Building Community from Feeling Alone to Finding Belonging with Pallavi Pande

You're listening to the art of imperfect adulting. I'm your host, Amy Stone.

Here I share stories from real people navigating the adventure that I call adulting.

Are you ready? Me too! Let's do this!

Hello friends! In this episode I'm going to introduce you to my guest, Palavie Pandey.

I enjoy each and every conversation with every single guest that I have on the show.

And also I'm going to share with you today that I do think there's a very good chance

that many of you will find super helpful nuggets and inspiration in this episode.

Palavie and I talk about a time, about a decade ago, when she moved to a new community

where she didn't know anybody and she made the decision to start her own community

that she wanted to be a part of.

So we talk about how she made that decision, what was involved with the work that had to be done,

and the impact that it had on a bunch of different other parts of her life.

We talk about loneliness, we talk about family, caregiving, parenting,

we talk about business and entrepreneurship.

And one interesting theme that I think runs through this entire conversation

is having the courage, the fortitude, the confidence to make these decisions

and then take the actions that are needed to make it happen.

So that's a great conversation.

Also I want to say that if you stick it out all the way to the end,

she gives a tip about planning family vacation that I think is really pretty great.

And so that's enough of me rambling on about how wonderful this episode is.

Let's get to the conversation.

Welcome to the art of imperfect adulting.

Palavie Pandey, I'm happy you're here.

Are you ready for a fun chat?

I'm ready. I was going ready. I can't wait.

Fantastic.

I start all of my conversations asking my guests what part of the world do you call home?

I call Portlandore again, the beautiful Pacific Northwest my home.

I love it. I love it.

One more warm-up question.

What form of exercise or movement do you try and fit into your day-to-day life in Portland, Oregon?

So I will say walking is pretty hard here because it's most of the times drizzling and waning.

But I still try to make that into my everyday walking meeting kind of lifestyle.

All right. I love it. That's a great answer.

Walking is such a great movement, I think.

And for a lot of my life early on, I sort of made fun of it and shunned it.

You know, like it, everything had to be super intense or it wasn't really exercise.

But walking is a terrific movement.

It should get more love. All right.

So when I gas my guest to what they want to talk about, I usually try and get them to pin down one story, one choice or one decision.

You actually came in with three and I think we're going to cover all three of them.

You submitted moving across the country, overcoming rejection and building your own supportive community, I think in the new town.

And because these are all connected, I think we'll get to all of them.

I'm going to pick is my focus to start the topic of building that community.

And so are you ready to talk about that stuff today?

Yes.

All right. Let's do it.

So you mentioned you live in Oregon.

You told me in the bio that you moved there from Ohio and you described your heritage as South Asian.

And so tell us a little bit about what you were doing in Ohio and what prompted the move to Oregon.

I'd love to. So I was married at a very young age at the age of 23.

And that is one week after my wedding, I actually landed in Ohio because that's where my husband lived and was working.

And soon after reaching Ohio, I enrolled in the OSU, the other OSU because I'm an Oregon now where we also have OSU.

But I went to the OSU, the Ohio State University for my master's in engineering because I came back from a bachelor's degree from India in engineering.

So I didn't know anything better because if I want to go back in time and I'll be like, I wish I got my MBA because that's something I utilize every day.

And I'm more passionate about those subject matters now, fast forward 20 years.

But going back, I finished my degree, I raised my kids in Columbus, Ohio.

So we are Bokai family. We have Bokai babies.

And then 10 years ago, I ended up moving to Oregon because of my husband's job.

I didn't even know where Oregon existed on the map.

I looked for three things. One was, okay, it has a beach fabulous. We love beaches.

Nobody told me the water's so cold, I cannot get in.

And then the second one was, okay, there's a snow mountain.

We can't ski, but we love the sledding piece, so that was a no-brainer.

And the third one was, okay, there's a direct flight to Hawaii, four and a half hours. So we moving.

So that's how we ended up moving to Oregon from Ohio.

Very interesting. All right. So you got married young.

As a result of the marriage, it sounds like you correct me if I'm wrong.

And then you moved across the country because of your husband's job.

And that's what got you to Oregon. All right. So very good.

So then I have a question about, so you were in Ohio for quite a time,

but that was your first location in the U.S. it sounds like.

Did you have a, we're going to talk about forming this new community.

Did you have a community of South Asian friends that you connected with in Ohio

and then you didn't have that in Oregon when you got there?

Is that sort of the start of wanting to create this community?

Exactly. That was a gap.

I remember when my kids were one and three in Ohio,

I was going through a severe postpartum depression.

And this has been the only move in my entire life, 20 years here as an immigrant

woman of color in the United States.

So with two little kids and postpartum depression, I really didn't know what I was doing.

Everything was imperfect in my life. Everything was a mess.

So I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know what am I going to do.

And so I went with the vision I had, which was, there's nobody for me.

How can I change that narrative? How can I be there for somebody else?

Who's like me? Who's trying to move? Who has a million of questions?

Who's putting it on Facebook, saying, I've never moved in my life.

I'm moving for the first time and hopefully the last time.

Is there anybody in Oregon who I can talk to or I can meet?

And you'll be surprised. There's a lot of people in the U.S.

who talk to her, I can meet. And you'll be surprised.

There were two ladies who actually replied to on my post that I did on a national community organization.

The group is called Brown Mommies Unite.

And it is a Facebook community group for brown people like South Asian people.

But there was nobody from Portland, Oregon.

So that is a reason why when I got those two replies on that group saying,

Hey, we live in Oregon. We love to meet you.

I had a choice to go and meet those women.

So I picked one and from that day onwards, 10 years from now,

she became my best friend and we've been hanging out together for the last 10 years.

Our families up to three generations, like our kids, us and then our parents go back

and we have become best friends, friends as family.

And what I'm trying to get to is when I got that support from those two women on a national chapter,

that really inspired me to create a local chapter for Portland, Oregon.

And that's when I started the community called Portland Brown Mommies,

specifically for South Asian moms, whether you're from South Asian countries

where we speak the same language, share the same culture, share the same food,

go through the same family cultural barriers and challenges.

And now the group has been around for 10 years.

That is an amazing story, actually.

So loneliness and community have been big words in the news over the last several years.

Specifically, I think I feel like since the pandemic.

And so I want to talk about that because you found a community,

nationwide community online.

And then you took the leap and made the decision to form your own community, community,

which I think we're talking about in past tense because it's 10 years old, you've done it.

I do want to really take a second and really honor the fact that you chose to do it,

and you did it because you had a choice there.

You could have just not done it.

You could have just been like, oh, no, what was me?

And then complained online, which some people do.

Like, oh, my gosh, there's nothing.

And you didn't do that.

So I do think that deserves a note of acknowledgement and praise that you took the time to do that.

And it's grown for 10 years.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

And I celebrated every day because of the messages, emails, slash,

when people connect with me saying, we're so proud of you in a community for the work you're doing selflessly.

And the initiatives we've done, the way we've held people, which is,

there are people who call me and say, can your husband pick up my sister from Seattle?

Because I know who you are. I trust you.

So I'm like, okay.

And, or sometimes the stories go back to like, you helped my brother save $20,000

because you referred him to a real estate agent or you did a webinar session with somebody that gave us the lead or the resource.

So these are little things because really every day in my life, I've realized I'm figuring out things.

I don't know a lot of stuff, but I'm good at figuring it out.

And I only feel more confident with the more experience I get because that's what builds the confidence because of the experience.

Very interesting.

So the group you formed is in Portland, Oregon.

Is it online? Is it online and in person?

Like what tell us more about the construction of the group?

Like how you put it together?

Sure. So it is a online Facebook close community group,

but it is for people in Oregon, physically.

So if you're somebody from outside Oregon, you will perhaps not be able to be included in the group because there's no way I can offer support or any kind of resource to you that you might be looking in Oregon.

So that's the intentionality, which was this is for people who we can reach physically, tangibly.

So there are two more than 2000 local women here in Oregon, which are a part of the group.

Some are of course from the border like Washington because you cross the bridge, we can enter.

So we are flexible with that piece because people need support and we can offer them up to those borders as well.

And like you said, it's it's a mix of online and in person because when we do events for our women,

we do one event per month and we've been doing this for the last 10 years.

And there are a mix of in person and sometimes we try to do maybe two events in a year or maybe three virtually because we get it summertime is busy or it's knowing outside.

So we quickly pivot and change and again figuring it out whether we want to do in person or we want to do virtually and we're always trying to take feedback from the moms who are in the group saying,

what is it that you need because I don't want to be guessing. What is it that you're going through?

What is the challenge you going through? What is it that you need?

So we constantly put feedback forms for our moms in the group and it's funny to see how some of them come up with ideas like,

hey, let's do a cooking party or let's do a fashion show because we want to feel loved and supported.

So we take those feedbacks and that's how we design our events per month.

That is spectacular. I really love that and I think that one thing that I would say is that.

That is that there are two ways to plan events right and to build things.

One is to assume that you know, maybe not assume, maybe assume as the wrong word, but one is to start with the idea that you understand what everybody needs and to build what you want.

And the other is to turn that inside out and say, I don't have any idea what the people in my group are going to want and so to survey them and say,

what would you do? And it sounds like this group is active and engaged.

What are the things that you would say make your community unique and special and fun?

Sing the praises for a second so that people know what makes it great.

Like I said, it's not me. It's people's stories that they text me about like the support we've offered.

For example, we did a sex education workshop and there were 2,000 people who logged in virtually from all over parents.

Just to learn about puberty, kids, sex, when the kids are of that age.

And so many people came back to us saying we didn't know what we know today because of this webinar that you did with somebody who's sitting in some part of the country who's a sex education expert.

So again, it's not me who's saying I've done this, I've done that, but it's people who say because of the things that we've planned, because of the things we share,

because of the whole group which is so active, like there are resources and questions that people ask.

And that's the point that without feeling you being judged, without being embarrassed or ashamed, or without being overwhelmed, you can follow what's happening on the chat.

You can participate to be on the chat. You can advocate being on a chat.

And that opens up two way communications. And that's what a community is about.

It's just shouldn't just be one way that I'm trying to feed to people, but it's also what people are trying to ask and how we try to meet them in the middle.

I love it. All right. So you mentioned that you moved Ohio, you experienced, you started a family in Ohio.

You mentioned very sort of slipped it in there that you suffered some depression, postpartum depression.

I think that was in Ohio before you moved Oregon.

It's when you're an Oregon that you start this community on your own, bringing people together.

And so, and I think that's really interesting.

Your life changed a lot in Oregon and a lot of things happen, including starting this group.

I think there could possibly be, I mentioned that, you know, loneliness is a topic that we're talking about a lot in media these days.

So I think there's a pretty decent chance that there might be people in the audience who resonate and connect with that idea.

And they're thinking to themselves, you know, what should I do?

Because the advice you get when you, like, tell people that you're lonely is join a club, right?

Find a hobby, volunteer at your kids' school, stuff like that.

Did you try some of those things when you got to Oregon also?

Because I was overwhelmed with two kids and just trying to figure out the move.

So absolutely, I did not.

I was not in that mindset at all until I moved.

And I had a lot of time in hand.

And that's when I thought that I'm suffering here physically, mentally.

I feel not hurt, not supported.

And what do I do about it?

And that's when I really pushed myself to go out and change my lifestyle and be a part of different communities.

And I wasn't finding a community that fulfilled my needs, which was who else is from my community here?

Who else is going through the same thing?

I was not hearing more people share about it.

So I said, okay, let me be the person who shares it first.

And then you never know who is listening, who you're going to rippling this to, who's going to resonate with you.

And that's when I found with years later, there was so many women who came out feeling the same thing.

Because that's what we all have in common.

We all have feelings, but only some of us have that courage to come out and talk about our feelings openly.

And that's who I was.

I felt I was leading with my heart with my feelings.

And I was able to create this community with that.

It's a beautiful story.

When you think back for the people who are listening, who are thinking, okay, I hear what Palavir is saying.

And I am experiencing this, you know, something similar in my life.

When you think back, this may not be a great question, but let's go with it.

When you think back to putting this community together, what was the actual like very first little baby step action step that you did that was the switch from I have this thought I have this idea to action to make the community a real thing.

I mean, again, I will go back to I did not know how I would do this, but I lean into something called online.

Okay.

The easiest thing to do, which is, okay, let's get there.

Let's talking behind the computer, which is this is who I am.

This is what I'm trying to do.

This is how I feel who's there with me.

Who's listening on the other side.

So it was as easy as leveraging technology and getting onto Facebook and creating the group, putting out all that I could like the attributes.

Who's this for?

Where, what is the purpose of this group?

Where am I coming from?

Who am I?

People believe me.

So I just leveraged all of that space and just started with it.

And that's another thing I feel in life, which is we don't start things because we're so scared of what will happen, how you will do it.

You're all around.

You don't know.

But I think the keys to just start something and then keep adapting, pivoting, evolving the time because then the experience tells you a lot that journey really makes you the person who you are fast forward.

Yes.

And one of the things that I think that I have learned in my own experience a hundred times over and over again is that you can get stuck in trying to make the decision of whether or not something is a good idea.

And a lot of times you won't have enough information to make that decision until you actually try and do it.

It's like you have to make the tomato sauce before you can taste it.

You won't know if it's good until you do it.

And it's a weird thing because you want it.

I sometimes want to figure it out in advance.

I'm like, I don't want to go through all this.

It's going to be a bad idea of the uncertainty.

We really don't know what's at the end of the tunnel.

So it's exactly like you're in a curvy road to get to straight road.

You have to go through those curves.

There's no way you'll have this club ends in the next one or ten times later.

Yeah.

I think that's a good lesson.

Okay.

So at the beginning, I mentioned that you had submitted three topics.

And I was going to start with this community discussion.

And so you move across the country ten years ago.

Is it about ten years ago that you've been in Portland about ten years?

Yes.

Okay. So that's the time frame.

You start this group.

The group is growing.

Somewhere along the way you start a company.

And for the people who are watching on YouTube, you can see the web address behind Palovi, which is detox.

Is how we say it, right?

So DT OCS.

That's a whole other amazing story that we're not going to go into all of it.

Their entrepreneurship is something that is notoriously a lonely road.

How important and significant and do you think forming this community is to you being able to achieve success and perseverance as you grew your business?

I will say adulting itself is hard.

But then the whole business adulting is a whole new different topic and experience.

And yes, it is lonely.

And the key is keep yourself engaged.

Navigate those challenges with somebody.

You don't have to feel you're alone.

It's you who has to pick up yourself and put yourself into these spaces.

Nobody will do it for you.

And you just need to find that extra passion, extra motivation to do it.

Because you have this idea and you want to make it successful or you want to measure it.

And you can't measure it alone.

You need people around you to help you with those data points and analysis and measurements.

So going back, I'll just give a teaser.

DT OCS is a play on the word.

It echoes with the meaning cleansing journey.

And for the last six years, I have notoriously become a mom entrepreneur who rescues palm leaves.

And I turn these palm leaves into your tableware, like your plates, bowl, spoon straws,

secretary bowls for your events.

And that is again going back to my culture, because I grew up in India eating on banana leaves.

And then part of my culture that is even practiced today.

So if you're actually ever going to go visit India, especially the southern part of India,

don't be surprised in the restaurants.

And especially in the Indian South Indian weddings, you will not be served food on a plate.

You'll actually be served food on a banana leaf.

And sometimes they'll expect you to use your fingers.

But you can totally ask for a spoon.

That's completely fine and acceptable.

But asking for a plate, not happening.

So that is the cultural experience that I wanted to give to people of enjoying food on leaves.

And that is when I thought I have 10 years of experience in supply chain and logistics.

And I'm the perfect candidate to start this business of mine.

So I went back to India.

I found my raw material.

I started working with suppliers and I started manufacturing the tableware and giving it to the consumers

and restaurant and food service industry in the US.

Then we scaled in the Canadian markets.

And now we're launching in the European markets in 2026.

What an amazing journey.

And so, and was the Portland Brown Mammies.

Is that the right name?

Did I get that right?

Portland Brown Mammies?

Was the Portland Brown Mammies group?

Was that helpful as you went through this?

What I will say, quite not helpful to me at the beginning.

But of course, now I have early adopters from the UK.

I have customers now who buy my products.

Whether they have a housewarming party or a puja party where you call people for dinner.

So they would use and consume my products.

But what I would say is getting into the entrepreneurship life six years ago.

I was able to create a lot of business events, networking events, marketing events for our South Asian moms who now run their boutiques in their homes or run their saloons in their homes.

Or do different kind of businesses in our in our group, which didn't happen until four years ago.

So everybody started looking at me and how I'm doing business and I've scaled this globally.

And again, that was another reward point where it was like, we are looking at you.

So don't ever stop.

You have people who are fans and we love what you're doing from our culture.

You're representing our Indian culture of eating on leave.

So we're so proud of you and we want to do something like you.

So we are going to be following your steps.

So that really pushed me and motivated me to host more business events and put business resources.

Like this is the SBDC call your local small business development center.

If you have any questions, how to register your LLC?

How to get grants?

How to win pitches?

Because going back in time in the last six years, I have won more than $120,000.

Yes.

And grants.

So again, those all resources become golden and I find myself mentoring other women founders now, especially also in our community, the Portland brown movies.

But also nationwide and other communities that I'm a part of.

So I will be honest, if I had to place a guess on how you were going to answer that question, I would have I did not think that was the way it was going to go.

So what I think you're saying is, and I'm going to come back to the grants in a second because that's like such a great thing.

So you had this group.

You had created this community.

But when you started the business, it was actually outside of that support network and that community, you were not building it within this social community that you had built.

That is really interesting.

So it was really just a social support network for you at that time.

Social, mental, physical, and I'll tell you one more reason.

Not I didn't find a lot of people from my South Asian Indian community doing businesses running businesses being business owners.

So I didn't get that support from this group.

And again, I wasn't expecting it.

So I was not disheartened or disappointed.

And then when I saw that gap that how many of the South Asian women want to do business because when they reached out saying, hey, I'm planning to start my boutique or wanting to start this.

That's when I felt these women even need much more bigger support from me because I've been to the journey.

I'm at the small stone marker where I can mentor them and give them resources.

It's I think that's a beautiful story.

It you and I connected actually through a business networking group that it's called entrepreneurs different anybody who's curious.

That's how you and I first connected about this interview.

But I it is the advice that is goes around entrepreneurial circles to like build the community and to create and connect before you do business together.

However, I don't know that it works always as well as people think they will do.

But this is an example of that you built a community for that you wanted in your own life.

And then you built your business simultaneously off to the side and eventually they came together in an alignment and support of each other.

That's really nice. That's really, really nice.

Okay. So part of your story is overcoming these rejections.

You I was clicking through the links you gave me and I hit your LinkedIn page which has the most amazing list of grants that you have and awards that you have won.

It's really, really, very impressive.

Part of that story I think is that you had you got some rejections.

We don't always win all the awards that we apply for.

How does the having the community and being a part of other communities.

How does that connect to having the perseverance to continue to put yourself out there and deal with the rejection like that?

A great question. And again, it is demotivating at the time of any get a rejection.

But how do you come out of it is the main success?

Like are you going to treat this rejection as a dead end or are you going to treat this rejection on?

Okay, I'm curious to learn what happened.

Why did I not win this or was there something missing?

How can I do something that I'm already doing great, even better?

So when you come out with that attitude, you learned something from that experience.

And what I always feel is I want to get to progress.

I don't want to get to perfections.

I want to get to progress even if it's one person.

And that's why I believe in the book by James Clear where he.

He's on the cabinets.

Atomic habits that when you change your habits because when we do something for I think it's 11 days or 17 days, it becomes a habit.

So now try to change that one small step at a time and see is the outcome changing.

And that's something was very hard for me because I'm a stickler.

I do things my way.

It's very hard for me to come to changes.

But that is something I push myself to do.

And that is a constant feeling I get that from my kids, from my spouse, from my parents that I am very stubborn.

And I need to change for you thing.

So after 17 days, I quickly write it down or kids being 17 day, what can I change?

What is a teeny tiny little listening?

And for example, I'll give you is like, I love to work on the bed.

I love to sit on the bed.

And sometimes I struggle, but I really push myself.

Okay, I don't have to sit on the bed.

Let's move to a table and chair.

What is the engineer in you?

I'm just going to totally point that out.

This is, this is habit change for somebody who is an engineer.

And also somebody who is trying to be structured and organized.

Very structured and organized.

Exactly.

And again, I believe in outcomes.

So I've changed my perspective of like, okay, this journey got me here.

If I change this journey, 1% at a time.

Yeah.

What is the outcome going to be looked like?

So now as a founder, I really focus on outcomes.

And I've learned, I've trained myself to look at outcomes in a different perspective, with a different mindset.

And it will never change if I always have the same starting point.

Yeah, that's a very good point.

One of my kids is an engineer and she goes, since she was little, she has approached things very similarly to what you just described.

And there's a very funny story from when she was haggling for a class in high school.

And they were pushing back on when in this, you know, you should take it in another year or whatever.

And I ended up in this meeting and I'm not an engineer.

I'm a, you know, a creative by trade.

So it's the opposite sort of way of approaching things sometimes.

And I sat across from this, you know, barrage of academics.

And I was like, listen, all I can tell you is that I know that if she went through the course catalog and made this path.

Let's look at what she did because she marked this out for herself on day one of the first year, you know, and she's got a plan.

So she says, this is where it fits.

Let's check it because I believe her, you know, and I think of that as the engineering sort of mindset.

And here's a list and here's the bracket and here are the rules.

And here's how we're going to do it.

And does it work, you know, and I think that is a compliment.

That is a compliment of how you do things.

All right.

So in a second, you did a wonderful job talking about your, about your business detox, which is six years old.

You've won an amazing amount of grants.

I think it's a very, very compelling story.

I want to give you a second to tell people how you like for them to connect with you and find information about you and the company online.

You have given us an offer for the audience, which I'll share.

I would love people to connect with me on LinkedIn.

That is because I'm LinkedIn addict.

I'm not TikTok Instagram addict, but I'm a LinkedIn addict.

And I spend eight hours a day on LinkedIn.

Really?

Yeah, my husband is jealous of me because I spend more time on LinkedIn.

I am just so addicted to LinkedIn because the amount of information, the amount of resources that I get on LinkedIn, who's doing what?

What exists?

How to get to something?

How to meet somebody?

And I've learned everything on LinkedIn.

And that's why I am more of an advocate on LinkedIn.

And I post much more there because I'm like, you never know who's there.

Like me, curious with that attitude to learn, grasp more information.

And that's what I treat LinkedIn as.

A positive, progressive platform.

That is really phenomenal and endorsement.

One of the things that's really wild about LinkedIn is that people, you can see who's looking at you,

which is like a funny little thing.

Do you have the LinkedIn, do you pay for the LinkedIn premium?

Yes, I do.

Okay.

Every, I haven't yet.

LinkedIn is a new platform for me.

My LinkedIn experience really is that I opened a LinkedIn account when I was in my like mid-twenties, got 500 headhunter offers, shut it down for like 15 years.

And then in the last like two years have been back in there sort of doing things and getting to know it.

And it is an amazing platform.

But it is a little weird when you get that notification.

It's like, Palavie looked at your profile and it's like, oh, really?

Oh gosh, you know, and then I think about it when I'm doing like speaker research.

I'm like, they're going to know they're going to know that I clicked on or they could know.

So that is very good.

So LinkedIn, you have a special offer for the people in the audience if they want to check out detox.

It's a really interesting idea of the compostable plateware is what we're doing.

And so it's dtcocs.com.

It's a 10% discount and there's a code dtocs10.

That information for everybody who's listening and watching is in the description on YouTube.

It's in the show notes if you're listening on an audio platform.

The easiest way to get these discounts and links is to be a subscriber to the imperfect adult and email community to be honest.

Because then I send it to you in the newsletter and you can just click on the link.

And it's just a lot easier.

Yes, I want you in my community, but it is a lot easier.

All right, Palavie, are you ready to wrap this up with my rapid fire questions?

Yes, absolutely.

All right, these are so much fun.

I love these so much.

Here we go.

You are a busy person.

I thought that when I was writing out these questions based on your resume,

but you've confirmed that in this interview.

When you wake up in the morning, what is one of the first things you do to start off your day in a good and productive way?

Take a moment, boil myself hot tea and just enjoy one cup before I get to kids before I get to my phone.

All right, and you're a tea and not a coffee drinker.

I am a tea drinker. I'm not a coffee drinker.

I'm very Ted Lasso about tea.

I admire its health benefits, but it tastes to me like dirty water.

I like chai and I like herbal tea, but really good tea.

Things that people offer me as really good high quality tea.

And I think it's also about the purpose of the tea.

I have noticed if I don't drink tea, I get headaches.

So I need that caffeine kick.

Ah, very nice. That's important.

Yeah, no, the caffeine headache is not a lot of fun.

I do not enjoy it at all.

Zero out of 10 stars. Don't recommend.

All right, so these days, most of the people that I know,

they screen their calls on their cell phone.

But who is somebody in your life that is important enough to you that you try to always answer the call when they call you?

Oh, boy.

I'm really bad with answering calls.

I tell people if it's urgent, just text me.

And then I will call you because my phone is on silent ringer.

So I'll be honest and transparent.

I am not very good with calls.

But what I've heard is people call my husband and get a hold of him faster than me.

That's very funny. That's very funny.

So if you have an iPhone, you can mark people as important.

And then it will ring through the silent.

And so I have, I have that setup for all of the kids and my husband,

which means that I never have my phone off of do not disturb the silent.

Like I don't even know how to turn it off at this point, right?

So that's the only way you point for me.

I need to get better at that.

And so, but what I'll tell you, well, maybe not because let me tell you what happens.

The reason I have it is in case they need me for something like important and mommily.

And and mommish like crisis.

But what I get is I get calls that are like, hey, where are the olives in the grocery store?

You know, and my heart will be pounding it.

I will have interrupted whatever I'm doing.

I'm like, are you okay?

And they're like, I'm in the grocery store.

Where can I find? I'm like, okay, all right.

That could have been a text message, but moving on.

All right. So anyway, you don't have to revise your life necessarily.

But anyway, I'm off topic.

When you are planning a trip for vacation, how do you decide where you want to go?

Is it something that you choose for like the destination, like where you want to be?

Is it something you choose by activity, like skiing or scuba?

Or is it something to see family generally relaxation?

How do you make those decisions these days?

A combo of all.

We do have family spread all around the world from Fiji to New Zealand to Italy to UK.

So we try to do a lot of things together, which is we do see a lot of not I again, disclaimer.

My family loves TikTok.

My husband is a TikToker.

My kids are on.

They watch a lot of TikTok.

They don't post anything.

But they watch a lot of travel videos on TikTok.

And if we find something interesting, we all regroup.

We actually have a family travel group where we post all the TikToks.

And we sit on them on the weekends, perhaps Sunday mornings, over breakfast, something.

And then we discuss off which place did we find exciting and why?

And we all come to a decision.

So every birthday.

We don't buy gifts.

We actually buy each other trips.

So because of that reason, I have been able to travel with my kids to at least 20 countries.

And again, like I said, we don't buy expensive gifts.

We buy expensive experiences in a trip.

For example, wherever we go, we'll do experiences.

Like for example, I'll give you a small fun idea when we went to Italy.

We booked this Airbnb experience where it was a small, cute couple old in the Vatican city.

And they were teaching pasta making in their cute one bedroom apartment in Italy,

right across from the Vatican city.

We booked that experience.

We don't know who they were.

We didn't know if they were crageless killers or how nice they're going to be or what.

But we still booked it.

It was the four of us along with the group.

So we tried to do safe group activities.

And then that turned out to be the best dinner in Italy, sitting on their balcony,

starting from fresh the pasta.

My kids had a lovely time.

So that's just one example.

So we tried to travel a lot together.

And then if we have somebody in that city or even close by,

we have a family group where we put on our trips after we booked them.

And we say, this is where we're going.

Is anybody interested in joining us?

And if we get our cousins saying, yes, blah, blah, blah, then we share the itinerary.

So we've learned not to take the burden off waiting for people to commit,

because people don't do that.

And we try to book our travels at least six months to one year in advance.

Because I have, I have my laws living with us and be a caretaker for 86 and 80 year olds.

It's very hard to travel when they're around.

So we have to figure out a lot of logistics.

So we respect our time and time together with kids because she'll be in college in three years.

So we really want to make the best use of our time.

That is such a fantastic answer.

I mean, you just like, that was a master class in how to like plan family travel.

I love the idea of the, this is the only group chat

I would volunteer to be an actually in the family, like how we're going to plan the vacation.

And I also love, I mean, the Airbnb experience, super good tip, absolutely phenomenal idea.

And I love, I just love that you're like, all right, so we're going to Italy.

If anybody happens to be there without taking on the burden of being the person

who's going to do all those things, really excellent.

I did that.

I'm so glad I asked that question.

That is phenomenal.

But that's it.

And we're going to wrap this up, Palavie Ponday.

Thank you so much for being a wonderful guest today on the show.

Thank you, Amy.

This was an absolute pleasure.

Thank you for listening today.

I hope that you enjoy the show.

And before I go, I want to encourage you to become a bigger part of the conversation.

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Wee!

Now, if you love this and you crave more time with me, Amy, as a coach, a mentor, or just adult to your adult,

numero ono, check out the village.

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I have an open application just let me know you want it.

And that's a wrap for today.

Until next time, remember, the journey is the destination.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that not me until just now, I did just say it.

But what I want you to hear today is that if your adulting journey isn't going the way you expected,

that may not mean that you're lost.

It may just mean that you're on your way.

This is Amy Stone, signing off.

The imperfectadelting podcast is created and produced by Amy Stone and Amy Sesto.

Anything expressed on this show is offered as entertainment.

And the views of the guests may not always represent the ideas and viewpoints of the host.

That's me.

Amy does not intend or hold herself out to provide professional advice or recommendations of any kind.

In the end, you and you alone need to make those kinds of decisions based on your personal and individual situation.

Needs, circumstances, and comfort level.