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The Hoeflinger Podcast
Welcome to the The Hoeflinger Podcast, where Dr. Brian Hoeflinger and Kevin Hoeflinger delve into riveting discussions about life as a neurosurgeon, the world of medicine, healthy living, fitness, and anything else that piques their curiosity. Dr. Brian Hoeflinger, MD, brings his extensive 24 years of experience as a full-time neurosurgeon to educate and inform. Get ready for engaging conversations that will broaden your understanding of the medical realm and beyond!
The Hoeflinger Podcast
#10: Finding Your Way: Julie Hoeflinger's Story
In this episode, Julie Hoeflinger, who recently graduated from Imperial College London with a Masters in Scientific Communication, candidly shares her journey of exploring her real passions, overcoming personal struggles, and finding and being confident in her true self. She recounts her high school days, her undergraduate study in neuroscience and creative writing at The Ohio State University, and a glimpse into her life in London.
Julie is currently doing part-time work for New Scientist, a popular science magazine, in London and is pursuing various opportunities within the field of scientific communication.
Julie Hoeflinger's Blog: https://www.readneurobrew.com/
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Welcome back to episode 10 of the Half Finger podcast, with my co-host here, my dad. We got our special guest, my other sister, julie. She's home from London where she had recently finished her graduate program, and we're going to get into her life story, what it's been like for her from high school and then college and beyond, and what she is passionate about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean Julie. Haven't heard much from her in the podcast yet so she's obviously a half-linger. So she's the last component you're going to hear from, and Julie really likes the brain and neuroscience so it'll be a great conversation today to hear what she's been doing and why she went to London and what her passions are.
Speaker 1:So, julie, welcome to the show. Yeah, hi, hello.
Speaker 2:Before we go through that.
Speaker 1:You wanted to start with what you had been doing. You did a creative communication.
Speaker 3:So, I just got my master's degree in science communication at Imperial College London and I have a bachelor's degree in neuroscience and a minor in creative writing, so science communication was a fun way for me to combine my two passions of neuroscience and writing, and just generally communication.
Speaker 2:So you graduated from Ohio State neuroscience. When was that? It's been a while, so I graduated from Ohio State in 2021.
Speaker 3:I took a year off and just to like figure what I wanted to do and get my grad school application and all that, and then I went to London.
Speaker 1:Well, because I was going to say is you've got some experience with some trying different mediums, you've done some podcasts, you've done as well making some videos, doing stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So, and we'll be in the she's- got quite a social media presence too, in a different way, so we're going to get into that eventually.
Speaker 3:Well, just like briefly overview I because I didn't really explain the communication program. We do journalism, radio, podcast TV, any kind of communication covering science, so my background, of course, is in writing, but I also really I think I can get my passion across more speaking, and so I have gotten into doing videos and social media. I'm working a little bit with new scientists right now and they're which is for people who don't know new sciences. New scientists is just, you know, big science publication. It's like one in London.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's one of the biggest science publications in the world isn't it.
Speaker 3:I don't know what the ranking is. Okay.
Speaker 1:But it's a big publication. So yeah, that's a little overview. There's a lot more we're going to go into, but we'll kind of start. I think maybe you were telling me. So we both went to Ottawa Hills High School and this is Abe for Julie's picking up, abe, right now he likes to be, around, but in high school, what do you think you're most interested in high school? Because you weren't obviously yet into yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean my, my biggest passion my whole life has been writing. It's just something I've done impulsively since I as long as I can remember, but I never thought I could really do anything serious with it, just because like self-esteem issues and imposter syndrome I guess. And but I remember maybe when I was 14 I was like thinking I had like this dream of being like a travel journalist, but then I just never thought I could make it and I kind of gave that up really quickly. And then my other. Obviously I really enjoyed science, but again I didn't think I was good enough to pursue that either and I went to a really competitive school. So that kind of just reinforced those beliefs and I wasn't confident in myself and I was really shy. So I was going to go into marketing because I'm just a creative person and I thought that I could express my creativity that way, in a safe way, in a way that I knew I would be successful. But at the end of the day I just that was like the safe pick, that was a safe pick.
Speaker 3:So I had signed up for that to go to Ohio State to study marketing at the business school.
Speaker 1:Yep, and then what was it? I know Ohio State, so you know Ottawa Hills are graduating class size about like 80 people or so and you go to Ohio. I think our total freshman through senior was like 300 to 400 people at one time. What was it like for you then going to Ohio State where there's like 50,000 plus undergrads or something?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that was awful because you go from somewhere where everyone knows you, everyone knows your story, what you've been through, your family, you live in a really small town and just yeah, the tragedies you've been through. And then I was it coincided with. I like started really struggling with depression my senior year of high school. At the end of it, so that was just a horrible, horrible experience. My freshman year of college yeah, so I pretty much just did not want to be there.
Speaker 2:Well, your dorm. Remember you lived at the dorm that you didn't walk.
Speaker 3:That wasn't why I was depressed, but yeah, I know that, but you walk your long walks to class.
Speaker 2:Used to call us and say yeah.
Speaker 3:I would just put my headphones on, sunglasses, hat, like black or gray clothes every single day, and just I didn't go to class half the time, honestly so. I went to my neuroscience classes, because that was the only thing I cared about.
Speaker 1:I mean you struggled, so you obviously excelled academically all through high school and before you struggled your freshman year of college.
Speaker 3:Yes, I mean I consider myself very happy in high school and like very confident, I had a lot of friends, and then that just kind of like get plummeted my first year because I was going into it depressed and having no self-esteem or self-worth, and then so what?
Speaker 2:what turned it around was getting into the neuroscience program, or what turned everything around?
Speaker 3:No so the neuroscience program. I was going into the marketing school and then a week before I went to university, like I went to college, I just had this like the strongest like intuition I've ever had to switch my major to neuroscience. And it was a word that I wasn't familiar with because I was familiar with neurosurgery but I hadn't really heard like neuroscience. That wasn't a word, I had heard too much, but it like intrigued me and I just on a whim it wasn't really on a whim, but it was probably like the most spontaneous thing I had done at the time was switching my major to neuroscience. And then that like just ignited this passion in me, like even when I was super depressed, that was one thing that I cared about and like that like lit me up. So I just knew I couldn't give it up, even though a psychiatrist told me maybe I was depressed because I wasn't, I wasn't essentially smart enough to be in a neuroscience major and he told me to switch to a different major.
Speaker 3:So shout out to the American Psychiatry System Well. I mean he said to me he said maybe your major's too hard for you. And that was the only thing that was getting me out of bed in the morning.
Speaker 1:Well, people don't. The problem is people can only see a small glimpse only. You have been through all the experiences and have all the thoughts and all the other things inside you. It's impossible for someone else to have that completely. So I mean, you know you're not alone either.
Speaker 2:When, when Brian died, my mother and I went to counseling within the month or two and my wife, my wife. Sorry, but it's Cindy. What am I saying? But, um, you know he had told us that. You know you guys are gonna have a long hard road and you're probably. You know, 90% people get divorced and it's like we, we never went back to counseling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was all negative, but I got lucky. I found a really good therapist and that's what turned it around is like I was reading about these neuroscience studies, about like mirror affirmations and journaling, and I was like, oh, that's sorry bullshit. Oh, like that's bullshit, I'm not how is that gonna lift?
Speaker 1:how is that?
Speaker 3:gonna lift me out of my depression, looking in the mirror and saying things about myself that I don't believe to be true, because I had horrible, just no self-worth at that point and I but then I'm like a science-minded person and if there's evidence saying that it helped people, then I knew that I hadn't tried everything and I couldn't give up yet, like I had to there were until I've tried everything. Then I can give up until I've tried everything that's been scientifically shown to help with depression. And um, and then my therapist, he, he said he was telling me some of these studies and I didn't want to go back to therapy either because my old therapist made me more depressed. But I found one that was like just you, just click, and he was like, understood my way of coping and using humor and not taking things too seriously.
Speaker 1:So I think that was life-changing for me, was my therapist and then wouldn't that be like relationships too, like it's necessarily not the first person me, it's gonna be the best, like so the therapist you have to put in work so you have to keep trying, just like some people like um with, like trying different tactics like journaling might work great. For some people it might not work at all. For some.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you have to. Yeah, you can't give up and say, oh, I'm not gonna try that, that's not gonna work for me.
Speaker 1:You gotta try everything until you find your mix of what works, like meditation or yeah, well, that's a great attitude because, yeah, just experimenting and trying things, keep doing the things that work and just forget about it if it doesn't work. It's not pointful, just because it works for someone else.
Speaker 3:But I don't even know if I would have tried those things if my therapist had one.
Speaker 2:Like if I didn't have, and you think, like once you got in the neuroscience program and you're around people that were more like you and thought like you know because, then you start to meet some people that you hung around though. I found like because I remember you telling me that you were so cool that there were people that thought like you that was junior year.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, I mean there was a few people because there's a lot of people in neuroscience who are going into it for medicine, uh, medical school and money, and we did not have the same. I did not find myself similar to some of those people who I just we didn't have the same values and I'm more of an open-minded person and I was in a sorority and like I won't get into that, but, um, I didn't find people like me and like, um, yeah, I kind of had a hard time finding myself with. Yeah so.
Speaker 2:So when did things turn around for you? Then I'm kind of confused.
Speaker 1:Well, the thing is you're doing great now, so let's figure out how it turns out so things first started um turning around.
Speaker 3:When I started, like the summer after my freshman year, I was like, okay, I'm gonna meditate every single day for 10 minutes. I'm gonna journal every single day for 10 minutes. I'm gonna say affirmations, even if I don't believe them.
Speaker 2:I'm just gonna say them because you have affirmations being for people, positive like I'm smart I am likable, like things that even if you don't believe about yourself so telling yourself things that you want to be like to rewire your brain, because your brain doesn't know the difference between like what's real and that affirmations would go in with like manifestation. No, I'm done, but there are some people who don't know what it is.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to help you know, and so that was the first thing that like turned things around for me. I saw a huge improvement, like after three months of doing that every day so eating healthy and drinking less and um being around real friends, not fake friends or people that don't understand me. I you know people, you're people, whatever.
Speaker 3:I'm not saying, I'm like, yeah, on college definitely opens that up where you can easily get around like very superficial people and I think also like but then I was struggling a lot with like, then COVID and then health anxiety and panic attacks, and so I really had to because I had given up. After I got better, I gave like, I stopped doing a lot of things and so I, to this day, even though I'm very healthier than I've ever been in my life, I still journal and meditate regularly. But also I was really struggling junior year and I think like just gonna say it, coming to terms with my sexuality and things like that and just becoming my truest self and my passions and like finding my people, like that was just. I just feel like fully myself now.
Speaker 1:So yeah, well, I think what we can touch on that too. Um, I think what's something that's really good you said is like you were doing the things and then, once you got better, you like stopped doing them. I think that's like so much the time we do that in life, yes, you forget about what got you to where you are, and then you stop doing it and then yeah, and then you go back, and then it's way harder to go back up again so, yeah, that's something I'll never give up, ever again.
Speaker 3:Like the journal and like write positive things and like goals and um, I read, I just try to maintain like healthy habits, because it's so easy to fall off you're not like fixed it's a lifelong journey, so no, I think about that it's easier journey yeah, it's, truly it's truly journey yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean, do you want to talk about your sexuality? I didn't know if you'd want to talk about that or not. That's up to you.
Speaker 3:If you want, that's part of your journey but I was just gonna say it's part of my journey. But I think finding surrounding yourself with the right people and people who don't get it, don't, people who don't get you, don't get you and they're not for you, and people who really love and accept you, love all of you, um, and so yeah, I think I've tried to uh, make myself an example to young people who like, because for a while maybe it didn't want people to know, but then I realized there's people like me out there who are young and who just like, feel so horrible about themselves and like, if I can be more expressive about it, I can save some people from those like dark feelings, because I think it makes you more of you and I think it makes you even yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you think because of the world we live in now, obviously it's a lot different being non straight like now compared to 20, 50 years ago. Do you think you would have came out or embraced that earlier in your life, or do you think that was a factor, or is it just it all clicked at that time period?
Speaker 3:Well, I think I went to a small school and I grew up Catholic, so I don't think I really had a clear understanding of it when I was younger. I don't know. It's just like.
Speaker 1:Well, columbus is also a lot more progressive of a culture in that city than Toledo, clearly.
Speaker 3:I don't know, it wasn't something that was like for some people I know they know like a really young age or it's very prominent to them. But no, I don't think. I think I actually was very like, came out about it very quickly because I have like a supportive. I had a supportive circle at the time and, like I was, I had done so much therapy that I was so confident in myself and I knew that whatever I did like my therapist would support me, and so I don't know, it's just good to have like people support you and like yeah, so just getting back to your passion for neuroscience, so no, I mean.
Speaker 2:So you finished your neuroscience program in Ohio State and that went well, yeah, so the I and then how did you decide? I mean, how did you end up in London?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I became really confident in my abilities that final year and I did find my people in my senior year at OSU and like and I found my way in neuroscience. I like completely turned my life around from having like a 1.9 GPA to graduating Magna Cum.
Speaker 2:Laude, Wow, 1.9,. Was that one of that At one point?
Speaker 1:at first.
Speaker 3:Well, you got like all 4.0s after that, and then I had to get all 4.0s after that and a couple of grade forgiveness and I graduated Magna Cum Laude. I was the vice president of two organizations and, like these are things that were outside of my wildest imagination, because I had such horrible social anxiety and was like afraid of everyone and I think only through hitting rock bottom could I be where I'm at. Like I have so much confidence, I have so much self-worth, like no, I don't think anyone could ever shake that from me. Like even the most person I respected most I don't think could shake my self-confidence.
Speaker 1:It's drastic because that's what I remember is you were struggling that bad and someone who could think that you're not like it was a neuroscience advisor or something, and you said if mom wasn't a strong example to you, she was like maybe you're not cut out for this and obviously there's it's external factors, because then you just showed that you could give a 4.0 the rest of your semester.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I didn't think I could, and I mean I did it, you know what I said.
Speaker 2:I say this all the time too, because I have patients that come in and here they'll say this doctor said that I'm drug seeking or I'm this or I'm that, and I'm saying I just think to myself. The only way people can hurt you is if you value their opinion, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but when you have no self-worth it's hard to do that.
Speaker 2:I know why value their opinion. That's what hurts you. Obviously, if you value someone's opinion, they say something bad about you. You internalize it because you value their opinion. I mean just don't value their opinion. I mean I didn't.
Speaker 3:I didn't because I stated because I had at least like the smallest inkling that like neuroscience was the one thing I cared about. So I didn't, I didn't. If I gave up neuroscience I would have had nothing left to want to like bike up for, like I wouldn't. So I mean, I knew that I had that and I knew that I was gonna keep at that if it killed me.
Speaker 3:So yeah yeah, but anyway. So then, yeah. So then I was just, I was just so confident I had already hit rock bottom in so many different senses and I, yeah, through experience you gain confidence. So I gained all these experiences and all these friendships and I, you know, gained confidence through that and like I slowly became like less afraid of public speaking and like less afraid of being vulnerable.
Speaker 3:And so then I started having a revelation at that time, like, oh, science communication is like a field I can go into. Science journalism is a field I can go into and I actually could be good at it. And I had an amazing mentor like Dr Gary Wank and he always just was like encouraging me and saying that I could do anything with that. So that also encouraged me a lot as well. And so I had this moment where I went to sit down. I was like, if I'm gonna go into science journalism this was senior year I have to write one science article for a popular audience. And I remember I sat down and I wrote the first sentence and it was. I swam my laptop shut and I didn't look at it again for three months because it was so bad. He's taking a call. Should we keep going?
Speaker 1:Yes, we.
Speaker 3:Okay, and I remember I was horrible because I just hated the idea of this was my dream and if I couldn't do it, well, like it's horrible to sit with that feeling of like can I do this? Like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Well, no, I think like he's. So my dad has had to step away. He's on call, so for the ER, so but for people who aren't watching what you're saying, he's trying to say you know, just don't value other people's opinions, but it's hard, especially when someone's in a position of power doing something you want to do. Before you have built up that base of confidence in yourself because you're still new, while you were like 18 or 19.
Speaker 1:Exactly, you're young, so it's way harder to do that before you've proved to yourself like, oh, I can do this stuff.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and so I remember. Then COVID hit and I just spent every single day, hours a day, working on one article Like I researched. I read a hundred papers, cause like I had to do it, I had to prove myself that I could do this and that other people could think it was good and I it's still one of my favorite articles. It's the one I wrote on Ketamine and cause. I was a TA for psychopharmacology and I was really proud of it and I was like, okay, I can do this. And like people read it and were receptive of it and they said they enjoyed it.
Speaker 3:And I was like, okay, I can do this, like. So, just with that one article, like I proved to myself that this was a realistic dream, it wasn't something outside of my capabilities, and so I started applying to schools and it came down to. I got back from Johns Hopkins and a couple others I can't remember.
Speaker 2:but I remember, I remember Edinburgh was one year at the. University of Edinburgh in Scotland and then out in California was really stable, yes, so Santa Cruz yeah, uc Santa Cruz great school.
Speaker 3:But I remember, cause that was originally my top school and I remember I was like on the wait list and there was two other people on the wait list but all 10 people accepted their offer. And I remember, oh, like cause I had just was so determined going to California and then I got an acceptance letter from Imperial College London, which was my reach school. Like I did not think I was going to get into this school and I did and I'm so happy I ended up there, like I couldn't have found a more perfect program with the most genuine, humble, passionate, amazing, creative, funny people. I feel like I finally found my people and my place and I feel like I won the lottery.
Speaker 1:So yeah, except for the building there.
Speaker 3:Their classroom.
Speaker 1:I visited. I was in London in May and their class, the, that's an older building, Okay.
Speaker 3:So we got the and we got a less funded building because we're a newer segment of the school. It's a science school. So like, the engineering building is sick and like the the Royal Opera.
Speaker 1:I just thought that was funny.
Speaker 3:They have the coolest, most like old, like sculptured buildings, and then we have more like a modern, like 70s, 80s, five.
Speaker 2:So so she just finished her program there, but it was a year program. But tell us, like, how was it adapting? People going to know, like you know, coming from a small town in Toledo, ohio, and moving to London by yourself.
Speaker 3:So I feel like I overcame my social anxiety when I had to come out to the and and after being depressed. I think after going through that you can't, no one can really bring you down any like. You've already been through the worst socially, the most socially you know unacceptable things, I guess Socially not unconventional, whatever you want to say and so no one could really like bring down my confidence after that Because, I don't know, I just built up such like self love that I am and just keeping up my mental health routines and, yeah, like slowly exposing myself, like me creating a neuroscience blog. I had written in my diary when I was eight years old like create a blog one day. But that was a dream for when I was like 50, I told myself, because I was so afraid of showing people myself and my work and so you do, you do little things to to expose yourself.
Speaker 2:The blog is so people can go to it. Yeah, they're gonna want to look. You know, check your blog. Her blog's really cool. It talks about things with the brain and neuroscience and brings it down to a simple way that you can understand it. You know, it's really.
Speaker 3:I try to like tell a story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so why don't you have people describe it? Yeah, where can they find it?
Speaker 3:So it's called read neuro brew com.
Speaker 2:I haven't been able to read. Read neuro brew Dot com.
Speaker 3:I haven't been able to make any personal posts like recently, because it's I don't need to plug it, that I don't.
Speaker 2:Well, no, you know how do you have to? People want to. So if someone wants, to.
Speaker 1:I'll put it in the show notes like the exact thing, but it's read, read. And then it's neuro n? E? R.
Speaker 2:You are Any. You should have been on a spell, drew brew.
Speaker 3:We know it's okay Okay. They don't know, you know okay, and so I haven't been able to make a lot of like my own enjoyable personal um Posts of choice, because I've been working for a lot of different internships and I'm writing for them and making content for them, but I also have like a list of my publications through those organizations on a different tab.
Speaker 2:But anyway, so, yeah, like so you're I just go back because I think so. Your um Neuro brew site is. You sign up like a newsletter, right? Don't you put out some like once a month?
Speaker 3:No, I just said, I haven't been able to do that. It's like she used to do it more consistently. It's like a blog. It's like a blog. Okay, it's like a blog.
Speaker 1:So she's got articles on there, but now she's got articles and other stuff. She has a tick tock and a funny thing on. She had a tick tock before we ever started my dad's tick tock and she had A tick tock on sleep. She does the same thing, she realized, like people. It's the. The whole idea of what she's trying to do is Science and stuff that she's interested in trying to find new mediums Like a tick tocker as new, different things come out social media apps and put it in that format.
Speaker 1:New audiences yes, to reach the newer the most audience, just like what we've done with dad's stuff, and you have one that had like millions of views on on sleep. Yes, I'll get there.
Speaker 3:The whole point of me making the blog was that I was in my neuroscience classes and I'm learning all of this really useful information, like things that you would want to know, that you didn't know, like how, how a lack of sleep is like damaging you and so Many ways, even just five hours a night and I was like how does everyone not know this? This is like basic, I don't know. There's just so many cool things I was learning and like I was like people need to hear about this and I don't. I don't see it talked about enough.
Speaker 3:People my age of people, young people, yeah, and so I made the blog and then after that, I was like I was seeing how easy it was for videos to Reach people on tick tock and obviously it's not everyone likes reading and I wanted to reach young people who otherwise Wouldn't have sought out this information and just like help them apply it to their lives or maybe they find it interesting or useful. And so I started making the tick tock and I remember that was another. Like one of the scariest things I had done Was putting out A tick tock.
Speaker 3:That was a scary putting yourself out there Putting yourself out there and I had the biggest phobia of just being seen by people and like the biggest fear of public speaking, like panic attacks all the time and like hated being, like looked at and like You're just because it's vulnerability. But I was in like a relationship. I had good friends and like I was just feeling yeah, confident, and like I had a, I had my family supporting me. So I remember I just did it and then, once you do it a few times, like you just You're, like, oh, this isn't so bad and it's yeah, it's building up this portfolio of experiences so you can look back and be not even consciously look back, but be like, oh, like I, I'm capable of doing these things, like I am confident.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, usually when you do something, your your worst fear doesn't even come close to coming true, so like we suffer more in our imagination than in reality. So, but yeah, you have to. Once you do, until you do that, you can tell yourself, oh, like the worst won't come. But unless you actually force yourself to do it and see it's all right. And then do the next one. You don't truly like. Feel that deep within you, not like consciously thinking about it.
Speaker 3:Because I was thinking, oh, like my friends, people from high school are gonna see it and make fun of me and think, oh, she's trying so hard and like yeah she wants to be famous or she thinks she's good at this, like she's no idea what she's talking about.
Speaker 3:But then you have to start somewhere. Like my website started from nothing. I like built the website myself. My tiktok started from nothing. And like now I have like an entire portfolio, publications and like features and Videos. And you have to start somewhere. Like you're gonna look like an idiot and that's how how anyone learned to do anything new.
Speaker 1:Well, you start to learn too, because that's the biggest thing ever. Especially, we grew up in the social media age and christy was talking about this On like episode five or episode six, when she's talking about being a young mother is here. At first You're so worried about everyone else, like all these people you grew up with. Everyone can see you on social media. Then you slowly start to like not care anymore. You're your own person, you have your own life and you start to get past that and then you realize also Most people are never even coming close to thinking of you.
Speaker 3:You think about yourself way more. I think my biggest prison my whole life was other people's perception of me and being imprisoned by previous versions of myself or other people's expectations.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was imprisoned by other people's vision of me my whole life.
Speaker 2:And then I realized like but that was your mind, what you thought. The envisioning is like yes, it's like when you spend all this time being dressed up to go out and you think the whole world's looking at you. And really no, yes, but there are just. You think everybody's looking at you and then that paralyzes you.
Speaker 3:Yes, but there are people when I came out and started, like if I started maybe dressing differently, or like when I came out, people are like oh, that's not julie. Like you know what I mean? Because they they have a vision of who you are and you actually were hiding parts of yourself, like I was hiding the way I really wanted to dress, or I was hiding the way I really wanted to express myself, or shit. Then no one knew what that I wrote. Like I was hiding so much of myself and I was imprisoned by other people's expectations of me and breaking free of that and just realizing, I always just say, like Life is just sims, like I'm, you can just wake up and be a new person. If you want, you can wake up and talk differently, you can wake up and pick up a new hobby, and that's literally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no you. Each day you get to make a decision of who you are. But, yeah, you should by no means by like being trapped by Society or culture or what you've done in the past should not trap you until but it does for so many people.
Speaker 1:You know it's easy to get that way because if you say you have a bunch of friends or you've had a bunch of professional success Acting and being a certain way, it's very hard to then Risk all the yes and yourself also. It's very hard to risk being someone else and then be that, that version, who's your truth, your authentic version, being rejected.
Speaker 3:Yes, you were rejected by your yeah, exactly when it's your authentic self.
Speaker 1:So if you put up a that's why some people it's also like the same thing of like like in high school or something I mean going oh, I didn't really try in that test, because then if you failed, it's okay, but if you, if you tried, that's, there's always be a thing if you're trying at sports or like school, if you're trying too hard, people like make fun of it. Yeah. So there becomes this thing where people don't try, because then they always have a failsafe of oh. Fully try, because that's the scariest thing.
Speaker 2:And I'll try to pull it out. This is an age thing too. I mean, as as I've gotten, though are you guys? Well, too, as we get to be my age, I don't care anything to me because you're comfortable in your own skin. You've lived your own life. I don't care if somebody doesn't like my clothes or the way I talk or what I do, because I know I'm confident who I am in my life and you'll get there, it's just it's a bridge.
Speaker 3:I feel like I've reached that. I truly the reason I feel like there is yeah we should hear that.
Speaker 3:The reason I feel like I've reached that a young age because it's because I hit like a rock bottom so like and a lot of people have too at a young age and I wouldn't be where I'm at now if I had it like fast-tracked that process for me, and I think vulnerability is my greatest strength, honestly, and um, yeah, I think that like fear of rejection thing is really scary. But then I always told myself the people who are gonna stay in my life are meant to be in my life and the people who I lose were not meant to be there in the first place. And I was perfectly and I'll find the people I will be more aligned with the people I'm meant to be with and I am now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also it's adversity in your life that makes you strong and it is, I mean, for people who don't have a lot of adversity in their life, they can still be strong, but it's not, it's different. I mean, adversity really brings out the true colors of you. You learn to gain confidence in yourself.
Speaker 3:You don't rely on other people's opinions so much for sure and I think like yeah, going to London like was kind of a test of my like newfound Confidence and I wouldn't have like made I would. I don't think I would have stayed over there If I didn't have that, because those first few months when everyone is a stranger, even your new friends, they don't know you, they know nothing about you. All your old comforts are gone, you are alone, you're depressed, nothing is familiar, nothing, and you've nowhere to run, you have no comfort to seek like. You are just alone, like depressed. But I wasn't depressed, I was just like. I knew it would pass.
Speaker 2:I knew yeah, but wasn't there, wasn't there a component to a little excitement? Because London, my god, you're in London, it's a cool city, I know really I was.
Speaker 3:I mean, I was hoping to get to that point.
Speaker 2:Well, now there's excitement, now there's so much excitement.
Speaker 3:I was hoping, I had hope, but like, yeah, and I was just going through a breakup, and it's the same thing, it's the same process as going through a breakup. You're leaving everything you've loved and known, everyone who knows you, and you're no one in like, no one, like you're by yourself. A lot of like, yeah, you're meeting new people, but like you feel so alone and you have to just like, know that relationships, friendships, they take time and you just have to commit to like those sitting with those horrible feelings and just sitting with them until you get to the other side. And I did and I don't want to leave now and I'm the happiest and I've met, like I feel like I've made a life there.
Speaker 1:You've been there what? Just a little over a year, right.
Speaker 3:Just a year exactly almost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so no, and I think too it does you kind of have to force it at the beginning. You have to force yourself to go, like try to meet new people, go, do this and Say yes to everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah and sitting at discomfort and then, once you start having friends and those people you really like, then you can start kind of you know, then saying no to different things that you've got going on yeah, cause now like I have like yeah, cause you can feel like you're okay saying no because, yeah, you have a friend now who knows you and they get your humor and they understand your past and things like that, so you feel like you belong.
Speaker 2:So what was the future hold for you to think like? What are you looking towards?
Speaker 3:Future is lemmelist, so I'm just going where the wind blows me. I'm staying in London, at least for one more year. I'm open to like really going anywhere over there. I am just looking for any like science journalism job.
Speaker 2:So you're looking for, so you're looking for a job now, right? Yes, I'm unemployed.
Speaker 3:for them, I just graduated and I am switching over to a graduate visa but really anything science communications related, so it could be public outreach. There's like some museums and stuff that organizations that do outreach. Yeah, right now, for you can do social media videos for like new scientists. I'm just doing that kind of like an internship, so I take their articles or I seek out my own science and I do what I do on my TikTok I research it, I script it, I film it, edit it and ideally I think I want to do journalism.
Speaker 1:but there's so many different things I want to do within science communication I won't like so what does say like 10 years from now, what does your dream like life slash dream professional life look like?
Speaker 3:10 years. Well, I think I want to do some travel journalism if I could, if I got that opportunity.
Speaker 1:If no one said no to about anything and you could design exactly the thing that you wanted to do, like you wanted to be a travel journalist, with also having videos, like also having a personal brand, and then what would that look like to you if you could?
Speaker 3:Well, one day.
Speaker 3:I wanted to start by making this app where I do kind of what I do with my neuroscience videos, but it's like a resource specifically about the brain.
Speaker 3:But it incorporates, because most science magazines are read by mostly people who are already interested in science or who are older, and I want to engage like young people who maybe don't really care about science, and so I really like art magazines aesthetically. I think they're so engaging and compelling visually, and so I want to make a cross between an art magazine and a science magazine but make it into an app and make that like a free resource for young people, teenagers, I don't know, gen Z, age range, and just converting all because I mean your brain. I say this on my blog your brain is the one thing that dictates your entire human experience, and most people don't know like the first thing about how it works, and so I want everyone to know how their brain works and enjoy it and use it to the best of their ability. But I think it'd be cool to start a brand not brand, maybe like, yeah, turn the app one day into like sort of what were we talking about?
Speaker 2:Like a violent like a Right. You were just talking to Kara the other day, to me, about how, if you had-.
Speaker 1:All the money and resources.
Speaker 2:Resource and I reached that level. What I'd really like to do is help people who don't-.
Speaker 3:Underprivileged.
Speaker 2:Underprivileged people and not for gain. So you're not looking to gain. What's it called?
Speaker 3:What's it called A charity, a charity Organization for students?
Speaker 1:Yeah, making them interested in neuroscience, the way that in a way yeah, we're not a profit or social enterprise.
Speaker 3:For kids who don't have the opportunity to do what you've done and to make it accessible and enjoyable and so setting up something like that once, like in the way in the future, when I have like the time and the money as a charity.
Speaker 2:It'll be the Julie neuroscience.
Speaker 3:No, and the J&I yeah, j, I like it, but also I really at my goal, since I've been like literally like seven years old, is to I would like to write at least one book about some neuroscience aspect. But it's not science book, it's a narrative, and then you incorporate research and you tell a story, like one of my favorite books is about, like the consciousness of an octopus and it's really it's like a love story, essentially about an octopus, but throughout the whole thing she's presenting a case for why octopods have consciousness and what's that book called and who's it by?
Speaker 3:for people that it's called the soul of an octopus, and it's a beautiful narrative like it. You could read it as just a piece of narrative.
Speaker 2:Not learning about science but you would learn about. There's a show on Netflix. Have you watched it in the sky?
Speaker 3:My teacher, the octopus teacher. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:He has like a year experience with an octopus and they become really good friends and he learns how aware they are of themselves and of him, and then in the end ends up dying or something. Yeah, that's what happens in the book. It was horrible. It's like a love story, it's a love story.
Speaker 3:I cried at the end, but she also, it's a good movie she talks so much about the science of octopi and what they sense in their brain.
Speaker 2:They're super smart and emotional.
Speaker 3:Yeah, emotional.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that's like in many different formats what's powerful is when you tell something, just like documentaries. You can learn interesting things, but it's in an engaging way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's what I want to write a book like that one day, about a topic of my choice.
Speaker 1:What do you think the topic would be?
Speaker 3:I mean, I've always leaned towards, like mental health grief, but also animals. I love animals, like climate, the environment. I love marine life. So it could be something like that, or I could write a few, but I would just need time and money. But that's in 10 years.
Speaker 1:That would be the dream, well, yeah you just have to keep I think you just keep building up a base, because then a lot of there's so many different ways you can publish nowadays. There's people still go traditional, but there's also many ways to self publish and do other things.
Speaker 3:But it's hard with those researched books, like you really need time and you get to travel a little bit the world's limitless.
Speaker 1:It's all about thinking about everything you've overcome.
Speaker 3:I know it's crazy.
Speaker 2:Now, your future is so bright.
Speaker 3:It's shining like the sun. Wow, leaving you guys behind she's leaving us behind. No, they can visit me.
Speaker 1:We went past this kind of, but I want to ask what was it like, you know, when you were still in college? I had just graduated. I'm a year older than Julie in school 15 months older so I had just graduated from Ohio State right before COVID hit. I graduated semester early, but what was it like being in college during COVID?
Speaker 3:I mean I don't know Like we. It was nice in a way, I felt lucky because I lived with college roommates and my friends and I think it would be really hard if you're living alone at a different stage in your life. So I felt like at least I'm in this with my friends.
Speaker 2:But you didn't go to class, right? No?
Speaker 3:So yeah, obviously after a while your eyes, when you're staring at a screen for so long, you start to dissociate. When you go out into the real world, like when I would go on walks, I felt like I was outside of my body kind of, and because I was like struggling with some family stuff For some people it's just a major like some people love the quarantine aspects of stuff too, versus other people Like they kind of thrive, they're fine just being alone.
Speaker 1:Other people like not being able to go out and socialize, and even for a year or two after. Like that takes a massive toll. Like it's so weird not socializing with people, even if it's just going out to get dinner and stuff.
Speaker 3:Like, yeah, I appreciate my alone time, but like I feel like I consider myself now to be an extrovert and introvert, because I used to always consider myself introvert. But I need to like be my friends, not necessarily strangers, like that. I do enjoy interacting with new people all the time, but I need to be with my friends like regularly. So I think like part of these, podcasts that we do.
Speaker 2:I think the fun part is at the end kind of seeing, like what do you think you can help somebody with? Like you know we sit around and talk, but I think there's parts of this that people out there watching can learn something and maybe change your life a little bit. And so I'd like that's Julie, because I think Julie is a very positive person.
Speaker 2:She's really done some special things in her life and I think she got a really bright future. But you know, what would you say to someone out there who is just starting college or struggling with mental health and think I can never do anything, I can never be anything? I mean, you're a great example to people out there right now, I think, and you know what can you do to help them maybe do something with their life that they think they can't do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was, yeah, I was nine, I was 18. I had a 2.9 after, after great forgiveness, and I was just turning, you know, my mental health around. I was just in the process of turning my mental health around and there was a moment where I was like how I can never get to where I want to be. I can never get. I failed these classes. How can I, how can I pass this class, let alone graduate college? Do well, get a job, get an internship. I could.
Speaker 3:I was afraid of like I didn't even think I would get into a lab, Like I was at like ground base, Like I was just looking at everything and I just remember, like you have to like forget all of that and say what can I do today? What is right in front of me? What can I do today? And my goal I remember my very first goal that I wrote down on a piece of paper was like drink more water and meditate for 10 minutes and I had nothing. I had nothing on my resume, like in college I had.
Speaker 3:I was like I can do this, I can drink water, We'll worry about the rest of that. Like that's not for today. I can't solve the world's problems today, and I think, just like every time in my life where I've been going through something hard, it was always just can you put one foot in front of the other, which is saying as old as time, but it's so powerful if you can just narrow in your focus on just that next step. And then, before you know it, what's that quote? Before you know it, you've crossed the ocean, or whatever.
Speaker 2:And that's what you even count in every summer, because you say a lot of this stuff too, like one task at a time.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean because, if not, if you, you have to have like very, if you want to have lofty goals, you have to break them out down into like the smallest, simplest step, or you're just paralyzed.
Speaker 3:You're completely paralyzed, james.
Speaker 1:Clear talks about atomic habits, stuff like that. Because I agree so much, you get so much momentum, I think even sometimes just like cleaning your room and you it's, it's, you did something, yeah, you feel accomplished about it and then you can do the next thing. But because there's yeah, there's no point if you can't jump into, like the hardest thing when you're already down. But that's why it's so important to keep the momentum go. I always write about momentum, I remember.
Speaker 2:I just can't say so. I'm just curious to. So it sounds so simple, like so somebody's out there right now watching, they're struggling, I think. I mean, so I'm going to drink water today, what do I do the next day? I mean, give them a, give them a breakdown for, like the first for two weeks. Say, somebody's out there struggling right now, what can they do for two weeks in a row to try to turn things around? This is what I did.
Speaker 3:This is my very first thing, I called it like the note card. This is what changed everything I started accomplishing. It's called the note card method. I remember I was just at my wits end and I was like this, all this noise in your head, how, how, how, how, blah, blah and I just took out an index card and I wrote down.
Speaker 3:There were three sections. The first one was like a task I know I can accomplish, which was drink water and Meditator 10 minutes. That was my first section. This is not an index card. And then the second section was like maybe goals, and the maybe goal was I like five of them. And it was like become a TA, get into a lab, get a 4.0 in this class or get an A in this class.
Speaker 3:And those were still like big, very big goals. I didn't think I could accomplish, but I wrote them down because I just I needed to get them. You got to get out of your head and you have to put your dreams on paper even if you think you'll never accomplish them. And then the very bottom. It was like go. It was like start a blog and like study abroad and like that was to me that was gonna have to be years down, like I didn't think I would make a blog, like I said, till I was 50, and I was not afraid of anything, and I ended up checking off like everything on the index card in a year.
Speaker 3:And it all just started with just like writing, just writing it down, even if it's so, the most revolutionary thing my therapist ever said to me all started with the affirmations and he was like, yeah, you say nice things to yourself. And I was like I can't do that because I don't believe any of it. And he goes Okay, then add to each the end of each affirmation, even if I don't believe it yet. So, like I am smart, even if I don't believe it yet, I am worthy, I am likable and interesting, even if I don't believe it yet. It's all look in the mirror and I'll be like this, like I would just be like pouting, but that was just revolutionary because I could get on board with that, because at least it wasn't dishonest.
Speaker 2:How long do you think you had to do that to actually believe it?
Speaker 3:Well, I think after literally I think after like four months, I might like went from depressed to like having goals and being ambitious again and being happy again. But I don't think it really like I don't think it's become unshakable until after, like I don't know, like a year or two. But I was also young and like going through different things, so it could be different for someone else. Yeah, every day.
Speaker 2:Or once a day, or just once a day.
Speaker 3:Just once a day, I mean I'll do. Nowadays I only journal like maybe a couple times a week, but I'll still write things like well it's, it's changed a lot, based on like your needs. But like like a couple years ago, it would be like I am a great public speaker and I did not. I was horrible. I was the only person in my class to get a B in public speaking and that was like the easiest class ever because I would go up there and freeze and my whole face would turn red and I panic like and I couldn't talk and it was so humiliating. I said one performance when I was acting, because apparently I was. I did a British accent for that one.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:I got an A on that, but public speaking at home, anyway, so that's my how.
Speaker 1:I did it Interesting. That's very interesting, no, but I think. I think that is everyone goes their own pace. But yeah, you the you know, saying and doing something comes first before actually feeling that way, yes, yes Because exactly this book I read. The biggest thing, like the actions of confidence come before the feelings of confidence, which is such like a paradigm shift because you would think you're all these people feel confident, then they go out and act confidently, but that's not really how it works.
Speaker 3:Every everything I've ever done. That like put myself in a vulnerable position, like I was scared, shitless Like I was, like I would rather die than post this right now. I would like I want to jump off a bridge after this. Like you know you, just you act. Or like people like, oh, you're so brave for going to London. Like I was scared I was not, I didn't just go there Like I was still scared. Like everything I've done, that's a big step.
Speaker 2:You do it in the one way that says that, oh you, you did it, but that's because they're scared to really don't want to do it. I was like oh, she must just be strong.
Speaker 3:It's the you know, out of your comfort zone. I, everything I've ever accomplished is because I was scared to death and I did it anyway.
Speaker 1:Right, you're outside your comfort zone, so you're forced to grow, but I think that's what you were saying is that's it's like people all the time saying like, oh, this, this city, x city I live in sucks, and it's like, but they never move anywhere. Because it's easy to say that someone else, who, I should do that, but then no relationship that it shouldn't be in people. Yeah, people don't. They say all that in the grass greener, but like they're at the end of the day, everyone doesn't want to step off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, change going out like I cried every day in London for like a few months, but I knew that that was a necessary step to getting to the other side. So like you have to just sometimes things need to get worse before they can get you sometimes have to take a step backwards before you take two steps forward, and it's all.
Speaker 1:It is all that different stuff and there's, I guarantee there's gonna be times like you've been low and there's gonna be times where you, you stumbled back down again. Probably, almost certainly in life, everyone but, you can, but not.
Speaker 3:But I think one thing I have a tattoo of an arrow that I got for my brother who passed away, Because it was always like, yeah, when life pulls you back, it's because you're gonna launch forward. So I put that next to his birthday as like a reminder that even after you go through something horrible, there's a what yeah, you can like well, you almost see it like a face book and things, but it's a good saying, it's.
Speaker 2:You know, success is only on the other side of fear. Yes, yeah, because you have to get through that or your best life is on the other side of fear, right.
Speaker 3:And I think, like going through Brian's death especially has shaped so many of my decisions in my life because, or so many decisions where I was scared because, like I could be dead right now I will be. I'll be six feet under the ground before I know it. Why?
Speaker 2:you wouldn't even have that chance.
Speaker 3:It's a powerful and it's almost like this whole thing is a simulation and you can just you could be dead tomorrow. It could be, and so why not just do it today? You could just not wake up tomorrow, so I always that really shapes my perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if there's not like consequences for doing something most, if there's not like true consequences for doing it like, just go try it, just try it a chance, because it might, that might be like the thing that completely changed.
Speaker 3:I mean even if you lose friends, like I mean, depending on what you're doing.
Speaker 1:They're probably not good friends. They're probably not good friends.
Speaker 3:Why would you want to be around people who don't value you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, if it's, if you're doing something, you genuinely enjoying stuff. Like not understood that like someone like making fun of another person for doing something they like they're insecure.
Speaker 3:They're insecure and they're. They don't know themselves and don't like themselves.
Speaker 1:Well, they can't look in the mirror and say that they're doing what they truly want. No, that's why so many people aren't following their, they don't follow their passions.
Speaker 3:And so distance yourself from those people. That's also just like you got to get away from those people. There's, there's going to be people who all they do is uplift you, like I remember in college, just people who just really want to see you fall down because they're jealous or I don't know. And you got to get away from those people, if you can. Yeah you don't need all that.
Speaker 1:You are you are who you surround yourself with.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:And yeah, so it's very important, no matter, even though it's hard sometimes, but spending less time with those people that aren't uplifting you and trying to, yeah, and spending time with the people who are uplifting you, challenging you to be a better person, doing all those things, that's just kind of like a cheat code of helping you guys both like kind of level up through life together.
Speaker 3:Like my friends now. I mean we've never competed. Like we're always congratulating each other, lifting each other or complimenting each other, like I can't. I can't even remember a time when I was with friends who were talking behind my back, or like why would you even so, beyond being threatened by someone?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you know the power like power people are threatened to the people that try to bring you down.
Speaker 1:Yes, they don't want you to exceed well, they see, they see life as a zero sum game, where you have to lose for someone else to win. When everything's everything's in that positive. Once you start seeing things as like win, win scenarios in life and you try to genuinely help others and you put the energy, I think good things happen to you.
Speaker 3:And I think a lot of people give up when they do a lot of good for other people and they keep getting stomped on and I understand that because I've been there. I was like bullied a lot in junior high and like I know what it is to want to turn around and get your revenge or oh I people are so horrible to me, what's the point of being good? But I promise, like you get out of high school and get out of college even you're gonna find people who appreciate your kindness and reflect it back to you and like your soft heart, like don't give that up for anyone. Like it's so easy to turn cold, but just you'll get there.
Speaker 1:All right, so anything else you want to say, I think it's a good point to end it. It's good podcast.
Speaker 3:Keep loving everyone.
Speaker 1:We're gonna try to do how much you're here for the week, right? Yeah, four days which four days, maybe we'll get one more and with her, which I think it's.
Speaker 2:We ought to do like a, because you know the biochemical stuff of depression and stuff, I think people are interested. We should do like a. Depression and anxiety Talk about the brain.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the brain and how? How the dopamine and the dopamine and what's going on we can talk about how the drugs work a little bit.
Speaker 3:That's a really good.
Speaker 2:I know about that Like eating healthy and getting exercise and sleeping good. That all helps too.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so if you're listening, to watching this today, then we'll. We have a new episode every Saturday, so that will aim for that one to be the next episode of that interest.
Speaker 3:You got Research on mental health. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Thanks everyone, I'll be a great day. Bye, bye.
