Shownotes:
In this episode, I get to chat with a guest whose last name literally means "intense focused light" - how brilliant is that? Sara Candela and I delve into the realms of attention, mindfulness, and the ways humans need to adapt and learn to flourish in the age of AI. We also explore how cultivating gratitude can be our guiding light, just like a burst of radiant sunshine brightens up a room. From daily joys to facing the challenges of an evolving world, this episode will inspire you to wield gratitude as a powerful tool for navigating the complexities of our modern era. So, grab your shades and embark on this enlightening adventure! (We really leaned into that light metaphor! 🤣)
Article referenced: Scope Creep
About Our Guest:
Former high school English teacher, and current Community Manager for The Optimalist community, which supports Engageable by Swivl. Her work supports educators in their journey towards mindfulness and adaptability in the world of AI. Outside of that world, Sara is a writer and a poet living in Los Angeles who loves meeting interesting and creative people. She hosts The Optimalist Podcast, is working on a book of short fiction and a book of poems, and can be found haunting comedy clubs & literary events around LA.
Website: theoptimalist.substack.com
Twitter: @Scandela9
Instagram: @scandela9
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing, focusing on community building, social-emotional learning, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn both a post-graduate credential and a master's degree in education. An international keynote speaker, Lainie has presented in 41 states as well as in dozens of countries across 4 continents. As a consultant, Lainie’s client list ranges from Fortune 100 companies like Apple and Google to school districts and independent schools. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Website - LainieRowell.com
Twitter - @LainieRowell
Instagram - @LainieRowell
Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available here! And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!
Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.🙌
Just fill out the forms linked above and someone will get back to you ASAP!
Transcript:
Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] All right, my friends. I'm hoping I still have the nice, deep voice from this cold that I have been fighting. But let me just kick this off with a welcome to Sara Candela. Welcome, Sara.
Sara Candela: Hi, thank you for having me, Lainie.
Lainie Rowell: Well, you have this lovely, mellifluous podcaster voice.
Sara Candela: Ooh, what was that word?
Lainie Rowell: Mellifluous do you like that?
Sara Candela: I love it.
Lainie Rowell: That was on my day of the word calendar. I've got it right here. No, I just...
Sara Candela: don't know that I know that word. I'm, I'm, I'm shocked.
Lainie Rowell: It's a compliment.
Sara Candela: Oh, I love it.
Lainie Rowell: It's just, it sounds so beautiful. And if I was more technical as a podcaster, I would try and enhance my voice in ways, but the best I can do is hope for...
Sara Candela: Well, I think when people say that it's usually when I am in front of this mic and I do think that when I pull the mic, my voice just naturally starts to do this.
Lainie Rowell: That's amazing. That was a great, that was a great little trick.
Sara Candela: It's like a weird connection. Like here's the mic. It's time to talk.
Lainie Rowell: So fun. Okay. I'm going to introduce you as proper as I know how to.
Sara Candela is an experienced high school English teacher, she is the community manager for the Optimalist. She is so many things, my friends. She is a writer and a poet.
She focuses on mindfulness and adaptability in a world of AI. And gosh, I could just keep going. She's working on a book of short fiction. I don't want to steal all her thunder. So, Sara, please take it from here. What all do you want people to know about you?
Sara Candela: Well that was a lot of the tidbits, but I can explain a little bit more. I did teach for 14 years, 15 years in New York. I was a English teacher which seems like another lifetime ago and now I'm in Los Angeles and I kind of left education to figure out other ways to work with teachers and students that were not in the classroom.
Found my way into learning podcasting, which is why I can talk like this sometimes. And was actually originally started working not exactly in the community manager position that I'm working in now, but with the team at Swivel because they were building a product that doesn't exist anymore, which some of you listening might remember, which was called Synth, which was a product for teachers to podcast remotely with their students.
And so it was an app and I was kind of, recruited with education and podcasting experience to work on that and think about what would make that something that we could build community around as well. So my foray into gathering with educators in a very different way outside of a school building began with that about five years ago.
And now has led to this whole new world of what do we do with a future that is uncertain in the world of artificial intelligence and how can we bring mental health like there's a lot of problems, I think, societal issues that kind of get wrapped up into that before we think about even the technology piece, but all of the things we're dealing with post pandemic and even pre pandemic that are in larger society, but are mirrored in our schools, like little microcosms.
Like, what can we do to kind of educate ourselves and be prepared to build routines that help ourselves in and outside of the school? in our lives that also will help us really be mentally ready for flourishing in a future that we can't predict anymore. And so that's what I'm doing now in the Optimist community with our newsletter and working with our team on building Engageable, which is a free software product for teachers to help build mindful routines in the classroom and now having launched the podcast in April, all the things that kind of get wrapped into building communities of educators that are outside the classroom and just all over the world, and helping people, talking to people like Lainie on their shows jumping into other people's communities and just thinking about how I can keep expanding the way we talk about the important things that are going on today.
Cause I think we have to continuously adapt the way we do that.
Lainie Rowell: This place that you've come to where you're talking about mindfulness and adaptability and your work is just so near and dear to my heart. And I love that you're building this community and you're bringing together two things that people might feel are antithetical.
Right? Mindfulness and technology. Yeah. But you see them as... what? How would you describe how you see them?
Sara Candela: What we see them as are two things that we need. And that I think people wind up going through life today, choosing one or the other, or thinking that they have to choose one or the other. We all know people in our lives, whether they be colleagues or family, we know people around us who we think of as more like, Oh, my friend meditates every morning or my, this is my yoga friend.
We all have people that we would associate as more mindful or quiet or peaceful, like all the things that we tend to group together, it's kind of like a stereotype. And then we have the other side of people who are a little bit more. And the tech part could be anything, it could be any range from casual tech use to addiction to tech, but we often separate them is really my point.
And so with thinking about the state of mental health and loneliness and all of the stuff that we know is true, but we keep pushing away and not wanting to deal with the attention crisis, all of these things, they all kind of get wrapped together. And go back to this route of like, where are we spending our time?
And where we're spending our time is in front of things and doing things that are not really using our time well. And so it's really, really, really, really hard to talk to adults about stuff that they don't quite understand how they mesh. And so I try to work with educators because that's where we want to start in thinking about these things out loud together, that's really what the community action part is, is like not me getting on a microphone and telling people what to do, but picking out books and sharing them with others and saying, let's come together and read about this stuff together.
Let's talk about it. Let's have so and so on the podcast and get their ideas about either something like mindfulness or wellness in schools like talking to psychologists or talking to people who are working with teachers on AI initiatives and bringing all of these concepts and people together so we can see that we can't march into this future or even live today with one or the other.
Like, how do we get more people to realize that we have to start adapting to what is going to come by, embracing things that seem a little bit outdated or slow. And as I talk to more and more teachers that are still trying to do this in the classroom, you know, kids seem to want to embrace this, but they're looking to adults to step into that role first. I'll stop talking.
Lainie Rowell: I don't want you to stop talking and I appreciate that you're bringing these things together because to me, I don't like the false dichotomy of if you're using a device, then you're being distracted.
Sara Candela: Right.
Lainie Rowell: There are actually things I'm using a device for sometimes that are helping me focus. And if we're on devices, we're disconnected we're lonely. Well, there's actually times where I feel closest to people because of the device. And so I appreciate that what I hear you saying is how do we not just say, well, that's bad or that's bad?
How do we find the best and adapt?
Sara Candela: Yeah, and I think part of adaptability is also knowing, and this takes, is going to take a while for people to catch up with all together, but knowing that you as an individual, and we as, as a society, like we have to adapt as well.
We can't just, look at the things around us as growing and changing. Oh, we're being left behind. Like, what do we do? Like you have to adapt to what's being given to you or sold to you or the newest thing that's not going to go away. Or that's changing our lives, but at the same time, we're going to have to up our game in order to remain
like to remain human beings really into the future that are going to be able to, I guess, progress and keep going as a important part of, of life. How do we do it? I'm like, not even saying this right anymore. How do we do it? And how do we flourish if we're not going to keep going?
Plugging Flourish. That's our brand. That's, that is,
Lainie Rowell: that is our mutual, lovely word that we share. And I do really appreciate that word. And I want to talk more about that, because I think flourishing, that is something that we can be simultaneously doing and aspiring to, if that makes any sense because I think I can be flourishing, but still also striving to be even better. And I don't know if there's a more flourished or a flourishest.
Sara Candela: I'm more flourishing than you. I'm the more flourished.
Lainie Rowell: Could you imagine that would be a terrible competition?
Sara Candela: We're going to introduce with this episode when it comes out, we're going to introduce the Sara and Lainie lexicon. It should be the starter pack of 10 words that you can start to learn and incorporate.
We've been writing about this a little bit actually in our newsletter that kind of goes along with the optimist community, we've been trying to dive really deep into what it does mean , to even just use the skills that we think of, or would traditionally call 21st century skills and what people need today or five, ten years from now.
We're so used to using some of these terms to talk about , what the basics we need to flourish or what our kids are going to need to flourish in their future as adults. And we have started to introduce this idea of instead of thinking of 21st century skills or higher order thinking skills, we are now going to have to think of us as humans being aspiring to an even more flourishing level of even higher order thinking. So where the technology that we have to adapt to is kind of what I mean about adaptability being complicated, the technology we have to adapt to is complex. already able to do a lot of the things that we would consider higher order thinking.
And how do we flourish as human beings and continue to be productive and successful and happy and reach new heights if we don't adapt to that? And adapting means now we have to be even better. So what we're trying to explore, what are those levels look like that are all the way up here now? How do we not be absolutely terrified of that, and know that we are going to have to eventually really be ready to prepare kids for that level, right? For those levels of creativity and thinking, and what does that mean and look like, and how can we start that today?
Without knowing what that map is, part of why we are doing all of this exploration in attention and mindfulness is because we're thinking about what skills can we develop that we know contribute to that and we know being better focused, knowing how to manage your distraction, knowing how to build routines that keep you regulated and how to be someone that knows how to pay attention in a way where you can tell when something is not real and also very real.
The things that we know are going to help someone go from having those basic levels of flourishing to having even higher order thinking skills. And I think that that's where we're seeing the future is going. It's just going to take us a while to figure out what that really is and what that looks like.
Lainie Rowell: I want to put in the show notes, I'll put a link to that article cause I read it and I really appreciated it. And I felt like you were articulating something that I'm going through right now as a writer. So I use ChatGPT, but I don't just say write me an article on human flourishing, right?
Sara Candela: Where my name comes up, right?
Lainie Rowell: And make sure to include Sara Candela.
And then I drop your article in and I'm like pull a quote from here. No, that's not what I do. One of the reasons even higher order thinking skills really resonates with me is because when I have an idea for an article, and I, in my mind, kind of know where I want to go, and I want to touch on some things, I will put things into chat GPT, like, okay, here's what I want to address help me with an outline.
And then I have to review that outline and go, Oh, this is like completely the wrong direction. I'm not wanting to go here. And then I have to like think so critically about like where I actually want to go with the article.
Sara Candela: Exactly.
Lainie Rowell: Because I now realize that I wasn't able to communicate to ChatGPT what I wanted to have happen.
So that means I am not ready to write this article. And so then I need to have this further conversation with ChatGPT where I'm like, I really want to make sure and emphasize this. And how could I include this idea? And okay, I want to talk about human flourishing. And Adam Grant talks about languishing.
And Austin Kleon says, I'm not languishing, I'm dormant. And you know what I mean? I'm taking this in a very different direction than ChatGPT originally wanted me to go. Because I am the one supervising where this is going. And it's requiring a lot of my attention.
Sara Candela: Yeah. And what I was going to say, what you're describing is that real command of your attention.
And it's a very different order. It's a very different level of executive functioning. It's almost like you're running a mini team in front of you. Like you really are the executive of whatever it is that you're working on at that time. And you have these invisible workers that are kind of being helpful.
But then you kind of just have to keep pushing back at them, right? And thinking about, you really have to tell them exactly what it is that you want. And I do wonder, like, and you'd be probably someone really good to talk to about this in the next 12 hours of podcasts that we record. But you get so many different views from people who are using it, like you do, of how helpful or, how much time it saves, or if it really is just helping them write from a different vantage point.
And I think that's also an interesting question to think, like, what level of helpfulness or, I don't know, I don't even know if helpfulness would be the word, like, what do you see? Is it, is it adding to you?
Lainie Rowell: Right, and in the Sara and Lainie spin off of writing with Chat GPT, we can address that, but I will quickly say, It's made writing both harder and more enjoyable, but harder in a different way.
I don't sit there and stare at a blank screen and go, what am I gonna say? I now feel like I have an assistant that is helping me think through and I feel like the quality at the end is significantly better.
Sara Candela: Oh good.
Lainie Rowell: And I also have to be, and this is a constant fear and anxiety are not the right, those are too extreme for what I feel, but there is a consciousness I have that I cannot lose my voice in this conversation.
The most important thing to me is that this is a quality piece of writing that reflects my perspective and voice. And if it doesn't do that, then I feel like I've failed.
Sara Candela: Yeah, I think maybe just in the last month we started, maybe a little more than that, we started to use AI to write our show notes for the Optimalist podcast, but I don't use 70 percent of what it writes, but you can tell. Well, today, the day that we're recording this Lainie's episode of the Optimalist podcast is released.
And so that's the one that's in my head right now. Cause I did it yesterday. But if you'd go to look at Lainie's show notes, you can tell, now that I'm saying it to you, you can tell that her intro paragraph, has been spit out by something that has listened to the episode. But even though I've gone in and changed it and deleted half of what it said because just like you're talking about the staring at the blank screen, absolutely my least favorite part of the podcast process is having to start those show notes, doesn't matter what the episode is, it could be my favorite topic in the world, but sitting down and writing that paragraph today on the show, dot, dot, dot, and like I'm like, I already did this for something else.
So I get annoyed by starting it every week. And so having it kind of listen for me and tell me back and forth what each of us said for the entire hour is really helpful for me to just pull out pieces and then I can zoom ahead and look at what people said at the end that I need to grab for quotes, you know, I don't have to go through and listen to it.
And it's so funny how we only started doing that a month ago. I'm like, wow, I was like skipping ahead and that's so funny. But yeah, it's a good jumpstart.
Lainie Rowell: I think the through line of this entire conversation so far, and I will get to my first question. I think we're like 15, 20 minutes in, but that's okay.
Sara Candela: We'll be drawing a map to this episode after.
Lainie Rowell: But the through line is. There's nuance, there's complexity, there's no good or bad, we don't get to just dismiss things easily, we have to be really thoughtful and intentional with how do we move forward, how do we adapt to flourish.
And so...
Sara Candela: That's, that's six times we've said it now.
Lainie Rowell: I mean, we're going to turn it into a drinking game if we haven't already. I guess if it's shots, we don't necessarily...
Sara Candela: That'll be our bonus episodes. Tim, are you out there? We're going to continue.
Lainie Rowell: Oh my gosh. Okay. So I have to tell you all Tim, Tim, my friends.
Sara Candela: Tim Belmont. He's a member of the community. People know him on Twitter.
Lainie Rowell: So Tim is post producing the episodes for The Optimist. And it is really lovely that when Sara starts recording with her guests on the pod, she says, Okay, I'm going to say Tim sometimes.
Sara Candela: Because I talk directly to him. And sometimes if I forget how I say it, people will be like, Oh, wait, is he listening?
Like thinking it's a real engineering situation. Like I'm in a sound booth and I've got the engineer up there listening while we're recording. I'm like, Oh no, he's not here.
But now I want that to be. Yeah.
Lainie Rowell: It's like Wobby Wob from Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard.
Sara Candela: Yes. Oh my gosh.
Lainie Rowell: I believe his real name is Rob, but they call him
Wobby Wob. That's just one of Dax's term of endearment.
Sara Candela: But we'll have Tim create a bloopers reel of that can become a drinking game for people to play with of bonus content.
Lainie Rowell: There we go. Okay. Well, you have some lovely things to share about gratitude so I want to pivot to that. Not that this is really a pivot, but I do want to make sure I give you the opportunity to share that. So, Sara, just tell us, what does gratitude mean to you and how does it look in your life?
Sara Candela: So gratitude, I'll kind of combine a bunch of things into something that doesn't sound like a straight up definition, I guess, but I was telling Lainie a tiny bit before we started recording that really my personal relationship to gratitude is pretty deep and started a little bit before the pandemic and going through as a lot of deep, associations with things or changes happen when you're going through a deep shift in your life.
That's usually when you look for how can I I guess I'm going to use the word deepen again, deepen my relationship to myself, my relationship to others around me. What can I do that is meant to be built into a routine. And so my brother is a really well practiced yoga teacher, and he's been trying to get me to be just as mindful about that part of myself as he is for a long time , as many things, you have to come to it on your own. And so I did that in January of 2019, I guess it was, I started a yoga practice, a very, very small one to start like 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day. But then in conjunction with that also started like many people start with a gratitude journal, but I was very specific about it.
And I know people have different ways they relate to what gratitude is, but I've always found that what really helped me mentally move away from whatever negative space my mind had been in for so long that I needed to kind of get rid of was thinking of thinking small and really moving into the very, very, very present.
And that has a lot to do with a lot of the other things that we've talked about today, but realizing that all of the wild chatter that was keeping me from flourishing or even moving forward at all needed to literally just completely stop. You can't go through one thing at a time and you got to just like, zone in on like, what are the little things?
And so for me, gratitude really began to deepen and become a thing that changed me when I thought about what are the things in my immediate present that I would be unhappy not having tomorrow, or that enhance something right now. And I could, of course, be grateful for people and circumstances, and I am every day, but I'm not going to write about those same things every day.
What I would wind up writing about is things like sun streaming through my kitchen window every morning in a certain way where I know I can wake up and at 7 a. m. I can sit in this sunlight. And to me, that was so fulfilling because I'm like, so many people can't sit in a stream of sunlight because they don't live in Southern California and like, don't have, this warmth in the morning.
And I don't know, sometimes that sounds silly when I say it to people, but those were really the things that got me focused on just each time of the day, each moment of the day, the activity being, and it helps you move beyond that, because then you're grateful for what am I doing when I'm sitting here?
Oh, I get to write in this journal. Then I get to work from home, which means the sunlight is here. I can open all the windows and work in this beautiful, open, bright space and be with my dogs all day. Take them out every day, whenever I want, so it opens up the gratitude from there. When you start with that tiny thing, like what are the things around me that are tangible?
That I'm really just so joyful to have. And then joy became the word that I embraced for all of that year. Like everything that I did, every little thing or big thing that I welcomed or pursued or found me was like, if it filled you with that sense of joy, then it was to keep. And it all came down to like, I guess it comes down to that sunlight finding, can you find that one beam of sunlight that you really, really wish you would never be able to live without the end.
Lainie Rowell: So, this is a circle back for us because before we hit record, we were talking about how we both just really love natural light and how lovely it is when you can open the windows in the morning and you get to see that, that brightness come in, which we don't get every day here in Southern California, but it's a lot of days.
Sara Candela: And also this is a treat were two Southern California gals recording together. I rarely record with people in my time zone. And now it's two weeks in a row. Anyway.
Lainie Rowell: It is lovely. And we will have to figure out a way to meet in person at some point. But it just, I have this warmness and like glowing sparkle inside of me because I'm just thinking of how we're such kindred spirits.
And I love the way you're talking about the joy. And sometimes I feel. I know this secret and I know people like you, Sara, know this secret and I want to help other people find this secret and just like your brother with you.
Sara Candela: I know exactly what you mean.
Lainie Rowell: You want people to know and I just will keep talking about gratitude.
I'll keep writing about gratitude and then also just like you said, which is profoundly wise, people have to come to it in their own time, in their own way. So I'll just still keep talking and writing about it and savor these moments when I get to talk to someone else who knows the secret too.
Sara Candela: Like four years, five years, I don't know what it is later. Because I did reach a point after a year or two, maybe of going about it and writing about it in that same way, where it almost felt like I had hit a wall because I started it for purpose, right?
In conjunction with movement and other things that I was using to move past difficult things that were blocking my brain and my growth and all that stuff. But so then eventually it gets to the point where it doesn't feel like it's quote unquote, working anymore. Like it did what I initially needed it to do and now it's almost like I needed, what's the next level of gratitude? Like, I don't want to write in this journal anymore. I need the next level. What do you do? And so I went journaless for a long time and still have not gone back to writing every day in that way. But now just in the last couple of weeks, I've started to fall into this thing where if I'm feeling anxious about something during the day or apprehensive about it deep breaths, movement is still always like the number one thing.
But if I'm not in the position to be outside or something like that, just thinking for a second about actually being grateful for the problem. Like, oh, I get to solve this thing. It literally almost immediately moves me past that barrier. Like, why am I not able to talk to this person?
Well, this is an opportunity to do this. Like, why am I not getting along with so and so? Like, it could be anything. And I couldn't get to that level of that's a form of gratitude without having written and written and thought and thought and reflected and reflected for years. And I know people would come into that next phase at different times, but that's, I think what I was thinking of when I thought, like, it's not working anymore.
What's the next level. And then you have to discover that also for yourself. Right. But it helps you, I think recognize that all of the struggles that you have are not just obstacles. They're things that you get to learn and understand better. And that's the way I like to think about things.
It's really a calming way to approach every day.
Lainie Rowell: Very peaceful. It's been so helpful for me to hear Sara, your story, and other people's stories, and just know that there is no one way to do it. And so I think that's the really important key takeaway, is we know the secret. The secret is Grateful Living is going to... lead to fulfillment, lead to flourishing. There is no one way to do it.
Sara Candela: Well, the secret is really the same to all of these things that are difficult and that take either a habit or a routine is that you have to just start it. And even if it's only tiny. And I, and I know that sounds like cliche because people say that all the time now, but it really, that really is the secret to anything that's hard like that.
And that takes an individual momentum and an individual effort is that no one can really force you to sit down and do that. You have to realize when it's right for you. And that joy only comes when you keep up with that. It's not like a once in a blue moon type of thing.
That's what I feel. I mean, any gratitude we want, but I think that the feeling that you're talking about, that bubbles up that secret, I think is what comes when it becomes a part of you.
Lainie Rowell: Sister. I was just going to say the way you talk about it.
It's just a part of you. And then you said it. Oh my gosh, get out of my head.
Sara Candela: Yeah.
Lainie Rowell: Well, friend, our time has gone too, too fast. But I want to give you an opportunity if there's any other tips you have.
Sara Candela: No, I think I've totally gratitude ed, I've flourishingly gratitude ed. I don't think gratitude is meant to be a verb.
Lainie Rowell: I feel like in our journal, in our lexicon, I was just going to say, when we come up with our dictionary.
So before we get onto your shout out, we have to address your last name. Because we've spent some time talking about how important light is to us, especially natural light. But there's so many ways you can go with the word light.
And Sara, do tell us, what does your last name mean? What does Candela mean?
Sara Candela: So any science, especially physics teachers out there might already know where we're going at this, but Candela is a unit to measure light. And I was telling Lainie earlier, there might be more, I don't know, but I know the main ones are lumens is the one most people know when they think of, not that we use it every day, but if you look on a box, like a light bulb box, you'll see lumens used as how they're measuring the intense or I guess, I don't know if it's the intensity, but candela. Candelas are the way that you measure the intensity of, I think it's like a cone of light, which Lainie can see behind me the light in my room here that I'm in.
And I do think now I'm very aware sometimes when I buy certain bulbs, I look to see if it's measured in candelas and lumens. And sometimes they are, it depends on the type of light. And I think when you're in a work room or like a garage, something that's normally dark, or Underground, and it needs an intensity of like focused light it will be measured in Candela.
So that is me an intense focused light.
Lainie Rowell: Again stop! Get out of my brain. Out of my head.
Sara Candela: We're gonna get Physics teachers writing and saying that's not true. No, I'm just kidding.
Lainie Rowell: This seems true to me and...
Sara Candela: It's true.
Lainie Rowell: Especially the part about you being an intense focus light, but in the best way.
Sara Candela: So I'm grateful today for my name having lent itself as a metaphor to the show.
Lainie Rowell: It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Well, and it's funny because the techie nerdy person in me was like lumens. Oh yeah.
Like on the projector in my classroom.
Sara Candela: Yeah, exactly.
Lainie Rowell: I know. But it's like the, most people are thinking about the very great example you gave about you'll go to buy lights in Target and they'll have the lumens on.
Sara Candela: And I only notice it because of my name. So anytime I'm around stuff like that in packaging, I'm always just glancing to see which measurement is on the box, but you have to be aware of it to notice the word candela, I think it's not common. In household lighting there, I think it's the first education podcast that has talked about household lighting units.
Lainie Rowell: I will just tell you right now, I will never purchase household lighting without thinking about you Sara.
Sara Candela: And that goes for all of you out there.
Lainie Rowell: You are now imprinted. Oh my goodness. Well, okay, let's get to your shout out.
Sara Candela: Okay. So this totally, totally wasn't planned, but given this person that I'll give a shout out to, but given the light of our, the light of our light of our conversation.
I'm just a living metaphor, my friends. And that's, I literally wouldn't be talking about any of this stuff or know about any of this stuff. And he coined the term, Even higher order thinking, I'm gonna give my gratitude shout out to Brian Lamb, who is the founder of Swivel, co CEO of Swivel, he's the founder, he started Engageable, it's his idea, that's his baby and he is just like one of the hardest workers I know with this very specific cone of light, this very focused light, and I'm not even trying now, it's seriously how I think about it.
Lainie Rowell: It's just seriously happening!
Sara Candela: Thank you got it! This is, this is real life right now, everybody. This is what's happening. But he is so focused on this mission that I'm just the voice for like all of this stuff is, and anything you hear me talk about here or anywhere else is just a culmination of all of these two years, really, of studying what it means to be an attentive human being.
And what do kids need versus what do adults need? What do we think about our attention? How do we tell ourselves that we no longer have the ability to pay attention? It all started with that two years ago and being on a journey with somebody who is that focused in helping starting with a specific group of people like educators and students and then moving outward from there and just going through that journey of knowing that you can't build something really, really important and really meaningful without knowing how to adapt.
And that's where the adaptability comes from. And without being ready to change, without being ready to accept that, you're going to fail most of the time. And these are all the most important foundational things that we need to bring into our classrooms. And I, and it's like part of why I love stepping into being like the vocal part of this team, in this role, in this community is because I like being able to connect with people directly and get more people jumping and willing to jump into talking about and tackling these hard, hard issues and conversations as much as possible. So if my light can bring a little bit more to that, then.
That's what I love. So yeah, my gratitude goes out to Brian for always being willing to tackle these really difficult things that we all are going to need to face at some point when people are not looking and he'll do it without the attention. So our attention goes to him today.
Lainie Rowell: I love that. And I feel you shining the Candela on him.
I can join in too, right?
Sara Candela: Yeah, definitely. Everyone's name is Candela today.
Lainie Rowell: One thing I so appreciate about you, my friend, is your passion for your work, your calling it's contagious. Like I can feel how important this is to you.
And that's just something that is very inspiring. And I'll just go for it again. It lights me up.
Sara Candela: We can't stop. Someone's going to have to go to Lainie's house and press stop recording. This is it. A bonus will just be the two of us giggling for an hour.
Lainie Rowell: I mean, it might be, and I would be fine with that.
So Sara, please tell people how they can connect with you.
Sara Candela: Okay, well, to go back to my name, you can connect with me on Twitter or Instagram at @SCandela9 . I was telling Lainie also that's a name given to me by my seniors in like one of the last years that I was a classroom teacher, they would call me Scandela in the hallway and yell it down the hall.
And then I was like, that's going to be my Twitter handle and it's been my Twitter handle ever since. So, @SCandela9 mostly on Twitter is where I live and breathe and what I would really love is checking out and following. I don't have a website of my own, but really I live on our Optimalist Substack.
That's where we publish our newsletter and our podcast. The podcast also can be found everywhere. But I'm the only one I know using Substack for publishing podcasts. So I think it's kind of cool to say that if you subscribe to the newsletter, you also automatically get the podcast every Wednesday when it comes out in your email which is kind of cool. But the Optimalist community stuff can be found at theoptimalist.substack.Com. And that's pretty much it.
Lainie Rowell: So much wonderfulness and I could talk to you for hours. And we will.
Sara Candela: We only live 40 minutes away.
Lainie Rowell: I know. We're going to have to figure out how we can get together face to face ASAP.
My friend, I thank you for sharing so much wisdom and everything that you're doing as well as your experience and journey with gratitude and I just want to, I don't, I have no, I have no words because I'm just so full of light and joy that I, I don't know what else to say, but.
Sara Candela: This is the Gratitude episode of the Gratitude, the podcast about Gratitude.
Lainie Rowell: This is the meta, this is the Gratitude about Gratitude episode.
Sara Candela: Well, thank you so much for having me and I love this. I think Pattern started with Sean a few weeks ago, like a month ago. Pattern, I'm getting into of like, have someone on the Optimalist, then the next week go on their show. I love that bookending experience.
It's so great. And super fun, but we're going to, we're going to have a mashup podcast, I think coming soon, maybe like a mini series. Actually, let's do that.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, she just said it. All right.
Sara Candela: All right. Thank you very much,
Lainie Rowell: Sara. Thank you for your time. And thank you all for listening.