0:00

The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of

0:02

I Heart Radio. Hey,

0:12

I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott

0:15

Campbell, and you're listening to The Limit

0:17

does Not Exist. A podcast for human

0:19

then Diagrams, coming at you every

0:21

single week and hosted by us.

0:27

It might be difficult to know what day it

0:29

is lately, but there are plenty of signs

0:32

that we're entering a new season, and

0:34

appropriately, we're also wrapping

0:36

up another season of this podcast that's

0:39

right in our part of the world. Later sunsets,

0:41

warmer weather, and intermittent downpours

0:44

tell us that summer is here. Justice.

0:46

Season three of our show is coming to a close.

0:48

If you've been listening for a while, you already

0:51

know that we're fans of seasons. Yep. We

0:53

think there are a great opportunity to take stock,

0:55

find new inspiration, make some changes,

0:58

and come up with a catchy name. Oh

1:00

today, we'll fill you in on a few

1:02

of the changes we're making, how we're staying

1:04

inspired, and what we've named

1:06

our summers. Christina, if this episode

1:08

were a swimming pool, I think it would be

1:10

time to jump in. Let's do it. So

1:20

something about season

1:22

three of our show coming to a close

1:24

is making me feel nostalgic for

1:27

some O. G T. L DNNY

1:29

traditions understandable.

1:33

What are you craving right now? So

1:36

what I'm craving is a good hashtag

1:39

book stack and

1:42

the reason why Christina is as an avid

1:45

follower of yours on Instagram.

1:47

I couldn't help but notice that you shared

1:50

a footnote of

1:52

a book that you're reading with the

1:55

name of our very show

1:58

in it. So I need to true

2:00

tell me everything about this Mathew

2:03

text that you've been reading. The book

2:05

is called How Not to Be Wrong The

2:07

Power of Mathematical Thinking is written

2:09

by mathematician jordan's ellen

2:11

Burg. He is on the faculty

2:14

at the University of Wisconsin, Madison

2:17

World. Natalie at

2:20

them, Yes and

2:23

I this book is not new. I think it came

2:25

out, but I had

2:27

never heard of it. It's somehow never made it on my

2:29

radar when it came out, and I

2:31

was delighted. A friend recommended

2:34

it to me the other day, and as I was going

2:37

through and reading, it came

2:39

across this fabulous footnote.

2:41

He's very funny this note

2:43

about he says, in the words

2:45

of Lindsay Lohan, the limit does not

2:48

exist. And I was like, what what,

2:50

So of course I had to put it in my stories.

2:53

So what's so great about this book?

2:55

It's been described as the Freakonomics

2:58

of math, which it is very similar

3:01

if you've read Freakonomics, and it gets into the kind

3:03

of the the universal applicability

3:07

of economics. This

3:09

gets into how math

3:12

underpins everything that we do in

3:14

our lives, so what we read, how we understand

3:16

the world, how we make decisions. It

3:18

was one of Bill Gates's favorite books.

3:21

It made a New York Times bestseller list.

3:23

Christina suddenly I'm wearing a choir

3:25

robe because this

3:27

is to the choir.

3:31

I know, I know, I mean. So

3:34

he talks about how, you know, the math

3:36

that most of us get in school is

3:38

like grammar and spelling, and

3:41

that we never get to the reading

3:43

novels stage of mathematics

3:46

gets really really good, you

3:49

know. And and so he

3:51

says basically like forget about all

3:54

of the baggage that you might have about algebra

3:56

or statistics or whatever, and

3:59

try to come at

4:01

this with a fresh mind and really

4:03

think about numerous e and

4:05

sort of mathematical thinking, right,

4:07

Like, it's not about calculations,

4:09

It's about how you know what you know,

4:12

and he has this great opening story.

4:14

I have to tell you just a little bit of detail

4:16

on this. It starts with this story. I'm all ears

4:19

about this guy named Abraham

4:21

Walt. He was an Eastern

4:23

European mathematician who came over

4:25

to the United States during the beginning

4:28

of World War two Jewish uh

4:30

and he started working for the American

4:32

government and one day the

4:34

military comes to him and says, Okay, we've got

4:37

this problem. We send

4:39

these planes overseas and when

4:42

they come back, the engine

4:44

is fine, but they're the tail

4:46

is riddled with bullet holes.

4:48

So we were thinking, what if

4:50

we put more armor on the tails.

4:53

The problem, of course, is that if you put too much

4:55

armor on a plane, it gets too heavy to

4:57

fly, and if you don't put enough armor

5:00

on the plane, it gets shut down. So they're

5:03

basically asking him, like, what is the optimization

5:06

of armor, particularly

5:08

looking at the tail, and

5:10

he said, no, you're

5:12

thinking of this all wrong. They're like, come

5:15

again. He said, look, you're asking

5:18

the wrong question. You need

5:20

to put armor where there aren't

5:23

bullet holes, because

5:26

when the plane gets hit in the tail,

5:29

it makes it home. That's

5:31

why you see all the planes with

5:33

bullet holes in the tail, the planes that

5:35

get shot down in the engine crash,

5:38

those are the ones that don't make it home. So

5:42

it's right. So it's this whole

5:44

book is these stories about

5:47

what seemed like non mathematical systems

5:50

but in fact are really

5:52

anchored in logic and our

5:54

understanding of statistics

5:57

and inference and proofs.

6:00

Right, it really do make

6:02

up how we understand what we know. It's

6:05

absolutely fascinating. I love it. I laugh every

6:07

third page. I highly recommend it. I am

6:09

here. Yes,

6:12

he is a total human ven diagram.

6:14

He also wrote a literary novel

6:17

back in two thousand three called The Grasshopper

6:19

King. Oh my gosh, I am

6:22

just my palms are sweating with excitement.

6:25

I love a good dose of mathematical

6:28

irony and humor and engagement.

6:32

I am so up for this book. Oh

6:34

my goodness, I'm going to have to just rain

6:36

myself in because I

6:38

know there's a lot there. And it's such a what

6:41

a great suggestion, Christina. I love

6:43

it. So I have to know. Okay, what is

6:45

in your book stack? Oh my gosh, Well

6:47

I actually have a literal book

6:49

stack, because I brought a crate

6:52

of books to Minneapolis. More on

6:54

that in a moment, But I

6:56

literally cannot go anywhere for

6:59

a couple of nights to a few months without

7:01

a stack of books. And what made it into

7:04

the book stack? I mean that was who.

7:06

That was some high stakes, right, like what

7:09

we're going to be those

7:11

books that I was bringing with me. So, actually, Christina,

7:13

in my current bookstack, I have, unsurprisingly

7:16

to you or anyone, a couple of math books,

7:19

including The Joy of X by Steven

7:21

Strogatz, which I've really been wanting to read

7:24

for many years, which is yeah,

7:26

a roundup of his New York Times articles,

7:28

a few plays of course, some staples

7:31

like Mary and Nora, Oliver and

7:33

Ephron respectively, and a

7:36

couple of books that I've really been wanting to read,

7:38

by the way, fun fact, one of those is improv

7:40

Wisdom by Patricia Ryan

7:42

Madson, which was recommended to us

7:45

on this show by

7:47

Brian Cooper, writer way back

7:49

in episode thirty eight. Wait, did you like

7:52

keep a list of all of these books as we've

7:54

had all of our episodes and you're just dabbling

7:56

in them now or I only

7:59

wish that I was that organized,

8:02

But no, it's

8:04

one that I ordered pretty soon after

8:06

that episode because Brian really extolled

8:08

its praises and it sounded delightful,

8:10

and I bought it and just have yet to

8:13

read it, and it jumped off the shelf

8:15

at me, and let me tell you, it is a

8:18

delight There is so much wisdom,

8:20

yes, about life from improv

8:23

everything from like literally just

8:26

try to be ordinary, like don't try

8:28

to be brilliant and special,

8:30

to shun perfectionism.

8:32

It's a really lovely read. Okay,

8:35

okay, you've sold highly recommend.

8:38

The book that I feel compelled to talk about

8:40

from my book stack is one

8:42

that is you know, I've mentioned to you,

8:44

I've included in notes on

8:47

our podcast, and I don't think I've talked about

8:49

it yet, which is kind

8:51

of mind blowing because it's really

8:53

significantly impacted me in the past year

8:56

and it's so relevant for human

8:58

ven diagrams. I'm on the in my

9:00

seat. It's called

9:02

Crossing the Unknown Sea

9:05

subtitle work as a Pilgrimage

9:07

of Identity by David

9:10

White, and I mentioned it to Natalie Settles

9:13

after episode one A Pilgrim

9:15

and Art and Science, because similarly

9:18

to how Natalie spoke about

9:20

her work as a Pilgrimage, David

9:22

White writes about how our

9:25

body of work is a pilgrimage

9:27

in which we make progress

9:30

through the world and also through these

9:32

stages of understanding, and

9:36

White, interestingly enough, but maybe

9:38

unsurprisingly as well, is also

9:40

a human ven diagram. So he worked as a naturalist

9:43

in the Galapagos Islands, then

9:46

he ran a nonprofit in the Pacific Northwest

9:49

before going as he calls it, full time

9:51

as a poet. And

9:53

he leaves them all together in writing

9:56

this book. And what I love about it is it's

9:58

really about having the courage to pursue

10:00

the work that is meant for you,

10:03

which really is a bold and courageous act.

10:05

And he uses all these natural metaphors

10:09

from his love of nature

10:11

in time as a naturalist guide, like how

10:13

doing our true work is kind of like being

10:15

at the cliff's edge where

10:18

our passions and presence

10:21

and commitment meat. There's

10:23

also this whole narrative about a well sheep dog

10:25

that is like truly a delight.

10:29

I just couldn't recommend it

10:31

more. For like any point that you might

10:33

find yourself, whether you feel really

10:35

far away from the work you want to be doing or

10:38

you're in the middle of it, it's just been

10:40

a great read. I keep picking it up and putting

10:42

it down and reading a line closing

10:44

it. Yeah. So anyway,

10:47

you know you you're selling both of

10:49

these books. Um, I

10:51

am going to have to add them to my

10:53

shopping list. Unfortunately, the library obviously

10:56

is closed right now. Well, that's right, I

10:58

have to tell But that's

11:00

been a bit of a perk because I have two plays in

11:02

my bookstack that I have not yet

11:05

had to return to the l a Public library,

11:08

so I'm holding them very,

11:10

very safely. Of course, the online

11:13

independent bookstore what

11:15

we call them, sort of aggregator bookshop, is a great

11:18

place to go. A lot of local bookstores

11:20

are doing curbside pick up again, so they

11:23

are. Yes, I've been calling books

11:25

are Magic and green Light Books in

11:27

Brooklyn, both of which I adore. Basically

11:30

spending all of my money on high

11:33

quality groceries and

11:36

full price books, I mean, these

11:38

are excellent, which honestly is not a terrible

11:40

thing to be spending money on right now, this is true.

11:43

I absolutely ship this budget.

11:45

I'm into it. So

12:08

as we wrap up season three, I

12:11

couldn't help but go back to

12:13

the beginning of season three, back to episode

12:15

one O two If you'll remember, Kate,

12:17

we talked about this fantastic article

12:20

how to recession proof your

12:22

creative practice. I

12:25

mean, I remember there

12:28

was this pep talk in this article that

12:30

said creative people have

12:32

the best skill set to successfully

12:35

surf a recession. Christina, hold

12:37

on, would you please read

12:39

this whole pep talk because it's

12:42

one of my favorite energy boosts

12:44

from that episode. We need it again. Okay,

12:46

here we go. Creative

12:49

people have the best skill

12:51

set to successfully surf a recession.

12:54

Who can best navigate uncertainty, who

12:57

can meet unexpected challenges, who

12:59

can pivot and switch to

13:01

Plan B in a second,

13:04

who already tends to the work inside

13:06

of crisis mode a lot of the time. Who

13:09

can visualize possible futures.

13:13

You hold up, Christina,

13:15

I don't remember the visualized possible

13:18

future's part. That is just oh,

13:22

I mean I still need that as an allogy.

13:24

So here's the thing. We

13:27

didn't realize that it was going to be quite

13:29

this relevant, but nevertheless,

13:32

here we are. We're in the middle of uncertainty,

13:35

and we are rising to the challenge with some

13:37

pretty big pivots. Absolutely,

13:40

let's talk about them. Kate, you mentioned

13:43

Minneapolis. I think that was

13:45

the time to tell us what that is about. I

13:48

need to make good on that very

13:50

potent little seed that I planted a few

13:52

minutes ago. Yes, I'm in Minneapolis

13:56

for the next couple of months,

13:58

and you know, Christie, there were a

14:00

few key factors in my

14:02

decision to come here that all kind

14:05

of converged at once. Obviously,

14:07

the main one was COVID

14:10

and the fact that for the first time

14:13

in the eight and a half years

14:16

that I've lived in Los Angeles, I

14:18

haven't had a physical reason

14:21

career wise to be in l A.

14:23

Audition rooms are closed, were

14:25

fully in self tape mode and zoom

14:27

rooms for at least the next few months

14:30

dot dot dot. And at the same

14:32

time, my sublet ended and

14:35

Rosie is very portable. So

14:38

all of a sudden, yeah,

14:41

I found myself listening to

14:43

episode one seventeen Caves,

14:46

Crystals and Curiosity with Tyler Thrasher

14:48

and Christina. It was that episode

14:51

that got me thinking about being in a different

14:54

place for this time.

14:56

Tyler talks about making a

14:58

life in Tulsa, and it

15:01

was so interesting that we included it in

15:03

our mixtape, episode number one three.

15:07

But I just went okay,

15:10

it could be seen as something that's

15:13

frustrating that I have no actual

15:15

reason to be in Los Angeles right now, or

15:18

I could take it as an opportunity

15:20

to try something else.

15:23

And so I called my friend Larissa,

15:26

who lives in Minneapolis, and I said, Hey, Larissa,

15:28

do you have any friends who might have

15:31

an open guesthouse

15:34

place for me to spend a

15:36

couple of months riding out Corona?

15:38

And Larissa said, oh, my gosh, we do, Kate,

15:41

and we'd love to have you. So

15:44

that was it. Yeah.

15:46

I mean, it's a beautiful city and

15:48

one that I've been wanting to spend time in for

15:51

quite some time now, of course, And

15:53

it's a great city for theater. It is

15:55

such an incredible city for theater and

15:57

honestly for design as

16:00

well. It's interesting that not only my

16:02

theater life, but also my

16:04

copyrighting and content strategy life

16:06

have really strong ties and

16:08

roots here. It's interesting that it's really the

16:11

middle of that ven diagram in a lot

16:13

of ways, you know, Christina. The

16:16

biggest challenge for me was how to get here safely

16:18

and responsibly from l A. Because

16:21

this is not the time for a romantic road

16:23

trip at all. This is the

16:25

time for quarantines and bubbles

16:27

and isolation, and so

16:30

I just treated the journey like any

16:32

project that I would produce and direct. I was

16:34

overly prepared, I found out, and

16:37

because of the pandemic, I was really clinical

16:40

about it. So I

16:42

renegotiated a new Carly's it happens

16:44

to be a really good time to do that financially,

16:47

if that's something you're facing. I

16:49

did something that could be described as hotel

16:52

camping, where

16:54

I essentially set up my own sleeping

16:57

bag, fresh pillow case, my own

16:59

pillow, and this one woman the lobby

17:01

called from across the lobby. She's like, oh, are you

17:03

moving in? I was like, well, I'm

17:05

hurrying all of my own things and bringing them

17:08

out, and I had my rubber glove mask

17:10

sanitizing game just down to a very

17:13

choreograph science. So

17:15

so how long did it take? How many days? Great

17:18

question? So it took me three

17:20

days and two nights. I drove

17:22

as much as I could without

17:24

getting you drove by yourself? I

17:27

did. And so the reason I

17:29

chose to drive is because I could control

17:31

my environment the most in

17:33

my car. Well, also, you have all of your

17:35

things, that's right, And it's so funny

17:38

because really what I packed

17:40

were clothes. Of course wigs.

17:44

I did pack six wigs, and choosing

17:47

the six that I brought was a very difficult decision

17:50

that I won't tell the other wigs about anyway. Film

17:52

and recording equipment and books, plus

17:55

my pandemic road trip gear

17:57

and then everything else is still in storage. That's

18:00

eight and so very happily. The

18:02

lovely little house that I was sub letting

18:04

in l A has a locked garage, and

18:06

the gal who took her run back from me um

18:09

said, yeah, go ahead and store your

18:11

stuff here. Yeah.

18:14

The kind of cool part, Christina is

18:16

that the impetus for doing this

18:19

was the inability to be in a physical

18:21

space with others in l a right

18:23

that sort of freed me up to be

18:25

in a different place, and the fact

18:28

that I needed to find a new place to live.

18:31

But what's interesting

18:33

is that I've worked really hard

18:36

over the past number of years

18:39

to build a lifestyle

18:41

as an actress and as a human vent

18:43

diagram that's mobile

18:46

and that's flexible, and

18:48

I've oddly been doing a lot of paring

18:50

down over the last couple of years. So

18:54

the foundation was already there,

18:56

and other than really needing to

18:58

make sure that I could pull off

19:01

this pandemic road trip. It

19:03

was relatively seamless, It really was.

19:06

I love. Yeah. Here's

19:08

the other thing, Christina, is that I've

19:10

been telling everyone this. You and I

19:13

are the exact same distance from

19:15

each other, with me being here

19:18

versus l A, We're about thirty six inches apart,

19:20

with two screens in between us. So,

19:24

Christina, speaking about big

19:26

changes, you have

19:28

one that is right at

19:31

your forefront. Tell me about it.

19:33

It's true. I am

19:35

joining the faculty of Harvard Business

19:37

School to teach entrepreneurship

19:40

to MBA students. All

19:43

of the traditional TLDNY snaps

19:45

for this news so exciting, Thank

19:48

you. Yeah, no, it's so funny.

19:50

I remember. So this is ten years um,

19:52

almost to the day I think that I graduated

19:55

from Business School. And when

19:57

I was there, I gave the

19:59

speed each my second year at

20:01

the fellowship dinner where all of them,

20:04

the patrons that have kind of named

20:06

endowed fellowships come and meet

20:09

the students that benefited from them.

20:11

They asked me to give the speech and

20:13

and I talked about two things. One

20:15

was how in the midst of a recession,

20:18

I was in business school during the financial crisis,

20:21

that. I was so impressed that Harvard didn't

20:23

cut its financial aid at all.

20:25

There was no pairing

20:27

back on the support for students, which

20:30

is amazing because they were clearly having to pair

20:33

back expenses elsewhere. And

20:35

the other thing was how impactful

20:38

the professors had been for me in

20:40

my two years at HBS, and how

20:43

much I wanted to come back some day and

20:45

be a professor there. The dean at the time

20:47

was like, well, happy to let you into the PhD

20:49

program, and I was like, that's the thing I don't I

20:52

don't want to do the like

20:54

tenure track academic route, which

20:57

it's super appealing on an intellectual

20:59

level, but for me, I you

21:01

know, I'm a human and diagram. I want to do all

21:04

the things and and it's hard to

21:06

do that when you are a PhD. You have to focus,

21:08

and we've talked about this. I don't really focus

21:11

for sustained periods of time, and

21:13

so, you know, we shook hands and I was like, well,

21:15

that's a bumber. I'll never be able to teach there.

21:18

And then over the last ten years stayed

21:20

close. I had a case study

21:22

written about one of my startups. I go back

21:24

and I guess teach from time

21:26

to time, and finally

21:28

this year, I just said it out loud

21:31

to my context there, I said, I want

21:33

to be a professor here, Like what will it

21:35

take to do that? And they're like, oh,

21:37

we'd love to have you. We have

21:40

a kind of professorship here that's

21:42

not tenure track. It's not for PhD

21:45

s. It's for practitioners like yourself.

21:48

You know, it's not adjunct it's a full

21:50

time teaching jobs. Yeah.

21:54

I mean, as far as I know, they're the only

21:56

business school that does this. All the other schools

21:58

that I've researched into this are perfectly

22:01

happy to have adjuncts. But you don't really get

22:03

paid enough to cover your lunch

22:05

as an adjunct in a lot of schools, so

22:08

it's not really possible as a full time gig.

22:10

But HBS offers a

22:12

full time senior lecturer

22:14

position, and so that's what I'm going to be doing.

22:16

I'm so excited, so exciting. There's

22:19

you know, a lot of questions. The false semesters

22:22

probably going to be on Zoom and

22:25

that's weird to learn how to teach

22:27

on the internet for their first time ever.

22:30

Um, but I'm

22:32

really delighted to get to go back and hopefully

22:34

make even a portion of the impact that

22:37

my professor's made on me, and to be

22:39

able to be surrounded by all

22:41

these other brilliant people who are on

22:44

the cutting edge of thinking, you know,

22:46

really exciting thoughts and

22:48

doing really exciting research at

22:51

HBS, at Harvard you know, Large

22:53

and Boston. So for now

22:55

we're all staying in Brooklyn. We don't have

22:57

to move to teach over Zoom, but at

23:01

some point Boston is probably in our future.

23:03

That is very exciting, and

23:05

I'm also personally excited

23:07

to get to refer to you as Professor Wallace,

23:10

which has quite a

23:12

ring to it, it really does. I

23:14

got an email from HBS

23:17

Publishing approving my academic account

23:19

there so that I could pull up resources, you

23:21

know, as I'm putting together still ABI, and

23:23

it said dear Professor Wallace, and I was like, oh

23:26

my gosh, framing that

23:29

amazing. William Wallace

23:31

would be proud, Oh,

23:33

thank you, thank you. So

23:36

yeah, that's the big career change. Um.

23:38

And then you know, I'm writing another

23:40

book, this one I

23:43

thought, you know, it's time to focus on

23:45

capturing some of the writing that

23:47

I've done over the last few years. For Forbes.

23:50

Some of the tools that I've created,

23:53

like the personal Balance scorecard and

23:55

my sales funnel for dating. I

23:58

thought i'd pull those all together, along

24:00

with interviews with other amazing

24:03

people, the research behind why

24:05

some of these things work, and

24:08

really kind of put together a playbook for

24:10

people like us who are trying to navigate

24:12

careers and lives in a world that

24:15

is, if nothing else uncertain.

24:18

Love it. I cannot wait. I

24:20

feel like I've gotten such a wonderful preview,

24:23

having known you almost

24:26

five years at this point. But that's

24:28

it's true exciting. Oh

24:30

my gosh, very very exciting.

24:33

Lots of changes all around. In the

24:35

tradition of the show, I

24:37

feel like we need to name our summers

24:40

absolutely, give it

24:42

a theme. What what are you? What

24:44

are you feeling? What is the summer of going

24:47

to be for you? So I

24:49

was thinking about being in Minneapolis, so

24:52

the letter m sort of keeping it

24:54

in line with Minneapolis. I like to

24:56

do little things like that. I'm

24:59

going ahead and naming my summer the

25:01

Summer of Magic. Yeah,

25:06

And what that means to me, thank

25:08

you, is that for the last

25:10

two years, honestly, I've

25:12

been doing a lot of heavy lifting financially,

25:15

emotionally, physically. I

25:18

did my first Spartan race in February,

25:20

which was fantastic and

25:22

really in all of my core relationships,

25:24

and it's been the kind of heavy lifting that I

25:26

am so happy

25:29

and honestly grateful to have been able

25:31

to do. And I'm really starting

25:33

to feel the fruits of that labor.

25:36

You know, I think you you have these stretches

25:39

of putting in this work and then you trust

25:42

the benefits of that work. And

25:45

just being here in Minneapolis

25:47

with these big skies and long

25:50

days. Oh my gosh, the sun doesn't

25:52

set until nine o'clock and we're still

25:54

in May. It's very exciting.

25:57

I just I just want

25:59

to leave room for magic,

26:02

whatever that looks like in the form of unexpected

26:04

opportunities, new

26:06

friendships, new adventures. I

26:09

think it's really important to leave space for that,

26:12

and that's what I want to do this summer,

26:14

Excited to see what

26:16

comes in. I love it. I

26:18

love it. Thank you so Christina.

26:22

I have loved your past summers

26:25

of joy. Can I

26:27

wait to know what you're thinking of naming

26:30

this summer? So honestly,

26:32

Kate, I think this summer is

26:34

going to be the summer of the here

26:36

and now. I

26:39

can already see that on a T shirt. I love

26:41

that the

26:44

focus for me is

26:47

on being present and

26:49

to not worry too much about the future. Because

26:51

here's the thing, you know, I'm a planner. I'm

26:53

a planner. I love to make forecasts.

26:55

I build models of what could be,

26:58

and those are incredible

27:01

tools, and I have a whole chapter in

27:03

the book about forecasts and why

27:05

they're amazing. But the problem

27:08

is when you have too many unknowns,

27:11

too many assumptions have to go into

27:13

your model, the forecast

27:15

just kind of useless, right If the

27:17

answer could be zero or one million,

27:20

then like there's no

27:22

point in getting to that answer, you know. So

27:25

for me, with too many variables

27:28

right now about how

27:31

the entire COVID thing is going to pan

27:33

out, whether the fall is going to be

27:35

on zoom, whether

27:38

my baby can go back to take it right, there are so

27:40

many variables, and if I were

27:42

to plan out strategy

27:45

for each of the possible futures, I would

27:47

spend all of my time planning and

27:50

none of it living. So

27:52

instead, I'm going to just

27:55

focus on the present and

27:58

enjoy the summer the

28:00

best of my ability, and as

28:02

more information trickles in then

28:05

I can put together the plan. I

28:08

love that so much, and your

28:10

thoughts behind it really resonate with

28:13

my thoughts behind the summer of Magic, which

28:16

is this really immediate

28:20

feeling of just being

28:22

happy to be here despite

28:25

all of the challenges, the ability

28:27

to have this life

28:30

and all that comes with it and allowing

28:32

it to breathe

28:35

and live and unfold. I'm

28:37

so right there with you. So

28:40

I cannot wait to see

28:42

what comes into your summer of

28:44

here and now and and mine of

28:46

magic and

28:48

uh, you know, just

28:51

enjoy this big, messy,

28:54

beautiful thing called life in which we

28:56

find ourselves.

29:13

So Christina, I feel like we've been using the word

29:15

delightful a lot, which feels very right

29:19

for our show. And a delightful

29:21

discovery in this season is how

29:23

many listeners reached out

29:25

to us and asked us to bring back

29:27

the Lightning Round, which we

29:30

rude, who knew you were so attached?

29:34

I know, this thing that we continued

29:37

to fail at by taking so much

29:39

time, and

29:41

it was kind of the point of the episode, but we were like,

29:44

is this thing on or you are you all still

29:46

with us? But

29:48

indeed we brought back a

29:50

very mathematical lightning round in episode

29:53

one thirt for the Love of Pie this season,

29:56

but it feels like the way

29:58

to bring see in three home is

30:01

to do another lightning round.

30:04

I love it, So here we go, Kay,

30:06

we gotta kick it off with the classic first

30:09

question, Yes, what are you reading

30:11

or listening to right now?

30:14

So? I just finished on my

30:16

pandemic straight shot road trip

30:19

The Rural Diaries by Hillary

30:21

Burton Morgan, who

30:24

is an actress, probably best known for

30:26

her time on One Tree Hill. Hillary's

30:29

book is all about how she and her husband, Jeffrey

30:32

Dean Morgan, bought a farm in

30:34

Rhinebeck, New York, and decided to leave

30:37

l A and just get their

30:39

elbows deep in gardening

30:41

and farming, and how they

30:43

ended up becoming the owners of

30:46

this little sweet shop in town and have really

30:48

found this beautiful kind of full life

30:51

outside of a large cosmopolitan

30:54

area. And it's really about,

30:56

you know, following the road that's right for

30:58

you, and certainly couldn't have been more appropriate

31:01

on my trip out of l A

31:03

to Minneapolis. So

31:06

it was a great read. And by the way, Hillary,

31:08

being an actress, does such a great job with the audio

31:10

book that I recommend reading it that way,

31:12

A. That sounds like a fascinating book. But

31:15

b sidebar, I

31:17

cannot see the word rural

31:19

without thinking the Rural Juror

31:23

from thirty Rock. Do

31:25

you remember that skit? Oh

31:28

my gosh, I don't think that and

31:30

I am so okay,

31:33

I have to send you this link. So Jenna

31:36

Moroney, Yes, Yes,

31:38

is on this show called The Rural Juror,

31:41

And like, try saying that three times

31:43

fast, you cannot. Um.

31:46

It's from like the first season of thirty Rocket.

31:48

It's absolutely brilliant and it just makes me giggle.

31:51

So you're welcome Rural

31:55

Yes. Oh. I hope

31:57

that we can find a link for the show notes. I really

31:59

did. Oh we will. Okay,

32:03

Christina your turn. What are

32:05

you reading or listening to right now?

32:07

I just finished as

32:10

in this morning. Andre

32:12

Leon Tally's memoir The

32:14

Chiffon trench Us

32:17

came out this weekend. For

32:20

people who are not familiar with Andre

32:22

Leon Tally, he was for many many

32:24

years the creative director at Vogue Number

32:27

two on a wine tour. He is one of the most

32:29

influential men in fashion in the last thirty

32:31

years and has lived

32:34

this like larger than life life

32:37

um and This was his kind of,

32:40

you know, definitive tell

32:42

all memoir. It is juicy,

32:45

but it is also incredibly

32:47

human and he is so

32:50

open and vulnerable, and

32:53

I was expecting the

32:55

juicy nous, but I was really quite

32:57

delighted. If you don't

33:00

mind the repeated use of that word, don't

33:03

at how vulnerable he was. It's

33:05

it's a little bit sad, honestly in some

33:08

of the conclusions

33:10

that he draws about, you know, the

33:12

decisions he's made, in the impact he's he's

33:14

had, and where he is wrapping

33:16

up his life. So it is a

33:19

beautiful book, highly recommended, especially

33:21

for anyone who loves fashion. Oh

33:23

my gosh, the insight, the

33:26

details that he's just he's

33:28

brilliant. There's a reason he is

33:30

Andre Leon telling. I can already

33:32

tell that I would love this because the September

33:35

Issue is one of my favorite documentaries

33:37

of all time. Of the making of the September

33:39

issue of Vogue. Yes, okay, we're

33:42

already failing in the lightning round Kate.

33:44

Question number two, what

33:47

is something you've reconnected with that you

33:49

want to keep doing? Ironically,

33:51

plays and theater. Now,

33:54

I've never disconnected from plays

33:56

in theater. They are my purest love.

33:59

But I've just been so

34:02

chuffed by how much

34:05

theater and how many plays have continue

34:08

to be a part of my life during

34:11

COVID and honestly maybe even

34:13

more than before from zoom

34:15

readings of Chekhov and Beckett

34:18

that wonderful friends and colleagues of mine

34:20

have organized and invited me to be a

34:22

part of to all of the

34:24

free performances online. A couple

34:26

that I could highlight our seawall starring

34:29

Andrew Scott, who many of you may know as

34:31

fleabags Hot Priest. He

34:34

is also a living legend.

34:36

And if there's one thing

34:38

that you might watch in addition to see Wall, it's

34:41

Andrew Scott doing the to be or Not to Be

34:43

speech, which is available on YouTube. It is

34:45

unbelievable. Honestly, I've never

34:47

seen that speech makes so much sense. Could

34:50

not recommend it more. And also another

34:52

highlight lately has been that the National

34:54

Theater in London has been showing free

34:57

full length plays every Thursday.

35:00

Is this production last week of The Barbershop Chronicles

35:02

by Inua Elms. That was just

35:06

my gosh, the word has to be delightful.

35:09

Yeah, it's just been so cool to connect

35:12

with something that in

35:14

its most traditional form has

35:16

temporarily gone away. But that

35:19

is I feel as alive

35:22

as ever, and it's exciting to see

35:24

what the next iteration is, I

35:26

love, Christina. What's something you've

35:28

reconnected with that you want to keep doing? So

35:30

I don't know if I would say I've reconnected

35:33

with this because I didn't really do this before,

35:36

but cooking dinner as

35:39

the default. Anyone

35:41

who lives in New York will know that ordering

35:44

takeout or going out to dinner is sort of the default

35:47

between your schedule and

35:50

you know, just the craziness

35:52

that gets packed into your day. Like cooking dinner

35:54

at home was the once a week thing,

35:57

and now it's become the

36:00

seven days a week thing, and

36:02

I'm loving it. I mean the asterisk

36:05

on that, of course, is that chais is the one that cooks

36:07

the dinner, not me. But

36:09

I meal plan sometimes and

36:12

I grocery shop sometimes, and

36:14

I do the dishes most of the time. And you

36:16

bake, which has got to be I

36:18

do a lot at times.

36:20

It's true, I bake a lot, but we realized

36:23

that, you know, we've ordered to take out a couple of times. We're trying

36:25

to support restaurants, but there was a long

36:28

stretch in there of probably thirty or forty

36:30

days where we ate three meals at home

36:33

straight through, and I was like, I don't think I've ever

36:35

done that like ever. So

36:39

yeah, I'm loving it. It's healthier, it's

36:41

cheaper, we have a chance

36:43

to connect as a family, and just

36:46

I'm a big fan. I love that you're doing this, Christina,

36:48

because interestingly enough, cooking is

36:50

something that I've started over the last

36:53

year and a half. Really after my

36:55

relationship ended. A good friend of mine said

36:57

to me, Kate, I really want you to think about how

37:00

you're nourishing yourself. And I was like, yeah,

37:02

well, probably eating cereal for three meals

37:05

of the days not the definition

37:07

of nourishment. And I have to

37:09

tell you, cooking has become one

37:12

of my favorite forms of self care, even

37:14

just the act of being in the kitchen

37:17

with your shoes off. You know, if you pour

37:19

a glass of wine while you're doing it, it's even better.

37:22

But just like being in the present

37:24

moment as you're talking about, there's something that's

37:26

just so present about

37:28

it. So that's awesome. It's

37:30

very exciting, okay, Christina.

37:33

In addition to loving

37:35

having these dinners at home. What's something that surprised

37:38

you. So this is a real surprise,

37:40

Kate. For sure, I can be a morning

37:43

person if I have enough sleep.

37:48

Unbelievably, So sleep was

37:50

the factor, Yeah, apparently I've

37:52

you know, I try to sleep. I love sleep,

37:55

but there's always more to do than

37:57

there is time. And

37:59

and I had a baby, and you

38:01

know, we all know you don't really get to sleep. Then

38:04

um, and then we sleep trained

38:06

her, and so now she's sleeping, but

38:11

I was still waking up at four am

38:13

to pump so that I could feed her.

38:16

And we finally got to the point that

38:18

I could stop doing that. And so

38:21

now I'm sleeping seven hour stretches,

38:23

and I'm waking up naturally at

38:25

six am, and I'm getting all these

38:27

things done before noon. Christina,

38:30

I'm wondering if this is explaining the

38:33

addition of exclamation points

38:35

in your text messages as of

38:37

late I

38:40

meant them.

38:43

There might be an extra cup of coffee in there too.

38:46

If you start your day at six plenty

38:48

of time. This is awesome.

38:50

And by the way, this feels like a huge

38:52

milestone of parenting to have gone

38:55

through sleep training. The fact that Art and sleeping

38:57

twelve hours of night. Congratulations, that's

39:00

no small I got

39:02

the easiest baby in the world. There's

39:04

no small It's not that we're brilliant

39:07

parents. We just got the easiest baby, which

39:09

means the next one is going to be a terror. It's

39:11

just how these things work. I'm

39:15

preparing myself for that. Wait.

39:18

So, Kate, what is something that has surprised

39:20

you? I love

39:22

mountains, Christina, I

39:24

love them. I discovered this on

39:27

my trip through Utah

39:29

and Colorado to get to Minnesota.

39:32

Now, being a California native,

39:35

having lived by the

39:37

ocean, or at least a pretty quick trip

39:39

away from it, I've already known that I

39:41

love the ocean, but oh my gosh,

39:44

I took so many photos of rocks

39:46

on my car trip. I

39:48

got happily sidetracked at Zion

39:51

in Utah, which you are able to drive

39:53

through, which was really cool. And

39:55

I also just found points to hop out

39:57

of my car on I seventy

40:00

enough to take photos of places like Devil's Canyon

40:02

and Spotted Wolf. If you're

40:04

at all interested in any

40:07

kind of natural monuments and

40:09

haven't heard of these places, I highly

40:11

recommend looking them up.

40:13

And that was something that I could also appreciate

40:15

on a trip that had a very

40:17

on purpose, short itinerary and no human

40:20

contact. But I have to

40:22

say that there's just something about seeing

40:25

these just huge stretches

40:28

of land with these

40:31

enormous natural monuments on them

40:33

that just puts everything

40:35

in a perspective, just really

40:37

does. And I love Los

40:39

Angeles. There's also just

40:42

this sense of kind of like you're the center

40:44

of the world there in a way, and

40:47

you know, not that everyone shares that, but it's

40:49

hard to feel that way when you're standing

40:52

at the base of something that is just so massive.

40:55

And so I cannot wait to plan a

40:57

longer trip when we can all road

40:59

trip for real. I

41:01

love it. Okay, question

41:03

for Kate, what is something that has brought you

41:06

joy in this past week? Oh?

41:08

That's easy. That's something I'm going to call my Minneapolis

41:11

baptism, which was my first

41:13

bike ry around Lake of the

41:15

Aisles here and I got completely drenched.

41:17

It's that kind of rain that I've only experienced

41:20

in this part of the country where your

41:22

insides get soaked. It

41:24

was really great

41:27

and intense, and it felt like a

41:29

nice, strong welcome. Christina,

41:34

what's something that's brought you joy? This past week.

41:37

I went shopping for groceries this morning and

41:39

it's cherry season. Oh

41:42

I got cherry is what a

41:44

good reminder. And of course

41:46

it's rose a season, so that

41:48

brings me joy.

41:52

I mean, I would argue it might be rose a season all

41:54

year long, but it's definitely

41:57

rose season. If

41:59

only I could in vite you over to a dinner

42:01

party and just ask you to bring those two things with

42:03

you, that would be enough. That's true.

42:06

Okay, let's bring this home. Let's give

42:08

a shout out to a person

42:11

or a group of people who have just made

42:13

your life better through all of this. Oh,

42:16

such a great question. Certainly I can

42:18

shout out my my family and friends,

42:20

whom have become increasingly grateful for. But

42:23

a group of people that I'd love to shout out

42:25

is the one one, which is this

42:28

group of actors that I am so

42:31

thrilled and grateful to be a part

42:33

of in l A. It's headed up by

42:35

my friend Christian Cordula. My

42:38

friend James Kyson invited

42:40

me to join in about

42:42

a year ago when I was really looking for

42:44

a community of actors. And

42:47

I have to say we meet every Friday,

42:50

and COVID has kept us going.

42:52

We just moved over to Zoom

42:54

so to Christian and Hillary,

42:57

Andrea, John, Katie, drown

43:00

Aimes, Marie and all. Got

43:02

just to see those shining faces

43:04

every week and to

43:07

be able to text some questions and

43:09

just have their support throughout the week has

43:12

been huge. You know, Christina, we can

43:14

do things on our own, but the

43:17

Beatles song remains true that we get

43:19

by with a little help from our friends.

43:22

So mine goes out to the one one

43:24

today, Christina, give a shout out

43:26

please to a person a group of people who

43:29

have just made your life better through all of this. I

43:31

mean obviously Chas and Arden. It

43:35

is been amazing to see just

43:37

how much Arden has changed

43:39

in the few months we've been on lockdown. When

43:41

you're only seven months old,

43:45

every month counsel a lot, So

43:47

that's been amazing, and getting

43:50

to have this kind of time with her is

43:52

something I didn't expect

43:54

to have, and I think most women who go back

43:56

to their jobs don't get the luxury of having

43:58

so um certainly the

44:01

two of them, but also my sister

44:03

Stephanie, who I find myself

44:05

calling a lot. She

44:08

had her third kid two

44:10

months before Arden, and so it's

44:12

been fun to kind of stay

44:14

in touch and at a preview of what's up next

44:17

developmentally and ask her questions

44:19

instead of going to Google because she's

44:21

got three of them. She knows how this thing works and

44:24

can prevent me from going down terrible

44:26

internet rabbit holes baby

44:29

search terms, but also just

44:32

having an excuse to talk to her the long

44:34

meandering phone calls that we don't

44:36

really do anymore, um

44:39

like we as a society. I mean, those

44:41

have come back, So Stephanie,

44:44

thanks. Oh you know, I had

44:46

exactly one of those with my brother Scott last

44:48

night and I've been able to have those through this time

44:50

and I feel the exact same way

44:53

truly, and Scott

44:55

has been able to completely pivot from

44:57

a full time DJ career to

45:00

whole other career in this time. So

45:03

cheers to our siblings, truly.

45:07

So we would love to know your answers

45:09

to these Lightning Round questions and what

45:11

you're going to name your summer. You can tell

45:14

us on Twitter or Instagram at

45:16

t l d n E Pod or you can

45:18

email us at hello at t LDNY

45:20

podcast dot com, or if you

45:22

want to leave us a voicemail, you can do that at

45:24

eight three three Hi t L d

45:27

n E. That's eight three three eight

45:29

five three six three, then

45:32

dial eight oh three and we'll share

45:34

the books. Hopefully that linked to

45:36

the rural and

45:41

everything else we've mentioned at t L

45:44

d n E podcast dot com slash.

45:55

Thanks so much to our producer Maya Coole

45:58

and to you for tuning in. As

46:00

always, please subscribe, rate, and review

46:02

on Apple Podcasts if you like what you heard.

46:05

It really helps us get the word out to fellow

46:07

human ven diagrams. Until next time,

46:09

remember the limit does

46:11

not exist. The

46:18

Limit does not Exist is a production of

46:20

I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

46:22

from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio

46:24

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

46:26

listen to your favorite shows. Yeah