Future Projects and Closing Thoughts

The best summer pieces are the ones that you end up wearing on repeat. Somehow they're just ripe for almost every occasion, and that's why I love quQints, because they make elevated essentials using premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, and washable silk, and without the traditional retail markup Quinz is one hundred percent, European linen pants, dresses and tops are the pieces that you're going to reach for all summer long because they're lightweight Effortless to style and they started just thirty two dollars. Their denim is soft and comfortable and their organic cotton sweaters, my favorite, are perfect when layering when evenings are cool. Quince's beautiful fourteen kat gold jewelry adds that subtle finishing touch Simple hoops or delicate chains make even the most effortless outfit feel intentional What's in my cart now? The most beautiful silk washables drawstring pants and I've got a boyfriend crew neck sweater and some ballet flats. Everything at Quin is priced fiftycent to eighty percent less than similar brands. and they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman. So you're paying for exceptional quality and not brand markup And it's not just apparel, Quince also offers elevated essentials for your home from bedding and bath to kitchen essentials and furniture. Make your summer wardrobe feel easier. Go to quins d. com slash Kate Casey for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. and it's now available in Canada too That's QINcE dot com slash Kate Casey for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns Qins d. com slash Kate Casey When your mental health is suffering, therapy can help, but sometimes it's not the whole answer Psychiatry gives you access to real psychiatric care with licensed clinicians who can diagnose and prescribe medication if it's right for you It's a simple way to get effective treatment right from home. Psychiatry is a one hundred percent online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnosis, and ongoing medical management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder OCD, PTSD, insomnia, and more Unlike therapy only platforms, psulchiatry is psychiatry. You're seeing a medical provider who can diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe medication when it's appropriate All eight hundred plus clinicians are in network with major insurers So you can use your existing insurance instead of paying monthly subscriptions or out of network costs. Getting started just takes a few minutes. Complete a short online assessment, get matched with clinicians who fit your needs And schedule your first visit in days and not months And because you continue with the same provider, you're not starting over each visit Your treatment can evolve with you. So you're actually making progress over time More than three hundred thousand patients have already found high quality psychiatric care through talkiatry So head to talkiatry dot com slash Kate Casey. to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's talkatry dot com slash Kate Casey to get matched in minutes Welcome back for another episode of Reality Life with K Kasey. and welcome back to the Saturday sereries episode. And I think it's this most special episode this week because many of us are haaving graduations for our children. It's their last day of school. and I just Teachers are so special I was recently scrolling through TikTok and I Found a video from Eli McCann talking about his teacher, Mrs. Yates I don't know exactly what happened, but somewhere in the middle of it I just started crying And it was like the good kind of cry, the kind that kind of sneaks up on you because something that somebody says just kind of reaches directly into part of your chest that you forgot existed And for me, it took me straight back to fifth grade East Bradford Elementary School, West Chester, Pennsylvania and Mrs Helena Graham's cllassroom That was the year that my family life was really at the most chaotic My older sister had moved out to live with her best friend. My mother was doing her best to manage my stepfather who had schizoaffective disorder. and without any real financial resources to speak up Every single day I would walk into that classroom sit down at my desk. and quietly cry And if it wasn't enough, there was this classmate, a true real life Regina George before any of us knew what that meant who made sure things were a little worse whenever possible. Helena Graham was a black woman who stood almost five feet tall and chomped on nicotine gum every single hour of the school day And one afternoon when every other kid had filed out of class pold me aside And what she said was not particularly warm or gentle She just looked at me and she said You have to stop crying. It has to stop. It's too much I did I never let anybody see me cry again. And she wasn't being cruel She was giving me the most honest, most useful gift that any adult had ever handed me the truth There is nothing you can do to fix your family. The only thing you can control is yourself Focus on that, getet out, be successful She was small, but she was mighty, and I can still hear her voice in my head to this day. I've thought a lot about it and of her over the years And I wonder now whether she saw something to me that maybe reminded her of herself Or maybe it was that she had been a black teacher working in a predominantly white community A woman who had spent her entire life navigating spaces where she had little power and it still found her way through Maybe she was passing on the hard truths that she had to learn the lessons that nobody handed her gently either. When I was a freshman in college, I got an internship at the White House. and when I came home that fall, I drove straight to East Bradford. and with a piece of stationery from the Vice president's office And I handed it her and she looked at it. still chomping that gum. And she said And then she turned around and introduced me to her class A few years ago, my friend Tommy Tolan sent me your obbituary and I was So surprised to see that she had actually died on my birthday I think about Helena Graham When I face rejection, I think about her when I start to feel sorry for myself Ket up, stop crying, brush yourself off, G moving. You're bigger than these circumstances. They do not define you I gott to be honest, I channeled her yesterday when I was at the dentist office with my daughter. Brush yourself off. Let's keep moving probably has a lot to do with The way I've navigated ten years in this podcast space too. So when I hear Eli talk about Mrs. Yeates, I understand exactly what he means Because a teacher you had for one single year of your childhood can shape the entire rest of your life. quietly permanently out you even fully realizing it until you're a grown adult and you're crying on your phone because you watched a TikTok. So this episode is a love letter to teachers They are overlooked, they are underpaid And they are without question someome of the most important people any of us will ever meet. Here is my interview with Eli Elli, it's a pleasure to meet you. Okay, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. I came across your videos and I found myself crying my face off. Oh Thank you. I hope it's because you were laughing and not because I made you sad. No, absolutely not. I was laughing and crying. and I think most people have probably reached out to have said You know This reminds me of a special teacher in my life And I think that's so true of a lot of people in life that The people that have made the biggest difference in your life may have zero clue You know, that's that has this has been such an interesting experience because I posted this video about, you know this my eighth grade English teacher reading a book to us and She was just this fantastic, terrific teacher And I ultimately ended up getting connected with her, found out she was still alive and got connected with her. and It's been so fulfilling and fascinating to see just how touched she was by the outpouring of love for her. And she had no idea, you know, And I think that's probably the case with a lot of teachers. They have no idea the impact they have on an individual or a group. Well, tell everybody a little bit about yourself growing up, your family and where you were raised I am from Utah. I still live in Salt Lake City actually and grew up in the Salt Lake City area and grew up in the nineties, graduated high school in two thousand two. And I I write about this a lot and talk about this a lot in my content, but I grew up in a very practicing Mormon family. I'm no longer religious at all. But the cultural aspects of Mormonism and growing up in Utah left a huge impact on me. And so's a lot of the writing that I do today and storytelling that I do today is about that kind of culture and how it sort of has shaped my life What would you say is the thing that is really stayed at the core of you. that even though you aren't no longer religious, maybe there's something about you that shaped you that you can never sort of turn the volume down on. without fail It's and I don't even think there's anything that comes to in a close second. It's a sense of community my feeling of responsibility for the community around me and my appreciation for having a community around me. That's sort of brered and baked into Mormonism. It's a very community minded you know group of people. And so when I grew up, you know we knew who all of our neighbors were up and down the street and we knew what their lives were like, We felt invested in one another's lives. And I still feel that today. you know, even though I'm not religious, I sort of approach my neighborhood almost in a religious way, I feel a sense of responsibility toward the neighbors on my street. How are they doing? What are they up to? And they've return that to me as well Gosh, can you imagine if the rest of the country? also applied that mindset If only, if only. If only Well, tell me a little bit about yourself as a student you know It's I never thought of myself as a very good student growing up. You know, I got fine grades. I never really thought that I was very good in school. Usually at parent teacher conferences, teachers would frequently tell my parents that I got very distracted in class and I would just sort of sit there and write in a notbook. And I was always writing stories in my notebooks. no matter what the class was, be in math class, writing down stories in my little notbooks And I got through high school and ended up going to college on a track and field scholarship. And when I got to college, I had this history class and this history professor And I was really, really nervous about going to college because again, I'd never really seen myself as a particularly good student. I was not very good in school. and I wanted to do well in college. And so I had this history class and we were assigned to write It' like a five page paper or something and it was my first kind of big college assignment And I spent so much time on it and just trying to turn in the best thing that I possibly could I ended up turning in this paper and I had this professor, H name was Professor Martin. I don't remember his first name And it was this huge class. And after class one day, he you know, he said he had graded our papers and he was going to give them back to us And when the class ended, he shouted out to me and he said, Hey, Eli, can you come up and talk to me for a minute? And I just thought, Oh God, I failed. You know, I failed my first big assignment. And I went up to him and said he handed me my paper and he had given me an A and he said I just wanted to tell you you are a really good writer. And it was the first time I could ever remember being truly proud of something that I had done in school. And I walked back to my dorms in tears, like just crying But that sort of shifted how I viewed myself as a student. I thought, oh, I'm not bad, I'm not a bad student. I just there are certain things that I'm really good at and this writing thing might be one of them. And so that I ended up declaring a history major because I wanted to do a major that would require a lot of reading and writing and ended up going to law school for kind of a similar reason. and Now I'm a lawyer and a writer professionally and it's been really, really great And what kind of practice do you work in? I work in tech. I'm in house counsel for a big tech company. I was a litigator for ten years and that was really stressful and I left that to do this. brain is already of full capacity. With tooos and errands and birthdays and the dinner plans for Tuesday, you have to let Skylight Calendar handle the rest. This is perfect for you, moms and dads It syninks your entire family schedule onto a sleek digital display So you can focus on more important things like spending time with your loved ones It's so easy to put together. E I could do it And it is a seamless process with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, outlook, and more. and it gives you customizable views for daily, weekly, or monthly planning tasks feature helps kids build healthy routines and independence brrushing teeth homeomework and chores become actually fun and rewarding And you're going to be able to manage events, chores, and grocery lists while assigning colors. for each of your family members and eliminating excuses of I don't know what they need to do Your happiness is skkylight's happiness. So if' been four months You are not one hundred percent thrilled with your purchase You can return it for a full refund, No questions asked Families are better when they're working together. So right now Skylight is offering my listeners thirty dollars off their fifteen inch calendars. by going to my skkylight d. com slash Kape KC Trust me, they're going to love this Go to myskylight d. com slash Kate Casey for thirty dollars off your fifteen inch calendar That is M Y S k Y L I g HT d. com slash Casey Have you ever noticed that your sheets slip off the corners orr maybe your pillows just don't feel supportive anymore? Most people actually keep their bedding way longer than they think they should It slowly wears down. And then you don't realize how much it's affecting your sleep until you finally replace it. And the truth is most people think that they need a new mattress, but the biggest difference usually comes from replacing what touches you every single night. That's why we upgraded our bed with Bowlen brranch. They make everything your bed needs. their signature organic cotton sheets. pillows, blankets and comforters that are all designed to be breathable, incredibly soft, and get better over time Most people start with the signature sheets and a lot of customers buy two sets so they can rotate them You can also add the waffle blanket and now the whole bed just feels amazing The moment you get into bed, you notice the difference. To know me is to know this, I want everybody in my home to look like it belongs in a five star hotel crisp white soft sheets, waffle blankets, down comomforters My niece always tells me the beds are the best part of my house We upgraded our bed with bl and branch, and gone are the sheep pilling, corners slipping off, and the worst, the worst, the pillows flattening Now it feels like you're slipping into a cloud at the end of a long day, and I actually think the sheets get softer with each wash Don't all of you deserve the most comfortable place to sleep? I mean, you do spend half your life there Sleep cooler this summer with Bowolen Branch during their annual summer event. For a limited time, get twenty percent off sitewide at bowolandbranch dot com slash Kate Casey with code Kate Casey That's Bowll N brranch B O L L A N D branch. com slash K Kasey. Code Kate Casey to take twenty percent off Bolenbranch dot com slash Kake Casey, code, Kate Casey. Exclusions apply You know that feeling when you go to someone's home and you think, I want to live like this. Well, here's the good news. you can too Your space should feel like you, and if it doesn't yet, that's probably not a taste problem. It's a budget problem. and Wayfare fixes that This past year, we've been adding in touches to make us feel like our family and dining room feel like we're in a beach cottage It went from chaos to coastal serene. and Wayfair made this transition complete with gorgeous pillows, frames, and vases The delivery was in no time and we found perfect pieces that elevated our space, and the kids actually feel like sitting and relaxing with us too The best part, I feel so good about the price points, I've been telling everybody about it since You can shop with Wayfare Verified, your shortcut to the good stuff Their team of product specialists that's everything by hand using a ten point inspection, testing things like quality of materials functionality and features, and even how long it takes to build seeating, grills, appliances, storage, rugs, decor, one place, everything you need, no bouncing between stores. And with over twenty million five star reviews, you're not buying blind. See real customers, real homes, real feedback before anything hits your card. Ready to upgrade your home for way less. headad to wayfair. com right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less That's wA Y fA I R d. com Wayfair, every style, every home Keep your wellness routine going strong all summer. Kachava's new travel packs help you stick to your daily ritual even when you're on the go. Just one packet of Kachava's all in one nutrition shake provides complete nutrition wherever you are. withith twenty five grams of protein, six grams of fiber, greens, adaptogens and more. Simplify your daily ritual Go to kachava d. com and use code News for fifteen percent off. That's kaC h aVa dot com code newews. And what is your favorite thing about writing and is there a specific topic that you focus on? So I find writing incredibly therapeutic. and I also feel this urge to write every day. I get antsy, if I'm not writing very regularly, about four years ago I was asked to be a humor columnist for the newspaper in my state, the Salt Lake Tribune And so I write a lot of just personal stories, their humor stories about my family, about growing up, about being a new dad now. And so that's my favorite thing to write is, you know, humor stories. and then I have a My first novel is being published this September and it's If you can believe it, it's a story about a dysfunctional group of elderly quilters who are preparing for a competition against their bitter rivals. And so that book is coming out. It's called Stitched And it's coming out on september eighth I hope that gets sold as a movie Yeah, me too. That would be great. Yeah if you know anyone Im may and may So tell me a little bit about what prompted you to make these videos. And I remember you saying, it's like I put this video out and I came back to the internet and it was on fire Yeah, it's interesting. I've never I never actually wanted to make videos on the internet. that never seemed interesting to me. Editing videos seems really tedious and so forth But last year I realized I had a couple of books that were going be coming out in twenty twenty six. I just published a collection of my humor columns in February, and then I've got the novel coming out in the fall. And I thought, I really need to be better at utilizing social media to promote my work And so I decided to get on TikTok. It was about twelve months ago. And I thought, I don't want to edit videos because again, that seems really tedious, but I'm just going to turn on the camera and tell a quick story And so I started doing that every day and then posting them as well. I just started posting them on Instagram recently as well And I found that I didn't have to edit videos. I could just tell a story and people would be interested in that. And that has been a really, really fantastic way to promote my work actually U But its it's wild. I mean, I will post a video like the teacher video that you saw. And then come back, you know twenty four hours later and just see that millions of people are watching it and leaving comments about their own teachers that they love Um and This has been the best side of social media that I you know, ever experienced. It it feels very community build building And partly because I don't put you know rage based content out there. I'm telling personal stories and then people just sort of relate to them however they'd like And so it's been really, really fun and fulfilling. I'm glad that I'm doing it now. Well, and just to speak to your earlier point about knowing all your neighbors and feeling connected This must feel like an extension of it Oh yeah, on this huge, huge scale. you know, it's strangers all over the world connecting over shared experiences So tell me about the video about your teacher and maybe you could begin by just setting the scene for us of this spectacular teacher in the classroom in which she works Yeah, so This my teacherr Mrs. Yates, she was my eighth grade English teacher And I had this memory pop up recently and it was that Mrs. Yates had this book that she used in her class to teach us vocabulary words And the book was very creative, It was very beautiful. It had beautiful illustrations, and each page had a different vocabulary word And then a story about some animals. and the story would end with a pun that utilized the word that we were trying to remember and learn. So for example, I remember that one of the words in the book was Iningratiate. And there was a story about this animal, this rhinoceros or something, trying on different dresses to please her male companion at lunch And he didn't like any of her dresses until she put on the gray one. and then he loved it. And the story ended with something like. And so in gray, she ate with her companion who now adored her. And that's how we remembember the word in gray she ate And I was thinking about this book recently and I was like, I don' I don't remember what it was called. I don't think it was a big book. you know, it was you, but it was something that mres. Yates had found. and it was so cute. I'm a new dad. and I was like, I want to get this book because I want my kid to have this book And so I went on TikTok and Instagram and just shared that story and a couple of other things about Mrs. Yates and then said, if anybody knows what this book is, please let me know because I'm trying to track it down Well People very, very quickly went online and found the book and said, it sounds like this one, you know this sounds like the right book. And I looked up the book and it was it was the weighty Wd book is what it's called And I was like, Yeahah, this is totally the book. Well, This video went super, super viral and within, I think it was forty eight hours, the Wightady Wordbook became the number one best selling book on Amazon And it's this forty year old book that like nobody really remembered anymore And suddenly, the publisher of the Wighty Word book, the University of New Mexico Press reached out to me and they were like, This book has sold like tens of thousands of copies in like the last couple of days and they had to put it back into print. L it was not it was out of print, you know. And two of the three authors of the Wighty Word book are still alive. One of them, Paul Levittt, he's in his nineties sent me just the sweetest email, thanking, you know, thanking me for reviving this old book that he loved And you know, it just ended up just snowballing into this huge thing. Well I had assumed that Mrses Yates was not alive anymore because you know, I I was thirteen when I had her as a teacher. This was in the mid nineties And in my memory, she was quite old You know, kids have a terrible gauge on how old people adults are, of course. but I thought, I think she was at or above retirement age when I had her thirty years ago. So there's no way she's still alive. Well, Her children ended up seeing the videos and showed her she was still alive. She's in her mid eighties now, which means I guess she was actually in her fifties when I had her not in her sixties or seventies like I thought And so her children ended up sending me a video from her holding the Wighty Wdbook in her living room and just thanking me for sharing about this and sharing these stories about her. And I ended up getting her phone number and called her and had a really lovely chat about a week and a half ago And we both just kind of shared memories with each other about That time she didn't remember me and I would have never expected her to. You know, She had thousands of students But I was able to share with her just all my memories about her and all of the things that I really appreciated about her as an educator. Well also, you think about your love of writing Um, do you think that a lot of that you could thank her for you know, planting the seeds that have allowed you to have the career that you have now Yes, and and she wasn't alone. You know, when I look back I can see that throughout middle school and high school, every single one of my English teachers were my favorite. They were always my favorite, and it was always my favorite class And I don't even know if I was that conscious of it. But when I look back, like those are the classes that I have the most warm memories toward. And I think it was because it was the class where me scribbling down stories in my notebook was appreciated. You know, the teachers in those classes they liked that I wanted to write all the time. And so they were very encouraging of that. And Mrs. Gates was no exception. She She had this very she had a passion for reading and writing as well And I think that I really latched on to her because I felt I felt that we had that in common. It seems too that something that you both had in common is there's this humanity that you both have and a And u persistence when it comes to listening to other people and figuring out ways to highlight somebody and for them to find the best version of themselves And you told a couple stories, one of which left me in tears. And I did share it with one of my kids and we sat in the car and we watch all of the videos together Talk to me about and explain to everybody The other things that she would do and say that really made her stand out that year of your life She was this educator who she didn't feel like her only job was to teach us, you know English, right? She felt her job was to prepare us to be good members of the community And so she was always trying to build up our self esteems and trying to make us, you know, feel proud of ourselves. My childhood best friend, Sam reached out to me when he saw the video and shared one of his memories, and it was that he had gotten straight As. and so he was recognized in the school for you of all the students who got straight A's. And he said that mrs. Yates went out into the hallway between classes to track him down just to tell him how proud she was of him And he said he said, Eli, looking back, I remember that was the first time someone other than my parents told me they were proud of me. And he said, it just stuck with me forever She would u The way she ended class every day, she had a different saying on the board above her chalkboard for each month And one that I remember was stand for something, stand for something even if you're the only one standing And every day when the bell would ring, she would have us all shout the phrase together that was up above the chalkboard. And like those stuck with me The way she started class every day was with the ro roll call, but the way she did roll call is she would pick a different poem for each month. And she would assign us each a line from the poem in alphabetical order, you know, our last names inphet alphabetical order And when the bell rang to our class, we would all shout the name of the poem and the name of the poet. And then each person would take turns saying their line. a student wasn't there that day, then we would all say that student's line together. I have every one of those poems still memorized to this day because you know, that was how we started class every day. U she she was just this really Lver teacher, you know, that left this huge, huge impact by just doing so many little things like that Mm You said that in a couple of the videos that you've had people that were awesome students could reach out to you What have been some of the most surprising responses that you've had from people that were also classmates of yours or people who have been strangers? that have been touched by these videos You know, u I guess It hasn't really been a big surprise that all of the classmates that I had who have reached out to me had so many similar memories to what I had It was a little bit validating because you know sometimes I start to think, am I making some of this up? Because, you know memories get a little fuzzy, but I've had, you know, other people reach out and say, do you remember that she used to do this? And you know, and yes, I do. I remember, you know, all of these little things that she would do in class I think the biggest surprise is just the volume of people who have reached out to share stories about their own educators that they remember and why their educators were so, so impactful. I mean, I think I think if you go and look on the videos across social media, it's tens of thousands of comments of people sharing their own stories as well Mhm