Rules Of Engagement

Hey, team. Hello, Cadre. Good morning. Good, good, good morning. I hope that everybody is doing really well. I am doing well. I missed last week. I was under the weather. I'm sorry about that. But it is what it is. I took care of it, which is part of what I've learned how to do for myself as a person in recovery and as a person on this path and as a grown up, I guess. And we have a great topic this week. The topic is community, belonging, relationships. Hello, Chris Edge, welcome. Glad you're here.

And I have rules of engagement that are about this. It's always interesting as these topics come up to find out, what do I have a lot of rules of engagement about? What do I have a few about? This is middling. Not that many. Part of it is because I am both such a joiner. You know, I'm married to someone. He is not a joiner. He's not like, I want to be part of a club, except he is a joiner. I guess he's a little like me. I am such a joiner. I think it's because I got sober at 19. And so I have been in a recovery program for the last 36 years and counting.

At least I am today. And I'm part of a peer counseling network work too, and I've been doing that for a long time. So I have these inherent community associations and what makes them great. And I recommend finding some sort of group where you are just thrown in with a whole bunch of people you might not have met otherwise because you can make amazing friendships that way with people. I just would not have. I have made amazing friendships that way with people I would not have predicted for myself.

But I am also a member of some online communities, actually pay to be a member of a couple different online communities with leaders that I trust, that I have vetted over time whose work I really admire. And so I follow them and get more access to them and their thinking, but also to other people who really like them and their thinking. I know baseline in these groups, the people that I meet, we're going to share some commonalities which I suppose is true in all these groups. Right. I mean, it's just as true in recovery as it is anywhere else.

I have to sneeze. Excuse me one second. Excuse me. Might happen again, might not. I don't know. So rule of engagement number 17 is people are a good use of time. And My guideline number 11 is like it or not, company makes life better. Because for all I have these groups, it's Good that I've created infrastructure in my life where I interact with other people. Because also left to my own devices, I would just sit here in my room, which is strange to think, but. But it's always that pull to isolation.

I mean, I'm a recovering alcoholic for crying out loud. And when I drank, I wasn't much of a social drinker. I did some. I got sober in college, but. And so you think to yourself, oh, she was, she partied pretty hard. Mostly I sat alone in my room drinking Whiskey. So at 18, I had some heavy stuff happening and that was the best medication I could figure out for myself at the time. But that be alone in my room pondering things is still one of my instincts. And. And also. That thought just left me.

I heard a weird noise outside and so that thought just left me. Pardon me. The being left alone is my instinct, but also it's where I feel safest. I did not feel safe with other human beings for the most part as a young person. So I have had to learn that over time. And I'm an ambivert. I'm not an introvert, I'm not an extrovert. I need both. So some of you listening, if you know what my former job was, which is I used to be elected official, which requires a lot of people time. And that was great for me in a million ways.

Right? I still have such important relationships and community is so important to me. Being part of my community, feeling like I know my community. C. has made it easier to feel part of a community because people here live here longer, there's less turnover. And also it's just more clear to me how the government works here. C. now, to be fair, when I moved there in 2019. Hello. Speak. Wonder. When I moved there in 2019, I was eager to not care about city government. And that held true for three or four years, maybe longer.

I always voted. I did my enough homework to vote for who I could vote for, but then I just sort of left it at that. But moving here, I can see that whatever led me away from wanting to be responsible for the mayor of Cadre. Hello. Wanting to be responsible for the day to day workings of government. I no longer feel that way living here in Silver Spring. I know my county council member, she's the former mayor of Tacoma, Maryland, Kate Stewart. She's great. She's the president of the county council.

And Silver Spring is unincorporated, so there's not a mayor and a council. There's the county executive and the, you know, the council president and the council. And so I've started dipping my toe back in because, you know, my trauma led me to being much of a loner. Well, and my father's one of the biggest introverts I've ever encountered in my entire life. My mother was an extrovert, and my father was one of the biggest introverts I've ever met in my entire life. And he is. I say it like was, but I'm thinking about growing up.

And so I think that's where the ambivert comes from. But the trauma really dug in on the safest place to be is home with animals, with pets. Was safer than being alone. But. But the more healing I do underneath that, I understand that it's also in my nature, just as a human being, I think. And I got. I think I got an extra dose of really loving being embedded in a community. When I moved to Minneapolis, back to Minneapolis in 97, I think it was 98, maybe 98, I was like, we are moving with my ex husband.

I was like, we are moving into this neighborhood. I'm going to embed myself in my community. And I want. Without an idea of, oh, I'm going to run for office someday. I just wanted to feel embedded in my community. And I have that feeling again here. I have that feel and I certainly did. Right. I ended up being mayor of the city, which is about as embedded in the community as you can get. So the reason I my guideline, like it or not, company makes life better is because that trauma urge to be alone lies to me about whether or not it would be helpful to get help.

Helpful to be with other people, good to be with other people. So I put that, like it or not. Like it or not, company makes life better. Betsy Guideline for my life number 11, rule number, rule of engagement number 17. People are a good use of time. That's the same deal. Sometimes I'm swimming upstream, trying to figure out how to remember that it's good to be with people. That's why it's good that I'm in recovery. Because at least once, twice, three, four times a week, I am with other people, like it or not, even if it's just online, right?

And that's one of the things I love about Cadre, is that there is this community on the app. There is this community. I'm a contributor. There's a community among contributors, and it just helps me. It's It's a touch point. It's a touch point to show up here every week and to show up on the app as often as I can figure out. Yep, number 17 people are a good use of time. Next week, I'm doing my retreat, my annual retreat where I review the year and I set my goals for the upcoming year. I love doing it in November because it gives me time to course correct on some of my goals before the end of the year or set them aside if they make no sense.

I mean, I do reviews throughout the year, but the. This is the big one where I can really. And then I give myself a long Runway into the new year in December. I can try some things out to see if do I want to try this out or that out? And the answer is, yes, I'm going to try these various things out. You know, I was bringing that up because I'll be doing my fun list, so y' all will probably hear more about that. I will do my various goals lists, and I have some things that are related to Padre and the work we do and that work and the connection we have here together.

Well, so stay tuned for that. I just thought about that. Rule of engagement number 12 is also relevant to community and belonging because a lot of us want it. Sometimes inertia gets in the way, but rule of engagement at number 12 is put yourself out there. Put yourself out there. Put yourself out there. Betsy. I have been. I try and live by that in general, and it's good that I occasionally remember these things and review my rules of engagement to be here with all of you, because it's like, all right, put yourself out there.

My friend Matt and I share. I think I've talked about this here before, share this niche interest in 21st President United States, Chester A. Arthur. Rule of engagement, number one, love what you love. Love what you love. And we were friends for years before we figured this out. And about five years ago, we were. He was wearing a 21 shirt. And I was like, why are you wearing a 21 shirt? He said, well, it's for 21st president United States, Chester Arthur. And I was like, wait a second. Because he's the first person I've met in the wild who shared that interest that I know about, because who talks about it just randomly?

Anyway, we have a podcast. It's a recap podcast for the show Death by Lightning. It's called Chet by Lightning. You can find it wherever you get your podcast. And it's. We did one introductory episode about how we came to love Chester Arthur. And what has Chester been doing up until what we surmised would be the events of the show? And then each episode of the show got one recap episode. There's only four episodes of the show. It's about the assassination of Garfield. But Chester A. Arthur became president, became Garfield died.

And so he's in the show and he's played by Nick Offerman. It's fantastic. I recommend it highly, even if you're not a Chester A. Arthur enthusiast, but. And then we did an episode saying what happened to Chet after the events of the show? And tomorrow we put ourselves out there. We asked a historian who wrote a book. He's not a historian, actually. He's a journalist who wrote a book about President Arthur. We just emailed him and said, hey, we're two friends who have. This podcast was before it started.

And he said, yes, we're interviewing him tomorrow. com and on behalf of Matt and me and inviting Nick Offerman to come on our podcast, explaining who we were and, like, what it is. And turns out we're approaching the top 50 episode recap podcasts on Apple Podcasts, which I guess, okay, good for us. The goal was to have 11 people listen, including us, including Matt and me, But. But to have one of those listeners be Nick Offerman. So. But it would be even better to have him on the podcast. So. And we say that every episode and first episode had more than 11 downloads.

We have well over 200 downloads at this point, which is not a huge number for a podcast. But then when you think about it, it's a podcast about Chester A. Arthur by two people building or building an audience from scratch. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Maybe I just will put to the universe. I intend to interview Nick Offerman for this podcast along with Matt. I think he would be charmed by what we're offering. And so I am excited Speak Wonder that you're doing a personal retreat in early December.

I am excited for you. I'm a big believer in these kind of retreats in these online communities I'm part of, and one of them in particular, I have encouraged everybody. It's a community about goals and becoming our best selves. And I've said to everybody, I've been doing this for years and it's amazing, and I choose my word of the year. So maybe someday, maybe sometime in the next few weeks, I'll do a reveal about what my word of the year is for 2026. I already know what it is. Here's my cat. This is Argyle.

Oh, you're going to a monastery. I'm just going to be sitting here in this room, maybe going to a coffee shop for a while. That's great. Do your retreat. This is Argyle, everybody. He really likes to be part of live streaming and podcasting. So I've gotten a little far afield from community, but I suppose love, what you love is a good basis to figure out who your people are and to find out what communities you want to be part of. I love setting goals. I love personal growth. So I am part of a couple of communities that I pay to be in where I can find other people who believe in those things.

And I'm part of Cadre Speak Wonder says hello, buddy. He's a big fan of mine. Argyle is a fan of mine. His brother Nakatomi is somewhere as well. That's a great place to start to find community, is figure out what you love and then find other people who love it, too. If there were a Chester A. Arthur society, I'd be part of it. I love. You know, my alumni group for my college is pretty active. I do some things with them. Yeah, he's a very pretty cat, which is good because he's the other. They're both very beautiful cats.

One of them, Argyle, is not overburdened with an excess of intellect. That's what I'll say about that. He's very sweet and very easy to please. So community. The benefits of community. Even though I am pulled to isolation, I have set up the infrastructure of my life to de facto have a ton of community and a ton of people. I do have a lot of friends. I do have a lot of friends, but they're scattered around the country at this point. I have a number of friends here in this area. You know, the most of my friends are in Minnesota, of course, but I have a lot of friends here on the east coast because I went to college out here.

So I have been just delighting in getting to spend more time with people because. Because it's easy to get to them by train. You had an editor who owned a cat named Algernon. That's nice. That's a good name for a cat, actually. Argyll is named after the driver who picks up John McClane at the beginning of the movie Die Hard and then has pivotal moments in the rest of the film. Hey, buddy, everybody loves you. So this is a great time to think about community and belonging To. Oh, yeah, he. He and his brother both sort of run the household.

I know by the way he approaches me whether he needs me to pick him up and. And put him in front of his food because he prefers that lots of cats are social leaders, but he takes it to a new level. So this is a good time to be thinking about community and belonging, because next week is Thanksgiving and we are inherently social creatures, which I hate it when people say that because my pull to isolation is so strong. But I also know my whole life goes better when I have more people in it and when I feel embedded in my community, whether it is literally my neighborhood or my city or figuratively, you know, the groups of people that we have managed to find each other since the advent of the Internet, the way we find each other here at Cadre.

So I've gone over a couple minutes. Cadre, may you find the community that you love, but also have the time alone that you need, that you strike the right balance for your full flourishing and growth as a human being. That is my wish for you. That's my wish for you. And we'll talk next week. I'm around. I'll be here. So we'll talk about grief, you know, gratitude, I guess. I also don't. Spoiler alert. I don't like. Gratitude is really hard for me to wrap my brain around. So I do appreciations and I notice abundance in my life, and then I feel the pleasure from appreciating things that I appreciate and.

And. And the pleasure that comes from noticing, like, the abundance in the world and the abundance in my life and that approximation of gratitude. Spoiler alert. So rule number 12, rule number one, love what you love. Rule number 12, put yourself out there. Rule of engagement number 17, people are a good use of time. Guideline number 11, like it or not, company makes life better. That's what I got for you. Have a great week, Cadre. I hope to see you in the app, and I hope that all your dreams come true.

That's my wish for you. If you're hearing my voice, I hope all your dreams come true. Have a great, great week, and I'll see you next week before Thanksgiving.