Sense of Soul - Experience Sensory Wellness

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

Today on Sense of Soul Podcast we have Kala Maxym, she is the Founder and Chief Event Orchestrator of the Certified Women-Owned Business (WBENC), Five Senses Tastings. Her philosophy of Sensory Wellness encourages her guests to harness the energy, power, and play of their five senses, using music, wine, and sweet treats to tell her clients' stories. Inspired by her childhood abroad, Kala realized that diversifying our own sensory ecosystems leads us to find beauty and inspiration not just in ourselves but in the world around us. She is a professional opera singer who has performed worldwide (including for three presidents), and now intentionally uses her voice to advocate for voting rights. She is a former federal government employee, bone marrow donor, WSET Level II certified, and a polyglot who speaks German, French, and Spanish. Her client list includes Google, Meta, Warner Bros, Amazon, Pinterest, Tinder, Louis Vuitton, Adobe, KPMG, Intuit, Wells Fargo, Jim Beam, Oscar de la Renta, Salesforce, and other Fortune 500 companies. https://www.fivesensestastings.com https://instagram.com/fivesensestastings?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= http://www.kalamaxym.com Visit Sense of Soul at www.mysenseofsoul.com Do you want Ad Free episodes? Join our Sense of Soul Patreon, our community of seekers and lightworkers. Also recieve 50% off of Shanna’s Soul Immersion experience as a Patreon member, monthly Sacred circles, Shanna and Mande’s personal mini series, Sense of Soul merch and more. https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul Thank you to our Sponsor  KACHAVA, Use this link for 10% off! www.kachava.com/senseofsoul

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Hey friends, if you are looking for ad-free Sense of Soul episodes, you can find them at Sense of Soul Patreon. Become a monthly member at any level. You will also have access to our monthly SOS Sacred Circles, our mini-series, merch, and MuchBorn. And it's a great way to help support our podcast so that we can continue to bring you inspiring episodes twice a week with our enlightened guests from all around the world.

Check out our Patreon. Today we have with us Kala Maxim. Kala is a professional opera singer who has performed worldwide, including for three presidents. She's the founder and the chief event orchest of their five senses using music, wine, and sweet treats to tell her clients stories. And I can't wait to hear all about this experience that Kala creates for her guests. Hello, Shanna. How do you do? Good. Nice to meet you. You too. So do you know Kimberly Spencer? I do.

Yeah. I've worked with her as a coach and then through this podcasting agency. And I've known her for quite a number of years now. Yeah. We had her on years ago. It's been a while. Yeah. She's super sweet.

Really liked her a lot. Lots of wisdom. Absolutely. Very insightful. Yeah. I listened to your music on your website. How kind of you. Opera. Thank website. Oh my God. I mean, unbelievable. I don't know how you get that much air up.

Well, it's, you know, it's funny because like I listened to people who do other styles of music and I'm like, how do you do that? I'm like, it's just natural. Like that's what comes out of my face when I open my face. Oh, it's so beautiful though. I love it. So, but where are you located out of? I'm in LA. So I, yeah, we're in Colorado. And you know, we do have quite a lot of locations that you can go to, to test wine. I've never actually been to one before. Do you actually own a location? It's not a location. We're a special events company that goes to places or does things virtually. So it's not a location.

Which is so amazing that, you know, since COVID and also just, you can like rent business spaces now. You don't have to have a whole building and you can go to them. I traveled certainly to other places when, you know, budget permits and the client wants that. And I've been virtual for almost three years now, but I do both. So yeah, that's cool. I'm so excited to talk to you because really over the years experience, you know, how to experience something has been my big thing. Cause it's like, I lived my life and it's like everything that everybody told me to, I believed. And I lived that way based on, you know, all of these conditions and traditions. And so at one point I shifted and that shift came with, you know, me being more authentic to my own experiences. This wasn't your original destination to have a wine tasting experience for people you originally went into

was it the federal government that I saw originally yes I started at the department of justice after college and I was there for two years and then I then I was like well is it going to be the federal government and foreign service for opera school to opera school and that was like what one of the things that got me here eventually but it was a very circuitous path wow do you still actually perform and do opera I perform I don't really pursue opera as such but I do perform I have a concert coming up in Memphis of all places in February it's just art song it's with a friend of mine who lives there. And yeah, I kind of really love classical art song and things like that that tell a story and, you know, three minutes. Yes. I love going to like the Broadway plays like Phantom of the Opera is like my favorite. You know, there's almost never an episode that I don't end up singing like one line

of something, but I can't sing. You know, it's just, yeah. But my kids probably when they were babies thought I could sing. Well, you know, kids will be honest. So if they didn't tell you like, mom, shut up, then you were good. Then you were good. I eventually did when they could talk, but I definitely don't have the voice of an opera singer. Did you as a child, or is this something that you said you went to school for it, but did you already kind of have this gift within you? I did. The story goes that, so I was born and raised in Germany. I'm not the child of army parents or anything, but I was born

and raised in Germany. And the story goes that we were walking along the street in Hannover, which is where I was young and a car screeched to a halt and I sang out the note and I just always sounded like this when I opened my mouth so there I have memories of like me and my sister and my dad singing the trio from Marriage of Figaro from act two like from a really young age like five or seven and and we all knew the parts and we would like dance around the living room singing opera trios which I noticed some might sound snooty but like that was my world it was like because if we had been the Pointer Sisters or something or like you know like singing songs like that's what we did yeah we would too but it was more like John Lennon

and Stevie Nicks and I do that here with my kids so that tradition continued we laugh because sometimes it's like that one song all day long and the whole family has it. Do you know what I'm talking about? I do. I do. Our songs were longer, like whole scenes, like 15. That's just because that's how old. I remember one time I went to visit family in Louisiana and this whole trip, there was like this one liner of a slim, shady song. It was like, I'm sorry, mama, you know, the closet. Yeah. You sang your one line. Yay. Yes. So I did it. Yes. See, it's all the time. So, but everyone was singing it like the whole time. Like every time I'd see my cousin, Laura, she was saying it

and I had it in my head, but I do, I agree with you. Like the story behind the song. I remember in the times that I wasn't present, which was the first, probably 30 years of my life. I didn't listen so much to the words. And then when I became present, I just couldn't believe it. And then I realized how many words I was saying wrong. Oh my God, Rome around the world. I thought it was bras around the world when I was a kid, you know, probably because I was going through puberty or something. You know, I always think rarely does someone create any art because they're bored. Like they create it because they have something to say, whether they're ecstatic or desperate or whatever, or confused. Like we don't just sort of make art because we're like,

well, you don't have anything else to do. Right. Like, even if that's true, it's because you have something else to say through it. And so, you know, even in opera, like opera tells contemporary stories of, of love and loss and contemplation and existentialism and all these questions, they just do it over a much longer period of time. Yeah. Same. Do you ever write your own words? And so, you know, I'm saying that from a place of someone who doesn't really create her own art as such. Like, I mean, I do write occasionally, but I, I'm not a visual artist at all. I, I in fact, sort of have trauma from kidhood when, you know, people were like, you have to be able to draw. And I'm like, I just like, teach me how.

I don't know how. And I don't write my own songs, but I've, you know, my business has allowed me to, I use 500 years of music. So I go all the way back to Bach and I go all the way back today. And so I've been able to look at all the, you know, tidbits behind why people write songs. And there's like never just because nothing happened. Right. Yeah. I mean, how many artists have like had dreams and like woke up and wrote like the most amazing songs? Yeah. I mean, I suppose, you know, especially in the classical world, there are commissions, right? Like previously, you know, in centuries past, you were commissioned by the court or the king or whatever. And so, you know, you had to write something and maybe there wasn't

some sort of existential crisis going on that you were writing about. But I still feel that the majority of art is created because of the need to express something. Right. Now, when I listen to opera, I can't always understand what they're saying, right? Because it's all going on the one word for a good minute. And, you know, I'm like, what was that word? That's why I love when the opera is like with also like the visual, like a play or something,

because then it's like, you have like the sound that is like telling a story and it's just all meshed together in this yummy thing. I just love that. However, you still feel this vibration, right? Behind the words, even though you can't hear them.

And that was a huge thing that I recognized when I began my journey years ago. I was listening to these chants. They were old Hindu chants, ancient Hindu chants. I had no idea what they were saying, but really, I feel like that was part of the cracking open of my soul. As someone who does sing and who's, I wrote a book, an essay on this. I wish I could find it again on, in my Buddhism class in college. But, you know, air is something that once it leaves your body, you can never get it back. And there's something so wonderful about like that vibration that like, you can't recreate

anything that exits your body. Right. Oh, wow. You, you take an air and whatever is in your body, it like sort of sucks it up in the moment and then it delivers it. And so what I find so powerful about doing live performance is like, you can never have that moment again, ever, like every single microsecond of time is only in that moment. And that recorded music is beautiful, because you can always lean on something, you can always lean on Aretha to sound like Aretha and be the badass that she was, right. But there's something about hearing someone in their moment, because you have no idea what's going on in their soul. And they could be bored that day.

They could be sick. They could be ecstatic. They could be so sad. And the air that comes out of them is whatever the good word version of tainted is, like influenced by what's inside you. I mean, it's just so very interesting how much we're affected by sound and tones and vibration frequency, and we're just not even conscious to it. We aren't conscious to it. And I also have found that we are so incapable of sitting still for longer than the time it takes for a modern pop song to start and finish, right? Like

my grandparents would talk about sitting and listening to music, like a whole album, like 45 minutes at least, right? And so I think, you know, what you say about opera, like you don't understand it. Like, of course not. I don't understand it. I mean, I speak a couple languages, but if it's in Czech, I have no idea what it's saying. But the beauty, I think, of opera and these sort of long form art forms is that it's really about just like letting go of your need to understand everything. And you have to rely on the power of the melody and harmony and air and ability of the actors to demonstrate human emotion, like simple human emotions to you. And you have to just be there on a human level. You don't need to be there on every other attention level. You just need to be able to connect on a human level.

And we need so much stimulation now that just sitting there and listening to someone gift you with beautiful sounds is like, that's not enough. Right. I was listening to this guy talk. It was like a guy episode and he was saying just what you're saying. He's like in today's world, like these kids who are in school, like they cannot learn the way that, you know, the previous generations have. It had a lot to do with the visual part of it, of like video game. And he, and he basically was saying like, if these schools want to know what to do, they should go like study Nintendo.

How do they keep their attention? But there's always like a music component, right? Yeah. There are always characters. There's always a storyline. There's always a goal. You're always trying to get there, right? Yes. I mean, my feeling is there are a lot fewer people who have ADD than people think they have ADD. There's just a different way of learning. Like they have grown up in a world that does not welcome or encourage patients in any form. So true. There's their minds are constantly going, wanting more, wanting to figure out, wanting to discover that it's just, it's hard to keep up as a mom, but you know, something we actually practice in our house was mindful eating. I was so mindful about appreciating who made it. I was mindful who

maybe picked those vegetables, who planted it, mother earth. And, you know, I thought about the roots of the taste of course, you know, the, the textures of my mouth and how it felt once it hit my stomach. I was, we all did this as a family. It was very interesting. Wow. Yeah. Actually, once we did it for a while, I don't think we ever could like not do it since this is something that you do with the wine tasting. Do you feel like everything you drink kind of becomes a wine tasting experience in some way? A little bit. Yeah. I think there's often just a desire to just go, oh my goodness, can I just drink this without wondering what I compare it to or, you know,

what I would say on a test that's coming up or something like that. But it's also made me much more appreciative. Like my palate has definitely changed. You know, I mean, the only snooty thing I'll say about wine is like my wine experiences. I cannot drink store, like store brand, like Josh, or I can't anymore. Like it is unpleasant to me. You know, people feel so embarrassed when they come to my house or whatever and brings it down. I don't know. I hope I brought something that's okay. And you're like, like there's, you don't have to be worried that I'm going to judge you because you don't have the same palate that I do. And I'm very like not great palate. Like it's a little bit than it used to be. It's about as far as we'll go. But I definitely feel

like there are moments where I'm like, Oh, can I turn my brain off and enjoy this now? And I've gotten so much better. So the wines that you do like, do you also appreciate the story behind the wine? Oh, that's the majority of it actually. So in our events, we always start with the story behind the wine? Oh, that's the majority of it, actually. So in our events, we always start with the story of the client or whatever we're telling. And then I pair stories, right? I don't just pair like, oh, you want the Chianti? Like there are thousands, hundreds of thousands of Chiantis. So, you know, of course I'm limited by like what I can get. Yes. Like that, there are logistics to the wines I am allowed or able to choose, but I will always incorporate the story. And then if as much as I can, I'll link it back to something the client has said to me about their team or their product or their family or whatever

it is. And, you know, maybe they really, you know, like it's women owned and maybe that's really important to them where it's a cooperative or, you know, it was created during a year that was really hard and they're talking about the challenges of their business or something like that. So it's reflected in the glass. There's sports reflected in the glass and reflected in the musical selections that we choose. Oh, that's so cool. I'm from Louisiana, from New Orleans. I have this blueberry wine and I'm sure it's not expensive. I guarantee it's not. And I don't know if it's available everywhere, but my mom would always bring one home. And I remember it was really, really super good too. But you know, it's kind of like that thing where your mama makes the best sandwich, right? Like,

you know, there's this connection to the place that makes it taste better. Yes. Yeah. Just because of the memory, right? Cause you know, well, you probably talk a lot about this, like smells and taste and everything have this connection to memory and that bring us back almost like in a time machine in some way. Yeah. I call it your sensory ecosystem. Okay. Tell us about it. Well, I was born and raised in Germany. As I mentioned, you were born and raised in Louisiana. So you had a completely different sensory ecosystem where I grew up in Northern Europe under cloudy, rainy skies with no crawfish and no pineapple, no, like any type of, you know, anything probably that you ate. Like I had cheese,

I had Dutch cheese and Belgian chocolate in the school. Like that's what I grew up with. I didn't taste her, right? Like like but that's not fancy that's just because I lived there right right so I have this palette and this sensory ecosystem built up with what I'm used to seeing and feeling and smelling and everything and you have another and so when we grow up it's I don't say our responsibility but like it's up to us if we want to break out of that and a lot of my events is like helping people understand that, you know, you think you don't like Riesling or you don't like goat cheese. There are millions of each type out there. Like try to kind of encourage yourself not to say, I hate this,

or I only drink this or eat this because there are so many versions of that. And so, you know, I'm a classical baby because I grew up in a classical household. That's never going to change no matter how much I love bluegrass and I love Bob Marley. Like I'm always going to gravitate to classical because it's what I understand from my earliest body self. That's natural. That's like fancy science stuff. That's just duh. So we have that and there are these memories. So yeah, sure. If I, you know, there are certain memories, certain words that we say in my family that we only use in German, even though there is an English equivalence and there aren't, but just because like that's in our, in our mouth, in our visual, in our, in our sensory memory.

You know, I've had COVID three times and my sense of smell was the most affected. So, I mean, long time, like longer than most people I knew my kids were like, if you do this, mom, I saw on TikTok, it might come back. If you do this and that sometimes it would come in and come out. My perfume has never smelled the same and chicken tastes weird to me. There's a few foods that I just don't like anymore. It sucks too. So I've been waiting to fully get it back. Cause I'll be eating something. I'm like, I remember how this tasted. I bet it's so good. Do you have any suggestions? I don't. I, it happened to me too, actually. And luckily I came back fairly quickly, maybe

month or two. It sucks. It's awful. It is very weird. Cause you're like, this can't be right. Like I just must not be, I must not be doing something. You're like, you blame yourself weirdly. Uh, I did, you know, I feel like I took for granted my senses. Yeah. I mean, I found that my brain could fill in the blanks. Partly I could imagine what like a curried potato would taste like or something like that, but it's a very small percentage. And if you can't smell, it's like smell is like 70 or 80% of your sense of taste really. So if that's gone, then you can't taste. Especially for some of the foods that I didn't usually love the texture, but I over time decided really liked the taste and gave it chances. And then I came to love it

and then having it with no taste and like, Oh God, no. Yeah. Yeah. Something like it was like hummus or guacamole. I usually love that, but it was just mush. I could see that. Yeah. I mean, I see curry once and my boyfriend was like, this is so good. And I was like, I don't usually like a lot of spice. And I was like, okay, so can you tell me what, like, what are your experiences? Like when you, when you go to someone's party or event, what does that look like? Um, well, let's see. I did a family. I've done a couple of family holiday things, which are like my favorite to do. And in 2020, actually, like I was doing one and then like the kid and his then fiance had just

gotten engaged the night before. And they like told their family on the call. It was the most like amazing moment. But really what I had done was I had like sent them kind of a questionnaire to kind of tell me who the family was, like, what were the quirks? What were the nicknames? What were the things that they all laugh about around the kitchen table when they're together? Like, what are these? What are their peccadilloes? What are the history of, you know, what's the history of the family? And they would share that with me. And then I would try to mirror that, like, you know, with wine, it would be like, where have you traveled? Or where do you want to travel? Or where is you? Where are you from? Or something like that. And then, you know, same with cheese

and chocolate, it'd be like, oh, you know, we we're from austin okay can i find a chocolatier in austin that feels like i'm supporting the local economy or you know can i female chocolatier because you know there's a matriarch in the family like whatever it is right and then you know for the holidays it was a lot of holiday tunes and they would share that but normally with music you'd be like okay well how can i represent whatever they're telling me about you you know, where they're from, what they're dealing with, what their challenges are, what they're like reward, like what's happened this year that's been super rewarding. How can I represent that through music? Most people see my bio and they're like, oh, I don't really want to do all opera. And I'm like, they're most of my

events have no opera in them. That's not the point. I didn't create the company so that I could sing opera. That's not why I did it. So I'd say we provide music from Bach to Bon Jovi, and that's literally what we do and past Bon Jovi, right? It's about trying to figure out, and you know, one of my favorite things to do when I'm creating programs is literally type in an idea into YouTube or like an artist or a song, and then I'll follow the other links and relying on YouTube's algorithm to know what I'm trying to do. But or I'll Google like best songs about challenge. And then I'll go into those and I'll be like, okay, this one fits sort of like, you know, the theme or the vibe that I want. Let's research that song. Then I'll research that song.

And a lot of times it checks out. And sometimes it's like, nope, I really want to use that song, but the story behind it does not work. Or I can only use a portion of this song. There's one that I can't remember the name of, but it was like the songwriter had like been arrested for child porn or something. And I was like, okay. Yeah. You know, even though the song is perfect. So yeah, there are a lot, there's so much on the internet now and you should research and make sure that it's true. And some things, when I read them, I'm like, is that really true? I'll try to like, see if that's really true. I think most of the comments I've gotten is like, oh, that's such interesting history about that song.

Like that made me taste the wine differently, right? Because I knew that this song could come from. I did a corporate one this week and they were like, we've done a lot of wine tastings, but you know, you took us to places we didn't even know made wine. And this is really different. You know, mostly it's like you're drinking wine from a winery. So you're like, Oh, I'm in the Willamette Valley. Great. Okay. But I take them to Tasmania and South Africa and Chile and Oregon and France. And so people are able to eat and they're hearing the music from that part of the world. And like, you know, kind of learning about the history of when that song was made and stuff like that. So there's a lot involved. When I was going through my ancestry journey, when I was really deep in it, I went, it was like six years hard for my ancestry. I surrounded myself with everything of the ancestors.

I mean, like, you know, I was getting a little statues that I knew that they had in books that I knew they would have read or were read about them. And I surrounded myself with the music. So I love that you do that. That's so very intentional. Yeah. I mean, why wouldn't you do that? I feel like, you know, especially in the events world, well, in all worlds, sound is really relegated to the background. Like we very rarely customize for it. You customize for your sense of smell and taste a lot, like taste, I would say a lot, sight but you know like I would say like touch and sound really just gets sort of forgotten about totally so what do you do for touch it's your mouth feel it's your mindful eating what you were talking about like how it feels in your

fingers it feels to be on that chair on that wood table like what is the air like really just being sort of mindful about what your body feels like in the space and what the elements give in addition. Right. What do you do for sites usually? Site, I don't manipulate that. I think it makes our events unique. It's like, I don't decorate. I'm not trying to make you feel a certain way.

So it's the beauty of the wine in your glass. How does it change based on the hour that we're together and the sun is moving? You know, what do you see? What are the shapes on the chocolate? Like what does the person look like sun is moving? You know, what do you see? What are the shapes on the chocolate? Like, what does the person look like next to you? Like, really, what do they look like? And so it's really just engaging. Yeah, it's like really teaching people to really use all their senses, but not just

for the wine tasting. I mean, I don't call my events wine tastings. Usually I call them sensory wellness events or musical wine tastings because wine to me is in service of the story like all of the elements are in service of the story the music the chocolate the everything so you know saying wine tasting is not incorrect like it is a wine tasting but that's not what I call myself it sounds like it's an experience that people can learn to use to be present in all areas of their life. Yeah. I also want to mention that, you know, I liked how you said, you know, we can hear a song and not really know what it's about or know what's behind the song.

I've worked with, and they've become my friends, Scott Arsenault, who's known as Scrim, with the Suicide Boys. I was like, oh God, what what a name it's even like funky to tell people the name right i tried not to judge because i know he's like the sweetest guy ever and scrim he is sober and i went to his concert you know i brought my kids backstage i mean it was nothing like you would expect. Everyone's just sitting around talking about family, laughing. And then he goes out on stage and he came back and it's just like, he had never left. You know, I wondered, and I do want to have him on eventually and ask him, your lyrics back then were about your life, right? And what you're doing in your lyrics today,

you know, are more sober and still talk about the life that you had. They were on drugs back then they were in a bad place and end of every single concert scramble get up and he tells everybody, you know, I've been in a dark place before, but I got help. And I encourage all of you, you know, if you are in this dark place to get help and he has really helped a lot of people. And I read comments and comments of people who are his fans and they have all said, because they are brave enough to say what I'm feeling. They give me hope because they're so authentic and vulnerable. I've talked to some of his fans and I mean, I've cried to them to see how much their vulnerability and being so honest about some things that makes people uncomfortable have really helped them. It's amazing.

I've heard that from a lot of people about different music in their lives. Yeah. I mean, cause I was at first, I was like, I don't want my kids to listen to Suicide Boys. Maybe I'm comfortable, but I think it makes you uncomfortable because it's, it's real. Yeah. Yeah. You are so right. There's so much behind music and we don't really know the whole story. We absolutely don't. I like how you said research. I mean, I know a lot of songwriters and I know when they've created stuff and they've shared with me why they've created it. So I know that that exists and I, I can only extrapolate that that is what many people feel when they write a song.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes they're in bad, you know, they're in bad places. They write it, but that's how they connect with people. Yeah. Amazing. Have there been any times that you've been asked to sing a song that you didn't really align with? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, um, I hope this doesn't make anyone uncomfortable on your podcast, but I am not religious at all. And, um, I do sing at church and I, I, I go to church when I'm paid to go to church and sing at church. And there have been certain times that I've been asked to sing songs that go farther than I am comfortable with and I'm paid to do it. It's a job to me. So I do that, but I've certainly been uncomfortable. Ah, I feel ya. When you're talking about experiencing

something, this is your truth. Like if this is your truth, whether you like something or not, whether it feels good in your body, when you're tasting it, whether you're listening to it and you can feel the vibration within you. There's some songs that literally, I mean, my whole body is affected. Absolutely. It's really natural. And I think that we've kind of, because we always put music in the background right now, we don't allow ourselves to have that full sensory experience of it. And clearly like the Suicide Boys, the people who are reacting to their music are allowing themselves maybe in a state of intoxication or maybe not to be there and you know you know in

vino veritas like when you're high you're very real a lot of the times and so messages like that can get in really clearly well speaking of high whenever I think about opera, I always think about in Shrek when Fiona is like singing and she makes the bird pop. Don't remember that. I'm sorry. Unfortunately, I've watched Shrek probably thousands of times. So you are a soprano. That's challenging for most people that had those high notes. I guess so. I mean, if you're a soprano, I had my career as a mezzo, which is not terribly different. It's more like a kind of a quality of the voice difference. But as I got older and this happens a lot to both men and women is your voice changes. Mostly men will like change a whole like they'll go from baritone to tenor often.

Right. Less frequently will they go lower. They'll usually go from baritone to tenor often, right? Less frequently will they go lower. They'll usually go from baritone to tenor. But my voice changed a lot in my thirties. And now I sit very much in a, like a Puccini soprano, if that means something to anybody. I can tell as my, I get older, my voice is changing. It's getting like, it's deeper. And I guess that's those hormones, right? Well, I don't know, possibly, but I don't know if you listen to the, we can do hard things podcast by Glennon Doyle. I've heard that before. Yeah. I think this might be really interesting for you, but they just interviewed Jane Fonda and she talked about how after her three marriage, I don't know what point it was, but later in her life, when she sort of was like,

oh, this is who I am. Her voice dropped. They sort of asked her something like, hey, were you aware of it? Or did you try to do it? She's like, nope. It just happened when I figured out who the heck I was. And I was like, that is fascinating. I've always had kind of a raspy lower voice, but I encourage you to listen to that episode. That might be really interesting or just to think about that. You know, I would love to, you you know it's interesting when I'm having a conversation my voice is one way but if you listen to my mini series and by myself my voice is like a narrative like it's different and phone is different languages in different voices yeah my German is usually my my deeper voice Spanish is higher, that's so interesting.

Beards cannot be German up here where I am right now. Well, you know how there's like that voice that when you are in trouble, your parent all of a sudden went to like a total different tone. And that tone. What you're talking about. I was never in trouble. Oh, yeah. Actually, me neither.

Yeah, no. It wasn't even about the words it was it was the tone of the voice I was like oh which mine rarely goes there so if it does go there everyone's like what and someone actually told me you have to use like a more authoritative voice I remember someone telling me that so if someone does want to have this like virtually, so what do you do? Like purchase all this stuff and send it to them or across the country and depending where they are, what they want. I have a couple of different vendors that I use and we, I gather the information, I send wine, cheese, chocolate, whatever they want out to them. And then, yeah, I've been doing this for almost three

years now. So it's a well-oiled machine. Wow. That's amazing. Do you have like an assistant or people that do it with you or just by yourself? Really? I had someone this year, um, and she, she's awesome. She still works with me. Just she's a, she's a mom as well. And so it's very part-time and if I need someone, I also have a virtual assistant who does, you know, my website and stuff like that. So she'll help, but mostly it's me. Do you usually do like parties and families, weddings, like bridal showers, kind of like, what's like your clients of like? Yeah. Um, I would say a lot of corporate right now, especially for the virtual world is largely

corporate, like probably 90% corporate or in-person stuff. I work with wineries sometimes I'll do that, or I'll do, I'll do like house warmings, anniversaries, birthdays. I find that the wedding space is not really a perfect fit for us. I have done bachelorette parties, small ones, but weddings, I feel like they're, it's not quite right. So bachelorettes I've done that works, but weddings were not really a good fit for kind of the general flow of a wedding. The chief event orchestrator. I love that title. That is so unique and creative, by the way. Thank you. I used to be chief event composer. And then someone actually who Kimberly

knows was like, but what if she wants to be CEO? It could be chief orchestrator. And I was like, Oh, I totally saw that. And I was like, Oh my God, that is so perfect and unique. Good. You know, I did want to ask you about the bone marrow donor, um, and why that was important to you. I saw that on your website. I mean, I saved a life. I think, I think there isn't really anything else I need to do in life. I did. I did my part as a human. I saved a life. I think, I think there isn't really anything else I need to do in life.

I did my, I did my part as a human. I saved a life. It's, uh, it was the most amazing thing I've ever done. I can't top it. And do you actually know whose life you saved? I do. Can you share? Yeah. Um, she has since passed. She. She lived for another 16 and a half years after I donated. Her name was Peggy. She lived in Minnesota. I did speak to her on the phone almost every year of our anniversary. Probably the most important moment of my life was, so you're not allowed to talk to them for a year after the donation in case something goes wrong, privacy reasons.

And so a year to the day after I donated, I got a message on my cell phone that said, hi, my name is Peggy and you saved my life. reasons and so a year to the day after I donated I got a message on my cell phone that said hi my name is Peggy and you saved my life oh yeah wow did you ever get to meet her or you guys just were friends on phone that's a that's a regret I have I I put it off and put it off and by the time I was like no no I'm gonna go travel she was dying um and see me. So I, I definitely regret that decision. She's, she lived so long. It sort of felt like I would, there would never be an end, you know, and that's a regret, but I know that I talked to her and they invited me to the, you know, to the funeral and I sat with the family and it was like very like, Oh, that's amazing.

It mean, I heard that it does hurt to donate bone marrow. There are different ways to do it. And I will share that the reason that I became a bone marrow donor is because I cannot donate blood. Even with the updated rules, because I lived in Germany in the 80s, mad cow, the FDA or whoever makes these rules has determined that I may never donate blood. And I would, I would donate every month if I could, but I can't. but you can donate bone marrow, even if you cannot donate blood, there are different processes. France plant. Now this happened almost 20 years ago. I'm sure that it's different now, but there, when I did it, there were two ways. One way was the painful way where they take it out of kind of the back of your back hip area. And the way I did it was called peripheral blood cell stem cell donation. And I was hooked up to a machine. I took hormones for a week injections. And then my white, I think my white blood cell count increased so much that it fell out of my bone marrow into my blood basically. And then they took my blood

out of one arm and they filtered all the cells into a bag, put my blood back. And I did this for two days. And so that little bag was the bag that went and flew to California. I was in Boston at the time and went into Peggy and saved her life. Yeah. My dad died waiting for a heart. And so I really, truly believe in, in donating your organs. I mean, they're just, you know, physical meat suit stuff. Yeah. You can't take them with you. And, you know, he also donated his eyes and I thought, you know, it was so cool. One guy was in Germany and I, which is, yeah. And the other one was a three-year-old little girl here in Colorado. So I did go to like the website where you can let them know.

I'd like to put my dad's story and I put my contact information and stuff like that. Once I ever wanted to know, but yeah, I think it's important to be a donor. We had on a girl locally who was looking for a kidney on our next door app here in our neighborhood so we had her on and we got her like lots of options you know it's very amazing but sometimes if you just ask too yeah yeah it was really really meaningful and nothing leaves you like you don't lose anything as a bone marrow donor

wow you gave for how many more years 16 and a half that's a lot there's a lot but that's awesome yeah it really looks great so any questions about that you know i'll happily answer them tell everybody where they can find you um your website and you know throughout your social media whatever you'd like sure my website is five senses tastings all written out so f-i-v-e senses tastings with an s.com and there's a contact button and now it's time for break that shit down that there are seasons in life for things to happen. And some seasons will feel like you can't believe that they're this good. And when they are that good, be in that goodness and allow that goodness, like every moment that you can remember to think about it. And when they're not that good, that's okay. And just remember that once they were that good and they can be that good

again. And if you are in a season of confusion, really try to believe that there is more clarity than you could have imagined at the end of it. I have to believe that I'm in a season of some changes in my life too. And some days it can be overwhelming and I'm bawling my face off and I can't figure it out. And other days I go, you know what? And today's one of overwhelming and I'm bawling my face off and I can't figure it out. And other days I go, you know what? And today's one of those days I'm like, yeah, I still have a lot of questions. I don't know. I don't know.

And that's okay. And I'm really lucky. I have a great support system. And like your friend said, like get help. If you don't, like there are always people willing to listen to you. You probably don't even have to pay them. You just have to, you know, ask them to listen and be clear. If you don't need advice, say, I need to vent. If you need advice, say,

I really could use your advice. Like be clear about what you need in that moment. If you can be, that's what I would say. Well, thank you so much for coming on, Carla. I really appreciate it. I love what you're doing. I think that more women need to, you know, take a chance and be creative. And you look like you're having so much fun on your website with this. So it's great. Thank you so much. Thanks for being with us today.

We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.