My guest this week is Andi Overton. In this episode, we touch on the importance of eating cake, returning shopping carts and not honking the car horn as soon as the light turns green. We talk about how culture shock opens your eyes and the uncomfortableness of it forces you out of your bubble to see the world in a new way – and contribute to it in a bigger and better way.
Andi’s early career experience as a police officer had her thinking everyone was a dirtbag drug runner. But the intervention and persistence of her good friend Lynette helped her see she was on a dangerous path and gave her a lifeline out. We talk stress, personal responsibility and finding and maintaining healthfulness.
Andi Overton is a higher education professional who likes researching fun topics like virtual reality and the assessment of learning. It’s the only way she can work video games into her Doctor of Education dissertation from Frostburg State University. A dedicated advocate for women’s empowerment, she most enjoys calling out the bs against disenfranchised people of all walks of life and making friends with the new kid sitting alone. A lover of life, she has rescued many pups and kitties and with the help of her fiancé, Stacey, can now add “fish” to her list of rescues. Because why not; we all deserve a safe spot to call home.
Andi’s hype song is Closer To Fine–The Indigo Girls. Hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUgwM1Ky228
Connect with her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andioverton/
Quick reminder, for community and camaraderie, Come join us in the Fine is a 4-Letter Word Facebook group.
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to Fine is a 4-Letter Word. My guest today is Andi Overton and I am super excited to have you here. Andi, welcome.
Andi Overton:Thank you so much. I'm super excited to be here.
Lori Saitz:Yeah, let's get right into it with my first question of what is, what were the values and beliefs that were instilled in you as you were growing up that carried through to your young adulthood?
Andi Overton:Oh, yeah. So, you know, that's really funny. My mother would tell you such a different story, but it's really leaving your place a little bit better than you found it. In other words, giving way more back than you have ever taken. It's almost that Boy Scout Girl Scout creed. It's, it's the idea of not just picking up your trash, but helping someone out opening a door, being kind to people just do a little bit extra so that the world's a better place. And I have carried that throughout my entire life. And, in fact, I will tell you, Lori that in my Rotarian club, right? I'm a Rotarian. They asked you to introduce yourself. And one of the things I have always said is, you know, I am the kind of person that brings back their shopping cart that holds the door open, and I will never be peppy at you. If you are at a red light. And it turns green. I'll just wait. I'm fine. You do you something's happening. And I just think that you have to leave the world a little bit better place than you found it.
Lori Saitz:Is that because you're not originally from the East Coast that you'll just sit and wait. You know, East Coasters were like go lights green, GO.
Andi Overton:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you know what? That's entirely possible. Like to be a complete cultural reference to the West Coast. I'm from Nevada. But you know, we'll just chill. That's fine. It's good. You know, I feel like you'll go when you need to go and have a go to go around. Go around. Yeah, maybe? Yeah, yeah, East Coast thing. I get beat down all the time. And I'm okay with that.
Lori Saitz:All right. Yeah. We're sometimes a little impatient out here. Here, but I love that you have that that spirit of generosity and giving and and I do return my shopping cart as well. So we're not we're not all
Andi Overton:perfect. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I mean, don't leave it in the middle of the parking lot. That's all I'm saying. Give it give it back to somebody who can use it. That's right.
Lori Saitz:Right. Right. So how did that it's the little How did that serve you? Or where as you grew up? I so I know, before our when we talked before this call. You were telling me the story about how you actually came to leave Nevada and end up on the East Coast share some of that.
Andi Overton:Yeah, sure. Sure. And listen as a true Nevadan. I have to tell you that our state's name is Nevada, Nevada. And it's a hard it's a hard thing to learn. And it's okay if you say it any other way. But I am, like, by decree, by Nevada decree. I have to correct
Lori Saitz:Thank you. So I appreciate that. It's the same with Oregon. Oregon there.
Andi Overton:Oh, that's right. Yeah, it's Oregon. It's not gone. Right. It's still there. Yeah. So I ended up on the East Coast. Because, you know, I was going through a whole bunch of college fairs, right. And I land at a college fair in Reno, Nevada, on like, the last day, and I walk up to this all women's college called Mount Holyoke College. And I said, Do you have psychology? And can I play softball? She said yes to both. And I'm like I'm in. And so totally want to go to this, this college. And my mom's like, Yeah, great. And then figured out that it was 2500 miles across the US in Massachusetts. And she fought me she's like, how about like California? How about Oregon? And I was like, Nah, man, I'm good. I'm gonna go all across the way here. And so my mother, who is a hard working single mom didn't have enough money to send me there. More than once. So I got a plane ticket. It was one way. And it was the cheapest ticket, which as you know, in 1993, maybe that's the red eye. So I boarded a plane. This is long before 9/11. This was long before we had all these regulations at an airport. So like my entire high school class. Now granted, that was like 26 People like I come from a very small school. But like the captain of the football team, my best friends. We all went to the airport. And they saw me off right? You know from the airplane. Now. My mother did not know if I made it to Boston. Got on a van with a guy that said Overton and I got in this guy's van. I know it's sketchy. All right. I fell asleep because I was the offering you can do 90 minutes later. He wasn't Thank goodness. I probably would have taken it. I was starving. Right? I was nervous to leave. I didn't eat anything all night. I fly to Boston. It's like six o'clock in the morning. I've never been to the city, the state. This guy's hold my name up. I'm like, You must be my dude. I hop in this guy's van. It is like the windowless van that my mother has warned me about for 18 years of my life and I'm like Yeah, I'm good. Let's go to college. Awesome. Good job mom. Totally great parenting skills. And so I hop in this van and I and he I fall asleep because I'm exhausted and I it's like I literally landed found this dude fell asleep in the van and woke up College. 90 minutes later, I woke up in the backseat and he's like, you're here, get out. Now understand this before cellphones, right? I hadn't called my mom. I didn't call her when I got off the plane. She had no idea if I was even alive, but I was doing my thing. And finally, as I get moved into my dorm, I get the two suitcases from from the airport. I finally find a phone and I call her. And she said, I'm so happy to hear from you tell me all about it. We chat for about a half an hour. Now what I didn't know until years later, when she hung up the phone or she was in tears. She was just in buckets, because she was so relieved that I was I don't know, alive. But she didn't want to tell that to me over the phone. She just wanted me to be excited. She was up all night thinking that's it. I put my daughter on a plane. She's in some weird guy's van all of which was true. She was not wrong. I just, you know, obviously didn't die from the experience. I made it to college. And I haven't left the East Coast since. And that was September of 1993.
Lori Saitz:Yeah, parenting was so different. Back then my mom put me on a plane to a semester abroad in Copenhagen. And in 1987, and it was the same thing like, did she get there? You know, it was a, it was several days later, I think when we finally talked, and she did the same thing, when we hung up from that call. She was in tears, partly because I was in tears because the culture shock was so intense or that I was like, I think I made a mistake. And so she was feeling my anxiety. And then she Yeah, so same thing. They started crying, but you know, they still put us on those planes and sent us. Yep.
Andi Overton:Yep. It says if they said, You know, I've done all I can for you. I've given you all the tools that you need to be successful now go off and be successful. And I bet you the minute I got on the plane, the plane doors closed. She was probably saying what have I done? Like, oh, my goodness, I should have went with her. There's got to be a way maybe I should start driving right now. I know those thoughts went through her head. And that's what moms do. Right. Right. Right. And and that's just one
Lori Saitz:and we turned out okay, so it was good decisions on their parts.
Andi Overton:Like I'm on a good path. Yeah. I feel like they prepared me adequately. I mean, I did get into a sketchy guys van. That was rolling. Number one I shouldn't have been. But it was really for me. So it ended up being Yes.
Lori Saitz:Yes, it was. It's all fine. So it was all fine. How was that experience? Because Boston very different from Nevada.
Andi Overton:Thank you. That's very good. Thank you for that. Yeah. So Boston was but I have to tell you, I was 90 miles west of Boston. So I wasn't even in the city. I went to Mount Holyoke, which is a small liberal arts college in the western part of the state. A complete culture shock, talk about culture shock, there are seasons there. Do you know that leaves fall on the East Coast and they change colors. I'm from the west coast where there's either a little bit of sagebrush and tumbleweeds or a lot of sagebrush and tumbleweeds. It's all desert all the time. We've got some pine trees, but nothing like, you know, sheds their leaves in the middle of October. You know, I'm used to it's snowing in July, I'm used to it being hot in the middle of January. There's actual seasons here. And oddly enough, that blew my mind. I was like, This is what I've been reading about in like books, you know, for the past 13 years since I can read. And so and again, everybody's a little bit faster, right? I come from a small, buggy town that you know, there's one stoplight and, you know, you just kind of go around people I know everyone in my town. And all of a sudden, I was listening to different accents. And I was experiencing different cultures and diversity and well, neat. My eyes were open. Yeah. And I was in a small liberal arts college, I didn't even have a skies, scraper near me. But everything was new. It was like a newborn child coming out to the East Coast wild.
Lori Saitz:It's so interesting that you had that experience in my experience in Copenhagen, similar, because it opened our eyes to different cultures, different types of people, different experiences, just diversity in great quantities. And I feel like so many people, especially in our country, and even to this day could use an experience like that, to help them realize that we are all there's so much different differentiation and also the commonalities.
Andi Overton:Oh, 100%. And you don't have to go to college to figure that out. There's opportunity to just engross yourself in something other than what you're used to. Everywhere. And it was so exciting for me because I just really thought oh my goodness. Here are things that I've never heard about before. There are people who didn't have driver's license because I took the subway ever that where they went and that blew my mind. I was like, I don't even have a license. I mean, how do you get around and they're like, there's a subway. There's a bus like what do you know of cars? They're from New York. They're from Boston, and I'm from this little tiny town going, I don't get and they're looking at me the same way. They're like, why would you get a license? Oh, you live how far away Your your closest neighbor is what? So I think that was mutual with all the people I met too. So I was educating as much as they were educating me.
Lori Saitz:Yeah, yeah, cool. What, um, what was the most profound thing you learned? When you were in that environment?
Andi Overton:I learned that and I know this is going to sound campy, but you can't grow unless you get out of your comfort zone, I would have never had the same mindset, the same ability to learn and understand and get out of my own way, if I had not experienced a little bit of uncomfortableness, because I said the wrong thing, because I didn't understand. And that's how you get out of that growth. Or that's how you grow is to get out of that circle. So I think the most important thing that I learned is that this world is not about me, it is bigger than me, it is bigger than my experiences. And if I'm going to live in it, there's a better way to walk through life than just only thinking about how you are affecting every everything around you. People affect you, you have a you have a way to understand this world that is outside your own knowing and belonging. And I learned that in the first six months of being on the East Coast.
Lori Saitz:Love it. Do you would you take it as far as to say that we have a responsibility to do that?
Andi Overton:I mean, I think so. Sure. But then again, if you don't want to no one's gonna force you. Sure. And if you want to, if you want to live in that smaller world, okay, fine. But you're missing out on so much. Why would you close that door on the opportunity to learn about different things, it's so exciting. I'd never eaten curry before I went to college. And, and I keep referring to college, but it was my way of getting out of my bubble to experience something that wasn't meat, potatoes. And I mean, that literally and figuratively, you know. And so I just think that you're closing yourself off to so much. And if that's the way that you want to live in your life, so be it. But I find that I find that very small. And I think that we are bigger and badder human beings that can really do great things for ourselves in the world if we step out of that circle.
Lori Saitz:Yeah, completely agree. Now let's so let's move away from college. What happened? You don't need to stay back in 1993. Because I mean, it was a good year. But I Yeah, but but because you have a really amazing story. From your career, the career that you chose to go into, you ended up? I'm not quite sure how you ended up in Maryland. But you did. And you started a career in law enforcement.
Andi Overton:I did actually, I ended up at a graduate program at American University, which is my alma mater, DC. Oh, yeah, very Go Eagles. So DC is very expensive to live in. And when you're a poor grad student, you find a basement and someone's townhouse that they're renting in Maryland. And this is how I become a Maryland resident. So that's how I ended up here. And I decided my graduate program was in criminal justice. It's called justice, law and society at American University. It's the theory of criminology as it applies to law and society as a whole. So super interesting. And my goal from the minute I graduated high school was go to the FBI and wanted to be a behavioral analyst. And I applied when I was graduating, from my graduate program, I applied to the FBI to the ATF, I wanted to be federal law enforcement. And all of them laughed at me, because the two questions they asked me was, do you speak Farsi at the time? Or are you an accounting major, and I said no to both. And they were like, go find some law enforcement experience and come back to us in a few years, we have no use for the great talents that you have a polite way of saying, we're not looking for the skills that you have, we need other skills. And I was like, okay, I can do that. So I became a police officer with the Montgomery County police department. And I thought, you know, this will be my way also to serve my community in a way that I thought abnormal. And it was my stepping stone to a federal law enforcement career. But the more I got into it, what I realized was if if you really want to affect change in your community, and you're interested in law enforcement, being a local cop is a great way to do that. Because while working on super big federal cases, would be really fun. You get an opportunity as a local cop to learn about the shopkeeper down the street and the school up the road. And I really liked that. And I determined about about a year into my career in law enforcement that I was good. I wanted to stay kind of where it was. And I had no interest in reapplying to the federal agencies for them for them. And that I really liked the people that I met in the change that was making. So so what I did was as I threw myself into this career, and I mean, throw myself into this career, I signed up for the hardest districts are the ones with that needed the most help that needed enforcement in a way that kept the good people safe from the bad people in jail. And I worked really hard and I worked really long hours now I learned a lot Right, talk about learning about the world as it pertains to you, and that you that you are not the center of the universe. There were so many different experiences and people in different places in their lives. And at 25 years old, I would have to walk in someplace and counsel to 50 year old people arguing in their marriage. I had never been married, I had no kids. And I had to figure out a way so that they wouldn't kill each other that now. And as a 25 year old kid, that's a big responsibility. Talk about learning about things outside of your own circle. Well, that happens. Sure. But you know, yeah, so as we talked about, I worked really hard. And I went to court during the day, because you have to obviously, try the cases that you arrested that people for. And I realized quite early in my career, I was a complete burnout. And it took me a long time to say that because it feels like failure, and it wasn't. But I realized very quickly that to me, everybody was a dirtbag, everybody has something up their sleeve, everybody wanted to either try and kill me somebody else, or were doing horrific things. And sometimes you just blow a stop sign because you're not paying attention. Sometimes you hit the gas pedal a little too much. And sometimes you fender bender and bump into somebody else, that doesn't mean that you're running drugs to El Salvador. And so very quickly, I realized that I was burning out fast I was really being not the kind of cop that I should be. And I was angry at a lot of different things from the stuff that I saw and had to deal with. And so I decided that I would try and make it better by switching stations. I went to a station in a district that was far less involved in criminal activity, it was just a slower place it was we can talk about the socio economics of that at a later date. But
Lori Saitz:I was gonna say, Montgomery County, for people who are listening, because people listen from all over the world is very great. Yeah, there's a big disparity between in socio economic some places are, are very, very wealthy, and some are not.
Andi Overton:Right. Right. And I went to a very wealthy area. And it was too slow for me. There wasn't enough crime, plain and simple. And I knew right there that I was looking for people to do bad things, because I was bored. That seemed very selfish to me. And so I just I realized very quickly, I was burning out fast. And I was making stupid traffic stops. And I was saying stupid things when people would get under my skin, and people's freedoms and lives were in my hands. And I look back, Lori and I really think I'm so happy that I didn't make a really poor decision. Excuses are not reason they're not. I'm really glad I didn't make a poor decision. And one day, a friend of mine who worked in Higher Education said, You know what, you should come and work at this college. And I was like, yeah, no, thank you. Okay. I cannot deal with all these kids running our kids. I'm 25 years old. All these kids running around acting like school is the only thing for them, right?
Lori Saitz:Because there's not enough drama. Oh, yeah.
Andi Overton:Yeah, what am I gonna do busy parties because they have a red solo cup? No, thanks. And my friend said, No, it's in admissions. It's an enrollment, you talk to families about their kids going back to school? And I said, No, thank you. And she's like, You seem really unhappy with what you're doing? And I'm like, No, I'm good. I don't know what you're talking to a fine. She's like, No, you see, you're fine. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm, that's it. Exactly. I'm totally fine. All right, can you not see that I'm fine. And she kept telling me, You're so not fine. And you let me know, when you come to that conclusion that that I just did, she must have asked me three times. And I think I'm the third or fourth time she said, you know, this position is not going to be open forever. We're hiring people. This is your last shot. And I was so exhausted. I'd been to court all week, I had had some really tough calls that I kept thinking about. And if you keep going back to the victims that you couldn't help, and they keep replaying those things in your mind. That's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, right? That is trauma. And I wasn't getting over it. And I wasn't going to therapy, and I wasn't talking about it. So I finally said, You know what, you're right. I don't want to hurt somebody, or myself or anyone else. And I literally left the profession. And I started working in a higher education. College basically. And I just feel so darn lucky that this my friend who were so very close was like, you're not okay. I can't force you to leisure, leave your career. You're not okay. And I'm only going to ask this a third time. She didn't have to ask a second time. And she said, you know, this is an opportunity for you. And what she really did tell me was, you know, no one's gonna make you work on Christmas. And no one's gonna usually fight you or try and kill you on a daily basis. Just consider it. Yeah. And thank goodness I did and I've been in that profession for the past 10-15 years.
Lori Saitz:I think the lesson here for there's so much to cover in this topic, but the places I want to go, right right in this moment. What I want to bring out is the idea that Sometimes it listening to outsiders who have an that outside perspective to see what you can't see, because you're so in the weeds and taking counsel from those people and saying, Hey, wait, maybe they they maybe they have a valid point.
Andi Overton:Right and, and thank goodness for a friend who kind of called me on my bullshit, right? And said, you know, she didn't ask once and we're good friends she kept at me. And she finally gave me an ultimatum, right? Because if she just would have kept asking me, I think I would have just kept blowing her off. But she's like, this is it, I'm not doing this again, there won't be another position, you know, shoot or get off the pot. So thank goodness, I had a support group of friends that could see through my crap, and throw me a lifeline. Now, ultimately, it was my decision to make, of course,
Lori Saitz:and it always comes down to personal responsibility for making our own decisions.
Andi Overton:That's exactly right. And I took the lifeline and pulled myself out. And looking back, I realized I was in a really dark place, man. And, you know, I, I'm so happy for the experience that I had, I did a lot of great things. I helped a lot of people. But it was really brutal for me. And this isn't a reflection on I'm not talking about law enforcement or any other cop out there. This is just my personal experience with a manner in which I reacted to the things that I saw and did. And so thank goodness for my support group. I had other friends who were like, yeah, man, you were really miserable. I'm like, Well, my friend Lynette is the only one who actually said anything. So where were you? And they're like, Listen, man, you're a pretty strong personality, it's hard to tell you anything. I'm like, yes. Right? It is, it's really hard for someone to sit me down and go, we need to talk about what you're doing. That doesn't happen often.
Lori Saitz:Right? But it's good, right? Sometimes friends can do that. And sometimes friends are they don't have the capacity to handle things. And that's when you know, professionals need to get in, get involved, you know, go to counseling, therapy, whatever it is, like, again, there's no shame in getting help. And right. So I'm curious actually, though, did you do that as well, because you You mentioned having post traumatic stress.
Andi Overton:You know, I have formally and I have informally, it's really nice to go to someone who is a professional, and you can kind of spill all the beans. And the one thing I've been to, I've been to a therapist more than once. But the one thing that I really, really liked about what I did was, somebody sat me down and said, I'm really glad you got this out. And I'm really glad you talked about it. What you do with the information is up to you from here on out. But you just sound like you just brought all this stuff off your shoulders, I felt like my shoulders dropped. I started smiling more when I start talking about it. And then I have really great friends who helped me through some times that I kind of go back to that dark spot. I'm not in therapy. Not I'm not seeing a therapist now. And that's okay, because I know that I can if I can do, right, but I have a lot of really great tools that I can start using if my life gets a little too. I don't know, overwhelming, stressful,
Lori Saitz:right? Right. Because we've, because everybody has stress. It's not a competition, like somebody doesn't have to say, Oh, I have the stress that you had when you were in law enforcement. And so mine's not as bad as that. So I, I'm okay. Like it's not
Andi Overton:there. There are it's not a race. It's not pie. It's not like I have more stress than usual, I get more therapy. No, I mean, you could have this much compared to me or I could have this much compared to you. It's how we react to that. And what we have to do to continue to live a positive, happy, outgoing life, right, whatever that means. That means to you Yeah, agreed.
Lori Saitz:Exactly. Because being stuck at fine, as we have talked about many times on this show is not the way to go through life. So no, yeah, you got to break out of that circle. You mentioned having tools that you use, are there do you have like a morning routine? Are there things that you do on a regular basis to keep yourself in a good headspace?
Andi Overton:Yeah, so there's three things that I have to do. And if one starts slipping, slipping, then I go, Oh, I get it. I have to actually eat decently. I'm not saying you got to be on a diet or some weird healthy regimen of eating but I gotta stop eating like, like quickly and crap, right? to I have to expend energy, whether that's working out in the gym, whether that's playing quick softball game, whether it's helping my friends’ kids play soccer, I have to get out that that energy that I have. And the third thing is sleep for me. So I'm not just not just getting enough hours, but getting that rest that I wake up and go, okay, because it lets me dump my brain. So the way that my sponge fills up very quickly, and if I wake up in the morning, and I still don't have the capacity to learn to analyze to figure out problems, that I know that one of those three things are out of whack and I start thinking back to my you know what I've been doing for the past week. I'm like, Well, I've been eating like Yeah, I can't eat pizza every night. It doesn't fuel me. And I've been sleeping very restlessly, I need to, I need to dump this brain. Those are my chucking points. And so what I just try and do is start to scale. Once I understand it, I'm like, Alright, I can deal with this. And then I can start making a little, some plans for the next couple of days if I have to, and start tweaking those. And I feel so much better, because then I feel right it again, my world was back where it should be.
Lori Saitz:That is such great advice for everybody. Those three key component are key components. And so many people don't necessarily have the, I don't know, is it self awareness, they're just not paying attention to how important those things are. But they are important for every individual, every human needs to eat healthfully move on a regular basis and get enough sleep. It's just biologically, what we need to do. And people try to say, well, I don't need as much I don't need that much sleep, or I'm fine sitting at a desk for 23 hours a day, like, you're not
Andi Overton:Yeah, and I think it's, it's, you're not actually, you know, we are human, we are made to move as much as possible. And I do believe that, but I also think it's a bit of a continuum, like, you know, it doesn't mean that you can't go out your friends and have a slice of pizza. It's not what I'm saying, yes, what I'm saying is you got to balance that out in a way that you can absorb some of that crappy food, even if it makes you happy for a little bit. Or if you're having a really couple, really busy days where you can't get out and do the things that you would normally do. So sit on the floor and stretch, stretch out a little bit. You know, I don't know just stand up and walk around, go for a walk around the block up and down the apartment, stairs, whatever it may be. And also, even though these are three things that are important to me, maybe for someone else, it's you know, you got to drink 12 ounces of water, you've got to maybe not drink so many cups of coffee. I don't know what that is, but find your three pieces, at least that center you and be able to look back and see where where they're out of whack and then fix it. Only you can fix them. You know, somebody can't tell me Can't they can't force me to eat better. I have to do that. And I know that I feel better when I exactly.
Lori Saitz:I mean, we're coming back again to this whole theory of personal responsibility for making sure that what you're doing is fueling yourself and I don't mean fueling just in the nutritional way. It's right mental spiritual, fueling all the way around. Right? Yeah.
Andi Overton:Yeah, find your containers, find what fuel you need and pay attention to it. And I think it goes back to the very beginning when I said that sometimes fueling those containers means that you got to step outside your circle to grow it means you got to get a little uncomfortable. Do I want to eat a salad every night? No, I want to eat pizza and drink a beer. But I also know that I should probably eat a salad every night and while uncomfortable it makes me feel better in the end. I also know that I don't want to go to the gym for 45 minutes and do crunches cuz I know it's gonna hurt but I do it because because I have to get outside of that comfort zone and grow and the only way to grow is to sometimes you got to be a little uncomfortable.
Lori Saitz:Yes and future Andi thank you when you do go to the gym or eat healthfully and I'm totally on board with you that eating healthfully thing does not mean you don't get to have a brownie or a cupcake or some pizza and whatever it is, that's all part of enjoying life. And sure right without in moderation. I'm completely in agreement. Not everybody is as as crazy as I am. So I haven't actually said this on my podcast, but I have said it some other places. But I've been tracking my macros on the My Fitness Pal app. I'm on day 617. Today as we record this to what 617 consistent, so that takes you all the way back to February of 2020. Yeah, I'm just... not everybody is as crazy about it as I am. But it helps me to see where, how to stay on track. And I get you know, some people might consider that obsessive, that's fine. Again, it works for me.
Andi Overton:Right? So do it in your own way. Whatever that means for you. I know. I know that when I don't eat a bunch of grease. I feel better. So how about I feel better this weekend and don't eat a bunch of grease. I don't have to track all my macros. I already know those. But do what is good for you. Your body is a temple and you are a beautiful, wonderful person. Treat yourself accordingly. Yeah, and I just think that's, that's that should be a theory and I have to tell you, my one theme in life is eat the cake and turn left. Eat the cake means you know just because you're eating healthily and and if you can, and you go to a birthday party, take the slice of cake and eat it right. Eat the cake and turn left turn left means you don't always have to get from one place to another in a straight line. Hang a left turn and go see what's outside of your normal path. And those are the two things I say all the time you think, Hey, can turn left, go see what's out there.
Lori Saitz:Fantastic. All right. You mentioned movement. So before we go, I need to know, what is the song that you crank up? When you need to increase your enthusiasm, charge up your energy. Get moving, what's your song?
Andi Overton:So it's gonna be really weird. It's not the hype song you think it is. But it's Closer to Fine from the Indigo Girls. And it's because it was put, here I go back to college again. But I can remember first listening to this awesome folk group, it brings a smile to my face, I think of nothing but positivity. And the first paragraph, the first set of lyrics is like, you know, I'm going to be closer to find everything's gonna be alright. And you're going to help me get there. And I love that song. It just It pumps me up. Is it like a barnburner? No, but it makes me feel like I can do the things that I need to accomplish.
Lori Saitz:That is perfect. And lastly, if somebody wanted to continue a conversation with you, where can they find you?
Andi Overton:You can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on Facebook. I'm Andi Overton. You can find me on all those places. I actually, oddly enough, I ran for mayor of my small town I actually have a website but it's still Oh, old but you can find me there at AndiOverton.com. I'm gonna have to now update it because this is going to go out to all your followers. You can find me on social media. And you can find me in Baltimore teaching people about how to get into graduate school at the college that I work at so you can find me all over the city.
Lori Saitz:Beautiful. We'll put a link to those those social medias and your website in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me today, Andi on Fine is a 4-Letter Word.
Andi Overton:Thank you, Lori. Appreciate it.