Rules of Engagement

Yay. Good morning, Cadre. My name is Betsy Hodges. This is my first live stream. I am a very analog person. So this is what you have. Instead of some fancy graphic, you have me saying, hi, Cadre on a Minnesota product, a post it that is also a dry erase. I am delighted to be here with everyone this morning. I want to say a few words about myself and how thrilled I am to be here every week to talk about community, to talk about my experience, my experience, strength and hope. People are coming in, which is so exciting.

It's nice to meet all of you. Hi, Robert. You just joined. I think Michelle and Luke are here as well. Who am I and why did Cadre invite me on here? Well, technically speaking, and I suppose officially speaking, I used to be the mayor of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Before that, I was on the city council. And before that I did a whole bunch of things. I grew up in Minnetonka, Minnesota. I went to Wayzata High School for the Minnesotans in the crowd. Hello, speak wonder. Thank you for that kind welcome.

I'm excited to be here. Hi, Shannon. Hi, Anna. Great to see you. So that's, you know, who I am, I guess, officially, if you google me, there's all sorts of stuff you can learn about me, and we might go backstage on some of that at various points, since Tuesday is community day and I decided to call this live stream rules of engagement because I have a list. It's posted right up here. Maybe you can see it. It's right up there, called rules of engagement that I use to keep myself on track to make sure that I.

When I'm challenged, when I'm having a tough moment, and those happen pretty frequently. What is it that I return to? What are my core principles? So, hello, Cafe Marisa. I am a fan and supporter of yours as well, rules of engagement. And I've got them on my phone. I've got them posted right here where I spend a lot of time in my office, just to remember. And so at some point, I'm going to invite you to give me a number, one between one and 18. And you can hear I between one and 18 of the rules of commandment.

Hi, Robert. But a little bit about my background. Like I said, I grew up in Minnesota. I grew up in Minnetonka, over by Ridgedale in a subdivision called Deaverdale, if that means anything to anybody off Oakland Road. And there were really, really great things about my young life and really great things about my whole life. There are also some very challenging things which I'm guessing we will talk about as time goes on. I will say this. When I was 19 years old, I was halfway through college. I went to college out here, east.

I live in Washington, DC now, so. Hello from Washington, DC. Thank you, Cadre, for my congratulations on my first Cadre. I got sober. That is the very shortest way to say what 1989 looked like for me. That February, I quit smoking. I had been smoking a pack a day for three years. That summer, in July, I quit drinking. I didn't quite know I was an alcoholic, but I stopped drinking. My first sober day was July 17, 1989. Then that fall, I realized I use sugar like an alcoholic uses booze. So I have not had recreational sugar since that October, and then eventually realized that perhaps drinking two giant Diet Cokes and three giant caffeinated coffees to stay up all night to write papers was not the way to go.

And so I don't use caffeine, either. Those were all symptoms of a larger problem. Thank you, Luke. Yeah, they were symptoms of a larger problem. I am just putting on the table here first out the gates as we go. I've been public about this. I am also the survivor of some pretty significant childhood sexual abuse outside my family. My family was not responsible for any of the abuse that I went through, but it was still pretty significant. And, you know, I picked up addictions along the way. Cause they worked to get me out of a bad situation when I couldn't physically get out.

And because I'm an alcoholic and an addict, they stuck around even after I was no longer in that situation. And I had to figure that out, and I continue to figure that out. On July 17, I celebrated 35 years of sobriety. So that's a little bit about who I am, but that's not the most important thing about who I am. I mean, recovery is a pretty important thing about me, but it was a big day in my recovery, in my life, when I realized that the most important thing about me was not the fact that I'm an alcoholic.

It's not the fact that I had been through abuse, et cetera, et cetera. None of that was the most important thing about me. As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing about me is my sense of humor. If you want to in the chat, if you want to think to yourself what might be the most important thing about you, let me know. Sense of humor. Because I believe comedy and poetry will save the world. I love both. Laughing is such a healing thing to do when done in the right spirit. And, you know, I have been able to laugh even in the darkest moments of my life, like I've been lying in a hospital bed laughing.

And so I just recommend it to everybody not to cover up anything, but to be part of things. The other great thing about laughter is it's communal inherently. Not inherently, but it magnifies our laughter magnifies if we're with and around other people. I love to go to see live comedy. I realized many years ago I am not the sort of person who will just go to the local bar and see what band is playing. Like, I'll listen to any music. I'm not that way. I prefer to know who I'm seeing. But I will go to any comedy club anytime and see who is performing under any circumstance because laughter is just the best.

Yes, Mary Oliver and smartless are two faves. Oh, and you're a poet. I am glad. That's the most important way to describe speak wonder. Yes, Ana, humor is so powerful. And oh yes, Miss Shannon is fantastic. I'm glad you brought her up, Luke. She is great. So, and a funny I have a funny story about Mary Oliver. If you listen to the end of the on being podcast where Krista Tippett interviews Mary Oliver, if you listen to the unedited version, she reads a text to her from someone in the Midwest saying thank you and that someone is me.

So that's a little poetry story. If people want, you can hear that. And it big moment in my life when that happens. So that's the most important thing about me is my sense of humor, which it might take a while on here for it to show up a because I'm talking to you, but we are talking, I'm speaking and you're typing. And that's a harder way to show sense of humor. And because my sense of humor can be a little quirky and also a little dry and sometimes those are hard to convey through video. But I'll do my best.

I'll do my best. If somebody wants to put a number one through 18 in the chat, feel free. And I can tell you what that rule of engagement is on my list. I also have a list of sort of things I've learned along the way. I don't know exactly what I'm going to call that list, but they're not basically commandments for myself or things I use to set policy for myself. Can you tell I was elected official rules of engagement, setting policy, etcetera, etcetera. But if you want to do that, that's great. Otherwise I might pick a random number, just to give you an example of what I'm talking about, actually, why don't I start with the first one?

I'm going to tell you what my first rule of engagement for myself is as I walk through life, because the rest are not in any particular order, but the first one is the most important one to me. And that first one is love what you love. Love what you love. You know, as long as it's not actively harming people or whatever. You know what I mean? Love what you love. Like, I realized this in high school because I was and remain a nerd. And I loved. I was in theater, debate choir, and quizbowl. Like, those are four.

That's like the nerd coifecta right there. So I love star wars. I am unapologetic about it. I love the music of Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen. Like, Bruce Springsteen's music will bring me back to myself pretty much faster than anything else. I will show you. I can say, computer, play Springsteen, and in just a second, e street radio starts. Computer, stop. That's a live version of. Because the night, if you didn't recognize what that was, it'll bring me back. I am able to say that at any moment, and I need it often.

So love what you love. Thank you, Luke. Yes. I love Star Wars. I love animals. I love giraffes. Giraffes are my favorite animal. A couple years ago, we went to Tanzania, and I got to meet my life dream toddler on my bucket list for 20 years. I got to see giraffes in the wild. So I'm sharing a little bit about myself here. So you can get a sense that I am pretty much an open book. There's not a lot I won't talk about. I will pretend I will change names to protect the innocent, but there's not a lot on my own behalf that I won't talk about if you want to ask questions or whatever it is, but these rules of engagement are largely how do I make my way in the world?

And when I think about community, community is how do we make our way in the world with one another. Right? And for me, as an elected official, government and elections are one of the key places we come together and decide who we are collectively as a people. And when collectively we make a decision that I don't like or agree with, it just heightens my energy to make some changes. And this isn't. I'm not here to do politics or be political. I'm just saying that's my background in my history. So when I think about community, I think about how do we choose to come together?

Who are we as we come together? Who am I when I arrive in community, and who am I when I leave, and how do I conduct myself while I'm in community, so that when I leave, I'm better off than I started. That's the community question for me. My recovery has been in community. My family is a community. I live in cities on purpose because I like the hum and vibe of urban areas. But my rules of engagement, they're all about how I keep my North Star in community, but also how I let myself be shaped as I move forward.

Right as I'm, you know, paddling my canoe toward the lighthouse, how do I get there? But how do I paddle my own journey as opposed to someone else's? Probably you're not paddling to lighthouses because that would be a little choppy water. But I don't paddle at all, so it's not my most apt metaphor. So, Cadre, love what you love. If you dig anything from today, it's love what you love. If there's something in your life that you love that you're a little embarrassed about. Reading romance novels. I read romance novels to quiet my brain.

I love knowing exactly how it's going to end. If there's something that you love that you're a little shy about, embrace it, at least internally, but love what you love. So this is my first live stream. Cadre. I have done it. I am excited to be with you here every week. If there's stuff you want me to know, you know how to find me. Harbor pilot, speak wonder. I'm going to look that up. I'm going to look that up. You know how to find me. And I'll be here next Tuesday, hanging out with.