Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke. I'm your host, Coleen Witt, and today we have a very special guest. I'm super excited about you, mainly because I feel like you are inspiring. You're a woman's woman. You're just very open and for me, that vulnerability is very beautiful. But without further ado, sex educator, author, podcaster lovers by Shan shout out, Shan Boudrum Brady is in the building.
Guys.
You did it, Thank you.
Thank you for coming on. Guys. Just a little backstory.
I was at an event with Nick Cannon and I saw her walking Rome and I immediately went to my brother like, oh my god, I watch your stuff. I listen to your stuff. There's areas in my life that I'm not I'm more in the taboo sexist or a little bit more taboo on my side. So seeing you, kind of seeing you be liberated, allows other people to do the same. So definitely a huge fan. But the second I saw you walking the room, I saw her walking room, I was like, oh my god, and you didn't see me.
You were doing you were just looking amazing, And I was like, oh, she's stunning it.
For yes, I promise you all of the all the good girly feelings.
Was flowing, and I just I couldn't. I didn't care about Nick or nothing he had going on.
I said, Yo, I watched this girl and I'm a huge fan and you're a woman's woman, just everything about y'all. So I've been bragging all week and I even told my team we have a new member on our team, and I was like, we can't. You can't even test your anything on this episode because I'm very honored to have you. Shout outs to my girl that made sure it happen, but you being so sweet and being like, yeah, I'm gonna do it and doing it well.
You had this drop dead gorgeous woman approached me afterwards and say there's this podcast. You have to go on it. She's a really big admirer of your work. I think you guys would have an amazing conversation. I think it'll be great for you. And you're cooking, so I was like, oh, it sounds really fun.
Yeah, and you're cooking.
Shout out to you for knowing what you want and going after it. And I'm really grateful to be here and I love that you showed the love, Like as soon as I parked there was a smile on your face and said like welcome, Yeah, excited, And I love to.
Answer the call like yo, yeah, Like I probably shouldn't have answered that excited, but you know, I think people need to know they're loved and you know, and just celebrated. And sometimes you never know the impact you have on others or what have you. So, like I said, we're like a little bit more opposite, and I think that's the more beautiful part about it. It's like you think you only attract people like yourself, Yeah, but it's like you letting your life shine allows others to do the same.
But before we get into the goodies of your background, which I did study and I try not to do too much research, guy, but go ahead and tell us what your go to eating while broke dish is my go.
To eating while broke dish is tomato besk best, which we have been debating whether tomato beeesk and tomato soup are different or it's just a way of making yourself feel more fancy. But it comes into can It's Campbell's and I have been eating this pretty much my whole life. But it became a huge staple for me while I was broke.
Okay, so go ahead and tell us what are your ingredients for your tomato baske me. No, one's can soup, but you added something else.
Yes, so it's a can of soup and then you have to do I'm pretty sure the ingredients is one dump of soup and then one dump of either water or milk. So depending on where I was add financially, it would be water or milk I asked for. I should have asked you for milk.
But wait, you're going to heat up the milk, and you can heat up milk like that.
I'm pretty sure I think I used to do that. Now that I'm like doubting myself. I had a water but you dump it and you add water, then you put this, and then you add the cheese to give it some texture, so you're tubing.
I just love that it's a memory because that shows how far the road has come.
Yeah, you're like questioning my milk theory. I'm like, did I used to use milk?
Because if you think about it, you're like boiling the milk.
Right, but you boil the milk for other things like cream of wheat, oatmeal almost another huge eating wall.
Bro oatmeal, and you put milk in your own.
One hundred Yes that I do know. I'm very confident.
Okay, So then you're you should be confident that you do it in soup, because I should be.
I don't do it in either. I'm like, yo, that's a little risk gay for me. Yeah.
My husband makes pancakes with water. I make pancakes with it.
I make pancakes with water.
What maybe I just like milk like milk.
Oh my, you're like my daughter. I don't know where that comes from. Bo Okay, so go ahead start cooking us the water version of Fortunately.
We don't have milk version, the cheaper version, the.
Cheaper version that's the budget friendly version. And while you get started on the why don't you take me back to the dire days of Super Survival all right?
Let me just read the instructions first before I because I actually haven't made the canned version in a really long time. All right, So if we go on the stove, we're gonna heat during a occasionally where it's the directions microwavey, I think you're just supposed to add the soups and one can of water thank you.
Yeah, you got it.
Very good milk.
By the way, guys, I don't know.
Okay, So I'm gonna pour our soup in there. I'm going to put this on high. It's gonna come out delicious on the bottom.
Knop.
Okay, we want it on power boil mh boom.
And then you're gonna add your water, okay, and you don't add flavors to it.
You could add a little bit of time or some oregano doesn't need it. I like hot foods, hot foods or foods that are like very difficult. I mentioned to you artichokes another option. Anything that takes a long time to eat is good because it makes you feel more full. So meals that are like really fast to eat, you're gonna feel hungry afterwards. So something that's super hot, like a soup, or something super complicated like crab legs.
Or feel like that's more annoying to eat when I'm starved.
But now you're going slowly, so you fill up faster. You know, I'm a mom.
So, by the way, I forgot to shout out Shan's hardest title is an I'm curious for this followup for this, But you're.
A mom, a mother of two, and it's too harder than one.
In some ways, yes, In some ways no, I think it's like kind of evens itself out. They kind of distract each other kind of, but you feel less guilty for them having alone time because they have each other. So if they're playing in their room or you know what I mean, like even sleeping in the same bed, you're like, Okay, there's another person there to monitor you. Yeah, right, Like if I'm not in the room, someone else is there to tell me if you're choking on your vomit whatever.
So I think that in that capacity, I also think it was much better for the relation my romantic relationship really much, because with one, there's like this one on one off thing that happens, and then that leads to a lot of like feelings of unfairness because it's like, well, I did this last time or you did this this time, and you're dipping out a lot. When there's two, it's all hands on deck all the time, so nobody has the option of like sneaking away or going on their phone.
It's like everybody at all times, everywhere. So I found that once we had two, we just just completely locked in and there was just a lot less resentment. Of course, we roll some more seasoned as parents, so that helped.
You're not like worried that Like for me, I always thought, like, what happens if something happens to this child, Like do will they believe that it was an accident?
Like well, my first one.
I was like, if she'd like dies by accident in my possession, Like do I go to jail or will they believe that?
Like why would you give someone who has never had a kid a kid?
Like you know, that's so funny.
When we came home from the hospital with our daughter, my husband, I swear to God, was like.
Okay, get in the car, hurry up, hurry up. I'm like, what are we rushing for? Get in the car.
And I was like, oh, it's because we both realized, like why would they give us a kid? And he just kept going, hurry up, let's get her in the car before they changed their mind. It's like, bruh, I don't think they're gonna change their mind.
We need them. We need to stay as long as possible.
You know, they give you like three days in the husble, like no, let's stay a little bit longer, just make sure we worked.
Out all the kids. Yeah. You know what's so funny about that is that having kids made me realize how much of an empty fear having your kid kidnapped is, because it's like, Ooh, I want this kid.
That's all the time if you're a background Like. But I think sometimes if I was like a kidnapper, I would go to a playground.
But then sometimes I'm like, who on earth would want a kid?
A kid? RESPONSI But I would make a joke that like, if they would get to kidnap my kid, they'd take them. They'd have them in the car, and my kids to start being like, I need snacks, red water, I'm hungry, that seatbelts too tight, change the mirror, Zach. And then they would just turn right back around and drop them off and just push them out. So I think it's their own protection. Being very annoying is their way of protecting this because they're so cute, but it's so annoying.
Yeah, the second you realize that, all the level of yeah, all that comes with it. But okay, so take me back to what was going on during the milk and tomato biscare.
Okay, I'll take you to. I think like my lowest point of era because it lasted for a little bit. There was two times I went through it. One when I first moved out at I moved out at age eighteen, and then twenty four, and then I moved to California at twenty eight, So twenty four, I it was not a bad time. Actually, I used to do background work so like people might recognize me from Mean Girls. I bumped Lindsay Lohan in the beginning. It's like, unfortunately the
thing my mom my mom was so proud. She would like tell everybody like my daughter's and Mean Girls, like mom, I was paid six dollars that day and I ate Cheetos like I'm not a star in Mean Girls. But that was a moment. So around that time is when I really got into the soup. I ate it growing up as a comfort food, and then when I didn't have a lot of money, you realize you can get sometimes you could get two cans for a dollar, yeah, and you could get another can of dice tomatoes added
in there. You can add some cheese for some che and it's a slow eat.
I used to boil.
Oh, yeah, it's really boiling, and I love it because it's kind of like every nice restaurant has tomato bisk so it's pretty cheap, even like seven bucks there. So when I moved to La for example, I had a lot of friends who had money, and I would go out for dinner with them. You know, at the end of dinner, everyone just throws their credit card down, but they had the surf and turf with this big bottle of wine, and I had a tomato soup because all
I could afford. So I kind of learned very quickly that I'd always bring ten bucks because that would cover my food plus the tips. Like that was my go to meal going out.
I love that.
But around the time the second time, at twenty eight years old, twenty nine maybe no, I was thirty. So between twenty eight and thirties when I was eating this a lot, or just through my very broke LA phase, I was living in my first studio apartment, my first place to myself. All the rest of the time of my life, I'd had roommates, or I was subleasing, or I was renting a room. This is really special because
it was my first place. But even that it was my first place, it wasn't the best building, so I had bed bugs. So I had bed bugs. My immigration, because immigrated from Canada to America, was on the fritz, so I wasn't actually legally allowed to work in America, which meant I had to live off of my savings. So I had basically nothing left, and I was.
Your savings were from I just want to backtrack a little bit. I know you published a book before you came to La, Yes, So I just want to backtrack to that. Can we can we start your story on the original on you kind of publishing this book or after Mean Girls. I'm sure it's after Mean Girls.
You was after me Girls, Okay, Okay, I.
Don't want to skip over any of that, Okay, because I feel like at the time that you published your book, were ready to add our cheese lade right it was late, yes, yes, at the time you published Laid, it was still you know, sex isn't It wasn't like talked about the way it is now.
So I just want to go back to that experience and how you broached that subject and did that with your parents knowing, and like the whole awkwardness. I don't want to skip over any of this.
Okay, Great, I love that. We're ready to eat whenever you are too.
Okay, this divine dish is ready to be served. Is the cheese like melted in the fall?
Yeah, it's very melted.
Okay, Yeah, you can serve us up girl.
If you want. I can let it sit for a second. But we can let it sit in our bowls to set in our bowls, so it's not it's not too hot. It's also good at the cheese isn't completely melted because then you get more chew.
Oh yeah, I like stretch.
We need the chew. The chew is what tells your belly that you're more full.
Oh, there's little tomato chunks in there. Is there there's a little tomato.
That's the bisk all right.
Oh okay, don't sleep on campbells on campbellstoes, all right.
So I grew up running track and field, and my parents are Caribbean, so they're both ran track growing up, and we're very passionate about sports. And so I just thought my whole life I was going to be an Olympian. The I was going to do And I got a full scholarship to Coppin State University in Baltimore when I was eighteen. It was my family's dream. I didn't have anything. I didn't have a college fund or anything safe, so
that was my plan. I went to school for a year, realized I was not going to the Olympics, like my skill set was not going to take me there. And essentially my sister got kicked out at home back in Canada and she needed a roommate. So I was like, I don't think I'm going to run anymore anyways, So I don't know if I want to come back and do my scholarship. So I think I'm going to enroll in college in Canada and then just try a new life path. So I started when I came back, because
it was probably June by that time. The only school still accepting were colleges universities. Of course, you had to apply long before. S ended up at Centennial College. Also affordable. It was like twelve hundred bucks per semester, right, yeah, so a few days on background whatever, So I was
able to enroll in that school. And when you go to journalism school, day one, they'll tell you write what you know, and so I always wanted to be an athlete, but I also was really good at writing, so I was like, Oh, I'll go into you know, school for print journalism. And so if someone in the class was like I love politics, okay, be a political reporter. Someone was like, I love sports, be a sportscaster. I love entertainment, be an entertainment reporter. And then I was like, damn,
they have all those good ones. What do I really love? And I was like, I love fucking That's what I'm going to write about. And so that's what I centered really my whole college experience around writing and talking about
sex and relationships. And when I graduated from school, I went on to University of Toronto and did a c E course there to be a sex education counselor, and so I worked doing that volunteer and then simultaneously I started writing my first book Late, which was an anthology of people's sexual experiences that others could learn from.
Oh okay okay.
And this was in two thousand and nine. So why that's relevant is like, that's kind of around the time that social media started, so it was a whole different landscape in terms of how people were coming int their sexual selves learning about sex. Many people's first sexual experience was through AOL or through MSN Messenger or through black Planning.
I remember all those, right.
So it was the book was to account for the new ways. So it was called Young People's Experiences with Sex in an Easy Access Culture, so kind of just noting the fact that times have really changed and so our education has to change as well. That book came out, I got paid ten thousand dollars for it. I spent nineteen to twenty four, so five years writing it. As you have elluded, did not go well with my family.
Yeah, because you had to have the goals, because like even in class when everyone's like this, this this right, and you're a female, Yeah, you're not a man, so like you're this is what I'm going like, I'm curious, like how did everyone perceive that off jump?
And how did you? I guess not sway.
I think that I have a natural disagreeable personality, which really worked in my favor as an entrepreneur, didn't work in my favor when it came to creating relationships. But I didn't address that until my thirties. But my twenties was a time to really lean into that like fuck you mentality. It really that's what disagreeability is. Everyone's going left, and you're like, I think I need to go right. But I also just intuitively knew how important it was.
I had a really negative sex life, and I'd always had a really strong passion towards sex from a very young age, and that wasn't fueled bisexual assault or anything.
It was just my natural knowingness. This was a beautiful part of the human experience, and I always I feel like I had an age appropriate interest in it that was really discouraged at every turn, which is natural because parents are obviously like trying to protect you, yes, or protect your heart too, because remember it's not just physical, right, yeah, and trying to protect the reputation or trying to protect your safety. There's a million different ways. You know that,
it was like heavily discouraged. And so when I got a little older and I had hormones mixed with that interest, with the knowledge that my parents were disappointed in this part of.
Me, it, oh they were voicing it.
Yeah, I got in the trouble. My barbies were banned from being naked. By age seven. I had a sleepover with a friend where we had like a very like platonic sort of sexual experience with our pillows and I enjoyed it, and my friend told her parents like kind of like in a oh we did last night. I got in so much trouble for that. I was called loud a lot growing up because I was just very touchy, like stop being lued or so inappropriate your lude. So I just kind of knew. Yeah, and I went to
a Catholic school. Yeah, so all of these things combined, I knew that my parents did not appreciate this part of me.
Yeah, I have a twin, just a terrible embarrassing story. My twin will kill me as hopefully she doesn't really listen to my show, so I'm safe.
But we're twins. And I remember the Funds. Do you remember the Funds from probably yes?
Yes, Okay, So I used to watch and I used to pretend to be like him and I try to like Maget to my sister and my mom hurt us up.
One night, and boy did we get in trouble.
I was mortified, but my mom like they nailed us to cross over that. But that and like playing doctor when you're a kid, I remember those ages of curiosity.
But I also remember the amount of trouble you got into if your parents discovered it became instantly a bad thing.
Right, Yeah, And you learned that really early on, that this is a bad thing. And so some people keep that lesson and they just substain other people have and we just went different paths because I essentially was like, ooh, this is bad, so I'll keep it a secret. So I watched lots of porn. I read fiction books as if they were scientific texts. Coldest Winter Ever, fly Girl, Omar Tairi.
But but at what age are you reading these things? Thirteen fourteen, So you were on your path early.
Oh I guess I got my period at thirteen. So you start to get those hormones that make sex less of an interest and more of an urge around the time that you have your first menstrual cycle. Yeah, because I mean that's your body starts to feed you hormones to say that your body is ready. Obviously your body is not. But'll have the same programming from the Jesus era when we used to have kids at fourteen years old.
So yeah, I was starting to get those messaging. And again, I think I always had that natural interest, and so that essentially taught me all the wrong things about sex. So when I started engaging insects at sixteen, which was the time I had my sexual debut, I was just
going about it the wrong way. By seventeen, I had seven sexual partners, zero orgasms, had never really had a meaningful relationship, very low self esteem, and I found myself at a crossroads of Okay, either your parents and your school and your culture was right, this is a really dangerous thing you have to put down, or you were right when you were five, this is a really beautiful thing.
But you've just never gotten good information. So I got myself a library card, which I always think that version of myself for that small act. I was like, let me just see for myself. So I started reading all of these texts about sex, like scholastic, scholarly text and my mind was blow. I was like, Wow, there's such good information here. But sex said is bad sex. It's boring, it's faceless, it's not missed.
I know, I remember sex said being good.
Yeah, it's not goodenough too, it's awkward. But even if it's good information, Like what makes you know porn really great is like you're attracted to the people, You're invested in the storyline, Like even movies or TV shows. So if you're just providing seventy percent of women orgasm this way, ten percent of people with penises do that. This is what your follicular stage is, like, this is why you're
horn during ovulation. You're just like, unless you have the extreme interest, you're going to tune that out and go for the fiction book. So I just had that aha at around you know, eighteen nineteen years old, of oh, there's great information here, but sex said needs to be sexy and someone needs to do that. So that's kind of around the time that I enrolled in my program
for print journalism. Anyways, I'd already started to have that aha, like yeah, like someone should be making this information more accessible, more interesting, and then you know, skip to that first day of journalism school. It just clicked like, oh that someone needs to be me, and it was discouraged every step of the way, just like when I was a kid.
Now, how did you get to the ten thousand dollars endorsement? Out of all this.
Discouragement, I sensually said, I'm going to do what the books did. I'm going to write the story of my first sexual experience in great detail, but I'm not going to skip out on the truth. I didn't orgasm, the person didn't call me again. I never saw the person I had sex with for the first time until ten years later. I felt really shamed. I went to the sexual health clinic. Afterwards. I was certain that I had
contracted HIV. Just that would be my luck. So I told the story of like how cool it because it was a really cool the book, Oh my gosh, I had a really you know, I've come to reframe it. But my first time having sex was very sex in the city and I got very kind of interesting. I'll give you a TLDR of it. I ran track, so I made it to the World Youth Games in Hungary. So I traveled there and for some reason they were like letting us take the train to and from the
competition area from our hotel by ourselves. So I'm sixteen years old, I'm taking the train by myself. And I got eliminated really early on in the competition. So I'm like, I'm here for like five more days to do nothing. I'm like, let me just take pictures of all the hot guys around the world. I'm bored.
I like that.
And there was one guy from England who was so hot. He was one hundred meter runner, and so I approached him and I was like, Hi, I'm just taking pictures of really beautiful people. You're so gorgeous. Can I take your photo? He's like, oh, I can't really do that because like, I'm old, sweaty.
He had an accent too, I'm really sweaty.
So I can't really do that right now. But late to love and then I was just like, well, if you're worried about, you know, not being clean, come back to my hotel and take a shower there. Why did I say that at sixteen?
Girl? You were focused on in the picture, right?
I don't know I was. I was not. I was a virgin, but I was like, come, it's like a picture. And then he was like kind of startled. He was like okay. So then he took the train back to my place. It was like this silent, sort of weird thing that happened. He comes up to my hotel room, he takes a shower, and then he pops his head out afterwards, and he was like, I need a shit please, and so I go to hand in his shirt. He grabs it and then I pull him out of the bathroom I know.
Holy shoot, this is like some very visual.
Well remember the books I was reading, Okay, remember call this winterever, remember my influences. But it could take me that far. But it didn't know how to tell how to teach me how to advocate for protection, so it was unprotected. Those books didn't know how to teach me about my pleasure, about what I needed to feel safe, and what conversations I wanted to have afterwards to make sure that I felt good about everything. It didn't even teach me how to ask that person for their information
to stay in touch. So that's where I say that the education stopped short. So I told that story in great detail on the Internet, and then I said, to people, submit your stories. I want to help people learn through real life stories because the truth is much more interesting than fiction, and there's so many gaps in what you know and what you don't know that I want to
help you fill in. So I waited till my parents went away on vacation, and then I sent them the link to the website and said, this is what I'm doing in my life now. They were so livid, and I thought that they would calm down because my parents drove. They drove everywhere. They drove to Florida. I thought they'd be calmed down by the time they got back. They
were not. My mom was just came to the front door and she was like, there's going to be groups of men laughing and masturbating at your story and just laughing and masturbating some kind of but that's like her extreme fear, right, And so after that point, I stuck with it against what their desires were, and they just
kind of acted like it wasn't happening. And so for the next four years I used to DM people fifty people a day through Facebook, through black Planet, and through some messenger services and just tell them what I was doing, sent the link to my site, and I tried to get them to submit their stories. Eventually I collected enough stories and then I started looking for publishers. I reached
out to different sex educators within my city, Toronto. One lady named Josie Vogels took me under her wing and she introduced me to a literary agent who was then able to hook me up with a feminist press in California called Seal Press, and that's how I got my first book deal.
Holy Cow, and how old were.
You twenty four when the first book came out.
That's huge. Yeah. Way. I usually make us eat the soup together, but I was scared it was gonna get cold, and the story was good.
But this soup is amazing, amazing, totally do this at home. Like I did not know, I get there is a difference between tomato soup and tomato bisk.
I think this is a good soup. It's so good water and all.
I think the water makes it taste great.
You might be right, because I'm not feeling it's missing anything.
Yo, this is perfect. And I love the mozzarella that's tomato trunks.
It's if you're at home, you just literally good a can of soup and listen to this story. It's really good, okay, So, and I love that it's like not too hot, so it's like we could really enjoy it now if we were starving, I know you would like it hot, so you could eat it slow.
But we're already eating it slow. This is gonna take us ten minutes to finish, even if we're focused.
I'm like the mom that eats over the sink. I don't know what kind of mom you want. I eat like this, let's do this. Like I my daughter eats cereal on the way to school in the car. Oh, yesterday we were driving the car. She's like, Mom, where's my cyrial?
And I was like, oh, it was on top of the car. And my guardian's on the phone like I guess you're having McDonald's for breakfast, Like so right, you want McDonalds. But but no, I make her eat soup on the go, Like I'm that mom. That's like, we gotta go, we gotta go. You what captain crunch or Flintstones? Like which one? Let's take it and slurp the milk before it gets a ball over your left.
My husband's more like that. I'm more of a savor because I don't mind being late, which is not a positive trait, but I don't mind being late places.
No, if you hung out with me, you would be like annoyed, and I watched the clock.
Everywhere I live with you. My husband is just like that. Literally will get so stressed out and he wants to arrive places thirty minutes before so he has an opportunity to get in his zone.
I promise you you do live with me, because if I'm on time, I consider it late and I plan like if you hung out with me, Like my dad's like my obsession with the minute. I'm like, by this minute, we should be here and here and here and here, And he's like, no one does time subtraction like you a time everything. So yes, eating in the car is a must, okay, because that's thirty minutes.
Also, what's it? You don't waste it?
But anyways, back to your story, I personally don't know how it survived because I think I love that like you're disagreeable. I've never even heard of that versus someone that's like, oh, like me or whatever like me. I was a whatever I can do to impress the parents or whatever you're on this rebel route, so it actually added fuel to your fire. But now, how did it feel when you got to tell your parents like I got a book deal from this.
Hmm.
I don't remember them being happy for me. I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean the first time that I remember my parents being happy is after my book came out. I had a book launch in Toronto and I had about fifty people come. They came as well. It was an anthology, so i'd other people come and read their stories and they got to see it. And my mom didn't see anybody laughing and masturbating. She saw people coming up to me and saying, thank you. Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I feel so seen.
I learned a lot. I feel not alone, like this book has been so healing. So that was the moment for them that they turned around of like, okay, this is going to be okay. And but after that point, you know, that was twenty four years old. They watched me really struggle financially from twenty four till twenty nine thirty maybe thirty one two. So for them, you know, it was still a scary thing to watch your kid
go through. But I think they had faith that I wasn't going to be physically harmed because of my career profession.
Yeah, and you stuck shots to the path.
Not really I did. I mean I did for a bit, but I will say I've been around twenty six twenty seven or so. I ended up switching to wedding photography. So in journalism school you learn a bunch of different, you know, skills. Photography was one of them, and I started to get a lot of job excuse me, doing photography and then weddings is kind of the most you can make and I love love, so I really enjoyed it. So I was basically doing that and I had almost like let go of my dream. I ended up in
a very toxic relationship with my high school crush. So when he asked me out, I knew that he was not the right fit. I knew his history, he had two kids at the time, but I thought, man, I had such a crush on this guy. It would be a shame if he wasn't my ex. And I had that thought going into it. But you get stuck in the toxic loop and they belittle you and they make you feel like you can't do any better. And so
we ended up moving in together. The same week I found out that he had been seeing this girl who he swore was his best friend from the beginning of our relationship, and it was an awful scenario. And so I was working my sort of settlement job of a wedding photographer and this is La or Not Toronto in Toronto, and I was paying the bills for both of us because typical toxic and I was just We lived in a six hundred square foot apartment, and I knew for a fact that I had cried at every square inch
on the floor at some place at some time. And I was just like, I guess this is my life. And then a freak email came in from b Et who was like, we're doing a show. We're looking for a woman sex expert. We saw your book. Do you want to come down to LA to audition? And I was like absolutely, So I flew out there did the audition.
He sounds like a negative person.
Tell him no. He actually was supportive of that. It's when it happened that he wasn't. But the idea of it, I think yes, And so then I went and I shot it.
I got it.
But it turns out that the show didn't get picked up, which we are in Hollywood, that's ninety percent of the shows, right. But what it did allow me to do was have a work order that I could then apply for an immigration visa. Hey, okay, So I started my application process. It took me a year because it's expensive to kind of save up for it and submit it. It got approved. By that time, I had no reason to move down there. I was still living with my ex, and so I
was like I'll just wait until something comes. And then I was just incredibly more miserable as the months went on, and I was like, you know what, fuck it. So I broke our lease, and I broke our lease in a way that the landlord was like, I'm going to make sure that you never can rent in Toronto ever again. I didn't break up with my ex. I just told him that we're going to be long distance. I promised him. I was only going for two months just to see
if I could make something work. And it was really tumultuous, but I made the move. My dad drove me down with my car and whatever I could fit in it. I slept on my friend's couch for a couple of weeks and I figured it out and ate.
Lots of tomato.
Tomato, tomato, MIESK, what a story.
Yeah, so then you're here.
You're not getting the bet job, but you got the immigration situation out of it, so that's a win win. And you didn't I'm guessing you didn't get paid for what you did either, for the bet.
One you did, but like even like it's two thousand bucks, Yeah, it's not going to last you a long enough time. Thankfully. I had the photography skills. So when I moved to LA, I did under the table, which I'm like, can I say that in retrospect of what's happening now. I'm a sitizen now, so don't try to come for me ice. But I worked under the table doing photo boots, Okay, So I used to. I worked for this amazing guy and I did photo boots and there's always events happening
in LA. So that's how I made a way for myself and paid my bill while I still tried to pursue my passion. And I also went back to school to get my sexology certification and my associate and sex said during this time, so it was a time of deep building and of deep faith. And I think about that version of myself every day and thank.
Her really mm hmm. You think her for the strength to like.
The vision, yeah, oh, the vision, the strength, like yeah, like the knowingness, the knowing that this is something that people needed, that knowing this that one day that things would turn over for me. I was so skinny, like I would regularly see people who would be like, are you okay? Like I was probably one hundred and twenty seven pounds for clarification. I'm one hundred and fifty right now.
Yeah, So well you're tall too, You're like, are you five seven?
Five eight?
Okay?
I was close, Yeah, you were close, but.
Yeah, I realize you're tall. I was like, okay, but yeah, that's that's very slim for five eight. Yeah.
It was very slim, very malnourished, very like I went through, I guess, a period of depression where I just would and I could sleep for fourteen hours a day sometimes.
So you were like hustland, paying the bills but still pursuing this dream. Went back to school, and your parents from Afar like, yikes, but we.
Support, Yeah, they did.
They did.
My dad loaned me some money too, which I thought was a gift until I got on my feet again. He was like, I'm gonna eat that back.
So you gave it back? I did.
I feel like you actually even put some interest on there, because I like, I don't remember boring this, not that that's hilarious. But my parents are wonderful. They're both immigrants as well, so they understood the grind. And I remember actually when I called my dad and I was just bawling because it's hard, you know, you'd have no credit when you move to this country, so you're starting from scratch. So you have to not just like get your power turned.
To learn credit.
You got to learn credit.
Credit is a learning thing.
You have to drive to the main station, give them a cash deposit to try to get your electricity turned on because there's no trust in you, and you're mine to do my license again. So it's just a lot. I call my dad one day, She's like that, this is like so hard if I can do it, this is too hard, And he was like your grandmother who's from Guyana. She immigrated by herself when she had three
children at home to England. She barely spoke the language there because Guyanese English as Patsoa's like very broken, didn't know anybody, looked extremely different and didn't have the internet. If she could do it, I think you're asking do it?
Yeah, And I love your dad, you okay, parents, right, Okay, I like them. I like them.
So at what point do you start to see some glimmers of you know, like when you see a rock and it has the little crystals you start at what point do you start to see glimmers of hope? Yeah?
You know what, I think on your path to your dream come true? Is it doesn't happen like how it does in the movies, like the Overnight Success. One year I moved to la Maybe two to three days that year I had dream come true.
Days.
I would get booked on the Kiki Palmer Show. She had a talk show to be a guest expert. I'd have an amazing segment with her. It would feel like so much kismet happened. People will be applied me and then nothing would happen. But I had the feeling of what it felt like to be in my power, in my truth and in my purpose. And then the next year, maybe you'd have a job that was a week that you're like, Oh, this is what I really want. This
is the feeling. The following year, I got booked on BET's Wrap It Up Tour, which was an HIV awareness campaign. It didn't pay, but I got to travel around the country with other experts I admired, making connections, teaching people, educating, and so you kind of get these like little hopes along the way, and it goes from a few days a year to a week a year. Maybe you have a good quarter the next year and the next thing.
You know, you have half of the year where you're doing well and then you look up and you're like, oh, I made four hundred thousand dollars this year, Like how did that happen?
Yeah? You got to that point though I.
Make I consistently make one point, tell it, I do. I do very well, tell it.
And doing what you were designed to do. And you fought that journey I did.
Yeah, So it was it was like again, like I said, I always sometimes people ask me questions about ambition right now, like how do you stay motivated or how do you get up and keep going? It's like, at this point, it's very easy, right, I'm so incentivized, I'm so motivated. I'm so covered by amazing people like yourself, who it's not even just making sud that people care about. It's making stuff that people that you admire and respect, who
see value in it. Like that's the real win. So I have so many great motivations to keep going right now. So I'm more impressed with the version of myself who didn't have any of that, no deadlines, no care, no money, no interest, no viewership, but did it anyways?
Yeah, And what I love about your story too, was. Of course, I really try not to research people just because I feel like it's easy to stay engaged and fascinated.
It's your story, and couldn't do.
It, especially because you had it on your site, so it was helpful. But what I like about your story is almost like the fairy tale in a sense, just from an outside because it's like you're working hard, you beat the tides. You went against the grain, which I think is the hardest part, which I've emphasized before you got here, was like going against the grain at that time, like mental health ten fifteen years ago, wasn't like this cool advocacy thing, like sex education definitely wasn't.
A woman definitely wasn't, you know. And so now it's a little bit more embraced.
But when I look at your story, I think it's even more beautiful even hearing it. We're in a toxic relationship because like it seems to like it all came together like in this beautiful package where your mom, your husband is a partner too, so it's like you find this amazing partner that can also it's not intimidated or a freight to embrace. I've seen some really cute videos you guys did online about like I don't know, like spiffs on like how your relationship.
Is everything about it to me?
I love like I love it, you know.
But it's like for for you see the journey song. I hope everyone you know gets the idea of.
The timeline trusting me in an immigrant way harder than I even thought it was hearing it up close, but like when you see the whole package come together in the end, like the alignment of your partner, the timing of the kids and being a mom and all that, like.
Like, how do you I don't know, cause you have ever envisioned it to wrap so perfectly in alignment.
I guess yes, and no, I mean I guess. I remember my toxic ex actually telling me when we lived together at twenty eight. He was like, you're not going to be successful until you're thirty two, and I was like so hurt by that and from his lips to the universe's years, like I really didn't kind of figure things out until thirty two. I got married at thirty three, I had my first kid. At thirty five, I had my first, like I said, apartment that I lived in by myself that I was able to support solo rent
at thirty. When I turned thirty, I told people that was twenty eight because I was like, there's no way I'm going to embarrass myself in La, girl, I know.
Accomplishment, didn't I don't think I moved out a roommate out of my house till I was thirty two. That's because I used to always have like a roommate in my house, like you know, And then I was like, thirty two, that's it.
I just gotta be got to try living a lowe. Yeah you know what I'm saying. Yeah, but like in La, it's a huge fee.
It is. It is a huge feet And I honored the version of myself who was like deeply embarrassed, but then I would also pull her aside and be like you were not alone, and.
You're pursuing your dreams like you're whooping ass. I was an entrepreneur. From you being an entrepreneur to like one hundred percent. When okay, you gave up your your wedding photography, you went one hundred percent. You were doing like the little gigs on the road. Yes, little spots.
I say little because well I was doing I was saying little only because you said.
That, yeah, weeks days in a time while also doing full time photo booth.
Oh you're still doing it.
Yeah. So that was a really great job because it was flexible, but it was really consistent and I would have like travel jobs where I would go to like the Chicago Wine Tasting Festival, or I went to Coachella when I first moved to LA and I did photo booths there for a couple of days. So it took me to some really amazing places I remember. Or actually I did a photo booth for The Essence Woman in Hollywood Brunch, and I met so many people that I was like, one day, they're gonna look at me in
the eyes. Because you don't look at the photo booth girl, Right, she doesn't exist, She's just the person. You don't make it sound sad you don't remember them. If you probably had been to a party with a photo booth and try to recall the person who operated it. Right, they're a little invisible to you. And so you're seeing all these people that you want to be peers with or that you want to interview one day, and you just kind of know that right now they don't see you.
One day they will, So I had. I think that was a really perfect job for me, and I rode that until the wheels fell off, Like I really held onto that job until it was super logical that I didn't need it anymore.
Let's get into some of the good stuff. I don't know why I feel so low.
Okay, some of the good more recent stuff. I want to touch on Lovers by Shan, But before that, I want to talk.
What is the name Katie back? There is going to be clamoring right now. She is it Lovers Island or lover Which one is?
Love Island Island?
Okay, we got to talk a little bit about that. How did that whole thing come about? How did that impact your career in any way?
Well, I wasn't on Love Island, but and also that's because they're all the same show. I was on Too Hot to Handle, which is like Netflix's version of that. I was their workshop expert. No, it's the more popular one. I wish I was on Love Island.
Sorry, I was no use that Lover's Island, so I just went with it.
I'm sorry, Right, it would have been nice in the branding world. But yeah, I think like kind of as my career picked up and like you said, I'm grateful that the way that I was able to forge a path. I think in the beginning was difficult because people had never heard this career before, and now it's so much more common. So when I started in the beginning, there wasn't really a lot of people I was competing against because there wasn't a lot of jobs. But now it's
very different. Now that's like a huge market, which is incredible. And you probably know a sex educator, a relationship educator, a dating coach.
You're like a pioneer, though one of og.
I'm not like a doctor Ruth og or doctor Joyce on Elders, but I'm definitely a millennial og of that. So that job came during the pandemic, actually just before it. And yeah, I don't have much to say about it.
I really don't.
I really do not. I'm really not a fan of the dating shows. They're so fake, as somebody who has been on the other side of it, and as somebody who earnestly wants to teach people, empower people, help people figure out this part of their life, which to me, I in the fact that I didn't share about the tomato soup, is that the year of twenty fifteen, I had bed bugs. I was on the fritz to deportation. I legally couldn't work. And then I met Jared and who is now my husband, and he was just such
a bright, brilliant, beautiful light in my life. He was the one who came and throughout my furniture with me, helped me spray down my apartment, and he was just my friends with benefits. At the time. He wasn't even a serious relationship, yeah, but he was just kind of
there and he was there through my transition. He came with me on some of my jobs to like photo boot stuff because he worked for Denny Treyo for Traios Taco, so he knew what it looked like when someone was just getting started, and so he really empowered that beginning transition from worker to entrepreneur for me, and lat love just filled up every part of my life, every bit of confidence and self assuredness and safety and someone to
be there with. I remember there was like a really big defining moment where because my immigration thing, I had to deport my car and then re import it, which the easiest way to do that was to drive to Mexico. So I drove by myself to Mexico to deport my car, and then I didn't do something at the border because I don't know if you know this, When you drive to Mexico, it's like driving into Costco. There's nobody who's like stopping you to ask for paperwork. You just drive
on through. So I didn't know that. So I had to have gotten my car stamped before I left. But because I I didn't realize all. I was all of a sudden in Mexico. So now the officer was like, you didn't legally export this car, so now you cannot import it. So I was stuck at the border. I was balling my eyes out. I called one guy. He didn't come to the rescue. But there was another guy that I was dating who was like very well.
Off, hilarious.
He was super well off, very connected. I called him and I was like bawling. I'm like I'm stuck. I'm so scared of this, and he was like, oh, I'm in a meeting right now. I gotta like talk to you later. And then that was it, and then I didn't even hear from him for hours. I called Jared, he was at work. He stopped everything was googling with me,
like walked me through it. We figured it out. I came back that guy other guy called me that night and I was like, I'm fine now, right, But I just need to say, like that love story was such a pivotal component, I think, to that transition in my life and also giving me the confidence that I needed to say, like, I can tell people to pursue love
with reckless abandon because it's genuinely worth it. It's so worth it, and it creates such a beautiful, lived and full enrich life and it really did power my why So that allowed me to get insert the amendment, start building stuff. So when I finally kind of you know, got to a place of getting bigger jobs. And the whole goal has always been how do I make sex
sad sexy? So I love the idea of a reality show because in theory, it's amazing, great, you're using sexy singles, relatable storylines, like beautiful locations, and now you get to like hook them in with some really solid good information. But they don't.
It's like because it's like taped in like two weeks and it's like a wham maam thank you man.
No it's just like so fake, so manufactured. They just like want a very particular story told over and over again. They don't expand beyond that, they don't really challenge people. The people who come to those things genuinely don't really want love. They want a social media following at this point. So even working with them, there's kind of like a hollow ness to it, so you're almost talking over them
rather than directly to them. And then you see the edit and they take out all of the hardy parts anyways, and it's just very like ick. So that to be said, I hope if I ever do work on a reality dating show again, but I'm able to actually have more influence in infusing it with more of what it's missing, which is heart. Which is a strange sentence to say for shows that are about.
Love maybe Lovers by Shan Brandy, because I know that's the podcast, But I'm.
Saying, maybe you never know you have the power you Jared the whole fam Bam. I believe that maybe you know you have the power to create the show that.
You want to see.
That's actually a really important note for me to say, because I only branded myself this year. Before that, I was just like, I want to be the Walmart greeter of sex. That was my thing because we grew up in a time where no one talked about it. So I was like, people don't know, people don't know, like everybody has to know, and so I'm like, I don't even care what walk of life you're from, on interest
level whatever. I want to be that general store person that you just come in for toothpaste and you leave with a life changing lesson.
I love that you actually coined the.
But during the pandemic, let me tell you, people know now right, there was an explosion of relationship podcasts and sex podcasts and commentators and it kind of became its own industry. And then I quickly realized that there's a difference between people who talk about sex and love because it's trendy and those who do it because they actually want to empower and educate.
And there's definitely an empower and educate, thank you and excited about.
And then I realized that, like, not only from a speaker standpoint, but consumers, some people can consume love island, Love is blind, every relationship celebrity drama all day long, but they're just watching it for sport, Like some people watch basketball religiously but never pick up the ball. And so I'm like, I actually don't think I'm for that person. I want to be for the person who wants to
pick up that ball and become great. So Lovers became a hub not just for people to learn about love, but for people who love love and want to achieve their intimate potential to learn about it with me. So I only really want to work with people who genuinely want this, and I have real skin in the game and stick in the game and want to see it through beyond the viral moments.
I love that Lovers by Shan Chef. Look, I'm watching to clack too. I respect it Lovers by Shan. Let's talk about that whole birth of baby in that whole thing.
Yeah, I was just essentially that of like I'm forty now, so like I'm in my new chapter.
Thank you.
You could have had me fooled, but thank you for the welcome. Heykay, we're very close. So I think like my thirties was, you know, the time I moved to Los Angeles, and it was like everybody needs to know. My twenties was the same thing. And they put this book outs people know and then now my forties, it's like, Okay, what is my genuine legacy? Who can I really help an impact? How do I do that?
How do I not do that?
And how do I not get myself lost in the sauce of what's trending right now. So it's just a time for me to be more mindful and have start the kind of career or restart my career in a way that is going to allow me to be here for ten more years. So that's what the Lovers by Shan branding was. And it's a place where you can go to get free quizes and worksheets. I write a weekly newsletter which is like a love lesson from me each week, usually through a lived experience. I still kept
up with that same formula for my first book. I have my podcast, which is free, and then I also have a community which is not free as twenty dollars per month, but I give one on ones. I teach weekly classes there yeah too. Yeah, and then it's just a casual place for us to informally like share, like we'll talk about that coldplay a fair thing there. I talked about why I'm not talking you know, I'm not
interviewing people from Love Island, you know. On my platforms, I get to kind of have the kinds of discussions that I want to have about love with my genuine community, not with six hundred thousand people who, like some might be into it, some are just there because they saw that one viral clip. You know, people who are really about this life just like I am.
Yeah, it's a safe place for people to be vulnerable.
Yeah.
Yeah, So I love that your whole thing is centered around love and then like the whole package of sex, like you know, like what you talked about, like the safety, Like I didn't even think about that as a part of sex, you know, just those little intricate details.
So I love everything about your girl. I was excited, okay, but thank you guys for tuning in and feeding me tomato bisc I know.
I wanted to actually ask you before we go, because I love to learn from people. What is one lesson about intimacy, love relationships are dating that you have learned through lived experience that you can share with me today?
Yeahn wow, I don't know. My husband has been giving me a room for my money. Girl, I tell you something, He's like the polar opposite of me. I don't know. I was thinking about you, and I do all my thinking in the shower, So that's sound that came out funny.
But for whatever reason, I do my thinking in the shower. But I was thinking about you earlier, not in that way. Guys, I think sexual.
Ask the question again, what's something that you have learned about intimacy that I can learn from you?
Right now?
It can be something to learn from me. I can look what my number one educator is people by far, but more than any book, more than any class, more than any PhD or master's degree has been people.
I definitely think safety. Feeling safe, I think, at least for me personally, even when you touched on it, I okay, So.
Hell hell a tmi, hell a tmi. So like I me and my girlfriend. I thought I liked sex right. I thought I was like, oh I love sex right. I lost my virginity late. So me and my girlfriend we went to a store. We got like a vibrator, like a little butterfly whatever, And then I realized.
That's not the sex that I God was like, whoa girl?
I had three guy roommates. When I say like I could touch the walls of my house. Like I had to turn up the TV because I was like, what the fuck? I didn't want nobody to know about this little thing I had just discovered. But then I was like, I don't think sex is ever going to be the same. So anyways, fast forward, shout outs to my hubby I in the Butterfly and the Butterfly later on it took years later. Again, I'm forty one, I would been buried
like four years so and anyways, long story short. In all of that, I think the sex with my husband is probably the best. And I think it's only because there was a place of maybe safer comfort or whatever.
I don't know.
He was supposed to be my friend's, my f buddy or whatever, but somehow I got trapped around, so I got trapped. But I think that I guess incorporating some level of safety. But when the safety was.
Removed, because it was my husband's a bad boy. When the safety was removed, so did the intimacy. So I guess the thing I would.
Share is probably safety, because the second it was removed, all that great feelings kind of dissipated with it.
Did you grab that lesson from the Crese summer episode. That was her big thing of how much her safety was tied to her sex drive, but for her safety meant an knowingness that tomorrow was going to be okay.
So that's one hundred percent how I feel.
Yeah, She's like when she had romantic partners in the past who would be stressed about finance, or stressed about the future, or just so boggled and overwhelmed by life that they weren't able to provide that optimism of like I got you, I got us. She's like that my sex drive would immediately dry up.
Oh I wasn't thinking that, but she Maybe I was thinking, like my husband could be unpredictable sometimes. M h. I'm like, yo, your switch up game just makes me uneasy, like I can't It's like I don't know if I could trust it and puts me in the defense.
I guess you could say, but I just learning this about myself. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. I'm just like kind of trying to figure out like my triggers or whatever. But I do notice, like, oh, something's changing, and sometimes I'm like, man, maybe I'm just getting old, you know.
But I don't think that's it. I think it's just something tied to that unpredictability for me kills it.
That makes complete logical sense from a biological or an animalistic perspective. Right, Like mating doesn't happen during drought, it doesn't happen during like seasons of migration. It happens when the flowers are out and the birds are chirping and the grass is green, and now you have the time to actually sit and focus and select a mate. So I think if you're worried about your safety or on edge, or you're in fight or flight mode, it's very difficult
to get to calm and connects. That makes a lot of sense to me.
You know, it actually makes even more sense what you say, because I didn't get married or have a baby till COVID. It took the whole world stopping and like all like the I'm an entrepreneur, so every day is a gamble kind of sort of saying. I mean, it's stable, but for the most part, it's still a gamble. But it took like the whole world freezing for me to be like hmm, me, yeah, you know, but I feel it.
I feel it coming back, and I still blame my husband for most of it. But I'm just saying, after talking to you, I did not know that till this conversation.
Yeah, I think it's a helpful thing to be able to communicate to your partner too. So it's like, this isn't this mysterious elusive thing, right, Like, this is something very tangible and also very much within not just my control but your control for us to create an environment where I feel like we can share the kind of intimacy that we'll both enjoy.
Yeah, and then I saw this, I got other questions. I got three minutes left, Thank you guys for soon and in did you have any more questions? No?
This was great?
Did I help you it anyway? Of course?
Yeah, that was a great answer, really really helpful.
Answered it like kind of right, Yeah, Well because.
It expanded I think off of what Cree said, right, because I think for her it was really tied to like not necessarily money per se, but about family security and the securedness of their future. But I think that yours is talking about emotional security, Like I have to feel like tomorrow emotionally we're going to be in a good place. And if yesterday was good and the day before it was kind of weird, and the week before that was really off, but the week before that we
were really on. I just need more consistency before I feel like I can get to a space of genuinely feeling like, yeah, let's.
Fuck yeah, let's fucking make it great? Right? I miss the great you know? But okay? Cool? Thank you? Thank you for asking me that, because it helped me answer a question I didn't even know was there or an answer.
So cool, all right?
And then how can everybody keep up with it's lovers by saying, God, that's it?
Period, finish your too, we've done everything?
Podcast? And is there gonna be more books? Yes? I hope so.
I hope so.
And maybe hopefully there'll be a show really about love and all of that encompasses sex.
Yeah, so too. I hope so too. Thank you for giving me your time. All right? Thanks you out. We're gonna finish this suit.
I'm already done.
I know. I and I eat fast.
Ye all right, peace out, guys, gotta be faster than that.
For more eating.
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