MVPs & Mindfulness on Election Day 2020

we have a very contextually relevant show today, Alexa. Christian Tom is in the Atlantia House with us today. He came off the campaign trail with Biden. He's the head of Digital Partnerships for Biden for President. Amazing conversation with him in a crazy crazy time on a crazy crazy day. And so we also paired Christian in with Kristin Mitchell.

So Kristin Mitchell is founder of Nourish the People. We're gonna be hanging with Kristen on the back half of this episode to talk about her experience and working with executives in the advertising marketing media space who are working under tight timelines and talking about what it means to take a break, to take a pause to look inward and really create boundaries and space to really focus on

our mental health and well being. And so with that, I hope everybody has the opportunity wherever you are listening to Atlantia today to join us and taking a collective breath as an ad community. On election day. We'll be right back and we're back in the studio with Christian Tom, head of Digital Partnerships for Biden for President. Christian, welcome to at Landia. Welcome, Thank you so much for having me. It's so we are so excited that you said yes,

I will do a few minutes with you. Guys hot from the campaign trail, and we want to get a hot take from you on what's happening. So we're recording this a week before the election. And Christian, when we were talking earlier, you were saying, yes, obviously the elections the major deadline, but in the media and campaign world, there's another major deadline happening tonight. Can you tell us

what that is? Yeah, So for this audience, it will be something that probably is closer to people's hearts or something that that maybe is more interesting. We're eight days out from election day and tonight at midnight. We actually do have a big advertising and digital advertising deadline. Anything that's political in nature needs to go into Facebook and

be approved by midnight tonight. Facebook is not disallowing ads running up to election day, but they aren't allowing any new pieces of creative which adds an interesting, uh challenge for people who are running again as you can imagine huge numbers of add ad units and add groups at scale. Um, this is the this is the last chance to get stuff in I mean for fresh messaging. That's a real

challenge totally. I mean yeah, it absolutely is. And and Facebook is allowing and again they obviously owned um, Instagram, so on Facebook and Instagram, we and all all political campaigns can continue to put out organic messaging with fresh creative and messaging through election day and beyond. But the paid boosting uh component, Yeah, it's um, this is the

this is the deadline tonight. And anyone in the media side of the world understands it like paid is the game, right, Paid is the game for any brand anybody who have this conversation internally my company, Paid is the game. So it poses like big challenges and I think that this is the ongoing conversation way past the election that we're

all going to have to have. UM so interested to have you come back post election uh and talk about that and talk about what you're seeing in terms of even kind of broader impact of of a decision like that, if you would be amazing, I would love to. Yeah. Prior to joining the Biden for President campaign, you were working in a sales and partnership's capacity with Group nine. Can you talk to us about your decision to move

from working in advertising sales over to a political campaign. Yeah. So. My my background most directly right is having spent five years at now This, which was in kind of our start up phase, and and the Dono, which together joined up to create Group nine with a bunch of other media properties. So I was on the publisher side, and before that I was at the platforms. I worked at

Twitter for four years. UM was one of the first kind of handful of employees at Twitter in the New York office, And I worked at Google on YouTube before that. So for me, the interesting kind of intersection was always UM uh video and social platforms UH, and then and

then Group nine. Being a publisher who has really been some of the leaders about thinking about UM publishing in a digital and social first way to come to a campaign where there are, um not always a lot of people who come from industry, meaning who have a background similar to what I've described. There are a few people who've worked at other big publishing companies and or platforms, etcetera. But a lot of people, and I think this is true in most industries, come from the industry. These are

people who maybe serial agency people or serial entrepreneurs. I think a lot of the people who are my colleagues now are serial campaign people. This is what they do, um, and they know the political world inside out. Um. And I think what is nice is I hope what I bring is a little bit of it. Therefore, an outside perspective, meaning outside of politics, but a media industry first perspective.

So was there a moment, Christian and where you decided to say, I'm going to get into the political marketing arena and bring this perspective over to the campaign. Yeah, I mean I I was motivated enormously by, uh, the motivation I think a lot of people have, which is to get Donald Trump out of office. Um. For me, this has actually always been a bit more than merely I think Donald Trump is a terrible president and a bad person actually at his at his core um, which

I do think, um. It is to me this has always been also affirmatively the respect I've had for Joe Biden as a public servant um and as someone who at his core isn't fundamentally decent human um. And I've always admired him in politics. So the opportunity as the field, meaning the Democratic primary winnowed um was one that I couldn't pass up. And this is, I think, as Joe Biden has said, truly a battle for the soul of our nation. This is a referendum on who we are

as Americans. And maybe that's you know, me bighest working on the Biden campaign, coming with somewhat kind of like flowery language, but I sincerely deeply believe that um. And so it's an honor, And it was something that I've always had a great interest in terms of politics and leveraging some of the skills that I can bring to

any organization, uh and and doing it here. How did you kind of take your experience working in the marketing media industry and translate it into really creating great digital partnerships,

which is your role at the Biden campaign. Well, I guess for for me, I got introduced to Rob Flaherty, who runs all the digital efforts here at the at the Biden campaign UM, and as he was building out this team, because this was when I started at the campaign JEW which feels like simultaneously super recent but also a lifetime ago. Uh. And we were talking earlier, just as we were getting set up about how this is a uh seven job and and so it's been like

a lifetime of of work experience. UM. But I got introduced to Rob, and the idea of a partnerships team is actually not a team that from what he has shared with me, UM is kind of like on a presidential campaign digital uh, normal organization or previous work. And the example he gave to me was a little bit

of UM kind of like looking one cycle ago. So on Hillary Clinton's campaign, the idea of audience development was this novel concept and it was kind of like, oh, um, publishers have audience development teams, and the Clinton campaign in that case is acting in many ways like a publisher, at least in the digital mindset, So maybe what you want to do that and this year in UM, there is an audience development team, and there's been an understanding,

kind of a tacit acknowledgement of how the Biden campaigns that like a publisher so so like kind of the playbook from four years ago becomes the default. So I think of potentially, if we do our jobs right here, um, the idea of a partnerships team also can become something that is part of the playbook for for the next cycle. I love that are their partnerships Christian you can point

to or talk about. That would be a manifestation of bringing that media marketing mindset from outside the Beltway, if you will, into the political arena that you think represents where you see political marketing needing to go. So the Partnerships team, as we've built it has three overall pillars. The pillars are one uh net new platforms, two digital and and actually like digital and social first publishers, and then three is creators influencers um uh and and that

that side of the world. So I can give me an example in each category that illustrates I think, um, exactly what you're you're describing so um so in the in the platform side, part of what we're thinking about here is not our own channels, meaning a place where you'll have an at Joe Biden or at Kamala Harris. And in fact I just mentioned we have uh an

audience development team. Their whole job is to publish content on our channels, to grow our audiences there, to think about what's you know, uh an engagement that makes sense on those platforms, and communicate effectively. So that's what our audience development a development team does, and they do it

exceptionally well. The whole, the whole idea of this partnership's team is as much as possible to get off of our own channels, how do we grow our reach by meeting people where they are and actually putting ourselves outside of the at Joe Biden equivalent. So UM to two platforms that are really different, but that illustrate that UM. One of them is a partnership that we put together

with Cameo. So Cameo for those of you who are are not familiar with it, UM is it's a it's a platform and it's a place where they created a

marketplace where buyers and sellers can meet. The buyers being individual people, and the sellers in this case, if you will, are the celebs, the influencers who are able to offer up for anywhere I think from like fifteen or fifty dollars to a few hundred or maybe a few thousand dollars a shout out video recorded on their phones in their own homes, and you may have it for uh, Laura getting it for our friend Alexa to say happy

birthday or whatever it might be. And it's done super well during the pandemic because like gifting, the kind of social is a really fun way of doing it right then and you get these birthday shout outs or happy graduation, whatever might be. So that's an existing product out in

the world. It's a platform. We went and did the partnership work and all the legal and operations work to allow for a celebrity when you go to his or her page to have the cameos they do and fulfill not be a payment that's processed on cameo dot com.

It becomes a donation to BFP Biden for President via Act Blue, and all the operations back and happens to authenticate that the donation took place and for that same two and fifty dollars or whatever it might be, Uh, the the celebrity then fulfills the request and which is the happy birthday or whatever it might it might be UM, and gives a great kind of plug and shout out to to the friend who who made a donation to the Biden campaign for it and the reason why to me,

this is a good example of a digital first platform is because a the campaign of course, is a fundraising tool that receives the donation and the contribution, which is great. U be the celeb who is often you know, banging down our door looking for ways to get involved, especially when they can't go and join a rally like they would have in a traditional election year of meaning an in person rally. Can do these can do them at home in their own spare time, right like thirty to

sixty seconds at a time. UM. And then see the part to me that's arguably the most powerful from my standpoint is all of the downstream earned impressions that we get from the gift recipient sharing and other social feeds. Oh my gosh, check it out. I got this great shout out from past. So cameo is an example of a platform and again very different from say Twitter as a platform in and of itself. So that's one another platform that we're working on is um it's TikTok, but TikTok.

TikTok's one where it's interesting we do we do not have an owned channel, and you may have seen kind of leaked in the press that we as Biden campaign staff do not have TikTok on our phones. Um there were some information security concerns, uh, And so that means therefore we as the campaign from again like that owned

channel aren't aren't on there. So we're thinking a lot about how do we deploy a distributed creator lad approach to have a presence on TikTok, to have pro Joe Biden messaging without the need for our principles for our our indidates to be on on the platform. I think you guys have done a good job. I think you guys have me I some I see Biden stuff all the time. I'm also and the all go, I mean I'm happy in the all go. But here you're you're gonna get targeted what we the TikTok things you want

to see. But yeah, I mean, you're right. We we've been measuring obviously across the board, the number of impressions or number of posts or you know for TikTok. It's also that like how often a piece of audio is used. That's kind of how things go viral on TikTok, So you can see how many times a piece of audio has been used and like kind of get a sense for how it's been going. And yeah, we're we're happy that we've been able to make a big den um and get a lot of provide Harris messaging. So those

are like, those are platforms. That's another thing Christian that we want you to come back and talk about because they think there is right again the security issues or non issues, but the perceptions with TikTok are huge in terms of that platform being able to scale and grow um and particularly at a time that's so critical right

in the Nations kind of history. So it's a really interesting tidbit about not having TikTok on your phones totally, So thinking Christian about really at this point, eight days away, what's the combination of data versus gut that you're using at this point. We talked with Lisa Sherman on our previous episode, Presidency of the AD Council. The idea of speed over perfection. The fly swatter comes to mind. The fly swatter. I don't think there was any amount of

data that you could have looked at. Maybe there was, uh, in the amount of time it took to get from a debate to UM having the fly swatter up on your website and available for sale. So so talk to us about that dynamic and what you see as being the most effective under the tight timelines in which you're working. We sold a lot of fly swatters. Let me you,

we sold a lot of fly swatters. And and actually more than that, it was unbelievably impressive to see the slack channel for all of the provals to do something fly swatter related, and then subsequently, uh, the amazing speed to find a Union made fly swatter. All of the merch in our Joe Biden store is Union made and printed.

So not only were they able to just get it up live on the Joe Biden store as an item for sale, they had to source the Union fly swatter in the first place, which is so impressive, UM, and

and was able to be done. So, UM, I think on something like that, when you're in a rapid response or a real time environment, UM, I think you're probably gonna lean a bit more gut UM, and that probably is true when you think about the the best worst analogy of like Oreo Dunk in the dark, there had to be some level of a gut call on what would be working for the brand voice of the company and same thing here. UM. There's a lot of real

time decisioning that takes place on something like that. Uh. We also use a whole host of data as you as you as you share. So there's a person on our team for example, UM, a woman named Alison Stern who was the co creator of and co founder of

Tubular Labs, which is a measurement firm. She works on the campaign and has really helped to infuse and then give a shout out to Allison for this has done a great job to infuse a data driven approach for when we are signing partnerships with media publishers with influencers UM and has made available again like kind of her her thinking around it. UM. And So I guess the

obvious answer is it's both. But I do think it depends a bit on what situation you're in, because you're probably gonna skew a bit more one way UM, and then and then sew a bit more towards the other side. Speaking of that Christian you know, were there things that you guys had to make quick calls on that took you into unexpected or new directions? Were there are things that you know you can't plan for. Some of these

things you couldn't planned for the fly? I mean, the fly was amazing, um, no matter what side you're on. It was just a kind of a crazy thing that happened. But were there things that from a bigger change that took you guys in a different direction? And what were they? Yeah? I mean I can even give you an example that that is more on our side of the house, um, around the work that we did with animal crossing. Yeah,

the the animal crossing work was not breaking news. This is not deeply political, uh Supreme Court fight kind of a high stakes thing. However, it was something that we worked on uh and created. I guess you would call it like almost an m v P, like a minimum viable product. It was the arm science. It's a native thing. People do it all all up and down the board, UM, and it has this almost low fi look, almost like grainy.

If you don't know animal crossing, you think that it's it's like, um, hard to read UM, and we thought that corners of the internet might really appreciate it. And that's certainly people who play animal crossing and have their own island and really care about what it looks like

would really appreciate it. It It would be a fun nod to the fact that, UM, this is an important user base and that people are spending time on animal crossing and we really do want to be people everywhere where they are, including on something like an animal crossing UM.

And to answer your question, it was it was a piece of news and a piece of work that got such an outsized, real time, super fast positive reaction UM that we had to think pretty creatively, uh and pretty quickly to think to put in plans in place for what we would do for a two point oh UM and to make it clear it's not a flash in

the pan activity and UH and we didn't. We launched the Biden Island and our field office with all sorts of Easter eggs UM and shout outs to and acknowledgments of Joe Biden's past and his interests, as well as Kummel Harris's UM and the team that did the work did an awesome job thinking about what's native to animal crossing and seeing the reaction in terms of the numbers, seeing the reaction in terms of using the tweets and whatnot.

It's been also so again, maybe maybe a bit different from like a real time tweet of how to respond to something happening in the real world or a geopolitical but in terms of a digital partnership, it was something that we had to move pretty quickly, and I just feel like if more brands acted like they were in a presidential campaign, we would see a lot more innovation and a lot more willingness to say doesn't need to

be perfect. It's something we're gonna m v P. We're going to get out there and talk to the for the far corners of the Internet UM and see if they appreciate it. I just feel like that's a lesson that we can all take back. What are your thoughts on seeing more UM individuals who work in media and marketing coming into the political marketing sphere and what impact

do you think that might have on future elections. I think there will always be some number of UM operators or or even uh some number of agencies who are like whose agency services are used for for the campaign, and that's been true for a while people coming from maybe more of like my perspective, who are trying to do things a bit differently. I hope. I think, UM that it's proven to be really powerful to have an

outside an outside voice. And I don't even tell you that some of the things that we're doing with digital publishers UM are not new as in Christian is some innovation person. These are in some cases things that a group nine of the world does or has done UM for a little while. So it's it really is in that case just about pulling something from a totally different arena or outside of what people are used to hearing UM. And a lot of what we're doing is really great

branded content from a number of buzzfeeds individual channels. So branded content for BuzzFeed is a is a well oiled machine, meaning they really know what they're doing and how to make it feel native. They are pros at this kind

of social first and video stuff. UM. When we are doing things with peril Like, which is one of their pages that focuses on Latino audiences UM, and we're doing things with Tasty, which is they're really popular food brand media publisher UH and so what an approachable way for in that case, in the latter case for Dr Jill Biden to talk about family and to talk about home and the importance of voting even in the context of making which they did for the world famous chicken farm.

It was great. I love it. I want that recipe. I need to see that video. I think you just gave us a couple of really important nuggets, one of

which Laura and I talked about a lot. Right, it's not about the word innovation, which is just a weird, bad word that doesn't really mean a lot, And they don't think about how can you take something that's working and actually put it into a different context with a different audience, and all of a sudden there's actually something kind of magic all that happens for both the audience

and the brand. So it's a great That is a great kind of message because it's so critical to think about creating some tension between the context and the audience.

It doesn't have to be net new And I love the idea Christian of what you're talking about and developing this partnership's team withinside Political Campaigns is really the cross pollination of I p right knowing what you know the campaign is best at, and then not necessarily having to create something net new, but going out and finding partners where that is their expertise, that is their skill set, that is their platform, that is their tech stact, whatever

the case may be, and building on it. I think that's something we've been talking a lot about on the show, is like double down on the thing you're best at and then go and bridge these external partnerships and find ways to collaborate in new ways where one post one may equal ten. So with that, Alexa, I think we have a final question what is next? What is post next week? For Christian Tom? Where are you gonna go?

What are you gonna do? I can tell you what's next actually in terms of the campaign, which is you're listening to this on election day, um, we will have just concluded a body of work that we're um creating right now, which is what we're calling Project seventy two.

It is the final seventy two hours leading into the campaign and providing a really clean and clear um scaffolding for people, individuals, influencers, creators, celebrities, people to help quote unquote kind of donate their accounts to this campaign and We're going to give people really easy and hopefully really fun and compelling things to share on their social feeds, whether that's agat, vertical or square or every every type of format you can think of, UM with a bunch

of different esthetics that you can go and put out

on your channels. After that, meaning starting today election day, we are also thinking a little bit about UM if we need to have UM the same help of people and influencers across the board in a scenario where this election is not determined on the night of November three tonight when you're listening to this, so UM, what's next is you may well be called upon if you're listening to this to help us make sure that the vote count period m is H is happening, and that all

the votes are counted, and that UM everything is tabulated in a way that that means that everyone's voice is heard. So there's a there was work between now and November three, UM, and there may well be work to be done together after that as well. We're gonna run into our final statement that we ask everyone to do. It's called kill by d I Y. So what would you anything you want? What would you kill? What would you purchase or acquire What would you do yourself? And it's a lightning round.

I have a irrational dislike of umbrellas. It's kind of a controversial take, but walking on New York City streets with trying to dodge umbrellas and yourself trying to put your umbrella down and hope other people, I would love to just have everyone to be running in between awnings or something instead, but that might not be totally feasible. But I would say kill umbrellas. Umbrella is not that controversial.

I like it all right. What would you buy? I would love to buy UH and I've had that that did even more because right now it actually is my main UH productivity machine. But I would love to buy one that could do even more than what it does now. And Apple just released their new iPads, So I think you're in luck and oh boy, what would you do yourself? We like everyone else, I've been doing a lot of baking um, but we've also been therefore been doing a

lot of a lot of cooking. So what I would love to learn how to d I y really well? UM is more interesting dishes and Christian If people want to send you recipes or get in touch with you about future collaborations. Are partnerships post election? How can they get in touch with you? I guess Twitter is probably best on Twitter. I'm at ce L Tom ce L t O M, so please hit me up. And I really appreciate both of you, and thank you for having me. Christian,

thank you so much. Good luck the next eight days and beyond. We hope you'll come back. Yes, thank you. We'll see you soon, Christian, take care. Thank you so much. Alexa and I wanted to take a collective pause this election day and talk about turning busy into being. We're welcoming Kristin Mitchell, founder of Nourish the People. Kristen, welcome to Atlantia. Thank you so much for having me. I'm

so happy to be here. I would love for you to take everyone on your journey um over the last few years in working in the health and wellness space. Of course, well it's always a long story how people get really into wellness, deeply into this work. But I think with me, it really started way back when I was probably about fifteen is when I started doing yoga, so yoga with my free into everything. My mom did it as long as I can remember, so throughout my life,

yoga has always been a constant. I moved to New York, very busy environment, had a lot of crazy jobs, and I realized over time that as I was dealing with more and more anxiety and more and more stressful situations, it was returning back to that practice in that room that I had had since I was fifteen that really

kept me grounded and kind of sane. So eventually I hit a low point in ironically four years ago cycles and decided that I just wanted to learn more about yoga, but beyond that, learn more about I guess why it worked for me. So I went deep into a two teacher training program and then from there it's just been kind of the rest of my life. That was really the first big door that opened and clicked in my mind.

And spending that much time thinking about yoga, mindfulness, the background of it, the history, it really changed my perspective on how I behave, how I see things, and really how I live. So pause on that one. Around that same time, I was working a bunch of different random jobs because just pivot, you know, and I ended up meeting Laura, and that was another really big turning point.

For me because I saw something in you that I loved, and I also saw that there were so many aspects of what you were doing in the way that you were living throughout your day that could benefit from me being there to provide support from these teachings that I

had been practicing for a really long time. So that's kind of where my my wellness practice as an individual in my work, they kind of started to come together as one, and that eventually ended up informing Nourish the People in my mission now, which is helping really motivated creative doers in this world who we really need, and there are so many of them, and especially in this time in particular, there's so many activists and entrepreneurs have

to think differently and everyone's really being pushed. So I want to provide a platform and practices that are simple to help people always be able to return to their sense of calm even in these very chaotic situations, because that's ultimately what I've been trying to do for myself and when I was able to do for Laura a

little bit. Let's talk about nourish the people, talk about building this brand of course, well again, I mean I kind of have I kind of have you to thank for it, honestly, Laura, because as I was working with you, and as I was working in an agency, and this was my first exposure to agency life. Of course, um, we were working together today every day on the regular, but then I was also in an office of just brilliant, brilliant people who are just churning and doing so much

all of the time. So that kind of inspired something in me to think, Huh, how can I simplify all of this information that I have in my mind, all of this information about food I've I've went to Institute

of Integrative Nutrition. So there's that side, all this information about mindfulness, about yoga, about breathwork, about meditation, but simple down to a point where it's not intimidating, there's not a barrier to entry, but rather it can be really grasp herbal, really practical, and these creatives and doers can integrate these things into their life in little tiny bits

every single day to make a difference. And I think that we are in this era of just doing, doing, doing, going, going, going. So if I can even find an ounce like two, three, five minutes of someone's day to kind of help them set a boundary or help them take a pause and make it not intimidating. Then that's the goal, that's the mission.

So give us a few examples of that. So the first thing that I'd say, and I preach this all the time recently, especially to myself, is when you are having a moment of complete overwhelm or anxiety or stress or whatever it is, don't fight it. I think we are also in this society where we really try to escape negative feelings and escape discomfort. And the fact of the matter is where in a challenging time, everyone's having a hard year in these types of emotions and these

types of feelings are just going to happen. So when you can sit there and just acknowledge what it is that you're feeling, just by acknowledging it, just by putting the verbiage around, not saying like I am anxious, but just saying I'm experiencing anxiety right now, that will help because what that does to your mind is it tells you, oh, I'm not actually attached to this. This is just something that's coming through me in this moment, and eventually, like

all things, it will change. So that's my first number one tip, right now is just be very kind to yourself and have the wherewithal to acknowledge these hard moments and just say them for what they are. This is a hard moment. I feel really overwhelmed right now. But that's okay because they always they change to the nature of my mind. It's the nature of emotions. It's always shifting. So number one. Number two, everyone says it. At nauseam,

you have to breathe. You have to breathe. I feel a full breath in in, a full breath out, and repeat that. Can we just do that right now together? Yeah, let's do it, all right, everyone, Let's do this, okay, everyone, So, wherever you're sitting, if you're sitting cross legged, if you're sitting with your feet on the ground, I just un

crossed my legs and put my feet down. The first thing that you do is you notice your point of contact with the floor, because that feeling of gravity, that feeling of being supported, will always calm your nervous system. It will always let you know that you're okay, you're held, you're in the car, wherever you are, it doesn't matter. Just notice your seat, notice the bottoms of your feet.

Let the breath come out of your body and then take a full inhale into your nose, ride the breath all the way down into your belly, fill your belly exand and then just acts how let it go. There you go. That's number two. It works every time, instantly feeling better. Yes, it instantly works. And it's so silly because it's so simple, but it always works. So that's my big thing number two that I with say, and

the number three, which is actually this is funny. It's popping into my mind right now, so I'm just going to go for it. Remember the moments that you felt

really good. There's a lot of emphasis around even myself like stress and anxiety, but I think it's important to have a note or a photo or something of a time when you just mentally felt really well, really on it and just really good, really like yourself, and go back to that moment, maybe close your eyes and just put yourself back in that headspace, use your imagination just what you what did you feel at that time, just as a reminder to your body and to your mind

that you can easily go back there. As you've been building, have you recognized patterns with executives that you've worked with that have informed your services in terms of what you're offering through nurse of people, both in the content of your newsletter, but also in the services that you're designing, be at yoga, practice, coaching, meditation, et cetera. Have there been patterned There's always patterns. We're all kind of all cycling around many of the same things, just in our

own unique ways. One thing that I noticed a lot that I also personally deal with, of course, is perfectionism. This this idea of needing to maintain all of these really really high standards that we build for ourselves constantly. That's a big one. Another really big one is just generally lack of boundaries. There's a lack of boundary now, especially in homes, because you're working, you're doing everything from

your space. So how can you help people adjust their physical environments, in their mindset around their physical environments to create boundaries for themselves within their days. That's a really big one that I think a lot of people are

working through right now. And another one that I want to say that's again a little bit cheesy, but you've got to just hang with me, is just needing to be easier on yourself it's everyone gets really wrapped up in really stress stubt in things that aren't going, things

that aren't meeting expectations. And I think it's so important collectively across the board for everyone to just be gentle with yourself, be kind no matter what you're doing right now, just recognize there's so so much happening that that's one of the most important things that you can do. So christ and I always hear that, like people always say, be kind to yourself, be you know, don't be so hard on yourself. And I always say, what does that look like? What does that look like? Why do you

do that? What does that mean? A great questions, such a good question. It's it's another thing where you have to work on it. It does not come naturally. The nature of the mind is always too critique, to criticize, to over analyze, to perpetuate bad situations. Is a way to protect us, essentially from ourselves from anything that could

possibly happen. This is something I wrote about recently where that's why I think it's important to understand that and be friend that aspect of your mind because all of the negative self talk, all of the anxiety it's coming from a place of ultimate protection our mind, our body.

They just want us to be safe. So it's trying to anticipate where we could go wrong, which is where we end up being really really hard on ourselves because we think about all the things that we could potentially do wrong or not meet expectations, or ways we could potentially get rejected. So one of the ways to remedy that is to first of all, get clear about where you're being harsh on yourself. Get crystal clear. That's always where I start understand what's the thought, what is the language,

what is the fear? What is it that I'm beating myself up about? Right, So get very very clear and concise about the harshness. And then this is I'll put this is a new thing that I've actually been working on recently that I'll put out there because it was effective. Um, give yourself. Start write down advice. If you think about, well, let's say let's pretend someone else did the things to you that you're anxious about that you're beating yourself about.

Your best friend just went and you know, they messed up a presentation or whatever it is, and they're just beating themselves up about it. Sit down and write advice to them. What would you say to them in that moment right now to kind of help them feel better to a friend, just write it and then sit there and read it and give that advice to yourself and just take it in take your own advice. It's really interesting how we always know what we need. We always

have the answers. You just have to slow down and ask the question and then be willing to listen to it. Christ and I love that. It's super simple. I think it's just right. And one of the things that you talk a lot about is slow down. What can people

do right now? Because we're not in an industry that's slow ever, we're actually the industry it's pushing the pace, right, So what can people do to actually use the energy, like take negative energy and take that push and take that speed and actually turn it into something that's propelling, Like how do people start to think about that? Like I know, I know Laura really well. Laura knows me really well. One thing that we have in common is that we both work well one under pressure and with speed.

In fact, when we're slower, we seem to get a little frustrated. How do we take that negative energy and kind of reframe it and push it into a creative place, push it into something that's going to help us. So the first thing I want to touch on that I think is so important to you said, when you slow down,

it's frustrating. Yeah, that is one of the key components that I am trying to kind of undo with people like yourself, that that slow down time is so crucial to fuel the going time, the fast time, the under pressure time. So a huge practice, everything is a practice.

I'll use that word in a nauseam. A huge practice is recognizing when you're slow and being okay with the discomfort, in knowing that the slowness is always a precedent prior to moving really quickly and moving into the doing, and that you will actually do so much better if you give yourself that time to be slow. You have to have both. We you just you have to have both. It's the nature. You cannot always be doing doing, doing, going, or you burnout, right burnout, that's all that is. So

embrace the slow even if it's uncomfortable. Just sit there and think, why am I so uncomfortable? What is this? And is there something that I could read? Is there something that I could listen to is there a way I could move go on a walk to process this feeling throughout my body and make it feel okay. Feelings changed? Yeah,

I love the feelings change. That's like such an under under understood right, the thing that feelings are actually constantly moving um and typically when we're not feeling good, it feels like they're there forever. What are the services that you're offering now as Nourished the People is in development to executives who may want to email you directly after listening to this episode. Absolutely well. The first I always have my newsletter. The newsletter is the core of Nourish,

so you can always find me there. I also do one on one private sessions. I teach what's called yin yoga. So yin is slow, it is low to the ground. It is not entirely restorative. You move a tiny bit more, but it is just putting you into your body, really getting you into your body and breathings so that you're anatomy begins to relax. And then along with the in session, I do a short conversation just to the beginning. I help people focus in on one mental hang up, whatever

it is. One stressed, one anxiety, one thing that just won't shut up in their mind. And then we kind of move and meditate and do some visualization in accordance to that one hang up. And then I provide practices. I provide suggestions. What's one two minute thing you can

do every day that could help you? I say two minutes and emphasize that because one of the things that I want to do with Nourish the People and working with executives in particulars, I know time is so valuable and so limited, and oftentimes that's all that they have, but it's enough to make a really substantial difference. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing this. I would say Christen that I know you're you offer up two minutes, but having worked with you, those two minutes easily turned into twenty

minutes and in some instances two hours. So so to everyone listening, I think for stop, sign up for Nourish the People newsletters that Nourish the People dot co CEO and christ and if people want to get in touch with you to talk about the practice, sign up for your services. How can they get in touch with you? Absolutely you can find me on Instagram at nourish the

People dot Co. That's CEO. You can also email me Kristen k R I S T I n AT Nourish the People dot Co. That's also available on my website. I would love so much to talk to you, so feel free slide into my DM, send me a note comment on something and I would I would just love to chat and hear about how you're doing and how you're handling this year and if there's anything that I can maybe offer up to help. I think that just st even your your presence, but you're you know, really

smart advice. Um, it's just something that, especially in this industry, we need more of. Thank you so much for coming by and bringing some pause to this election day. We appreciate the conversation and you, of course so happy to be here. Thank you too for having me so what an amazing episode, feeling all types of push and pull, thinking about pace, the meaning of pausing to push forward,

finding space to really think and create. And Alexa, there was also something you said in our conversation with Christian that really stuck with me. This idea of brand acting like they're in an election cycle and starting to connect some some signals here right, we heard from Lisa Sherman. The idea of speed over perfection. We're hearing in this episode with Christian, the idea of putting out a minimum viable product and building an iterating quickly if it lands.

What do you think that this is signaling to brand marketers in which pace is moving faster and faster every day. I think there's, you know, the new kind of there's a new kind of emphasis that's been put on marketers around creating something new, always creating something new, and that there's value in that. What Christian said that I thought was so smart was it's almost like ready mades. Do

anyone to know what a ready made is? It's an art, right, You're using found objects and you're creating something new, Like if there's something that is essential in a presidential election by using audiences, communities, things that are existing media, media products, platforms, etcetera. That they put a spin on, and you know, I think Christian really hit on it. And we've done this, Laura, we've talked about this a lot, even in season one.

In season two, how do you take a property, uh partner and collaborate and find where your brand in their brand is additive or an experience at it have not adjacent as the line I believe we always used to use exactly additive, not adjacent. And I think that Christian really hit on that. And brands, you know, election cycles are short. They're short for all intents and purposes and

their high stakes. And I think if the brands start to think about themselves and their activity, their marketing activity like that, it will create collaboration over competition, which Lisa Sherman talked about. It will create new from already created. And maybe there shouldn't be a premium or the shiny

object kind of requirement for a marketer. It should be how are you looking at things that exist that are doing well that you could use in a different way, Things that have community that you could enter into in a different way. And I think that was a big point that I got from Christian. He doesn't have time, right, they don't have time to build constantly something that's new, but they did. I couldn't agree more. And I think there's two additional takeaways that I was left thinking about

following that conversation. Was one incredibly important to go to where the consumer or in this case, the voter is, you know, all of the partnerships that Christian was talking about via cameo TikTok animal crossing, going to where the customer or voter is thinking about AOC showing up on Twitch, going to where the customer or the voter is And so you know that being one the second that I took away, double down on the thing that you're best at,

and collaborate and cross pollinate with others who are best at what they do, and find ways to iterate and build versus having to continually build net new yep. I agree, totally agree in the market that where and I think it is extremely difficult to be everything to everyone and so what is the thing that you own that you do better than anyone and then build partnerships within your ecosystem to allow you to iterate and scale and to do that we need Kristin Mitchell to help us clear

our heads, take a breath. Christen is such a clear thinker for me. You know what's really interesting is, and we talked about this. I have, we both have, let's just be honest, a hard time slowing down. But one of the things that I think, you know Christen said was this idea around slowing down actually allows you to speed up, and that was one of the probably most

important things for me. And I can't speak for everyone, Laura, I can't speak for you Lord knows um, but but I today has been in highly anticipated day for me. I've been super anxious about it. It I think saying right, I know we've talked about it, and I think it's really important that we all do what we have to do. So with that one last collective breath with Kristin Mitchell, Okay, let's do it. Okay, everyone, close your eyes, fill your seat underneath you, fill the bottoms of your feet, Take

a big inhal through your nose. The breath moves all the way down through your throat into your belly. By exhale. There you go, get out and vote. Laura hit it with the list of all of our friends and family at my heart who have been so good at us and helped us get back on air. Big thank you to Bob Conald, Carter, Andy, Eric gayle Vow, Michael jen We appreciate you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. We'll see you in two weeks.