Ep. 1065 Laura Louise Green | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode has been brought to you by the wine to wine business forum twenty twenty two. This year, we'll mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held on November seventh and eighth of twenty twenty two in Verona Italy. This year will be an explosively in person edition The main theme of the event will be all around wine communication. And tickets are on sale now. The second early bird discount will be available until September eighteenth. For more information, please visit us at wine to wine dot net. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin and this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion through their personal experiences working in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Welcome to voices. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and today I'm so happy to have Laura Louise Green on the show with me. Laura is a licensed professional counselor and an organizational consultant based in Chicago. And she's the founder and owner of Healthy Poor, a consultancy focused on improving mental health and well-being within the hospitality and the hospitality education industry. So thank you so much for joining us, Laura. I'm very excited to talk about this topic today. Oh, same. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. Great. Great. So just to get a little bit of background, I know you were in the hospitality industry yourself for almost twenty years. What kind of jobs did you have and what made you pivot from working inside the industry to working to help the industry itself. Oh, for sure. So I started in the industry when I was sixteen at, like, a small sushi shop in my hometown, and then I decided to get a job as a busser at the American Girl Place Cafe. So I had very humble beginnings. But my career really started because I was working in theater and music. And so, you know, it was a job that I had all through university. And then I would go on, you know, I would get a job. I'd work on stage, and then I would come back to being a server in the restaurant. And I wasn't, you know, candidly, I wasn't particularly good at it or honestly even interested in it. Like, I joke that I was the worst server ever because people would be like, what kind of beer do you like? And I'd be like, I don't like beer. I was really not that was not the best. I was not the best. But, yeah, I worked, and this is relevant. So I worked I was in a rock band for a while, and we had signed to a major label. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's a little tidbit of information that I didn't find in my in my research. Yes. I'm trying to scrub the internet of it. I'm, like, it's like a whole thing, but I was touring for a while, and, you know, hospitality was always there to catch me in between tours. So I would go from this like rock star really wild rock star lifestyle and then back into restaurants in between, you know, that was around twenty two thousand nine, two thousand ten, so just after the major recession. So, you know, money wasn't in music in the same way. Like, they weren't giving out million dollar advances. It wasn't like that. But when that came to an end for me, I needed a job, and I came to bartending. And that's when I started really working in craft bartending. And I started, you know, drinking dare I say proper wine and proper spirits. And, you know, the craft spirits boom was just starting. The cocktail revolution was really coming into play, like, it was a really cool time to start to care about hospitality and drinks, you know, where it had been a a sort of, like, career pastime, the sort of, like, catch all situation for me suddenly. I was, like, wait a second. This is gorgeous. But the reality was that I went from, you know, touring with this rock band, which is, you know, of course, full of drugs and alcohol and chaos and just like this wild behavior. But honestly, hospitality was, like, jumping from from one hot pot to another. And there I just found myself thinking, like, gosh, I don't know that I can I don't know if I can keep living like this? And I loved working in hospitality, and I loved my colleagues. And I loved the way that I got to create cocktails and collaborate with my colleagues and chef and, like, the doors that it opened globally to me, it was just so cool. I loved it. But I was like, if I keep going the way I am, I'm not gonna live to see forty. Yeah. Yeah. It is it is a hazard. You know, if if anyone listening to this, if you knew me it is. But I was I was kind of a wild wild one. Had a great time, but it was it was a it was a lot, and I knew it was a lot. So I did a lot of soul searching, and I had started seeing a therapist, and I just found my work with her so helpful. And I started questioning a lot of stuff about career. Why do we decide to go into certain careers? Why, you know, and what does that do to us? How does it how do we tie it into our identities? And so I went back to all to be a psychotherapist and By the time I graduated and was ready to start, like, practicing properly, my career in drinks had elevated to a space that I was feeling really conflicted. Like, I don't know if I can leave this industry. I really love it. And the way that I resolved with that conflict was to realize that all the reasons that I was leaving through school and through my academic and scholastic work, I had been building skills all along to address those problems. So I my parents were like, what is happening right now? But I decided to go and work for a distributor and incubate my ideas and sort of hone my research and, you know, live this sort of dual life of working in distribution and import and spirits education. And then also conducting research about stress burnout and substance use in the hospitality industry and really starting to dig into patterns and structures of, like, what is what is happening here that is causing all of these problems. And what is it about the industry and the people coming to and working within this industry that makes people especially vulnerable to these issues? So, yeah, that's the story of how this all got started. If you asked me, in my, like, sue sixteen year old Laura sushi days that I would be doing this work. I'd be like, no. Don't don't say that. But I love it. This is I love the chaos that brought me here. That is that's a really cool sentence, actually. I love the chaos that brought me here. That's that is that that's something that that needs to be addressed even more. But so after after this chaotic, sort of chaotic life that brought you to this moment, you started healthy for. And You've said that you started to educate and empower individuals working in careers and positions that are often overlooked and exploited within the wine and spirit sector. So how does healthy poor achieve those goals? What actions are you taking? What services are you providing for people who need your help? For sure. So to be candid again, it's it's a constant I feel I hate this word just because it's so overused, but I'm I feel like I'm constantly pivoting in everything that I do. Like, trying different interventions, like, is this going to work? Is this going to make an impact? Can we try this? You know, one of the reasons I moved away from practicing as a therapist was because I wanted to have a more macro impact. Like, working with with one person at a time, it's really it's really extraordinary work, and I've even considered going back to working therapeutically with clients. But I wanted to have, like, a more overreaching, like, fell swoop approach. So some of the ways that I do that is through individual, like seminars and courses. So, like, right now with Healthy Poor, I'm going into this big six month long initiative to provide free education for anybody who wants to attend. So that's one way. And education at its baseline is so important when talking about these issues because so many people know that they're experiencing something and they're feeling it, but they're they don't have the words for it, or they can't quite articulate it. Or they don't know that everyone else is experiencing it too, or the fact that they're experiencing it is a normal and rational reaction to the circumstances that they're in. So education, absolutely. I I I think our I think our industry also teaches us to to hide any insecurities that we have to, you know, sort of put pack that away in a box. Don't let anybody know about that. You know, if you show sign of weakness in in wine and spirits, it's likely not to do you any good in your career. And I think that's due to, I mean, to the point about the exploitation and the, you know, the other bits about, you know, sort of this forgotten and invisible industry, you know, so many of us are expected to do this, like, emotional labor, this deep acting to put on a show, you know, to always be on, you have to, like, there's this perfectionistic piece that comes in about our humanity that's unfair and robot like. Like, I have a colleague here in Chicago. That's like, I'm not a vending machine. Like, I'm a human being. You know? Very true. Like, I mean, in mind, we have to be so polished and put together and professional, but also fun and engaging and, like, we have to put ourselves into these boxes. And doing that without acknowledging that there's a whole person there, it really does strip us of our humanity. And what I see a lot in my work, and I started to realize it, especially when I was behind the bar. And, like, people would take photos of the bar and I would be in it. And at that time, I was like, seeing clients. And I'm like, I don't wanna be on your Instagram. And I realized that to them, I was a fixture in their experience, like, the sconce on the wall. I was part of the design. And Yeah. It was and at that point, and they don't need your permission. Exactly. I don't I don't need your permission because you're here for me and you're here to fulfill my experience. And there's there's problems with that too in terms of how we approach hospitality, but you know, I started digging in a little bit more to that sort of, like, objectifying and dehumanizing piece. And, I mean, the research also, it's it's a forgotten industry. Like, I'm studying I'm doing another masters and organizational psych. Right now. And there's more research in hosp for hospitality coming out, but it's mostly hotels. There's some, like, SME work. But even I was talking with Beck Hopkins from a balanced glass. And she was like, is there any research about, like, wine sales? And I'm, like, pouring through, like, my school's directory, the articles. I cannot find anything about, you know, really anything about wine sales or sales of controlled substances or, you know, I wonder if you experienced this too, but when I was working in distribution, so many people said to me, I didn't even know that was a job. And I'm like, oh, is that this is a job? Yeah. For sure. Absolutely. I I think that that's Yeah. And I I do think that sort of our industry is very glamorized. You know, people say, oh, you work in wine. That must be great. The, you know, they forget that the the verb in there is work. And what you said about, you know, having to be on point all the time, having to be serious and knowledgeable, but fun and witty and and photographable, and all of those things. It's very hard to do that at at the same time. And A lot of people don't know what we do. Many people don't understand what kind of careers happen in wine and spirits, and there are so many. We know, you know, there are there's so many. There's communication, education, all sorts, producers, buyers, importers, exporters, everybody. But most people are really unaware of all of those layers of careers within the sector. It just it's wine and spirits must be fun. Everyone's drinking. And that's really not the case. That's that's exactly right. I mean, even you know, I mentioned my parents being confused about me not being a therapist and working for a distributor and importer. And, you know, there is this mindset of like, oh, Laura drinks for a living. I'm like, oh my god. I look at spreadsheet for a living. Exactly. Right. You know, it's it's it's real it's really tough. And so then when we're in a place where we're struggling, the stress of the job, you know, it's it creates this cognitive dissonance of, like, gosh, this is a really tough job. It's very high pressure. There's a lot of moving parts, but I'm also in this job that's supposed to be, like, party central, and I'm supposed to be grateful to have it and all of this stuff. So it makes it really hard then to to really dive into that gray area and say and explore the dualities of, like, yeah, this is a great job. But I'm also really struggling here. And the closest thing that I can get to to coping is the thing that I'm selling or the thing that I study or the thing that I talk about. Right. And it's delicious and I love it. And so it blurs a lot of these lines in a way that's hard. It's it's hard to sort through. Exactly. I think everybody who's in the industry has has had those moments I certainly have. I know most of my colleagues, you know, people I'm close to have have them as well. So what what kind of, you know, what kind of issues, what kind of problems do your clients bring to you? Right now, I'm working a lot with, They come to me talking about things like retention or, you know, we can't find people to work with us. And the reality, though, it's like that's the symptom, that's the result, but the the it's the other stuff underneath. That's really the problem of from an organizational standpoint. Right? Let's say you have in a in an organization, everyone seems to be drinking a lot. So we can say, like, okay. Everyone's stressed. And our tendency as a society is to say, well, let's look at stress relief. But in my work, what I do is I say, well, what's causing the stress? Like, we need to go a little bit dip. We need to go a little bit deeper and look, how are roles defined? Are we Are we clear about expectations? Is there a system of feedback within the organization? Do people have voice? Are able are people able to be themselves as at work? Is there a cutthroat environment? How are managers, how are line managers communicating with their teams? You know, those are the things that I really start to look at. And we see definitely a slew of mental health issues that are happening in the industry But it's really coming from these, like, cutthroat, toxic, monoculture, like, people trying to fit into a culture that they're that doesn't express who they are really and just, like, cutting themselves into little pieces in order to fit in and you know, splitting off parts of themselves that are maybe not desirable to this massive, like, monoculture that, you know, wine embodies or spirits and bodies or a restaurant. You know, it's all of these things. All of, like, those really gross, nasty insidious, like, stranger things, the upside down. It's what it it reminds me of that. It's the underbelly that we don't like to look at. Yeah. Well, I'm yeah. I'm sitting here nodding what you can't see, but, yeah, I I completely I completely get that. And it is, endemic in our industry for sure. I I just wanna touch on something that I know you you said in the past. You said that you wanted to do whatever you can to make the industry safer for people working in it. So let's just talk about that for a minute. What do you see us unsafe in the hospitality industry like specifically what what kind of issues, you know, I know what I think of as unsafe, but I'd love to hear from you as you have you're the professional. Unfortunately, I wanna hear what you have to say too because it's always I oh, my gosh. I love I love hearing from people and what they see, and I build my whole business really on the feedback that I get from the community and clients and what I see on Facebook. It's all it's all qualitative data to me, you know, and I can take it up and wrap it into a neat package or at least try to on Canva and try to deliver or something. But, The stuff that I would see as unsafe, I would say the things that are the most unsafe are the things that we actively celebrate at the same time. So an example of that would be this expectation of constantly working. And it might not be like having an organization be like, you need to work sixty hours a week, but that your social media presence is also an extension of your work that when you go out to eat or drink, it's also an extension of your work that you're expected to go to events after work for work and they're framed as a work perk, but it's still work. Right? So then This is all so true. We have all expir I have definitely had all of those experiences. And this is even like a gentle gentle example of it. You know, so then we're like, oh, but no one has any work life balance. Well, of course, we don't. And when we talk about work life balance, we're not even talking about time. Worklife balance is more about our identities and the roles that we carry. So if your role as a friend, if you're only friends with people who you work with, either in within your organization or tangentially, like, in industry wide, in the professional community, you're still at work. Your role is still wine professional, spirits professional, drinks professional, hospitality professional. You're it's hard then to separate from work because work is all everything becomes work. If you marry someone who works in the industry, your marriage becomes work, And we see that a lot. So it's not necessarily about time. It's the way that we view ourselves. And so a lot of things I tell people around work life balance is, you know, what other identities do you carry? What are your hobbies? And lean into those more. Give those things more space in your life because then when we what we saw during the pandemic is people didn't have access to their identity as beverage consultant or bar director anymore. And it was really hard for people. It was a lot of, like, I don't know who I am if I'm not this. Exactly. And that's really that's really scary. Yeah. Exactly. That that's all very true. And I think you know, add to that. The whole Zoom culture that arose during during the pandemic, a lot of people in our industry had to had to move from in person, you know, events, courses, all tastings, all that sort of stuff to to zoom, which, wasn't wasn't always best for everybody's mental health either, being on a screen all day and not really interacting with people. So, yeah, that's and it was very easy at home to spend way more hours doing your job, doing one's job during the pandemic because there was no line between now I am going home. Oh my gosh. In those early days of the pandemic, I was, you know, I was still working for the distributor, but I was trying to, like, you know, I was putting in so many hours because I wanted to prove that I was working because there's also this, like, you know and I can't really point to my former employer with this. This was a problem with all organizations as we sorted out, like, what does organizational trust look like? That's a very good question. You know? What does that look like? And we, at that point, none of us had the systems or even the thought to be like, do I trust people to be doing their work from home? And what does that trust mean? Is is it actually, like, it's not that I don't trust them. But I'm concerned for them. Do we have the emotional intelligence in our industry to be able to understand the difference? Can we connect with each other in a way that we really need to, right? Do we have the emotional intelligence to do that over Zoom? Exactly. And I don't think I don't think most of us do, you know. Yeah. I I I have to agree with you on that. And it's not it's not a burn. It's it's it's just it's the realities of it. And I think it's why people just felt so so alone. Absolutely. We. But at the at the same timed, it was interesting because I thought, you know, when this all went down, I thought, like, oh my gosh, people are gonna have a really hard time. But then I saw so many people thriving. And I was like, oh my gosh, they're removed from the environment. They're removed from this environment where they were behaving a certain way. Now they don't have to behave that way, and they're able to behave how they want. What is that? Which is another incredible point, another incredible point. And one of the things that that got me to you was a quote that I that I found that you had said a while back about how our industry, you know, without an ongoing and consistent commitment to fostering belonging, individuals are asked to fracture themselves in order to conform and appease an oppressive narrative. I I really wanna dig into this because I think you're you're getting there, without using that language. Can you just explain sort of what this concept is, the concept of fracturing, and and why do you feel this fracturing is is so vital and so harmful for people in our industry? Oh, there's okay. Well, there's a lot of tradition in every corner of our industry. If you are in a Michelin starred restaurant, there's tradition of how we address each other. We, chef. Yes, chef. There's a there's a hierarchical, like, hierarchical, like, system that we subscribe to. And when we create these, like, business models, we automatically just cookie cutter these traditional models directly into the next concept. And, you know, wine is very much the same in the sense that there is this tradition. It has to be a certain way. And if it's not, it's, but, you know, it's radical. It's wild. It's, you know, it's a it's a crazy label on the wine bottle. You know? Absolutely. Anything out of the box gets gets a side eye. Yes. Exactly. And, you know, during the pandemic, I was in a whiskey, a whiskey tasting with people from all over the world. And, oh, can I tell you the sexism? Like, the way that this one guy I don't even remember his name, but I was just like, oh my god. I, like, I forgot that this thinking exists. Because I had come up in such, you know, in real in comparatively, like, a really nurturing space. I had a lot of women and femme identifying folk, like, in my purview and, you know, paving the way for me to come through. But this guy was like, we need we what happened to whiskey where we we sit in our leather chairs and smoke cigars? And what he was saying is what happened to a male dominated traditional white guy practice? Club. All he has to do is move back to England where I started my wine career. He'd be right at home. Italian wine podcast. If you think you love wine as much as we do, then give us a like and a follow anywhere you get your pods. That's what he was dot he was definitely from the UK. But it was you know, as much as so when we talk about fracturing ourselves, it's when people want to be a part of a sector of an industry or a portion or they wanna enter a space, and it's dominated by what someone should look like or who someone should be. Let's say, you know, that English leather couch white guy. And so people, if someone's not an English leather couch sitting white guy, in order to enter that space and be accepted, they'll hide pieces of themselves, and then they'll adopt behaviors of that type of person or what they think that kind of community wants to see. So that they'll be able to fit in instead of actually being able to, like, be themselves and bring their experiences to it and really, like and it's a power thing. Right? It's because this one dominant community doesn't want to give up power and the decision making pieces of it. They want it to be reserved for them. They can control everybody else who's allowed in, who's not allowed, who can make decisions, For sure. Yep. So it's a it's a it's a it's a problem in that way. So and we see this in a lot of diff in a lot of different ways, not, like, not just racial, but, like, where people come from religious views, ideas about the future of industry. And, you know, maybe we should try something this way. Like, people coming from different parts of the world who have different palettes or emphasis on other flavors that may be someone from the UK or Chicago isn't aware of. And if we only see that person as, like, you know, an immigrant as someone who should be a bar back, we're missing out as a community at large. Absolutely. And it sucks. It it it it it's it's very interesting. You know, we I think we saw the tip of the iceberg with this with the Court of Master Sommelier, but as you say, it goes much farther than you know, racism or from misogyny, things like that. It's it goes much farther into our whole socio economic cells and our histories. Soc economic, especially in and especially in wine. Yeah. Associateonomic piece in wine. It's a it's I'll be real. It it grinds at me that in particular. Like, you have to dress a certain way and it has to be designer. Otherwise, you're not Like, I can't go to Target, you know. Complete and you're you're in Chicago. I don't even wanna tell you what that's like in Italy. I I know I know that you're sort of you know, you just spelled it out, you know, you you're challenging this kind of oppressive norm of Eurocentric and neurotypical mental health care and things like that. Let's just talk about this because, you know, these systems that cause all this harm and cause all this trauma and, you know, how how can we address this? How are you addressing this? Let's sort of fill our listeners in on what you mean by Eurocentric and neurotypical and why this is harmful and how we can combat this. Yeah. I mean, for so for specifically from a psychological and, like, mental health standpoint, much of how we talk about psychology stems from Freud. And like, Freud, as much as, like, there's a lot of good we can find some good stuff in there. It is, definitely antiquated at this point, but it means that the foundation of how we talk about behavior, our brains, how we interact with each other, came from European culture. And so then what's harmful about that? And, like, that's they'll say this carefully. That's okay if we're looking at our experiences and our cultural models and saying, like, this is how people behave within this culture. What becomes violent and what becomes really bad is when we say this is this is what's normal for everyone. This this what I'm experiencing right now within this culture and who I am, this is what's normal for everyone. And everyone who's outside of that, is obviously disordered. Yeah. And other and just other. And other. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like, even I was, attending a lecture about global leadership. And the person provided, I wish I could remember her name. I'm like, oh, I should have written it down, and I'm actually kind of embarrassed. But, you know, she was talking about, like, time and the way that, you know, Anglo folks, you know, Eurocentric folks, we view time in in a different way than someone in Kenya. You know, there's we time holds a different set of power and values can be different. And even the language that we use to talk about time. Like, the the example that she gave was, like, nineteen eighty five was the year I was born, or I was born in nineteen eighty five. Who sent what centered in those two statements? One center is the time the other one centers me within that time. So stuff like that. And it's that might seem like small, but if these tiny things are building blocks, as we build a wall, it creates this massive bump in the wall. Like, it's not it's the more we layer on top of it, the more we have to dig back down to fix it so that it's level in doing it and doing what we think. But so for for so many years, we saw, like, psychological study Only, like, research would only happen with participants who were white Christian, you know, reportedly hetero men. And then anything outside of that, if it if anyone diverged from that, it was considered disordered. It was considered wrong, and it was a tool to oppress people. And, I mean, we still seek glimmers. I was I should say, like, a big shining light in A lot of therapeutic practices right now, how we approach mental health. And it's I mean, it's a really big problem. And so what a part of what my job needs to be is constantly examining what is happening within the mental health field that might be especially oppressive or problematic and being very cognizant of not bringing that into my work when I work with restaurants because then I'm seeing these intersections of oppression of, like, people in in in restaurants are being oppressed in the way that maybe they're not even being paid a living wage or they're being paid under the table or they have no rights. And then I come in with these, like, oppressive mental health narratives. It's I have to be really, really cognizant of that. It's it's so interesting how how these things get applied to our industry. I I know you've you've highlighted the fact that research also shows the health and well-being of employees really profoundly impacts the health of the business. And mentally healthy employees obviously have lower intention to quit. They have less stress and less burnout, and they're more productive, and they're, you know, they're better with being loyal to their organization. But, you know, just like you were saying, when we talk about mental health as an industry, we tend to fixate on the individual without acknowledging how the working environment and the culture is contributing to the problems that we see as you said at the beginning. And this mindset kind of absolves the employer of all responsibility of care and all accountability when they cause harm. So how do you take this evidence and and work with you know, all your clients, you know, businesses, restaurants, hotels, what have you distributors, everybody who's in our industry. How do you take this sort of evidence that we have to employers And and what's their typical response? I mean, are people willing to take a look at this now in the light of the past few years? We have had a good groundswell of of change about how we think about mental health. Is this a timely moment to bring this to employers? What do they say when you point this out to them? Oh god. This is, like, the source of my personal burnout right now. Like, only because people see it, And there's this, like, oh, wow. That's so interesting. But right now and I'm speaking very generally because there definitely are people that are looking at research and they're taking it seriously, and they're really trying to do the work within their spaces to address some of these issues. But mostly what I see is this disconnective theory and practice that in theory, everyone's like, oh, yeah. Well, obviously, if you take care of people, your business will thrive. Obviously, if you create a culture of feedback, you know, it does it does this, this, this, and this. But I don't see it actually applied. And I'm gonna quote, a friend and colleague of mine, Angela Howard, who says we can't just keep adding on to things and expect it to, like, fix the inherent, like, deep seated problems. So what I see a lot is this attempt to, like, add programs on top of whatever else is happening on top of this ledge. It's like painting over painting over a moldy wall in a rentable apartment. You know, like, I don't see I like, the the response is usually like, well, what can we do for them to add on to what we're already doing? And that's not that's not the real thing that we have to do. We have to, like, strip the paint away and look at the foundation of what's going on. Yeah. Back back to the bare wood. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's hard work that a lot of people don't wanna do yet. And I get it. Like, that's it's, like, cleaning out a refrigerator and finding, like, your old tupperware containers and back. You know, you you know that they're you know, it's a problem, and you know that they smell And you know you have to get to it at some point, but you don't really you don't And you know it's making the rest of your food taste bad. Absolutely. Oh, man. It is a good analogy, hun. It is a good one. It is a good one. But, like, that's the work that has to be done. But a part of that work also is challenging those traditions and challenging those pieces that we identify so deeply with. Like, if we grew up watching chefs yell at each other and now we are a chef. Now I'm a chef, and I know that within this lineage, my job is to, like, yell at people because that's how I learned, you know, saying, like, you know, that's really people don't learn like that. They they behave out of fear. It's not that, like, they're actually learning. That becomes very challenging to someone's identity and who they are. So it's not just about doing, like, behavioral change or adding systems or programming. Like, people have to do deep internal work to get this done. And that I think is where that disconnect of theory and practice happens. We know what we have to do, but it's just a matter of actually doing it. And it can be very it can be very frustrating for me, to be honest. Like, like, it's so rough. Absolutely. I can only imagine I can only imagine, and I think a lot of people in our industry are in complete denial about their behavior anyway. But that's a test for another podcast. Well, you know, but to that but to that point, like, I'll post something on Instagram, let's say. And I find that a lot of people are like, yes. This is so true. Oh my god. I see this all the time. And I'm like, but if everyone sees it all the time, it means that we are doing it. It's us. Like, we need to examine, like, If we see something that resonates with us, we it probably resonates because we've participated it or been complicit in it in some way or another. You know, we always see ourselves as you know, as I'll say this carefully, we see ourselves as victims of these systems, but the systems exist because we participate in them. So the work has to be both sides. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we think it's everybody else. And we we let them carry on. Yeah. We don't we don't stand up. Exactly. Exactly. I do think this is an industry. Yeah. I do think this is an industry that really is is stagnant in giving people the space to stand up and find their voice and say, I don't accept this, and I don't accept this behavior. It's oh, that is that is so real. Because we know how tough this industry is and people lose their jobs and and can have their careers trashed by trying to speak out. So it is something that really has to be worked about. And I know you started a symposium of, you know, to sort of help people with all of these these things focusing on workplace wellness. And, how does the symposium work? Who who are the speakers? How can people get involved? How can how can I attend? How can I come and and listen to all of this because I think this is so important for everyone, but our industry in particular, I think, really needs to do some heavy lifting in this area? Yeah. Okay. So the Symposium this year was so dope. Like, I will even I will go back and listen. You're just gonna make me jump. No. Because you could still so the way that I structured it is it's all online. It all lives online, and we launched it April eighteenth, and for those three days, they were free. And anybody could watch the videos, ask questions, people were accessible, and, you know, it's all in the Healthyport Institute, which is institute dot healthypore dot org. And that's where I put a lot of a lot of trainings, a lot of lectures that you can participate in. So I can't remember how many maybe there were fourteen. It doesn't matter. There were a bunch of interviews, and it was a combination of, academics, people in, you know, doing consultants who are like doing practical work out in, out in the world, and hospitality professionals. And we structured it in a way that we had a hospitality professional speaking to something, you know, be it the importance of, like, handbooks and structure and whatever. And then we had another professional in, like, the organizational psych realm or like clinical psychology or whatever it is talking about it from their perspective and showing the alignment. You know, what we do a lot in this industry, and this is true in food, spirits, wine, beer, is we're so insular that we don't really look outside of our industry for resources, which drives me up the wall. Like, it's it's such a thing because there are so many people, like, not just like me, but, like, like Angela Howard, you know, like Phil Ganilka, who are doing work around, like, culture and perfectionism that we would really benefit from bringing into the work that we're trying to do. Like, I think the industry makes this a lot. It's hard work for sure, but we make it a lot harder than it has to be because we try to figure it out on our own. When there's people out there who can do it, like, in a snap, who've been doing it for many years that can help us, and I really encourage, like, folks listening to engage with those people. Like, you know, I don't even care if it's me, but there's other people out there who can help. So the Symposium brings these folks together and says, This is something that we can work on together. So we covered topics like perfectionism, like culture, like what is culture really? It's a term that's thrown around a lot. We started looking at stuff around trauma and abuse, why change is so hard. So it's a really cool blend of hospitality professionals and mental health professionals and organizational folks. It's it's really neat. And so it's structured on the Institute to be both video. You can watch the video. Or you can download the audio and listen to it like it's a podcast. And I set it up so that if you go and sign up, you get it free for free days whenever you for three days whenever you sign up. So if you sign up today, you have three days to listen to it all for free, or you can buy it. You know, or you can, like, try to make a donation, or you can reach out and find you know what I mean? I I really just wanna get this information out there. That's amazing. So it's accessible for everybody. That's really that's that in itself is is very helpful. I I can see now. I didn't know the dates of it, but now I know why I missed this because it was right after being Italy, and I was lying in a huge somewhere. So yeah. Seventeenth, eighteenth of April. Yeah. That's that's a blur, second. Yeah. After the symposium, I was laying in a heap for about a month. That was it's it's a lot of work, but y'all, there's so much good information in there, like, really neat stuff. Well, that's that's very cool that that people can go on the web site. I'm definitely gonna take a look, at what you were getting up to for the Symposium. But so what are your what are your goals coming up for for healthy poor? You know, in the in the next couple of months next year or two, do you see yourself growing sort of more nationwide or any plans to take your work, which is really important outside of the US. I'm not gonna name names, but Italy could use your help. I mean, I would love to. Yeah. There's there's a lot of Europe that's definitely lagging. I've I've worked in this industry in the UK and in Italy and a a little bit in Spain, a little bit in Belgium. There's, you know, there's a lot of people who need help, not just the US. What's what are your goals? Are you gonna grow out global domination? No. I'm kidding. Perfectionism. There it is. So what I'm working on now, we're doing all the free classes, all the free seminars, and I'm doing that because I want the education to be accessible. Like I mentioned earlier, but I want people really to see the caliber of what I'm doing and what healthy poor is doing because it's not it's so much more than just, oh, let's talk about, like, the hospice utility industry's drinking problem. Let's talk about the drinking problem we have in wine. It's deeper and thorough and, I think excite. It's my favorite thing to talk about. So I find it very exciting. Abs everything you've said today has very little to do with, you know, alcohol addiction, which we all know is a big problem in our industry. These and and the problems you've talked about today could be some of the underlying things that cause alcohol addiction in our industry. So I think I think you're getting somewhere, you know, down to the bedrock rather than just the tip of the iceberg on the top that's visible. That's that's exactly right. And, you know, I it's really what healthy where healthy pork came from in that sense is that I just I wanted to keep going upstream to see why people were falling in. You know, instead of just always, like, trying to pull them out. So anyway yeah. So we have all the classes, which I'm really excited about. It's also a really great opportunity. They're all live. So, like, you can connect with me too, which I would love. I love talking to people. We're also starting a train the trainer program for organizations and communities that wanna do the healthy poor training that I don't have to fly and teach it so that people in their own communities can take it and start providing it to their community. So that's something we're really excited excited about. And working very hard on. But right now I'm doing a lot of work, like, from the consultancy standpoint around I'm working with organizations to do discovery stuff. So, for example, I'm flying to Baltimore next week to spend three days in a hotel. Interviewing their teams, doing group workshops, really trying to figure out what's going on. What's the what's the disconnect that's happening? What is what are the main issues that aren't being said that they can't see because they're so deep in it? So that discovery work is really fun. Doing a lot of strategy work with organizations right now of, like, okay. Cool. So you see what the problems are, how do we address them? What interventions can we use? And as far as expanding outside of the states, and and please hire me, I would love I would love to do more work in Europe. I'm my master's the, organizational psych masters that I'm doing now is in London. And I decided to do that because I wanted a global look at work. I mean, what's happening in the States? There's just so much dysfunction. And not to say that this the dysfunction doesn't exist anywhere else. It's just a different kind of dysfunction, and I wanted to really learn about the nuance, there. And I'll likely do my doctorate in in the UK as well just because the approach to work is also very different. But then again, it it very different. Very different. Yeah. And it creates a different set of problems then too, but there's a lot that I can learn from looking at things from a global a global standpoint. One of the reasons I chose the prop the program that I'm in now is because it's a distance program, and I have classmates from all over the world. That's the best. That's just the best. Exactly. So we are teaching each other. Oh, it's so cool. Like someone in China being like, this is how this is how we approach leadership. These are the values that we look at, and it's just like, wow. It's I am I'm just so lucky. So I didn't wanna study about work in the States because work in state authority is such a mess. You know, we're obviously doing something wrong, you know. But, yeah, I would love to do more work in Europe. And, I actually think that I could make more headway probably in Europe. It's in the States right now. Definitely getting stuff done, but Yeah. I can. It feels like running up a wet slide. There are more systems in Europe that are available that I can build off of? Well, we are gonna watch this space and see what you do because it would be amazing to, reconnect you and hear how you how you go about building, a European base. I think there's, as I said, there's a lot of heavy lifting to be done. For our industry. And the sooner that we get on doing it, the easier it will be to prevent, you know, new sort of burgeoning wine and spirits industries in Asia and other places from having the same problems that we've already had. So There isn't, you know, an ounce of prevention is a, you know, worth a pound of cure as my grandmother always used to say. So Oh, a hundred percent. It's it's it's so true, though. I'm gonna keep my eye on you, Laura. And I hope all of our listeners will will take a look at Healthy Poor, and we're gonna put all of your information in the show notes so people can get in touch with you. But it's just been really, fascinating and illuminating to talk to you today. So thank you so much for coming on. Oh, thank you. And thank you for such thought full questions. Like, this was a lot of fun, and I got to dive into some stuff that I don't normally get to. So thank you for that. I appreciate it. You're welcome. And you take care. We hope you enjoy today's episode brought to you by the wine to wine business forum twenty twenty two. This year, we'll mark the ninth edition of the forum to be held on November seventh and eighth. Twenty twenty two in verona Italy. Remember, the second early bird discount on tickets will be available until September eighteenth. For more information, please visit us at wine to wine dot net. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Livingston, and I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. This is a labor of love and we are committed to bring you free content every day. Of course, this takes time and effort not to mention the cost of equipment, production, and editing. We would be grateful for your donations, suggestions, requests, and ideas. For more information on how to get in touch, go to Italianwine Podcast dot com.