In today’s podcast, we talk to Jen Brown, who has overcome tough times to become an engaging educator and actor who has found silver linings in the pandemic by giving people happiness (for now, remotely). Learn more about Jen and watch her recent Zoom play.

TAMAR: Hey, from isolation it is Tamar. And today I am with Jen Brown who has a great story to tell. Jen, thank you so much for coming.

00:28

JEN BROWN: Super happy to be here also in extreme social distancing, because that’s the world right now.

00:36

TAMAR: Yeah, explain where you are at. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

00:39

JEN BROWN: So right now, I am in Winston Salem, North Carolina. I was a New York resident for a really long time. And I moved down to Winston about four-and-a-half years ago. And for the past eight years, I have run a company called the Engaging Educator which helps communication skills through Improv. So, my business with that is a bit on hold slash virtual and online. And then I also run a women’s collective down here in Winston Salem, North Carolina called Fearless Winston Salem.

01:09

TAMAR: Cool, cool. Explain that a little more.

01:11

JEN BROWN: So, it’s interesting because it all came sitting in a coffee shop with one of my friends. And after being in New York, there’s so many free spaces in New York City, I feel like you can go to a little park corner, you can go to a coffee shop, you can go to a space where you can just sit with a person and talk. And in a smaller town, it’s a little more difficult I think, because you end up knowing everyone. So, a friend of mine was telling me about some stuff with her job, and she was really stressed out about it.

01:43

And I was like, wow, we really need a place like a clubhouse where people could go, talk, experiment, that sort of thing to like drawing off of the co working spaces that are for women , like The Wing  and the Riveter, as well as organizations like the Brooklyn Greenery. Fearless came out being kind of a conglomerate of both of those.  And then it’s also an impersonal space in the West End of Winston, which is kind of like a diluted version of Brooklyn, in North Carolina, the best way to describe it.

02:21

TAMAR: Okay . It’s also a diluted thought process here if you’ve ever watched the 4400 times show, just a thought, but just that idea here. That’s like actually a great joke to watch. When you set the number, I’m like, yeah, it’s really good TV while we’re all sitting home and binge eating, binge watching things anyway, although I don’t have that much time to do that because just been coordinating masks and food and all that other fun stuff that I have not really had the opportunity to chill as much as my husband said, to my husband’s chagrin, because he can’t sit with me and relax, because I’m not alone. This is definitely more of a time that I’m like focused on working and actually focused on chilling, which is some people will see this as downtime. A lot of people see this as downtime, and maybe not so much.

03:09

JEN BROWN: I feel like there’s no transition when you’re working. And it’s normal situation, you have transitions of like getting in the car, or getting in the subway or traveling somewhere. And then you get to like put one part of your life on hold. And right now, we’re so tired, because it’s just everything all the time. There’s no break. There’s no compartmentalizing, there’s no transition.

03:32

TAMAR: Yeah, that’s a great way to put it. I hadn’t actually thought about it that way. But usually am a lot more disciplined when I have a little more of like driving myself to school, I’m out of the house, I can go to the gym straight from there, even if it means sitting in my car, which I do for my Orangetheory Fitness  class, because funny story, my son gets dropped off at eight o’clock. And the first class is at eight o’clock. So, I can’t drop them off earlier just based on the restrictions of the school. And then I get there, I get to Orangetheory. And I have to wait for the 9:15 class. So, I’m sitting in the parking lot for an hour, from 8:15 to 9:15. Actually physically, I could get more stuff done in that kind of context, which is so weird than sitting at home all day because there is no transition. I wake up, roll out of bed, make sure my kids have their Zoom classes. And then I am going to work. I have a dual monitor setup. One child is on the monitor watching her Zoom class and I’m on the second monitor sitting right next to her doing my work. And then I have another child on a laptop and another child on a laptop and another child on the desktop, like that’s just what you have to do these days. It’s such a weird thing, and then they do their school and then there’s lunchtime, and that’s when I’m able to work to podcast and then I have school again and then I have and I’m trying to get work done but I also tried to make sure that they’re completely disciplining my children to make sure that they’re sitting there and actually focusing, then it’s dinner time and dinner time is really where I can focus for myself. I haven’t been able to focus for myself. And it’s a mess right now, it really is a very difficult situation. I’m sure you’re struggling as well.

05:15

JEN BROWN:  And I don’t know everyone I’m talking to. I think there’s two camps of people,  Shakespeare wrote this, in quarantine and hustle culture. And then on the same token, I can’t get anything done because I’m overwhelmed. And I think that this is such a good time for people just to understand that we’re all in the same confusing boat right now. And so, however people are managing is how people are managing. Like, I’ve seen so many people being very judgy, being very like, oh, this person shouldn’t be selling right now, or shouldn’t be doing this. And we all process very differently, especially moments of grief, moments of stress. So, I think it’s just good practice in empathy for all of us. Just to get that, we’re all in a struggle bus together right now, no one is doing better or worse than anyone else. So, let’s just remember that.

06:11

TAMAR: Yeah, to that point, I will tell you that my quarantine started two weeks before the rest of the country because we were among the first case of community spread. And they quarantined a thousand of us who were in contact with that individual person. And I will say that was brutal, it was absolutely brutal, because the rest of the world is still moving. And I’m sitting there at home, and I can’t do anything. So, I’m glad that I finally have joined your struggle bus, has kind of joined my struggle bus because when your world is upended by some sort of catastrophe, whether it’s a personal loss, or whatever else, it is seeing the rest of the world moving. I want to say thank God, but I want to say it’s a lot more, it’s a lot easier for everybody to stomach when we’re doing it all together. And instead of you’re just by yourself, and you’re kind of in isolation from the rest of the world. And to me when I see people, and I get a lot of LinkedIn connection requests these days from people who have their introductions, and they’re so business oriented, I’m just like to know what’s going on.

JEN BROWN:  Right.

07:29

TAMAR: Where your struggles bust, but thank God, we are in this together. And I do agree, I love the fact that we are working. I don’t know if I love it, but I embrace the fact that we’re all doing this together. It’s a lot easier because we’re all in it together.

07:46

JEN BROWN:  And I think just remembering that everyone deals differently. Like I hear that we have to do this together. This is one of those. Oh, hopefully never again in a lifetime moments where your actions directly affect more than you. So, it’s like you have to understand that it’s bigger than you and more than you. So, everyone that’s out there, like social distancing, and staying home and not like gallivanting around on playdates or dinner parties or things like that. Like this is not a snow day, stay home.

08:23

TAMAR: Right. And I actually wrote about this on Medium. So, if anyone wants to check it out, medium.com slash @tamar, it’s titled, I’ve Tested Positive for the Coronavirus. Here’s what I want you to know. And it talks about how I was in quarantine; it talks about a lot of different things. But one of the key points is that I tested positive on day 14 of my quarantine, which is usually the minimum, the maximum that they request, that they suggest. And now I’m in further isolation. So, they got a fine, but I will say that if you have any type of sense, even if you’re not symptomatic, I don’t think 14 days is enough. And we need to get flatten that curve as much as possible. I just read yesterday that Italy has finally flattened the curve, but I guess it would say, they got it, they did it. But it’s kind of like late because how many thousands of deaths they experienced first.

JEN BROWN:  Right? And I think I just read something that was like, just active, you are positive. Like don’t think, don’t wait, just like behave as if you got a positive diagnosis. And that’s the best way to think moving forward. And I agree with that.

TAMAR: Yeah.

JEN BROWN:  And I mean, it’s already catastrophic. So, let’s not mince words, like it’s catastrophic for businesses. It’s catastrophic for small businesses. Governor Cuomo actually just messaged and tweeted, and he was like, this is going to be hard on the economy. But first order of business is to save lives.

TAMAR: Right?

JEN BROWN: And I think that’s what we have to do. Like this is what we’re doing first. We’re helping people and it’s going to be bad for everyone.

10:03

TAMAR: Right? Yeah, that’s also part of what I said. And the write up that I had, which was shared like 300 times in the first 12 hours, which was crazy because I shared it Saturday night at like, 9:30 at night. So  amazing to see that because I think that the message is important, in order to resume our lives, we need to stay home first. But if you don’t, then they’re going to just cut, lock down the country. And right now, we need to prioritize our inconveniences to save the lives of other people.

JEN BROWN:  Absolutely, absolutely.

TAMAR: But not that there’s a silver lining here. But to some degree, I think that we’re all going to come out okay. But I’m sure that it’s going to be a lot more rising above the ashes stories to share in the end, because I think it will be hard for a lot of us. I might have my news, a new story to share in a few months. And you never know. And I know that’s part of the podcast. So, let’s go to that. Let’s talk about your story and how you were able to overcome.

11:02

JEN BROWN: Yeah, so I have so many rise from the ashes stories. But I really think the one that jumps out the most is I was diagnosed with PMDD a few years ago. And so, for those of you that don’t know what it is, it’s not just like bad PMS, it’s actually like a week to two weeks before your period every month, you get severe depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and ideation and in my case, a lot of attempts. And it was a really rough go for quite a few years because I just thought I was going crazy. Like someone who feels she’s pretty in check with her emotions and her life, who runs a business about communication, like the idea of using escapism, and just kind of bailing on all of my life, my priorities, my business. And then I still remember the night that I had a particularly bad balance. When I moved to North Carolina. I stopped drinking, which was part of my self-medication. When I lived in New York, I started just taking more of a deep dive with myself. And I remember going through a bad week and me just laying on the couch. Like I just had a huge fight with my husband. I pissed out on some business calls, completely just ghosted some things. And I Googled, I think my actual search term was like “crazy before my period,” all I could think of was, what is going on with my life, and a  SELF-magazine article came up, and it was me, to a tee. Like it was 10 stories from women that were talking about what happened during PMDD. And it was like, I could have written every single one of those stories. And this, I sent to my husband, and he’s like, this is really scary. This is what you have. And the scary part about it is there’s not have like, take this pill and you’re better. It’s more managing your symptoms. So, over the course of about a year and a half, over the last year and a half, I would say I’ve been on antidepressants first. And that caused a whole host of other problems. And then I started just taking better care of myself and going into therapy and working out and taking vitamins. And now I’m at a point where I feel like I have given myself so much more grace and I’m back stronger than I was before. Because I get it about myself and that awareness I understand. And before Corona, I was about to present it south, I had like a ton of many speakers, I had a ton more things coming up where I was traveling again. My business was doing amazing again, things like that. And then all of this and I was like okay, this isn’t a negative. This is just another chance. Because if I made it through all of this, I can make it through this next thing. So, I guess, it was like ashes rise, and then back just like hanging out on the ground again. But it’s really helped kind of focus me in this time and to give myself those days that I think we all need to be giving ourselves, like I’m too anxious to get anything official accomplished today. So, I am just going to sit in my anxiety and do what I can to get rid of it. And tomorrow is another day like, I’m not going to try to write the next King Lear or write another book or something like that. I’m going to focus on taking care of me, because that’s what I didn’t do for so long when I was going through PMDD.

14:48

TAMAR: right. That’s great. Do you find working out and all those different things because I know that there’s a whole concept of exercise out of depression. Subreddit EOOD exercises are different Do you feel that those types of things kind of helped bring you into this happy state?

15:06

JEN BROWN: Absolutely. This isn’t negating the antidepressants I was on; it just didn’t work for me. And, I would say it didn’t work for me. It definitely saved my life because there were way too many times that I was like, the world is better off without me. I’m going to do this thing and a lot of self-harm that occurred. So, I will say that, that did but the biggest difference that I saw once I got off of it, because the antidepressant I was on was giving me aphasia. So, aphasia is when you can’t recall the next word, like you can’t recall a word. So, I was standing by my fridge and I couldn’t remember my husband’s name. And I couldn’t say the word for spinach. And I was like, I have to get off of this. Like, I can’t do this. And it was so scary. And then when you’re going off of an antidepressant, you get something called brain zaps. So, it feels like an electric impulse in your brain and you randomly get dizzy, like spinning, things like that. It felt like it was constantly having the spins, like I remember from when I drank like the moments in undergrad, and even beyond that, I would drink too much. And I was spinning in my bed. That was a consistent getting off this antidepressant. So, when I started working out when that stuff stopped, I was like, oh, okay, this is giving me some of the energy that I need. So, I joke with my therapist, I’m like, I don’t know what it is that’s helping. And she’s like, “All of it. All of it together.”

16:40

TAMAR: Yeah. Sometimes it’s not just one thing. It’s a combination of several, but let me ask you a question. You didn’t stop taking your medicine cold turkey, you probably needed to base on what we were having with the future, but was that the experience that you had?

16:56

JEN BROWN:  So as a non-doctor, I will say that I definitely did the wrong thing and went off of it. I didn’t go off cold turkey, I have this and have that.

TAMAR: Right. But I had to bring this because I’ve done that as well. I’ve had to get off of it. And I didn’t have brain zaps. But that’s an interesting experience that you had. And it’s also very terrifying, though.

17:20

JEN BROWN: Yeah, I have it and I told my doctor, I was getting these symptoms. And my general practitioner was saying, oh, maybe you’re on the wrong dose. Let’s double it. And I was like, oh, no, thank you. So, I told my therapist that I read a lot. And I googled, doctored myself, which again, I do not recommend. Like, if you’re listening to this, I did it wrong, I’m sure. And I haven’t had it myself under the guidance of my therapist and talk to her through it. But even she definitely chastised me and was like, Jen, you should be talking to your doctor about those. You shouldn’t just be doing it. But I was just so frustrated because my careers in speaking, like I teach for a living, I can’t have those gaps in speech and understanding. I can’t forget things like my husband’s name, and be able to function in my business. And so, I again, did it probably not the best way. But I’m glad I did looking back on it.

18:21

TAMAR: Yeah, yeah. I’m glad you did, too. I mean, having it I wonder if and I when I also have to give the disclaimer. I am not a doctor either. But I will say that when I have had to wean off of certain medications, the recommendation is given like a half-and-a-half, but not necessarily one day after the next. You might have to do a hack for like a week, you might have to do a half of that the next week. And, again, you need to do it with the consultation of your doctor and with their blessing. We cannot possibly as neither of us are MDs , give you the right advice for things like that, but sometimes to do and sometimes that’s really not medication. Sometimes it’s other things that you really need to do in order to help yourself. My story is that I was depressed several times, this was nine years postpartum depression and I hit rock bottom. And I was seeing a psychiatrist, not a psychologist, a lot more expensive for me twice a week, and he put me on a cocktail of different medications. And while they did give me relief, I can’t deny that they gave me relief, the thing that actually brought me out of depression was perfume. And it’s a really interesting story. This is actually the impetus for tomorrow.com and my entire brand and the podcast. Perfume saves my life. And the story is that one day while I was in the rock bottom mode, I found a vial of perfume in a cabinet and I decided to put it on. But when you’re putting on perfume, when you’re depressed, you’re not doing it like most of the world does. For other people, you’re obviously have very selfish intentions. Clearly, I wasn’t really sure what my intentions were at that time, but they definitely weren’t for other people. I wasn’t invested in my appearance. I was walking around in socks and Crocs, pink Crocs, yoga pants and sweats all the time. I literally was not dressed for anything. I was not investing in how it smelled. And I put it on, and it changed my life. All of a sudden, it like perked up the sense that was pretty dormant, like we take out that sense of smell for granted, I would say substantially. And it excited me.  I was like, Oh, my God, it’s not funny. Everyone’s like, what is it, it doesn’t even matter. I had worn it before. But because my mindset was so different, it changed the way I wanted to look at the world. And I decided to get excited about perfume, and then I started getting excited about life again. I started reading every single day, I’ve been focusing on learning a language every single day, I started running, I started doing all these things. And I started investing in my health for the first time, I would say close to 20 years. And that’s where I am right now. I decided this concept of using personal fragrance for health and happiness is not something that the personal fragrance brands entertain. They’re not into that. It’s all about sex appeal for other people. But I think that this is about self-love. And I believe in it, I strongly believe in that concept. And that’s why I’m here, I created my entire brands in that perspective.

21:39

JEN BROWN: That’s amazing. It’s so interesting to hear about what pulls you out because I think the more we talk about that moment that yanks us out of whatever life, whatever space we shouldn’t be living in whatever that impetus is so important to talk about. Because people are looking for this one thing that saves them. And it’s so many different things. It could be anything that quote unquote, saves you and pulls you out. So, I think it’s really, really critical to be talking about it.

TAMAR: Yeah, one important thing is that everything is going to work in aggregate here. But there probably is one thing that compels you to want to proceed and to keep going to push you forward. So if you see that indicator, probably you will see that yourself.

22:31

TAMAR: So, talk to me about your career because you went into teaching and you’re doing all that now and speaking was a big thing for you. But you’ve had some trajectory changes in that career front. Tell me a little bit about that.

22:46

JEN BROWN: I have so many pivots, I’m going to go far back, but then I’ll make it short. So, I started as an actor. I moved to New York; I was an actor for many years until it wasn’t fun anymore. And it wasn’t fun because I was like, I don’t want to be a waitress anymore. This really isn’t exciting to me. So, I went back to school for art history thinking, oh, of course, I work in museums and work in teaching and museums. And I was doing that. And I was like, okay, this is fine. I like it but I feel there’s something more. So, my museum colleagues all realized that I was really good at pivoting and being in the moment and being flexible. And that has nothing to do with me as a person because I’m super type I, it has everything to do with my Improv background. And when I was an actor, I started teaching classes for museum professionals, specifically on being flexible, being in the moment pivoting. And then it just kept expanding from there. Like we got sales people in the class. We got CEOs, we had   VP of big companies like Viacom, and I realized that there were so many people that were teaching Improv, but we were teaching Improv very specifically to people that didn’t want to be on stage. So, we weren’t teaching to be like, let me teach you with a bunch of actors in your room. It was like, let’s teach you some skills like active listening, the ability to pivot sales skills, storytelling, and use those skills to further your career and your professional life. That was 2012. I took the big leap. And I’ve been doing that since then, The Engaging Educator. And then almost two years ago, I sold some of my e-curriculum to a leadership institute. And I got a check. And I was like, hmm, let me make a choice. If I’m going to be an adult with this check, or I’m going to start this cool thing. And of course, I started this cool thing, fearless. And so now I’m managing two businesses, writing big out how to make Improv virtual, which has been like I taught a 20 person Improv class last week over zoom. So, I’m kind of like, okay, it can be done. Like, I got this now. So, it’s completely a pivot at every moment I feel, but it still is me. It’s very me throughout everything I’ve done.

25:19

TAMAR: That’s pretty cool. That’s an interesting pivot within the pivot. I think you can get probably a lot more people, because you’re able to kind of bring it out to the world, because this is a global thing right now. We were talking about earlier that we’re all in this together. We’re all on the struggle bus but that struggle bus could be opportunity for a lot of things. I think in terms of improv in general, I think that’s just a very cool thing.

JEN BROWN: Absolutely.

TAMAR: We’re hoping that it blossoms and expands exponentially from here. Yeah, cool. Cool. So, you talked in the beginning your self-care, we kind of brought the working out, and all of that stuff to it. Tell me a little more about like, what you’re doing right now in the context of Corona. But also, in general, what is going on? Like, how are you? How are you doing it? Because I’m sure we’re in that moment right now where things are definitely not our norm. We’re all stuck indoors, and we’re trying to make do with what we have. How are you keeping it real for yourself?

JEN BROWN: Yeah.

TAMAR: Things we need to look forward to when we quote unquote, get out?

26:43

JEN BROWN: Right, I think one of the biggest things that I’m reminding myself is that everyone communicates very differently. And I think that giving people space is been part of my self-care. Because just watching people get upset and project and put all this energy out there and like, oh, so and so shouldn’t be doing such and such isn’t doing enough. It’s like, look, we’re all in unfamiliar territory, like no one is prepared for this in any way, shape, or form, especially small businesses, especially people that have lived and breathe into a sense of security and stability. So, I think the first thing that I have done for myself has just been like, well, everyone’s going to deal with this differently. So how am I going to deal with this? And I think that both creating right now is a form of self-care for me, but also taking that step back to be like, I’m going to sit on my couch and play my switch and play Tetris. And I told my therapist that last week in my tele therapy session, and she’s like, oh, Tetris actually helps soothe like PTSD, trauma brain, and I was like, cool. That’s awesome. Thanks. Glad to know that my self-care is now essentially personal development. It’s really weird to think about.

28:03

TAMAR: Yeah, it’s really weird to think about. That’s good. Hopefully, you’re not doing robots.

JEN BROWN: Right. But I think it’s understanding what you need to take yourself out of it because especially right now, there’s no transitions. We don’t have time to go from this to that. So, we don’t have that time to just calmly do our brain from one task to another, everything is integrated. So, for me, I just have to shut off like I have to walk away from my phone. I have to not look at social media and not have the news on and like, okay, it’s all going to be there when I come back. No one’s going anywhere, and if you are, you shouldn’t be. So just take a second, give yourself space. And for me that space is shutting off and tuning into something that is not virus or work related: playing with my dogs, hanging out with my husband or anything that is my sort of let’s take care of me. And then last night, strangely enough, like before, all of this happens. I for myself, because I found I did so much stuff for other people. I auditioned for a play for the first time in 12 years. And weirdly, I say this not as Imposter Syndrome, but for real. It was weird. Got cast as one of the leads. And we did last night a Zoom production of the play that we’re probably not going to get to do anytime soon. Have Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing,. and we had over 2000 people tuned into this Facebook Live production. So, Zoom, Shakespeare.

29:49

TAMAR: So funny, but it’s amazing to hear what people are doing to make a life work for them. It’s so cool. Very cool. I have seen the concerts but I couldn’t fathom that a play would be possible. That is very, very cool. You got to work out those.

30:11

JEN BROWN: Friends were commenting, I had friends tune in and friends are commenting, this was far better than I ever expected it to be because like we were working on blocking and staging and how we interact with our camera. And it’s still up on trial stage. So, it’s on their Facebook. You can watch almost the entire play and the entire reading, and it’s a riot. I will say it’s like, quite funny.

30:36

TAMAR: So, I’m going to get the link from you. And I will provide it in the actual posts that I’ll put on the tamar.com podcast, the Common Scents, link page for sure. That’s very cool. Very, very, cool. Are you doing any more of those coming up?

30:54

JEN BROWN: I think we put it out to a bunch of other theaters after last night. And so, I put it out to a bunch of people; people in the cast were like, this is the new frontier right now? Like how can we entertain people, and keep people comfortable? As much as possible at home? And you think about like, everyone said, that’s binge watching Netflix right now, or Hulu or Disney Plus. It’s like how can we? Yes, we’re all going to have blue light blindness after this from so many screens,

31:33

TAMAR: You got to use a lot real flux to make sure. And also with your devices, your Android and iOS, they have those as well.

JEN BROWN: Yeah. And how can we keep art going? And I think what’s keeping us going right now is art and entertainment. So, how can we continue that?

31:45

TAMAR: Yeah, we need to make sure that these things don’t die out. The restaurant industry kind of keep them afloat as well, that’s also a mess right now. And it’s crazy. One of the things I’m doing and you talk  about the two things that people are doing, either they’re just sitting there doing nothing, or you were saying that people can either write a Shakespeare thing because he was in isolation or if you’re hustling. I’ve been trying to coordinate quite a bit of that as well. And the restaurant industry, there’s a guy who’s actually a broker with the farms and restaurants. And because restaurants aren’t ordering as much as they usually order because most of them are either closed or they scale down because no one’s allowed to eat at these restaurants. So, I’m actually working directly with these brokers and getting the produce directly delivered to people in my community. And so, we’re getting literally 400 pounds of food, 400 pounds of produce, which is an insane amount of food if you have no idea.

JEN BROWN: Wow.

TAMAR: Well, cantaloupes here. So, I’m actually trying to coordinate with the community, like this is the hustle for me right now, this is actually what I’m doing during the virus, the pandemic. And I’m trying to get 10 people for this order and 11 people for this order and 15 people to hit the minimum for this restaurant who’s still doing delivery. So that’s the coordination that’s going on here, on my end. It’s a little nuts, but I want to make sure that you want to keep the art alive. And I love it. And I went to a concert on Sunday, my cousin performed at a concert, a Zoom concert. We’ll try like we have to as consumers, who are still consumers, and people who are trying to protect the world. We also have to do our part in making sure to keep these industries alive. The arts in the music industry and the food industry we got to because we don’t want to come back. And everything’s going to be shuttered forever.

JEN BROWN: Absolutely, absolutely.

TAMAR: Yeah, definitely. So let me ask you a question. If you were able to give Jen any advice, what would you tell her?

34:17

JEN BROWN: Honestly, I don’t think I would be here without all of the things that I’ve done. And I’m really happy with where I am now. I feel if someone gave me the advice to make the pivot change, lean into it, I don’t think I would be as appreciative as I am right now. So, I really think I would just tell a younger Jen, keep on. And like Barry, it’s super generic advice of just keep on your path. Like whatever you feel is right. Because I feel like we’re all products of everything that we’ve gone through. And especially with Improv, like you’re not necessarily creating from nothing. You’re creating from all your experiences. And I don’t think that I would create what I have right now, without all of those experiences.

TAMAR: Right, right.

JEN BROWN: I could tell younger Jen, hey, in 2020 there’s some crazy stuff going on. So, work on what’s going on in the country before that. Like be a huge advocate or activist. Like that’s the only thing I could think of. But for my own career trajectory, I’m pretty happy where I’m at.

35:31

TAMAR: Yeah, yeah, definitely no regrets from the experiences that you’ve had. Because they kind of make who you are, and make you stronger. Yeah, amazing, amazing. Anything else you would probably say, any advice for the listeners, for anyone else?

35:49

JEN BROWN: I think for the listener, just remember that you’re human right now and really giving yourself grace and space, no matter when you’re hearing those. Like, if you’re not doing great, then take a second check in. Don’t, do great like don’t give yourself so much pressure to create and do all of this. When you just need to take that step back. And in the Improv sense, like really just pay attention to what’s going on around you. Improv, at its core is listening and responding. So, in order to do that, and to be present in your own life, you have to take a step back from it, and go, okay, this is what’s going on. Okay, this is what I’m going to do and this is how I’m going to react to it, as opposed to constantly pushing, pushing, pushing.

36:34

TAMAR: Awesome. I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much, Jen. Stay safe. Stay indoors, save lives.

36:42

JEN BROWN: Yes, you too.

36:44

TAMAR: Thank you so much.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:52 — 46.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS