Welcome to the Harry Potter episode of The Real Brian Show! From beginning to end, front to back, this is Harry Potter through and through We're drinking butterbeer, eating chocolate frogs (or nuance chocolate...), talking about our favorite (and least favorite) Harry Potter things. Basically, if you love Harry Potter, you're going to have a blast joining in this week.
In This Episode
- Introductions all around!
- What does Harry Potter mean to you?
- Favorite characters! Least favorite characters!
- TRIVIA
- Taste testing Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans
Harry Potter
If there was ever a conversation I wish I could have been a part of, it was this one! Harry Potter is such a unique book series in how so many different people from so many walks of life can connect to it in different ways...at various stages of life. In one of the most powerful world-building series ever written, we can completely lose ourselves to a story of misfits, of outcasts, and of severe friendship.
So because I want to join in on the fun, here are some of my favorite Harry Potter things!
- Book: & the Prisoner of Azkaban (because we're introduced to Sirius Black and Harry learns the truth about who betrayed his parents. And there's time travel.)
- Movie: ugh. If I had to choose one I like... Prisoner of Azkaban. It's the least awkward. And there's time travel.
- Primary Character: Hermione. Duh. Book smart, goofy, she does her thing and always does what she says she's going to do.
- Secondary Character: Remus Lupin. It's almost a toss up between Remus and Sirius, but in some odd ways I identify with Remus... and he's such an integral part to Harry's education (and continuing education)
- Subject: if I could enroll in Hogwarts, I would spend all of my time in Transfiguration. That is so friggin' cool.
...And my least favorites
- Book: & the Sorcerer's Stone. It's just oddly written. If JKR was given a chance to produce a "second edition", I hope she'd focus on that one and clean it up.
- Movie: just one? Uhm. Whenever Dan Radcliffe started drinking. Was that the 4th or the 5th? I also dislike the ones before he started drinking.
- Primary Character: is it possible to hate a primary character? I guess in the movies I dislike Harry.
- Secondary Character: Vernon Dursley. The fact that he was an abuser was never addressed, which is totally fine... but what a rotten person who never got what was coming to him. It was only because Harry was who he was that he even survived.
- Subject: Divination. It's a wooly subject.
Interestingly, even though these books came out when I was a kid, I didn't read them until I was in college. I remember sitting in the cafeteria with a friend who was telling me about these "Harry Potter" books. The sixth book had just come out and she was in fits. I told her that I didn't know what she was talking about, but I wasn't planning on reading them, so she told me what happened at the end of book six. (And we all know what happened at the end.) Well, months later when I actually picked up the books and read them... I totally forgot about that conversation until maybe a chapter before IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. It didn't ruin it for me, I just started crying a couple chapters earlier.
Share your favorite Harry Potter memories, characters, movies or books in the comments!
Photo Gallery
When circumstances dominate us it is easier to notice how the things we think manifest in our lives. Let's talk about balance and how we can turn the negative outcomes into positive ones! Camron is back from the city that never sleeps, so he and Brian dive right into another fantastic Superhero Friday installment of The Real Brian Show.
In This Episode
- Do you like Autumn? Hopefully more than the Nightfox...
- Guinness and Gouda Bread, courtesy of Great Harvest
- Will Smith's motivational sky diving speech
- What we think about ourselves and about our situations manifest
- Happiness is a choice
- Alien: Isolation and Overwatch comments
Manifests
“What you sow in thought, either useful or useless, manifests itself sooner or later in your circumstances.”
Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. It's a phrase people toss around like candy at an Independence Day parade, thinking there is so much pride in thinking and, thus, being. The phrase, originally penned by Rene Descartes (philosopher from the 1600s), was fascinated by the idea that in order to contemplate doubt our existence, we also must have the capability of doubting (thinking), which thereby negates any doubt we can have over our existence.
In the centuries since Descartes' day, many people have taken his words in many directions, have argued semantics and have been skeptical of proper definitions... but if we strip all that away for a moment and just meditate on the basic premise, we're left with a stunning realization that we're only capable of questioning the things we have enough knowledge on to know any different way of being.
Follow? It's kind of interesting. I had the issue as a kid of being well-read, but lacking formal instruction around pronunciation. I read a lot of stories and inferred many words from context, but the building blocks of language were only beginning to come together for me and, as a result, I didn't know how to pronounce a lot of the words I was reading. The one that I always remember most vividly is the word facade. Properly pronounced, it sounds like fuh-sawd. The way I pronounced it was more like fah-cayd. But I never questioned the word, or pronunciations in general, up until I said the word in public and was lovingly chided. I didn't know enough to question the pronunciation, but after I did... it became quite consuming and is still something I work on getting correct to this day.
Brian and Camron talk a lot about how our situations perpetuate our thought process, and vice versa. What we think about ourselves and our situations begins to manifest. Like biting the same spot on the inside of your mouth repeatedly, we inadvertently point ourselves to the things we think even when it stuff we don't want.
Inversely, as Brian points out, we are fully capable of producing positive effects from this tendency! When we can be confident about decisions, about who we are and why we know what we know, we can think about things that point us to what we want and achieve those goals. Having the capacity to question ourselves is a great tool, but it should be a tool we wield in order to grow and better ourselves and our circumstances instead of it becoming a road block.
Links
- Will Smith's Motivational Sky Diving Speech
Happy Superhero Friday! While the Nightfox is hittin' up the City that Never Sleeps, Brian recruits Lee Stephen to fill in his shoes. Great expectations is definitely a theme here, but we also venture into the traditional nerdy topics about video games and television. We talk about ways we relieve stress, pet peeves about storytelling, and inspirational health tips.
In This Episode
- Fancy coffee is for GIRLS! Real men drink black coffee straight from the pot
- Stress relievers
- Pet peeves about storytelling
- Great Expectations (no, not the novel)
- When what we EXPECT is different from what happens
- Mastering expectations.... is tough
- Hugely impacted by Pain Reframed podcacst
Expectations
Did you ever listen to Dashboard Confessional? I can still sing along to every song on the album A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar. A couple of their songs are randomly integrated into a couple of my spotify playlist, so they're still relatively on my radar. Spotify does this thing where it creates a playlist for you based on artists you listen to, and I almost never listen to it because... yeah, I like having more control than that. But I was listening to it this week and a song comes on that is very clearly the lead singer of Dashboard Confessional (Chris Carrabba), but is not your typical Dashboard Confessional song. It's not emo, it's not punk... it's rock and a little rap.
At first I thought the band sold out, like The Killers or Panic! At the Disco. But it turns out that Dashboard was just featured on another artist's song. Talk about relief! Turns out I kind of like the band (nothing,nowhere). I don't usually like this degree of foul language, but they've got a good beat. So I'm not going to listen on repeat, but I've got a few more songs to work out to.
Brian and Lee talk about expectations in this episode, a really good discussion and one that we can all resonate with. Expectations are so strange in how they affect our perception of reality. Like taking a drink of something, expecting water and actually tasting something else can make it taste disgusting! Then in the next sip, when you realize what you're drinking, tastes totally fine. Or taking a bite of something expecting it to be sweet but it's actually salty! Oooh, bad surprise!
Links
Kids these days! They have no idea. That is what we're talking about this Superhero Friday! That and so much more, like how important it is to stop and smell the colors...and take care of your health.
In This Episode
- Stop and smell the colors!
- Star Trek: Discovery, The Orville
- Ad hoc TV viewing
- Staying healthy
- How Turmeric and Coconut Oil are good for us
- What the Health?!
Fall Workouts
I am the master of avoiding the gym. There is nothing appealing to me about getting on a machine and sweating it out inside... or lifting weights in front of a mirror. I will do everything I can to workout outdoors. For almost 15 years, my go-to was running! I ran 4-6 miles a day, 5x a week. I never needed anything else. But as many know, I have been unable to run much anymore because of bad knees. It took a little over two years to fully transition off of running to something else that I could really throw myself into the way I was able to with running, and I've finally discovered it: jumping rope.
If you want to get a KILLER full body workout wherever you are, I highly recommend jumping rope. It is one of the best core workouts I've ever done. It tones muscles and is a great mechanism for weight loss. It is not good for building muscle, but for staying lean it has done wonders for me.
Since transitioning from running, however, I've discovered a need to be more versatile with my workout regimen. I do jump rope 3-4 times a week, but I often pair it with playing basketball or going for a walk. Other days of the week I will do yoga or do leg-centric 20-minute exercises (i.e. squat routines). I used to be super into P90X and incorporate a lot of the cardio and Kenpo routines into my living-room workouts (it does rain here from time to time).
The hardest time of year to workout is in January when it is 12 below zero and the roads are pure ice. The Frozen Tundra is no joke! I end up returning to P90X workouts during the coldest months of the year.
The hardest part with any workout is finding something that works for you. I can recommend anything, but our bodies are all different. Saving our health, like Brian and Camron talk about in this episode, is relative to everyone and it's important to not just do what everyone else does, but really pay attention to what your body likes and doesn't like. There are some foods that make us feel sluggish or lethargic and there are some foods that invigorate us... which may have the exact opposite effect on someone else.
Do you workout at home? What is your workout of choice? What sorts of things do you do in the middle of winter when you can't go outside? Let us know in the comments!
Links
In this special interview installment of The Real Brian Show, we have the privilege of speaking with Dr. Daphne Scott. We know of Dr. Scott from her podcast, EIM's Inside Leadership Podcast, but there are a host of reasons she is this week's guest! From physical therapist to corporate coach, Dr. Scott brings two decades of experience to help her clients and listeners achieve success through relationship building and creativity!
In This Episode
- Welcome, Daphne!
- Where have you come from, where did you go?
- Training with the Second City Improvisational Conservatory Program
- Bad at leadership led Daphne into a deep dive of the subject
- A coach is often cast as a hero
- Brain challenges standing in our way to ultimate success
Character Traits
When considering a job or a position with responsibilities, there are certain character traits that necessarily go along with it. Often, I think we confuse character traits and skills; where a character trait may be "resourceful", it's skill counterpart may be "proactive". Really, the first thought that came to mind when thinking about this is the difference between being disciplined and detail-oriented. Character traits are fascinating because the same type of trait is never the same between two people. We are all so unique that we apply and carry out our traits in very different ways.
One of the points Dr. Scott makes in this interview is the fact that there are some traits, particularly around leadership, that can be learned.Just because someone is naturally bossy or naturally good at delegating doesn't make them a great leader. That boldness is a great trait to have, but unless the skills of leadership are applied, the trait of being a leader falls short of what it can be.
So listen in! Dr. Scott points out two essential character traits for leaders which are not only learnable, but unequivocally achievable. If you've ever doubted your ability to overcome some perceived vacuity, Dr. Scott will be able to encourage you to be empowered and seek after the tools that can help you build up those traits.