AntiFool with Norman Chella

My name is Norman Chella, and I'm on a mission to create the antidote to foolishness, so we can understand the world and ourselves better.My role is simple: I play the fool, I ask the questions, you get the answers. We'll have conversations crafted for the curious, the vulnerable, the human. I interview authors, scientists, entrepreneurs, creators, movers all across the board. Those with a powerful message, and there are those who have gone through a number of struggles, trials and tribulations. My interests range far and wide - we can go from tech in one episode to philanthropy in another, topics spanning across nations to concepts and predictions about the future. All of the macro and micro topics you can think of.Join my conversations with amazing people, and become all the more wiser.

All Episodes

AntiFool with Norman Chella

Lifelong Learning and Acting with Brandee Sanders

October 28, 2020 • Norman Chella • Season 1 • Episode 21

Brandee Sanders is the Lifelong Learner, the Prolific Actress performing in many different fields at the same time. She is the AntiFool.

In this episode, we are going to go on a wild rollercoaster ride through many different fields from acting to e-commerce, to marketing strategies, to consulting, to learning about self-introspection and how to communicate properly between different fields. But let's focus on the first: acting.

It's not just playing the main character in a film. Acting is looking inward and realizing your true human self and performing on a stage, whether a keynote or a play in front of an audience, a marketing strategy for customers, all of these situations require a certain level of acting. But who better to talk about acting and diving into all of these fields, than Brandee Sanders.

It'll be hard to describe Brandee, but I think it's best to read her profile on LinkedIn: award-winning woman in tech, blending, creative commerce, and content one dynamic enterprise at a time through results and data-driven decisions, innovative multimedia webinars, events, omnichannel, digital initiatives, WebDev analytics, and marketing. She is involved in so many different fields from data science, to analytics, to e-commerce, to FinTech, to mobile, to AI, to SaaS, and much more. But can you imagine that she started off with acting?

We talked about:

Her amazing origin story, how she came from a not so affluent background to her one-way trip to New York with $300 in her pocket, trying to make it big as an aspiring actress.
The amazing transition from acting to marketing, to eCommerce and consulting, and now working with so many large fortune 500 companies
The power of acting and how it's applicable to her professional working career.
Translating data, information and communication between different fields, from data scientists, to marketers, to upper management.

Enjoy!

Timestamps

4:53 Brandee's origin story
8:26 Her love for acting
11:05 "Our digital avatars are the most eloquent version of ourselves"
13:57 Writing your own playbook: everyone gets treated the same
17:05 The need to gain new skills through gigs and sales
18:51 The shift to an eCommerce business
20:29 From eCommerce to consulting, and the truth about hard work
22:29 To diversify your toolbox is to build yourself a safety net
24:57 Preparedness for your career through the non-traditional path
25:50 Translating between departments in a company
26:39 The three careers of any professional
31:03 Reinvent yourself and be comfortable being uncomfortable
38:23 How acting helps you jump from field to field
40:15 The corporate resting mask and engaging with an audience
42:17 As actors, we are our own business
44:26 Articulate for the audience and being your highest human self
46:15 "Truly what acting is, is knowing yourself"
48:08 Who the fuck am I?
51:59 The heavy burden of mental health and talking about it
53:58 The true act of acting is looking inwards
57:37 The shame of being affected by the uncomfortable
58:59 Fear of introspection
1:01:52 Brandee's Memento
1:03:08 Brandee's Walkaway Wisdom

Links

Norman Chella: 0:04

Brandee Sanders is the lifelong learner, the prolific actress performing in many different fields at the same time. She is the AntiFool. Hello there, your foolish friend Norm here. Welcome to AntiFool. In this episode, we are going to go on a wild rollercoaster ride through many different fields from acting to e-commerce, to marketing strategies, to consulting, to learning about self-introspection and how to communicate properly between different fields. But let's focus on that first bit acting. It goes way beyond playing the main character in a movie or film. And it goes way beyond just reading out your script. Acting is looking inward and realizing your true human self. And the act of performing on a stage, whether it be a keynote in front of an audience or a play or a marketing strategy for customers, All of these situations require a certain level of acting. But who better to talk about acting and diving into all of these fields, than Brandee Sanders. It'll be hard to describe Brandee, but I think it's best to read her profile on LinkedIn award winning woman in tech, blending, creative commerce, and content one dynamic enterprise at a time through results and data driven decisions, innovative multimedia webinars, events, omnichannel, digital initiatives, WebDev analytics, and marketing. Yes. That was a very long sentence, but she is involved in so many different fields from data science, to analytics, to e-commerce, to FinTech, to mobile, to AI, to SaaS, and much more. But can you imagine that she started off with acting, Brandee is a lifelong learner. So diving into her experiences, her journey, her discoveries. I really just want to hear how she came to be. We talked about her amazing origin story, how she came from a not so affluent background with parents being of a GED education to her one way, trip to New York, with$300 in her pocket, trying to make it big as an aspiring actress, the amazing transition from acting to marketing, to eCommerce and consulting, and now working with so many large fortune 500 companies and the power of acting the skill itself and how it's applicable to her professional working career. As someone who is translating data, information and communication between different fields, from data scientists, to marketers, to upper management. A small little question here and there and Brandee is up for sharing her entire journey up until now. So I will let this episode run and let you enjoy. Without further ado, let's play the fool and learn from the wise, by diving into my chat with Brandee Sanders.

Brandee Sanders: 3:30

What would be the, like the path less taken? I was looking at everyone's little by-lines for the, the like summation of episodes and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I am not sure what it would be. So it would be like, I don't know. Uh, it would be like spinning the Dabo wheel on Star Trek at this point. It's so random.

Norman Chella: 3:47

Yeah, it's going to be hard for me to write a byline for you. So that will make it much. I'm going to be very honest. Yeah. Because, because what you've done though, the longest one ever, I'll probably put a warning there, uh, because what you've done ranges from. Data to strategy, to content, to writing, to film, to what I read about talking with Neil deGrasse Tyson to

Brandee Sanders: 4:10

Yeah. Star talk radio. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a wild ride and we, yeah, we can just, we can jump right into it. So wild ride is great.

Norman Chella: 4:18

go for it. So if we can get right into this wild ride, amazing. Brandee, welcome to the show. This wild ride I want to, I want to really

Brandee Sanders: 4:29

What a ride it is.

Norman Chella: 4:30

Yeah. So let's, let's go all the way from step one. What's the very first step that made you think, Oh, this is going to be interesting. Let's go into it. And, and 20 different things later, you are still, uh, soldiering on, uh, in whatever interests you. So please, uh, share with us your amazing story.

Brandee Sanders: 4:53

Oh, wow. It sounds so impressive when you look at it on paper and it's certainly I, and I know, I feel like I say this a lot, but it's an I, again, I'm going to be re reiterating myself a little bit from other podcasts. If you've ever heard me, or you're one of my little mini stalkers, like, uh, it's necessary, necessary reinvention. Um, and that's not to be clever. It's actually out of the need to survive and to stay relevant and to be able to quickly pivot to things. And if 2020, as an aside has taught us anything, the ability to quickly pivot and have rapid learning agility and respond with, you know, immediacy. Uh, to the needs of the moment with situational awareness with situational awareness, uh, I think this is the year for that lesson for the entire planet. So, um, yeah, I mean, my journey was very strange. Uh, certainly not, you know, Traditional in the sense that like I came from a family that, uh, you know, my father was a truck driver. Um, my mom was a homemaker and had odd jobs, but certainly not affluent by any means. Um, some really fun times when we were young and I I'm being facetious there. It wasn't fun at all. Um, you know, not even here in the United States, they're like these little pockets that people don't really look at, but there were times where we didn't have power. You know, there were times where we had to fill up the water buckets from the well to flush the toilet, you know, not a cul-de-sac affluent upbringing. I can tell you that much. Okay. So government cheese hit me up if you want to be friends on LinkedIn and you know what it feels like to bite a brick of a government cheese. Uh, so coming from that background, uh, scrappy. Oh yeah, it's delicious actually. Um, I still have the paper food stamps. So if you have one of those hanging on your wall, hit me up for that as well. Um, but yeah, I mean, uh, from a very young age, it was necessary to be resourceful and, and to kind of DIY things. And this is before it became, uh, Uh, acquaint Etsy, uh, recycling, loving, vintage, loving Goodwill, kind of a thing before it was sexy and hip to, to reuse and recycle you did it because you were poor. And I feel like, I feel like I definitely was taught that lesson. Uh, and, and it certainly has changed and shaped who I am as a person. So I always carry that in my back pocket, because even when you're standing in front of a crowd of. You know, um, I don't know, 2,000, 5,000, 20,000 people in or rating eloquently in your$2,000 Badgley Mischka, dress with your proudest slingbacks, there's a part of you that is forever cutting a piece of that government cheese. And you're in the back of it your mind, the fear of that existence and the struggle to kind of escape the terminal velocity of your childhood or the identity that really followed you until you were able to. Begin to craft and mold yourself. Um, and so, yeah, I mean that, it's a little sneak preview, into kind of like the extraordinarily humble beginning. So I certainly wasn't coming into it with a silver spoon that much is for damn sure. And no, no grudge against those who did. You guys got lucky, you know, those country club connections. I learned much later in life. People always say, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do it. And then, you know, as you become an adult, you realize, Oh, well, that's fascinating because that's not necessarily empirically statistically true. Because if your dad is friends with the guy, who's friends with the guy, you will get that role regardless of how many boots you strap. So, but that's another podcast or maybe this one. Um, but yeah, I came from very humble background. My original love. Uh, obviously came from pretending that I wasn't where I was so acting and performance became a huge outlet for me. Um, my family was always very musically inclined, so I studied classical music, the opera and musical theater, classical ballet, jazz tap, you name it, uh, for many, many years. And again, Folks out there might be wondering, well, how the hell can you afford to do that? Fun story! Um, we would go and walk. Yeah, that's right. You can do it. Don't let them tell you. You can't. Yeah. It's just going to be really embarrassing when you're poor and you have to like collect railroad spikes on the railroad tracks and then exchange them for money at like the, um, the junkyard right. Or crushed cans or something. So like I did what I did and took odd jobs and like did landscaping for very affluent families. I'm just out there like digging a hole for the tiger lilies, thinking about, Hey, if I dig the hole for this very rich woman who in hindsight was actually not that affluent, I was just very poor, she can afford flowers in your yard. So in America it's pretty standard. Uh, but I was out there digging in the hot sun, you know, putting these, these flowers into the ground and thinking every time I dig a hole, it's a couple more dollars that I can apply to a private voice lesson or. Or to a new pair of shoes or to be able to take the bus into the city independently and take a class that I got on scholarship because I was, uh, really into my academics, um, in my mind. So, I mean, I certainly wasn't the valedictorian, uh, that was actually Kristen, who was amazing. Um, But I, I did, uh, try to apply myself because the only way that I could see to get out of the, um, inevitable fate becoming a, a person living in a trailer with like 10 kids building a meth lab in the backyard, which was my determinant destiny according to the universe at large, was to break the terminal velocity, completely reinvent and step away from what was expected or, or what that's a very small area that I originally came from was expecting me to become, which is an archetype of my parents. So low education, very poor, you know, the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, that whole little speech that people give themselves that is basically in my opinion, a generational curse and. Historically, my genetic line has been a bit of a shit show. I don't know if we're allowed to say that if we need to beep it, but, uh, as ancestry.com and 23andme have statistically and empirically proven, I came from a long line of people who were like, you know, not always doing the best thing. And so when I look back at that. I remember being very young and thinking, you know, Oh, I just would love to be you know, in those beautiful houses that had lights like candles in the window, those families go on ski trips, which to me seems like the height of affluence and sitting on the school bus, knowing that I smelled because we didn't have a washing machine and our power was. Out again. And we had slept under these, you know, various old blankets that smelled like moth balls, because after my grandmother passed, like no one did laundry, it was just like this crazy Twilight zone existence. And in hindsight, yeah, again, when you're like standing in front of a crowd of people very elegant, and if you look at me on LinkedIn and on paper, you would never make these assumptions or the way that I speak or the way that I act. But I think it's important for people to know that because what you see is not always the whole story. What we see online, our digital avatars are the most eloquent version of ourselves. They are the most clean version of ourselves. They're the most affluent and or look trying to look affluent in order to be surrounded by affluent selves. And I mean, that, that beginning really shaped, I think the trajectory of my life, and it informs the way that I work with people across all of the businesses that I've been involved with because I'm always looking at it through multiple lenses, not just the lens of like the year that I'm in now in the privileges that I've been afforded through hard work and sometimes happenstance and luck. Cause we gotta be honest about that. Um, or connections, um, to be frank, but I feel like that that beginning shaped it because if you have had to, you know, pick through trash can for food or live in a car for a while. You are going to be a little bit tougher than your average cookie. You know, you're gonna, you're gonna have also, I think, a little bit more grace for yourself and for others around you and more empathy for people who are in certain types of situations that, you know, society will quickly. You quickly, you know, push aside, you know, and I've, I've been everywhere. I mean, I, after I came from that environment, obviously my first goal was like, Oh, could I just get into college please? Cause that's the first time that's going to happen for my family. First off I graduated from normal high school. So that was brilliant. Yay. Go Rams kind of, um, graduated from high school. My family was mostly GED background. Um, Or no formal education at all. And then I went to college. I applied, did all that paperwork in the school library on my own, educated myself with the school library and on what the hell a Pell grant was. Um, you know, did all of that finally got into a really great school Point Park. And I think that that was kind of like that first Lily pad out because you're physically out of the area. I packed my stuff up in a hefty bag and showed up at my dormitory and tossed the bag on the floor and then was like, well, what the hell do I do now? Because no one there's, there's not like a role model here that I'm going to look back to and say, hello, you know, a wealthy affluent person that I'm related to. W what, what should I do with my life now, uh, besides pursue the arts. And from that point on, it was really like, I'm going to have to write my own playbook because there is no one who's going to write it for me. And I think it's also. That that realization has like uniquely informed how I mentor other people because where people will only see, Oh, it's going to take too long. Or like, that person comes from like a very, um, either not polished enough, they don't have the look. You know what I mean? Like that's garbage. You have to, you have to do the sifting. It's your responsibility. I think particularly as a woman in tech or a woman in production or anywhere. Uh, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna use that, that kneel on that woman particularly to mentor people because we hold open the door for other folks who don't have the privilege to be in that room or are starting out from the bottom. And so if you can acknowledge that and, and have equal respect for both the junior intern at your company, who's fetching coffee, or, you know, doing the, the devil wears Prada tasks for your insane. Uh, your insane people. Um, then you have equal respect for both the C suite and that junior intern. And I'm going to drink this coffee, hold on. Hmm. But I think that, for me, that was a lesson that I took forward, which was everyone gets treated the same. And just because someone might be from a disadvantaged background or not look like you or speak like you or dress like you, it is really on you and God bless my folks, not the best at all things, but certainly instilled that. And I think it's uniquely informed my path. And so I went to college, pursued, uh, the arts w wildly successful at it by, by a lot of measures, moved to New York city with$300 in my pocket. Picked up a job folding men's clothing just to get in the door in New York city. And from that point on, I really hit the pavement. Um, I did a lot of off-Broadway. I did tours. I did a lot of film work, tons of great fun stuff. Some of it made it a little bit bigger than others. Some of it you would not want to show a group of friends cause it's embarrassing. But welcome to the biz guys. It's not all just about getting on Broadway or. Or being famous on the cover of Maxim, there are hundreds of thousands of people who make a living in production as I'm sure you're aware cause you're in it. From, you know, just grinding right. And, and hitting the pavement and doing small things. And it does take, what is it like 30. 30 years or 20 years or 10 years for an overnight air quotes success. And so I did that and I became successful at it. I networked, I ruthlessly beat the pavement, did a ton of production, film, musical theater. Um, I did work on MTV. I did a ton of video dancing. Um, You know, just all kinds of crazy stuff back in the very early odds. And I was really fortunate in that. Um, I made some great connections there because we were all burning the midnight oil together. And so, um, but I would say probably the early two thousands, like post nine 11, I realized that I needed a little bit more stability because for. Me personally, obviously I didn't have like a, um, uh, you know, two story colonial or Victorian to come home to like Christmas break or whatever. So I realized, geez, you know, there's not going to be an inheritance waiting for me at the end of this rainbow. Okay. Um, I'm going to have to be financially intelligent on my own. And again, not a lot of the input they're coming from people in my direct community or people that I was close to. Cause we're all in the arts. So what did we know about financial literacy? didn't hint, hint. We don't, we barely know how to read it contract even after a four year degree, um, point park hit me up. If you want me to help you make that happen, because I think it needs to be an imperative part of each person's journey. As again, as I'm sure, you know, cause you have to write contracts, you have to be able to read them and that requires you almost become like your own mini attorney. So I was doing a lot of gigs learning financial literacy, literally from Suze Orman books to like YouTube and because of, um, 9/11. And then obviously the years after nine 11, til like the big boom in like, 08 where things went bust and, and kind of like, you know, wrecked New York a second time. Um, I was learning a lot of independent skills, taking, um, odd jobs here and there with like business offices, just to, you know, pay the bills, but started to realize a lot of influence in business sales. And these are fortune 500 companies. It's not just like some shitty office somewhere. It's like the height of New York city. Um, because it pays to have like, uh, a young and I'm air quoting attractive person at the front door to like answer the phone and like, create like this look, feel for your company. And so I was that person I could talk real good and they put me at the front and, you know, I did interact with the C suite. People obviously is just a glorified maid in a lot of ways, but I learned how they spoke. And I learned a lot from those roles. And I would say probably after all those administrative kind of business related roles in 06, 07, I realized I needed to work remotely. And stop doing the nine to five stuff because I needed my schedule back, right. To do the auditions to do, Hey, we're gonna be filming Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Can you make it? You're like, well, I don't know if I can get two days off to do that, but it's a great opportunity. What do I do? I was like, you know, I really do need to have a remote enabled job that I control the hours for, but how do I do that? So I built an eCommerce business. Um, I built it originally on the Etsy platform back when Rob Katelyn was there. Um, and because of my little shop success, I was doing like burlesque add pieces and costumes, things that I already knew how to do from many years of DIY'ing and performance. And, and I started looking at it, things like margins, which was a foreign concept to me. So I'm like, geez, if it costs me$50 to create this costume and I sell it for 400. What does that mean? I really make, Oh wait, but I have to count shipping. Oh. And then I have to count the domain cost. And so I'm building formulas and effectively like a demand gen model in a, in a P and L model, which I had no idea what that meant. Like to make money, to be afforded, to do fun things. And I was building all of that and I did that for, you know, four to five years. I was fortunate. My, my, my, uh, company was like a huge success. I got featured in inc magazine. Uh, and again, like all of my best failures, uh, became wildly successful, became connected to a lot of indiepreneurial folks that after 08, as I'm sure you're aware. Boomed everybody started their own business. And I feel like, uh, we're kind of in a mini 08 right now. And by many, I mean, massive, it feels like those same kind of echoes. Like you have to create your own work because no one will do it for you. If, if the economy or the markets are volatile or unstable. Right. So, uh, too long, didn't read created that, that eCommerce business sold that to a partner because I started getting larger companies who are already established that's online success. Hey, can you consult for us? How did you do that? What was important because we're following all the buzzwords, like content long tail keywords, you know, like all of this. And like, we don't actually know how to get right. Exactly. We don't know how to get folks in the door and then how to drive them through like, you know, um, things like exit intent and cart abandonment strategy. And I was like, well, sure. I'll show you. And each successive consulting gig that I took. That that pay got higher. And I was like, Whoa, I've tripped into something extraordinary here with e-commerce. And then beyond that marketing analytics, and then beyond that data science. So all of those steps from the very beginning where you have to DIY, because you're broke and there's no other way to get it there all the way up to, you know, I'm sitting in an office overlooking rock center. In this beautiful office with a giant window out over, you know, Rockefeller center, the tree is lit up and there's like, you know, light shows going on and I'm just sitting there going, what a fascinating ride this has been because a minute ago I was, you know, be dazzling a headpiece in a one in a one bedroom, Brooklyn apartment with low to no heat. And so I think people are going to be like, well, how the hell did all that happened? And I'll tell you the truth. It happened because I gave up a lot of my hours on the weekends. On the holidays on the evenings on times, like, you know, four to 6:00 AM to learn things like data science, like I knew how to do a Pas de Bourree. I knew how to cross the room. I knew how to do a classic waltz. I, I knew how to sing an Aria, but I did not know how to do a quadratic equation because guess what? That's not in Shakespeare. Right. So I had to. To self-learn. And I, I constantly laud the people who are a lifelong learner and actually mean it, it gets not a buzzword. Like every down minute they have, they're diversifying their toolbox because that is in my, in my essence, again, 2020 is a lot like, 08 in this regard because people are getting laid off. It's like one in four Americans are unemployed, which is tragic. Um, you see those diversifications are safety nets for your education and your literacy. And that's so important because you know, we could wake up tomorrow and they're like, hi, we've automated that or the algorithm has changed and now we don't need you to do that. What else can you do? So what else can you do is kind of my mantra. Like I can do a two step. I can do a shuffle. I can do a regression model. I can do data analytics. I can do e-commerce. I can do content. I can do film and production. You want me to fly the drone and write the blog? Let's do it. So I think that. traveling across those different, those different verticals, whether it was film and production after theater, or, you know, e-commerce after film and production or marketing analytics and demand gen and B2B after that. And then data science in, and fundamentally things like strategy and operations after that, like, those are all successive, but it's a non traditional like path. And so for a lot of folks, Um, they come from, and I know I talk about this in other podcasts a lot too, so it's fairly iterative, but I've reiterated, but I think it's important to note, a lot of folks come into tech from Stanford. Columbia, NYU, they're coming in with the intention, the explicit intention of being in VC of doing a startup because they saw it once and it looked cool, bro. I want to do that. They, they, they, they only see right. You know what I'm saying? I know, you know what I'm saying? Uh, they only see the pour overs. Or the Vietnamese, uh, coffee next to, you know, the$40, uh, macadamia nuts and no cantaloupe, cause we don't do cantaloupe here. So I feel like they only see like the fringe end of, the benefits that come with that. When in fact you might only see that person at the front of the room, who's giving the speech or presenting to the board, but there is an entire plethora of people behind them in a sense that are building a business and what I've, what I've personally done. And this is just, you know, my own biased journey here is I've made sure that I always have a backup plan to the backup plan. So if you have three, you have two. And if you have two, you have one and one is none. And that's a little bit of like prepper talk there for anyone who's into everyday carry and being, being smart. Like I think it, again, 2020 has made this kind of like, not even tinfoil anymore. I think the idea of preparedness for your career as well and your personal financial, um, stability. Is so important and very rarely do people really get into the nitty gritty of it. Like, how did you negotiate? How did you ask for more money? Did you just shoot for the stars? And you got lucky and, and you know, A B and C all of the above, in fact, some of the time. And I feel like that that non traditional path, like the ability to command a room, the ability to take a beat, make people stop. Force them to listen and slow down and engage them is super important. And the power of that came from a background of having to do that, to scores of people for a living. Translating all of that into business for me. And particularly in the technology space where you have people kind of divided into two camps, um, and I'll tell you why this is important. The first camp is technologically savvy, but terrible with humans. Um, statistically quantifiable human computers. They're very data. If you're into star Trek, I know I am, um, like they're very data. They're factual. They are statistical. They are analytical. They have very little empathy. They are there to crunch a number and spit out a fact. So you get those people in the data science realm, right? On the other side, you have traditional marketers, creative, the other hemisphere, you're the brain. Um, they love beautiful things. Storytelling, engaging performance writers. You know, they are the person who has three careers, which I. Again, and I'll take one more detail. Three careers for me has always been true. The first careers, your nine to five, that gives you dental benefits to fix that cavity. It gives you see the belly to go get your glasses. It gives you the ability to know what the hell 401k is. Uh, the second career is the creative one that usually doesn't pay much, but fulfills your soul. So filmmaking writing screenwriting, I'm writing a children's book. I'm I'm doing something really wonder I'm painting. All of those things. That's career number two. And then the third career is the one that's always in the shadows. And that's the career that you sketched in your eighth grade notebook? Whether that's princess astronaut president of everything. I live on my Island with my 30 cats. That's like, that's the third one. And that third one that who you were in middle school, when you had a vision of who you could be uniquely informs all of the other paths. And I talk about this a lot. Because we can't separate ourselves from our original identity. Like those formative years are formative for a reason. Like they create who we are. And so when I come into those into those rooms and I see these hemispheres, the first one being data and statistical, the second one being creative, beautiful, whatever. There's a missing element in the middle, which is translating that to groups like sales who have kind of an alpha mentality and only want to know how it affects pipe, to board members who want to know, how does this impact bottom line? What does P and L look like? To product teams and engineering teams who are kind of statistics, but also builders and makers. So they have a diagonal line to marketing and you have to be able to say, what does your roadmap look like? How can we market against that? How are we looking at weighted values? Are we actively listening to customers and building against that? So when I came into that world, uh, right away, I realized I was kind of a UN translator. Because I came in right over all of that and had the ability to chameleon myself. And metamorphosize in a sense across those unions as were usually you could get one person who would do this and one person who would do that, but because I have a powerful data science and analytics background, right. I could sit in the room with engineers and scientists and say, okay, so we're going to run a model and I could, you know, we're going to talk about things like Kubernetes, or we're going to talk about advanced modeling, regression modeling. We're going to do quadratic equations together. You know what I mean? We could sit there and wait the values and do validation rules and all of that kind of really statistical technical things. And then walk out of the room and talk to a marketer and say, here's what they're building. Here's what that means for us. Here's how we're going to handle messaging and then circle back to sales and say, these two teams are doing this. Here's what it actually surely means to you. And so, so I've been super fortunate in taking that non traditional path, because I think it's made me successful in the sense that I can, you know, chameleon as needed and respond rather quickly as where a lot of people kind of pigeonhole themselves because they're afraid of like breaking the mold. Like if you've ever seen a marketing person go, Hey, I want to go into sales. A lot of the time they'll get shut down on that. Because they're like, Oh, marketers are too soft. They can't close. You know, they're not alpha, they're not driven. They don't have a fire up their ass to argh, you know, I'm competitive. I'm going to crush it. And what's really interesting is that that might be true for some, but certainly not all because as a marketer, you're usually coming from a creative background. I don't know anything more ready than having to get up at 4:00 AM to stand in a line of 300 other five foot, 2 108 pound brunettes And then having new show that your product is better than theirs. Like there is no, there is no greater, there's no greater, uh, clothes that you have to do than to convince someone to hire you or cast you or whatever you are, your own producer, you're your own product and you have to sell baby sell. And I, again, I, I digress, but I, I feel like people get pigeonholed quite often in their career. They're, you know, we have. A very different way of looking at things than we did say in the Renaissance era where scientists and artists were together, because there are patterns that are universal, whether it's things like, you know, geometry, or like elements of design that are universal. And like, if you have the eye to see that the world opens up in a very different way than it does, if you're like, well, you came from your small town, you worked at a Sheetz, you're going to live and die at a Sheetz. You're never going to leave that place. And you believe that. And, and by believing it manifested live and die, according to that will. And so that applies to literally everything, the ability to say no, no, no, no. I'm absolutely not buying that. And like, Only I will control where this destiny goes in and I will take the path less chosen. Even though that means I'm going to get serious failure in my path, I'm going to have overcome some insane obstacles. I'm going to have to reinvent myself so many times and be comfortable being uncomfortable and people listen to me, please listen. If you are uncomfortable, you're probably in a much better place than you were. When you were comfortable because comfort, like comfortability probably made that word up. Um, the, the lack of adversity, the lack of change, many times breeds mediocrity, and comfort is dangerous because it doesn't require you to innovate. It doesn't require you to, to step outside of a traditionalist box way of thinking and say, how can we do it better? And, and so I think that like having that mindset, I think has been universally. Complimentary to, to staying relevant and to having a great career, and then being able to look back at the end of my career and not just, you know, put my head down in my last moments and see like a stack of playbills, like hooray, I did plays like, what does that mean? Is that a legacy? Did I change anyone's life? Like, I didn't want that to be the end. Right. So all of these actions that I take are really to try to build up a positive legacy, influencing people, engaging them, educating them, and then by educating them, not just that, like. Buzzword thing where you like mentorship and education. Yeah, I mentor, but then you're not teaching them how to balance their money. Show me how to be rich. That's what I want. Not just like, you know, the Gary V in, in, in, in positive vibes to all these people or like Tony Robbins, like not conceptually, actionably. And that's what I try to do is like, I'm going to show you literal things that are physical things that I did, and I'm going to lay it out for you. And it is not going to be easy to do these things, or if they were easy, everyone would be doing them. Right. And you know that, like how hard is it to do a podcast? My God, you are writing content all the time. You're in the bathroom doing Canva videos. You know what I mean? Like you're, you're like making mobiles, right? Tell me, I know that I'm right, because I do it too. Like you're in there like, ah, hi, it's 2:00 AM. I can't sleep. I guess I'll just redo all my LinkedIn headers like that, that constant wheel turning keeps you alive. And I think that. When I sit down with folks and they're like, Oh, show me how to get from point a to point B. And I'm like, it's more like a, to Z and there are some ups and there are some downs and there's some big fat failures that I've had that were super embarrassing and crushed me either financially or emotionally or even physically. And all of those that loop de loop airplane, that kind of goes through the sky. Like all of those things led me to where I am now. So I wouldn't take that back for a lifetime of gold bullion in a, in a home in the Hamptons, but I feel like. Well, the being able to directly mentor people into influence them in a way that's actionable beyond like concept and like buzz words and standing on stage and just talking about it is really important for me. So when I do lay my head down, it's not just a stack of playbills or like an IMDB that rocks are like, Hey, I was at Cannes film festival or I was on HBO or I was on Showtime or I did MTV videos or, uh, you know, I, I stood next to little Nas X at Sony. And while he caught an Uber and we high five stuff like that, like that doesn't matter what matters is that stuff's cool. And it looks great on paper and it certainly boosts your ego by the way, egos are a little dangerous, we'll save that for another podcast, but, um, The idea of being able to look back and see like, Hey, I trained an assistant manager who became a third key, who became a manager who left that job, took a huge leap from like 7.50, an hour to 50,000 a year and then 80,000 a year. And then they did all this, all this educational stuff that I was like, Hey, get these skills, get these skills, get the, they'll pay you more. They'll pay you more if you get these because they need them. And then now they're making 150, like for me, that's the legacy is positive impact and the ability to reinvent yourself. I can't, I really can't talk about enough clearly because I've, I've just railroaded this whole conversation.

Norman Chella: 35:17

No, I loved it. I genuinely love it. And I honestly, I really didn't want to interrupt because, uh, because the, the journey of reinvention has always been a very fascinating topic for me, especially. From the angle of jumping from field to field, especially when, when you, when you, uh, when you, when you mentioned it, the Renaissance era, that's definitely something an obsessive topic that I tend to think about all the time. Uh, the notion of polymathic thinking, becoming very, very, very prominent concept, uh, during that time. And for some reason in the last century, or maybe the last two centuries, we somehow. Specialized out of necessity, which is strange because humans tend to be very multifaceted. We, we tend to already, we can be curious many different things at the same time. We know how to adapt to different environments. We know how to context switch yet. We don't currently in the current working environment. I'm not sure how or why? Uh, some people who are amazing at their craft, are amazing in their field are lacking necessarily soft skills, or they chose to focus more on one singular skill that they believe is the only thing that they should focus on. When, what happens if your communication skills are lacking and you can't convey what you want to say and things just go broke. It's things like this that make me really on the one hand, excited that I could finally meet someone you who'd jumped from field to field. Cause we can obviously talk about this for like five hours straight, but

Brandee Sanders: 36:49

I was like, this is like a marathon. Yeah. Not a sprint.

Norman Chella: 36:52

but on the other hand, I I'm also by hearing your experiences, I'm also frustrated, not at you, but at hearing your realizations, when you hear different teams, either refusing or failing at communicating across these barriers from their field to another, like from data science, to marketing, to sales, to upper management, they're all part of the same team. Like we're all part of the same company,

Brandee Sanders: 37:17

It's an organization.

Norman Chella: 37:19

An organization is on the assumption that everyone is in the same team and they all have the same principles and values and missions. Why is it that we are having trouble jumping or at least conveying what we want to say or what we're doing to other people, even though we're human, just because we're in a different field? And this is where I was going to ask you a very, maybe a different angle question, even though you probably, maybe already answered it as an actor first and foremost, how does the notion of acting or your definition of acting allowed you to jump from environment to environment or field, to field, to perform in that right context at the right time? I would love to hear your thought process on how those skills really matter in that, in that situation because, well, I also like acting, even though I didn't really pursue it to that point, uh, but I can see how your ability to communicate. In these fields added so much value. So please go for it.

Brandee Sanders: 38:23

I mean, Oh my God, that's a question for the ages. Um, I mean, I, so as a performer, And I haven't been on the baseboards in a while, so I can, like, I can sense all the emails from my musical theater friends already. They're going to be like, hi, you haven't been out an audition like 15, listen, every day is an audition. Okay. Get off my back. I got my brownie points. Okay. All right. I've got everything I need from that. And I'm, I couldn't go on trying to be 90 pounds and 22 forever. And I strongly advise any woman who trying to live up to that ideal to step away as quickly as you can and become financially intelligent because it's, it's BS. Um, but we'll save that for, for a future podcast, if you want to hear about that. But, um, yeah, I mean, I feel like it it's important because first off. There are a lot of people and I'll start with this because it's a recent thing that I've really noticed. And I know, I feel like I've been talking about it a bit. Um, I, I feel like there are people who are, they have the look. Right. You see them in a room and you can just tell they're C-suite right. You can tell that they are, their nails are clean. They've got the sling backs. Their hair is coiffed. There, there is no shine on their nose. You know what I mean? They're very elegant. They are eloquent. They are on LinkedIn. They look like a superhero on paper. They look just extraordinary. And then when you meet them, you're glamored. Like a fairy magic. You're just like, wow, you are just so amazing. And you're star struck by this and that. And that sometimes I think that gets dangerously close to sociopathic with these folks. Like if you've ever been in a room with someone and you're like, so blown away and then you leave the room and you're like, wait a minute, hold on. Is that, what did they say? Oh my God, wait, they're a terrible person. Oh, my, what am I, what have I gotten into? And so like, I feel like as an actor, like first off, you always have a poker face on there's your corporate resting mask. Right. And if you, if you've ever watched, it's absolutely it's true. And you know, it is like, it's so true. It's a resting poker face and it's necessary because when someone says something, but you can't let your face betray yourself, um, document, document, document. Um, so, uh, I feel like acting ironically is you would think you would have nothing to do with business, but that is just not true because the best salespeople are PT Barnums. You know, they're like they don't come necessarily. And with the homina homina homina and try to like convince you, but they are evangelists and they, their job is to, woo you and beguile you and convince them you have whatever it is that they're doing. Whether it's an application they're trying to sell or invest, you know, you're pitching for money or whatever. Like it's really about the ability to engage with an audience, whether that's one to one sales pitch or one to many board meeting, or one to 10,000 Apple keynote, you know what I mean? And so acting in a lot of way, lets you read the room and you know, a lot of folks it's so funny because actors are traditionally, especially by business folk. I'm gonna, we're gonna break it down here. Um, actors are usually thought to be ditzes, you know, y'all, you're real pretty, but you know, kinda stupid. Like, you know, they're just like in the background, looking beautiful and doing high kicks and like dating the CEO, but never getting anywhere. And so, uh, maybe without that person's knowledge either. Uh, but I feel like, you know, there there's a common misconception that like artists are flaky. They don't show up on time. They're they're, ditzes they're idiots. And, and that, that stereotyped trope is, I don't think accurate well for some. For some, it is true. And I've had first hand experience in that. Wake up, it's time to go. Why are you not there? Uh, but for many it's not true because we are our own business. Like you had to. You had to pay to get your headshots done, which meant you're. And unless you, of course come from an affluent background and it's easy for your parents to give you$2,000, you had to grind, you had to fundraise fundraise that money through numerous different channels of passive, and active income to just get the head shots. And then you had to print the head and you had to buy the envelopes and then determine how you want that, that thing to appear when it lands on the lands on the desk of that casting director of that person. So you're basically putting together a media kit of yourself. And so all of those different actions are all about like packaging, something up and then presenting it with the hopes that you are going to convince or, you know, engage or get a buy in from someone, whether that's a casting producer, an audience, um, someone that you're, you know, doing a show with, um, even yourself, if you're hooking a monologue. Right. So I feel like that that has informed me because one, you know, 20 years of Shakespeare led me to be a pretty, hopefully decent speaker and know the ability of like, again, we're taking a pause does to someone who's listening. And I think all of those different beats that you can take inform how you speak, how you speak is how you convince, how, how you convince is, how you sell. And so in business and particularly in technology, There's a language. I mean, if you spent more than say two or three weeks in the Silicon Valley area, when you come out, actually speaking differently, you come out and you start talking to other people and you're like, I'm in the, I'm in the bubble. I've been in LA or I've been in the Valley too long. Like I'm, I'm, I'm using the words. I'm, I'm stretching my words. They sound like Laffy taffy coming out of my mouth. We're all using these very, very, um, particular specific vernacular buzzwords. Way of speaking. And then when you come back to like your small town or wherever people are like, what the hell are you even saying? Like, what do you do exactly. And then you have to like, and then you're like, well, geez, I know that all sounds like bullshit. And sometimes it is. I mean, like you just, you have to, you have to be able to change the message according to the audience. And for a lot of folks, that's a challenge. If you can't repurpose or acknowledge the squeaky door, you know, like that used to be something in acting we talked about, like, if you're doing a scene on stage and you're a murderer and you're sneaking into the room and you're creeping up on the person, and then the stagehand accidentally hits the door and it squeaks. If you don't stop walking. You're not acknowledging the reality of the situation and in business, if you don't see the facial engagements or the signs coming from the audience, the person, the pitch, the prospect, the client, the consultant that you're working with, then, you know, you have to change how you're interacting with them, or you're going to lose the deal, or you're going to lose the message or this commercial, this media, it's not hitting home because people aren't finishing it. So acting acting in a lot of ways is the art of being your highest human self in that you can put yourself in the shoes of every person that you meet, identify with their needs, even if it's contrary to yours and position your messaging, your speaking, even your body mannerisms in a way that will compliment the situation and help elevate to your final goal.

Norman Chella: 45:35

Yeah, that those. That really did it really did make sense because the ability to adapt and to articulate as well as to perform in a certain manner, like with a certain intention so that you reach that intended goal. Like that's a really big thing. And I feel that I feel like more people should take acting classes mainly not, not because of the artistic guise of it, but more like to take art, like acting classes is another way to reflect on how you present yourself. And from there, you try to apply that to a different like context or a different situation.

Brandee Sanders: 46:15

I think. I think for a lot of people, when they think about actors, they're just thinking about like, Oh, they it's like, they're pretending to be someone else. And I think what I, like I learned is that when I first started out, it was actually absolutely escapism because I couldn't stand the existence that I had. And if you could just pretend to be Yenta for five minutes on stage, I can be Yenta, not have to be Brandee. I can, I can be one more beautiful or wealthier. Or skinnier or, you know, in a different place. And I feel like acting was originally meant to be an escape pod, but in actuality, Truly what acting is, is knowing yourself. And so when an actor is crying in a scene, they're not pretending to cry. They're crying because there's something in that character's life or in that moment that is reflective and tied to themselves. You know what I mean? I think Hugh Jackman is actually amazing at this. If you saw tree of life, there's actually a scene where he's crying and it's the ugliest soul wrenching cry you've seen. And I remember seeing the scene in my gut, Oh my God, what did he go through? What happened? Because that is not just I'm acting Oh, chewing the scenery, you know, like it's, it was, he was feeling something human and so acting for a lot of folks is like, it's pretend and we get to run around and wear costumes and cool hats and wear like makeup, but it's actually not pretending it's the act of being. Being you are what you are doing. And for a lot of folks, particularly in Western culture, self-awareness is like, you think you're self aware because you have a yoga mat. You think you're self aware, right? Hear me out here, guys. Come on. Lululemon, come at me. Um, you think you're self aware because you put the Calm App on your phone or you did headspace for five minutes, the truly deep. Introspect introspection like introspection, not enough coffee. Introspection, like the truly deep soul searching. Who the fuck am I? And why am I here? And what am I doing? What is the purpose of this life? Why, why that, that, that deep soul rendering action is not an application. It's not a yoga class. I mean, I feel myself that I'm just as guilty as y'all. I I'm I'm, I'm not even kombucha level. Artismal Mayo though. I'm just down there with a mat trying to stretch cause I'm getting old. But, um, I feel like that that deep kind of soul searching is, is sorely missing. We do superficial cosmetic. I'm I'm mimicking the actions. So it's like, we act as though we are. Lifting a heavy weight, but we're lifting empty arms. There is no weight that we are lifting. And so what acting does is require you to reach down and get that the lift lift the weight, the physical weight, lift the brick. Lift the gallon of milk, lift it up in, feel it. And so people quite often, because it's uncomfortable to feel. We don't want to have to feel. We spent our whole early portion of our lives running away from feelings. Being a kid is hard. We're not in control. Dammit. We feel things all the time I want, I want, I want, then you're a teenager. It's even. Getting worse. Like, Oh my God, I'm in love with everyone. Everything hurts. Everything means something. Why am I here? I hate this place. I love this place. I hate this place. And then you're in your early twenties, college. And people like expect you to be some kind of balanced human being that knows what they want to do with their life. When you've just been catapulted out of your high school, like at the Mach three, like, it doesn't make any sense. So where the hell is the break where there's an introspective kind of a tribal moment to say, who am I like, what am I really here for? And a lot of the times, like even meditation, meditation, I can't, you know, say good things enough about, because it's very much like acting in that you are, you are looking inwards, truly looking in words, not just sitting still for 10 minutes and waiting for your Keurig to make coffee. Like you're, you're looking inwards and looking at the very bad, the very dark, the very lonely, lonely, lonely people out there. Who don't want to look in because it means they have to face the fact that they don't feel like they're connecting to anyone that it's all superficial, that you're alone. That you're going to be alone forever. You're going to die alone. You're never gonna get married. You're never going to have kids. You're going to have a lousy career. Like all of these different fears that are constantly churning in the background. You have to turn around and say, I acknowledge them through the act of looking inwards and they are human. There's barely anyone. Couple sociopath's I can think of, particularly in leadership right now, who's walking the earth who think they're flawless, but there, there are so many other people directly next to you. Some of them are poor. Some of them are rich. Some of them are not too smart. Some of them are geniuses who still look inside every day and are like, I'm worthless. I'm nothing. This is all imposter. You're an imposter. Everything you do is awful. Like these little voices are why people don't want to be introspective. And the, the literal act of performing and acting requires that you go into the deep dark room that you shut off when you turned 18 and said, I'm never going back to feeling that way about myself. I'm just going to like put a selfie filter on and like, everything's fine. And I'm living the cul-de-sac dream. Like you have to, you have to face your dark passenger when you're acting all of the dark passengers, failure, the fear, maybe your parents sucked. Maybe you didn't even have parents, someone fucking abandoned you. Sorry, am I going to have to bleep that out? I tried so hard not to curse, but

Norman Chella: 51:44

it's okay. You can swear in this

Brandee Sanders: 51:48

Uh, yeah,

Norman Chella: 51:49

okay.

Brandee Sanders: 51:49

But like, I feel like wonderful, cause there's a lot of swear words in my inner inner sanctum, but I feel like, like all of those, like deep introspective moments we've become relatively cosmetic about it. Like, or like we don't talk about mental health enough and I'm like, Oh yeah, sure. We don't. But have you tried to talk about it, mental health with someone you see how uncomfortable people get when you tell them you're you're fucking sad. Or you're depressed. And you could be at the height of your career. Some of the moments of when I look back on paper and it looks like extremely like, Hey, you're working with an Emmy nominated, blah, blah, blah, miserable, crying in the fucking shower. Like just not happy on stage, right? In, in South Africa with an award winning blah, blah, blah, at a four seasons in and, and Mauritius like glorious, beautiful rich people everywhere live in the dream shooting film in a foreign country, miserable, miserable. Cause the person. That I was working with was like mentally unhealthy. And I'm surrounded by negative people. And so on the outside, it looked super editorial. Wonderful. But the soul is dying and people. We put on like this, this, this cosmetic appearance of happiness, like I look good. My house is clean. My pantry has all the organized stuff in it. It's super great. Look, I'm happy. But so many people are unhappy and no one is willing to say it out loud. And I think that the, the act of acting to, to bring this Oroboro snake, eating its own tail back to the beginning of the conversation, the act of acting forces you to recognize that and then recognize it. What I see in myself, I also see in you. What I see in myself. I see in my enemy, what I see in myself, I see in my mentor, what I see in myself, I see in my son or my daughter or my neighbor, or my grandfather, all of whom come with their own, you know, baggage. And there's no one walking this earth without baggage. You better believe it. There's just no way to be human and not be broken in some small way. So I feel like the act of acting to, to circle that back is introspection. It's not just like five, six, seven, eight den nnn, nnn. And that's not, that's not it. It's not all just outward, outward, outward, outward, hurray. We're beautiful. High kicks, costumes, spangles, glitter. the true act of acting in the true meaning of it is to look inwards, acknowledge what you are, all the damages that led to you to being where you are, and then accept them and apply them when you're having those, those moments with people. And I think that that lifts the veil of how you look at other people and it makes it easy to immediately see things like sadness, disengagement, happiness. Like if you really lift the veil and you look at people when you're talking to them, don't be afraid to go. You look really sad right now, are you okay? Because I've had people straight up laughing hysterically, it's something I just said. And then I'm looking at their eyes and I'm like, wow, like they aren't here. Where are you? Are you somewhere else? Where's that place. Why are you there right now? Come over here. Talk to me like what's going on, man? Are you all right? And then the wall breaks down and they're like, Oh, thank God. You can see this. You see me? Oh, I thought it was so good. I'm really depressed right now. Or like, I'm really sad or I'm afraid. I'm afraid of COVID. I'm afraid of dying in a hallway without a ventilator. Holy shit. What if we all die? What's going on? It's just like a way we're all gonna lose our jobs and die in the street. Poor. Just like when we were little, my brother and I like all of that stream of consciousness stuff. Is in a human experience. And so in the very editorial, polished, protected business world or technology, or any vertical, even retail restaurant hospitality, you name it, we're only putting our best selves forward. And so you have to learn to read those poker faces because there there's a lot of chinks in those armors. And if you can read the face and you can see whether or not what you're seeing is real or it's what they want you to see. And after a long lifetime of many sociopaths, bad decisions with people, good decisions with people, failures, successes of relationships about like I've, I've been fortunate enough to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And then keeping that vulnerability close to the surface enough to see it reflected in other people and be able to go, Oh, you're only showing me. This little tiny bit when in fact underneath there's a whole nother iceberg, that's there. And so in business, I think in, in any, any situation, friends, family technology, it doesn't matter what it is. I think it's important to acknowledge there's a lot more under the surface and what acting is done tie it up in a bow before my two year old busts through the wall behind me, um, is to admit that those experiences are human. And have that influence decisions that are being made because as, as much as we want to be cold and calculated and, um, you know, ROI, bottom line, people do things because they feel things. The market itself is driven by emotions. Hello, just look at the market. Every time we get good or bad news, um, And I feel like you have to acknowledge those things. And so when we say acting, most people think of the exterior cosmetic grandiose, beautiful, glamorous, protected, but I mean, just take a quick look at some people's eyes. Sometimes really look at them. Don't glance, look at their face when they are talking to you and you will see things that you did not see before, and that is impactful in your personal life. And it's impactful in business.

Norman Chella: 57:15

I love this. This is, I feel like we could totally talk for like another three to four hours about this, because I'm maybe, maybe I wouldn't have, observed, uh, to the point at which you have observed so far with your vast amount of experiences. But I I do look at it from the angle of acting is confronting the uncomfortable. And once you, once you have confronted the uncomfortable you realize that the uncomfortable is just a facet of who you are and once, and it. Yeah, exactly. And once, and instead of trying to destroy it or cancel it or deny it, you have to recognize that it's always there. It is constant. It comes in many different forms. It could be depression, it could be sadness. It could be a trauma that you're going through, or it could be joy from something else, but you are afraid maybe by shame or by embarrassment that you can't really have it out.

Brandee Sanders: 58:10

You can't be happy about that. Yeah. Yeah. You can't be happy about that. That's stupid. Why do you, Oh, you're like excited. The crook is on the ground. That's weird. Oh, you're joyless because someone told you a long time ago, being happy is weakness or, you know, um, Trust is bust was something. A good friend of mine in New York said once his mother used to repeat it, trust is bust. And then another friend used to say, laughing comes to crying and I'm like, wow, careful now, careful. Cause their spectres is going to be yours. If you're not careful and you can't adopt those ghosts, they're not your ghosts. Let them go. They're not yours to take. You can't take that with you.

Norman Chella: 58:51

To even take the first step to leaving them behind and crafting a narrative of your own, You have to confront them first? You have to recognize.

Brandee Sanders: 58:59

You sit in the room with them.

Norman Chella: 59:00

Exactly. Yeah. So for me, besides like all the apps that you can do to meditate or all the, a double shot flat whites that we can drink or the pumpkin spice lattes. Uh, normally my definition of true meditation is to sit in silence in a room and listen to the voices. And I know it sounds really crazy or insane,

Brandee Sanders: 59:21

Oh, it's not crazy. People love to call it crazy because they're afraid of it and they're afraid of introspection.

Norman Chella: 59:26

there's fear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm not sure who it was that told me that the market is only run by two things. Fear and greed. It's always those two. So like, like

Brandee Sanders: 59:37

why I just said like, it's emotionally, it's emotionally driven. So like, don't play people. I was like, well, it's all about the bottom line and ROI. And I'm like, well, that's really funny because the bottom line and ROI doesn't make any sense. If people are being terrified. Like you will see that big old red hockey stick come of climbing right up. Right. So like you can't, you can't say you can't try to disengage the active humanity or being human with business or technology or the market,

Norman Chella: 1:00:02

Exactly.

Brandee Sanders: 1:00:03

it's an innately human it's driven by emotion. They feel I'm afraid and it's it. That fear kept us alive for millennia. Like it's an unbroken, you know, tree map of, of people living because they were a little afraid of what the hell is that. So like fear is part of our reptilian brain. It's important to acknowledge that and then live with it rather than run from it. You're looking for the lion and you're going to get bit by a scorpion. And that's, that's the trick is your eyes are scanning for a lion, but you've missed something very small, near your heel.

Norman Chella: 1:00:35

That's what makes it difficult. And we try our best to articulate that through numbers, through logic, through different models and frameworks. But here we are, like, if you look at the most empirical forms of it, it's just, why are the numbers going down? Because people are afraid why are the numbers going up because people want more, they want more, they want more and want more. So that's why I really love your journey because I think it's so incredibly universal, I feel like I've used it a little bit of acting or at least the principles of it, uh, in anything that I do. Just to exactly. Just,

Brandee Sanders: 1:01:10

Even if you're you're you're on a date with someone and you want to know whether or not they're engaged. You want to see a failed improv, you know?

Norman Chella: 1:01:22

And just as everything that you do is akin to you being on stage and the audience is the person that you're talking to, or the person that you're pitching, doing a keynote. Yeah, exactly. All the worlds is a stage. Yeah, I love this talk. I, I, I should get you get, get you back on for another

Brandee Sanders: 1:01:39

Part two.

Norman Chella: 1:01:40

Yeah, well, we'll do part two and for another time, but for the time being, we are coming up on time. Brandy, I do want to finish up with a couple of segments at the very end. So the first one is called mementos. Do you have a memento that represents who you are?

Brandee Sanders: 1:01:57

Yes. I have a paper food stamp, the last dollar food stamp. Yes. And it is framed in a frame that hangs directly above where I work every day so that I can look at it as a reminder of everything that was and still is with me.

Norman Chella: 1:02:13

Fantastic. I would love to see the paper food stamp sometime, but, well.

Brandee Sanders: 1:02:17

Yeah. That's that's before they made it like a little more chic with like, you know, debit cards and stuff where the old school, where it was like the old crinkled up paper ones, people used to be swapping for cigarettes. So yeah, I have that paper food stamp.

Norman Chella: 1:02:30

Did you swap it for a cigarette before?

Brandee Sanders: 1:02:32

I did not, no, I did not. I'm just saying people I lived with at the time. It was, it was a shady beginning. I can't emphasize that enough.

Norman Chella: 1:02:43

And the next segment is something called walkaway wisdom. So say we walk away from this conversation right now and I meet someone new. I become friends with them and over the course of time, I become intimate with them. Our friendship deepens, and I share with them my life and part of my life is this conversation right now. Is there a piece of wisdom that I can share with them that represents who you are?

Brandee Sanders: 1:03:08

Yeah, I would say don't let the circumstances that created you define you. Because you're the one responsible for creating the mold of your life? The journey is yours. It won't be easy to break what you were created as, but as nature shows us literally every day, that active metamorphosis, whether it's the Chrysalis or I'm probably saying Chrysalis, I'm going to say this word wrong. Every time I say it it's like Worchester. I was always fuck it up, but I feel like that act of that act of metamorphosis, not many folks can get through it, but if you can. You don't have to be the thing that they thought you were going to be. You can be so much, so much more than that. It just, it requires change. And if you are willing to deal with that change, you can do it.

Norman Chella: 1:03:51

Fantastic. And also I wrote up a new question and now would love to try it on you on you because of your amazing nontraditional journey. If you, if you had your own personal dictionary, what word would make the first page and why?

Brandee Sanders: 1:04:08

Oh, let me think about this one. What word? Let me think. Metamorphic. It would have to be metamorphic because the act it's metamorphosis, the act of going caterpillar to butterfly is just painful and awful, but the payoff is so fucking brilliant and beautiful, and it literally lifts you from the ground that you were once crawling on. So I think metamorphic.

Norman Chella: 1:04:38

And metamorphic it is, your journey up until now, really just transforming from field to field going after success and success. Brandee, thank you so much. If we want to contact you and reach out to you for anything that we talked about in this episode, how do we do that?

Brandee Sanders: 1:04:55

Sure. Yeah, you can obviously reach out on LinkedIn. So I'm, uh, Brandy, B R A N D E E Sanders S A N D E R S. You'll see my cheesy LinkedIn header with a bunch of logos. Can't miss it. Cause there's a few of us on there now, including, uh, and then also through my website, www dot Brandee Sanders, B R A N D E E S A N D E R S.com.

Norman Chella: 1:05:15

Of course your LinkedIn and the website will be in the show notes right below. So Brandee, honestly, thank you so much for this. This is fantastic. And I will talk to you soon.

Brandee Sanders: 1:05:25

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me.

Norman Chella: 1:05:27

And that is it. My chat with Brandee Sanders, we went through a full range of topics from acting to SEO, to marketing, to building a website, to struggles and jumping from field to field. She had a lot to say, and that was, I was just so enamored that I was just listening more and more. So I really hope that you learn a lot from Brandee's experiences because she is quite the trooper when it comes to doing 20, 30 different things, extremely prolific in her learning, following a nontraditional journey. So if you're interested and following a nontraditional journey off your own, well, look for her as inspiration. And remember, I will always encourage you to do the same. So. Stay warm, stay lovely. Keep learning. And I will see you in the next episode, your foolish friend, Norm.