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We’re Brad & Monnica Manuel - we've been married for 28 years and business partners a little longer than that.
Every Sunday morning, we press record on a conversation rooted in reflection. Over coffee and a vinyl record, we talk through the week we just lived: what challenged us, what taught us, and what tuned us along the way.
From marriage and mindset to leadership, resilience, and personal growth, these are honest conversations about being human through the lens of Gen X, family, work, and life in transition - one record, one reflection, one transmission at a time.
🎧 New Transmissions every Sunday morning
☕ Stories • Soundtracks • Marriage • Leadership • Self-Discovery • Coaching • Generation X
I'm looking forward to, like I said, re reigniting that habit. I know I'll be glad I did.
Brad:I'm looking forward to having thick cortical
Monnica:nodes. Okay. See? Sheldon moment.
Brad:That was a Sheldon moment. Welcome back to the manual transmission. I'm Brad.
Monnica:And I'm Monica. So
Brad:Actually Yeah. What I wanna talk about first
Monnica:What do you want to talk about first?
Brad:Is this album.
Monnica:Nebraska. Alabama, Kentucky. What is it? No. Nebraska.
Monnica:It's one of those. Nebraska.
Brad:You came about this album.
Monnica:It was my idea to listen to this album, so I don't mind saying I didn't love it. I am a
Brad:fan I thought it was great.
Monnica:Generally of Bruce Springsteen for sure, but this album's not my favorite.
Brad:Tell me why.
Monnica:It's kind of depressing, honestly. I think it's more that he's highlighting struggles. And so Yeah. Like, sure, of course, everybody has struggles, but it kind of painted it like the baseline is just bleak. And I maybe that's why I thought it was depressing.
Monnica:I wonder where he came up with with these stories, but they seem pretty raw and real. So, yeah, I thought it was interesting, but it it definitely isn't going to make my top 25.
Brad:Not your top 25. Okay. Led us to a conversation about
Monnica:Like, what would.
Brad:What kind Getting to our criteria of what our top 25 would be.
Monnica:Yeah. Our criteria are different.
Brad:Yes.
Monnica:Yours is more I think you're just more naturally interested and curious about humans, which, I mean, so am I. I think the anthropological exercise that is kind of looking into the backstory of how these albums came together has been really fun and fascinating for me. But if I'm thinking of music in terms of, and I am for my top 25, what would I just enjoy listening to? I'm looking for energy, fun, sing along, uplifting. So it's it's a different criteria for me for what's gonna be in my top 25 versus just this exploration of looking into the backstory of these albums, which is also fun.
Monnica:But it just kind of fits with how we roll. Like, you're just kind of like cruising along at your steady Eddie pace. And I'm like the you're like the you're like the nucleus. I'm like the atom or the the proton or the electron that's like bebopping all spinning around you and like orbiting you moving at a much faster pace. Like, we're we're moving
Brad:Bouncing off me.
Monnica:We're moving together, but you're just kinda, like, cruising, and I'm like, all over the place.
Brad:I totally can see that visual.
Monnica:I know. Right? Like, we're both gonna go from point a to point b and get there at the same time, but I would have done 875 laps around you by the time we went got there.
Brad:Exactly. I'm trying to conserve energy.
Monnica:We just run different.
Brad:We do. Just a bit.
Monnica:It's okay.
Brad:Okay. So not on your top 25. Nope. I get it. No worries.
Monnica:It was interesting. I'm glad we bought it. I'm glad I listened to it. I'll probably listen to it again, but, not for a while. Hey.
Monnica:So we got back from vacation. We landed Monday morning. Now I knew coming home that it was going to be an abrupt change of pace because of, you know, coming home on the red eye and going straight in. I had planned I had taken Monday off, but I just knew we had a lot of stuff to do, so I I worked anyway. And I knew it was going to be a busy week.
Monnica:So knowing that, thought ahead, planned a spa day for today.
Brad:That was
Monnica:nice. So we got through a crazy week. And do you know how many minutes of stress my aura ring told me I had yesterday?
Brad:Do because you told me twice.
Monnica:I was so excited about this. Zero minutes of
Brad:stress. Zero minutes.
Monnica:It was great because I was working on stuff I wanted to work on.
Brad:The data is telling. Last week, we talked about learning our patterns names.
Monnica:So I thought it was interesting how you phrased that, learning our patterns names. Like, did you actually label any of them? Not
Brad:Actually named them no, but I but I I did write them down to then be able to talk about it so that they could be named. So Well, I won't I didn't learn any names.
Monnica:I won't name any of yours for you because that has a risk of maybe, I don't know, picking a fight. But here's one that you can make fun of me for because you'll you'll know immediately what I'm talking about. You wanna know what I named it?
Brad:What did what did you name it?
Monnica:The Sheldon.
Brad:Okay. The Big
Monnica:Bang Theory. Yeah. He's such a nerd and so socially unaware. And there are times when one of my patterns is to respond to whatever question is asked or problems trying to solved with a very nerdy, very, like, literal, socially unaware, just head down, solve the problem pattern.
Brad:A shill?
Monnica:I thought you'd get a kick out of that.
Brad:Okay. So you you named it you named your pattern the Sheldon.
Monnica:Yeah. When I just interpret something totally literally, forget everything that's going on socially at the moment and just start solving a problem.
Brad:How do you know that you've caught yourself in that mode unless somebody
Monnica:Usually, everyone's just kinda looking at me like, woah. Come back.
Brad:Okay. Alright.
Monnica:I did it this week. It was
Brad:funny. So you named it. Good.
Monnica:Yeah. Anyway, let's hear your notes.
Brad:Well, when we were out last week is when we started to try to note this stuff. And I noticed even in their downtime how my mind immediately went to work. When I had space to just decompress, no commitments, we had it all planned out, my mind still went to what do we have to do next? Yeah. And it's hard to detach all of that, even in a planned space where you're gonna be intentional about putting everything away, dropping the phone, all the connections, all the all the distractions.
Monnica:When you noticed that, what did you do?
Brad:Well, in the moment, it it was because I had the ability to put the phone away or go back out to the balcony and sit and just watch the sunrise or the sunset or the waves outside. There was something that I could direct my attention to. Recognize, okay, why am I, why is my nose down in this phone again? Why did I automatically pick it up? And then whenever I caught myself going, oh, well, I could direct my attention very easily.
Monnica:I noticed something similar in that I would wander to work. And occasionally, I would just scratch the edge and go pick up the laptop and do something really quick if it was something I could just take care of or make a note of and so that I could stop thinking about it. But more often than not yours was the balcony. I noticed you spending a lot of time out on the balcony looking at the at the water and the sky. It was a beautiful view.
Monnica:Mine was I would go down to the hot tub and and sit in the hot tub, or I would go for a walk. Those were my two go tos. Honestly, the only thing that was working for me to bring my attention back from the future or work I needed to do was to think about how I was physically feeling. Mhmm. To bring it literally I think that's why I needed to go do something physical, either sit in the hot tub or go for a walk.
Monnica:But this week, coming back and and being just quickly full full speed ahead, I don't know. I just allowed myself to kinda get lost in the work and enjoy it. We're just prepping for some big stuff I'm excited about. And but it's so interesting. Not so in in the past, working was always, like, something that I had to do, I needed to get through to go do something else I wanted to do, or like living for the weekend, or the next vacation.
Monnica:Even though we have cool vacations planned, to me those are just like we talked about while we were there, aid stations planned that in the meantime, I'm like, yeah, I'll rest later. I right now, I'm just other than getting a good night of sleep, like, I'm just leaning all the way in and enjoying being consumed by the work, and it's just fun.
Brad:That's awesome. I I agree. I think twenty twenty six is gonna be great.
Monnica:Hey. So one of the things we did on vacation was read this book. I mean, just going back to I loved how she teed up the whole book. And it's first book I've read this year. It's a reread.
Monnica:I like that book a lot, but it and it was a good one to kick off the year. But the way she kicks off the whole thing is just talking about, yeah, your life is made up of the things you pay attention to. And so I've been just pretty intentional, I know and I know you have too, about what am I paying attention to right now. And I've just really been focused on being where my feet are, being present. I definitely think about the future, but just in the sense of knowing where we're headed to then come back and know what to do right now and getting and just being really absorbed in the moment, it's been great.
Brad:Yeah. We've leaned on this book for a while in terms of how we've coached others, how we've led, how we've applied it specifically in our lives.
Monnica:Our own mental practice.
Brad:Yeah. And even reflecting on it earlier, this book, the way that she frames it is that our attention is a superpower. And just like any superpower, there's kryptonite and those three there's three things that are kryptonite, and it's a poor mood.
Monnica:Stress.
Brad:Stress and threat. Yeah.
Monnica:And so when those come up
Brad:You're more distracted. Your Well, attention
Monnica:is it goes back to when you feel stressed you have a bad mood or you feel threatened, what's that pattern you reach for?
Brad:Right.
Monnica:Yeah. So what works for you when you notice poor mood or threat detect or stress?
Brad:I know that most of the time I need to move my body. I need to get outside, especially kind of where we're at. We're we're in a living situation. If you think about the wheel of life, our Environment. Environment is in a great space.
Brad:I mean, we've remodeled it. It's it's really cute and cozy, but it is in the basement. And so and and it's the winter.
Monnica:Zone. Yeah.
Brad:And it's the winter
Monnica:Above our heads.
Brad:Here in Yeah. Utah.
Monnica:I don't love the winter. I think I've been doing that one a lot as well, get up and take a walk. The other one I've been making a real point of is reframing. Usually poor mood or stress or threat is gonna be caused by prompted by a person or a circumstance. And so I've just been reframing.
Monnica:Maybe that person is there's something I don't know that they're going through, or maybe there's something about them that I like that I can shift my focus to. Or, you know, if it's a situation, you know, I try to bring perspective. Now, of course, I'm not always great at this, but I've been making an effort at that, and it really does help, especially with mood or threat. Stress is I mean, stress I cope with by act action.
Brad:We talked about that earlier So I think that stress, the way that I learned or I noticed this week, and I think you did as well, was how much better I felt when something came to mind that, let's say, I knew was on my plate I needed to do and I've been procrastinating or it slipped my mind. I when it came up, I immediately acted on it.
Monnica:And you feel so much better.
Brad:And I felt so good.
Monnica:Right.
Brad:And I and that it relieves any you know, not any stress, but it relieves that stress.
Monnica:There was visible evidence of that this week. You cleaned the garage.
Brad:Oh, boy.
Monnica:Thank you for that, by the way.
Brad:That was a task.
Monnica:Well, yeah, because that the garage the other garage is pristine, but this garage has been a dumping ground. So it yes. Good job on that this week. That was that might be Thanks. One of the high parts of my week.
Brad:Let's let's
Monnica:do going, woah.
Brad:Let's talk high low.
Monnica:Do you wanna know you know what? Okay. These are twin highs. I'll tell I'll do mine so that what you can maybe you'll think of yours while while I'm just rambling away over here.
Brad:Okay.
Monnica:So you cleaning the garage was a high part, and similar to that, I cleaned my office. In fact, one of my friends at work helped me with my cable management. He used to work for Apple, and he's like, okay. You need help. And now and I hung a whole bunch of pictures that I had gotten printed from anyway, so my office looks awesome.
Monnica:So it's it makes a big difference when your environment is clean and tidy and aesthetically pleasing. So my office and the garage are both really clean, and I love it. That was a high. It made me so happy. I don't know why my environment makes me has such an effect on my mood, but that was great.
Brad:That makes
Monnica:So satisfying too, to just clean up and clear out.
Brad:It is. I
Monnica:I found myself daydreaming about spring cleaning coming up.
Brad:Oh, boy.
Monnica:Anyway, keep going.
Brad:I think that makes total sense because my high, as I, as you said that would be tackling that garage. That was definitely my high was getting that garage back in working order and your car is now sitting in it nice and cozy.
Monnica:It's plugged in. Thank you.
Brad:Plugged in, ready to go.
Monnica:I really appreciate that. What was your low?
Brad:My low.
Monnica:Do you want me to tell you mine so you can think of yours?
Brad:Yes, please. What was your low?
Monnica:Okay. Well, I also reframed it positively. So even though I'm gonna present this as a low
Brad:Okay. I'll tell you that. Working over there.
Monnica:Well, okay. This might be a walk long walk to get there. But, basically, my low was so I I told you when I was in Hawaii, I went into the week with on on the Oura Ring, it was saying my sleep debt was, like, ten hours. I went in pretty sleep deprived. And my goal was to get it down to zero by the end of the week, which I did.
Monnica:But then red eye coming home straight into the week, and I've been having some physical pain that has been interrupting my sleep. And so I went, like, four days in a row with three or four hours of sleep each night. So immediately, by the end of this week, my sleep debt was back to, like it was, like, eleven hours and twenty minutes. I was like, oh gosh. I just undid everything.
Monnica:So I was a little frustrated by that. But actually and and that's I mean, I do need it is important, really important to get get good sleep to be healthy. So I am working on that. But you recommended that show to me
Brad:Limitless.
Monnica:Limitless with Chris Hemsworth. I've only seen a couple of episodes. But and then at the same time, my friend recommended the book Comfort Crisis to me. And in both cases, they just they talk about how important it is to your well-being to have trials, hard things, stressors, that you intentionally kind of stress yourself out and cope with it. Now I'm not saying that it's okay to not get enough sleep, but I just reframed it as like this is a challenge I'm going through.
Monnica:Anyway, so my low was just getting having four nights in a row of really pretty challenging sleep. But then I just kind of mentally thought about it in the terms of, okay. Well, I'm just going through a little bit of a challenge, and that's good for me to be work on my resilience. I don't know if that's good logic or not, but it is what it is. So might as well be happy about it.
Brad:Okay. Well, that's pretty impressive.
Monnica:Or diluted. I don't know. Maybe. Embrace the suck.
Brad:Embrace the suck. Okay. Maybe my low was well, I saw my sister off this week. Oh, yeah. It was a for a visit, and she is heading home and starting a new phase in her life.
Brad:So it was great to see her, great to spend time, little sad to see her off, but I'm excited for her.
Monnica:It was yeah. It was great to get some time with her, catch up. We haven't seen her in a while.
Brad:Yeah. So that's probably my low.
Monnica:Yeah. Aw. You miss your your little sister. That's sweet. Okay.
Brad:So What next?
Monnica:We've talked about High Low. We've talked about Peak Mind a little bit. How do you feel like you had meant you had made the comment earlier in the week that Limitless was nicely paired timing wise with us having just read that book. Tell me more about that.
Brad:Oh, there's tons of parallels. Every episode in limitless is touching on an aspect of mental health, longevity, endurance, mindset. It's all just really good science backed lessons in this fun episode where Chris Hemsworth has to do something really, really hard.
Monnica:The fur I've only watched the first two episodes of season one, and I know you've watched both seasons. But in those first two episodes, the first one he's facing down fear. In that case, he's up really high walking across a crane on a huge skyscraper. And in order to do that effectively, he has to control his physiological responses to fear and get a handle on those by calming his nervous system so he learns how to do that with positive reframing, with breath work, etcetera. And then in the second one, he's doing an open water swim in the Arctic
Brad:That's crazy.
Monnica:Without a wet suit. And so in order to physically be able to do that, he has to overcome the gasp response. Uh-huh. And so he works through he only has three days to work through it through cold exposure and learning how to control his breath.
Brad:I jumped in a cold plunge in Hawaii. Yeah. I was waiting for you outside in the hot tub, and right next to it is the cold plunge. And I walked over to it. I walked in, I got down to my neck, I took four difficult breaths, and I walked right out back to the hot tub.
Monnica:I know. When we've gone other times, I've done that cold plunge, and this time I came out and you said, you gonna do it? I said, nope. But in that episode, I watched it last night, he's talking about just the proven benefits. Even even they said even people who turn their shower water cold for the last thirty seconds of their shower call in sick 30% less or something like that.
Monnica:And so it challenged me. I mean, the benefits are proven. And so we have at our gym a cold plunge and next to the hot tub and next to the sauna. So I was I kind of psyched myself up for next time we go, I'm gonna get in the cold plunge.
Brad:I'll do it.
Monnica:Okay. The other thing that challenged me on that to stop being such a wimp about it, is my little sister was there when we went a couple days ago, and she's like, yeah, I was in there for five minutes. Okay. She's always been tough and a badass. So, yeah.
Monnica:My sisters are amazing. My sisters challenge me to dig deeper, try harder.
Brad:That's awesome.
Monnica:I have pretty great sisters.
Brad:You do. They're cool.
Monnica:I agree.
Brad:I guess they're my sisters too.
Monnica:Yeah. Between so we we've mentioned this before, but the Ocho between the four siblings and all of their four spouses, the eight of us, it's a pretty cool group.
Brad:It is a good group. And the the four of us, the four fellas, are planning to resume some weekly golf outings this spring, so I'm looking forward to that.
Monnica:You're doing the league? Yes. Sweet. That that means my brother will be home for the summer.
Brad:He will.
Monnica:That's great. Okay. I want so maybe the thing I'll pay attention to this week, and I guess you can as well if you want to, is where did my attention go without me choosing it? Both maybe where my mind wanders to and what and what pulls it. Just keeping keep just kinda notice.
Brad:So more noticing.
Monnica:It's not really about being more focused. It's about being more available. Oh, that was the other thing I wanted to say in the book I thought was so cool. She she draws a distinction between metacognition, which is thinking about how you're thinking, which I do quite a lot. I'm pretty intentional about being how am I thinking about this?
Monnica:What's my mental approach? What's my mindset? What's my attitude? What perspective taking am I doing? I am pretty disciplined how my mind is working.
Monnica:But she drew a distinction between that and meta awareness. And that is, I think, what we're leaning into a little bit more right now that maybe I haven't been as disciplined about is being aware of and thinking about where my attention is and what my awareness is. Because she's not approaching mindfulness as like a stress reliever or a mood improvement. She's approaching it for attention training because she's working with
Brad:It's a tool.
Monnica:Soldiers, she's working with first responders, lawyers, engineers, people who are in high stake situations where their attention really matters. Because people don't typically fail in important situations because of a lack of skill or training or knowledge. It's usually because their attention fails, collapses, goes to the wrong place in the wrong moment. And so that meta awareness about where your attention is, I think is really a key to success, especially if you're in high stakes situations. And so that's kind of my my practice right now is paying attention to where my attention's going.
Brad:Yeah. She calls it time travel, mental time travel. When we drift to the past, thinking about something that we said or that we did or something that happened to us, or we jump to the future when we start ruminating and worrying about what's going to happen or the uncertainty of something. And so that time travel at any point, there's a cost to reentry to get back to the present moment. In your travel, you probably miss something And that causes stress whenever you come back because you realize, oh, shit, I just missed something.
Monnica:This just happened this week. I was telling you about it. I was in a pretty important meeting and I totally zoned out. And I can't remember what I zoned out for, but or what I was thinking about, but I was not paying attention. And I needed to be paying attention because I was facilitating and
Brad:That's like the worst was of the
Monnica:so bad. And I'm like, ugh, trying to like access my working memory to see if it was still in there to like, could I replay the last few seconds and get a sense of what was said? Because I was about I needed to ask the next question and I I was either gonna expose
Brad:And everybody's myself looking at you like the computer glitched.
Monnica:I don't know if they noticed or not. I they might have, but not a good feeling.
Brad:Not a good feeling. But I guess, really, as you just talked through this, does it really matter? Could you have just said, I just totally lost
Monnica:because said that. You know, that's a good point, actually. I would tell you that, being a female in corporate America, the two options basically are mode one is just always run circles around everyone, work harder than everybody, be undeniable. Right? Earn yourself a seat.
Monnica:And, of course, that's one way. There's some of that. And then the other one is, you know, just conform. Just sand down the parts of you that don't fit this world that was built for, designed for men and, you know, their success in mind and didn't really consider the things that the differences that women bring. But the reality is there's probably a little bit of both and and some room for just being human and relaxing and just being authentic.
Monnica:But I, for decades Mhmm. Have, like, operated less so in more recent years, but for a good twenty years, operated under the impression that it is not acceptable to make mistakes. You have to be perfect, which is a terrible way to operate, by the way. Because there's a ton of value in making mistakes. There's a ton of value in saying, oh, I was wrong.
Monnica:It's a pretty deeply ingrained habit to just work pretty hard at not making mistakes. But I didn't do that because I was able to salvage the situation sooner. Recognized pretty quickly that my attention had drifted and was able to recover and bring it back, and and I don't think anybody noticed. Two things are coming together here. One, I didn't need to because I did notice fast enough, and I was able to bring my attention and and kinda save it.
Brad:But Quick on your feet.
Monnica:Had I not been able to do that, then what the application would have been what what the appropriate application would have been to just have compassion for myself and be human and say, oh, sorry. I wasn't listening. What did you say?
Brad:Right.
Monnica:Right. But, I mean, I didn't wanna just go to that. I was operating as the host. So
Brad:Right.
Monnica:It was important for me to be paying attention. But I do think perfectionist tendencies are deeply ingrained in long formed habits. And I have been working on that for a while now, so I have gotten quite a bit better, but that doesn't mean they those tendencies are gone.
Brad:Right. Right. But again, I think that because of this work or this practice, And in fact, her book says, we're gonna we're actually gonna do it, right, for five weeks. We're gonna
Monnica:It's a four I mean, I think we can do it for longer, but it it's a four week, isn't it?
Brad:I think it's five weeks.
Monnica:Oh, okay.
Brad:It's a five week practice.
Monnica:Okay.
Brad:And we'll try it. It says twelve minutes a day to strengthen your attention. And I believe that it fits perfectly in us just trying to slow down right now, first of the year, recognize patterns, and then and then really have a firm position to be able to say, let's go that way or let's change that pattern or let's do this now.
Monnica:I think I mean, really since 2018, I've been pretty consistent, and I know you have too, of having an informal consistent mindfulness practice. But I it's been a while since I've had a formal practice habit. I've just I've not been good about that lately, so I am looking forward to reengaging that habit. And the reason she says twelve minutes per day is because that's what their studies show is, like, the minimum amount to show physiological change in the neural pathways in the brain.
Brad:Right. We're talking about actually changing the brain structure, building it, growing it.
Monnica:Those cortical nodes actually physically thicken Yeah. When you when you do this. So I I'm looking forward to, like I said, re reigniting that habit. I know I'll be glad I did.
Brad:I'm looking forward to having thick cortical nodes.
Monnica:Okay. See? Sheldon moment.
Brad:That was a Sheldon moment. Okay. Is that an accurate term?
Monnica:I think so.
Brad:Cortical nodes.
Monnica:On it. Maybe I mean, you're making fun of me, so now I'm questioning.
Brad:No. Now I gotta know. Cortical nodes. You have a vivacious vocabulary. What are you reading right now?
Monnica:I was looking in your notes to see if there's an off ramp to end this thing, but I don't see a
Brad:This one's designed to not end.
Monnica:Oh, boy. It's like the, Hotel California you can check out, but you can never leave.
Brad:That's right.
Monnica:Well, I'm gonna say thank you for joining us this week.
Brad:Uh-huh. Okay.
Monnica:And just notice where your attention goes. When it gets pulled away from wherever you wanted it, what pulls it? Where does it go and what pulled it?
Brad:Right. Especially if it's perfectionism.
Monnica:That's what I'm gonna notice. If it's perfectionism or if it's, just recalling how I felt when you were making fun of me. Okay. I'm gonna notice what that was. So I give you a lot of opportunities to make fun of me.
Monnica:You're just an opportunist who doesn't let opportunities go.
Brad:I okay. Right on. Hey. Should we invite people to tell us what they are noticing? Are they noticing anything?
Monnica:I mean, if somebody wants to share what they are noticing, how would they do that? I would love to hear it.
Brad:They would send us a message on Instagram or YouTube. Have a great week. Thanks for hanging out with us.
Monnica:Have a great week.
Brad:May your coffee be strong and your conversations stronger.