Rosa Linda Román (00:29): Hello, and welcome to New Mexi-Castaways. This is an attempt to see how it sounds if I record directly onto my new iPhone seven. I have been recording using my awesome headphones that I adore. I don't remember the name of them, but I'm trying to see if I record only from my head from the actual speaker or whatever microphone on the phone to see if that sounds better, because it has sounded so tinny and not great that I'm afraid my, my listeners, my loyal listeners who have endured my ramblings are going to tune out and turn away with all the awful audio. So I'm going to pause this right now and see what this sounds like. And then I'll come right back. Rosa Linda Román (01:26): Hopefully that's better. I am now recording from my headphones, which are LG headphones of some kind. They go around the back of my neck and I love them. They have these retractable earbuds. And when I want to listen through earbuds, that is a great option. But when I don't want to use the earbuds, I just switch it to play through a speaker on the neck part, and I can listen to music while I'm running. I can have a, basically a speakerphone conversation without being annoying to all the people around me. I don't love speakerphone in general. My husband uses it a lot for business just because he, I mean, it makes sense, right? You need to be hands free, but it's really hard for everybody in the car with you, anyone in your sphere of influence. I find it to be quite annoying and just somewhat offensive really, because it's kind of like saying my conversation is more important than everything else around me. Rosa Linda Román (02:31): And when it comes to my husband and his work and my family, a lot of times, that's true because the kids are talking about a movie or something and we he needs to be on phone calls for work, and that's what pays the bills. But with this new headphone, it's so great because he can have that speakerphone experience without actually having it permeate through the whole car. It doesn't have to be through like the car stereo system. So I'll put in the show notes what the name of this headphone is. Cause I don't remember it off the top of my head. It was quite pricey, but I just, I finally decided I, I really needed, especially now that I have this iPhone seven, the problem with the seven is that it doesn't have a headphone jack. You can use an adapter to do that, but I had been wanting to go wireless anyway. Rosa Linda Román (03:25): And, but I've always had my phone in a case and that kept my phone protected. Well, now this iPhone seven is nice and sleek. I don't have a case for it yet. And so when I want the kids to maybe talk to Nathan, who's been in India for the past nine days or when we, you know, I want to have a conversation or they want to, maybe I want to record something that they're saying, I don't have to hand them my phone. I can hand them these wireless headphones and they just put it around their neck and they can continue having the conversation. Now I know it's not crystal clear, perfect audio for the, the person listening. And I apologize for that, but I think the payoff is worth it because it allows us to record things in places we normally couldn't because everything's too loud and trying to put a lavalier or mic on someone when you're on the go, Rosa Linda Román (04:19): especially a kid, is very disruptive. I think it interrupts the moment. And with these headphones, I can just slip them right around their neck. And they just sit like around the back of your neck, they don't actually like pinch your neck or hang on to you in any way. It just kind of sits on your shoulders, around your neck. And so for me, the payoff is worth the downside. And again, you may not agree and I'd love to hear your comments about the audio. Is it just unbearable? I'm hoping that once they start actually putting these out, because I basically am recording a bunch of these podcasts and then I'll start having my editor put them together in an actual podcast form. And when that time comes, I'm going to, hopefully he will sweeten the audio to make it less tinny and more pleasant on the ears. Rosa Linda Román (05:14): But until that time, I, I really can't promise that. So hopefully you're listening to this and it sounds great. And you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, but I have a feeling even with some sweetening up of the audio in post-production in the editing process, it's still going to sound less than ideal for someone, especially if you're a regular podcast listener and maybe you listen to some great podcasts, like Cereal is a great podcast. What is the other one I love? I can't believe I can't... Oh, start-up with pretty much anything by Gimlet Media which is a company that was started by man, I think Alex... I forget his last name, who was working... I think he was a producer on this American life. I could be totally misquoting and missing the facts here, but basically you worked on quality storytelling and that is my background was in... I got my start in public radio and even have a William Randolph Hearst award for my radio work when I was in college. Rosa Linda Román (06:31): So I really love audio. Something you may not know about me, but that affects this conversation a little bit is that I had a hearing problem when I was working at Fox 10 in Phoenix, I started really noticing conversations were getting lost on me and I was, I was very frustrated and I went and got my hear hearing checked and I had significant hearing loss, both nerve damage and bone conduct connectivity. In other words, the bones in my ears were calcifying and not creating the sound waves properly. So one of them, the nerve damage happened when I was just a teenager and an idiot. And I was dating a boy who had very, very, very excessively, ridiculously loud bass in his car. To the point where you could like, feel it, boom, and move your whole body. Well, I sat in that car for, we dated for quite a while. Rosa Linda Román (07:37): So I basically did some nerve damage to my hearing that way, but the other part of it, the bone issue is a genetic thing, according to the doctor. And he said, as you get older or maybe during pregnancy different different stages in your life, your body creates more calcium. And in some people it deposits that those calcium deposits some of it, that deposits in your ears and and makes it so that the bones don't move properly. So all of this to say that they, I had to have surgery on my first one air, I think I did my left first and they did a stapedectomy. And what that means is they remove the stapes bone in my ear and replace it with a prosthesis. And the same was true, six months later for my, my other ear. Rosa Linda Román (08:35): And so I've had a double stapedectomy and I hear better now, but there's a lot of the sound range that I don't hear. And it's been very difficult in some circumstances, like when I've been working on some of my stories for New Mexicast, I will go through the whole editing process and be ready to put out this story and I'll have either my husband or someone else listen, you know, watch the show, the story and they'll say, well, does, did you mean to have that, you know, horrible hissing sound there? And I'm like, what hissing sound? So I, I rely on you guys, my listeners to let me know if it's unbearable, the hissing noise or the tinny sound of this headphones. I guess what I'm asking you is can you enjoy the podcast with this microphone or is it just a deal breaker? Rosa Linda Román (09:35): Because it really, it matters to me to be able to do this in the moment in between things, because part of why I think that this podcast will work for me and hopefully for my listeners in the long run is that I, I try to squeeze it in during our real life, not just a perfect sitting down in a studio setting where you know, at 10 o'clock every Thursday, I sit down and talk and record something. I like to share the real feelings that come in the middle of the chaos and have been little by little collecting some of the natural sound from our boat adventure, which I will also do some nat sound, or natural sound, nat sound episodes, podcasts, where you guys can listen to what it sounds like to go through the bridges during a really rough cruise through the, the New River, for example what that would sound like. Rosa Linda Román (10:36): And I record some of the sounds of my kids. And eventually I'll be sharing that here as like little audio vignettes of our experience and the... Really the only way I'm going to be able to do that until I find the perfect microphone solution for someone who is on the go like me, is using these kinds of headphones that are not ideal, not perfect, but allow me to be, hands-free still interacting with my kids, still getting the job done safely, meaning getting to the airport to pick up my niece or whatever, but without having to go through the process of clipping it on every time and things like that. So I am working on a solution. I would love to hear your feedback. If you're still listening to this, that means that you, I presume that means you like what you're hearing as far as my content, what I'm talking about, but I want to make sure that it's not off putting so much that you don't want to listen to anymore. Rosa Linda Román (11:37): So I would appreciate if you do want to leave a comment, you can send me an email at rlr@newmexicast.com, or you can always leave a comment on this episode at newmexicast.com. So that's that. Let's see, what is the topic today? I've got so much on my mind in good ways. I mean, it's been just a whirlwind week, month, [laugh] six months. Now that you've gotten all the way into this episode, I'm sure you probably already know; I live on a sailing catamaran with my family. The boat is called the Dawn Treader, which is named after the boat in the Chronicles of Narnia and the voyages of the Dawn Treader, which were sailed to, which was sailed to the end of Narnian space and had many great adventures. So that's why we named it The Dawn Treader. It makes me wonder with some of the dragons and things they encountered on the Dawn Treader, the book, Rosa Linda Román (12:40): maybe that might be part of why we've had some crazy adventures of our own here on our version of the Dawn Treader. But anyway, it's, you know, it has been an unexpected detour here since we moved to board four months ago, but it's been really good. And here's why it's been good. It's been stressful and that's not why it's been good, but because it's been stressful, it has really forced us to figure out how to interact and how to deal with each other in very intense situations. Now by each other, if you don't, if you haven't listened to past episodes, and this is your first introduction to New Mexi-Castaways I, my family is a family of five. We have two daughters. Ahava is 11. She's a competitive gymnast. Ziva is nine. She is now a beach volleyball enthusiast, and Samuel turned six today, and he is a spunky awesome, bright and amazing little boy who has pretty much zero sense of self preservation. Rosa Linda Román (13:53): So you can imagine the dynamics of that and how that plays out in our lives, living on a boat. And then there's my husband, Nathan, who is a physician, a hospitalist in Internal Medicine. And I am a long-time reporter. I'm Rosa, Linda Roman, that's my name. And I'm a long time reporter who worked at TV stations around the country. And then started my own show called New Mexicast. And I'm now really focusing on being present with the kids and Nathan on this boating adventure. But I like to continue my broadcasting in whatever ways I can. So at this point, New Mexicast consists of occasional live shots on Facebook Live and shared to YouTube. And it also consists of this audio podcast, which really I still, it is called New Mexicast, but I affectionately call it New Mexi-Castaways because obviously we're no longer in New Mexico. Rosa Linda Román (14:58): But I like to share our experiences here. So we travel not just with the boat, but we are a traveling family. So I'd like to share some of what what my tips and tricks are from those experiences. And also the process of downsizing to move on to the boat was really challenging in kind of a, an emotional way where we really had to get clear on what we wanted and figure out how to let go of things that no longer served us, whether that was things or relationships or just general attitudes that we may have held that we needed to let go of. So, and that is an ongoing process. I have used a wonderful process called KonMari, which is a Marie Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up to downsize our space and stuff. Rosa Linda Román (16:01): And I am using, right now, on approach with my kids called the Nurtured Heart Approach. I don't know if I've talked about it on the podcast before, but that is one of the ways that I'm really trying to focus on the things that my kids are doing right. And that I'm doing right. And my husband's doing right, and really steer away from the tendency to give negative attention for whatever we may be doing wrong, Especially when it comes to like Samuel, who is a very... spontaneous is not the right word. He's he's, I hate the word impulsive because it has a negative connotation, but, but he really he acts on his impulses. So I guess he's impulsive, but he, you know, he sees something and he wants to explore it and he goes for that. And because of that, it, it makes it difficult with other people because they don't understand that. Rosa Linda Román (17:03): And it makes it difficult for me because he puts himself in scary situations. And I, obviously, I'm trying to keep him safe. So all of this to say that I'm using that Nurtured Heart Approach as part of our parenting technique. We are homeschooling the kids, or boatschooling the kids for the first time ever. And so that process of figuring that out has been very trying and very challenging. We're currently testing out a program, very loosely testing it out with a program called Easy-Peasy mostly because it's free. It's, it's quite religious and it's, we're Jewish and it's much more Christian centric. But there's a lot that we can glean from the program. So we're trying that out and we're also we use Math-U-See, and that is a good program for the kids. Samuel uses Reading Eggs, which is a website that gets him excited about reading. Rosa Linda Román (18:10): And I think the girls... Ahava, I don't remember what she's using right now, but Ziva is using IXL and Samuel is too, which is another math program. I'm just, I figured why not just share some of the things that are working for me since I started this episode with questioning whether the audio is working now, I thought I'd just share with you some of the things that we are trying out and that we're using. One of the things that I apply regularly in my life and what I believe is led to us, being able to live this big, amazing life is a principle that is talked about in a book called The Secret, which is the Law of Attraction, really trying to manage your thoughts to focus on what you want instead of letting yourself go to that place where your thoughts are focused on what you don't want. Rosa Linda Román (19:05): And so you end up drawing more of what you don't want into your life. So I just want to say that. That that's a big part of what works for me. And I, this is not to say this is counter to whatever your religious beliefs are or anything like that. This is just one more layer. You may decide to some people refer to it as a universe or whatever. You may refer to it as God, or or like, instead of telling the Universe what you want, it may be praying to God for what you want. So it's just different language for what I believe is the same thing. Now you may not agree, but I am grateful that I am in a place where I have the right to express my opinions. Even if it doesn't work for others, I am free to express that. Rosa Linda Román (19:59): So I'm grateful for that. It is November, which is the month of gratitude, right? So here's, I guess that's going to be the topic here, things that I'm grateful for and things that are working for me. Always one of the things that has worked for me for pretty much my whole adult life is Anthony Robbins, Tony Robbins, and his Personal Power and Get The Edge Program. I adore him and adore all the teachings he does and the coaching. He is my life coach. Another coach that I love is Chalene Johnson. I've talked about her in the past as well. I haven't been applying her stuff so much lately because it becomes a little bit like she, you know, she's really big on building her tribe and, and that's so awesome, but it gets overwhelming when you feel like it's always, you're always getting the, you know, FOMO, fear of missing out, thrown at you with some of her... Some of her marketing things. Rosa Linda Román (21:09): So I've already bought two of her programs. I've already gone to her. I've already gone to her seminar and I just, I get a little tired of like the constant, trying to upsell and market market market. But I do revert back to many of her programs that I bought and enjoy them very much. So if you can overlook some of that, like over the top, never stopping marketing and enjoy the content, then I've definitely recommend her. She teaches Smart Success, which is a way to improve your life. And she teaches VBA, which is a way to improve your business - Virtual Business Academy. Let's see. Another thing that I always have loved is The Four Agreements. Have you guys heard read this book. Basically, it's the agreements you should have with yourself that can be the difference between a regular life and an extraordinary life of happiness and joy. Rosa Linda Román (22:07): And one is to be impeccable with your word, meaning don't use your word against yourself or others. And I say, and he says against herself, because we tend to like, say mean things about ourselves and to ourselves. And that's just as bad as saying mean and bad things to other people. Like if you look in the mirror every day and think, oh, I'm a fat pig, well, that's not being impeccable with your word. So impeccable with your word. Don't make assumptions where you just assume what somebody's thinking or why they're behaving a certain way. I think the recent election is a perfect example of that. If we did not make assumptions about the other people, and I'm not talking about the candidates themselves, I'm talking about like some Donald Trump's supporters assume a certain thing about the people that are were voting for Hillary Clinton and many people from the Hillary Clinton camp were, are making negative assumptions about the people voting for Trump. Rosa Linda Román (23:15): And I, I really think in this case, not making assumptions would serve us very well, because then it would force you to go talk to those people, right? Not just post something on Facebook that, you know, your friends who agree with you are going to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the few people who don't agree feel like garbage, but actually like, Hey, let's have a dinner party and sit down and talk about this. Or, Hey, can I take you out for coffee? I'd like to understand your perspective. Like if you don't make an assumption and you actually reached out, can you, what would happen with this world? That'd be amazing. So that's, let's see, be impeccable with your word. Don't make assumptions. Personally, I can't remember. I guess I need to read that book again. Huh? It's been a few years and I know the last one is always do your best. Rosa Linda Román (24:02): Oh. And one of them is about not, not thinking that everything is about you or something like that. I'll have to go back and look at it. I actually just took the book, the book off the boat to read. So I'll have to update what that fourth agreement is. Maybe I'll add it as an addendum at the end of this show. Once I go back and look at it, I always forget. So that's another book I love. What else do I listen to? Well, what works for you? That's what I want to know. I feel like, you know, a podcast is super fun because I get to talk and talk and talk and just talk and say whatever I want. And if somebody doesn't like it, they don't have to listen. Right. but I really would like to hear from you and see, what are your favorite things right now? Rosa Linda Román (24:49): What are the things that have helped you push through those moments of where life just doesn't seem to be going where you want it to go? And where do you feel frustrated by, you know, how things, you know, whether it's, how did you get through this election? Like what positive things did you do to help you? Either through the election or through a major life change? You know, it's interesting recently. I don't know if I talked about this yet. We were contacted, after the hurricane, that we had to evacuate our boat and we were in a hotel waiting to see if everything was going to be destroyed. I was interviewed by CNN and my family was, and from that interview, someone saw that, a producer, saw that and asked if they could send someone to interview us basically by Skype or FaceTime for, to see about maybe doing a documentary or like a reality show or something on our family and going through this transition from living in New Mexico to living on a boat. Rosa Linda Román (26:06): So we did this, like maybe I want to say it was like three hours, but I could be totally wrong, but it was many very, very long interview with a woman who basically just talked to us about what it's been like so far, what our hopes and dreams are leading to this sailing adventure. And it's, it was interesting listening to the kids and how they're processing everything. And also being on the other side of the equation when it comes to someone interviewing me, because usually I'm the one, or I used to be always, the one doing the interviews. So it was fun to be interviewed and really think about what we have gained and what, how we are handling all of these adventures. And I'm really, I'm really glad for some of the things that have happened, especially because nobody's been hurt or you know, we're all safe and because we're all safe and yet we've had these pretty traumatic situations happen, Rosa Linda Román (27:13): I feel like it's given us a chance to look in the mirror in completely new ways and to really figure out how we are going to be as a family and how we are going to move forward and handle some of what life is throwing at us. In the past, and even in the near past, like when we started this boating adventure, we had, we've had days where we, we did not handle things well. Where there was much screaming and much unhappiness and people just were unkind. You know, I mean, we were just, we had, we had days where we lost it. And I feel like the thing I'm most proud of at this point is how we have shifted that. How we have turned it from the default being unkindness and meanness and fighting and grumpy and, and kind of that martyr mentality and feeling you know, watching the kids bicker and, and be unkind to each other, to being able to shift it so that we still have bad moments, but that those bad moments don't destroy us, don't dictate who we are and that we're able to find the joy very much more quickly in everything and also share it in ways that help. Rosa Linda Román (28:43): We help each other like yesterday, perfect example we were heading to Krav Maga and we were doing really well getting out the door. And then at the last minute, for some unknown reason, oh, I know what it was. Ahava was struggling with her hair. Now, if you know anything about a pre-teen girl or any girl, pretty much, if you are having a bad hair day, you are having a bad day. That is pretty much how it works. And she was super great. And then all of a sudden, she just moved into meltdown mode in, in the blink of an eye. And it happened right as we were having to get out the door to be there on time. And so watching the kids and I, I get, I, you tend to run a script. I don't know if you ever have this experience, but you tend to run a script when your kid pushes you or somebody behaves a certain way, Rosa Linda Román (29:43): you run the same old script. And I think the whole benefit of this boat experience, or whether, if for you, it might not be a boat. It might be just putting yourself in a new situation that the benefit is learning that the old script, isn't the only script. It's not the only possible script, right? You have the choice to shift that and change that and figure out a better script for you. And so we, the three of us, Samuel, Ziva, and I, we, we didn't confront Ahava. I mean, at first I started to, and then I stopped myself with that. I don't know if you go back to my old podcast but I've talked about this, that I do this stop camera time thing. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you got to go back and I'll, I'll try to put a link in the show notes to to show you, but basically that's my reset technique. Rosa Linda Román (30:39): And we use the word reset a lot because sometimes you just find yourself going down the negative path and you don't mean to, and you feel yourself moving there, but the normal script has you go, there you go. There, you get, you get angry, you feel frustrated and you go there, right? So the new script, and I really believe this is from my experience of being in this intense situation with my family, we are writing a new script. And so Ziva said, why don't we grab our ears and go and do a wiggle ear reset. And she came up with that all on her own. So the three of us, Ahava was not having it, and she was still, she was wailing crying. She was just in that mode and she was running her old script. But we, gratefully, Ziva had the presence of mind to say, let's just, you know, let's wiggle our ears and, and reset. Rosa Linda Román (31:37): And so Samuel, Ziva and I did that. Now, it didn't change Ahava in the moment. And in fact, she wailed louder when we asked her to do that, but we felt better. We did it again a couple of times, and we didn't react to her. And then we walked, we went to Krav Maga and she, you know, just like us... Oh, I, I gave her a hug getting out of the car and she left me, which in the past, you know, if she was in 'I'm-mad-mode and I'm not going to let you you know, into my barrier' she wouldn't have let me. But this time she let me hug her. We went into Krav Maga, kicked some butt, and the day was great. And we, it was the only incident of the day. And so in the past, that would not have been the case. Rosa Linda Román (32:26): We would have absolutely had that escalate. I would have been angry and we would have had more flare ups and people would have been yelling and grumpy and bickering pretty much the whole day. So I just, I just wanna, I just feel like that's the greatest victory is realizing that we have a way to reset because we have been forced by living in these tight spaces. We are forcing ourselves, we haven't been forced, we are forcing ourselves to interact in brand new ways, in absolutely positive, new ways that allow us to find our better selves and, and, and deal with the hotspots quickly so that they don't destroy everything we love. Because I think that's the tendency. I don't know if you have this too, or if it's just our crazy family, but we have the tendency to, like, when things get, get, when somebody gets mad, we all, we, it affects everybody and we get mad and, you know, it just feels like the whole day is ruined and I've heard my kids say that a lot. Rosa Linda Román (33:42): Oh, everything's ruined now. It's, it's now it's a terrible day. Well, no more, because now we can say, oh, we reset. We just had we had a moment. We had a brain fart. We had, you know, somebody just, just was running their old script. And so it's just really fun. It's really fun to realize that we have that kind of power. All right. I am in the airport and I need to figure out where I am parking, so I will continue in another, at another time. All right. Talk to you soon. New Speaker (34:14): [Outro Theme Music]