Forgiveness and the Art of Improv: How to Laugh and Let Go (Inspiring Women, Episode 56)
On this episode of Inspiring Women, host Betty Collins was joined by Andrea Flack-Wetherald, social worker turned comedian, speaker & bestselling author. Andrea shared insights on forgiveness from her book, The Funny Thing About Forgiveness, forgiveness as a leadership skill, the five core principles of mindful, improv thinking, and much more.
The host of Inspiring Women is Betty Collins, and the show is presented by Brady Ware & Company.
Betty’s Show Notes
Andrea Flack-Wetherald shares her insights on forgiveness and the importance of improv in everyday life. According to Andrea, forgiveness is often overlooked as a soft skill, but it is crucial for personal and professional growth. She explores intentional growth from pain rather than absolution, analyzing what causes pain and asking empowering questions rather than perpetuating a story of resentment and shame.
Flack-Wetherald also shares the core five principles of mindful, improv thinking: choosing curiosity instead of judgment, honoring your scene partner, staying in the present moment, listening beyond your comfort zone, and receiving everything as a gift. These principles can be applied to personal and professional relationships to improve communication and understanding.
Andreas’s message of forgiveness and improv thinking is timely and relevant in a world where fear and uncertainty seem to be increasing. By choosing curiosity, staying present, and listening beyond our comfort zones, we can improve our communication and understanding with others, and grow both personally and professionally. As Andrea states, “We are just as much a part of the world we aim to make better as anybody else is.”
Hosted by Betty Collins, CPA, and Director at Brady Ware and Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware and Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home.
For more information, go to the Insights page at Brady Ware and Company.
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TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:02] Betty Collins
Has anyone ever inspired you to change your life that made you more fulfilled? Well, as a leader in your business and in your community, what are those questions that you ask yourself on a daily basis? It’s these questions that we explore on inspiring women. I am your host, Betty Collins, and I’m a certified public accountant, a business owner and a community leader who partners with others who want to achieve remarkable results for themselves and their organizations. I am here to help inspire you to a positive step forward for a better life. Well, welcome to the podcast. Today we have an amazing person. Of course, this year’s theme is all about courage, and I can’t think of a more deserving person to say this person has courage. And not only that, she is courageous. And I look at those two things as differently, because courageous means you’re actually willing and ready and going to me. So but courage in the everyday in the simple it doesn’t always have to be big. It doesn’t have to be super power. Right. But this person in my life I’ve known her father and now I’ve known her. And she’s just wrote this amazing book and she’s much younger than I am and she’s taught me a lot in what she knows versus I always think for as old as you are, not, you know, a lot.
[00:01:29] Betty Collins
So. But she wrote a book called Yes. And this is Andrea Flack Wetherald. And she wrote a book called The Funny Thing About Forgiveness. I tell everyone it’s the art of forgiveness. So when I do that, sorry, but it’s it’s the funny thing about forgiveness and it’s what every, every leader needs to know about improv culture and the world’s least favorite F word. And that is the book. It’s amazing. The person who wrote it again is Andrea, and she’s an amazing young woman with a lot of talent, a lot of fresh breath of air in the world, which we live for sure. And her dad, Ron and I went to the same college in the 1980 seconds, I’ll say. And he thought we’d be a good match in the 2020s. So here we are and we’re doing a podcast. In fact, this is the second podcast. I don’t normally have a repeat guest, but I feel like her book is so needed to the it’s so needed to get out there. The message of this book needs to be there. So I’m not you know, when we think of forgiveness immediately we probably see a priest in front of us or we see we’re going to have to confess and dump it all out there.
[00:02:40] Betty Collins
Right? And so this book is not like that at all. I have been amazed at how I now look at the word forgiveness. It’s been impactful, really how I approach my family, my team, the different relationships that I have in life. And we’re going to make this a two part series because I think it will talk for a long time on the things that are here. And I’m only in Chapter three. I’ve had this book for 7 or 8 months because I just keep rehashing the same stuff. I need to keep moving, but it’s been that impactful for me. I’ve kind of highlighted through the other, but I mean, when I say read, I mean deep dive, put it on paper. What am I taking from it? That’s how I read a book. So first, what I think people need to understand is that forgiveness is a soft skill. We kind of ignore soft skills, don’t we? I mean, we don’t. We look at them. We don’t. We look at that as well. That’s not what my degree is in. But soft skills are how you do life, in my opinion, how you use this, the education. But I think.
[00:03:43] Andrea Flack Wetherald
There’s been a shift to think more about that, especially as we talk about inclusion and being a heart centered leader and what that means. And so introducing forgiveness as the most important soft skill, the most important leadership skill I think has been a huge priority to me to really position it as such.
[00:04:02] Betty Collins
Right. And and I think that people, if they really would look at this as a soft skill and they would really take soft skills seriously, you could impact the technical skills in your life and the things that have steps and the things that you want them to be. One, two, three, four, five, like a CPA. So it’s a soft skill. And second, though, improv, you know, talk about courage. If I was ever somewhere and had to do improv, I would be fearful. I mean, I would be a frozen, I’d be paralyzed by it. So but it plays a big role. That’s not easy for someone like me. When I hear the word improv, I think of funny. I think of comedian, But it’s not just for them then, right? And I’ll let you why don’t you expand a little bit on that before we go into the list, which is what I love, right?
[00:04:57] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Yeah. So improv just to make sure all of your listeners are on. The same page is a form of live comedy where everything is made up. So sometimes people think of improv and they think of standup or they think of Saturday Night Live, and there might be degrees of improv involved with that. But that’s for the most part, scripted comedy. Improv is where everything is completely made up on the spot. It’s more like what they might have seen. On Whose Line Is It Anyway, right? So that’s like improv as a form of theater. That’s what it is. But the reality is that all of life is improv. Like everything that has happened in our lives is improv. Nobody handed you a script at the beginning of your life and was like, This is how everything’s going to play out, right? And so my goal in life has been to teach the skills that professional comedians are using in order to make improvised scenes more successful so that they can draw upon those same skills when they find themselves in those moments of paralysis. Like I’m sure that the thought of performing is not maybe the only thing that causes you to be afraid.
[00:06:02] Andrea Flack Wetherald
A lot of people feel that sense of paralysis when they imagine giving their boss real feedback or when they imagine telling their mom that thing that you said or did hurt me, or when they imagine whatever. Like there’s so many things in life, real everyday situations we find ourselves in that cause a lot of fear. And one of the things that I think is so deeply powerful about improv is the way that it encourages performers to renegotiate that experience of fear. It’s pretty common for comedy theaters to have this saying that’s become special to us, painted somewhere on a wall, or at least a poster hanging somewhere on a wall that says Follow the Fear.
And it’s just this idea that when you have that feeling, it might be okay for you to ask your amygdala to renegotiate what’s happening and say, Hey, I’m not about to get eaten by a saber tooth tiger. It’s safe for me to get out here and investigate and see what will happen if I follow this feeling into something that’s new.
[00:07:03] Betty Collins
But it is. Improv would be something very fearful for me. I would be crazy about it, but public speaking is a fearful for me, right? And so I look at that and go, I’m not really going to get over that anxiety. I’m just going to do it. Afraid. Yeah. And that’s fine, right? And people go, Oh, you look so natural. I go, It doesn’t matter that I look natural. It’s a fearful thing to I know I have the attention of the audience. You don’t know until you have that pulse, till you’re like, okay, they’re getting me. It’s a thing of fear. I just do it. Afraid so. So first we have the soft skills. Second, we have improv plays a big role. But third, you’ve got to determine. You need to understand the core five. And that’s where I have. I dug in and I’ve dug in. I’ve probably dug in too much. I need to keep digging in and going forward. And I always go, Thank God there’s a list. There’s five things. But these core five, if you can, if you can grasp these, you will change how you think you really will. So, oh yeah, we’re going to go through them in more detail, but I’m going to list them real quick. Choosing curiosity instead of judgment. Oh, there we go. That’s huge in today’s world. Honor your scene partner again. I’ve thought a lot about that. Stay in the present moment. This is it. Not tomorrow, not yesterday. Listen beyond your comfort zone and receive everything as a gift. Those are the five core. And you could literally spend time writing that down, hashing it over, making a list and thinking about in your life how those cores can apply and where am I, where am I making it and where I’m not. And I really spent a lot of time doing that, so good for you.
[00:08:56] Andrea Flack Wetherald
It’s really easy not to do that. It’s really easy to read stuff like that and imagine some sort of antagonist in your life. And I wish they would hear that if only that person could take this advice. But so like your humility to unpack that for yourself is really beautiful. Thank you for setting that type of example in the world.
[00:09:15] Betty Collins
Oh, it’s it’s one of those things because there are just things I want to do differently. And part of it is I’m taking different approaches, which I want you to listen to my podcast on that. It’s comparing Lady Gaga to Queen Elizabeth, to Aretha Franklin and Nancy Pelosi and how they’ve affected.
[00:09:34] Andrea Flack Wetherald
I will be listening to that.
[00:09:36] Betty Collins
You got to listen to that one.
[00:09:37] Andrea Flack Wetherald
I’m very curious. Yeah, it’s immediately really curious.
[00:09:40] Betty Collins
And I use that word a lot in the podcast when I said, don’t judge me, just be be curious. Stay with me. So but but so we’re going to go through these five core and that’s why I think it could take two sessions because I just think there are things you don’t want to just.
Okay, good. Choose career. Okay. Yeah, I can I can do that. Oh my scene partners. Yeah whatever. I don’t want you to do that. So just a couple of things first. So how’s your book doing? How is it out there? Doing well?
[00:10:05] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Yes. Yeah. So one thing that I don’t know I think is kind of fun and special to me is that there has been a lot of improv just in putting this book into the world, that at the time that I had a completed manuscript and the absolute conviction that this book needed to exist was February 2020, right before everything like, Wow blew up. And I had this wonderful agent who I hope to work with again in the future, and it seemed like things were just going to go a certain way. And then, as we all know, that’s not what happened next. And so it got to the point where blah, blah, do the publishing circuit, you know, this sort of thing. And I decided to just self publish. I was like, I think that this is going to be the faster way this book is done. It’s ready. I’m watching the world blow up around me and I want mindful improv thinking to have a voice in this madness. Like I want this to be done now. So I decided to self publish, which was a humility thing for me.
[00:11:12] Andrea Flack Wetherald
I was really afraid to do it. And so anyhow, how my book is doing, I’m proud of the success that we’ve had so far. So it’s just now like there was a big push right at the beginning and a bunch of sales and then it was like, I have to drive the boat, like I have to keep at it and keep doing stuff. And it’s just been in like the last month that I’ve feel like I’ve consistently broken out of my circle of people that already knew about me. You know what I mean? When the book came out and it’s been just so fun to see little by little. I’m not a New York Times bestseller yet, you know, But little by little, it is just such a joy to see people from across the world connecting with it and writing to me and telling me, you know, So it’s just, you know, I celebrate that and I think that that’s beautiful and awesome and anything else will come in its own right time Andrew.
[00:12:06] Betty Collins
Came to the Women’s Brady Women’s Leadership Conference last June, and we have it every June. This June is going to be year ten. And she came to that and she was the breakfast speaker, and there were 270 people in the room. And it was intimidating, to say the least. But she just knocked it out of the park. And then she had a table afterwards and just sold every book she had. You know, if she would have brought in twice the amount of books, she would have sold them because it was just that powerful. So I can’t tell you enough about getting the funny thing about forgiveness, but we’re going to get into these core five. But, you know, as I read this book and I dive into these things, I think the thing that has impressed me the most is your theology for your age. I’m not talking about religion, but what you think and how you think it. So the theology of this book should have been written by someone in my mind two times your age, but you were able to grasp something and get the message out, right? You wrote the book, you did it. You were courageous, you with it, and you had passion in purpose. Tell me a little bit about when in your life did the theology all come to you? Was it because it didn’t happen in February 2020? This has been a building thing, so let’s just take a couple of minutes because I know that could be a whole podcast, but but because it could.
[00:13:31] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Absolutely be a whole podcast.
[00:13:33] Betty Collins
It could because. Because you’re the the fact that you were able, as a very young person to put these things together in my mind says your journey has been different because you were able to come up with some of that. Or maybe I’m just slow. It could be I’m 60 and I’m slow, but do you have any insight to give us on that? Or maybe that’s not a fair question.
[00:13:57] Andrea Flack Wetherald
I mean, I think I’ll answer the best that I can. I mean, I in my life have learned to seek more than I claim that I’ve found, you know, and to to be okay and to find a sense of safety in not knowing for sure what’s what about God, about politics, about whatever, and that there’s really a lot of human connection and a lot of wisdom to be found in approaching through questions rather than approaching with answers. And so, like, that’s not something that I do perfectly, but I just have witnessed in my life how when I was very young in high school and college, I just wanted answers so bad. I wanted to know what was what. And I hurt people. I was hurtful to people without meaning to be. And all of a sudden, the faith that I grew up with, the very clear understanding. Of what’s what and who’s in and who’s out and whatever was broken. And I was like, Oh, no, I don’t know. I don’t know where I stand anymore. I don’t know who am I without being the person that believes the Bible is a factual history lesson dropped directly down from heaven, and anyone who doesn’t abide by it is bad. Like, who am I if I’m not that person anymore? But like staying with that question and just letting it be hard for a while and and not feeling like I needed to speed past that discomfort and just being willing to sit with like, what if this divine spirit of love that has inspired millions of people for thousands and thousands of years is not limited to the way my one culture understands it? Like, what if this divine spirit of love is not something I need to be afraid of wherever I find it? And that sense of safety, where there is love, there is God has just impacted my entire life. It has completely changed the way that I relate with my scene partners. And yeah, I think that’s the best answer I can give. Okay.
[00:16:10] Betty Collins
No, that I mean, you just have insight that is beyond your years because you ask questions.
[00:16:16] Andrea Flack Wetherald
I like that. It’s probably because I’m Ron Flack’s daughter. You are?
[00:16:18] Betty Collins
Yes. He would tell you that. Yeah. Quick plug, quick plug. So let’s get to it to you in your mind. I mean, my idea of forgiveness might be different than yours, but what is forgiveness?
[00:16:30] Andrea Flack Wetherald
What is it? So the way that I teach it, because it’s been helpful to me, is to not think of forgiveness as absolution, to not think of forgiveness as I am letting you off the hook for your bad behavior or letting myself off the hook for bad behavior. But instead, forgiveness is intentional growth, purposeful growth from pain, and instead of relive past memories of trauma, for one example, relive it in your head over and over, what kind of person would do that? What should I have done differently? Did I deserve that? Whatever, Like rehash that memory movie over and over to interrupt that memory movie and ask a different question and instead say, What must I still believe is true for that thing to have its hooks in me right now? Because the only reason that thing has its hooks in me is that I presently right now believe that because that happened, my present and future freedom, growth, joy, expansion, success, something I believe in some way that it’s limited because of that. So how about I figure out what is it that I think I can’t have because of that? What is it that I think I can’t become because of that? And then reroute to Deep truth? The deepest truth I know is life is improv.
[00:17:45] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Yes. And and that foundation of improv that that’s. Yes. And that’s how we build a scene. And it’s like a way deeper concept than what meets the ear. But really what we’re talking about is acceptance and autonomy. That’s what it is. That, yes, peace is acceptance. I accept what has already been contributed to the scene. I’m not fighting against it. It exists. It happened. It’s real. And yes, and I have autonomy about what comes next. I have autonomy about what comes next. And. Yes. And and we’re going to build whatever is going to happen next. We’re going to build it together. And I get to decide who those scene partners are sometimes, and sometimes I don’t. And that’s we can talk more about that later in the conversation if we want to, because relating to your scene partners is a whole thing. Um, but regardless of any other variables, the future is not written in stone. Good things are still possible and I get to decide if I’m going to build towards that or not.
[00:18:53] Betty Collins
When when I dove in. And that’s why I’ve had to read these cause a lot of times so I could understand how am I connecting forgiveness to these? Cause I realized it’s really the forgiveness piece for me is that I’m going to give a lot more slack. Hmm. I’m going to give a lot more like the moment. And let’s seize it and let’s ask some questions and let’s not just make a quick snap decision. So I looked at it as not so much forgiveness as I look like forgiving. Let’s do some forgiving. So when you’re curious, instead of judging and you’re honoring the people around you and you’re staying in the moment instead of going back or forward too quick, you’re listening. You know you’re jumping out of your. So I looked at it. I started going that direction with it. So so that’s why I asked the question to you What is forgiveness? It’s kind of different for me. It’s kind of it’s it’s like loosening the belt. It’s releasing it’s freedom. It’s those things, you know, giving that to your circumstances around you.
[00:20:03] Andrea Flack Wetherald
I think those are all results. Like my my response to that is that I think those are results of forgiveness. I think everything that expansion, that lightness that you’re describing results from forgiveness. I think the work of forgiveness, what is it that we can actively do to achieve those feelings that can feel hard to pin down? That was maybe a thing that I noticed after years of therapy is that sometimes people talk about these ideas of healing in a way that it can be so confusing. At least for me. I am a type a person that likes lists and charts and things like this. Very surprising that improv has been so great for me because I normally like to have locked down control over what happens. And so improv is like immersion therapy for me. I guess it’s like surrendering control, but I think the work of forgiveness, like, what does it mean to forgive? What do I do in my brain within myself when I’m doing the work of forgiveness? I think that it is analyzing. That might be a strong word, but. But allowing yourself. When you feel ready because you’re not ready for everything in your past. But when you feel ready, allowing yourself to sit with what causes you pain and ask an empowering question rather than a question that continues to perpetuate your story of resentment and shame.
[00:21:31] Betty Collins
Powerful stuff. If you’re overwhelmed right now, just hang with us because it’s a lot. And that’s why I took time in reading this section. But I want to get to the list of five, the core, right? Because that’s what we do. Okay. So we’re going to start and jump into the core because the core has been very vital to me since I really dove into this book last fall in my relationships at work and my clients, my peers. It doesn’t matter who it is. I’ve really tried to apply these things and it’s had some really good results. So and I this is where I come in with Lady Gaga. So I remember reading this New York Times and I did that for a while. It was a phase I’d read The New York Times on Sunday. It lasted about six months. Then I was done. But there was an article there on on Lady Gaga, and I’m like, What a complete moron. She’s wearing meat to a banquet because she’s protest ing, you know, cruelty to animals, whatever. And and I just judged her immediately. I’m like, whatever, okay? And I just judged her and I thought I would never buy her music and I would never have anything to do with her.
[00:22:45] Betty Collins
And et cetera. Et cetera. Then I went to a movie with my sister in law. Saw the remake of A Star Is Born. And the music was phenomenal. And I was telling my sister in law, who’s known me since 1980, by the way, and she said, Yeah, it was really good. I said, Yeah, I got a download download that on my iPod. And she said, Yeah. She said, Are you just going to get like the, you know, the movie stuff? I said, Yeah, I don’t know who, you know, I didn’t know who the singer was. She goes, You don’t know who the singer is. It’s Lady Gaga. And I went, Oh, and I just remember that moment. And I went back to that meat article and I went, Wow. And then you came to my conference and started talking about judgment over curiosity. And again, that thought came back to me because I’m like, I really judged her. So after the Star is born, I downloaded the track. It’s probably not called a track now, but the the music on iPod first one, we call.
[00:23:50] Andrea Flack Wetherald
It a sound pancake.
[00:23:51] Betty Collins
There we go. Start saying that sound pancake. See, I learned something today. I’m open to it. You know, I’m completely kidding.
[00:23:59] Andrea Flack Wetherald
If you say that people will laugh. Oh, they will.
[00:24:01] Betty Collins
Okay, good, good. Yeah, Don’t set me up for that. So. But I did download her music and then I thought, you know, I’m going to download, see what else she has because all I’m picturing still in my mind is the meat dress and crazy music. And here’s this whole list of remakes of Elton John. Oh my gosh, she can sing to those and the touch of the piano when she’s playing it as she’s singing those old songs that I’ve known forever. And I play that almost daily when I drive home from work and decompress. So judgment over curiosity is real. It’s a small thing, but it’s the music on the way home that sets the tone for my evening. And had I been more not so judgmental. So how do I apply that at business? Because she’s Lady Gaga and I’m never going to meet her and all those things. But I did you know, I did Google about her and just the depth that she has. I’m never going to be her. I’m not like her. I don’t want to be her. We think too completely different, but I can enjoy the music of this woman. And she’s extremely talented. So I took it to heart, you know, And and one of the things that you tackle in the book is you say the worst thing you see in someone is not the only thing. Yes. Let’s talk about that, because I play that over and over again in my life right now. So when I know the worst thing about someone, I go, okay, that’s not the only thing and that’s where I’m going. I’m going to give the slack. I’m going to loosen the belt. I’m going to talk about it. In my mind, the art. I call it the art of forgiving. Let’s talk about. That’s perfect.
[00:25:38] Andrea Flack Wetherald
I’m glad you call it that.
[00:25:39] Betty Collins
Yeah, I do. The worst thing you see in someone is not the only thing. Let’s talk about that.
[00:25:44] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Yeah, I mean, we’re all more than the worst thing about us. And I think that we would be remiss not to pare this part of the conversation alongside accountability and how one of the reasons why we overreact, one of the reasons why we rush to drop the hammer or tell someone what’s what is, you know, maybe a bad habit. But but I think it can also be rooted in a fear that there won’t be accountability. Like a fear that if we don’t step in and drop the hammer, then who will? If not me, then who? And so if we’re talking about business, if we’re talking about life because, you know, maybe Lady G will hear this and but, but, but more likely than not, these types of experiences create a huge return on investment. When we apply them in our real lives and our daily lives. And so I think part of the call to action for leaders is to just make sure that people understand, like how accountability works, how can we appropriately give one another feedback, How can we do that when people understand what the proper channels are? There’s less of this need to like Magnum, P.I. style, kick down doors and whatever, and like overreact in a way that just toxicities, if that’s a word, I’m not toxifying toxic.
[00:27:03] Betty Collins
Yeah.
[00:27:04] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Toxic is the company culture and such. Yeah. So I think it’s it feels safer to choose curiosity when we understand that accountability, appropriate, healthy accountability can exist. Yeah, but I think, like, just as human beings walking through the world, it’s really important to believe that we are just as much a part of the world. We aim to make better as anybody else, as anybody else is. And the people that are in our lives that piss us off are just as much a part of the world we aim to make better as anyone else. And so often we imagine making the world a better place and being the change as something that happens really far away and as something that maybe happens when we participate in letter writing campaigns and whatever, and do what you’re going to do, like pour your heart into the world and whatever feels good. But so often I think, what would the world be like if we would all wonder before we hate if we could just take a breath to wonder before we hate and to believe that people might put bumper stickers on their car in order to ruffle feathers and whatever, but they don’t hold beliefs in order to ruffle feathers and make people angry. They hold beliefs because they believe them. They they think that they’re right. If they didn’t think that they were right, they would believe a different thing. Like behind whatever behavior or thing that is rubbing you the wrong way and making you angry is a person with a belief that is rooted in a story. And the more we can wonder and when it’s appropriate, it’s not always, but when it’s appropriate, ask brave questions. We will surprise ourselves with what curiosity can do for our relationships. Like really surprise ourselves with what curiosity can do for our relationships.
[00:29:02] Betty Collins
And I’ve had to really work at because because I go, well, in my mind there, the person’s talking to me and in my mind I’m going, I know the worst thing about you, or this is all I can see is the worst thing about you, right? And it’s hard for me to turn that off sometimes. And I’ve really caught myself going, okay, stop and think about the work. Because, by the way, Betty Collins, you have something that’s the worst thing about you. Okay. But as you talk about accountability, I like all that coming into play with it. I want you to talk about it because I envision this. The turkeys, you talk about the turkeys and I’ve driven in Pennsylvania and how horrible Pittsburgh’s like all that is. Right. But talk about because this is really a good story. Let’s go back to that moment so we can do some application with it because I thought.
[00:29:56] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Okay, so if you if readers haven’t if they haven’t read the book or listeners haven’t read the book, the story Betty is referring to is several years ago I was driving in Pittsburgh and we have steep roads like Pittsburgh is a city built along the mountain, the Allegheny Mountains, like we have crazy roads. And I was driving a stick shift, a little Honda fit up probably it’s in the top 20 of steepest roads in Pittsburgh. And it was in springtime where there’s just potholes everywhere and the roads are just a mess. And I’m coming up and I need to shift gears. And just as I’m doing this like 5 or 6 turkeys, I don’t remember how many I said in the book, probably 12 or 14 or
100. Just a lot of turkeys, lots of turkeys come running out of the bushes because this is the other part of Pittsburgh that’s just delightful. It’s a city in the mountains. We we very much view the deer and the turkeys, and they are our neighbors, the foxes and everything. Like we just are all there together. So these turkeys come running out of the bushes in front of my car. I slam on the brakes and I am trying to like get the car in gear and it stalls out and I’m like, all wappy jawed right in the middle of this really steep road. So the turkeys do their thing, like slow as Moses, like move their butts out of the road. And I’m like, What is going on? Guess I’ll wait. Yeah. So I get the car in gear and I’m like, trying to get it up the hill. Just like, so frustrating. And this truck comes the other direction and doesn’t see the turkeys like they’re already off the road. And he’s, like, blasting his horn, flipping me the bird. Like, What are you doing? Why? Why are you just stopped in the middle of the road like you’re taking up the whole road? And I was, like, gesturing wildly, like, I can’t believe you didn’t see, like, this huge, what do you call them? A flock. A flock of.
[00:31:50] Betty Collins
Turkeys.
[00:31:51] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Flock of turkeys? Yes. So he was very he was not wondering. So in the book, I encourage people, when you see someone amidst what is just odd behavior and you feel like if you had a snapshot of this moment and you sent it to anyone else, they would agree with you that that person is being odd right now. This is strange behavior. Clearly, this person, you’re not allowed to stop your car in the road. They’re a lawbreaker, a law breaking knucklehead, as my son would call me. And so in those moments, can we challenge ourselves to think, what might the turkeys be in this situation? Like what might have just happened? Like what could have happened that might explain this? Maybe there’s turkeys involved in the situation.
[00:32:36] Betty Collins
I like the way you say it, where you just goes, where you it dawned on you as he’s flipping you off and mad because you’re stopped in the middle of the road and you’re like, Oh, he didn’t see the turkeys, right?
[00:32:47] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Yeah.
[00:32:47] Betty Collins
So sometimes when we’re in the judgment and the curiosity, I have that in my mind going, They don’t know about the turkeys. Yeah, you know, they don’t know this. They don’t see that. Is it my job to tell them? I don’t know. Do I need to explain to this guy flipping me off who’s going down the road that there were turkeys? But. But there are those moments where it would help people understand more. And so I’m reading this just laughing because I can envision you in Pittsburgh in that steep hill because I’ve been on those roads. I know exactly what you’re talking about. And so many times people don’t know where we’re coming from or what we’re experiencing and what we’re doing, but we judge harshly instead of use curiosity. And so I’ve really tried on my day to day in the ordinary think about that piece of the judgment and the curiosity. And so I shared a similar. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:33:42] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Sorry. I shared a similar sentiment with someone who was expressing like frustration toward someone in a truck who cut them. Mof and they had like balls hanging off the back of their truck. And so there was like it was we were both, I will be honest that we were both creating a caricaturized version of the driver of this truck and like, what kind of person must this individual be, you know, based on this information? And I stopped myself and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. For all we know, this is a volunteer firefighter, like driving as fast as they can to go help a neighbor. For all we know, this person just got really sad news about their mom in the hospital. For all we know, like we don’t know. And the person who I was in the car with was a fellow improviser. We were driving to the theater and she was like, But none of that’s probably true. And we ended up having this conversation that was so beautiful about like, it’s easy to feel that way. It’s probably not true if it’s a type of person that we generally think we don’t like, whereas if that were a type of person that we generally think we might like, like if it were a nun driving a nun car, whatever, that would be.
[00:34:55] Betty Collins
Like a nun mobile.
[00:34:57] Andrea Flack Wetherald
A nun mobile. I brought this up because you said a priest earlier or whoever, whatever would be like your type of person that you think they have a bumper sticker on the back of their car that you agree with? Yeah. Then we give the benefit of the doubt. The reality is it’s our imagination. It’s just our imagination deciding what we think. So why not assume the best? Why not relieve ourselves of the discomfort of hate, you know, and imagine turkeys, you know.
[00:35:21] Betty Collins
Well, and we’ll we’ll kind of wrap up judgment over curiosity with this quote that you have in the book that we could spend a whole podcast on, but we won’t. But, you know, we’ve talked about judgment, curiosity. You don’t know people’s circumstances. Think out the best instead of the worst. Apply those things to your everyday things. When you’re in when you’re in business and your family, social circles, whatever. But this quote is really good. Every moment you spend judging instead of deciding to get curious, it’s a moment that you’ve invested in the divide instead of the relationship. What a statement for today. Right? So judging is about the divide. Curiosity is about the relationship. And I thought that sums up this part really, really well. So where do you want to spend your time on the divide or on the relationship? Sometimes there’s just people are jerks and they drive bad and they flip you off and they go and there’s no reason to go. There’s no reason to give them any more energy, Right. Or even try to think about it. Just it is what it is. But I know for me that has been an am I going to spend my time on the divide or am I going to spend it on the relationship? And is the is the relationship worth spending it on? Right. Yeah. Is it worth spending on. And so so to me, the judgment over curiosity isn’t even just I am so great and I know all about you and I’ll be curious. There’s a lot to it. There’s a lot to that core. But it has really made me think about how I interact with people differently. I don’t know if you want me to hear that. Anything else you want to wrap up with, but I loved the that the spending the time on judging versus curiosity was really good.
[00:37:11] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Yeah. I guess the only thing that came to mind for me is that I would add is this really awesome quote from Fred Rogers where he says the very same people who are bad sometimes are the very same people who are good sometimes. And I come back to that a whole lot. Yeah.
[00:37:28] Betty Collins
So if we really want to to have that art of forgiving or we want to conquer forgiveness, the soft skill judgment and over curiosity is a huge, huge starter. And it’s and it’s it’s really easy to do well with that or not. So okay so now we’re going to go into more of what you understand, which is maintain faith in that scene partner, because you’re you’re a big but the scene partner can be what your family, your groups, your peers, your colleagues, your business partners, all those things.
[00:38:01] Andrea Flack Wetherald
Right. Anyone building the current scene with you. And so that as a foster adoptive parent, that means the judge, that means the bio parents. That means the social worker who’s burned out and probably should have retired ten years ago. Like that means anyone, anyone that you are interacting with is your scene partner. Yep.
[00:38:22] Betty Collins
Exactly. And it can be in any and every circumstance. It can be. It’s where are you right now? For you, you’ve been through fostering and adopting. I can’t even imagine that roller coaster. And by the way, you were still really parenting the entire time, right? So all your scene partners in there, there was a lot you had to deal with. But I like this quote in your book. In the book about scene partners.
Treat your scene partner. Partner. Excuse me. Like a creative genius. And you will give them space to show who they are. Everyone goes, Oh, that’s easy. You’re a genius. And we’re going to just. And then you’re going to come out being a genius. Right? But treat your scene partner like the backward asshole they are and you will give them the space to show them who you are or who they are. Let’s talk about that statement because, you know, how do we because I mean, there’s a lot in those two sentences, but there’s a lot of truth in those two sentences. So when we tell when we give people the room to be really great or we give them the room to be really bad, how do you think they’re going to turn out? How do you think the relationship is going to turn out? How do you think the whole situation. How do you think the whole scene is going to turn out right?
[00:39:35] Andrea Flack Wetherald
I mean, the reality is, like we never have control over anybody else, you know? And so even in surrendering and being like, okay, let me set aside my preconceived notions and truly approach with curiosity. Surely even in those moments, as I have experienced, also people still show up and they’re ready for a fight. And sometimes people are still mean to me and whatever. Like I live a somewhat public life at this point to where people feel like they can say pretty much whatever. And once you create content on the Internet, there’s people who kind of just you’re not a real person, you’re an Internet person now, you know? So it is absolutely the case that I approach with curiosity or openness. And sometimes people are still mean. But the reality is that people can feel what you are expecting from them. And when you come in and you are very sure. That you know who someone is. It almost won’t matter what they say, because your pattern seeking brain is going to look for evidence to support your initial assumption. It’s called affirmation bias, and it happens to all of us. If we think something is true, we will look for evidence and our reticular activating system will sort through all of the options available, all of the all of the stimuli, everything that’s happening. And we’ll pick out stuff that matches that, you know, and and so we’ll prove to ourselves, look, he is an asshole.
[00:41:02] Andrea Flack Wetherald
He is an asshole, you know? And but I’m sure that we can each relate to times that someone has told us a story. You’re not going to believe what Becky said to me. And then they tell us what Becky said. And you’re kind of like I mean, I think she just meant that the water cooler was out of water. I think that that’s the end of what she meant when she said that. In my in my humble opinion, like, I think that all she meant was that we need more staples. I don’t feel like she meant something else, you know. So we all have been on both sides of this. We’ve all been on the we’ve all been the person. Sure. We knew what kind of person we were dealing with. And we’ve all been the person who’s watched someone else spin out over something that was not intended and that what was happening was their insecure fear, brain cultivated evidence to them that they felt was sure was pointing at something. And so the point of this idea of treat someone like you think they’re a creative genius. So many times in my life, more often than not in my life, when I decide I’m going to walk into this and I’m going to treat this person like I believe that they are capable of great things, I’m going to treat this person like I believe I have things to learn from them.
[00:42:20] Betty Collins
Different results? Yes.
[00:42:23] Andrea Flack Wetherald
When I come in. Sure. I need to drop the hammer. It, you know, you’re going to it’s really hard to buck the current if someone has already set the bar at like, this is what I think of you. It takes a really grounded person to be able to not be the equal and opposite reaction. That’s really what this is. It’s like law of momentum. You know that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. That’s true for emotional momentum, too. And so it’s really important as leaders, as parents, as whatever hats we wear in life to be aware of that. That is true. There will be an equal and opposite reaction for what I’m contributing into this right now. So what? Like unless you know, someone is super, super grounded or whatever and they’re of course we all have the option of not being that equal and opposite reaction. But for the most part, that’s how we roll. We like give back whatever. Yeah, people give to us. And so, yeah, it’s good to be mindful of that.
[00:43:25] Betty Collins
So we’re at a break point because this is a lot to absorb, right? There’s a lot of information. And what we’ve covered today, obviously, is meeting Andrea. If you haven’t met her before or had anything, any background with her. We also talked about her book.
Obviously, the funny thing about forgiveness and we’ve dived into forgiveness is a certainly a soft skill and improv plays a big role in life in general, certainly in this. But the five core is really the heart of what I want you to take away. And we’ve covered two of those out of the five, and episode two will be the last three and a closing. So I hope you just stay with it. It’s really good. And I would challenge you to get the book as well and go out to her YouTube channel and and find out a little bit about her. But the next one, again, the three cause that we haven’t covered yet, which are stay in the present moment, listen beyond your comfort zone and receive everything as a gift. I think you’ll be surprised how it ends. Thanks. And join us next time. As your career advances continue, your financial opportunities will continue to grow. Be prepared. Visit broadwayworld.com Backslash Resources to find everything about inspiring women. This episode, plus an outline of Brady wearing company accounting services can be found in the episode show notes.
