Imaginary Worlds - Celebrating 300 Imaginary Worlds

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

Imaginary Worlds has reached another milestone – 300 episodes! We already celebrated the 200th episode and the 10th anniversary of the show, but in those episodes, we mostly kept the spotlight off ourselves. This time around, my assistant producer Stephanie Billman and I reflect on how the podcast has impacted us. I often joke that the show feels like a train that I’m riding, and I’m laying down tracks as I go. Sometimes those tracks stretch far in the distance, but other times I can see the end of the line and wonder if this train is going to Wile E. Coyote off a cliff. But we have managed to make it this far thanks to a lot of imagination, willpower and chemistry.   This episode is sponsored by Mizzen + Main and Audible.  Our listeners get 20% off their first purchase at mizzenandmain.com using the promo code IMAGINARY20.    Listen to the audiobook of Project Hail Mary at Audible.com/hailmary.   To support the show, you can donate on Patreon where you get access to the ad-free version and our companion show Between Imaginary Worlds. You can also buy Imaginary Worlds merchandise at our online store. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the 300th episode of Imaginary Worlds. I'm Eric Milinski. This is the third milestone episode that we've done. For the 200th episode, we heard from listeners from around the world, and I caught up with previous guests. For the 10th anniversary of the podcast, we looked at imaginary worlds as a cultural artifact. I talked with experts about how the entertainment industry had changed during the previous decade as we were covering it. To be honest, I was thinking of not doing a special 300th episode because I just wasn't sure what else there was to do. But my assistant producer Stephanie Billman pointed out that in those previous episodes,

we hadn't talked about what the show is meant to us personally. And I discovered that Stephanie had a lot more to say about this than I realized. This podcast is a labor of love. It's an active willpower and imagination. Every so often, when I look at empty spaces on our calendar, I start to panic and I worry that we've totally run out of ideas. We've covered everything there is to cover in sci-fi and fantasy. But after 299 episodes, the show is still going strong. And one of the reasons why is because Stephanie is such a great brainstorming partner for me.

We first met at WNYC. She was working in the finance department. and I was surprised to learn that she doesn't remember the first day we met. Was I nice to you? Yeah. Really? You sound surprised. I wasn't very nice to a lot of people when I first met them at WNYC.

Why? Because I usually came over like early in the morning and nine times out of ten they immediately wanted something. I wasn't unfriendly, but I wasn't like, hey, how you doing? The first thing out of my mouth was, hey, that's a picture of Yvondrago. That would have made me friendly. So, yeah, that was a good thing on your part. Yeah, so if you want to know, Stephanie loves the Rocky franchise. And of course, I love any 1980s Cold Wars pop culture.

Rocky Four is my favorite. Yes, and I'm in Drago, yes. Who I have an action figure of, actually. I do too. I'm pretty certain when I saw that picture on Stephanie's desk. I did my Evondrago impersonation. If he dies, he dies. After we had both left WNYC,

Stephanie contacted me because she wanted to move into audio production. I told her, I'm always looking for ideas for my podcast. And she pitched me an episode about fan fiction. The title of her email was fan fiction, don't judge. I knew immediately that would be the title of the episode. And she needed to co-host it with me. I was excited that I found somebody to collaborate with who had great chemistry. And Stephanie felt inspired as well.

She got to see how a podcast was put together behind the scenes. I was just completely fascinated with it. And I learned a lot from that experience. And it was just it set me on the path that I am on today. So that was a really impactful episode for me. With fan fiction, you can explore the relationship that you don't have time to explore in a movie or a TV show. And then the other thing that fan fiction is known for is putting characters who are supposedly

straight in a romantic relationship. But the most famous pairing, of course, is Spock and Kirk. Or Spurk. Spurk? I just found that out recently, that their couple name is Spurk. Should we do the flashback? Whenever we talk about an episode, by the way, should we do the 1980s sitcom flashback sound effect?

Are we going to commit to this? I insist. All right. I insist that at least once you include it. I insist. Okay. It's been included once. I was curious what other episodes were meaningful to Stephanie because the ones that are going to stick out of my mind are different.

I've talked about the fact that some of the episodes I really treasure are the ones where I went in as a journalist covering a topic and I came out as a fan, like with Doctor Who, D&D, and LARPing. outside the fan fiction episode, Stephanie said the next episode that had a big impact on her was called Tales of Margaret Brundage. Margaret Brundage was a pioneering magazine illustrator in the 1930s. Her most famous images appeared on the covers of Weird Tales magazine. And her artwork had a hypnotic and seductive quality to it. She was in a time where it wasn't really socially acceptable. for a woman to be even working, period, and for her to not only be working, but thriving at such a unique and niche art. And her life was pretty tragic. Like, you know, she married young and her

husband was not a good person. And at one point, he ended up leaving the family and she was struggling to like to take care of her kids on her own. So she always struggled. And it was so tragic and it really hit me because now, like, her art is celebrated and revered and getting like an original cover is like really hard to do. You know, she died poor. Like she died broke and she never really saw just how much of an impact her art had. And it reminded me so much of the Van Gogh episode of Doctor Who where, you know, they bring Van Gogh to the present to, to art museum. And he really sees the impact that his art had. And he's like literally in tears. And I just, part of me really just wants to do that to her and to like travel in my TARDIS and go to a time when she's alive and bring her to the present and have her come to like one of these like art exhibitions that showcase her work. And just to say, look, what you did mattered. What you did not only mattered, it inspired so many people. And that really stuck with me. me. Like to this day, like, anytime I see any kind of female artist, she comes to mind.

Yeah, that was really, I mean, her art is so, is so amazing. And I remember for that one, you know, I actually remember I interviewed a woman who was a tattoo artist who specialized in doing Margaret Brundage. And that, you know, as much as I, I love whenever I can get, find something in the real world and somebody in the real world and go to her tattoo studio. And, you know, we're talking about something that happened so long ago to, I mean, which is a beautiful and tragic and really, you know, compelling story. And then on top of that, here's somebody who is going to, you know, I'm meeting her just at her work. She's like, yes, Margaret Brundage is inspiring me literally right now. I look at her work to see how she arranges the figures together with one another. And I've looked

at her faces a lot because she knows how to simplify a face to give. give you maximum motion and readability from far away, which you need on a cover, right? You need that on a tattoo. You want to be able to see what's going on several feet away. That was also really powerful for me, too. That's why I also love that. It's one of my favorite episodes. Yeah.

I mean, so much so you remember I did, like I recreated some of her covers in The Sims. Like that's how much she impacted me creatively. Any others? Rod Serling. And it's funny because I don't even remember how we came up with the idea of it. Oh, I know. It was because they did the Twilight Zone remake update that Jordan Peel had produced. Okay, okay.

We were just trying to figure, we were like, what about Rod Serling? And sometimes you just, you know, very often, too, when you look at somebody's career and they do something amazing and have like just this gentle rise of acclaim and success, it's wonderful for them, wonderful in terms of the art we got. but I'm like, what do I talk about? You know? Like it's a boring story, you know, from my perspective, even though they lived probably a much happier life than some of these other people. It's not that I just want the tragic backstory. I just want to know, like, what were, you know, what were they working through with their

art, you know? And we kind of found a gold mine with Rod Serling, which was really, and also explained a bigger creative question, which is why has it been so hard to replicate the Twilight Zone? And it's because of how personal it was to him, which we didn't realize. And it's funny because after going, like after producing this episode, I went back because my husband's a big fan of the Twilight Zone and we have like all of the episodes on now Blu-ray. And going back and watching the episodes, you can see it now.

Like knowing that his life was so impacted by his relationship with his father and and this whole feeling of, I don't think it's necessarily regret, but just like wanting to go back and relive some of his youth. And I guess maybe like questioning his place and in time. It's so very much a part of so many of the stories and seeing where that inspiration comes from. That was like, okay, these are the stories that I want to tell. Like I want to figure out what inspired these people. Well, I'll always remember that episode because, I mean, there's a whole, you know, his father died when he was young, relatively a young man, and that haunted him for his whole life.

For Serling, his father and Binghamton are one. He came back disillusioned and he never, Binghamton never really existed again for him. His childhood ended the day he left for war. He requested permission to leave to go to the funeral and it was denied. And so he never got to say goodbye to his father. And his fault was only 52 years old when he died of a heart attack. I was writing the script to that episode when my father had a heart attack. And I was at Mass General in Boston sitting there in the waiting room while he was having surgery for hours.

And I just was on my laptop and, you know, what are you going to do? Yeah. And we're just waiting. And so I worked on that script. And it was just, it was, I mean, he came out fine, you know, which is, which is great. But it definitely had a, you know, this is going to sound cheesy, but it had kind of a Twilight's own feel to it. To be at that moment to be like, oh, wow, when we started this episode, I never thought

that this is where I would be writing the script. Yeah, no. I mean, it's, it's, it makes you, it made me also just kind of look around and think about where my life is. And, and that's how I got back into doing a lot of like artistic things because I was just like I want to express myself through art too. I got great feedback from listeners about the last episode, which was about the film Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling and puppeteer James Ortiz. The movie is based on the bestselling novel by Andy Weir and the iconic audiobook is available on Audible.

A few years ago, I did an episode about the craft of audio. book narration, and Ray Porter is one of the best narrators out there. He brings every moment of Project Hail Mary to life with humor, heart, and tension. He even won an award for his performance on this audiobook. Project Hail Mary is about Rylan Grace, the sole survivor of a desperate last-chance mission to save the earth. And thanks to an unexpected ally, Grace might just have a chance. part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey,

Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival. After hearing the audiobook, you might find yourself repeating the catchphrase, amaze, amaze, amaze. Project Hail Mary, listen, watch, save the world. Listen now at audible.com slash hail Mary. Stephanie said another significant episode for her was an episode called Truth justice in the American way. It was inspired by the HBO series Watchmen, which connected the dots between black superheroes and Bass Reeves. Bass Reeves was a real lawman in the 19th century that

some people believe might have been the inspiration for the Lone Ranger. But unlike the Lone Ranger, Bass Rees was black. That was a very personal story because it dealt with the trauma of black violence. And as a black woman who was raised in the South, like for the most part, especially the small town that I was raised in, I saw firsthand like clan rallies, the hate that went into, that went back generations. Like I was friends with someone whose grandfather was the grand wizard of the KKK. So that fear that that black trauma instills, that you felt that throughout that episode and like the guests that we found, like talking about that, that was extremely personal for me having because what I do part of what my job is to is to review the episode after

you've done the draft you send it to me and I listened to it right the yeah we're talking about a mix too yeah the mix sound mix yeah that was one of those episodes one of those episodes that I was listening to that had to stop because I was crying so hard it was so it reminded me of what I had gone through at certain points in my life wow you know there's I mean that's been a great thing about our partnership, too, is that there's, you know, it's just a whole perspective that I, you know, obviously wouldn't have. I, I didn't, I never would want somebody to be just a duplicate of me. You know, I do not need another me. And it's interesting, but I learn things from you and I like to think that you learn things from me. Like, there will be talking about

something and you'll be like, I've never heard that a day in my life. But, you know, and it's not even because I'm black. It's like, I'll say something. I'll say like a, I can't remember something recently. Well, usually your expressions from the South. Yeah. I was sweating like a horn church. It was another one about like something about like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Yeah, yeah. No, it's funny because you'll, I'm so used to saying them and you'll be like, excuse me, what now? And then I have to go back and explain to you what I just said. Another great aspect of the show is that we've been able to talk with people who create pop culture that's meaningful to us. I've had a few sort of

of pinch me moments, like when I talked with Creators of the Expans, the novelist and a producer on the TV show, or when I talked with Martha Wells about MurderBot, or when I talked with the director of Tron, which was a movie that I loved as a kid. Stephanie said her biggest pinch me moment was when we co-interviewed the actor Doug Jones. Dougie, as he insisted we call him, specializes in playing non-human characters. appeared in several Guillermo del Toro films like Pan's Labyrinth

and the shape of water. He also played an alien character on Star Trek Discovery. I had been such a fan of his for so long and you're like, we're going to talk to Doug Jones and I was like, really? And you know, it's like pulling teeth

getting me on mic. So for me to like volunteer was like massive for me. After 34 or 35 years, I've played a couple of similar characters. Aliens from Outer Space, fishmen, right, two of them. I played two kangaroo men.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, I played two large insects, one in Mimic, one in Bugbuster, believe it or not. There's a story. I was trying to be pretty professional with him, but then there was this moment where I don't even know how it came up, but we talked about the fact that we both really love the Carol Burnett show. And I just remember thinking to myself,

this man's going to, I'm going to die being his best friend because we bonded over this Carol Burnett show. And I just grew up loving that show. So it tickled me to have that shared affinity with him. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's funny because sometimes people will come up to me and they've listened to some old episode recently that they discovered or maybe they're behind in the podcast or they learn about my podcast through a specific episode. And they'll want to talk to me about it. And if it's an episode I did like five years ago, I would have a lot to say to them right after I did it. But, you know, after like 300 episodes, not so much. But what I always remember very clearly with every single episode is who I talked to and what those conversations were like, how I felt that they went.

You know, I know this almost feels like the cliche of the real treasure of the friends we met along the way kind of thing. But it's true in terms of the, you know, what sticks out with me similar to Doug Jones is like, you know, those little moments of connection, you know, or Becky Chambers. I love her work. But there's this moment we both talked about how you're supposed to say that you would never want to upload your brain to computers. That is not a life worth living. We're both like, I'd totally do it. Which I still think is weird. Yeah.

Or, I mean, the biggest one for me was Bonnie Erickson. She was the puppeteer who, you know, basically designed Miss Piggy. And I went to her apartment. And I took out this little, it's this little muffler thing that you put on to a, like, like when you, if you have a stereo mic and you're going to walk around it, because I wanted to walk around and have her give me a tour of the apartment. And I, and so the stereo mics are very sensitive. You put this little muffler on. And I said, you know, people always look like, it looks like a Muppet. And she just like, it's like her eyes lit up. She took it. Can I have that for a few minutes? I'm like, yeah, of course. And she took it into her shop. And I saw her eyes onto this Muppet. And this thing had life. And it was like the greatest gift that any guest has ever given me. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, The woman who designed Miss Piggy created a character with my little muffler thing. Here you are. Oh, my God.

This is so cute. And it's looking to the left. Yes, he's checking everything out. I love, yeah, because we're talking about the eyes in terms of the direction of the eyes. Well, I wanted him to be suspicious. Really? Why? I just thought it was a good idea.

He's there on that microphone. wants to know who's speaking. You started to create a personality for him? Yes. Yes, and he wants to be petted often. Oh, see, I'm already petting him. He's loving it. I guess it's these moments of magic.

When these moments of magic happen in the real world, those are also the moments that I feel like this podcast has been like a doorway, you know, sort of like the wardrobe of Narnia kind of thing. I feel like the show itself allowed these moments to happen. And I just, you know, those are some of the memories that I treasure as gifts, you know, that the show is given back to me. I mean, we've had a lot of those kind of experiences that we would not have had if it wasn't for the episode. Like which ones do you remember? Like the nerd-lesque episode.

That one was even something that I didn't even think that I would get the guests that we got, the Empire. Strips Back. And not only did we get the guest, we got to go behind the scenes of the show. Yeah, you'll see there's a ton of costumes in here. Boba Fett. I recognize all these costumes, except Boba Fett usually doesn't have windows for cleavage. Yeah. Yeah. Bush. Yes, you heard him right. He did say windows for cleavage. Oh, did I mention that this is a burlesque parody of Star Wars called the Empire Strips Back? I probably shouldn't have mentioned that up top. I remember thinking as we were a walk.

I remember specifically we were walking down the tunnel and he was explaining like this is where the costumes are. This is, you know, going through this whole thing. And I thought to myself, none of this would have happened if I hadn't met Eric. And that's really impactful. And the show was great. Like I personally loved the show. I had such a blast. And I never would have done that if it wasn't for this show.

I know too, we've talked about the fact that you feel your personal victories are the moments you convince me to do episodes as well. Yes. Which, of course, I don't even remember. I'm like, wait, did you have to convince me for that? And you just, you're to get, then you get really annoyed because it was such a big victory for you. You're like, you don't get to forget that I fought. Yeah, yeah. Like, Con Lang is one of those ones that I distinctly remember the look on your face when I first pitched it to you.

Conlang is short for constructed languages. made-up language is spoken by fantasy characters, like the Klingon language. Stephanie apparently said to me, I think we should do an episode about Klingon, and you're like, and you made that face that you make when you're like, I don't really want to tell you this is a bad idea, but this is a bad idea. And I just remember thinking, no, no, no, no, no, trust me on this. And you're like, okay, fine.

And then I found and was able to speak with the man who invented Klingon. Like that's like massive. And I thought this is like my personal victory. And to this day, you're like, I don't remember that. And I'm like, no, no, it was a big deal. It was such a big deal. I mean, I think that my resistance was that two things. Number one, I know that that had been done before.

And I was like, what are we going to do that's different? And the other one is, and this is kind of, I mean, it's why I created the show. originally was I had been covering certain a lot of sci-fi fantasy in public radio and I was working for people who were who could not have been more sympathetic to me doing this and we were fans of some of the same stuff but they were always you know warning me about like look imagine there's some businessman who is driving home from work and he turns on NPR and he thinks he's going to hear marketplace and instead you're talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer like you have got to constantly explain and justify why we're doing this. And what I felt was that a lot of other shows,

not ours, but a lot of other shows, would either do those stories just to make fun of those people. Let's make fun of the, I mean, it was like a thing to go to Comic-Con and just troll people and make fun and laugh at the nerds. Or, you know, or the only way to justify this was to talk about how much money this thing made. Yeah. You know, or how many viewers it had. And you just had to say that, like, you know, you had to say that up front and maybe even keep repeating it to justify this. And what used to bother me is I felt like the the conversations that people are having within these fandoms are just as interesting and just as deep. And they're talking about the same issues. It's just that they're using it through fantasy as like dream logic.

And that episode itself, I talk with someone, a woman who was in the Canadian military, actually. And she told the story about how she was speaking with other Klingon speakers in some somebody had a really traumatic event that had happened in their life, a violent traumatic event. They were dealing with the trauma of it. And they discovered that it was easier to talk about it in Klingon because it was you could you could bypass all euphemisms and be so blunt. And I was like, oh my God, yes, this is the episode we're making that alongside the joy of a Klingon rock star. And she really was a rock star. Klingons actually have like fully redundant organ systems

so it kind of makes sense on a literal level that if something happened the heart would go on After putting out 300 episodes I'm a bit older and sometimes when I wear my old wardrobe of T-shirts and sweatshirts I feel like I look like that meme

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purchase at Misen and Mane.com promo code imaginary 20. That's Misen spelled M-I-Z-Z-E-N and Maine, M-A-I-N-com, promo code imaginary 20 for 20% off. Mizzen and mane.com promo code imaginary 20. And if you'd rather shop in person, you can find Mizan and Maine stores in select states. Let's get back to my conversation with Stephanie. I mean, I could almost imagine, you know, somebody be like, so what, do you have any 300 episodes? What are your takeaways? And I, there are two things that I was thinking.

of one is just the first thought that pops into my head thinking back over. And I started thinking this after the 10th anniversary episodes, which is that capitalism is rough, man. And the reason I'm saying that is because when this show started in 2014, there was a boon in content creation and streaming services in IP that hadn't been fully developed. And we got to cover this explosion of worlds. And then the bubble burst. And I got more and more interested in the business in terms of why is this happening. And there are tons of contractions and corporate mergers and cancellations and all these galaxies being born and then dying off, leaving like dead planets in their wake. It is like it's not for the faint of heart in terms of the people I've interviewed whose shows

they put their heart and soul into, got canceled. And then also too, I think that really hit home for me is the two-part episode we did about shows that were gone too soon and how it's like it's one thing if you know my favorite flavor of salad dressing was canceled i was bummed about that but it's another thing when a tv show or a movie i mean the job of the people who created is to get you to fall in love with it is to get you to suspend your disbelief and believe these people are real and people who are into sci-fi fantasy are going to be into these niche quirky things that maybe cost a lot of money to make and aren't going to deliver in the ratings, I feel like I've seen a lot of creative heartbreak over these years. It's been tough. It's like it's like the episode

we did imaginary deaths where people talked about the characters that died. I feel like a lot of people have watched some of their favorite worlds die and their favorite characters disappear. And it's been like, it just reminded me of like it's such a rough business behind these, the dreams, you know, these dream worlds. And it's kind of, it can make you very cynical, too, to have your heart broken so many times. Well, and not even necessarily just even canceled, but like seeing like the creative decisions that were made because of business and seeing the potential that was there and watching it die in front of you because they made a budget decision. Like that, that breaks your heart. I can think of when Shudigatwa first came out as, okay, he's going to be the first black doctor.

I was so excited, as you remember, like, I was like in the moment with this and I was so there and kind of watching as his seasons progressed, watching the creative potential that was left on the table because of decisions that were completely out of the actor's control and even to some extent like the showrunner's control. that's heartbreaking. And you're right. Like there's this more and more encroaching of like capitalism is making these creative decisions that are negatively impacting these worlds that we fall in love with.

And that's putting aside all the wars between the fans, which I've never, I, by the way, people, so many times people are like, how come you didn't cover all the trolls in this particular world? And I'm like, I could literally cover that

in every single world. But that's still been going on in the background all these years. And I've, I do keep track of. In fact, almost every time I try to put the one in the script or I'm about to talk about it, you're like, do we really need this? Do we really need to give them more airtime?

And I'm like, you're right. We don't. We don't. But that culture war has also been happening so intensely and has gotten so much more intense. Yeah. Yeah. And I like to think that this is our happy place. And I'm not saying, like we do cover very difficult topics.

I'm not saying that we're, we don't. But there's certain things like if we're going to talk about a property, I want to talk about the property. And I think that's the important part. Like we concentrate on the subject. And I love that. I absolutely love that. So I, so the other takeaway I have, it's this moment that I keep coming. That's not macro.

It's very personal. You know, I started the show, the very first episode, opens with the sound of me. opening up my old Darth Vader case of action figures. And I talk about how the way my parents called that, I would Luke out where I would hold my Luke Skywalker action figure and I'd be in this like catatonic state of fantasy. That sort of is how the whole thing started. And jump way ahead. It's now 2021.

Pandemic is turning a corner. We're all vaccinated for the first time. People are now physically starting to travel and see people. And I went to visit some relatives. And they were talking about how the past. year and a half had been for them and they were talking about all these hardships that they had not talked about. I mean, we'd obviously been in contact over Zoom and phone and text, but they were telling me things that they could only tell somebody in person. And I remember there's this moment

that as they're talking about all this stuff, and I was reflecting on the past year and a half and how much time I had spent thinking about these worlds and talking to people about these worlds, and this thought popped into my head. Star Wars isn't real. Star Trek isn't real. None of the worlds that I've spent, I had spent the previous year and a half talking with people about are real. And I was like, how am I shocked by this? How is this a shocking thought that I'm having right now? And what's crazy, too, is that the show has always been about how fantasy worlds relate to the real world. From the very start, I wanted to look at how these are metaphors to talk about, you know, I always say that these worlds are not created, you know, these fantasy worlds are not

created in fantasy worlds. They're created by real people. They're about the real world. And then the podcast started getting more political in 2016. That really ramped up in 2020. The Bass Reeves episode you mentioned was 2020. So it was heartily ignoring the real world. But I did not realize until that moment how much my brain had been numbing the pain of what was going on in the world. And New York got hit hard by the pandemic. And we know some people who died during the pandemic.

That was just, you know, extraordinary heartbreaking. and I realized how much I had been using the fantasy worlds to numb the pain. And that's not, it's not totally a harmless, you know, thing. It's not healthy for me and it's not good for people who need me to be fully present. But, I mean, I'm still going to be me. I wasn't like, well, that's it. I'm now doing a podcast about, you know, politics or economics or whatever. I'm still me.

You know, it is a wonderful thing to have a sort of, to have a relationship with the work of media, to have a relationship with characters that you believe in. But it feels two ways, but it's not. It's actually one. It's not. And that's why I think that I've come out of the pandemic craving interactive imaginary worlds. I just went to a larping convention, which was amazing. And we're going to Comic-Con. It's moments of shared fantasy. Those are the moments that I really treasure, you know, in terms of these connections. It's not just the cliche of the real treasure were the people who met along the way. It's that moment where you're with fellow people who love it too, but you create something new between you. Those are the moments that, you know,

the D&D group that came out of that D&D episode. Those are the moments that I really have come to treasure even more and I'm continuing to look for in the future. And I mean, you talk about, like, you jokingly talk about the people that we met along the way. But like, for me, my big takeaway, is the people that I met along the way like like I do the I do a lot of pre-interviews so I kind of like talk to a guess before you do and kind of I take notes and you know sometimes my notes are funny sometimes they're quick sometimes or not but um just like the people that stick out in my head like that to me is the takeaway like um there's like one of the people from toy for the midtoy story story's episode she lived in Scotland oh yeah this is the episode we did about um people who again it was another

pandemic episode in terms of the people desperately needing a sense of comfort and just people who still had childhood toys and what they meant to them. Yeah. And one of them, she lived in Scotland. And I remember during the conversation we had, because I'm such an anglophile and like, you know, anything in the UK general vicinity I'm oddly fascinated with. And I remember I told her, I was like, I would love like an authentic Scottish shortbread recipe. And she sent me her grandmother's Scottish shortbread recipe. And like that like is a part of her family's history that she shared with someone she's never actually literally met. And that connection like I still make it to this day. And I always think of her. So these personal connections that I've made with the guests that I talk to

and like their art or their story that still impacts me to this day, like that was my takeaway. I would have never met any of these people if it wasn't for this show. I left like I'm I'm good at organization so like a lot of my career was in operations management. I was good at it. I made a lot of money doing it. But that last job I was like my soul like is is dying like because of this job. And you know, yeah, it pays well. But I'm not happy. I'm still happier than I ever was at any job that I've done before this. Yeah. Well, me. Me too. So. Oh, all right. Well, this has been an awesome journey. And you've been such a great partner to have through all this.

You're going to make me cry. Like, I'm literally, like, I'm so touched because you came into my life at a time where I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I'm about to turn 50 this week. And 10 years ago, like, I was really lost and didn't know where. I was going or like what my career was going to take me. And I don't want to say that this show saved me, but to some extent it gave me, it gave me a path that I never thought was available to me. And that's 100% because of you. So I'm not saying this because you're my boss technically. I'm saying this because you're my friend. And it's been really a great journey with you.

It means a lot to me to hear that. So I don't, yeah, so I don't feel like you've latched on to this thing that I, that's my, you know, that you feel like it's brought so much to your life that that really means a lot to me too. Oh. Yeah. That is it for this week. Thank you as always for listening. And special thanks as always to Stephanie Billman. If you are a fan of this podcast, it would mean a lot if you could tell people about it.

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