Episode 001: Welcome to “Conversations on Conversations”

Welcome to Conversations on Conversations! In this week’s episode, Sarah discusses her plans and vision for the podcast and introduces listeners to the importance of having deeper, better conversations with everyone in your life.

Episode 001: Welcome to Conversations on Conversations

Episode transcript

Welcome to Conversations on Conversations, the show where each week we have a conversation about a topic that can help us all have deeper conversations and more powerful relationships with ourselves and others.

I’m your host, Sarah Noll Wilson, and this week, we’re introducing you to the show. Since this is the first episode, I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself, this work, and why we created this podcast, to begin with.

And you might be thinking, right conversations on conversations, and it’s just one person. So I promise you, this will be the only time it is just me having a conversation with myself, as you’re listening in.

But first, I just want to take a moment and say, Hello, welcome. We’re so excited to have you here. And if you’re tuning in, it’s likely that our paths have crossed, maybe directly or indirectly, in person on social through our work together.

Or maybe you were looking for a podcast to learn about how you could show up more powerfully for yourself or for those around you, or maybe somebody recommended it. But please know, you’re welcome here. And we’re so excited to have you.

So a little bit about me, my name is Sarah Noll Wilson, and I will be your weekly host, I will be your guide. I will be your fellow human on this journey to uncover how we can show up more powerfully in the conversations we have with ourselves and with other people. So professionally, what you should know about me is that I am deeply passionate, and along with my colleagues, we are on a mission to help make work work better for humans. Right.

My journey started early in my career of realizing that there’s just a real opportunity for how we show up with our co-workers how we show up as leaders and also just as fellow humans, how do we show up for each other. In February of 2018, I started my company Sarah Noll Wilson, Inc. It’s an incredibly creative title because, at that time, it was only me. But we lovingly call it SNoWCo.

And over the past few years, what started as a desire for me to see if I could help support organizations expanded into a growing company that is now full of amazing humans that are committed to creating workplaces that are human first instead of profit only. And you’re going to meet a number of my colleagues along the way, a number of them will come on and be co-host and guest experts as we move down this path together. I grew up and I still call the Midwest home and married to a man named Nick, who you may hear stories about, and is also the producer of this show. And together he and I have two little Furbabies, Seymour and Sally who you may also periodically hear throughout the show. And it’s likely we will share some photos on Patreon so you can get to know them. And the reality is you’re going to get to know more about me and my background through the show.

But the one thing that I did want to share is that for most of my adult life, I was on autopilot. I was an autopilot and how I thought about myself, and how I approached relationships. And quite frankly, how I thought I understood the world. And through our work with teams, and also just my own personal journey over the last, you know, 15 years, there have just been a few different realizations that have significantly impacted and shaped me and how I’m working to show up and help others to do the same.

The first is, and you know, this is sort of a joke I say often is I got more training in how to drive a car, how to change the oil in it, how to fill my tires than I did and how to understand me and how to understand you and how to navigate those challenges and complexities that come up.

And I’ve just been on this mission to better understand the complexity of humans and how we can show up more powerfully for each other. Now the second thing is I really I experienced and observed that there’s a lot of unnecessary suffering because of that first thing, right?

Because we don’t because we’re on autopilot, or because we may not have different tools available to us other than maybe what we learned as children, that there’s a lot of pain and sometimes unnecessary suffering that happens because of how we’re talking to ourselves, how we’re talking to other people how we’re receiving it, how we’re not talking to other people.

And, and so you’ll see how this all plays into why we started this podcast. The final thing is and this I feel like I’m reminded of this all the time is there is just so much of this world and of each other that we just don’t know we don’t see and we don’t maybe take the time to see.

All right, so why this podcast? Why now? Well, I mean, so aside from having just, you know, request over the years for us to take the conversations we are having in the work and outside of the work to bring it to a larger audience. We want it to create a space for us and for our fellow humans to explore topics, again, to help us have better conversations all the way around, and I’m going to be broken record conversations with ourselves and conversations with each other. And it’s not just about work, you know, while we spend our day in the structures of, you know, organizations and leadership structures and team dynamics, we want this to be a space where we can expand even further outside of it, you know, that we can explore topics that are really related to our whole human experience.

So yes, we will explore topics that will serve us professionally. But we also want to explore and make connections personally as well because we aren’t the same people.

And in our relationships or relationships, regardless of where they exist, they just might be a little bit different depending on the situation, but the strategies and what can make them effective, or they can be very consistent. So what can you expect from us in this podcast?

Well, first, myself, along with colleagues and guest experts will explore a variety of topics, you know, anything ranging from leadership to conflicts, to systems of oppression, to inclusion, to mental health, to relationships, to sex, and intimacy, to friendships to video games, our goal is that no topic is off-limits, right? If it’s a topic that’s important to humans, it’s a topic worthy for us to explore.

The other thing that I want to share is that we have a big belief in our work, that theory is great, but tools are better. And so every week, when we are talking about exploring, whether it’s with a group of expert panelists or doing an interview with an author, or having conversations, is that you can leave with really tangible and practical tools, things you can do specifically questions you can ask yourself, ways that you can phrase things traps you might fall into, and some tips for best practices, right?

Because sometimes, I don’t know about you, but sometimes, you know, I’ll read a book or I’ll see something like, Oh, this is so I love this, I just don’t know, I just don’t know how to do it, because I’ve never experienced it. So please know that our goal is not only will we give you really great information, but we’re going to bring some really great practices that you can try on to see if they work in your world.

The second thing that you can expect from us is, you know, that while there is wisdom that, you know, my colleagues and I will bring to the table and the people that we interview, there’s a lot we don’t know, and there’s probably more that we won’t get right, you know, and my commitment to you as the guide for this experience is that I won’t ask you to think about something that I’m not willing to consider for myself, right? That I want to learn and grow alongside you and promise to show up with intentional action in every conversation. So we want this conversation to extend beyond just the limits of the show.

So if something resonated is something sparked a curiosity if you have a challenge, or maybe even a different perspective, please share them with us. Right, this is the way that we grow is by pushing each other and sharing and, and talking about things in collaboration with each other. So if you have things you want to share, you can reach out to us at podcast at Sarah Knoll Wilson calm. And you know, I don’t know where this journey is going to evolve, right? We are on Episode One or pre-episode. This is version one, to get us to version 10 11 12 15 20 50 however many episodes we go in.

But what I am hopeful of is that in a time where things are uncertain, where they feel complex, where there’s sort of a seeking of familiar familiarity, because we don’t always have that in this ever-changing world, that at least once a week, we can slow down enough together, that we can connect to ourselves and we can find ways to connect to other people in new ways.

So with that, thank you so much for listening to this short introduction of the conversations on conversations.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to connect with you to talk a little bit about what inspired this work. And just you know, a couple of more things that I want to share for more information on if you’re interested in holding deeper, more meaningful conversations right within your teams or you just simply want to reach out you can connect with us at sarahnollwilson.com You can also connect with me on social media I love connecting with my fellow humans on social media.

So you can find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and eventually we’ll get up on Tik Tok and just search @sarahnollwilson, you can also pick up a copy of my book that will be coming February 1, 2022. Don’t Feed the Elephants! where books are sold. And if you liked to support our work, please visit us on patreon.com backslash conversations on conversations, where not only Your support will help sustain this podcast in the work we’re trying to do, but you’ll also get access to some pretty great benefits and swag like T-shirts.

And there’s a sweatshirt for one of the levels and opportunities to connect with us in really meaningful ways. Not only is there’s that, but there will also be unique content that my colleague Tracy and I will be creating just for the Patreon group. If you have questions, or if you want to share what resonated or you just want to send me pictures of your cute dogs, we would love to hear from you.

Again, you can email us at Podcast at Sarah Noll Wilson dot com, please rate review, and subscribe to the show. You can do so on iTunes, Spotify, and anywhere else you enjoy your podcast platform.

And if you are enjoying this, and if you think others might enjoy it, too, we just ask you to help us spread the word you know, you can tell a friend you can post about it on social media, you can put a tattoo on your forearm, whatever, you know, just whatever is your style of giving, please don’t do that.

Whatever is your style of communication, we want these conversations to reach as many ears as possible. And so helping us get people to this podcast can hopefully help us make this world a little bit better one conversation at a time. And with that, I just want to do a quick shout-out and thank you to our incredible team who makes this podcast possible to Drew Knoll and Nick Wilson for editing and producing the show. Kaitlyn Summitt-Nelsen for her marketing support. And just a final reminder that when we can change the conversations we have with ourselves and others, we can change the world.

So with that, thank you so much, and have a really wonderful day.

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