Crafting a Compass for Cultural and Personal Integrity with Nicole Devlin

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 0:05

Welcome to Transacting Value, where we talk about practical applications for personal values when dealing with each other and even within ourselves. Where we foster a podcast listening experience that lets you hear the power of a value system for managing burnout, establishing boundaries and finding belonging. My name is Josh Porthouse, I'm your host and we are your people. This is why values still hold value. This is Transacting Value.

Nicole Devlin: 0:34

Because, at the end of the day, you know, I think real peace is found by not having regrets, and the only way I can feel like I have no regrets is to understand that I had the power to make my own choices.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 0:46

Today on Transacting Value. What does it mean to be able to stop, take stock of your life, take stock of how you come across to other people and develop some inner level and degree of confidence? How do you even do that when you lack the awareness of how you come across to people? What ideas, what options do you have? What resources can you find in your life to be able to gain some perspective? So, our next contributor as we come onto the show today, we're talking with Nicole Devlin. She's a small business coach out of New York, but she's also talking about confidence, and she's also talking about these intergenerational issues that can cause problems in our perspective. More importantly, though, that are actually defining the subcultures that we see in America today. So, as we dive into our June, core values of exploration, travel and discovery stay with us. Stay tuned, folks. Without further ado, I'm Porter, I'm your host, and this is Transacting Value.

Nicole Devlin: 1:40

I'm all right. I'm glad to be here. Good to talk about these kinds of things Travel, discovery, self-awareness. I'm glad to be here.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 1:47

Good to talk about these kinds of things Travel, discovery, self-awareness I love it. Yeah, I'm glad you're here. There's a lot of things that I've seen Initially when you spoke to our show's producer about a lot of these topics. I'll be honest with you, I wasn't sure how to tie them together because there's so much depth you packed into 15 minutes. I'm not entirely sure how we're going to be able to get everything into 45, but we're going to try, and I think I think this is an important place to start in any conversation, in any relationship, as it applies to awareness and boundaries, safety, security, even biases that we exhibit in society as we walk to the grocery store or whatever. Who are you? Where are you from? Okay, take a couple minutes. What sort of things have shaped your perspective? Let's build some resonance for listeners.

Nicole Devlin: 2:30

Wow, okay, so I love it. You listen to 15 minutes and wonder if you could pack it all in. Welcome to my life.

Nicole Devlin: 2:38

And it's been like the greatest business dilemma Well, here's my purpose, but no, it's this, but no it's that. But it's really this because that's me, but it's really that because that's not me. And that's what I need to develop into right, because life is ever changing, moving, and if you're in fact, on the firing line of life, you're in that same mode also. Otherwise you get stuck and swept away. You'll hear a lot of analogies about me that have to do with water and swimming, maybe because I'm an aquarian, maybe because I actually swim in the ocean. So I feel like there's great power in understanding elements, and I also feel like just understanding movement and I'm an active exercise exerciser. So I really believe that movement is trans transformational.

Nicole Devlin: 3:20

But who am I? It's that's the greatest question that I don't know, that I have yet found the answer. I'm Nicole, I'm a being, I'm a woman, I am a Gen Xer, I am real, I am honest. So I could use character, assets and attributes and I could use labels Right, and either can define me, depending on where I'm trying to go. I've even had maybe some difficulty trying to define what I do in business, because we live in a world that makes perfect sense when someone says what do you do? And you say I'm a lawyer, I'm an accountant, but I don't necessarily have the luxury of a job from a vocational manual, simply because what I do for a living is about who I am. You know, when you talk about values I was thinking about this this morning you know and travel and discovery.

Nicole Devlin: 4:11

I've lived in all kinds of neighborhoods. I grew up in a borough in New York, I moved to Long Island, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, I've lived in Paris, France, and now I'm back in. I was in Brooklyn for seven years, before and through the pandemic, and I moved back to Long Island. I've lived in neighborhoods where I was a minority. I've lived in neighborhoods where everybody looks just like me and I've lived in places where people don't speak my language and you know you adapt right and you find out through your neighborhood, through what's happening, I found out who I am. I found out what I wanted more of. I found out more about the questions I had about culture and bias and different things like that, and as I've moved forward, I've evolved to try to find out what it is then that I'm supposed to do in the world, whether it's helping people, not for money, or actually doing something as a job title. And so you know it's a great question who am I?

Nicole Devlin: 5:11

I'm also a collection of organic matter existing in a space of time, be it physical and material.

Nicole Devlin: 5:18

But I also believe that when I was birthed, when I was pushed out through the birth canal, I was infused with a sort of otherworldly energy that some people like to call God, the divine, higher consciousness.

Nicole Devlin: 5:31

I don't really care, like I'm not so concerned with what to call it, but I believe there's more happening here than this and this, and it actually goes deeper and you find it kind of under and behind the belly button, and so I'll end on this the best way to define myself isn't through a label, it's through the understanding that there's a superhighway happening here, and if I neglect any piece, I'm sort of screwed, I'm sort of non-complete. You know, mental, emotional and even we'll call this spiritual or higher self or other consciousness. You know it's that unseeable, unnameable energy. If you and even we'll call this spiritual or higher self or other consciousness. You know, it's that unseeable, unnameable energy, if you will, and when I'm in alignment on all those three things, I got power and I'm able to move and shake and be and do things that I wasn't able to do just through education and intellect and just through understanding my feelings. So I think I answered your question.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 6:26

So, first off, great point. I'll have to refine that question in the future and make it a bit more specific, but I think the point for one that anybody who is listening to this conversation couldn't see, is that, Nicole, you were pointing essentially mentally, emotionally, spiritually, this alignment, this superhighway you were talking about basically like head, emotionally, spiritually, this alignment, this super highway you were talking about basically like head, heart and this sort of reproductive magic, right and so, to make an efficient super highway. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not a civil engineer, I really don't actually know what this entails. So don't get super braced if you're really excited about hearing how to lay a road. But I think when you're talking metaphorically about efficiency on any particular superhighway, as an analogy, right, electrical conduits, actual physical roads, spiritually, and our ability to think and focus, it has to come down to a degree of awareness of where are the bottlenecks. And then how do we work around those things in any and every sense right, where are there better placements in, say, some degree of circuitry for a capacitor, or where are the resistors in place, and so on and so forth, to make it efficient? In Chinese folklore, for example, and maybe even more so I don't want to misrepresent it, but I'm going to use it. So here we go, the difference to a difference to westernized culture being that your brain guides your body, vice, your heart guides your body because it's ultimately going to override your brain if there's enough willpower involved.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 8:01

So there's, there's a lot of different aspects, I think, that affect a lot of different people, and so I agree with you when we're talking about who we are, it's obviously a loaded question because it all depends on the framework, it all depends on the lens that you're perceiving the most accurate answer, but I think a lot of that stuff also happens when we communicate with people. You mentioned cultural bias earlier. How are we interacting with people or, for that matter, who we're interacting with ultimately is only going to depend on well, where do we see the most resistance? Where do we see the most capacity for an efficient relationship or effective or some degree of friendliness or safety or security, whatever?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 8:38

Now, you moved a lot all over the place, in totally different regions, effectively, right, there's changes of activities as a lot all over the place and in totally different regions, effectively right, there's changes of activities as a baseline, changes of culture and language as a baseline, changes of obvious environment as a baseline, and so you've changed you as a person, in lieu of those things, I'm assuming. And so when you say movement is transformational along all of these moves, let's talk travel for a second. What influences, what aspects of your travels have you actually brought back with you as like your go-to carry-on lessons when it comes to socializing with people, interpreting the world around you? What did you carry back?

Nicole Devlin: 9:22

Short answer is it's not all about me. So I grew up and I minded my own business. I didn't have a lot of friends. I was smart, I loved school. I came home, I read books and tried to stay out of my family and find my own space.

Nicole Devlin: 9:36

So, I wasn't really ultra concerned with how do I connect to other people to have more effective relationships, and I've never been provoked or motivated by external socialization cues, like I'm not comfortable in big groups of friends, I like one-on-one right. And so here I am. I'm about 21 and I moved to the Bay area and at 21, I was as energetic as I am now, but definitely not as I'm high energy on the outside but I'm calm on the inside. I'm like an oak, you know, and I wasn't like that. And so I tornadoed through my environment in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's not New York, you know. If I go into a restaurant in New York I could be like, yeah, you know, give me, I'll take a medium coffee, light and sweet, and it's not nobody's really like worked up about please and thank you and stopping to say good morning. It's like boom, boom, boom. You go to the Bay area and when I would order, as if I'm driving my manual transmission car, like with somebody in a Starbucks or whatever in downtown San Francisco, I would get a sort of a deer in headlights thing. And so I started to understand and feel, because this is the thing being intellectually motivated and sort of coming from the head and my education and being smart, I wasn't super aware of either aware of what happened in my body when I felt that sense of rejection, or what was happening in my heart when I was disconnected from a loved one. I wasn't, so I had to become aware of that what it looked like, how people sort of pulled back or moved in, whether I was greeted cordially or someone was rude to me, and then I sat back and I wondered why and I thought, oh, it's because I sound like I'm barking at them and you know. But if you go to Paris, France, you know Paris and New York. And here's the funny thing, even though I've moved miles and miles away. Let's say, Brooklyn and the East Bay, San Francisco area are today very similar demographically, socioeconomically, politically, even though they're on opposite coasts. New York City and Paris for a long, long time, like people think of Parisians and New Yorkers as being rude, because we're sort of like this is the way it is, tough luck, you don't like it, Move on Right and and so in Paris I was sort of the one reeling back as I would try to ask for the bathroom in French and someone wouldn't answer me if I didn't say please, and it was literally like they would not answer the question if you said please. And it was a very interesting.

Nicole Devlin: 12:12

So what I found from travel and exploration is that I can't expect the world to be like me, but I need to actually move into the world trying to identify how to meet people. However, what I've noticed in the past couple of years around let's call it a lot of women I mentor that are a little bit younger and very emotional and tended to get quite emotional the past couple of years about politics. It was like that was a thing that I couldn't really meet. I just couldn't. I couldn't.

Nicole Devlin: 12:43

Why are you so emotional here? And what's? Where's the pragmatism? Where's the ability to reason this out using your brain and, yeah, the logic? And there wasn't. I didn't find a lot of logic, and so I got very disrupted because I couldn't meet them, no matter how much I tried to come down. There was something that was very confusing and disruptive and I had a hard time with. So I can't always meet anybody, everybody. I just you know I'll try, but that's what I found out is that you do your best, but we're all disconnected from self and trying to meet other people, not sure what avenue to take, not sure how to find the right people. And when I say the right people, I comfortably lived in a neighborhood in Brooklyn that was predominantly Black Caribbean and I was perfectly comfortable there, as opposed to like in other times. I was very uncomfortable with people who look and sound and talk just like me, like your basic, you know Gen X white girl from the boroughs, right, I was like, ooh, so it's not always about the labels, right, right.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 13:48

All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value.

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Nicole Devlin: 14:52

It's not always about the labels, right.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 14:54

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, going through and experiencing a lot of these cultures, though that's all you have. This is all you hear. You know whether you get your news off of Twitter or TikTok or CNN, C-Span, BBC, Al Jazeera, it really doesn't matter. But wherever you get your news from, I let me back up. I look at it like this everything is chaos, right? Yeah, that's, that's the natural state of everything. At least, that's what I believe.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 15:24

So if that's the case, in trying to organize all that cosmic chaos into things that we can actually perceive and make sense of, in my opinion, I don't have the vocabulary to do that. I don't know how to articulate it. So the only way I can explain what I'm feeling, seeing, hearing, identifying, just in my opinion, like anybody else, is to put it in terms that I understand and hope you get it, and until you prove me right or wrong ie you get it or you don't I have no cause to change how I explain things or how I appear to people or how I carry myself or whatever. Once I talk to you, or maybe just get a glare from across the room or get a wink from across the room, I get some sort of indication. That got it. This was misinterpreted. And then I have a reason or a confirmation or a denial that I need to clarify something because my intentions aren't effectively interpreted. And so, when it comes to where we get the news, I think, in harnessing all this chaos about the thousand word descriptions to any picture, so to speak, what's happening in, I don't know, Ukraine or the Royal Family, or domestically in the US, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, China, whatever it is that's on the news more predominantly now, at the time of this recording, all I know is how it gets explained. I don't know what's actually happening behind the scenes. Did Kate Middleton get a facelift? Oh my gosh, I don't know what's she wasting tax money for? Who knows? Right Turns out okay, that was miscovered, I guess misinterpreted, but not the point.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 16:56

What I'm getting at is all we know is what's in front of us, and all we can interpret that through is our perspectives, backgrounds, upbringings, whatever. Those lenses were right. So the labels? I think it's weird. We seem to only become aware of that. I'm a millennial, for the record, so there is a generational difference here, I think. But the only way that we can interpret those things is sort of an imitation bias on our past experiences until we're proven right or wrong.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 17:23

Yeah, so when it comes to cultures and I'm not talking about ethnicities, I'm talking about social science, cultures, how we communicate socially with people I think there's really only one way to interpret it. And you put it great. It's not about me, but you got to know who you are to be able to impact, influence and adapt, right? So when you're talking about all these people and all these cultures and all these neighborhoods, how do you educate people, how do you empower people to start to embrace the you that's now in their neighborhood, in their sphere of influence? Like you, you went in there. They didn't come to you. How do you do that?

Nicole Devlin: 18:01

Well, I believe in the power of example, right, my mouth is a piece of me, but it's not all there is. And I know how to use my mouth and I think I'm conscious and aware and for lack of a better word clean enough. And when I use the word clean, like, I put very little things into my body that modify it in an exacerbated ugly way. You know what I mean, like daily drinking, or you know eating too much of bad food, or you know even thinking negative thoughts, right, so I go in with a clear mind and I understand that my brain and my mouth only work as well as I'm clear and self-aware, right? So, like you said, I got to know who I am. So I'm a highly energetic, like to think, confident, powerful woman. Right Now, when I'm, let's just say, for example, I'm in a conversation, and you know the beauty of I'm also very honest and very transparent. So, like I don't, I don't think you need to know everything I'm thinking, but if you ask, I'll tell you, right, and I'm not going to edit for the sake of propriety or so that you can be OK with who I am, right, because I'm not looking for that. So that's the whole thing. I'm not looking for that, see. That's the whole thing. I'm not looking for you to define or validate who I am. It feels great. I'm just like everybody else Love accolades, love praise but it's not the thing that motivates me. Me putting my head on my pillow at night is what feels good. I want to feel good about who I am from the inside out.

Nicole Devlin: 19:25

So if you, for example, if we're in a conversation and you make a forget about bias, let's just talk straight up prejudicial or ugly type of comment, or you say something about a candidate that I either just don't like and, by the way, I consider myself completely neutral politically and a lot of people don't like that, so what do you get? What are you saying? You don't like this one or that one. I'm like yeah, that's kind of what I'm saying, and I'm also saying that I'm not going to allow my life to be completely disrupted by the state of affairs, because I have faith in the idea that they're going to end up going in the right direction. I'm not sure how long that's going to take and how much more disruption we're going to need, but like, let's just say, somebody makes a prejudicial comment or a comment that I just think to myself you really believe that? What are you a moron? How can you not? You know, then I don't jump on. I don't jump on top of people, and that's what people have been doing the past couple of years, like jumping in and correcting and trying to set you straight. I'm not here for you to set me straight, I'm here to make up my own mind. So that's where I like to come from, to be an example of someone who's taking the information and making up my own mind.

Nicole Devlin: 20:33

And let me just touch upon the news for a second. I don't have a television and I haven't had a television for probably the better part of the last 10 years. And people, when I tell people that, first they look at me like I'm an alien and second they kind of get this quizzical, look like, what do you do all day? And, yeah, they think I'm somehow missing out on things that are happening in the world that I clearly need to know. I know everything that's happening. You can't miss out on it. It's everywhere.

Nicole Devlin: 20:58

It's impossible, even without a television, to not know what's going on. It's in conversations, it's at the lunch table, it's in the supermarket, so it's on the internet and I am on the internet. But the thing is is that when, for example, like everything was happening with COVID right, I was in New York, I had a boyfriend in the Bay Area and I was like, oh, I'm going to like not be able to go back and forth, and if I can't, what's going to happen. And then and I was, I really felt like that. I was in these bubbles, like these bubbles of like people thinking about it in certain ways that were so, and I was in the same Brooklyn of Brooklyn right, and New York was one of the biggest red zones, and so I was like I need to know what's happening other places yeah.

Nicole Devlin: 21:38

I need to see and feel, so one holiday I think it was the end of 2020 I went back with my boyfriend by car through the south. That was a great experience through the south back where.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 21:49

What are you talking about?

Nicole Devlin: 21:50

That's California. So New York, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, arizona, nevada, california I drove and we drove and just I was like I want to know, because information for me comes through people and I'm going to tell you right now news is biased. And I'm going to tell you right now news is biased. So as I look in information from whatever I was getting from sources on the Internet and people fighting each other, I had conversations with individuals to find out how they felt about COVID and mandates and vaccination and politics and race and social justice and all those things, because I feel like the real progress is in conversation. So let me just pull this full circle and end my comment.

Nicole Devlin: 22:37

So when I'm in these places where I have an opportunity to be an example, I listen first to understand where the other person is at. I don't jump in to correct them and I ask questions like why do you see it that way? Or tell me what you see that I don't see. Or why is it that you? What is it that motivates you or is important, what you see that I don't see? Or why is it that you? What is it that that motivates you or is important to you that you believe that that candidate versus that candidate is going to meet our needs, things like that that it seems like is in short supply you got it yeah, now, don't get me wrong.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 23:09

I think, given this political season, it's a reality TV show and probably has been at least for the last. I don't know audience to interpret it effectively. Right Rhetoric in politics is as effective as it was for the sake of a positive direction for legislation. I don't go to Capitol Hill, I don't know, maybe it is. I just doubt it because of what I see on TV or hear on whatever I'm listening to Now. On the other hand, if what we're seeing is more of this drive towards what I'm interpreting as expanding a popular base of millennials and Gen Z, through reality TV, which was, I think, now 30, 40 years ago that that started and social media what 20-some years ago that started? Well, is it any wonder these are the largest two generational brackets in the US right now, who are socially aware and able to become ambassadors of the message on their own. It's a delegated way of, the freest and cheapest way to delegate a campaign message, because those generations will talk and they have social media and they're in tune and it promulgates itself. So, in my opinion, regardless of the circumstance, whoever is able to command that attention span the best and most effectively is going to win any election, at least for the next, I don't know 30, 40 years, till those people get out aged in the world or till we, we people Anyway.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 24:51

So a lot of that stuff is the norm, because that's what there is. Why you know what we don't have to meet in person. How about you just call me on Zoom? You know what? Here's my calendar link Schedule with me when you're available. You'll already know when I'm available and then we can talk online for a couple minutes. It's fine, it's good for efficiency, it's good for a lot of things obviously, like what we're doing now, and I think increased distance doesn't have to decrease influence, and so being able to interpret people and intuitively, critically, build inquiry around people and how we communicate is huge. But it doesn't always happen that way. It's like there's an automatic. What did I hear you say before? There's an automatic contention in conversation. Now it seems like more often than there isn't. I'm guessing because there's more people in New York. The sample group and sample size change here, but despite the magnitude, it's the same there, right? Or is it not the same there, right? Or is it not the same there?

Nicole Devlin: 25:53

Well, it's pretty much the same. I mean, it depends. It depends really. You know, it's somewhat like, for example, one of the strangest things about the pandemic it was a radically different atmosphere as soon as you stepped over the Queens line, aka the border of New York City, and into Nassau County.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 26:10

All right, folks, sit tight and we'll be right back on Transacting Value. All right, folks. If you're looking for more perspective and more podcast, you can check out Transacting Value on Reads Across America Radio. Listen in on iHeartRadio, odyssey and TuneIn.

Nicole Devlin: 26:27

One of the strangest things about the pandemic it was a radically different atmosphere as soon as you stepped over the Queens line, a border of New York City, and into Nassau County. Radically different.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 26:37

What changed why?

Nicole Devlin: 26:39

Because of the way that the government ran the zones and because of what people were given. As far as information, there were no mandates outside of New York City, in Nassau County. So if you know the geography of New York, right, Manhattan's an island and then Long Island is like this, but Long island consists of both Queens and Brooklyn counties, or boroughs, which are part of new york city but are on long island, inclusive of nassau and suffolk counties, which are not new york city. Okay, so you can step over the county line from Queens and into Nassau county, and it was a very different ball game, literally the way people acted, the way they interacted, the way they saw masking mandates, everything, everything, because there were no mandates. So that created a different atmosphere, right?

Nicole Devlin: 27:23

And I have a question for you, though I don't want to. I just wanted to comment on that little thing. I don't know if you had. So I love, love, love, love, love, love. What you said, too, about, like I think I'm paraphrasing, you know, not sure if this rhetoric or the way kind of politics are played out is going to create the legislative change that we need. Very well said, thank you. And yeah, and there is a disconnect there, right, because does it really matter to me if I like the poor schmuck that's in the Oval Office, if he's going to create legislation or have the power to, you know, move things in Congress? Not really. I mean, I used to think I had to like him, but or her, but not really.

Nicole Devlin: 27:58

But the thing is, is that as and you look back at something, something, for example, like I think Barack Obama's campaign and whether it was like 2008 or 2004, social media and hitting the millennials with social media and really building influence in that category was what I understand a big thing that got him elected was really moving out to the people and the younger generation to communicate through those newer mediums. The candidates before that hadn't done as powerfully. That's my understanding now. So, given the fact that, like I come from a generation where the first time I used a computer I was 20 years old Right, I was not. I did not use one in high school or grade school.

Nicole Devlin: 28:35

And then moving to people who, yes, this is more effective and I don't see, by the way, Zoom, this conversation between you and I is part of how the Internet has facilitated communication by building our capacity to meet each other despite distance. However, that's the blessing. The curse is that the disconnect of everything being ordered and everything being simplified and AKA, in my mind, sometimes disconnected, and so for a generation or generations, let's just say millennials, gen Z, who I think now millennials are larger than baby boomers and have a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of influence and have done a lot, a lot of great things for social change. I think there is also a disconnect because of that constant hitting a button thing and believing reality, reality TV, and believing everything that they see on the internet. That is like how are we going to create, continue to create, the connection necessary to meet each other despite the you know prevalence and constant and increasing prevalence of mediums that are fundamentally disconnective?

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 29:43

oh, I don't know, I have. I have no idea how that's going to come together, but I'll say this the point that you just made about reality tv and the sort of resonance that it can create, or I guess, more specifically, that the characters in reality TV can create, right, we had a lady come on the show, Danielle Lindeman, and at the time she was on the show she was a professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, sociology I think. Anyway, she's written a couple of books and she came on the show and she was talking about the impact of reality TV essentially on society. All right, and one of the things that she brought up. I haven't done any research personally, ok, that's not what she brought up. She did a lot, I haven't. But reality TV, according to that conversation, 1996 with Real World on MTV, has apparently the title of being the first reality TV show, and I don't know in any particular order, but obviously you can move anywhere you want from that point Survivor, Fear Factor, the Kardashians and anything in between. Okay, the point that I thought was was probably the most poignant that she brought up was reality TV isn't meant to showcase reality as it is, it's meant to showcase the extremes of reality as it could be, right, okay. Well, now it's becoming a showcase for the reality of what is A lot of people that watched and were entertained by all of whichever shows they watched that were considered in a reality TV genre, have become parents and grandparents now when it started.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 31:17

Well, now, over the last 20 years, we have Gen Z and everybody seems to have an interesting way of interpreting, I think, subjectively. How did this happen? Why is this so different two generations apart, x to Z, for example? What changed so much? I don't think a lot. I think the difference is, for example, when reality TV took off, we had, as say, millennials, gen X, whatever. When it first came around, we had this idea of well, this is entertaining, I'm glad nobody's really like that person, and it was a lot easier to drum up from that perspective, at least I thought.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 31:59

However, the more inculcated into subculture, culture, mass media, whatever that aspect of resonance becomes, showcasing the extremes of personality has to always be a one-up campaign, because how do you get people to watch it? It's gotta be stronger, faster, smarter, better, whatever than the last one. So it's got to be more extreme, but you can only have so many piercings and tattoos and so many fetishes and so many other things before you can't get any more extreme. So now it's just you know, every show has the one sort of typecasted role for this category, this category, this category, this category. And now it's just a matter of personality, we'll see what happens. It's going to get played out because you can't go anywhere.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 32:42

It's a dead end. One way direction for entertainment, in my opinion, except for the fact that it showcases people, and people like community, people like seeing things that I'm like that person or I will be like that person. And then we have a lot of different people in the world today that we didn't 20 years ago publicly. So when it comes to politics, when it comes to the president or the campaign for presidency, I don't think there was any other way it could have gone. We're just seeing now how it's turned out as a result of 20 years of standing on social media to campaign.

Nicole Devlin: 33:14

Absolutely.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 33:15

Absolutely, or hearing speeches in the Senate change. Well, actually, I don't even remember hearing any speeches 20 years ago because nobody cared, or at least not publicly. It stayed at Capitol Hill and we'll just see what happens when it becomes law, if it does. But now politicians are sort of unentertaining reality TV stars and so you've got to play to your base, placate them to stay popular, keep ratings up. Random TV station, says the politician, you know whatever? Okay, sure, and I agree with you, you got to have some faith. It's a matter of time before it changes.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 33:47

But I look at the president like he's the in the executive branch here in the United States. For anybody listening. He helps execute law and policy to make things happen, which is why he has a veto power and some other things that help. However, I look at him like he's just the head civil servant for the US and so domestically he should be representing the people. Well, the more out of touch somebody is, the less likely you're representing the people. The more in tune you are, no matter how you exaggerate it, the more realistically you're exemplifying a sample group that represents the US, and so interpret that comment how you will, but it is what it is Now our head civil servant also happens to be Commander In Chief.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 34:30

That can cause some problems, I think, when it comes to leverage and I think we're going to see how that transpires over the next decade and whatever repercussions over the next two decades that may cause. But when it comes to business and connections and you were pointing at your phone and pushing buttons and millennials in that comment you made a couple minutes ago, I think when it comes to a business of being able to communicate effectively, it's like we talked about earlier with that efficiency and superhighway like Zoom you mentioned and sort of alluding to things like DoorDash or getting things more conveniently brought to us. It is efficient, it is a super highway of consumer attention. What maybe we're losing is the ability to do it when it's gone, but I don't know that that's new. Have you noticed that? I mean, does it just shift? Does it just go from one point of efficiency to the next and it's cyclical, or is it an actual loss? Business evolvement, generational shift, permanent change how do you view this efficiency shifting?

Nicole Devlin: 35:30

Well, I think it really interestingly comes back to values. To toot the name of your, of your podcast, right, yeah, is that it's not just about the media, reality versus non-reality, the Internet, gen X versus Gen Z versus millennials versus boomers. I do believe, ultimately, connection comes from understanding of self, which is understanding of values, and I kind of I said this to someone who somewhat disagreed was like, well, we all have the same values. And he's like, no, we don't Cause. Like, well, my values around money might be different than yours. I'm like, okay, true, but are those more like attitudes and beliefs versus values? Or and you could probably better define this values to me? Or like wanting financial security. Financial security for me me could be $30,000 a year, for you could be $300,000, right, it's not like wanting or not wanting money, it's wanting the security that money brings.

Nicole Devlin: 36:22

But the problem with media and all the stuff going on outside is that what do I really know to believe? Like I went to the seminar years ago about relationships that went on and on about it being the female's job to manage the relationship. Just the other day, a very popular coach on Facebook made the absolute opposite statement that if a man doesn't manage their relationship, a woman won't feel secure. So what am I supposed to believe? Unless I check in with myself, unless I actually look at the kind of people I'm dating and see what makes me happy, versus I should date a guy that looks and sounds like this and talks like that and matches this way, that I think and make such and such an amount of money and dresses like this versus that or orders for me or doesn't like it's personal. This, so much of this is so personal.

Nicole Devlin: 37:09

And and what's interesting about media is I know quite a few solid millennials, say 35 to 40, and even much younger Gen Z's that do not have social media accounts, that are completely off of social media. They're like I have no need for it, no business doing it, could care less. I don't want to know. It makes me feel like I have low self-esteem. I'm constantly comparing myself to other people, so it's not like everybody's like full on invested in what social media brings. And even myself I've gone through phases of posting a lot, not posting a lot, and now pretty much I watch like comedians, like raunchy comedians and cute kiddie videos. Okay, I want to watch like. To watch like politics and people's opinions play out on Facebook because I don't really know you.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 38:00

Yeah.

Nicole Devlin: 38:01

And I like, if I don't really know you, I don't have the full picture of your character, your values, your self-esteem, your opinion is sort of like a fart in the wind, you know, but there are people who are all like that person has an opinion and it matters. You know, but there are people who are all like that person has an opinion and it matters. I don't care if you're a celebrity, I don't care if you're, you know, whoever is the popular celebrity these days, it doesn't matter. Character is the most important thing and I think people's values and character need to define the direction of their life, including the media that they imbibe and then what they do with it, and then what they do with it, and not to make it that just because they hold that opinion and they're clear and can statistically prove it's true that the entire planet should believe as they do. That again goes back to it's not all about you or me.

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Nicole Devlin: 39:18

That again goes back to it's not all about you or me.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 39:21

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even in the financial industry, let alone politics, every underwriter looks at character, your ability to repay and likelihood to repay Otherwise, no, sorry not helping you. And so you know, even in an objective industry like finance, if it's still just as important that your character speaks to something, then in my opinion and it sounds like in yours, socially it should most certainly count for something when you're talking about values. This is a good point in the conversation for a segment of the show called developing character developing character.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 39:52

Now, for anybody new to the show and Nicole, in this case, you included this is a segment where I'm only going to ask you two questions, and the point of this is to show that it's okay for values to shift, but there's always going to be an impact. Now, sometimes this comes up earlier in the conversation and it's fluid. It doesn't really matter. But now, based on everything we've talked about, I think this is going to showcase pretty well why there's an impact. So my first question for you, Nicole, is honest, authentic, vulnerable, as you want to be. Totally up to you, but what were some of your values growing up when you were younger, or that you were exposed to and brought up around when you were younger?

Nicole Devlin: 40:27

Economy, making up my own mind, pleasure, deriving a good sensation from things like, in my case, eating Humor. I mean, my family is. We're the ultimate sarcastic New York ball busters. I mean we just like everything goes when it comes to being funny, including your own esteem, you know, and there's sometimes, you know, if you're having a sensitive day. That's not the best, but it is still funny. We're all funny. My parents are funny, my brother was funny, my sister's funny Also, just really the community and having a sense of play and connection with others.

Nicole Devlin: 41:07

I grew up in a small garden apartment community. There are a lot of single moms with kids. There was a cluster of kids. We were all the same age. We played games of single moms with kids. There was a cluster of kids. We were all the same age. We played games. We busted on each other to some degree because I'm going to say safety is.

Nicole Devlin: 41:23

It was a value, a big value. And it's still a big value because I walk through places that I don't tell my mother at weird times of the day and night and I never feel like anything's going to bad, it's going to happen to me. I don't ever. I don't. I don't move through the world, feeling like bad things are going to happen, and that's not because I wasn't presented with bad things. I just developed a sense of internal safety.

Nicole Devlin: 41:41

I also believe, lastly, that the world and people are ultimately good. So when you say something that I think, oh, that's so stupid or oh, that's so effed up, I stop myself and say that opinion in my head comes from a lack of understanding. Let me see what it is that you're thinking, rather than judge it. And so there's an openness that I believe that we need to have with each other, almost like returning to a sense of vulnerability where, if I'm OK with myself, I could say anything to you and I'm not going to edit myself for fear that you're going to attack me, because I don't stand to lose anything if I'm complete.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 42:18

Okay, I think there is a line, because we see that now, right, People wearing certain things in public, dressing certain ways that may be offensive to other people, whatever in the defense, not every time, but sometimes can be. I don't have to censor myself for you. You should be able to accept me for who I am, with the counterpoint being, yeah, to a degree of modesty and with some respect for being in public around other people's opinions. Maybe I think that degree of temperament and humility counts for something. You know it doesn't have to be like super modest, whatever the point of contention is, but, like you know, respect each other for a little bit and then deal with that behind closed doors.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 42:56

But anyway, like you said, this isn't the me conversation. In fact, it is the you conversation, though. So my second question you alluded to some of this and you talked about openness and safety and that people are inherently good. But now, a few decades removed from you, know the single moms in the garden growing up and hanging out with the kids there. What are some of your values now, after all your experiences have taken place? How do you see the world?

Nicole Devlin: 43:24

I'll tell you, I'm in an interesting place in my life, right, I'm in my mid 50s. The work I do I find very purposeful. It hasn't been financially as lucrative. So I am finding myself shifting some of my values from money doesn't matter to I need more of it If I'm going to have the things that I want. And that's shifting, and I have to have it shift in a way that still aligns with my values. Like I can't turn around and decide I need money so I'm going to go shake my moneymaker you know what I mean and, like you know, sell myself sexually or something like that.

Nicole Devlin: 43:57

I did think about that but but because of my problems I couldn't go through with it. Right, and you know other things like humility, like at the end of the day, it really is about self-awareness and alignment. Like part of, for example, my current conflict is that I do believe in doing good and highlighting humility and like really just trying to energetically spread good without looking for rewards. And then some of my more. I've had a couple of like recent let's call it like negative or harmful experiences that just sort of made me feel a little more caustic, you know, and a little bit more. Is it really? Is it really all about doing good just so I can be okay, or or is it just like well, first of all, you people are going to do good too, you know. So just some of that conflict, and I'm always someone that's looking at myself and seeing if the way that I view myself in the world is effective for my own peace of mind, because at the end of the day, I don't want to be another shithead that's just spitting myself all over people and not caring what they think. That doesn't feel good. So humility, having some sense of like ego deflation always, always, always increasing my self-awareness. And let me just put this plug in for feeling bad.

Nicole Devlin: 45:10

I think we live in a society that thinks it's all about feeling good. I have boundaries, oh, you know this person's bothering me. If I have better boundaries, they'll stop bothering you. I hate to break the bad news, but no matter how much you develop boundaries and have these great conversations with your partner, they may not change. They may not become the person you want them to be.

Nicole Devlin: 45:28

So it really is about acceptance. So that is a big value for me too Accepting where I'm at, accepting where the world is and really seeing myself as that, you know, flap of the butterfly wings. The truth is is that I'm just one little grain of sand, but I do believe in the power of that one little grain of sand to make up the entirety of a sandy beach. And I can flap my little wings over here and create change in my own little way. Because if I help one person who has a husband and is raising two children, and that person stops screaming at her kids or becomes more centered, or becomes more confident, I've now just positively affected four people and then they tell two friends, and then they tell two friends and then they tell two friends. And if you multiply it for the influence that each person that one helps interacts with what 10 people a day, then your effect as a human being, my effect as a human being, is powerful.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 46:21

Yeah, yeah, absolutely of acceptance. Well, actually being able to take it on faith, for that matter, that your impact is doing something is, I think, the only real way. Maybe there's others, I don't know, I'm not old enough to realize them yet but the only real way to mitigate burnout, you got to take it on faith, and I think, more often than not, faith gets attributed to religion. I don't see them as maybe mutually supportive, but not exclusive, right. And so the effort that you're putting into small businesses, as a coach, or to people in your neighborhood, or to people in your building, for that matter, which I'm assuming is essentially like living in a neighborhood, I don't know, but as you run into all these people, you have to have faith, based on a value system in your case, that people are inherently good, that what you're doing is doing some good, and you may never know. That's the unfortunate reality of it. Whatever it is, you may never actually know, right, and the only unfortunate real validation you get is if somebody pays you money for it and if you get followers and if you get subscribers, and even then now you can't trust them. Authenticity is in question. Well, yeah, because I can't see you I followers, and if you get subscribers and even then now you can't trust them, authenticity is in question. Well, yeah, because I can't see you, I don't know you, I don't have the connection. Otherwise, if we did, I would trust this is a more authentic validation of my efforts, but I don't and I can't Right, so it's tough.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 47:45

So you got to take it on faith and the degree of acceptance you're talking about, not to I don't know coach, the coach here, but like the degree of acceptance you're talking about, I think, on one hand, well, you're settling. No, I don't think so. It doesn't seem like it anyways, because to me, settling comes from a place of, maybe, regret. I wish I had done things differently. I feel guilty about making these decisions, whatever I'm settling. I wish I had done things differently. I feel guilty about making these decisions, whatever I'm settling, even though equitable meaning here to balance the equation with contentment, to say all those things are true, but I did make those decisions and this is what has come out of it, and that contentment comes from a place of peace. But both of them mean acceptance. Yes, right, it all comes down to your lens and, like you said, depending on your value system, in this case, which one of those perspectives you choose. And I think at every step along the way you have that choice.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 48:40

You just may not realize it yet Absolutely conversation, and I got to be honest too, I'm pretty surprised we got as much into it as we did, but I hope it didn't jump around too much. I really don't think that it did either, but anyway, because I'm out of time, Nicole, if anybody wants to get in touch with you, maybe as a client or with some of the topics that you brought up any resources maybe that you're familiar with how do people reach out? Where do they go?

Nicole Devlin: 49:11

So my email is Nicole at NicoleDevlin. com. My website is NicoleDevlin. com. There you'll find information about my podcast, what I do for small businesses, and then I also have an online training course to help executive assistants support small businesses, and my podcast is called From the Nth Power. It is on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and I sometimes talk about business, but more often just dive into a weird subject that's on my mind. So if you're interested in someone talking to themselves for entertainment, have at it. And thanks so much for your perspective about you know the sort of looking at it through the lens of it's either one thing like settling, as opposed to another thing, because at the end of the day, you know, I think real peace is found by not having regrets and the only way I can feel like I have no regrets is to understand that I had the power to make my own choices.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 50:03

Yeah, yeah, I agree For everybody listening to the show. Depending on the player that you're streaming this conversation on, you can click see more. You can click show more, and in the description for this conversation you'll see links to Nicole's website as well, so you'll be able to reach out through there, and then, obviously, to your podcast so people can get in touch. But, all that said, we are out of time and I really appreciate this opportunity to hang out and talk and get to know you a little bit as a person instead of just a podcast host. So thanks for coming on the show.

Josh "Porter" Porthouse: 50:29

Thank you To everybody else who's tuned in and listened to our conversation. Thank you guys for stopping in and listening. I appreciate you guys taking some time out of your day. I hope you guys learned as much from this as I did on our journey of instigating self-worth to educate, empower and encourage all sorts of growth from different perspectives throughout the world and throughout different cultures. Transactingvaluepodcast. com. We stream new episodes every Monday at 9 am Eastern Standard Time through all of your favorite podcasting platforms and we'll meet you there Until next time. That was Transacting Value.