What are you doing? I'm just doing this without you

over here. No. No. I'm catching up. I this is what I'm out to use because of my thing.

Got it. You think I'm over here

Yeah. I'm like, you're just scrolling on your phone. Like, I'm I'm doing this alone over here, man.

I am not

playing monopoly. Okay. Welcome back to the Emanuel transmission.

We're Brad and Monica Emanuel, married twenty eight years and still exploring what it means to lead, love, and live with intention.

Me just read about it a little bit.

Alright. Tell me about the album.

This I really like this album. I feel like we we began we began the Christmas season today, finally.

That was my hope.

Yeah. Good job. You picked a good album for that. One of the most beloved holiday records of all time. Every Christmas, we used to watch Charlie Brown's Christmas.

I remember growing up, and that was a staple. Along with what were the other ones? Rudolph Uh-huh. The claymation The

claymation.

And Frosty the Snowman. Brown. That was always a staple.

Mhmm.

Snoopy. Gotta love Snoopy. Everybody loves a dog.

Not everybody, but most the cool people do. I didn't realize this. Was from 1965.

Yeah. It was created for a children's television special that the network executives expected to fail.

It it is both melancholic as well as hopeful. And that emotional combination of, like, melancholy and hope and joy, especially in December, it kind of feels

Especially today.

Feels like it goes. Yeah.

Vince Guaraldi's trio. It's really cool how he captured that childlike innocence for a cartoon. He was asked if he would write the score for this cartoon that was about a sad little kid with a dog.

Well, and it it had never been an animated cartoon before. It had only been, what did you say, like fifteen years in the comic section of the And so they were gonna do this animated Christmas special, and they asked him to score it. But I like, back to your point about the innocence of a child. It's almost like the inner life of a child.

Right.

Which is neat. It's perfect for decorating the tree or wrapping presents. On this Christmas special album, the original album has that Linus and Lucy, like, the iconic Peanuts theme. That's what it became. That was I don't think anybody expected that.

It just that's what it became, and then it was the theme throughout what then became an ongoing cartoon and series of specials that we all came to know and love. And I thought it was really cool that you said what was it? Giraldi what was his first name?

Vince.

Vince Giraldi. He tell me the backstory with him and the Grateful Dead.

Oh, yeah. I where did I see that? The fact that he was on the back cover of a Grateful Dead album. His he was in the picture with a big group of people. He's standing next to a horse.

You think about it. He was a very popular jazz artist in San Francisco in the sixties and seventies. And he so he hung out with other artists. He became a friend of the Grateful Dead, and he ended up on that back cover in one of their pictures.

They brought that I mean, I don't know, but it just feels like it tracks that they would be like, hey. Let's let's take a picture for our album. Or or, hey. We need a picture for our album. We have that one.

Like, they just maybe were there for a different reason that day or something. I don't It just feels Yep. Like it was probably organic.

What is it called when a word is the same words spelled backwards?

Oh, forward and backward. I don't know.

In fact, I'm gonna see if you can say it. First of all, there's the cover of the album.

Oh, yeah. I recognize that one.

Do you? It definitely looks like a dead cover.

Maybe I'm thinking of you know what? You know what? You're gonna laugh. I I'm thinking of the Journey album cover.

Oh my god. You know what? You know what? Okay. I can see that.

That's not bad. Oxamoxoa.

Me see? Oxamoxoa. That's the name of their album. Uh-huh. Okay.

And and so what is it called? What are those called?

Oh, I don't know. Oxamoxoa. Hey, why don't figure that out?

Okay. It's a palindrome. Palindrome? Yep. Giraldi was a well known Bay Area jazz pianist.

Jerry Garcia came up playing bluegrass and jazz adjacent gigs. Musicians, studios, parties, and coffee houses overlapped constantly. The Dead's early albums, especially what is it? How do you say it?

I forgot.

Oxomoxoa. Oxomoxoa.

Oxomoxoa.

Yeah. Oxomoxoa that they did in 1969. It reflects that communal ethos. The back cover photo isn't a formal band portrait. It's a family photo of sorts.

Okay. So there's this comic strip of this little boy named Charlie Brown and his dog, Snoopy. It's been a comic strip for fifteen years. These network executives go, you know what? Let's take this comic strip and let's make a holiday special.

They don't expect it to succeed, but they one of the executives hears Vince Geraldi's song which song was it?

It was Cast Your Fate to the Wind.

He hears it on the radio. He goes, oh, I like that. Maybe that'll work. Because, like, this artist will be good for the soundtrack to score this Christmas special. He calls him just cold, finds his number, calls him, says, hey, will you make this will you write a score for this Christmas special about this cartoon that's a little a sad little boy and his dog.

And and Vince Caraldi's like, hell yeah, that's my vibe. I'm in. So he writes this timeless piece that then, like, multiple generations grow up loving and becomes a part of people's Christmas traditions year after year, and and more than that, the great pumpkin patch, like, Halloween traditions. I mean, it's like it's just a became an icon. And and he just he was completely and wholly uninterested in fame.

He just wanted to play little gigs, he said, and coffee shops and dive bars and be part of the music scene in San Francisco, and that's what he did.

You just gave me every reason to put this somewhere on my top 25 albums of all time. Because I think one of the criteria of being on that list is could I play it front to back multiple times? Because could I just listen to it?

Well, given that that's what you've been doing the last two days, I'd say yes.

It's such a cool vibe.

It's a cool vinyl cover too. Like, original soundtrack recording of the CBS television special, A Charlie Brown Christmas Vince Guaraldi Trio, and it has Snoopy sitting where the angel would go.

Classic piece.

Linus, Lucy, and Charlie Brown are holding hands, doing like, I don't know, laps around the Christmas tree, it looks like. It's great. Yeah. Good good choice, Brad. That was a that was a great album to listen to.

And, you know, it has that it has nostalgia. It has a lot of movement. It's jazz. It has a lot of hope and sadness and simplicity, and it just feels appropriate for this time of year.

I think definitely was needed to kinda kick things off this weekend, get things rolling. So it was a good pick.

Okay. So we're putting up our Christmas tree, not in the house where we actually live, because the house we live in is still full of construction chaos. This is very much a choose your own adventure December.

Yes. And of course, this next week, we have everyone arriving. It's gonna get busy.

I just keep picturing those scenes in Christmas vacation when, like, all the crazy family keeps knocking on the door and showing up, and it's just chaos ensues.

So who's cousin Eddie?

I'm not saying.

Oh, wow.

Sisters, in laws, kids, the whole migration is happening. Hey. So if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, you can hit follow and come hang out with us on Instagram.

Welcome back to the manual transmission powered by coffee, curiosity, and conversation. This is the perfect December record. Fits in my top 25 at least. I'm gonna nominate it for our top 25.

It's a good nomination.

The manual transmission, Brad and Monica's combined top 25. Do you think it would

I think it's a contender to be nominated for sure. I think what we should do I

think we should just put them on slots. Like, we can start fresh.

Sure. Well, okay. That's one way to do it. And if something else comes along and bumps it, then it bumps it. I was gonna say, like, maybe we wait until we've got, like, 50 nominees and then there's a vote or something.

But

We vote? Yeah. K. That means we gotta do

50 Right now, that one can sit, right, at fifteen.

Do you know I gotta that means, you know, potentially, probably, more like probably, that that means we need to buy 50 vinyls I'm okay with that. And then at least have a vote with just what we have.

No. We probably have some that would make it already. Currently. Yeah.

Uh-huh.

So we're not starting from scratch. But I feel like this is a never ending search for the top 25. Like, you could just keep listening to vinyls and keep, you know, nominate I mean, if if it's good enough to make the top 25, then that means it's gonna have to displace something.

Agreed.

You could just plop anything that you're putting in the top 25. You just plop it in. Right now, there's nothing in there. So it can sit at number one until it gets bumped.

Love it.

Yeah. So this was the perfect December record. It's warm. It's nostalgic, jazzy, hopeful. It feels like childhood and adulthood all at the same time.

The light, the heavy, side by side altogether.

Let's move into high low. Let's do high low.

Let's do high low. How about you go first?

My high was probably the carryover, the progress, the quick progress that was made getting the area set up for the kitchen. I had to coordinate electrical, plumbing, drywall.

And you had to hurry and do some insulation installation. Which you that's what I'm say. But you did a great job of it, and you you had a sprint there, but you got it done.

I found that I I started to enjoy it. You start to figure out how you kinda fit those fiberglass bats into place. You just kinda find a rhythm. Not to mention, yeah, I had a deadline. So had to move along and get it buttoned up and ready for the drywallers to show up the following morning.

In fact, I still had to get up that morning at about 6AM and go up and clean up a few spots that I had left that were more of those custom cut areas.

That's what takes the longest.

That's the part I don't like.

Well, it's easy to do the ones that are just plug and play, but then you have to measure and cut. That takes longer. Yeah. But you did a I thought you did a great job.

Thank you very much.

And cabinets are going in, so that's exciting.

So that was my that's I think that was my high is getting to that point and feeling like, okay. We're actually gonna get this over the line.

Did you feel relieved?

I did. Well, there's still work to do, in fact.

Of course. But there's, like, mile markers. This this section, we can kind of conclude and we can take a breath through the holiday.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to breathing for a minute.

Yeah. What was your low?

My low. You know what? It was probably it was actually a mix. You've had a few of those. Mhmm.

It was I got to hang out with Ryker a lot this week.

Which is a high.

It was a high. The reason Right. Is not So three days for three days, he stayed home because he had this nasty cough, and he just needed to rest. And he was feeling great. He just had this cough.

Wouldn't go away. So he stayed home with me, and we interacted for three days just living together. I'm having to get stuff done. Literally, I I I'm upstairs working, doing installation. He knew I was up there.

I'm like, if you need me, come get me. And while he's downstairs watching some show or he's drawing, I have I have evidence in front of

artwork hits really good.

He is obsessed with sea, sea creatures.

This octopus is awesome.

Right? And so he would come in. He'd ask me, how do you spell crab? And I'd spell it, and he'd write it. And he sectioned off the paper.

And on one half, he's got a picture of a crab, and he put lines like it was being measured to so you could get scale. And then on the other half of the paper, he has shrimp.

And I love how he drew one for, like, up close and one swimming off in the distance, his perspective.

Uh-huh. And then what does that one say?

This one says seahorse. And what does that say?

Let me see it.

I'm not sure what that says. Does this say camouflage?

Camouflage.

Oh, he okay. So he shows the seahorse up close with the with the measuring lines, and then he shows a camouflage seahorse in its surroundings. That's cool.

Funny. Funny.

And then this one is a great white shark and a bull shark. And he's just freehand drawing these? Yeah. These are great.

And then oh, and then we have the Minecraft tools.

Okay.

But to your point, pull out that other squid one that you had.

The squid one. Oh, the

The first one, I think.

This one.

Look at this one earlier in the week.

Oh, yeah. Wow. The progression.

I love it. I love it.

Oh, I

love These look like penises, like weird penises. They do. It does. Right? Believe that.

Okay. What? I You're not doubting me? Nope. Okay.

Alright. Anyway

Is that

was my

Bob's house?

It might be. That was my low that he was sick and not feeling well.

I think the high part of my week it's funny because this is interesting. It hasn't even happened yet. It's gonna it's really starting tomorrow, but I'm so excited about it. But it's like, I just haven't this sounds bad, but I haven't had room for Christmas. I've just been busy, and now Christmas is starting.

My sister is coming over tomorrow. We're gonna decorate. We're gonna put up the tree, and we're gonna get ready for Christmas. So I started I did a little bit of shopping today And just, like, finally starting to it's late. I know.

But I'm sorry. It's late. I know. But I'm finally starting to get in the mood for the season. So that's great.

I can feel it.

Calling on the air tonight? Is that how it goes?

Yes.

You can feel it too? Yeah. It's like No.

I can feel it from you.

Oh, from Mika. How does that look?

Well, there's a different energy and excitement.

Yeah. So that's good. As far as low, I don't know. I if I had had a good week, I'd struggled to sleep this week, so that was tough. There was a couple oh my gosh.

On Wednesday, I had a, like, a four hour afternoon meeting followed by, like, a professional dinner. And by about, oof, 02:30 or 03:00, I was I was having to, like, stand up in the back of the room because I I was just was my eyes were getting heavy. I struggled on Wednesday. Yeah. I hate that feeling when you're just, like, so tired Yes.

But you have to keep going. That's how it felt.

Those are the feelings you have in an in a race, like Ragnar's.

Yep.

Whenever you're like, why the hell am I doing this?

I I actually had and, obviously, it's it's different because I I wasn't physically running, but I literally had the thought, and I started it went on this I don't know, it must have been it must have been on my drive to work. Because I had that feeling Wednesday afternoon where I was just I just I mean, I got through it just fine. I was interested in what I was doing. I was excited to be where I was. I just physically was really tired and had to find find another wind or gear or whatever.

But then Thursday morning, I was going so I was you know, I had kind of a later night Wednesday and had to be up. Actually, I was slow going in Thursday. I usually am in the office by 08:00 or a few minutes before eight, and it was I don't think I went in till nine, a few minutes before nine. And so I'm driving in already kinda sluggish and slow, And I'm thinking, I don't think I've called in sick in I was trying to remember a time I've called in sick. Twenty years?

I just don't do it. Even if I am sick. Though, like, the closest I've come is being like contagious sick and just working from home. But I've never just blown off the day and called in sick. I mean not never.

I've done it when I was younger, but like it's been decades. And I don't know if that's a good thing.

What do you think?

Oh, that's probably not a balanced approach to life. There's probably some you probably take a little off the top. I don't know. I just it's just something I just haven't done in a long time.

I think there's probably something to be said in all of that with regard to what we feel, what our values are, what is important to you, why you felt like having to show up every single day no matter what was so important.

Mhmm. Yeah. That's probably not I mean, I guess on the bright side or on the positive side, just like any strength. Right? Two sides strength and weakness, two sides of the same coin potentially.

Yep. On the on the strength side, you know, just my grit and determination and ability to show up no matter what. But on the weakness side of that is probably, you know, a bunch of negative assumptions about.

Well, fear. Right? Yeah. I mean, I know we've we've lived it in various, what is it, seasons of our lives where, like, things were tight, very tight, too tight, and you live in fear. You're worried about how do you protect, like, what you do have.

It was probably also really early training too. I mean, think about it. When our kids were all three of them were pretty little, and we moved to California, we didn't have any network to step in. Like, and you don't get to take a day off from being a mom or a dad. You just have to show up.

And so it's not like there was someone who could take the kids if, like, we didn't feel like doing the the work of parenting that day. We we just so I think early on, we just kinda forged this habit of it really doesn't matter how you feel. You just have to do what you have to do. And so that's probably yeah.

What were we thinking?

I don't we weren't. That's

the To your point, we thrust ourselves down into Southern California with no support system, we

had Very little money.

Like my salary was what we were counting on.

And no savings. We were living, the two of us and our three little kids, on $36,000 a year in Southern California.

That was

my With no savings and no family around. Is that crazy?

Yeah. That was No my wonder. Improved upon salary to move from Salt Lake City, Utah to Southern California.

That's wild.

I think it was a 10% bump.

Remember we we had the choice between Chicago or what was it like Ontario, California?

Yep.

And we we chose Ontario and it was that's crazy. I mean, with inflation, I don't know what the inflation adjusted amount would be. That was in the nineties. But dang. Mhmm.

So anyway, that was my low. Not getting enough sleep.

That You need to get more sleep.

I do need to get more sleep. On the positive side though, I have been tracking it's so funny how how responsive I am to anything gamified.

Uh-huh. I know.

It's actually kind of I should probably examine that. But so my sister, when she left for her six month sabbatical, she gave me her Oura Ring. So I've been tracking stuff. And my cardio cardiological

I say

that right? Age? Was sitting at, like, two and a half years younger than my actual age. And then I had all that travel, and and it dropped to half a year younger than my actual age, and I got a little concerned. I'm like, oh my gosh.

Did that travel just take two years off my life? But, obviously, it doesn't work like that. We're we're more resilient than that. So I've been really intentional the last several weeks to be very active every day, just at at least a walk if not going to the gym or going to yoga. And I've gotten better sleep than what I was when I was traveling, which isn't saying much.

It's still not where it needs to be. But I just checked this morning, and it's at three years. Three years younger than my actual age. So I am making progress, but now the next step is to figure out how to get some better sleep.

You are age defying.

At least according to the app. It's probably just telling me what I wanna hear, so I'll keep using it. I don't know. Okay. So, basically, right now, our our house kinda looks like our inner lives.

Like, there's exposed beams. There's patches of ceiling missing. There's potential, though, everywhere.

There is potential everywhere.

Multiple things can be true at once. And, you know, December kinda has a lot of that as well. Right? It's got it has pressure. It also has tenderness.

Has frenzy. It has nostalgia. How do you see us navigating the tension this year?

We go to therapy.

We did. We did go to therapy this morning. It's funny. I my therapist, Tanya, is awesome. I love her.

She texted me. Or, no, I got the I was scheduled to meet with her Wednesday like I normally am. And and texted her and said, hey. I can't I can't do I can't do it. And she I think she knows.

She's like, should we fit in, like, maybe a Saturday session before the holidays? So you know what? We should. So she accommodated accommodated and met with us on a Saturday morning. So that was great.

That was great.

So, yeah, that's I think part of so it's a great honestly, here's the thing. I can't tell you. I've stopped asking it because it's happened so many times, but I'll be thinking, I don't really have anything to talk about. What am I even gonna talk about? I don't even know why I'm going.

I think I should be done going now. That's happened multiple times. And and it's in particular, it's on the mornings when I think, what am I gonna talk about? That I'm like, oh, man. I needed to talk I didn't know.

I needed to talk about that. Just something unearthed. I just think we were reflecting on it together saying, you know, just it is. It's cellular level change. You're creating new neural pathways.

And so old patterns of how how I would have responded to something or interpreted something, I'm reminded of them, but I those aren't my those aren't my patterns anymore. It's it's pretty cool. But, yeah, I just think everybody should I think everybody should go to therapy, especially people who think they don't need to.

Especially. I thought it was cool to sit in there and have these concepts explained, broken down. We talked about it earlier, how just the ability to understand how these mechanisms are working in our brain. Like what happens whenever this tripwire is, is set off, but we can control it with more awareness.

Oh, can recognize when it's happening and have a plan for that. Correct. Yeah.

Right. But just that ability to label it and recognize it, see it, allows for us to kind of compartmentalize things in a way that you can catch it whenever you you get pissed off or you get sad.

You can create that interruption and just get back to a window of tolerance so you can think logically again. Because it's when we're outside of our window of tolerance that survival mode kicks in and we're not thinking logically and we do something crazy

Mhmm.

Or rude or, you know, inconsiderate because you're not considering. You're just surviving. But if you can recognize what's happening, you can create an interruption to create space between that stimulus and how you choose to respond, and and that's pretty powerful.

We got to play with the connector set.

That was pretty cool. She she was whatever. We don't even talk about that. She helps. It's like a circuit board.

I'm so glad we performed.

Oh, that we were able to do it? So she she

was I was feeling the pressure there for

a minute. I know. Right? She was showing us what she does with kids. It's like a a circuit board where you follow the instructions to create the circuit pathway so that, a light will light up or a fan will spin or what have you.

And then and then, of course, there's once you've got it built and you turn it on, this fan lights up and spins. And she's like, okay. So if so now that's the activation. Now if you don't like that, what do you do? And you you interrupt the circuit.

You flip the switch or you take a you know, you could disassemble it, but you could just, you know, open the circuit. And so that's what she was she was explaining how she teaches kids with that tool to recognize when you don't like that reaction that's happening right then. You can go, okay. I have a there's something I can do here. I can interrupt that circuit, and I can get back

to grab all the pieces and just start tearing them

You could do. That's one Or

cut electrical wires as you're tearing down walls.

Okay. Do you wanna tell

us going

on? What happened? Because I feel like if

I tell it, I sound like I'm criticizing it. Oh, no. No. No. I brought it up because that's exactly what happened.

You were like, I don't think you should do that. I was like, this bad idea. This

is a bad oh, man. Pop. Yeah. Oh, well. What are you gonna do this week?

I'm gonna be gone all week.

That's a great question. You're gonna be right down the road, but you are gonna be gone.

I won't I might as well be on another planet. Like, you won't see

me. Wow.

It doesn't matter where I'm gonna be. I'm just gonna be gone.

What am I gonna do with this week? I've got well, we have that dumpster for the rest of this week. I'm gonna take advantage of that, and I'm gonna be learning some editing, more editing, and probably, well, wrapping up 2025, the planning of 2026.

Gosh. It's just right there, isn't

it? Mhmm. How about you? You're you're you got a busy week.

Well, yeah, that's my whole week is 2026 planning. I've been in 2026 planning since August, which is kinda hard to think about. Budgeting starts in July. Well, starts actually it starts earlier than July, but it really is, like, in earnest, drafts are being submitted in July, August. Things get dialed in and finalized throughout September.

But, yeah. So annual planning and all the work that goes into that is really kind of culminating this week and then getting ready to kick off the new year. But this next week will be a big push, and then the the final two weeks of the year are a lot of people take that time off, so it's the perfect time for me to not take the time off

Mhmm.

Because I can catch up and get some work done. But but I'll be home over those two weeks. I think I'll be home, like, nine days just because of the way that the holidays fall. So I'm looking forward to some downtime, some time with the family, some quiet time, I hope. I might have to go hide somewhere.

We can hide over here. We're gonna have to set some firm boundaries.

Healthy boundaries are the key to happiness in life.

Agreed. If your December feels anything like ours, joy, chaos, and a shocking amount of insulation, give yourself permission to go hide in your bedroom for a minute and ignore literally everyone.

Yeah. Or pour a cup of

coffee. That's what you should do.

That's probably what I

want do. Probably what you're gonna do. You're gonna hide in your bedroom for a minute and ignore literally everyone.

You know what I'm gonna do? My goal is to read a physical book. I I consume audiobooks pretty regular pretty religiously, like daily. But the the luxury of sitting down with a physical book and just reading it, oh, that's wonderful. I love to do that.

I'll probably do that. Or you can just pour a cup of coffee, put on a song you love, let the season meet you where you are.

And if you're ready to start 2026 with intention instead of pressure, join us next Friday, January 2 for a free goal setting session. It's one hour. It's grounded. It's human, and it might just set the tone for the whole year. The link is in the notes.

Come hang out with us. May your coffee be strong and your conversation stronger.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Happy New Year. Would you like me to say something?

Nope.

You're a child.

I know. It's okay. You don't have to share.

Okay. Give me the pictures.

I'm just checking up.

I I need to clean those off before I give them back to him.

Oh, I gotta reset.

Okay. Okay. So let's talk about your high low.

Almost had coffee come out my nose.

You have issues.

Hi. Hi. My name is Monica. Nice to meet you. Okay.