Haley Evans: There was things going on in my immediate family. All of us had some things going on in our life leading up to Charlie's death. I was having some marriage struggles, I think the time in Wisconsin. Not having that career I thought I'd hoped to have. Then having to go back to work after I had Eli, when many of my friends did not. We were just struggling. We were struggling financially, we had taken on this huge fixer upper house that was just sucking us dry. Things felt uncertain. We weren't happy.
Announcer: You're listening to the Milf Podcast. This is the show where we talk about motherhood and sexuality with amazing women with fascinating stories to share on the joys of being a milf. Now, here's your host, the milfiest milf I know, Jennifer Tracy.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, welcome back to the show. This is Milf Podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, entrepreneurship, sexuality and everything in between. I'm Jennifer Tracy, your host. Episode 60, what? In some ways I feel like I just started doing this. But that's kind of a big number. Just taking a moment to recognize that, very cool. I'm so honored that 60 women have made the time in their very busy schedules to sit down and talk with me for an hour. That's such an honor. I'm so honored. Thank you all.
Jennifer Tracy: Today's guest is Haley Evans. Haley came to me to email me, and she said, I really like your show, and I want to be on it. I wrote this book. I looked at everything that she sent me and I looked at the book and I was like, this woman is badass. She wrote a book called, The Big Hang Up. She did all this research about basically, how addicted we all are to our devices, our phones, and how it's impacting our lives; our family lives, our home lives, our emotional well-being. It's staggering but not shocking. Because I know I'll speak for myself, I can feel it, I can feel how addicted I am to my phone. I really make an effort to just put it away, away from my person. Because there's just something chemical that happens if I don't have it, and I'm not like checking it or looking on something, it's really weird. Yet, I feel so much better when I'm off of it.
Jennifer Tracy: It was fascinating speaking with her, she's just absolutely a delight. I can't wait to share that interview with you shortly. But before that, I just wanted to remind you about this month's give, which is every mother counts. Again, I just love them so much and they love what they do, and I want to bring more and more awareness to it. There's a link to their website on my website, milfpodcast.com. You can donate to them directly. They're just doing some really amazing, amazing, amazing stuff.
Jennifer Tracy: That is that. Then also I just wanted to give a shout out to my team. I'm really so grateful for my team without whom I could not do this. I always try to insert little reminders that I do not do this alone, nor do I want to. It's a lot more fun collaborating. I'm sitting outside, I don't know if you guys can hear the birds chirping but it's actually a really nice morning here in LA. So, I'm sitting outside. But if you're hearing crazy sounds, that's what it is. Thank you to my amazing Milf team. I'm really grateful for you.
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Jennifer Tracy: So, serpentlane.com is the website and MILF15 is your exclusive discount code. Thank you Serpent Lane for sponsoring Milf Podcast. We love you so much. Without further ado, here's my interview with Haley Evans. Hi, Haley.
Haley Evans: Hey, how are you?
Jennifer Tracy: I'm good. Thank you so much for coming on the show. You are in in Knoxville, Tennessee, and you were just telling me how you've been going on your morning runs and enjoying the sort of, it's still spring weather there.
Haley Evans: Awesome. Yeah, it's great.
Jennifer Tracy: Good. Where'd you grow up?
Haley Evans: I actually grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Jennifer Tracy: You did, born and raised.
Haley Evans: Born and raised. Then I used to always joke that, or my mom used to joke that I was too big for my britches. So I could not wait to get to a big city.
Jennifer Tracy: Of course.
Haley Evans: I did. My aunt worked in the marketing department for Bloomingdale's, and she was able to help me get an internship with their marketing department. I guess it was the summer after my junior year, I did an internship in Manhattan, and oh my God, I loved it.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, it's so great. Especially when you're that age.
Haley Evans: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: There's really nothing better.
Haley Evans: I was poor. I think there were four of us that had a one bedroom Coop apartment. So, whoever got home first got the bed.
Jennifer Tracy: I love it.
Haley Evans: [inaudible 00:06:01] you got the couch or the floor, but it was amazing. I think honestly, my plan would have been to continue working with them and move back to the city, but I got engaged and obviously, [inaudible 00:06:13]
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. You got engaged, you got married. Then how did that change the trajectory of what you thought your career was going to be at that time?
Haley Evans: My fiancé actually had a job in Wisconsin. That took the trajectory of my life in a different plan, because again, I was going to Manhattan, I was going to be busy and have a cell phone that rang a lot. It was the way I envisioned. Jumping around in heels somewhere.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, Sex and the City.
Haley Evans: Precisely. I wanted I wanted to be friends with them too.
Jennifer Tracy: Of course, who doesn't?
Haley Evans: We ended up moving to this small little town in Wisconsin. Again, it's so interesting to me how life always plays out precisely the way it should. But I struggled to find a job when I got there. Here, I had been the straight A student in college, really focused, really career driven. My husband was like a drunk fraternity guy for the first two years. Then, finally got his act together towards the end, and he didn't really know what he wanted to do, but got this job offer with a great company, with the opportunity for growth.
Haley Evans: So, we went. For months I could not find a job. It was really bad because I got really ... I was depressed anyway, because I had left home really, for the first time. Gone far across the country. I didn't have any friends. I didn't have any family, and I didn't have a job. I felt like a big loser. But ironically, I ended up getting a job at the Oshkosh Northwestern Newspaper. It probably was the spark that brought my life full circle, because I had, I guess my first writing began with my middle school newspaper. I loved it. For some reason, I never considered English writing or anything like that in college.
Haley Evans: It's weird. I had this mental block. I don't know, I was so focused on a career and how I was going to make money and-
Jennifer Tracy: Right. Most people think of writers as poor ... Which is ironic. They think of them as poor young people living in a one bedroom apartment with whoever gets home first gets the bed. Or in a hovel somewhere with a typewriter, and a bottle of whiskey. So, it's understandable that you didn't ... What I'm hearing is you had aspirations for yourself. At the time, for whatever messaging you'd received about writing you thought, well, that's not an option. Or maybe you didn't even think consciously that's not an option. But it didn't become an option.
Haley Evans: It didn't become an option. But again, I end up working at this newspaper. I'm selling advertising essentially. I wasn't writing at all. But I was around it. I was around it. The advertising department, it was a little newspaper and the advertising department shared a floor with the editorial department. I hadn't written anything in a long time.
Jennifer Tracy: What was your degree in in college? I'm sorry to interrupt you. What was your degree in college?
Haley Evans: Marketing, which is slang for I have no idea what I want to do with my life.
Jennifer Tracy: Well, that then comes in useful.
Haley Evans: Do you know? Actually, I will tell you, and you'll probably agree, I think all writers will tell you that they are practiced in the study of humans. That's how we come up with our characters, that's how we develop our stories. I've been setting humans my whole life. I go back, I was an overweight child, teased relentlessly by evil middle schoolers.
Haley Evans: I studied them, obviously, to see what I could do to avoid the-
Jennifer Tracy: The pain.
Haley Evans: The harassment, right. Anyway, I do think marketing, sales, the whole point of it is to persuade people to act differently to change behavior. I'm actually still in sales right at the same time, but I do find it fascinating because really, nobody is selling a product. I guess technically I'm selling a product. That's how I get paid. But really, it's about making and cultivating relationships with people and understanding what makes them tick.
Haley Evans: While I once felt like I was a failure to myself, because I'm like, really, sales? But I love it because I still get to study humans, and really, that's what I love.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Okay. So, let's back up for a second. I want to go back to the newspaper, the Oshkosh Newspaper in Wisconsin. You're how old when you're there? You're living with your fiancé.
Haley Evans: Aha. I was 22, 23.
Jennifer Tracy: A baby. You were a baby.
Haley Evans: A baby.
Jennifer Tracy: But when we're that age, we think we're adults, and we are legally. Then, what happened from there?
Haley Evans: We had seven really awesome years there. I will say it was probably the best thing for our marriage because we didn't have any friends, we didn't have any family. We made our own way. We ended up becoming friends with a really awesome group of people. They were all getting married about the same time, or had just gotten married. Many of us had our first babies together.
Haley Evans: But ultimately, what brought us back home is my brother, my 19 year old brother died horribly, tragically. Actually, yesterday was the 12th anniversary of his death. It feels like yesterday. While it was awful. I'm the oldest of the four of us. It was myself. And then I have three younger brothers and Charlie was the baby. There was a big age difference between the two of us, I guess, 10 ... I always forget the months, but 10 years, essentially.
Haley Evans: At the time, the brother below me had just graduated college, was starting his life. My other brother, same thing, had moved to Charlotte was starting his new life. I think I'd wanted to go home for a long time because I had a son, I should mention that when I was in Wisconsin. When my brother died, Eli was about 18 months old. Since he was born, I really did feel like I was cheating him on his growing up where I grew up and having my parents around and my husband's not around. When my brother died, I told my husband, we have to go home.
Haley Evans: I worried that my parents might not want to survive it. I don't want to take anything from them because my parents are incredibly strong people, very faithful. But I just felt the pressure to go home and oversee that, to make sure that they got to the other side. I came home from the funeral and I never went back. I may have gone back for just a minute, but my husband got the house on the market and we moved back home.
Haley Evans: That was when ... Obviously horrible, horrible time to watch your parents lose their child, horrible.
Jennifer Tracy: Right, and having a baby of your own, a toddler at the time, that's a lot.
Haley Evans: Well, and then I found out ... We moved back home. Charlie died June 9th. I moved back home maybe July. I guess in August I found out I was pregnant with twins.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God.
Haley Evans: I'm telling you, my brother was like, I know what would be really funny. That would give them something to live for. It was going to be all hands on deck. We ended up buying this fixer upper house, about five houses up the street from my parents, temporarily. 12 years later, we're still in the temporary house. Because when you have an 18 month old and infant twins, you got to be up the street from your mother or you have to live in help.
Haley Evans: Anyway, in the years after Charlie's death, I was so profoundly moved by the idea of everything happens for a reason, because people kept saying that. I'll be honest, I was like, note to self, I will never say that to someone who is grieving because really, my mom would have flipped the bird at whatever reason you could have given her. Because she doesn't really care, she wanted her baby back.
Haley Evans: But ... How can I put this? There was things going on in my immediate family. All of us had some things going on in our life leading up to Charlie's death. I was having some marriage struggles, I think the time in Wisconsin, and not having that career I thought I'd hoped to have. Then having to go back to work after I had Eli when many of my friends did not. We were just struggling. We were struggling financially, we had taken on this huge fixer upper house that was just sucking us dry. Things felt uncertain. We weren't happy.
Haley Evans: Then my other brother William had found out that a girl he was saying was pregnant, obviously, unplanned, they were struggling big time with that. We are down here in the south where some people have perceptions about things like that. They were struggling a lot. I kept paying attention to what was happening. Charlie's death happened, right? There's a line drawn in the sand and our lives made this complete ... We went off course. Now, it became this new course. Charlie's gone, my parents are struggling, for me, it was, I'm moving home, I'm quitting my job. I'm starting a new job. I'm renovating a new house. I'm having this baby. Now, I'm having these twins.
Haley Evans: But there were something so profound to me about the fact that I couldn't stop thinking what if? What if Charlie would not have died? What if he would have been in a different place that night? What if different decisions would have led all of us to be in a different place? What would it look like now?
Haley Evans: The conclusion that I came up to, which is this is what just floored me is that I think we all would have ended up in the same place. Even if Charlie had not had died, I could almost foresee everybody in my intimate circle who I was examining during those years watching how this is all playing out, how grief is affecting all of us. I kept seeing it ending up in maybe the same place.
Haley Evans: In other words, this idea of, does everything happen for a reason? I don't know, or do we have free will to act that leads us down the path that we choose and make for ourselves? Or is there sometimes some sort of a divine plan, maybe? I don't know. But I could ... The first book I wrote, and I wrote feverishly for probably six months. We're talking 400,000 words. You know, as a writer, you're talking about a book. It was tentatively titled, Pivot. Obviously all pivoting around this death and then these characters. The focus on that pivot would have been my family looking at how an event in time can so drastically change your course, but perhaps leave you in the exact same place, you're still ending in the same place. You just got there via a different route, which I don't know if that makes horrific events more palatable or less palatable, or they're still just horrific.
Haley Evans: Then there were other things too, after Charlie's death, it just shook me to my core. Different stories I would hear. So, I just started writing and writing and writing and writing and obsessively writing this book. I think a lot of it was probably therapy for me, working through some of the issues that I'd had not only within our family, but present day, and it was so therapeutic.
Haley Evans: At the end now, I had this book that I still think its been eight years since I first wrote it. I still believe that that book, although it's morphed about 20 different times. It started out as a personal story. I'm not kidding. The sixth version, which is called One Stone's Throw, totally unrelated, but not really, it's all about resilience, and just this faith in humanity. Those are the themes that run through both.
Haley Evans: I dedicated this book, the one that we'll talk about later, I dedicated it to him, because it was his death that inspired me to pick up writing again. I'm so glad it did because It's the outlet that I was so desperately craving for so long.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, well, and it's so interesting like you said, how we do want that, but for some reason we think, what we really want is connection. When we write, we're deeply connecting to ourselves, and then in turn, hopefully when other people read it, we're connecting with them. What the big hang up is about is really about, hey, let's connect. Let's actually connect to each other. Wow. Well, thank you for sharing that beautiful story and just-
Haley Evans: It's a long story, I'm sorry. But yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, no. Please don't apologize. It's beautiful, and it's so important to talk about. What I love in having this podcast is that, it's so amazing when one woman shares her story, and each of us have such an individual unique story and pathway, I get so many responses when that podcast comes out of women saying, thank you for having that woman on the show. I went through something similar and it's so painful and it's just ... It's so soothing. Again, that brings us back to the connecting to each other. You're back in the throes of writing again, you're really passionate about it. You have a son and now twins. You're redoing this house, you live close to your parents. Obviously, there's a million things in between. The kids growing up, and dealing with that, and trying to be and stay married, and all of those things. If there was an event or many events I'm sure that the latter is the case that inspired you to write this book about technology and social media and phones and all this.
Haley Evans: I think a lot of it is just our lifestyle today. We all do it all. Most people have two working families. The kids don't just play like Rec T-Ball. Now, you have to do travel ball, which is five nights a week and Saturday and Sunday tournaments. The little kids can't just do gymnastics and cheer, they have to be on a traveling gymnastics and cheer team that takes all across the country. You can't just go to work and come home, you've got to work and pull it on two wheels and you're flying to get dinner ready, the laundry that you put in the wash, into the dryer. Crap, we got to be at the ball field in 30 minutes. Water bottles, let's go. Emails, phone.
Haley Evans: Part of it is our lifestyle. I think we have driven ourselves to the brink as mothers with all that we're trying to accomplish. Then of course everything has to be done by perfection and queued. Anyway, I think we've established really unrealistic expectations, I think for moms. At least, that's the way I feel. But the problem was that I found myself constantly being inundated by this phone, the pings on the phone.
Haley Evans: I did pull it on two wheels. There are five emails that I needed to send that are stuck in my head, that need to get out so I can check that box. I am trying to get dinner made real quick and I'm trying to also get kids out the door. What's happening is, the phone's pinging. That's one thing, if you could just ignore that. But the problem is, is that every one of those pings is like an action required, or time sensitive rabbit hole that I have to jump into head first.
Haley Evans: While I'm trying to real quick, we've got 30 minutes, guys, let's just knock out this reading homework real quick so we don't have to do it at the ball field. I'm trying to engage with the child. You don't want the homework to be rushed. I'm trying to engage and help them, and try to expand on a concept maybe they don't get and then the other child is like, this person's texting you, Heather's texting you. Mom, Heather, this person, dad's calling. I felt like I playing ping pong with myself and the phone.
Haley Evans: One night in particular, I just totally went off. I was going off on my husband. He's like, "Why are you going off on me about the phone?" I'm like, "I'm not going off on you, but I have to vent to someone. I got 78 texts today. 78 action requested. All that really kind of needed almost immediate attention." Because the text, either you respond right then or the likelihood is that you may never respond because it gets buried under more text. He was like, you know what, write a book about it. That's all people talk about anymore.
Haley Evans: I toyed around with the idea. Then when I started paying attention, literally, the Today Show, Diane Sawyer, articles from the New York Times to The Washington Post all about screen time, excessive screen time. Then I started doing my own research, and I was floored. First of all that there was so much research out there that I had no idea about. But I think what I see it differently from most people, I don't think the phone is awful. I love the phone. I don't think that I could or would want to survive without the phone anymore because it does open up so many great avenues and it can be so convenient. I think what is so sad is that it's become an appendage.
Haley Evans: Just for fun, start looking. That's what I tell people. I'm like, if you don't think that there's a problem, just for fun, put your phone down and go to the grocery store, or go to the coffee shop, or go to a restaurant or just go sit on a bench in a park. 100% of people, Tracy I swear, or [inaudible 00:25:51] 100% of people they don't just have the phone in their bag, 100% of people have the phone in their hand. It's in their hand. Their necks bent, their eyes are down, and the phone is in her hand.
Haley Evans: I watch the people in my own family carry it from one room in the house to the other. I have people over for a barbecue, I watch them take it from the back porch, to the front porch, to the driveway where kids are playing ping pong. It's like an appendage. I don't want the phone to go away. I don't want social media to go away. I think there's positives in everything. But the phone is not an appendage. I think the fact that we have become so reliant on it and so obsessed with it, to the extent where we truly treat it like an appendage, we have to do better. Because the research out there is startling. We have to do better. When you think about the time people spend on their phones, up to four and five hours a day. Then you multiply that out by the weeks in a year. Well, it's frightening when you really think about, like my mom, and what she would give to have an hour of time back with my brother.
Haley Evans: When you think about it in terms of ... I can remember one night in particular, I sat down on the couch, we'd had a long day, of course. Dishes were done, the counters had been wiped down, and I was sitting on my phone, just scrolling. I heard Eli, somewhere in my periphery holler for me. I'm like, "Okay, honey, I'll be right there." I'm still just scrolling because I'm entitled to that, I feel like. Then finally, my husband, he's like, "Your son has hollered for you 10 times, he wants you to come up and tuck him into bed." I was like, literally, I like had this jolt of what am I doing? I don't have the luxury that other people do that I know that things can change in an instant. Why am I on this stupid phone instead of laying in the bed and holding on to my son? He's begging for me to come up, he won't be begging forever. He's 13 now, he doesn't beg anymore.
Haley Evans: I think when you think of it like that, and you think about the hours, not minutes, the hours we waste on the phone every day and multiply that out by the week, and by the years, then I think that's when people would want to do better. Because it robs us of our ... I always say, it robs us of our mind, our time and our engagements and the thing some people that matter the most, that's my tagline. If you're on the phone for work, fine. If you're sending emails, fine. Even if you're on social media, or getting some recipes, fine. But there are times when we can and should put the phone down and we don't. That's I think what's been so frustrating for me because I've gotten great feedback on the book. They're like, this book's money. What the hell? It's a book about smartphone addiction. It's funny. I'm like, "Well, I wrote a book I'd want to read, because who really wants to read a book about smartphone addiction? Not me.
Haley Evans: So, I wrote a book about life, but it's also about smartphone addiction. I think the thing that's been frustrating is that people are so addicted to and relying on and obsessed with their phone, that people push back on the movement because they don't want to admit that they're that person, that they are the person that's letting life go on beside them, in front of them. Instead, they're staring into the abyss of this phone.
Haley Evans: When I look at movements that have been driven by women, I know it's possible to start a movement. Look at the processed food. A couple of years ... I shouldn't say that. Maybe, five years ago, we were not talking about processed food. We were not talking about ingredients we can pronounce. We were all eating Kashi bars and think we were doing a good job, and high fiber. People like Michael Pollan and my good friend Lisa Leake with the 100 Days of Real Food, they have literally created a movement that have not just people like us that are demanding clean food with ingredients we can pronounce, whole foods that we can feed our children and feel good about. But you have huge manufacturers of food that are now making clean food with ingredients we can pronounce. With five six ingredients.
Haley Evans: You look at a Kashi bar, there's [inaudible 00:30:46] ingredients some of me can pronounce. I know it's possible, and people push back on the processed food movement too. Their like, this is our life, we have to be able to pick up food on the way to a ball field. We don't have the luxury of ... It's not 1950. We can't come home and cook dinner while we're waiting on the husband to get home from work. We're working. But slowly but surely, when people started to see just how bad processed food was for us and what it was doing to our bodies, and our kids bodies, what happened? We all stood up and said, wait, we want to do better, and people listened. people listened.
Haley Evans: That's what I want to do with this movement. I don't want people to feel like they're being talked at. Put your phone down at bed. Which is all you hear about on the news. I'm saying that. What I'm saying is, it's not okay for our phone to be an appendage, because we have two hands, and we need both of them.
Haley Evans: To constantly have a phone in hand. Well, it takes a hand away from us for starters. I'm always like, hey, I need both hands. Can I call you back? Hey, I need both hands, can I call you back? You have to believe it's necessary to be able to put it down more often. When you think about physiologically what happens to us when we're on a phone, when you're on social media, and then you get a text that pops up, and it's your child's teacher or your husband or spouse or partner or good friend, and you have to quick switch back to that text. Then while you're getting that text, you get an email. Then all of a sudden, you're like, what the hell was I doing on this phone? Oh, I was going to send Jennifer Tracy a message about ...
Haley Evans: The ping ponging in your brain depletes it of oxygenated glucose, which is essentially what you need to do all of your bodily functions, to get you through the day. It's why so many of us who wake up with the phone near us. Before our mind is even fully awake. And we've been set into a flurry of activity because we had three extra required emails, two people send us a text, there was an email from our boss. You've depleted the oxygenated glucose you need for the day and you haven't even left for work yet. It's why people are stressed, they're anxious, they're overwhelmed, they have migraines. It's so destructive. It's so destructive, you would only have to read a few really boring articles, but I've already done that for you. But it's incredibly destructive to our health.
Haley Evans: For anybody who's out there who practices any sort of mindfulness; meditation, yoga, you know the benefit of letting the neurons in your brain still and become quiet. You can think, you can digest, you can create. You have to do that for your mental health. When we're on the phone ping ponging back and forth from application to application all day long, it's just killing our brains and it's shrinking the brains of our kids. It literally is shrinking the brain of our children.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Well, so let's talk about that. First of all, thank you, and this is just so ... I have to tell you that leading ... I've been so excited, we've had this scheduled for a while. We had to reschedule because I had a thing come up with my kiddo. But I've been anxious about it only because I feel a certain amount of shame and embarrassment about my own smartphone addiction, and that my son, he does not have a smartphone. He doesn't have a phone yet, but he's begging for one and today's his last day of fourth grade. He's begging me for a phone. Almost all of his friends have phones with cell service, not just like a phone. He has an email account that I've allowed him to have that I set up for him on his iPad so he can FaceTime his friends-
Haley Evans: Oh my gosh, we did the same thing with all of our kids.
Jennifer Tracy: That just feels okay. I have a little bit of ADD that I've always had, but I jump around too, I ping pong. While we were on this interview, I just happened to have my phone sitting here, and it was face up. I've gotten a phone call, which I denied and then a text from one of my mentors. I'm like, "Oh, you need to turn that phone over so that you're not pulled ... Because my eyes, just from the notification of it-
Haley Evans: Okay, I'll tell you this, this is the one that fascinates me the most. Just by looking at that notification. You didn't take action on either of those, but just by looking at them-
Jennifer Tracy: No, but it took me away from focusing on you, which is something that I love and is very important to me, and it's important to respect you and this time together. It's just within the context of exactly what we're talking about.
Haley Evans: Well, I've read Jean Twenge who wrote a book called iGen, she has done a ton of research. She says, just by looking at a notification regardless, if you take action, it can take you up to 23 minutes to fully reengage in what you were doing. That to me was an aha because let me tell you why. When I sit down, if I am able to carve out an hour to write, and I have busted my ass to carve out that hour. My mom's getting this child, this one's been pawned off on another I've told my husband I'm writing, pretend like I'm not here. I've locked myself in the bedroom, I'm ready, and I have one hour.
Haley Evans: If the phone is by me, and I see a notification, literally, I find myself 45 minutes in going, I don't even know what the hell I'm writing about. In fact, I'm a horrible writer, I should just quit. There was another study I read that was so fascinating to me is they had people take a test. I'll spare you all the specifics, but they had people take a test. Half of the people they had have their phone with them turned on Do Not Disturb face down on the desk. The other half of the participants had to keep it in another room. Do you know that the people with the phone in the other room performs their test scores were dramatically higher. Just by having the phone near your body, because we've been so conditioned to think did my mentor texts me back? Oh shoot, I was supposed to tell my son ... We've been so conditioned to think about the phone, did that article I'm selling or that jacket I'm selling on eBay sell or whatever? We've been conditioned to think about it.
Haley Evans: You only have so much brain power. You can't do or think about two things at once. It's physically impossible. We think we can, we love to talk about multitasking. Multitasking is bullshit. That's all there is to it.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, agreed. I can't do two things at once.
Haley Evans: You can't. But that's what the phone has caused us to do. We're all living in this state of, if you could picture a Gravitron, it's a tsunami in our brain. That's the best way I can describe it. When you are inundated with information and literally switching from one application on your phone to another; text, email, Facebook, Instagram, text, email, phone. You're causing a tsunami in your brain that is so destructive. That's just all there is to it. It's so destructive.
Haley Evans: I don't want anyone to feel ... I do think people feel guilty. I think some of the reason why this has been ... It was an uphill battle at first with the book, which I'll say now that people are reading it, the good words getting out. They're like wait, this book is funny, and it'll make you think. But people feel like you do. This is a very personal personal thing to people, this phone and they don't want it taken away from them. They have gotten so used to having the world at their fingertips that they're petrified of having it taken away. I think it's a safety blanket for some people. Well, I want to know where my kids are, or I want ... All of those things are valid. In my book, my mission doesn't take any of that away. Here, root cause, that's what I kept focusing on when I was writing the book. What is the root cause?
Haley Evans: There are people like me, and I hope other people that want to do better with the phone. They recognize that it's robbed them of their hand, and their mind and their engagement and things. They want to do better, but they can't. The reason that I believe the root cause of all of this is the fact that we now, its become the norm to send action required and time sensitive information. In other words, the expectation is, is that you have your phone on you at all times. That's the expectation, because who doesn't? 100% of people have their phone on them most hours of the day, and you will respond immediately or near immediately, to any message you're going to get.
Haley Evans: Again, that's not what some people do. If you survey 100 people, which I have, 100 of them will tell you that yes, they believe that's the expectation that they will respond immediately or near immediately to a message you get. You can say, Tracy, I'm at the grocery store. What was that red wine we had last night? Well, if you don't respond, what? I'm like, hello, I'm at the store. What I'm saying is, I had fun at your house, I loved the wine you served. I'm complimenting you. I'm not trying to be rude. What I'm saying is, I really enjoyed the wine. I'm here, can you tell me what it is?
Haley Evans: But if you really dissect that message, what I'm saying is stop whatever you're doing and answer my text. So, whatever you're doing is not as important as the fact that I'm at the store and I need your red wine. If you're helping your little boy with homework or helping him study for his spelling test, the expectation is that you're going to stop, disengage with him, answer my text. Now, it's going to take you 23 minutes to re-engage fully on what the two of you guys were doing before.
Haley Evans: I think the root cause of this whole crisis is right there. It's in action required and time sensitive messages. I think that makes people fearful of putting the phone down or turning it off, because they're going to miss an action required or time sensitive message.
Haley Evans: Now, most of them aren't life or death. Most of them, so I don't get the red wine, red wine, right? I just got to pick out an old standby that I like, and all's good. When you get the message later, you send it to me. I'm not mad. But even though it's not important, in today's society, every text carries the same importance. Does that make any sense?
Jennifer Tracy: Totally.
Haley Evans: Whether it's me needing red wine or your partner saying which one of us is picking up George from school? They all carry the same weight. Even though they don't really carry the same weight, we treat them like they do, because we still feel the intrinsic pressure to respond immediately or as near immediately as possible.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Haley Evans: I don't think we can start to begin to address the addiction we have to our phones, and it's legitimate. It's legitimate. 40% of people are legitimately addicted to their phone in this country. If you single out teens, 50%. 50% are legitimately addicted. They would rather lose a finger, or their sense of smell than lose their cell phone. It's legitimate addiction. Because the addiction center in your brain doesn't discriminate. Whether it's sex or drugs or porn or the smart-
Jennifer Tracy: Sugar.
Haley Evans: The sugar. The physiological response is the same. I don't think most of us parents would let our kids do well, a little bit of drugs, or just a little bit of sex.
Jennifer Tracy: Just a little heroin won't hurt you.
Haley Evans: That's normal in our culture today. It's just the way society ... We would still probably step in and ration that or talk about it. I really do believe that we will only begin to address smartphone addiction and address when it's necessary to have your phone and when maybe it's not in hand, but just on your person or in your bag. But we're not going to be able to address that until we figure out when it's appropriate to send an action required text and when it's not.
Haley Evans: I can give a million examples and when you want to jump in, just jump in, but my husband and I will be standing in the kitchen and he's taking one child one way, I'm taking one child one way. I'm like, I didn't do anything for dinner. I think we could whip up a salad. There might be some leftover ... We're talking, we're running out the door. Then literally, I'm pulling out of the neighborhood and my phone starts pinging. I glance at it and my husband's texting me.
Haley Evans: That's a problem because people die every day from texting and driving. People also go to jail when they're the one texting and they kill someone else. So, it's not a joke. It's not funny. You think it won't happen to you until you're the one that kills a child and goes to jail. But the point is that we're so accustomed that we just text. We're a texting society.
Haley Evans: My husband saw me pull out of the driveway with his children in the car. He knows I'm getting on an interstate to go 85 miles an hour, flying down ... That's not a text because what he needed was, Eli needs his Navy shirt for practice. Do you know where it is? That's a phone call. Because I can safely answer a phone call hands free. That's just one example of how we just fire off texts now without even thinking what's the most efficient way to communicate this information? Sometimes it is a text, a group text to say the game has been moved to field two, or the 10 o'clock power yoga has been canceled. But we need to stop and decide, what's the most effective way to communicate with one another? When does an email make more sense than a text or a call?
Haley Evans: My partner, my work partner was out of town last week. I was trying to finagle a couple of appointments. So, I, who wrote the book about hanging up, picked up the phone to shoot her a text. I'm like, wait, that's so rude. If you get a text, you either address it immediately or near immediately, or never. That's kind of how it's become because it gets buried under other things. I'm like she's on the beach. While I'm saying I got to get this out of my head and off my to do list so I'm going to send it to her. That's so disrespectful because now she's on a beach probably in the middle of building a sand castle or going for a walk or a run with the sand in her toes. Now, she's got this text that even though she's probably not going to take action, because her calendar is back at the hotel or maybe even at home, it's on her mind now. It's going to annoy the crap out of her until she takes care of it.
Haley Evans: You know what I did, was I emailed it. I know you're on vacation, I did not want you to get this via text because I don't want you thinking about it. I want you on vacation. When you get back, take a look at these three appointments. I have conflicts, what can you cover? What do I need to reschedule? It was on an email because email's different, right? We'll leave them in there for a while, we sort of end the different folders. You don't have to take immediate action on an email. If something doesn't require immediate action, you can't just fire it off to somebody and make it, now, it's their problem. I covered my bases. We just don't even think about how we communicate and what pressure that puts on other people. When now we address it, you can't put the damn phone down.
Jennifer Tracy: Totally. This is just resonating and ringing so many bells for me. But one of the things is that my son has grown up already the last 10 years in this world. He doesn't understand a world without internet, a world without cell phones, a world without texting. We'll be watching an old movie and they'll be a rotary phone and it's so bizarre to him, or a pager. We were watching a movie where somebody had a pager. He's like, "What's a pager?" I was like, "I know, right?"
Jennifer Tracy: There's this also like with Amazon Prime and all this, which again, is similar to what you're saying is wonderful. Yet it's built up this expectation, which now is a demand. We demand immediate action and response, is of instant gratification, and I want it now. I'll order something for him, like new underwear. He needs new underwear, let's say for example. He'll say, "Well, when is it coming?" I'm like, "Well, it's Prime. It says it'll come in two days." He's like, "Uh." I'm like, "Wow, dude." But that's not his fault. That's just what he's grown up with.
Jennifer Tracy: My next question to you is, that you have a teenage boy and I'm assuming twins.
Haley Evans: Yes. Correct.
Jennifer Tracy: How are you dealing with this in your own household? Because I would imagine, just because I'm getting it here, and he'll be 10 next month, not even 10 years old yet. How do you deal with ... First of all, do they have phones or devices of some sort? How do you manage that, and what's the conversation look like?
Haley Evans: The 13 year old has a phone. The rule at our house was you will get a phone when you're not with me more than you're with me, and you're not with an adult where I could get in touch with them to get in touch with you. So, sure enough, middle school comes, he makes the basketball team and the coach, which I love this, the coach is like, I communicate with the boys. They need to be old enough to be managing their own schedules now.
Jennifer Tracy: I like that.
Haley Evans: I was like, okay, I totally applaud that. Some parents were annoyed. I'm like, oh, I like it. I'm tired of being cruise ship director. I'm exhausted. But it would be like hey, practice is at 3:45. Then Eli would get a text or I would get a text saying, "Oh, the girls are going to stay in practice late. We're going to scrimmage the girls, we're going to let the boys stay till 6:00." Long story short, I'm like, okay, see, now you need a phone, because he wanted an age. "Tell me what age." I said, "No. I'm not telling you when, I'll know when it's time." So, I gave him a phone.
Haley Evans: He doesn't have any social media that I know of. I'm not so naive as to know that he's 13. But he doesn't have any social media. That was a hard conversation. He's dropped it as of late. I think he just got sick of begging for it and me saying no. But he would say, why don't you trust me or why don't ..." I said, "Eli, here's the deal, of course I can't trust you, you're 13." I'm just teasing him. But I'm like, "Eli, it's really not about that for me. I know you're going to mess up on social media. But you have to mess up if we're going to be able to walk through it." But I said, "Really, it's not about the trust factor for me." Because if I can't trust you, social media is the least of my worries of the things that's keeping me up at night. As to the reason I don't want you to have social media is because you already spend so much time on the phone, texting, and playing Fortnite and watching, I don't know the World's Greatest Basketball Dunks or whatever he watches, funny videos.
Haley Evans: I'm like, I don't want to give you one more reason to be addicted to the phone because the world is not happening in the phone. The world is happening around you. For me, Eli, all the reasons you think I don't want you to have it, I probably should be worried about those things because I can only imagine what's out there for you. But that's it for me. You already spend enough time on the phone doing what you do on the phone without it, I feel like I would be giving you permission to take a step out of your life and live inside that phone, and I just can't allow that to happen.
Haley Evans: I think that changed the conversation. Because for the longest time, that's all he ... "Why don't you trust me?" I'm like, "My goodness, child, that's not our issue." My girls have what your son has, they've got my brother's old phone that doesn't have Wi-Fi, but they have an email address so they can FaceTime. They do that Musical.ly or Tik Tok. I don't know if-
Jennifer Tracy: I've heard of this. It's Tik Tok.
Haley Evans: Where they make the videos?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Haley Evans: That's how my girls spend their time on the phone. I'll be honest, I'm torn because it's so amazingly creative, that I almost don't mind it. They have video editing software. They will spend two hours setting up the set for their movie. Like painting backdrops. Then they take these videos and they edit them and I'm like, okay, I'm not opposed to that. I'm not opposed to that. But it's the YouTube videos. I have app limits on their devices because they were watching grown women that are making millions of dollars on YouTube making ... Or just painting their nails for the most random ... Literally, it was-
Jennifer Tracy: It's a worthless spend of time-
Haley Evans: It's worthless. Thank you. Worthless. So, I was like, "Absolutely not." They are now limited to 20 minutes a day on YouTube. If I'm really trying to oversee it, I've just asked them nicely. I'm like, I don't want to be like the no lady around here. I'm like, "Just do me a favor, don't waste your life away. If you want to get on YouTube and Google how to make plantain chips, which is what my daughter did this morning." She's like, "I bought plantains. I'm going to make homemade plantain chips." I'm like, "I love it. Knock yourself out." I'm like, "If you want to YouTube video for plantation chips, knock yourself out. But when you find yourself watching a grown woman paint her driveway, turn it off." Because passive scrolling online. So, it's interesting the research that ... Again, I don't want to be a scare tactic, but the chemical imbalance that a child ... Well, we all experience in our brain when we spend excessive amount of times of passive scrolling. The social media scrolling, the YouTube watching. The chemical imbalance that occurs induces anxiety, stress and depression.
Haley Evans: When you look at the research that's out there with Dr. Twenge and Dr. [inaudible 00:53:44] if I'm saying that right, they've done enough research to say it's really difficult to prove causality between the relationship and the crazy increase in teen suicide and phone use. But they said, they're 100% confident that the two correlate. Who knows, does the chicken or the egg come first? Does spending time like this on your phone create a chemical imbalance to the point that does predispose these kids for depression and anxiety that ultimately leads to suicide, or is it a depressed suicidal team who is seeking isolation because they are depressed and suicidal that ends up on their phone? We don't really know if the chicken or egg comes first. But what I will say is, we know the chemical imbalance that occurs in all of us when you're on your phone.
Haley Evans: If you've ever gotten sucked down a rabbit hole on Instagram or something and all of a sudden you look up and you're like, "Good God. It's been an hour." Don't you almost feel like ... You know when you first wake up from a nap and you're just foggy? Like where am I, what time of day is it?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Haley Evans: It induces the same kind of fuzziness. Bottom line, it's not good. There's nothing social about social media. I think it's fun to connect, and I love to meet people like you. I'm very selective about the people I follow. I don't follow trillions of people, I follow people that make me laugh, inspire me or make me think about somebody or something in the world differently. Because to me, that's valuable. It's like a book. That's what I look for in a book, I want to laugh, I want to cry, and I want to think about something or someone differently. That's what I follow.
Haley Evans: My time is, I don't allow myself to sit down for hours at a time on Instagram. I make sure that it's time I have, that there's not something better I could be doing, even if that means sitting in stillness or reading a magazine. But I seek out people that definitely add value to my life, and I do it in a very small amount of time. That's what I'm trying to instill in my kids is that the phone isn't bad. It's not their lifeline to the world. To your point about the fact that they don't know any better. Prime example, my 13 year old, oh my God, he wanted to have kids over the last day of school. I was like, "I think that's a great idea. We'll do burgers hotdogs, cornhole, ping pong, slam, it'll be fun."
Haley Evans: I typed up a text that said, because some of the kids I didn't know from his [inaudible 00:56:24] this year. But I'm like, "Sure, invite them all." I said, "I'm Haley. I'm Eli's mom. He wants to have kids over. We'll be there the whole time. This is my address. This is my phone number if you have any questions. Super excited about celebrating the last day of school. Hope your boys can come." I ask him a week out. Hey, how many people are coming so I know how much food to get." "I don't know, I haven't sent that out." I go, "Why?" He's like, "I don't know, mom. I will." Two days before school. I'm like, "Eli, have you sent it out yet?" "No, I forgot. I will." "Oh, okay."
Haley Evans: The morning ... No, no, the night before school is out. It's a half day. I was going to work the half day. I was going to be a crazy woman. I was going to go to yoga, come home, shower, blow dry my hair, go to the office, had several appointments, and then fly home on two wheels to be able to get home and get the kids off the bus and have this great big party.
Haley Evans: The night before I said, "Eli, how many people are coming?" He's like, "I didn't send the text." I go, "Why?" "I don't understand, mom. It's tomorrow. I'm going to send it." I said, "This is what you don't get, Eli." I'm like, "You're going to have 22 parents who some of the know me, they don't care. They're going to be like, "Yeah, you can go have fun. It's at Eli's house." There are half the parents that don't know who I am. They don't know anything about me. They're probably going to want to call me and just say, "Hey, are you sure that you don't mind them coming over? What can I send? You're going to have a ton ..." I said, "Eli, they're all going to get this text tonight, or now in the morning and while I'm working ..." I had two face to face appointments; one with my boss, one with a client. I'm like, "I can't be responding to 18, they're action required now because their kids are either going to get on the bus with Eli and come home or they're not."
Haley Evans: I said, "You've put me in a horrible position, because now I'm going to be in a flurry to respond to these 18 action required, time sensitive messages when I'm trying to have a mid-year review with my boss, and I need to be involved and engaged. Instead, I'm thinking shit, shit, shit, shit. I know these moms are texting." I just said, "Eli, if you would have sent this out last week, I would have had a whole week. Not that I would have put these moms off for a day or two. But it would have had to been that moment that I responded back to them. I could have said, "Thanks for reaching out." Or better yet, I could have picked up the phone. "Hey, I just wanted to introduce myself. We're so thrilled to have the kids over. We don't need a thing, blah blah blah."
Haley Evans: I find myself talking to my kids a lot about how, again this norm that our society has a firing off action required, time sensitive messages with 100% of people saying that the expectation is that the person on the receiving end responds immediately or almost immediately, and how that fuels this fire that we can never put the phone down. I try to talk to them about how you have to plan ahead. Eli did the other night too. He was like, "Hey, I want to go to-"
Jennifer Tracy: Wait a minute, what happened with the party? Did people come? Because the thing that I was thinking of is, people have plans. They're going to make plans. If they don't know that we're having this party, they're going to-
Haley Evans: Right. Well, the kids don't plan anymore. Everything is impromptu. They don't even know what that means. It's so annoying. I can't. My 13 year old and I, that's how I said if you think the next five years of your life are going to be this fly by the seat of your pants, you've lost your mind. If you cannot tell me the who, what, when, where and why, don't even call me. Because he'll call me, "Can I go to this thing, whatever." I'm like, "Well, who's going to be there?" "I don't know. "Well, what time does it start?" "I don't know." Well, what time is it over?" "I don't know." I'm like, never. Never again.
Haley Evans: Because what he says is, "I'll just text you. I'll just text you when it's time to come get me." I'm like, that requires me to have the phone on my body at all times. What if I wanted to go walking with a neighbor, and I don't want to take my stupid phone? If I know I'm picking you up at 8:00, I will leave for the walk and come back in time to pick you up. I don't want you to text me. You're not texting me.
Haley Evans: All that to be said, again, we could talk about the addiction, we could talk about social media, the passive scrolling, the rise in suicide and depression. I don't think any of us can address the addiction and the time we waste on the phone until we address the way we communicate. If we continue to send action required time sensitive messages in lieu of a phone call when it's more appropriate or an email when it's more respectful. Again, a text isn't respectful because they have no choice but to address it. An email's more respectful or maybe a phone call.
Haley Evans: My rule is, if it's going to take more than two texts to remediate, I'm calling you. Like my neighbor, she gets so mad. She texted me the other day, I have leftover sandwiches. I'm like, "Oh, great. Well, do you want me to send somebody over?" Then she texts. Finally, I picked up the phone and called her. We handled it in 30 seconds. You can sometimes have six or seven texts to remediate where are we meeting for dinner, or what are we doing on Saturday that can span two hours’ time. You can go to a yoga class, stop for coffee, drop a child off, get on the interstate. You could have handled that in one two minute phone call, one. But instead we send six or seven inefficient texts that are ping ping pinging us to death, and stealing ... Every time that phone pings. Remember, you lost 23 minutes.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. I have one more question, we're going to have to wrap up soon, which I hate because I could literally talk to you about this for hours. It's fascinating.
Haley Evans: Oh my God, I'm sorry.
Jennifer Tracy: No, no don't do not apologize. This is so valuable and it's fascinating to me, and I'm living it. We all are. Everybody's going to relate to this so much. Do you think, and is there any scientific evidence or whatever about, there's this avoidant quality to sending a text. It's like, I don't want to call, and you'll see it because I'm about to have a lightning round of questions.
Jennifer Tracy: One of my questions at the end is do you prefer texting or talking? Almost everyone who I've had on the show says, "Oh, I prefer talking but I'm just so tired. I text more than I talk." Or, oh, texting because I don't want to be bothered to talk." There's some sort of avoidant and with all these dating apps and things which I can't. I tried it after my divorce for a minute, and I was like I can't do this. I'm texting with these people trying to get to know them. You can't get to know someone over text that you've never met. You just cannot, and then it goes nowhere. I'm like, why did I spend all this time texting this person about where they grew up and where they like to eat in West Hollywood? What is the point of that when it's just so much easier but it's harder because people are scared? There's a vulnerability they can hide behind the texting. What do you think about that?
Haley Evans: I love it. Absolutely, you are making yourself vulnerable when you have a face to face or a phone to phone call versus the anonymity you're afforded behind the phone. Here's what I think, would I prefer to text? Yes, because it can check it off my list, it gets out of my head and off my to do list and I don't have to frickin talk to anyone because God, I'm sick of talking to people. But you know what, once you rip the band aid off and realize that what I'm doing by sucking it up and making that phone call is I am saving myself 10 annoying pings on my stupid phone and the inefficiency of 12 frickin texts over the course of three hours’ time because I'm running in and out, hopping in the car.
Haley Evans: The first two or three times you suck it up and go, this is going to take three texts or four texts to remediate, and I've got to run in here and I don't want to carry my phone. I'm going to come back out in an hour. How annoying is it that we're still trying to figure this out. Once you do it once or twice, you're going to be like, oh my God, that wasn't that bad. Oh my God, that ... And you're done. You're done. They're not going to text you anymore about this, it's all done. You got to figure out all the little nuances of the logistics of whatever it is in one little phone call. It must produce some sort of chemical in the brain, it must give you a little punch of something good because you won't hate it as much as you think you will.
Jennifer Tracy: So interesting.
Haley Evans: You have to rip the band aid off because I'm with everyone else. Good God, I don't want to talk to anyone, please don't make me call them. But I'm telling you do it once or twice, rip off the band aid and get that whatever it is checked off your list. All of the obscurities worked out, and you will feel like a new woman. You will find that you'll gain an hour on the back end of just annoying ridiculous texts that interrupt you trying to read a book or take a walk or water the plants or whatever you're doing and you'll be able to leave your phone inside. You'll love it.
Jennifer Tracy: I love that. I love that. Haley, I just love you. Yes, you have to come to LA. We're going to hang out, or I'll come to Knoxville. I love Tennessee. I have a couple of friends that live down there. I love it. We'll go hiking. We'll leave our phones at home, and we'll go on a nice long hike.
Jennifer Tracy: All right, so what happens now is I'm going to ask you three questions that I ask every guest, and then I am going to go into lightning round of questions.
Haley Evans: Oh, yeah. Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: What do you think about, Haley, when you hear the word Milf?
Haley Evans: Jennifer Tracy.
Jennifer Tracy: Well, thank you. What's something you've changed your mind about recently.
Haley Evans: Transgender. I read Reese Witherspoon, one of her books was called ... Oh God, I just read it. It's Always This Way or-
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. One of her books of the month?
Haley Evans: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Haley Evans: The author said it wasn't based on a real story, except she does have a transgender child. Wow, talk about my three criteria for a book; made me laugh, cry, made me think about the world or someone in it differently. As much as I'm so supportive of that community, I think if I'm being really honest, I think I still had some deep, buried subconscious doubts about what that would be like to allow a child at that age to make that big ... Anyway, oh my gosh, the book was fascinating. It just yet again, gives you empathy to say, it's hard to hate up close.
Haley Evans: By that, I mean, you can look at the world or a person or a situation in one way, but when you get real close to them, it's hard to hate up close, because these are people and it was just fascinating and it broke my heart and gave me such empathy to a mother or a father put into that position for the child who obviously they want to make the best decision for. Wow, it was just a humbling book to read. It was great.
Jennifer Tracy: I want to read that book.
Haley Evans: It was really, really good. It's fiction, but it was great fiction.
Jennifer Tracy: I love that. I love that. Well, and also, obviously, as you said, based on truths or collective truths, and again, healing. It's so important to share those things with specificity because it's that, like you said specificity that makes it personal and intimate and relatable. Yeah, that's beautiful. How do you define success?
Haley Evans: Inner peace and contentment.
Jennifer Tracy: Boy, how do you get that?
Haley Evans: I think you have to-
Jennifer Tracy: Put the phone down?
Haley Evans: You have to put the damn phone down. I read a quote one time that said the deeper sorrow carves into your body, the more room you have for joy, essentially. I think for me, it was experiencing the tragic loss of my brother and just that really hollowed me out, which made me look at and deal with some of the sadness and regrets and past events that had happened to me. It hollowed me out to a point where it pushed those up, which was uncomfortable at first, because I spent a lot of years trying to deal and walk through some of that. But then they were gone. So, I was just filled up with a sense of peace and contentment. I feel like that alleviates the crave I had for any financial or status or any of those things that I was craving before, I ultimately realized that that is what I was craving, because that this feeling ... It's transient. Some days I'm more peaceful and more content than others, I'm human. But that is what we should all be striving for. Nothing will ever feel like that. No amount of money, no status. Nothing will feel like peace and contentment.
Jennifer Tracy: I love it. What a great answer. Okay lightning round of questions.
Haley Evans: Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: Ocean or desert?
Haley Evans: Ocean.
Jennifer Tracy: Favorite junk food?
Haley Evans: Raw cookie dough.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh. Movies or Broadway show?
Haley Evans: Oh, a movie, because I can be at home in my jammies.
Jennifer Tracy: Daytime sex or nighttime sex.
Haley Evans: Oh, daytime.
Jennifer Tracy: Texting-
Haley Evans: I like to go to bed early.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh yeah, me too, girl. Texting or talking?
Haley Evans: Talking.
Jennifer Tracy: Cat person or dog person?
Haley Evans: Dog.
Jennifer Tracy: Have you ever worn a unitard?
Haley Evans: Oh, for sure. I think I have. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Shower or bath tub?
Haley Evans: Oh, bath.
Jennifer Tracy: On a scale of one to 10, how good are you at ping pong?
Haley Evans: Oh, I suck. A two.
Jennifer Tracy: What is your biggest pet peeve?
Haley Evans: People who think they're better than others? I hate that.
Jennifer Tracy: If you could push a button and have perfect skin for the rest of your life, but it would also give you incurable halitosis for the rest of your life, would you push it?
Haley Evans: No. There's nothing worse than bad breath.
Jennifer Tracy: Superpower choice; invisibility, ability to fly or super strength?
Haley Evans: I want to fly.
Jennifer Tracy: Would you rather have six fingers on both hands or a belly button that looks like fore skin?
Haley Evans: I'm going to go with the belly button because I can cover that up.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of your first pet?
Haley Evans: Gobble gobble.
Jennifer Tracy: What? Are you serious?
Haley Evans: I got him on Thanksgiving, so I named him Gobble gobble.
Jennifer Tracy: What kind of animal was it?
Haley Evans: A dog. But Gobble gobble like the turkey.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of the street you grew up on?
Haley Evans: Scenic Ridge Cove.
Jennifer Tracy: So, your poor name is Gobble gobble scenic ridge. That's naughty. That's filthy. That porn star will do things that you never even thought. Oh my god, Haley, I just adore you. Thank you so much for this. This is amazing.
Haley Evans: Thank you for having me on. I hope that the troop of women that listen to this will help me start a movement. I have seen the movements begin before from the processed food movement to #MeToo. But it takes women that believe there's a reason to do better-
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, absolutely.
Haley Evans: To start it. I hope they'll read the book because that's the why we should do better.
Jennifer Tracy: Where do we find you? Where can my listeners find you?
Haley Evans: I just point them to my website. It's thebighang.com. My book's available on my website, thebighangup.com or on Amazon. But the website has everything there. So, I think that's a good place to start.
Jennifer Tracy: Awesome. Haley, thank you so much.
Haley Evans: You're welcome. Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you guys so much for listening. Join me next week for a fresh episode of Milf Podcast. Just a reminder to visit serpentlane.com for all your lingerie needs, and use the code MILF15 for 15% off. I love you guys. Have a great week.