether it was for a raise or a promotion, she created a new position for me so that I could manage my first person, have my own team for the first time, that was really wonderful, too. So yeah, I think my experience has mostly been folks who support me, see me, see potential in me, sometimes I don't even see in myself and then help unlock doors. So I've tried to do that for other people, too.

IVAN: Do you still keep in touch with those two people? What is Cory doing these days?

LINDSI: Cory, stayed at that organization for a really long time. I think he took a sabbatical and now I think he's doing recruiting, which is interesting. I probably talk to him once a year and it's never super substantial but talk to him enough that he came to my wedding reception, and we have a few mutual friends. We run into each other every once in a while. And the other one, unfortunately, she moved away, she went through some family stuff. I think we're Instagram friends, kind of tangential, but no substantive relationships with them. Now I feel like I probably should reach out to them after this. [laughing]

IVAN: What has been your greatest struggle in life?

LINDSI: These are so meta. I need to have a glass of wine next time we do this.

IVAN: That’s actually a good idea we should recommend to any subsequent guests.

LINDSI: Yeah, I think I would divulge a lot more. So that would probably help your audience. My greatest struggle in life. I don't know that I have a great answer to this question. It might be, I'm a people pleaser, and not to the extent that I sacrifice all of my own happiness, but it makes me deeply uncomfortable to make other people uncomfortable. I will yell at my husband if I think he's taking too long to order something at a restaurant when I can tell that the waiter is busy and needs to move on. If I accidentally budge in line at a store or for a ride or whatever, I'm mortified by it.

And I think that also colors the way I make decisions about everything, that's working to impress other people or make sure that I'm perceived a certain way. In my Strengthsfinder, I have a strength that I don't consider a strength and I know that's the opposite of what you're supposed to do with Strengthsfinder [laughing], but it's called significance. And that's what it is. You are good at being significant, being respected whatever in other people's eyes and it's hard for me to even talk about it in that way. Because really what it feels like to me is just proof of external validation is critical to me, and that feels like a weakness.

And it feels like it affects the way I dress, the decor that I put in my house, the way that I dress my son, the things that I do or don't post on the internet. My husband and I have a fairly significant age gap, and I think based on some of our conversations that some of that goes away with time and age and so I hope that's true.

IVAN: It is true. I can confirm.

LINDSI: Okay. Good. But he's also been, it's what he says, anyway, a more intrinsically motivated person than I have been. And so, I try to think about ways too that I can find some of that within. But I would say that's underpinning that affects lots of different components of life and decision-making processes and literal budgets and changes. I don't know what I like, all the time, because I'm too busy paying attention to what other people think I should be doing. Changes my career decisions, sort of everything.

IVAN: Do you know where you are on the disc analysis by any chance?

LINDSI: No.

IVAN: Disc analysis is great.

LINDSI: Okay, I need to do it.

IVAN: Yeah. Yes, The five behaviors of a successful team. We've done disc analyses for all of our employees, and it really helps knowing where other people are on the disc, and what their needs are and how you can address them as a leader, how you can address them as a team member. And then it's also fun to guess your disc analysis for your clients so that you can better service them and what their needs are. And I bet you would have some further insight if you were to do that.

LINDSI: I need to do that. I'll Google it after we get done.

IVAN: Tell me about what inspires you in the work you do today.

LINDSI: So, I spent about five years at Seven Harvest Orlando Regional Food Bank hunger relief organization, and I went to a PR firm for a hot 10 months after that, and just realized, I both wanted to do things that I cared about and believed in. And I wanted to do things efficiently, which is cheaper than a larger agency could maybe do. And I wanted to have some control over my destiny.

So, I always say that we work with people we really like on causes that we believe in, and the ideal case is both of those things are true, but if one of them isn't true at all, we won't do it. I wouldn't work with someone really interesting who was selling cigarettes. And I wouldn't work for a bad person running a really cool nonprofit. So, I love when other people love the thing that they're doing.

We still have a lot of hunger relief clients, whether it's that or we work with a couple of folks who are doing working on toxic sports culture at the national level, and it's funded by the NFL, they're super passionate, and working with people who find a lot of identity and community and sports and if that's an unhealthy experience, that's bad for a lot of reasons. And so, I love helping people who are deeply passionate about and interested in the thing that they're working on and just freeing them up to do their work and focus on the things that they want to be focusing on and not on the things that are running social media or running email or website content, technical updates, whatever it is alleviating them from all of that.

I just actually had a call this morning with a really interesting new client. This woman has been running her nonprofit for years, I think, maybe for 15, 20 years and she's just as passionate today as she ever has been. And I am such a distracted cat I can't even imagine doing something for 20 years. But she cares about it just as much today as she did when she first started. And I just love working with people like that. I'm so inspired by them.

IVAN: It sounds like you care a fair amount about your company and your clients. So, I would find it hard to believe that you couldn't do this for many years to come.

LINDSI: But part of what's built in is that I get to change clients. So, we have some clients we've worked with for five years and such, but we get to change up the subject matter of the thing that we're working on. So, it's not always the same thing every day all the time. Although the functional parts of what we're doing are the same. But the topics are different. The people are different. The channels are different. So that's probably true.

IVAN: What's the best part of your job?

LINDSI: I work to live, don't live to work. That's cheesy but it's true. I wanted to build a thing that could pay me and my employee and any contractors we have a decent wage, and we can have some balance in our life, and we can take off days with our families and just live a balanced existence and not have to report back to anyone, I guess. I don't have any bosses, but I have lots of bosses because I have lots of clients. But I think that's what it is just really, I feel like I've designed a life, designed a work process, designed a business that allows me to live the type of life that I want to live.

IVAN: Sounds like you're living the dream.

LINDSI: That is generous. Thank you. Yeah. I have my moments of existential crises where I'm like, “Everyone's going to fire us, we're imposters. Why do we think we're doing this work? And we better just close it all up, and I'm going to go get a job.”

IVAN: We’re our own harshest critics, aren't we?

LINDSI: Absolutely. And they say you have to have a certain level of emotional intelligence to even have imposter syndrome in the first place. Because you have to know how brilliant other people are, too. So hopefully that means I'm at least aware enough that I will be able to see it coming when and if I need to close up shop and go get a job.

IVAN: I hope you don't close up shop and [laughing] get a job. You have so much positive life force and you're doing such great work that it would be a shame to see Gish & Co go.

LINDSI: Thank you. That's very nice of you to say. Thank you.

IVAN: Before we wrap up, I would love to hear if you're reading or watching anything that's inspiring, or that's currently on your plate that you're thinking about.

LINDSI: I’ve been telling you all my deepest, darkest secrets on a public podcast.

IVAN: Yes. Yes.

LINDSI: I watch the trashiest garbage TV. I watch junk. I watch Love Island, not the U.S. one, but I watch UK and Australia.

IVAN: [laughing] The UK one.

LINDSI: Yeah, it's brilliant. I watch The Bachelor/Bachelorette, which is right now in Minneapolis, which is super fun. I watch Bachelor in Paradise. I watch junk. I watch terrible Netflix shows. I can't even remember the names of some of them, that are just terrible acting and nothingness at my face. I did just watch Squid Game, which is the opposite of the answer to your question that is not inspiring.

But no, and honestly what I listen to is probably primarily news podcasts. And I still listen to a podcast about IVF that I've been listening to since before we did it, and they don't even really talk about IVF anymore, but that was the initial premise. Truly, my baby goes down to sleep at 6:30 or 7:00. I think I have all these grand ideas of things that I'm going to accomplish and get done after he goes to bed, and I usually sit down and watch two and a half hours of Love Island while I answer work emails. Then I go to sleep, and I do it again the next day. And it's all temporary. I will get out of this at some point. I will read books again. I will start watching documentaries again, not that I ever did a ton of that. But right now, I'm just surviving each and every day. And that's okay, I gotta give myself a little grace.

IVAN: Absolutely. And you'll remember these times years from now as just memorable. And remember when we used to watch Love Island, UK? It will be an awesome thing you can talk about.

LINDSI: Sure. Or at least I'll know that I did everything that I could to take care of myself so that I could be physically present and awake. At least I know that I did everything and took care of myself so that I could be present with my son, with my husband as much as possible during our waking hours. And during the non-waking hours, I can just veg out and that's okay too.

IVAN: Of course. Thank you for spending your time with me today. Lindsi. It’s been really awesome talking to you, finding about your life story, your arc and all the things that you've done in the last couple of decades, shall we say.

LINDSI: Thank you. It's an honor to have been invited. I appreciate it.

IVAN: Of course. And it’s so great that you had a baby boy. Awesome. I’m just so excited.

LINDSI: Thank you. It's very fun. I wish we could show pictures on a podcast cause he's really cute. You'd probably get like a million followers just from my baby's face showing up.

IVAN: We will link to your profile picture somewhere and I'm sure that will be a great side effect.

LINDSI: There you go.

IVAN: That's great.

Preview

IVAN: I hope you’ll join us in the next episode of ONE OF 8 BILLION… when we hear from meteorologist, explorer and educator Sven Sundgaard:

SVEN SUNDGAARD: We're a species on the planet so whatever we do is also a natural part of what happens on the planet. But I don't want to be personally responsible for this mass extinction crisis that we're in, and I think most people think the same.

I think our children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, whatever, are going to look back shamefully the last few decades. We wasted so much time, so we are in the situation where we have to do big drastic things quickly, where we could have started tackling this when the scientists said we needed to.

Outro

This has been ONE OF 8 BILLION, a podcast about all of us... online at 1of8b.com. Join us again next time as we listen to one of eight billion other stories!

ONE OF 8 BILLION is supported by TEN7, a technology studio whose mission is to Make Things That Matter. Find out more at ten7.com. I’m Ivan Stegic. Thank you for listening.

Credits

This is episode 130 of ONE OF 8 BILLION. It was recorded on November 17, 2021 and first published on March 30, 2022. Audio length is 36 minutes. Transcription by Roxanne Chumacas. Summary, highlights and editing by Brian Lucas. Music by Lexfunk. Produced by Jonathan Freed.

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