Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Grape Therapy: Branden Harvey

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

Ready for some good news? Kaitlyn chats with founder of the Good Good Good Company and host of the 'Sounds Good' podcast Branden Harvey. Branden has made delivering good news his life's mission. He talks with Kaitlyn about how an Instagram hashtag lead to a global movement of goodness with his Good News newsletter, printed newspaper, and podcast. He explains how sharing great real stories can have an positive impact on the world. And Kaitlyn has some fun with her "feel good game". Relax with your favorite podcast and enjoy some Grape Therapy. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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In Facebook, click on the Facebook watch icon and search the real world on watch. MTV's the Real World Atlanta, streaming now only on Facebook watch. You're listening to Off the Vine, Grace, therapy. All right, welcome to Off the Vine. I'm your host, Caitlin Bristow, and today I'm sitting down with a storyteller who is focused on the good in the world. He's a social media influencer, a photographer who has traveled the world, and an entrepreneur who started his very own company, making an impact on hundreds of thousands of people. Today, he's here to talk about his company and his mission, Good, Good, Good, which is described as an uprising of

hopefuls marching against the hate, fear, and injustice in the world by selling. Celebrating and becoming accomplices in good work. Together, we celebrate good news and become good news. And I think that is something that we can all get on board with. So I'm so excited to learn more about him today. Please welcome to the podcast, Brandon. Do you say Havy or Havi? Harvey.

They forgot an R in here. Oh, there's a little hidden R in there. I was, you know what's so funny is I was reading my notes and I said Harvey. I said Harvey. And then when my team sends me the word doc, it has Havy here. That's funny. And then I thought I was wrong. Well, I was on customer service the other day, and I was like, my name's Brandon Harvey.

And they're like, they kept on throwing in random letters. They're like, Handy, Habley. I'm like, no, it's Harvey. And it's not like it's a difficult last name. No, well, but I'm wondering, do I mispronounce it maybe or? I don't know. You have to also know that it's one of my fears of podcasting and saying somebody's name wrong. So the fact that I just did that kills me.

I'm like, well, let's leave it in. Let's leave it in. No, yeah, no, we're leaving it. This is a raw podcast over there. Okay, so we're in Seattle right now, and you grew up not too far from here in Washington State. But you live in Portland now. I live in Portland now, but I grew up on the east side of the state in a little town called Pullman, Washington. Okay.

Cute. Yes. Was it really small? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's essentially we were a college town, and when the college students come to town, our population like doubles or triples. Okay. And so it's, it's, I was. always getting in trouble with the police growing up because you've got

well here's the thing though I was like a good kid and that shows how small the town is it's just that they hire a police force for when all the college students are in town and then in the summers I'm the only one running around town but they've got way too many police officers so I would be like playing frisbee

in a parking garage and the police show up is that wrong I don't know I think they're just bored hey you kids stop having fun I know frisbee's allowed in this town that's so crazy and you became very passionate about photography at a young age um was that does that have something to do with that there's nothing else to do in your town because that's kind of happened for me like i feel like when you come from a small town

your imagination is a little bit better than than the city folk yeah well because i had i feel like from a young age i had to invent my own fun yeah like we would play frisbee in a parking garage because that was like our activity we would like try to spend the whole night in walmart we We would do like things like that. Where if you're in a big town, it's like you can just go out. Oh my gosh. You had a Walmart? We, it was so boogey.

Well, we got it when I was no big deal, a junior in high school. And my friend and I heard a rumor that they were going to be giving out $100 gift cards to the first people in line. Oh. So my friend and I jumped the fence and we camped out in front of Walmart for the grand opening. Oh, wow. And I don't want to brag here, but the mayor let us cut the ribbon. for the grand opening. So we didn't get a $100 gift card.

But you got to cut the ribbon. We did get to cut the ribbon. It's like a childhood memory of yours. It's like the dumbest thing. Like I haven't shopped at Walmart in years, but. Walmart in Canada is like Target in the States. Like Walmart is so nice and like has everything that Target has. And then the Walmarts in the States are different in targets like that thing.

Yeah. How small was your town that you grew up in? 20,000. Okay. Yeah. I think that's roughly what ours is. Wow. Yeah. We got so excited when we got to Walmart. It was a big deal. So what sparked your your interests for photography? Like did you always just have an eye for that kind of thing? I mean, I don't think so. Are you an artsy person? I maybe fancied myself an artsy person, but I wasn't like, I don't know if other people would. But my, somewhere in high school, basically they started offering a photography class where they would give you a camera for an entire year. And you could like take it home. You could use it for all this other stuff. And that's when I

got really excited. Like I would do my assignments and then I'd also just start like doing photo shoots with friends and things on the side. Right. And that was the same time that I started using social media outside of just like my space. I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to jump on like Twitter. I'm going to jump on Flickr, which was like a photography thing. And I started connecting with strangers. Yeah. Which is like, you know, that's how you get murdered. But also like I didn't get murdered so it's fine. And it was kind of early on in those days. And I found like five. other teen photographers from small towns around the country and we all banded together to like inspire each other and that was when I first started taking things really seriously where I felt

like I was like competing but also like celebrating with these people who are trying to be creative in the environments they were in oh that's so cool and so you started this hashtag um story portrait right yes yeah um tell me about the hashtag and what that movement was all about Yeah. So when Instagram came out, I was living in Portland, and I was like one of the, not like earliest people on, but I was early on the platform. And I saw a lot of like mountains and waterfalls and lattes. And I was like, that's great. I love this. But it's, it didn't feel. I think I always wanted to be a little bit unique, do something a little bit different from everybody else. And I was like, well, I'm not going to just post those same photos. We're not just those same photos. And growing up in a small. town and then moving to Portland for college, everybody around me was fascinating because they were so different. Every day I would pass people who had way different life experiences, had way different backgrounds and belief structures. And I was just starting to kind of have a lot of conversations with those people. And I was like, this is inspiring me like crazy. I want to share this inspiration

with other people. And so in a time where I didn't feel like a lot of people were doing this, I just started taking photos of strangers with their permission after a conversation and being like, hey, do you mind if I share a little bit of your story? And I threw together a hashtag for that called hashtag story portrait. Just for myself to kind of organize them. I was like, oh, I want to be able to look back at all these. Right. And then one day I was like checking back on all my stuff.

And I was like, oh, somebody else used my hashtag. At first I was like, ruining my hashtag. This is for me. And then I started seeing more people do it and more people do it. And I was like, oh, people are interested in this. And so that's what first kind of started to build an audience where people were like, oh, this is kind of an interesting perspective. And I think maybe people were just craving a little bit more depth on the platform, too, in the same way that, like, we all love stories now because we can, you know, lean into somebody's personal life. I feel like long form captions and a photo of a human being in those early days stood out from the crowd in an interesting way.

Right. Yeah, that's so cool. I like listening to you talk. I'm like, oh, yeah, where were we? And then, so you get to, like, go on all these fun adventures. You travel a lot and meet all these people. But you were starting to realize all the injustices in the world, right, from all the your travels?

Yeah, yeah. It could be as a photographer who then had, like, an Instagram following, there were a lot of, like, brands and nonprofits and stuff who are clamoring to be like, Brandon, why don't you come out and do a photo shoot for us? And hopefully you'll, you know, post about it a little bit. And so, you know, I'm not going to turn. turn down those opportunities and so I start doing that and I'm I'm traveling all over the world and I'm like oh there's a there's a lot of injustice in the world and I'm living in downtown Portland

and seeing homelessness for the first time I don't remember ever seeing homelessness when I was growing up in my little town and all of a sudden I was like oh like we've we've got to do something about this and so that's when I started becoming pretty passionate about the world of kind of nonprofits and people who are doing good because I didn't assume that that I was the first person to wake up to the problems in the world. But I wanted to kind of figure out who was doing things about these things. And I don't know, it ignited an interesting passion. Yeah, because there's so much, obviously, terrible news going on that you saw an opportunity to highlight the good news.

Yes. And so you have this good newsletter. And how did that get started? Was it from seeing what you saw and wanting to do something about it? you you did you think that newsletter was going to be as impactful as it is now or did it start kind of like just for you yeah hashtag yeah i i think well so we i maybe i'll back up a little bit and say i my first thought was okay so i'm starting to travel around with these nonprofits and i'm not only seeing the problems but i'm seeing solutions right and and and i was meeting so

many more people who were like they were seeing a lot of problems but they weren't seeing solutions and they were starting to become maybe like cynical or apathetic. And the problem is when we do that, when we feel like, oh, nothing's going to change, then we don't make the change. And so that was where I first started thinking, okay, what can I do with my platform? My favorite activist in the world,

her name is Brittany Pachnett. I admire her deeply. And she's got this thing that she talks about where she says, we all have privilege. How are we going to spend that? And I'm like, well, I've got like, you know, 100,000 followers on Instagram or whatever, let's start kind of posting about these solutions.

And so it starts with Instagram. And it's just, it feels like all that's getting kind of drowned out in the internet world. Like, you know, it stands out, but I'm like, what if we, what if we start trying some other ways to communicate these solutions? And so one day in the middle of the 2016 election, which was, you know, a very divisive time on the internet especially and well i mean just in the world uh and we were also seeing like uh the refugee crisis and we were seeing a lot of uh police brutality in the united states and all these things and i was just like at my end like i was like i'm about to like freak out if i don't do

something to to help some way yeah and so that's when i was like i just posted on twitter and i was like or i think i posted on instagram and i was like comment with your email address if you want me to send out stories of people who are creating solutions to all these problems we're seeing right now and a whole bunch of people left there in fact i probably need to go back and like delete that phone so that like somebody's not stealing everybody's email addresses i didn't know what i was doing but i was like i signed up for a free mailchimp account and i just that i just started sending out an email what turned out to be every week uh that was just saying hey here's the people who are creating solutions to problems let's let's let's celebrate this and let's ultimately join them

All right. So picture this. You're on your way to work. The gym running errands. You're listening to your favorite podcast. Let's hope it's off the vine. What snacks do you have in your hand? Are you craving something sweet? Maybe something spicy. Maybe spicy and salty. You got to go get yourself some blue diamond almonds and find your new favorite almond. They have great flavors. My favorite honey roasted. They have saracha and wasabi and soy sauce flavored almonds. Blue diamond almonds aren't you usually boring snack and they're better than whatever your knacken om right now they're so good and almonds are a superfood so keep that in mind don't deny your cravings eat them blue diamond almonds crave victoriously so that was our email thing and then right after that was when we launched our podcast which was our that the goal of that was to just go one step further there's there's this quote from mr rogers who i love mr rogers can we just talk for a minute about how excited we are for this new movie that he's got i'm honestly got Tom Hanks ass I like honestly

I have goosebumps every time I like think about it or watch a trailer It's it honestly like The goosebumps is the perfect word And like you feel all the way down your body I'm like I am going to sob in this Did you see the documentary? Yes

Oh my gosh I have a Mr. Rogers shirt too Yes I should have bought it today Wait Oh wait I'll I'll show this to you later Okay I've got a Mr. Rogers themed thing for you

Oh my gosh okay But he's got this quote where he says When I was a boy And I would see scary things in the news my mother would say to me look for the helpers you'll always find people who are helping and so we started to lean into that we're like okay who are the people

who are helping yeah and I was just wondering like what the common threat is between all these people who are not becoming overwhelmed by the things going on in the world but are choosing to do something right and especially like at a sacrifice to themselves right and so that was what the podcast was it was

just genuinely me trying to figure that out and trying to I just had no idea how to become them but I wanted to just learn from them and so I was like let's just talk with them right so you have these people on as guests yeah that are wow that's so cool um and it's called sounds good right sounds good that okay where do people where can people find your podcast everywhere yeah yeah so you can search if you search sounds good it'll come up with sounds good with brain and harvey okay i'm brain and harvey i'm going to call you hayvey from now on brain and havey yeah

if you search that it's not going to come up but you can call me that i'm going to it's not I'm just going to call you, Brendan. I'm just going to call you Havy. For the rest of time. This is good. I love this. We're going to, like, bump into each other at the airport. You're like, Hey, hey. Hey. What up, Harvey? So in the good newspaper, readers will see the sentence. I hope this issue leaves you uncomfortable. Explain to me why you choose to include this and what people can expect when reading the newsletter. Yes. So we should say we've got the good news letter, which is our email newsletter, which was the first thing we sent out. But after we had started doing the podcast for a while, we started seeing all these common threads. We're like, hey, you know what it'd be crazy to do? And this is probably 2017. It'd be crazy as if we made a print newspaper. Right.

And every other newspaper is going out of business. Yeah. And so that's what began the good newspaper. We launched it on Kickstarter. Yeah. And we were, we had no idea if anybody. We assumed everybody would think it was a dumb idea. Yeah.

We were hoping a few people would think it was a smart idea. Yeah. But we very nervously clicked the publish button. Yeah. On the Kickstarter page. and within, I think it was 56 hours. We were fully funded. Wow. And then we like doubled the goals.

We're like, oh, there are people out there who want good news. In fact, I'll just I'll just. You have one. I've got a stack for you. Oh my gosh. Wait, this is so great. So this one though, right here. Whoa, it's so legit. It's a real life newspaper. Oh, you know what? There's something so comforting about holding a newspaper. It feels

good. It's like so nostalgic. And you can like give it to people who need good news. It's such a fun thing. But look, so this is the first issue we have is got this poster inside of it with a Mr. Rogers quote. And like teachers hang this on their walls. We see people like post about this on Instagram. They're like, we framed this. It's so, I mean, it's beautifully designed.

I don't design it so I'm allowed to say that. It's really cool. I love that. And I love that idea of just giving it to somebody who needs some good news in their life. Totally. Yeah, you should have them in like hospitals. Well, I mean, that. That's what we're working on right now.

That's actually our plan for like the beginning of 2020 is to get into like hospital. Because I've spent a lot of time in hospitals over the last like five years. Yeah. And every time I'm like, I hate that there's CNN on the TV and like People magazine is my only option or like just like some bad news. And I'm like that's the situation where you need a little bit of good news. And those things are great, but maybe just not in your doctor's office, not in the hospital when you're worried about somebody that's yeah that's a really good idea i think that's important i think

that will happen for you because i mean it should um but yeah i i wanted to go back to that i hope this issue leaves you uncomfortable i want you to explain that yes so the big thing that i always want to think about is this idea that i am a straight white man who i have the privilege that if i wanted to tune out and not pay attention to the news bad news probably wouldn't affect me like i can't think about, I can't think of really any bad news from the last few months where like it's going to impact me in a personal way in the way that bad news is impacting a lot of other people right now. And so I think it's my responsibility to continue paying attention to bad news so that I can focus on creating solutions to those problems. I found that for the longest time I was kind of

burying my head in the sand. I think that's why I made it to Portland. And was so enamored by all these people because I had not known that there were problems in the world because problems didn't affect me. And when only the people who are dealing with problems are the ones working to create solutions, like that's hard to do. If you are, you know, experiencing systemic racism, it's you already have like probably fewer resources than other people. And so that's fewer resources to spend, you know, fighting this oppressive system. And for me, as somebody who is not on the, you know, experiencing racism ever, if I can step in and try to do something about that, like, that means something. And so the good newspaper, we don't want it to be an escape from bad news. We want it to be a celebration of people who are responding to bad news, a celebration of people who are doing good.

And then one of my favorite things is at the bottom of every page, we've got these practical action steps. on how you can get involved with the stories you just read. Because sometimes you're like, you know, I really do care about women's education around the world, but I just don't know what to do about it. I don't know what my first step is. And so right here we've got it broken down into good, better, best. So this is from our issue from like more than a year ago.

So let me see. So something good you could do if you care about advocating for women's education around the world is you can just go to mulala.org and you can like learn from Malala. Lala who's like the most inspiring woman in the world and you can just read a few stories and then if you see

something that you like connect with and you're like oh I want to show this I'll just post it on social media with hashtag yes all girls and it's like oh that that's one step I can do and then maybe I do that and I'm like oh people are responding to this I feel good I made a

difference maybe because people maybe didn't know about this thing the next step I could do is I could go to I could go to donate to a few organizations and we recommended the organizations more than me or CAMFED or 60 million girls or

we recommended that you can buy from the company SACO or I Smell Great and both of those companies donate their proceeds to support women's education and then when we say like the best thing you can do it's usually you know it's not just using your money or your internet

or your you know your thumbs of type things it's volunteering it's using your mind and your body in your time in a different way and so we're like oh well you can volunteer for an hour to tutor a low income or at-risk girl in your community here's you know a few organizations girls who code big brothers big sisters girls ink and so we you know some people are going to jump straight to that best column and be like oh i'm going to i'm going to jump straight into volunteering some people need that first step and then it's an on-ramp and so the the hope is ultimately that this newspaper

doesn't just make people feel hunky dory about the world We want people to, like, lean and be like, I'm going to be a part of this. Yeah. The dream is that you give them the tools to do that. Yeah. And then the dream is, like, the people who read this take action, like, they're in the next newspaper. Right.

You know, we get to celebrate the work that they're doing and they inspire somebody else. Wow. There needs to be more people like you in the world. I love it. There's, I mean, I will, that's super kind. But I feel like there are people who are a million times. Oh, my just hit my microphone. A million times more, like, amazing at doing good in the world.

And that's why I started this and started the podcast because I'm like, let's just highlight those people. And I'll just be the guy who's interested. Right. But I, there are so many cool inspiring people. Who would be your dream guest as a podcast? Oh my gosh. This is such a tricky, hard question. Well, hmm.

Wow. I mean, Mr. Rogers would have been my dream. But he's sadly no longer with us. Man, I, I would love to have, uh, La La. I would love to have Bill and Melinda Gates. We're here in Seattle. They're a little hometown. They do so much good in a really like a really systemic way that I love. I love. I mean, I talked about my activism hero, Brittany Pachnett. I love the work that she does and would love to have, I want to have like four conversations with her. Like I feel like there's so much to learn from her. Man. Yeah. Those are good ones. Yeah. That's that's the start, I guess, for me. oh wait no I'd take it all back there's this book called the book of joy yeah and it's a conversation between the Dalai Lama and archbishop Desmond Tutu yeah who were like from completely different faiths completely different life experiences but are both these hopeful dynamic world changers yeah

I've read the book three times already and I like cry when I read it and I'm so inspired it's like if anybody needs like a pick me up like it's the best book but they would be my dream guess But they're like, they're like the Martin Luther Kings of the, you know, they're so next level. Yeah, well, you could do it. Yeah. Yeah. You will do it. We'll do it.

We'll put it out in the universe. Okay, Vino's, we'll get right back to the fun in a minute. But first, I need to take a moment to tell you about a new app I discovered. You know, I always have my phone with me everywhere I go, pretty sure even in my hands when I sleep, which might be a problem. I'm keeping track of my schedule, my emails, friends and family. but then there comes a time when I just need to get away from all the business of life. I'm going to share a little secret. When I have downtime and I want to engage my brain,

I grab my phone for a quick game of Best Feens. Best Feens is a fun, casual puzzle designed for everyone, but made for adults like me. I love puzzles. The characters are colorful and fun and the puzzles are challenging, but I have to tell you my absolute favorite part is that I get to connect with my friends on Facebook to see what level they're on. And you guys know I'm competitive.

best fiends is always updating the game with all kinds of new puzzles and player events so it never gets old and the game is super easy to get into i found myself taking breaks in the day just to play it probably probably more than i should best fiends doesn't require an internet connection to play so while i'm in the airport on the plane in an uber or even between meetings i can play a quick game and get my best fiends fix play best fiends and engage your brain with fun puzzles and collect tons of cute characters best fiends is a five-star rated mobile game that you can download for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play. That's Friends Without the Our Best Fiends. We'll be right back with more Austin Vine, Grape Therapy. If you like my show, you're going to love shenanigans with Shea Shea on Podcast One. Join everyone's favorite from Vanderpump Rules, star as she shares juicy stories from behind

the bar with amazing guests from Vanderpump and brings the bar to you. Download Shinanigans with Sheena Shia. every week on Apple Podcasts and Podcasts 1. Now back to Off the Vibe Grape Therapy. You met your wife on Twitter. Yes. Tell me about that. Yes.

So when we met on Twitter, we always had to explain to people what that meant. And we like lied to our grandparents. So like how'd you meet? We're like mutual friends because it was just so weird to meet somebody on Twitter. Now everybody meets on the app. So my wife and I are like a little bit jealous that like we never like got to do any swiping because we met so young. But we met on Twitter Funny story

Her ex-boyfriend Her ex-boyfriend's brother Was one of the photographers I connected with in high school No way And he was Logan and he shot these amazing photos And he shot this like amazing photo thing In India that really inspired me

So I followed him on Twitter And one time my wife, my now wife But then stranger Sammy posted something on Twitter that was funny or something and Logan retweeted her and I was like this is an amazing tweet

and this girl is very cute and I'm just gonna like I'm gonna follow her and just see what happens and I followed her and then to be honest I completely forgot about her and at some point I apparently got bored with her

because I unfollowed her yeah I unfollowed her but somehow during that time she followed me back and so she was following me I wasn't following her anymore and years go by. So, like, we probably followed each other in high school.

Wow. And years go by. And one day, just out of the blue, she, like, comments on something I do. And all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, it's that girl that I kind of had a little bit of a crush on for a minute. Yeah. And we just start talking back and forth, DMing, and then we move over to, like, Facebook Messenger. And she's about to move to Europe to study. And I have seen the Lizzie McGuire movie.

I know what happens when the girl that you now have a crush on goes to Europe. Like she's going to meet Paolo and she's going to become a European pop star and then she's going to be like way too good for me. Yeah, that's exactly what happens. And so I was like, I've got to like at least, you know, give this a shot. Yeah. And so I was like, hey, do you want to Skype? You know, like that's my shot, you know? And she's like, okay.

And so we move over to Skype like a week before she goes to Europe and we have a great time. And I remember being so nervous and, like, sweating all the way down my body and just being like, this girl is amazing. Yeah. I do not. I was, you know, I was a college student. I didn't have the budget to, like, fly out to Europe. So I was like, okay, I just got to, like, hold on while she's, like, traveling Europe for a few months. And so we just kept on Skyping every week when she would.

She never met Paulo. She never met Palo. Yeah. I think that she did. She came back in her iPod was named after a boy named Felix. oh boy and and i was like who's felix and she's like nothing i'm like felix you dirty dog but uh but no palo which is great

but like every week we would Skype when she would like come back from a trip to paris or rome or london and so we were like sharing all these experiences and at the same time i was traveling around india for a photo campaign and so there was all like we were sharing these life experiences from across the world and then when she was getting ready to fly back i said hey can I like come out and visit you in Tennessee yeah and she's like okay and so uh we flew out and had our very first visit and uh then we just kept on buying plane tickets ever since that's so cute I want to know what the original tweet was that you retweeted that I thought it was funny I

I have tried so hard to find it I haven't found it but I'm I like downloaded her whole like Twitter archives so that I can like do some in-depth research one day but yeah that's so funny That is funny. Okay, do you have other funny stories? Like, could you confess something to me? Yeah, I do. So I was, you have a confession? Yeah, I knew that I had to bring a confession.

Yes. And I texted all my best friends and I said, because I'm the kind of person who just like, I share all the embarrassing stories and then they're not really embarrassing anymore because they're out in the world. Right. And so I, but I texted my closest friends and said, what's something really embarrassing I've said over the last year?

And they're like, okay, let me think about it. There's a lot. but we've got to figure out the best thing. I text out to my wife and immediately she sends back a text and I send a screenshot of that text to my best friends and they go, that's the one. Really? Oh, yes. Okay. We were having a conversation with a group of friends.

We were all talking about first kisses and everybody's, you know, we're super exciting and fun and cute. And I was, I was a little bit sad and disheartened because I was like, I just don't remember my first kiss. Like, I don't remember what it was. I started kissing girls like in the sixth grade. Yeah. uh and the and then later in the conversation it came to me that my very first kiss was during march of the penguins okay and that so so that's the embarrassing part that my wife knows about was that it was it was it was to the most romantic movie in the world uh with the voice of uh morgan

freeman what what she does not know is that uh my girlfriend in high school at the time and i were We're super nervous to kiss, but we knew that we wanted to. Yeah. And so we did this thing. I'm like, it's like so stupid to say. But like, we were like, oh, well, let's just like get really close to kissing. And so the way we did that was we were at the movie theater. And so there's an arcade.

And so we'd gotten all these quarters to play games. But we still had someone. So we're like, oh, well, we'll just pass a quarter back and forth between each other's mouths. And we're like swapping quarters. And it's like the grossest thing in the world. and I like legitimately have like obsessive compulsive disorder now and I would never ever like I barely even touch money but to think about like putting that in each other's like oh that is pretty sick that's so gross that was my first kiss you know swapping quarters leads to kissing you know oh my gosh that is so dirty literally like literally but hilarious like that you thought that was a reasonable thing to do Yeah, I was like, this is a step towards intimacy. I'm so mad that I just shared that also.

That's so funny. No, that is the perfect confession. That's hilarious. Do you have a confession? No. You can't leave me hang out? I know, because... What was your first kiss?

My first kiss was with a guy named Nathan, and he was, like, the popular guy, and it was, like, my dream to just even slow dance with him in the fifth. grade and I got to kiss him in the seventh grade. Wow. Yeah. And I remember we kissed outside of my old elementary school and the light the side of lights were on and the lights turned out when we started kissing and we thought it was like the

most romantic thing in the world. And then I went to school the next day and people were like, Caitlin kissed Nathan and this boy that I actually had a crush on, his name was Travis. He goes, ooh, you're in the big leagues now. And I felt so stupid because he thought it was like, who cares? Why is this a conversation? Like, who hasn't kissed? I felt stupid.

I reject Travis. Travis is the bad guy's name, right? Yeah. Yeah, we don't like Travis. Well, Travis was my, like, first love, too. It was your first love? Yeah. Well, he did say a duchy thing, and he ruined your whole first kiss experience.

That sounds like a very sweet moment, and it's tainted. Yeah, it was tainted. I mean, my first kiss is a little tainted, but with literal germs in my mouth. Yeah, I'm glad you didn't die. I am glad I didn't die. Maybe it made me, like, stronger. Maybe I'll never get sick in my whole life. Maybe your immune system is like out of control because you put quarters in your mouth.

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but it's an escape from the world and there's nothing wrong with an escape like i love a good tv show that lets me escape but that's not our mission with what we're doing so our mission is to focus on real good which is like cool systemic change people making a difference people showing up doing cool things. Right. I love that. You should have Sorinda Swan on your podcast. Who's Surinda Swan? I'll tell you about her after. I had her on my podcast. She's incredible and she's just an amazing human that does good things. I'm going to listen to the episode today. Oh, you

should. Yeah, she's amazing. Okay, so Real Good is more important than Feel Good. I wanted to get to know you a little better by asking you some of the things that do make you feel good. Oh, cool. So name something to me that makes you feel good from the following categories, okay? A movie. What's a movie that makes you feel good? oh my gosh um i just saw book smart okay have you seen book smart no oh go see book smart like next time you're on a plane it'll be on the plane probably and it's such a beautiful and empowering story but it's also hilarious i've never laughed out loud so much in a theater probably in the last few years yeah

anyway that it's that perfect blend of like talking about wanting to do something ambitious and meaningful in the world but also being like a high school drama it's perfect okay tell me what What's called again? Book smart. Book smart. Okay. Okay. Quote. This is my favorite quote that is a catalyst for me. And it's kind of this idea of feel good versus real good. It's from this guy named Eric Lou who is, he's passionate about people getting involved in civic engagement. And he's got this quote where he says, to be optimistic is to assume that things will work out. But to be hopeful is to realize that things can work out if you work at them.

hope requires responsibility and agency and optimism relieves us of both in rooting for your sports team choose optimism and rooting for democracy choose hope whoa wow deep but I'm like

wow like that's a great difference to be like I'm not just hoping that the world gets better I've got to do something to make it better right which you are I'm trying I love that okay Instagram account oh my goodness Is it cheating if I talk about my dog's Instagram account?

No. Oh, my gosh. So if that's what makes you feel good. Oh, my goodness. Yes. So my dog, wait, so your dog is named after food. It's ramen. Yeah.

My dog is also named after food, Pop-Tart. Great dog. She's so cute. She's this little fluffy white maltese, and her Instagram is Pop-Tart Harvey Co. Okay. My wife won't even let me log into the account. And she, like, she runs it and makes it. And it's like the dorkiest, stupidest stuff.

And it makes me so. I love that. I laugh so hard at it. Okay, I love that. My dog's Instagram also makes me feel good. Your dog's Instagram makes me feel good. Yeah, good. I'm glad.

Because what kind of dog do you have? A little Maltese, like tiny. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because yours is, so I listened to an old episode where you talked about like, oh, there's this dog that I want to rescue. And that's the same dog, right? Yes. That's beautiful. Rescued from where?

South Korea. South Korea. Yeah. That's amazing. You're doing good. I know. I love, oh, I just feel, I'm like, I wish I could rescue a hundred of them. What's the organization called that does it?

Bunny's Buddies. Bodies. Yeah. They're incredible. What a cool, meaningful thing. Yeah. Oh my gosh. He's just like the biggest blessing I've ever had in my life.

But it was also really great because I got to use my platform to share bunnies buddies and now so many batsmen people have gotten dogs to them. And something, Seattle sports team, Jason's going to kill me for not remembering what team. But they're like getting involved with bunnies buddies now too. Like they're going to get like therapy dogs. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah. We are going to do, I haven't shared this before, but we're going to do an animal edition

of the good newspaper next year. Great idea. And we're so excited. And we're definitely going to include Bunny's buddies in there because it's such a cool organization. Another organization I just found out about, I'm blinking on their name. I'll have to find it. But they take death row inmates and they take dogs that are going to kill shelters.

because they've been so bad and they've got death row inmates rehabilitating and training these dogs to become therapy dogs and what a beautiful story to hear like people like these you know dogs and people who are kind of sharing a similar life experience and the cool opportunities they have to both grow through the process right and they i think that there's some like rate like they have a 100 percent success rate with these dogs really it's beautiful oh yeah you'll have to find out the name of that i would love to look into that That's, wow, it's amazing. Okay, what is a book that makes you feel good?

I'm going to, oh, you know what it is? We're in Seattle. There's this new book, or sorry, we're in Seattle. There's this movie that just came out called Where'd You Go, Bernadette? And it takes place here in Seattle, but it's based on a book. Okay. And it's like this adventure, and it's so fun and so cute, and I think everybody should read it. The writer was like a writer on Arrested Development and S&L.

Oh, wow. It's such a good read. but also the book of joy, which I talked about earlier. Okay, yeah. That's amazing. Okay. Favorite location, the location that makes you feel good. My family and I, every year, we go on vacation to this little lake in northern Idaho, like, almost by Canada, called Priest Lake Idaho.

Okay. And I've gone there every summer since I was zero. Yeah. And it's my favorite place. It's so beautiful, so tranquil, so special. Oh, I love that. That's, I think my feel good place would be where, like, because we, do you know where we're close? is in the Okinawana and British Columbia

that's like mine because we always as a family went every summer to our cabin and now they have a place there now and I'm just like I love it I think everybody's got that special place where you've just got so many memories tied to it that you know I bet that if a stranger went it probably wouldn't be as

beautiful or special but when it's when it's something that you've been visiting your whole life it's really meaningful yeah exactly food maybe it's just because we were talking about your dog but I was, ramen. Ramen is a very comforting food.

It's so good. I know. I love it too. My favorite food in the world is sushi, but my, like, feel good food is anything noodles. Yes. Just pasta and general. Yes. Beverage. I don't know if I'm just, like, on the same track, but I'm like, sake.

Oh, I love that, too. Unfiltered or filtered? I feel like I kind of like unfiltered. I know a lot of people who don't, but I really like it. Me too. It's my favorite. Scent. Mine's laundry

Just laundry Is there anything You're putting in your laundry Maybe a little fabric softener I think for me It's like Tea tree oil Like that pepperminty smell

It's so good Yeah And it like wakes you up That's why people put that on their wrists And stuff And under their nose Because it does make you feel good Yeah

It's a good one Hobby photography Probably Yeah well It's a bad thing I don't know if you do this at all But like I accidentally turn all my hobbies

into jobs I do the same thing. Drinking wine, got my own wine label. Talking, I like the sound of my own voice, podcast. It's such a terrible bad habit. And so I started getting into biking recently. Oh, yeah. Like cycling with, like, pedaling my legs, not broom, broom.

Yeah. And I'm trying my best not to turn it into a business at all in any way. And so I'm just really enjoying it and loving it. I bike every day now. It's crazy. I feel like a new human. Like outside? outside. But I also started

doing Peloton. And so I do a little bit of both. Are you on there? We should be friends. Well, no, but I'm going to get one. Okay, get it and then we can be friends on there. But I always stay at the Weston Hotel when I come here, like, and they have the Peloton bikes. That's amazing. Yeah. Okay. Um, YouTube video.

I'm not like a big, you know how like every YouTube video is? Make sure to like and subscribe. Yeah. I don't think I've ever liked or subscribed. Like, I don't know like what I would do. I mean, this is a little related but I'm not like super into yoga but when I do do yoga

I do it with this YouTube channel yoga with Adrian Yeah yeah Do you know her? Yeah, I do She's so good and she's got this idea that it's like Find what feels good And I think that's a beautiful idea that like I feel like I don't feel super comfortable in a normal yoga space

Because I'm like oh I'm going to get judged by all the people Who are better than me But when she doing that at home with her I'm like oh I feel like empowered through this Yeah I really love her yoga too And she's funny. She is funny. And she's so cute.

And she's a dog. Yes. Okay. This whole other, we're off the feel good. We're going into hypotheticals. Okay. You're given one superpower. What do you choose?

I think it's got to be teleportation. But I've got to be able to bring other people with me. I think my life would be too lonely if I was like, I'm just going to go to like Paris for lunch. And I'm the only one. Right. I guess maybe if I can bring back food. Whatever you're holding, you get to take. with you? Yeah, that's a good idea. I like that super hard. I think I would pick the same one.

Really? Yeah. I really do. And it would also save so much time. Like we could avoid Seattle traffic. Right. Oh, we could sell cars. Like we wouldn't we wouldn't need our cars. No, we could sell everything. That's amazing. I just thought about this and I'm like, I wish that could happen. I'm so sick of traveling. You win a hundred million dollars. How do you spend it? Every time that I enter the lottery, I genuinely believe that I'm going to get the money. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, I'm always justifying it. I'm like, you know, I've been really good this year. I make a good newspaper.

Like, I'll use, like, of course, like, God's going to give me the, you know, whatever it is. And so I've thought about this a lot. I would buy a house in, like, every city that I love. And so I can travel back and forth between them, and then my friends could stay in them when they're traveling to those cities too. Yeah. You're so kind. I mean, it's mostly selfish, but it's like, well, someone's got to keep them from getting

robbed. Yes. There you go. There you go. You can trade places with anyone in the world for a day. Who do you trade with? Mine's like Oprah. Oh, I think that's the right answer. I think the only real answer is Oprah. I think so, too. You have an envelope that tells you how and when you will die. Do you open it? I would have such a heart. I would look at it every day and feel like I'd need to look at it. But I think you would, well, I don't know. What? would you do? I would not open it. You would not? No. I don't want to know how I'm going to die and I don't want to know when because everyone's like, but then you could live your life to the fullest. I'd be like, no, I'd be in like the fetal position crying in the corner not wanting to do anything. Yeah. I'd be too scared. Especially

if things don't go like, so let's say that you have a flight and it gets canceled or delayed or whatever, you're like that's, you know, that's an hour I'm never going to get back. You know, like if, because I would overplan my life, I think. I would be like, all right, well, this year I'm doing this and this year. And and anything that set that back would wreck me. Right.

Unless, no. Yeah, there's no way I could. I would have to burn the note too. Yeah, me too. Me too. You're given the ability to talk to one species of animal. What are you choosing? I think it has to be dogs.

I have to. Unless there's like a really smart animal that knows the world that would be really, I don't know. Like turtles have been around for a long time. Maybe they have all the answers to all the world's problems. That's a great thought. But dogs would be... I just want to know what my dog is thinking, which she's like sprinting in circles.

I asked my niece this question. Would you rather be able to understand your dog, but your dog can't understand you or the other way around where, you know? Yeah. Man. You know what I mean? I... Hmm.

I would rather understand my dog and him not understand me. I think it's a little selfish. But I think it's, I don't know, I feel like, I feel, I mean, because I think that the sweet thing would be like, I want to like tell my dog how grateful I am for it and like how loved it is. But like, you can show that through actions. You can show that in other ways. And so I'd rather just want, yeah, I just want to know everything that she's thinking. Me too. You're given the chance to be immortal, but you're the only one on earth who is.

Do you take it? There's this book from a guy named Matt. met Hague and he it's called how to stop time and it's about these people who like live to be thousands of years old and it's about that that topic exactly yeah and how it's terrible and heartbreaking yeah uh but I think I'd still do it really yeah oh gosh I don't think I would really yeah I don't know it would be hard but like I feel like you just have different eras for different relationships so you'd be like I'm gonna invest all in with these people for a hundred years. Right. And then I'm going to find new people. Start a new life. I don't know. Maybe that does

sound depressing. It's a lot. Okay. That's that's all the games and questions I have for you. Can you tell everyone where to get the papers? Oh yeah. I know you said you can find your podcast anywhere. And your, what's your Instagram account? Our Instagram is good, good, good. Yeah. And so yeah, you can look that up. We've got good news that we share all the time. It's like my favorite thing. You can find the newspaper and everything else we do, our free email newsletter at good, good, good, good.co. And my name's at Brandon Harvey. Brandon is spelled with an

Yeah, it's Havy actually. Search Havy, you'll find it. It'll totally work. And it's Brandon, not Brendan. Yeah, it's Brandon with an E and at the end. It's tricky. Very confusing. But I had an Uber driver the other day whose name was spelled my way

and it was the first time I ever met another Brandon spelled my way. Really? And I said, you have to get out of the car and take a picture with me and you have to see this photo he's like so unamused he's like not interested in this at all he's like this is stupid he's like you better give me a very good tip and i i did because brandon's got to stick together that's hilarious good for you um and is there anything else that we miss that you want to talk about i mean the big thing that i'm super excited about right now is just that uh the newspaper in the next year we're like taking it to the

next level and so uh right now we're reaching you know tens of thousands of people per issue but over the next year we're trying to scale that because we just think the world needs more good news and so we're really excited to start getting into like we said earlier hospitals and coffee shops and stuff and so if people have like any ideas where they're like this is like I wanted it my coffee shopper I wanted at this local hospital like let us know so that we know like the right places to go because that's that's what we care a lot about is especially because I feel like with the presidential election coming up and kind of a lot of the things we're seeing happening around the world i think that we're all feeling a little overwhelmed yeah and so a step towards celebrating the good and then

becoming the good i think is gonna gonna make a big difference it will especially if everybody everybody that's listening needs to get on board with it i like to do my own horn here i think that's quite a few people quite a few people listening i can do something i wanted to ask what like what are the things that like you really care about in the world like what are you super passionate about um i work with a charity um that does um helps with homeless youth the covenant house oh i've heard amazing things and so every year i do a sleep out um and i just i think it came from i lived in vancouver and i think i was really naive to like why people were homeless and i just kind of brushed them off and and and thought like why can't they just go get a job and yeah

thought they just were on drugs and crazy people but i i just learned so much about how some some of the reasons of why they get there is because they actually feel safer on the streets than they do in their own home due to like abuse or alcoholism. Like the LGBTQ community is like way overrepresented in homelessness because a lot of their families aren't accepting of them. Exactly. So I started to learn a lot more and just be a little more knowledgeable and not so naive. And so I've been really passionate about working with them. That's beautiful. Yeah. And I really, I mean, part of this whole podcast and some things I do on Instagram is like a raw beauty. And, doing like real stograms where you're like you're not doing all this editing and wearing all this makeup and it's just like real moments so i think it's i'm very passionate about like empowering other women to be themselves and feel secure in their own skin and that kind of thing i'm very passionate about that stuff that's beautiful that makes me so happy you're using you're spending your privilege well yeah it's i think i just i think i wish i had somebody to to look for in those kinds of things when i was in my 20s or when i was younger

and so I just kind of wanted to be that for some people and yeah that's beautiful that's that's that's so I think that's so important and hopefully you know who knows like somebody's going to be watching you and they're going to be bachelorette in 20 years and they're going to be like you know what I want to use my platform in those ways as well right yeah it was it's it's been really cool to be able to use my platform for good things and that's what I love about social media too is being able to like um my friend uh her husband's nephew has frederick's ataxia which it's very rare and not a lot of people know about this but it's i don't know anything about this right and it's it's this like your body just deteriorates and and he's nine years old and it's heartbreaking and being able to they think that there's like a possibility of people do more research and that they could find a cure or something so it's so i love that i can just use my instagram to reach so many people that and all of the people that follow me are so amazing and everybody even if they can just do a dollar will like go do that and it just can make such a big difference to people so well and the thing is like sharing about that is it seems like

it's an obvious thing but it's not it's not like everybody does that not everybody uses their platform in that way yeah and so it's really amazing that you like actually took the intention to do that yeah so many people don't i just can't i can't believe people wouldn't yeah if they could exactly um i was really inspired by jillian harris who is also a bachelorette who uses her platform. She's just always looking for ways to give back and use her, use her Instagram for good. And she discovered this little place in Canada that's called Mamas for Mamas. And it's just like a really, like a place where moms can help each other. And if you can donate, you know, stuff for kids or stuff that moms might need. And it's just like Jillian just really has blown them up and

created this whole community behind it. And it's just, it's so cool to see. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, this is, I feel good right now, do you? I feel so good. I do. I really like you. I really like you too. And even at my, like, birthdays, we always do every year, if I am like at somebody's birthday or

my birthday, we do, we go around the circle and we do the feel good circle. And we all say whoever's birthday it is, everyone goes around the circle and says what they really love about them. And we always leave just like on a high. It, like, it wrecks me with that kind of thing happen. It's like such a beautiful, special thing. Yeah, it is. It is.

And it's just like, you're in the moment and you're like telling somebody. what you love about them and everybody just you know feels good I did it recently where they said we are going to record this so that you can play this back on like bad days oh that's great I love that and I found it in my phone the other day and I was like that's so sweet

yeah see oh I love that that's really cool well thank you so much for being on the podcast yeah thank you Caitlin good luck to you with everything and everybody go get the newspaper and subscribe and like and what we're saying on YouTube it's like subscribe make sure to like and subscribe Like and subscribe and leave five-star review.

And you're like pointing down. Swipe up. Swipe up. So funny. Swipe up to smile. Okay, well, thank you so much. And I'm Caitlin Bristow. I'll see you next Tuesday. Sponsors for this week's Off the Vine are MTV's Real World.

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