Why Young Adults Are More Stuck Than Ever (Joanna Lilley)

[Dana] (00:02)
Welcome friends, whether you’re out on a walk, running errands, or relaxing at home, it’s wonderful to connect with you. Joining us today is Joanna Lilley. Since 2016, Lilley Consulting has been helping young adults, basically 18-plus, find mental health, substance use, and wellness resources. Joanna dedicates herself to working solely with emerging adults, I like that phrase, who unravel in college or aren’t thriving in adulthood. Joanna, welcome to Phoenix and Flame!

[Joanna] (00:47)
Thanks for having me.

[Dana] (00:49)
This is going to be fun. Now, Joanna, you also have your own podcast called Success Is Subjective. That sounds very interesting, and we can maybe even chat about that before the end of the episode. I’m wondering, first of all, what interested you, because you have a master’s in counseling, we both have that, we’re

[Dana] (01:19)
psychotherapists, we’re reaching out, counseling. What interested you in that area to begin with? Why counseling, why that? You could have picked anything, I imagine you going into college with all these choices, and most of us have some interesting backgrounds, some interesting stories as to why we choose what we choose. I’m wondering, out of curiosity, why that for you, Lilley?

[Joanna] (01:48)
Yeah, well, the short of it was, I spent about five years after undergrad working jobs. I have wanderlust, so I was popping around doing all these seasonal gigs, and I loved it, exploring new places and people and environments, checking off new visits to new states off my bucket list. And I honestly got pretty burnt out. After about five years, what felt like running and gunning, by the time I started a job I was already having to look at, well, what comes next, where am I going to go? So I was applying for jobs all the time. My own anxiety about, what is my path, where am I headed, felt very overwhelming. So my anxiety was really high, and naturally I wanted to go back to college, because what structure or consistency exists — I have not had that for five years, I need to rein it back in, but I need to have an advanced degree. And the one thing I kept being drawn towards during those five years was working in some sort of, it was either a therapeutic environment, or the experiences based on the program or job were inherently therapeutic, meaning it was just a healing space or activity. So I felt like the one thing I was being called towards was counseling — that’s the next step, I don’t want to be frontline behavioral staff forever. So I did that, and looked at a bunch of different grad schools, but the one thing I ended up being drawn towards was, I was going to have to pay for it. So in addition to looking for the advanced degree, I had to find the program that’s not just going to let me be a student, but actually pay additionally, so I could pay for myself while I’m a full-time student. So I ended up going to West Virginia University, where I had a graduate assistantship that afforded me two years of a graduate degree for less than $5,000.

[Dana] (04:00)
Nice, nice. I heard a word in there, anxiety, when you were running and gunning, running around. And I love that you’re focused now on what was the term, emerging adults, it’s a thing. So many things are coming to mind and we’ll get into some of those questions, but

[Dana] (04:30)
I know as well as you do that when you go into a program like that, grad program, and then come out and start working with different populations, in the beginning they have you exposed to quite a few different populations. What drew you to what you’re calling the emerging adults? Why that group? What was the appeal?

[Joanna] (04:54)
Well, it’s funny, because up until I went back to grad school, or returned to school in general, I had only ever worked with children and adolescents, or in those settings, or ironically even some peppered older adult professionals. So I had skipped working with emerging adults. Then when I returned to grad school, at that point, these are young people at least a decade behind me in their beginning undergraduate experience, and I had this — it was truly like a light bulb going off for me. Oh my goodness, this is a different beast of a world experience for this crew right behind me. And I was excited, there was just a lot more awareness around it, and I was like, developmentally these are still very much like working with adolescents, but they’re adults legally. They can make decisions that end up impacting them without their parents’ input. So it felt like this very impressionable age group that was on one hand really vulnerable, and on the other really hungry and curious to lean into adulting. And I just totally locked in. I love this age group because of the true separation, the start of that individuation from their parents to become their own person. I wanted to be a little blip on that journey for them, as they’re figuring out who am I, what do I want to do, and how can I live in this world.

[Dana] (06:42)
Wow, and these questions, these existential questions, they’ve always been rough, but honestly, I’ve been on podcasts where they had multiple generations representing different views, and it was interesting. It seems like in generations past, and I can speak to this because I’m Gen X, our choices were more limited. So we had the existential questions but it was also like, well, this is what you’re going to do, you don’t have to think about this and that, because this is what you’re going to go do. It seems like younger generations are presented with so many more questions, that what I’m hearing from them is not only anxiety, but frustration with

[Dana] (07:40)
the state of the world, this huge emergence of social media and its impact on emerging adults, their frustration with the economy, with how things are going, and expectations older generations have, and labeling, this type of thing. I’ve heard so many stories.

[Dana] (08:09)
I’m kind of wondering what stories you’ve heard from emerging adults about what they’re struggling with, because I’m imagining there might be some listening or watching now thinking, this is it, what is she going to say, speak to me about these real issues.

[Joanna] (08:24)
Yeah, well, a lot of what you just rattled off really is front and center right in this moment. We have a lot of young people who are honestly reassessing, why am I in college, or reflecting back, hey, I just got this degree, but I am having a nightmare of a time getting a job, even a foot in the door in whatever field, casting a wider net, literally applying to hundreds of jobs and getting very little response, let alone interviews. It’s really disheartening. Just a quick step back to what you were talking about, generational differences — back in the day we used to have the midlife crisis, because you got a job, you had a family, the typical societal expectations placed on previous generations, these are the things you’re supposed to do. And then all of a sudden you worked a job for 30 years, retired, maybe in your 50s or early 60s, and then, what am I doing with my life now, because of the state of the economy, access to technology, seeing the hundreds of thousands of types of jobs that exist rather than the tiny lens we thought was here’s these ten career paths, pick one and run with it. The overwhelm exists because there’s too many options.

[Joanna] (10:11)
What I’m specifically seeing with a lot of young adults is not just the questioning, pushing back on the expectations of what am I supposed to be doing after high school, but also being flooded, honestly paralyzed by taking a step in any direction for fear of making the wrong decision. It’s almost like there’s too many options, I don’t know what to pick, and instead of picking one and potentially making a mistake, I’d rather just sit here and not pick anything. There’s a lot to unpack there, but there’s a stuckness that is existing and growing with emerging adults right now.

[Dana] (10:56)
Yeah, wow, so much there. I’m trying to figure out where to go, because I’ve been exposed to a lot of different conversations on podcasts about different generational viewpoints. There’s one vantage point where somebody would say, well, there’s an option to not make a choice, there’s an option not to do anything, because who’s paying the bills? I remember, back then, you just had to figure it out, because there was no one paying for everything. I think what was meant to be a comfort, a support structure, might have been kind of twisted and misconstrued, and now has created a scenario where some young emerging adults aren’t particularly pushed to make a choice because they don’t have to.

[Dana] (12:20)
They cannot make a choice and still have power, still have a place to stay, a car to drive, a phone to use, all these things someone else is paying for. There are pros and cons to that. What are your thoughts along those lines?

[Joanna] (12:35)
I’m going to get really dark real quick, because whoever’s listening, whether you’re a parent in this situation, or a young adult, regardless of the perspective — my biggest fear, the one thing I always talk about, is I could care less what’s playing out right now. What’s important to me is if there is any lost momentum.

[Joanna] (12:59)
It’s almost like being re-invited back into the womb, where all of a sudden everything is taken care of. It makes it much harder for a young adult to then put themselves out there. I’m not saying an 18 or 19-year-old, this will suddenly snowball into a big issue, but if you’ve got a 25, 26, 29-year-old in this situation, it’s going to feel impossible to take a step forward, to detach from parents, because there is such an attachment. Where I’m getting at when I say it’s dark, in the grand scheme of things — look, if that’s what you want to do as a parent or young adult, and you want to maintain generations living under one roof, culturally, depending on the situation, that actually is normal. Back in the day for the U.S. it was not, but we’re certainly shifting that way, a lot of it because of the dynamic for how young adults are now, and the economy. So we’re trying to accommodate. My biggest fear in all of this is: if something were to happen to you as a parent tomorrow, would your young adult be able to survive without you? If your answer is no, or I don’t know, then that to me is a warning sign that things need to be put in place so your young adult, regardless of whether they live under your roof, is able to take care of themselves. And that doesn’t just mean the tasks themselves, it also means having the critical thinking skills to identify what’s wrong, what the problem is that might be presented to them in the moment, who or what they need to ask for support, and then the ability to apply that advice or those directions. That collective sequence of skills is what makes it so anybody can push through. You can establish resilience, you can encounter adversity, because you will. But whether or not you’re actually going to make it through, that’s what matters. I’m no judge of whether or not young adults are living at home, in fact it’s increasingly more common for the clients I work with. My question is always to the parents: if anything were to happen to you, would your child be able to make it?

[Dana] (15:29)
That’s a really good question. Because of all these conversations running through my head right now, I promise I’m not schizophrenic — what are your words of wisdom for family scenarios? I know you work with families as well, I was reading that in your bio.

[Dana] (15:59)
When they’re concerned about mental health, let’s say the parents are concerned, but the emerging adult is also concerned about their own mental health, they might have crippling anxiety. There might be someone listening now who wants to launch out, start a career or find something to do, but they’re crippled with fear, anxiety,

[Dana] (16:27)
they may have depression that gets really dark at times, that they might be concerned about, and their parents might be concerned about, thinking, what if we set some kind of hard boundary and say, you’ve got to move along? And then in the back of their mind, what if we say that, or the young person saying, what if I do that, and then

[Dana] (16:57)
there’s suicidal ideation. I know families and young emerging adults struggle with that too. So what are your thoughts, what are your words for those individuals who might be listening now?

[Joanna] (17:06)
Yeah, I think the first thing that comes to my mind is, as a parent, it’s important to make sure you don’t let fear drive your parenting. What I heard you say is, I’m not going to hold a boundary or pressure my child to do something for fear that X or Y might happen. I don’t want to minimize suicide ideation, it’s so prevalent in this developmental age, it’s part of this identity formation, who am I, I’m running into moral dilemmas, I’m supposed to be separating from my parents, which means there’s a lot of pressure on myself, and we live in a world where we make mistakes, and unfortunately sometimes our emotion regulation takes us to a place where it might be easier to envision not being here and dealing with the repercussions. So I take that very seriously, I want any parent listening to please not minimize that. But if it’s also a fear you’re considering, but your child has never expressed it, don’t let that be what drives you to never hold a boundary or provide some sort of support. Because at the end of the day, what we’re really talking about is pushing the young adult out of the nest, but also identifying what skills or resources they need to be able to fly. For somebody with significant mental health issues holding them back, well, first and foremost, that’s very common — depression and anxiety in young adulthood is at its all-time high right now, so you’re not alone. The other piece is, it’s important to make sure your child is well-resourced. And this is where I’ll specifically emphasize, as a parent, the path to hell is paved with good intentions. You might want to be the therapist, the coach, the mentor to help your young adult do all these things. The best gift you can give them is somebody who is not familial or emotionally attached to them, so they can have an objective resource to help them work through that. Going back, if it’s mental health specific, the anxiety is making it so they can’t even follow through with anything, fear of leaving the house, obsessive or looped thoughts — there is expertise, professionals who can help rewire your child’s brain or thinking patterns to be able to execute their life differently. If they’re so depressed they’re having trouble getting out of bed, there is a combination of therapy and potentially medications. Not everybody, I’m just throwing that out as examples of resources that could be necessary. Even if you’re a psychiatrist as a parent, have a different psychiatrist work with your child. The best advice or support you can give them is to actually match them up with someone, or several things, that could help them initiate this forward momentum.

[Dana] (20:28)
I love that, such good, meaty, practical advice. I have several questions. One of them is for those emerging adults who feel that college just isn’t their thing.

[Dana] (20:53)
I’ve had conversations with some emerging adults, and they’re questioning this, because college does provide quite a bit of external structure. You have the semesters, the years, the classes, you’re going to read this book, take this test, write this paper. It gives you so much external structure that you don’t have to do a whole lot of decision making for a while, once you choose the path you want to

[Dana] (21:23)
go down, and you just do what they tell you for at least four years, maybe more. This is good and bad, pros and cons like everything, but there are some young people thinking, I don’t know about the debt I’m going to incur, I don’t know if this juice is worth the squeeze, I don’t even know what major I would choose, and then they’re left kind of

[Dana] (21:51)
flim-flam, not knowing what to do. Whereas when you’re 18, back in the day, I’m Gen X, it was strongly encouraged that we would go to college. There was a vocational path, but not many used it. So you went into college, and once you made that decision, a lot of your other decisions were made for you, like a domino effect.

[Dana] (22:22)
As you were learning and developing your emotional psyche, you just kind of followed the path of what they told you to do, what classes to attend. But now so many more people are opting out of that, and they’re left dangling. What has been your experience with emerging adults who are opting possibly not to go to college, and how are they handling the lack of external structure?

[Joanna] (22:40)
Yeah, that is ultimately the most important piece. One, just normalizing that if you don’t want to go to college, that’s actually okay, that’s a choice and you’ve got to make it. The one thing you’re going to miss out on, really, it’s less about the academics and more about the social experience, potentially living away from home. So how do we replicate that, where you have the opportunity to meet other people,

[Joanna] (23:16)
to still have the structure you’re talking about. My suggestion, first and foremost, is celebrate that you made that decision. Okay, cool, now we’re getting down to business, we say, well, what’s your plan instead? What do we need to do? If part of that is, I have no clue, then we take these micro steps, like, do you have an idea of what you want to pursue? And if the answer is no, I’m literally at a loss, then

[Joanna] (23:46)
there are plenty of holistic career assessments we can use as a potential starting point, to get curious about what interests the young adult, or what their values are related to how they envision their life, not even as an 18-year-old, but as a 25-year-old — what do you want your work-life balance to look like, what’s going to matter to you, time with family, paid time off, personal-professional boundaries, what matters the most. From there we use that as an opportunity to identify, can we find an internship, an apprenticeship. Going back to my own personal experience, there are seasonal jobs out there, you could be a camp counselor, go do something somewhere else, have a learned experience. Then let that be an opportunity to have additional doors open to you, based on the people you met, the experience you had in terms of employment or path of interest in general. Use that as an opportunity to continue to navigate where life leads you, because it could lead you to college eventually, or to, I want to live abroad, I’m going to be an au pair, the list goes on, there are plenty of options, including influencer, dare I say. So there are things young adults can do, but it requires putting together a schedule. Whatever it is that you’re doing, whether it’s working a job, interning, volunteering, treat it like it is a full-time job. If you’re not in college where you’d hypothetically be doing schoolwork for a collective of about 40 hours, what are you doing instead that’s filling your time about 40 hours a week? If you can’t figure it out, let’s start piecing stuff together to fill your time so you have that structure.

[Dana] (25:59)
Love it, I have more questions, we’re going to run — okay, we’ve got a few more minutes here. I’m going to lob these things out at you and let you sort them out and decide how you want to answer. One question is about the impact of gaming and

[Dana] (26:22)
how that seems to — I’m listening to you describe working a 40-hour week, and I can see an emerging adult agreeing with that concept, but also enjoying the socialization they’re getting from this very involved gaming community, sitting for very long periods of time playing games. Another question I had is, I’ve had emerging adults tell me, the thought of identifying a job and doing it for the next 30 years just feels cringy, they can’t even imagine that, and don’t know how to make that decision based on that. And I’m also thinking about moms I know who are somewhat codependent, enabling, with their adult children, they’ve done a lot for them, and for different reasons they’ve gained something from doing that, they’re kind of stuck in that pattern, and don’t know how to stop without feeling like they’re being unloving or hateful, not knowing how to break

[Dana] (27:48)
that pattern of doing and doing and doing, making the meals, bringing the meals, doing the laundry, doing all the things, because as a mom it’s what she’s always done. So how to not do that, that’s hard. So those are just several things.

[Joanna] (28:01)
Yeah, oh my gosh, three very adult questions, I will try to rapid-fire answer them quickly. From start to finish, gaming is definitely really prevalent. There’s a couple key points that are important for a parent to know — if you’re afraid your young adult doesn’t have a social life because they don’t have quote-unquote in-person friends, but they have friends online, don’t diminish that, that actually is a social connection and it’s important to maintain. Where it’s important to identify is that games are built to be addictive. So if you’re seeing this spiral or slippery slope of my child staying up all night gaming, know that it was literally designed to do just that. You’ve got to figure out ways to hold boundaries for your young adult, to say at certain times, either you’ve got to stop or there will be consequences. I’ll also say, as a sidebar, I am not a parent coach, but this is commonly seen or done for some of the families I work with: the young adult is required to work a job and contribute to the house if they’re living at home, whatever that rent or cost of food is. If they lose their job because they’re staying up gaming, the parents will need to have, if X happens then Y — those boundaries need to be in place and communicated clearly. Because the last thing you want is somebody who is literally doing nothing but gaming, because that goes back to the previous question: if something were to happen to you, would your kid be able to take care of themselves? The answer for somebody who is just gaming is no. That’s also the parent who’s making sure their kid is eating, going to the bathroom, doing their laundry, because that’s being done for them. So the first thing I’d actually recommend is, one, make a list as a parent, what are you doing, be self-aware for yourself, how much are you giving. Whatever it is you’re doing, we need to target some of those activities or tasks and start to peel back. That’s also in tandem with communicating to your child, hey, just heads up, I’m no longer going to be bringing you food to your bedroom, or, I’m not going to do your laundry anymore, it’s really important for you to learn how to do this. Being able to not just communicate that it’s going to change, but also make sure you’re there to help teach them, or identify who can teach them if you’re not the person to do it in this moment. Planting in that resource support. And then, if you’re having trouble as a parent peeling back some of these activities and you need more intensive support, there are great parent coaches out in the world, find your personality match and availability and have somebody teach you. It’s not just about parenting, it’s, what are boundaries, what are changes in communication, what’s developmentally appropriate for young adults, so you understand what it is you’re doing, what your child is doing, and work collaboratively to figure out how to support the individuation process rather than continue to fuel the codependency or dependency. Okay, that’s my blurb there. The last thing, careers — oh my gosh, nobody works one job nowadays. In fact I heard a wild statistic recently that young adults nowadays, I don’t know if this is the beginning of what Gen Z is seeing, but they’ll have nine careers, not jobs, careers. What that paints the picture of is, we’ve got people pursuing a particular path, and in however amount of time, deciding this is not for me, and then they shift, and it ends up looking like a complete diversion to a completely different field. I see people all the time who went off to college, maybe got a bachelor’s in business or something, even went through a grad program, worked in the business industry for a little bit, and by 25 they’re like, screw this, this is crushing my soul, I always wanted to be a florist. Okay, so pursue that. It’s one of these things where we’re trying to normalize that it’s okay to not know at 18 what you’re going to do the rest of your life, because nobody did. Even for people from previous generations, I’d say millennials and Gen X were definitely the ones that paved the path where it was okay to do something different, or to not do something for 30 years just because that’s what you were told you were supposed to do.

[Dana] (33:03)
Lovely. Now I know our time is up, but I cannot let this comment go by — if you’re talking about a job that is crushing your soul, and if whoever’s in a job feels like it’s sucking the soul out of them, then get out, go, leave. There’s also a flip side, where I run into situations where individuals are like, well, this isn’t very fun, I’d rather not get up at six in the morning, I’d rather sleep till ten, this isn’t very fun for me, so I think I’m just going to scoot on out. And then they end up job hopping around. If somebody’s like 18 or 19, like you said, they’re just babies, they just got out of high school. But if you’re

[Dana] (34:00)
24, 25, 26, in your later mid-to-late twenties, and you’re just hoppity hop, hoppity hop — so many jobs cannot be sucking your soul out, that doesn’t even compute. You’ve got to find that line between “this job is sucking my soul” versus “meh, I’m just not, this isn’t fun for me.”

[Joanna] (34:07)
No, no, yeah, yeah. I think what you’re describing is the difference between a true disconnect in terms of values — let’s go back to work-life balance. That feels sometimes tongue-in-cheek depending on the industry, but if what’s really important to you as a person is having downtime after work and spending time with family, and you’re working a job where you’re on call all the time and it’s constantly pulling you away, that builds where it really will crush your soul. What you’re describing as this other example is just somebody who has no distress tolerance, somebody who maybe doesn’t like being bored, and thus

[Joanna] (35:12)
their response is, I can’t figure this out for myself, I have to figure out how to push through the boredom. Or, I got into a conflict with my boss because they gave me constructive feedback and I’ve internalized that as, I’m a bad person, and now I’m embarrassed to go to work, I’m just not even going to show up, not even going to give my two weeks’ notice. That, to me, is a lack of skill building that’s necessary to show up in any relationship or situation as an adult. Because that feels like somebody who might be developmentally stuck, and potentially grew up in an environment where if they were ever bored it was taken care of, they never had to learn how to self-soothe, and maybe never had to lift a finger, we’ll take care of things for you. So now all of a sudden you have to do some of these mundane tasks, and it’s like, well, this sucks, I don’t want to do this, whether it’s showing up for work at 9am and being on time, or doing tasks assigned to you that you just don’t like because they’re not fun, quote-unquote. That’s the nature of work. Part of work is also finding the joy in the things you do, and with the people you do it with. But if you’re striving for a job that’s always fun and everybody’s hunky-dory all the time, your expectations are very unrealistic, and I hate to burst your bubble, but if you’re striving for that, you’re just striving to be disappointed all the time.

[Dana] (36:49)
Okay, so Joanna, I promise, but I still have one more comment. This is such a good conversation, so practical and useful, and it’s happening — because I’m the queen of boundaries and my passion is to support high performers to keep them from burning out, I’ve got a keynote, “Becoming the CEO of Your Mental Boardroom: Banishing Burnout with Boundaries.”

[Dana] (37:19)
But I’m exposed to a lot of corporate teams, corporate situations, C-suite managers and directors, and I’ve had some people tell me that boundaries, because of what’s happening now, have kind of a bad taste in their mouth. One guy gave me a really good example, he said, Dana, I had a woman working for me,

[Dana] (37:47)
a young woman working for me, and in most jobs you have the job description, but every once in a while you might have to do a little bit extra, not all the time, but every once in a while there might be a project, something happening, and you have to do a little extra, you’re a team player, right? And this particular young woman was like, no, I’m going to take this amount of calls during the day, and I’m setting my boundary, I’m not going to take any more calls than this during the day. So it’s like, I’m running into these conversations where you have sometimes an emerging adult trying to use that word boundary to find a comfortable space for themselves, and then they’re running into older-generation managers and directors needing them to step up to the plate every once in a while, and that word “boundaries” is getting thrown out, and leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths, and it sometimes seems to be misused by people who are maybe trying to avoid, like what you just said, maybe they don’t have the

[Dana] (39:03)
ability to handle discomfort or distress, and so they’re saying, that’s my boundary, that’s my boundary, I’m not going to do any more than that. So I’m very interested in your thoughts on that, and I promise I won’t say any more after this.

[Joanna] (39:09)
Well, I think, and even if you do, that’s okay. I think the important piece in all of this is it’s really clear to have the conversations when this employee is starting work, because as a supervisor or manager, you have to very clearly articulate, hey, here’s what’s on the job description, and here’s what will likely come up, and if you cannot do this, this is my expectation that you will show up — again, not always, but every once in a while you’ll see this — then you are not up for this job, I need a candidate that can lean in. It’s important to also know, hey, we do want to honor boundaries, because if you give everything to your employer, they will take everything. So boundaries are important, and vice versa, as a supervisor you also need to draw your own boundaries for where and when your employees can reach out to you, ask for help, how they show up. Making sure you’re communicating clearly, envisioning both sides of what’s important, and honoring their individual space, emotionally, physically, mentally, all of it, on both sides of the table. But also being able to, in the moment, communicate — if somebody says, oh, this is my boundary, you have to give constructive feedback in the moment, actually, this is not a boundary, this is avoidance, and question whether that particular employee is ready to do the work. This is where you say, hey, maybe this is an opportunity to identify or reassess whether this is a fit with this job, because I do need you to show up a little bit more,

[Joanna] (41:06)
because being kind of subpar in their showing up as an employee will just limp them along, never advances them, never challenges them. That’s what employees need to be able to do, we have to grow, and by growing we have to adjust our boundaries at certain times.

[Dana] (41:32)
I love it, this has been the greatest conversation, I promised I’d stop, I’m going to stop. But I want to make sure the listeners and viewers can get a hold of you, because I’m sure they’re thinking, oh my gosh, I love everything she has to say. I’m looking at the information you gave me, so where do you want them to go, LilleyConsulting.com?

[Joanna] (41:38)
Yep, that is the, it houses everything. I’ve written a ton of blogs, also the links for my podcast are there. So if anybody wants to listen to that as well, just go there, that’s the best way to find all the things.

[Dana] (42:10)
And that’s Lilley, L-I-L-L-E-Y, that’s going to be in the title and the show notes and everything. Joanna, this has been — I really didn’t know how this podcast would go, but I feel like we could probably talk easily 30 more minutes about things. Because the way I do Phoenix and Flame, it’s got to be real, I’m a rubber-meets-the-road kind of person, I don’t have a lot of interest in talking in the abstract and

[Dana] (42:36)
being all glass tower. No, we need to be real, because the people listening to Phoenix and Flame are struggling with these things, and I want what we share with them to be helpful, and you’ve offered so many practical tools, you understand what’s going on. Thank you for spending your time and giving us your expertise and insights on Phoenix and Flame, Joanna.

[Joanna] (42:41)
Yeah, thanks for having me.

[Dana] (43:07)
Oh guys, I know you’ve heard multiple things today and you’re thinking, woo, I know the exact person that needs to hear what Joanna has to say. Take this podcast episode, copy and paste the link, send it through text, send it through email, please post it on your favorite social media sites so we can grow our Phoenix and Flame community and let people know you are not alone. I hope your day is going great, I hope the rest of it is fantastic. I’m Dana, on Phoenix and Flame.