What is your body capable of?

Join the women of WTAF this week as they chat about why they pump iron, how much they can handle the cold, the experiences they want to have, and VR immersion with Alice Riot!

WTAF is a production of Alice Riot.

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Transcript

Kelly Groehler: 0:02

Hello and welcome to things that make you go WTF. A podcast that brings you the unvarnished banter behind the scenes of our YouTube series women travel, art and food. I'm Kelly brailler, CEO of fine art licensing agency Alice riot and co host of WTF join me, Diana Ogilvie and our guests each week for straight talk of how we manage our careers, entrepreneurial endeavors and personal lives as we seek out exceptional food and art experiences around the world. Is it worth the effort? fuck around and find out

Diana O'Gilvie: 0:30

Yeah, LA was cold. I don't care.

Kelly Groehler: 0:39

You're always cold. You were you were cold. If the sun went behind the clouds in Jamaica, you were like, ooh, cold.

Diana O'Gilvie: 0:46

Not true.

Kelly Groehler: 0:50

Oh, I know. I'm totally making that up. When we were there, I was melting. I loved it though. I would go again. I would go tomorrow. Back to Jamaica. I'd go today back to Jamaica. That was just great. Just great. So what what did you ladies do for the Oscars this past weekend?

Diana O'Gilvie: 1:14

I had to work but I caught most of it via social media. And these clips. And yeah, it was very interesting. It's funny like the trending hashtag is like#oscarsoasian. It's not Oscar so white anymore. It's Oscar so Asian. You know, really inspired by Michelle Yeoh's win. Yeah, that's what I kind of wanted to talk to you all about today about, you know, her quote, here she is. I don't even know how old she is. I think she's 50. Okay.

Kelly Groehler: 2:00

Let me double check that.

Diana O'Gilvie: 2:04

At 58, I mean, Michelle, you know, I've been a fan of her for years, you know, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She's been kicking butt for decades. And now she finally has a win. You know, and her quote was, "ladies, don't let anyone tell you that you're past your prime." And that that resonated with me, you know, in terms of, I didn't get into my creative spiel or creative life, I should say until like my mid 30s. You know, most of my 20s was just being the good family, big sister provider, the good granddaughter, The good daughter, and not living the life that I wanted. So I always considered myself a late bloomer. So Salma Hayek is another one of my inspirations as well, because she didn't get any kind of leading role until she was in her late 30s, early 40s. So look at these women, and you know, this inspiration where we have this culture in America where everything is just so youth centered. Now we get this aura right now. So it's very inspiring to see. To see women flourish at any age, at any age, you know.

Kelly Groehler: 3:30

yeah, I actually stand corrected. Michelle Yeoh is 60. And, you know, and the first Asian actress to win Best Actress. Yep. And, yeah, the first Asian woman to win the Oscar.

Diana O'Gilvie: 3:51

I'm so happy for even more so now. Yeah.

Kelly Groehler: 3:55

Right. It was it was pretty terrific to see that. It's funny, because I think if each of us could go back and take a look at decisions we made, you know, as Gen Xers I think of the decisions I made in even as early as 1980. And how that affected where I've gone career wise. And I think it's easy to sit and regret. And I think it's even easier to say it's too late. And, you know, I just turned 52. And this is the age that my mother was when my father passed away. And I distinctly recall that back in 2005, and she started referring to herself as a senior citizen at age 52. So this is a really interesting year for me now being this age, and looking at all of the things that I have planned and coming up and the notion of slowing down or retiring. I'm like "Oh, hell no". Iif anything, I feel like I'm in the best spot in my life because I have wisdom, I have wealth, I have the ability to do the things that I dreamt about when I was younger. And so are there certain things I wish I had done when I was younger that I regret, of course, you know. I was just having cocktails last night with a friend of mine from college I haven't seen in 30 years. And as soon as we graduated, literally two days after graduation, she moved to LA. And she just moved back to the Twin Cities after literally 30 years. And, you know, talking that through and thinking of the places where I did want to go, you know, where I dreamt of moving to New York, or I dreamt of moving to London, or, you know, even LA, you know. Being down in LA last month, and really seeing that town for what

it is and thinking: 5:54

"god, this would have been a blast in my 20s." Yeah, I think it's easy to regret those things. But I have no interest in feeling sorry for myself and saying, "Oh, I didn't do those things in my life." I'm like, No, now's the time. Let's go. LFG.

Diana O'Gilvie: 6:11

You know, it's interesting, because there's things now that I wouldn't even consider in my 20s. I mean, Eleanor said it best, "youth is wasted on the young". (Eleanor Roosevelt). Eleanor Roosevelt said that youth is wasted on the young. And it's really interesting. Like, I now with the age that I am, I'm 45, I'm not going to compromise, like "no" is easier for me to say. Boundaries are easier for me to erect and, you know, looking back, when I went to Jamaica, and I was looking through an old family album, and I looked at my body, I'm like, Damn, you were flying. Why do you think you were fat? You know? Why didn't you show your stomach more and stuff like that? I'm just like, looking back through through the pages of my life. Because especially if you journaled have, Do you go through old journals?

Kelly Groehler: 7:16

I have never been one to journal. It would seem that given what I do professionally as a storyteller, that I would be, you know, predisposed to doing something like that. I just never had the discipline around it. To me, it feels so process driven. So I'm somebody who is very visual. And so the idea of memories, I love, you know, the memories I have, I think the closest thing I've done to journaling has been social media. Like, making posts of what I'm doing and whatnot. Even last night again, with that college girlfriend going back like three years ago in my Instagram posts to find a particular photo that was significant to what it is we were discussing. So I use my social media directory, if you will, to augment what I remember from memories. I don't know why I just never felt compelled to write things down.

Diana O'Gilvie: 8:23

Yeah, you know, for me, it, I understand what you're talking about that process driven bit. But I go through waves where I journal that I don't, and then I journal and then I'm like, fuck this shit. Because I have to take the thoughts out of my head, and put it on paper just feels like I'm offloading what is in here, so I can free up space to think. And if it's in my journal, if it's written down, or now I'm getting into like doing voice notes, which is like really eerie, a little bit. I don't need that space. So I just use it as a form of a coping mechanism. It's not something that I do every day, or when things get, like heavy and hard. Like when I was cleaning up my aunt's apartment last year and my aunt who passed away. This woman kept everything that I had since college, so I found old journals, where I'm like, cursing off his old boyfriend.

Kelly Groehler: 9:37

It's interesting, too, because what you were just saying, Oh, this past weekend, we were up north. You know, my mom passed away in 2021. And we're finally because I needed to take a mental break from the volume of her stuff because it is overwhelming. It took us nine hours this weekend, in one day to go through two bedroom closets. I mean, that's how much stuff she has. But I found as we were going through things, a stack of notes that she was taking, like, from her point of view on things that were happening to her, it was tied to a medical event. But I was fascinated reading through it. And what it also reminded me is that you lose generational knowledge if you don't write things down or record them. And there were a couple of moments where it dawned on me, like, wow, I actually have nobody left to go and ask about this person. Because my grandparents are all gone, both of my parents are now gone. And I'm like, there's nobody else I can ask about Polly and Doc, who were friends of grandma and grandpa's, like, I have nobody I can go and ask questions about. And as much as I don't journal, I actually miss the opportunity to really understand from their voices, things that happened in life. Which brings me to something else that was in the news this week. Did you see the news about researchers in Vienna, at the University of Vienna, who believe that they have found a way to literally travel the time dimension? I'm not kidding. I saved the post. Yeah, I saved the post. And it was just one of those moments where I'm like, Get out of here. So an international team of scientists claimed to have found a way to speed up, slow down and even reverse the clock of a given system by taking advantage of unusual properties of the quantum world. There's a series of six papers that the team from the Austrian Academy of Sciences in the University of Vienna detail their findings. I mean, I'm not going to get into the weeds here. But I'll forward this over. And for those interested, go out and find this to the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, to see the report. You can also find it on Instagram, under Robert Edward grant. So I just saw that this week. And I think to that whole point, we were just discussing about going back in time, or do you have regrets? And would you do something differently? I mean, if you have the ability, would, if you could, would we, either of you ever go back and change something that happened in your life?

Diana O'Gilvie: 12:46

You know, for me, yes. But on a broader scale, on a broader scheme of things I'm just thinking about, because especially as you know, African people, most if not, yeah, most of our history is oral. So you know, it's to your point where you said, Kelly, where there's no one left in your family to go ask about something, you know, we really don't have that. Which is why, you know, it's really important for us to to document. And this the same as history is written by the winners. I would want to go back in time and make changes for us as a people to document more.

Kelly Groehler: 13:37

I'm sorry, but it feels like at every stage, you're told you, this isn't the right time for you to do that. Or I'm like, Thank you, doctor, Professor, whoever you are. I mean, it, you know, this idea that we can so freely to say to somebody else, well, you should be doing this at this stage in your life. I feel like if you're not my mom, or my dad, you have no business telling me something like that, because you're not here to guide me. What you're doing is trying to define what my life looks like. So, you know, in my 20s, I was in my first marriage, which was a major mistake. And it's just one of those things that I think comes from immaturity, and not really knowing thyself. And so, you know, I was married to someone, I had absolutely nothing in common with a very good man, and the messages I was receiving in my 20s, as I was trying to build my career was,"when are you having children?","your biological clock is ticking". And I'm like, I don't even know if I want to have children. You know, and this was in my 20s. The whole idea of you're not ready for that, or this isn't the time for that or you should be doing this instead. I mean, that presented itself in my career, being told I wasn't ready for roles that I clearly was ready for. I had a chance to work in Asia in my early 30s. And literally my mom, her comment back to me was "I thought you would have outgrown that by now". And so you know, the little cuts, that it's like death by a million cuts. And then I think you get to a point where you're in your mid 40s going, Oh, wait, I wanted to do these things. And I didn't get to them. What I would just hope for every woman in the world is that you can take that mindset and shift it to, now's a great time to go and do these things, because of all of the wisdom and skills and experience that I have. And that knowledge, and now I can go and do them even better. Except maybe I can't be in a punk band anymore, I get that. I'm thinking of the next cities we're going to visit for next episodes. And I get excited about those. And I know, especially as I'm now in officially middle age, I have to keep my body moving every single day in order to be able to make those trips in order to get to those places. And you know, accessibility is something I'm not talking about accessibility. If you have a disability, you should still have the opportunity to travel to see places in the world. Absolutely. I just know, though, that if I don't take care of what I have with this meat suit, I'm not going to be able to get to all those places, and see all of those chefs and artists that we want to see. So every time I go to the gym, I'm not thinking about am I going to fit into that dress? I'm so past that point in my life. Thank god. But I am going to think about I want to go to Tanzania. And I want to go and see these these places in the world. And that's what motivates me to keep going every single time is I think about the destinations or the other journeys I want to take.

Diana O'Gilvie: 16:53

Yeah. I was pumping five pounds this month, I'm doing 15 or 20, you know, celebrate those instead of that number on the scale. Because to me, I've had two surgeries. So I know what what it's like to just not have your health. Not taking care of yourself or, just being in a position where you know, you can do better in terms of the things that you eat, taking care of yourself going for a walk. I'm not saying everybody's supposed to be pumping iron, but just move your body in whatever way that makes you feel good. You know? And alive.

Kelly Groehler: 17:41

Yeah, maybe I'll be taking the quantum leap and going back in time. Not likely. But um, I don't know. I think that it's about being in the moment now. And what's coming next. I've spent too much of my life, dreaming about doing things. And I don't want to just be satisfied with those ideas and thoughts. I want to like actually be feet on the ground. You know, tactile, having the actual experiences, feeling it viscerally and not just imagining it.

Diana O'Gilvie: 18:20

You know, and what I'd like to say to is just, if you just shift your perspective, just a little bit because, everything all starts here and then the action will follow. You know, if you just shift your thinking just by one degree, instead of saying,"well, I won't be able to, take this trip", well, how about a staycation? Drive three hours to another town and just look at something that's different, that's outside of your norm before you take that big international trip because you know, we're all world travelers here. So you do what you can within your within your world to just shift your degree by one degree. Shift your thinking by one degree. We shifted a little bit, and then you can get your passport and then you can you know, not even go so far but maybe you go to Jamaica and take me with you, you know there's just these things that you know you can get

Kelly Groehler: 19:26

One thing I will just quickly say to everyone here, we at Alice Riot as the producers of WTF, we are currently working on more immersive experiences tied to our episodes. And so we have a an emerging partnership with a Metaverse called Super World. And one of the things that I'm very bullish about is that Web3 is going to change a lot of things as technology always does, in terms of how we live our lives and I do think there's something exciting about this idea of virtual reality. And being a bit more immersive with how you engage on content and with brands and with with experiences. We're not necessarily a huge fan of Metaverse experiences, virtual reality experiences that look like video games. We like the idea of them actually looking like real life. And so we're hoping to announce soon that we are going to be unveiling a set of virtual reality experiences on Super World that are tied to our episodes. And so we're excited for that. So that not only do you get to watch an episode, where you see myself and Diana when we're in Jamaica, or New York, or the forthcoming episode from LA, you'll be able to see, on Instagram on TikTock reels from our trips, as well as our special segments, "where in the world is Farhanah", who's a member of team Alice Riot, and we literally don't know where she is. But she works for us, and it's fantastic. But we also want to make sure that there's something a little bit more immersive as well, if you're ready to step into a Metaverse experience, you're going to have that chance to do that on Super World. And that should be coming this spring. So we're pretty stoked about that. I'll be at NFT NYC next month speaking on stage at the conference, talking about adoption curves, and that we need more women in Web3, so that artists and chefs and anyone else who steps into these virtual reality experiences, that they're seeing other women in there, that were being intersectional. And we're being mindful of giving access and equity to communities of color people around the world. Pretty excited about it, because you know, as we all know, crypto crashed last year, and that system was largely built by and for men, I think we need something different and that we need something different as as we come out of the crypto winter. So I had to just get a little bit of a plug in there on that, because I'm excited about what comes next. And the idea that if you are someone and whether it's WTAF or it's old Anthony Get out and see the world. It's it's incredible. I know. Well, and it was great. I was watching. I was watching some of Bourdain, episodes, or whatever it is, and that's your means for the cuts that we had from Jamaica again and Diana, when we did the rapid fire and talking about you know where you want to traveling the world. Great, but I think you know, I think to go in the world next. And I gotta tell you, South Africa is on my mind right now. Let's remember to that Africa is like Diana's point, too, we always want to encourage you to get out the equivalent of Europe and North America all crammed into one. I mean, it's huge. It is. It is gargantuan. It is a and explore yourself, even if it's just driving a few hours continent, full of what 90 plus countries with, you know, amazing cultures have their own and amazing experiences of their away from where you live. own.