Embracing Professional Change and Discovering Purpose with a Transformative Career Journey

Amy Stone [00:00:03]:
Angela Gallo, welcome to the Art of Imperfect Adulting.

Angela Gallo [00:00:07]:
Hi. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Amy Stone [00:00:09]:
I’m very excited for this. Are you ready for a chat?

Angela Gallo [00:00:13]:
Yes. Yes.

Amy Stone [00:00:14]:
All right, let’s do it. Okay. So before we get to the fun and interesting stuff, I’ve got two get to know you, warm up questions for me and for the audience because this is the first time you and I have talked. What is the place that you call home? Like, what part of the world do you call home? Sure.

Angela Gallo [00:00:31]:
We live in Columbia, South Carolina. So right. Kind of smack center of the state in South Carolina. It’s a really lovely location. It’s about three hours from so many places. The mountains, the beach. It’s really. It’s just a really great, wonderful location.

Amy Stone [00:00:48]:
That is fantastic. The thing that I always think about with South Carolina, so I’m in Florida. So when we’re driving from north to south or south to north, for some reason, like in Florida, we have like a million lanes on the highway. Georgia, a million lanes on the highway. You get to South Carolina, two lanes. Two lanes.

Angela Gallo [00:01:05]:
I knew you were going to say that already.

Amy Stone [00:01:06]:
Yeah, I’m sure you get that a lot. All right, next easy peasy question so that we can get to know you just a little bit more as a person. Before we talk about careers, which is the topic for today, share with us as much or as little about your family as you want.

Angela Gallo [00:01:25]:
Yeah. I have been married to my husband. His name is Tommy. For we celebrated our 20th anniversary this past July. And we have a son who just turned 14 at the end of last month. And so he’s in 8th grade. His name is Jaden, and he does. He’s really into taekwondo and theater.

Amy Stone [00:01:47]:
Nice. All right, Very good. So your heart like smack in the middle of the teenage years. Yes.

Angela Gallo [00:01:54]:
Happy times.

Amy Stone [00:01:55]:
Happy times. Oh, happy, happy, joy, joy. Okay, so, but that’s not the topic for today. What we’re going to talk about is a career change and the. Does that sound like the right thing for you? Amy checked the right thing before we started. The one of the things that really called to me about this when you reached out was that I think that this is something that everybody is going to go through probably more than once in their. In their life. And so there’s probably no limit to the amount of times I can have this conversation with people. But to start, let’s talk about what was your profession before you decided to make a change?

Angela Gallo [00:02:35]:
So I’ve worked in the arts, a dancer, professional dancer, modern contemporary dance, choreography. And so for the past 20 years, I’ve been working in dance in higher education. I was working as a dance professor at a small private university here in South Carolina. And, you know, in that position, I started out as a professor teaching, really interacting with the students, which was great. And over my time at the university, you know, it’s like, oh, well, wouldn’t it be great? Don’t you want to become program coordinator? Okay, sure. That sounds like a great responsibility. Can help shape curriculum and have some. Some more agency over what the program looks like. Yeah, that’s a great. That’s great. And then. Oh, don’t you want to become department chair? Sure. Okay. Yes. You know, and help, you know, guide my colleagues in music and theater as well and work together and create some excellent programming. And then finally I became a dean of our School of Visual and Performing Arts. And so for the past five, six years, I was supervising dance, music, theater and visual art programs. And I really enjoyed it for a while. And actually, even till the last day, there were aspects of it that I really, really enjoyed. And I had a great team of faculty colleagues and staff that we worked with. Students were a good group of students. And just there’s a lot of things that have been going on in higher ed recently, a lot of. Since COVID different changes, different policies and that. That are going into place that just make the process of trying to work with the students and teach the students just more difficult.

Amy Stone [00:04:27]:
And we’ll go into all. We’ll go. We’ll go more deeply into detail. I will say I’m not in education, never have been, but I don’t think that in the last five years. I guess we’d say four years. Whenever, however long it’s been. I don’t know that I’ve talked to anybody in any part of education that has just been raving about the changes and really happy about it. So before we. Before we go. So you were in higher education, but not in, like, the physics department. You were a. In the Visual and Performing arts department, which is sounds. It sounds delightful, actually. So before we go too deep, I do want to rewind the clock, like, way back and ask you what you think you. What you remember. Remember wanting to be when you were a kid, like, maybe actually about your son’s age, like 13, 14.

Angela Gallo [00:05:17]:
At that age, I was, you know, I didn’t think I wanted to go into dance at that point. I wasn’t entirely sure. I mean, my two primary activities that I was doing, like, extracurricularly at that time were dance and some theater. But I really hadn’t decided, you know, this is what I want to do for college or anything. I think it wasn’t until I got closer to college, you know, probably like, junior or senior year, that I decided that I wanted to, you know, pursue dance as a profession. And I worked as a choreographer and a dancer professionally as well. I still actually do, but I just. I found something really intriguing and interesting about working with students, especially at the higher ed level. I really enjoyed kind of drawing their artistry out of them. And so, yeah, I didn’t. I didn’t expect that when I was, like, my son’s age.

Amy Stone [00:06:16]:
Right. And that is. That’s the reason I wanted to go all the way back then, because, you know, what we. What we think we want. I mean, at 10 years old, you know, that’s the time when you only know the jobs that your parents have, and then firefighters and policemen and people we see on tv. So you don’t really have a lot of information to make it. But the adjustment from, like, what we dream will be and what we study to, like, actually doing things that. That’s not always easy. That’s not always easy. And so there is that. Okay, so you are a performer by desire, but you fall in love with teaching in higher ed. And then were. Was this driven. Was this change driven by you? Or was it something that, like, did you decide that you wanted to leave higher education, or was it like a. In faculty overall?

Angela Gallo [00:07:10]:
Ultimately, some. The university kind of those powers above me were considering eliminating some of the programs in the arts that I supervised, and I was fighting back against that. And ultimately the university sent out voluntary early retirement opportunities to a number of the faculty and staff at the university. And so along with that, you know, knowing that they were considering cutting programs and it was going to be, you know, things had already been challenging since COVID in terms of resources, in terms. In terms of change in student motivation. It just was like, you know, I’d been thinking about making a change, and here came an opportunity to, you know, maybe step away and have some time to. To start my own next thing.

Amy Stone [00:08:04]:
So that’s really interesting because I like to draw, like, a bright line. I’m like, there are changes we make, and then there are changes that happen, because. But this is really a little bit of both.

Angela Gallo [00:08:13]:
It’s a little of both.

Amy Stone [00:08:14]:
Thinking about it. You were given an opportunity. There was a circumstance that was presented to you, and that is very interesting. Okay, so you have hinted to this and started this already about what the thoughts were that were Bouncing around in your beautiful brain about why you might want to make this change. I think you mentioned that there was some. How do we describe this when it’s a pressure from above, like there were some systemic pressures from above. They were going to eliminate some of these programs. It wasn’t any longer what you thought you would be. What were some of the things that were driving your choices when you think back?

Angela Gallo [00:08:56]:
Yeah, I think for a while I felt like we had pretty good autonomy over, you know, the programs. I supervised and working with the faculty on, you know, the goals of the programs. We were doing a lot of giving opportunities for students with guest artists and that. And then there was just a shift that happened maybe about a year or so before this opportunity for early retirement came in, where all of a sudden there was a lot more intervention from other areas on campus trying to like control or tell us what we should be doing with our programs. And, and so it just, it got more frustrating. Additionally, after Covid, the students, you know, again, like you said, talking with people in education since COVID the expectation of students, their motivation, their drive, and yes, working in the arts, you’d think like, oh, well, this is great, you get to go and take piano lessons or dance class or drawing or painting or sculpture or acting class. But still, these students were unmotivated. They weren’t wanting to come to class and were like, how do you think you’re going to be successful in the arts if we can’t even come to class? You have to be such a self starter and really push yourself in these areas in some ways more than some other areas to get recognition, to create opportunities for yourself. And so all of these battles were just getting very draining.

Amy Stone [00:10:26]:
I believe that. I think that motivation of kids from middle school to college is definitely something. I mean, I used to hear it when I was in high school. You guys are not working as hard as the older kids and stuff. And I’m. It’s been a long time since I was in school, but I think that we did all, you know, definitely we broke some of the training that when we pulled kids from For Better or Worse, showing up every day for school when you have to go, trains kids to do that, trains them to get up and go. And so we did break some of those habits. We definitely broke some of the socialization habits. I had lunch today with people that I have not gotten together with lunch with. We figured it out while we were doing it since before lockdown, which is like nuts, right? Just the, just the regular patterns of, hey, let’s get together, let’s do this. Those kind of things just really those. Those habits sort of disappeared. And kids who are establishing those. I think it is bizarre. I think the impact of that will continue to be felt, but I don’t know if I’m hopeful that it will. It’s like a bell curve that will return, but I can’t predict the future. I don’t know what’s going to happen. All right, so you’ve been in education for a long time, but before that you were a performer and the job had changed when, like. So a lot of this was driven by changes in the school and stuff. But when is the earliest time that you began to think about maybe I would consider doing something different. And I guess there’s a kid. There’s a second part of this because you’re in education. Because education, higher education is sometimes one of those jobs. It’s almost like golden handcuffs. There’s a lot of benefits and safety and security for being there. Like, so, like both sides of that, like.

Angela Gallo [00:12:18]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, what you’re saying, there’s definitely, you know, education has like a cyclical nature where you’re really busy during the semester and then, you know, like this time of year you’re on break and then, which you’re not really on break. If you moved into some of the roles that I was in, where you’re more administrative and less teaching, there’s still work being done, but there’s still a lessening. It doesn’t feel as intense as, you know, when classes are in session and that. And so same through the summer. And so you have the opportunity to work on other projects and different things. And so there was definitely that benefit of my position. And as I moved more into leadership, there was lessening of that. You know, there was more consistent workload year round. And I found myself, you know, as a dancer and choreographer also as I moved into higher ed leadership, not having as much time to spend with my artistry. I’m not, you know, creating works and still performing or dancing with my company or even just creating works for my company to perform and as much. And, you know, the pandemic played into that as well. But it was like the timing of both really started to pull me away from my creative side. And I think that that ultimately really started to take a toll on me. Probably about a year and a half to two years ago, I really started feeling like I need to get back to more creative pursuits, more being in my body and.

Amy Stone [00:13:47]:
Yeah, so, yeah, because people who are like, so we’re recording this. This will go live in February. We’re recording in December, which is why you talked about a break in the schedule. Like, so we are just about to hit the winter holidays. Everybody is phoning it in. People are checking out. The schools are closed. Schools are closed. People are like, it is the holiday weekend. Do not. It’s the holiday season. Do not talk to me. But, yeah, so when you are a creative person, and most people are actually creative to some degree, right? But when you’re a creative person who, like a dancer, a choreographer, and then you step into a leadership position, and I hear this a lot with people who shift from creating to leading, right? It’s not always a good swap. It’s not always a good swap. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. And so. And then. So you had that sort of pressure two years ago. And I think that I hear that there’s so many people who. It’s like they made it through lockdown, and then they held on, and then it was almost like a awakening that’s like, okay, so I don’t know if what I’m doing now makes sense anymore. And then so many things just aren’t the way they were. They just, you know, they just aren’t the way they were anymore. So about two years ago is when you. When you did that. Okay, so what concerns did you have about when you were thinking about this? Before they made you the offer, the offer that was too good to refuse, before they made you the offer, what concerns did you have? Like, what. Where. How were you? Like, if you were sort of talking yourself through it, because at any point you could have walked in and been like, I’m done. See you later. But what were some of the concerns that you had about leaving?

Angela Gallo [00:15:36]:
Well, I had. I’d actually been looking at other academic positions at other institutions, and I had been interviewing for a lot of them. And one of the things is that they require to move. So, you know, at a certain level, if I want to take another dean position or even associate dean or even, you know, a director of a school or they. Those things, it’s not like there’s a lot of those opportunities right in my backyard or anyone’s backyard, really. It’s. It’s kind of the thing where you have to go to where the jobs are. And, you know, if I look right now online, there’s probably 20 positions open nationwide for those kinds of positions. So it’s limiting in terms of where do you want to be? And we really enjoyed living here. Where we’re living, we are, you know, where my son goes to school is a great program. He’s involved with some really great magnet and honors programs. And we just, I didn’t really want to leave that. My husband has a job and a career here too. And so started kind of weighing did we want to uproot everything for a possible other academic position at another institution and you know, sell the house and move cross country and you know, we have, you know, both our families don’t live in South Carolina. My, my parents live in Florida also and my mother in law lives in Connecticut. And so it’s very east coast driven. And so I wasn’t even looking at jobs that might be anywhere past, you know, the Mississippi river out west because, you know, then we’re moving away from parents who are starting to age and you know, and concerns of, of that. So it became, I don’t, after kind of a heart to heart with one of my girlfriends, you know, we spent a weekend kind of digging through some issues that we were both kind of wrestling with. It was like, you know, I don’t know, I think I don’t really want to move and if that means that I’m going to step away from the academic environment, then I’m going to make that choice. And it was hard because it’s, you know, again, 20 years is a long time to be in a field and developing, right?

Amy Stone [00:17:50]:
So you have a lot of time and effort invested in this, in this career and in this school. And it is, it is very hard. And you hit on some things that probably a lot of people resonate with, right? So, you know, before you have kids, you know, you can go anywhere you want, you can do anything you want. When your parents are young and they’re totally, you know, in good health, that also is easier. Then we call it, right, we call it the sandwich generation. You’re in between aging parents and you’re still caregiving for kids. And there’s a lot of pressure, there’s a lot of pressure on that. And it’s a unique thing that did not happen very often like 100 years ago. So it’s a new kind of thing. So we’re navigating it first time. And so you decide, you decide. I love where I live, I love the location where I live. And so if I am not going to do this job, I’m not going to do this job, but I’m not leaving South Carolina. Did you grow up in South Carolina or did your parents, like, did they follow the rules and move To Florida as a retirement move.

Angela Gallo [00:18:52]:
They. They actually left. They. We all were from Connecticut originally.

Amy Stone [00:18:57]:
Okay.

Angela Gallo [00:18:58]:
And so we still have family. And like I said, my. My in laws are still there and I have some of my own family is also still there. But my parents left probably a little before retirement and went down and have been there. They’ve probably been there about 20, 25 years now in Florida as well.

Amy Stone [00:19:14]:
I was an early. I was an early migrator. I moved right after college. So I was like. I was like, oh, you know, did you know that if you move south, it’s warm all year long?

Angela Gallo [00:19:25]:
Exactly right.

Amy Stone [00:19:27]:
Did you know that you can live in the same town as the ocean? So. Yeah, but. So. So you. You grew up on the Northeast. You moved halfway down to South Carolina. They’re all the way down. So. So I went from the Northeast, I did school in the Midwest, but moved to Florida. Now a lot of people will then ret. Carolina. And they call them halfbacks.

Angela Gallo [00:19:47]:
Yes.

Amy Stone [00:19:48]:
Yeah, it’s one of my favorite stereotypical nicknames. Like, I guess they also probably South Carolina too. They call them halfbacks.

Angela Gallo [00:19:54]:
Yeah. My parents are now. Are considering moving up closer this way now.

Amy Stone [00:19:59]:
Okay. So they’re. They’re considering moving. Moving a little further. Further. Well, it’s. I don’t know how far south they live. It’s very hot now in Cal. In Florida all year. All year long. And so there is a balance there. There is a balance. And I don’t know if anybody’s paying attention, but Florida is full. We are. We are completely occupied building houses as fast as we can, but it is congested everywhere. We went to a family dinner the other day, and my husband was like, where. What is all this traffic? And I was like, where have you been? It is like this all the time, 24 hours a day. So. All right, so the concerns were about leaving were the moving. Right. And so you made, though, you made a very dramatic shift. You move from higher education with a background in performance. Tell the audience, tell the listeners and the people watching what you decided to change to.

Angela Gallo [00:20:54]:
Sure. So. So a little. A little bit more about my. My background that will help make sense of this.

Amy Stone [00:21:00]:
You don’t have to defend it. I’m gonna. Okay.

Angela Gallo [00:21:04]:
I don’t think it’s a defense. I think because what I did, I really sat down and thought about what did I want to keep doing.

Amy Stone [00:21:10]:
Okay.

Angela Gallo [00:21:10]:
One of the other opportunities that I did have at this university was to lead study abroad trips. And so I led probably at least a dozen study abroad to different areas of Europe over the past, you know, 15 years or so. And the profound change that I saw in the students when they had the opportunity to, you know, to venture into another country and other cultures and learn about their art and about their history and the food. Food and just, you know, experience all of it was such an exciting change. And so I. I was determined that something I was going to do was going to continue to have some aspect of exposing people to travel and transformative travel, things that would help them, like, broaden their mindset, really big life shifts and just in perspective and that. And so the other thing is, I have always been a certified Pilates instructor. It’s something. When we lived in New York City, before we even moved to South Carolina, when I was dancing there, that was something I did to supplement my income. But it’s always been an important part of my life in terms of cross training, in terms of keeping me healthy and strong and continuing to be able to dance even as I got older in that. And so what I did is I opened a company called Hemisphere Dancer Wellness and Travel. And what I’m working on now is guiding primarily women, but not all women on journeys that are, you know, through some travel and wellness coaching, you know, transformative travel trips, helping them plan the most, you know, transformative experience for them. Also leading wellness retreats. I have one coming up in Asheville in April where we’ll do Pilates and Somatic Movement and other. Some other bodywork practices over a weekend with some journaling and mindfulness practices to help. To help people get back on a track. You know, especially, I feel like for women who are like me, who are in this career where things are kind of spiraling out of control and you’re feeling overworked and burnt out, and you have family and parents and all of these things pulling you in all these directions, trying to work and help people get a better grasp on their kind of mind, body, spirit, like, realigning with that through the, you know, through the Pilates, through, like, fitness and wellness training and through the travel.

Amy Stone [00:23:48]:
Very nice. All right. So I said there was a lot in there, and let’s make sure that we touch it. So you led artists, student artists, on international travel trips in education, and you got to see firsthand something. I believe myself, you know, the impact of traveling and going to a place where they do things a little differently than you’re used to can really be profound. And it doesn’t just stop when we’re students. Right. And then you were a. You had a certificate from when you were young as a Pilates instructor because being a. So at that point where you’re a performer and so like, and it is, I mean it is a story as old as time that performers often have another side gig to pay the rent. And now we are cobbling together professions of all side gigs. It’s an entrepreneurial world. So you had those things and you put it together. And one of the things you talked about is. I’m going to let you, I’m going to ask you to give a little bit more of a description of. Because I think that, I think that. Let’s talk about what a retreat looks like from the outside. Because I think if you haven’t been on a retreat and there are a thousand bazillion, gazillion different kinds of retreats, like you could do a work retreat, you can do a spa based retreat, they’re all over the place. But it’s like a word that can mean a lot of different things. So when we talk about, when you’re talking about wellness retreats, give an example of what that might look like to somebody who is considering it if they see it advertised or if they, they’re thinking to themselves, calgon, take me away. What do I do?

Angela Gallo [00:25:30]:
Yes. So it varies slightly in terms of depending on how long it is. But I’ll give the example of the one I’m planning for Asheville in April. So this is a long weekend retreat. So it would be a Friday, Saturday, Sunday situation. And so participants would arrive on Friday afternoon. We would have a welcome dinner. It would be a group of like minded people getting to know each other with a dinner. We would also have some sort of movement activity that night like Pilates or yoga, just some class to move together, get used to each other. Then we would also do some journaling, kind of mindset work, talking about, you know, what kind of things are happening in somebody’s life where it’s making them feel really kind of pulled in all of the different directions and kind of doing some journaling to help unpack some of that and start to look at, well how, where could we look at rewiring some of this or reworking it to be more manageable. And then the next day, Saturday, it would start with some movement based classes. In this retreat I’m partnering with a colleague of mine who does some nervous system work. So we’ll do some Pilates classes, Somatic movement, which is kind of like guided meditative movement. So it’s not like it’s not really dancy dance, but it’s it’s kind of a little more like creative movement. I hesitate to use the word improvisation because that can kind of freak some people out. But it’s kind of moving how you feel you want to and need to move with like guided prompts. And then, you know, like I said, excuse me, my colleague, I’ll be doing some nervous system sessions as well. And then we have time for kind of a after lunch in the afternoon there’ll be a couple options for some activities. Like you could explore Asheville downtown because of what happened just with the hurricane there. We also are trying to set up a potential volunteer opportunity. So if people wanted to come and also be able to give back to that community and take part in this like volunteer service activity for a couple hours in the afternoon, that would be an option as well. And then we’ll gather back at the retreat location for dinner, another closing ceremony kind of movement and journaling and some mindfulness practices at night. And then Sunday will start. Similarly, the day would wrap up around lunchtime again with some morning movement based activities and some of the nervous system work again. And then, you know, journaling and mindfulness practices before.

Amy Stone [00:28:19]:
Back to the jungle.

Angela Gallo [00:28:21]:
Yes, exactly.

Amy Stone [00:28:23]:
And so I think that one of the things that’s really interesting is that when we talk about transformation, we talk about overwhelm and resets and things like that. I know for a pretty big chunk of my existence I thought that when I felt that way, first of all I thought there were people out there that didn’t feel that way. And I don’t actually think that anymore. And the other thing that I thought was that it meant that something that I had done something sort of wrong. And I also don’t think that anymore. I think that most people who are in the sort of season of life between like 20 and 65 were busy. There’s a lot going on, you know, there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot going on just all over the place. And it’s nice to have the ability to carve out some time and have somebody else do the planning and just do those things. I think it’s nice also that you worked in a local connection to the community for this Asheville. Had you planned it before they were hit by the storm or did you put it together after? It’s like, let’s go do something in this community.

Angela Gallo [00:29:35]:
I started talking about it with. So my colleague who does the nervous system work, she lives up in Asheville. And so her and I had been talking about planning a retreat together for Some time now. And now because of. Because of what’s going on up there. Her and her partner are also very involved in a lot of the rebuilding. He works in construction, so he’s a lot of.

Amy Stone [00:29:55]:
He’s really involved.

Angela Gallo [00:29:56]:
Yeah, he’s really involved.

Amy Stone [00:29:58]:
So it was. Yeah, it was. I. So my kids used to. All my kids went to sleepaway camp up in that neck of the woods. And so it didn’t always happen, but I’ve been, I’ve poked around up there and that was just. It’s always. I live in hurricane country, so it’s something. But it is so hard to watch a city get just knocked out like that and they really, really got. Got walloped. And it’s true in any place that is in a danger zone. Right. Like, people who live there and are ready for it are more aware of the risks. And then the. These once in a lifetime, once every century, once every thousand year type things. Not a lot of people remember. So it’s like everybody knew the river was there, right? Like, of course, you know, the riverside, you know, there’s a beautiful artisan market. Everybody knew it was there, but the people who the, you know, and it had happened in the past in a different format, but I mean, nobody was ready for it and nobody expected it. And in fact, so many people move from the shore up into the mountains thinking they’re going to avoid it, which is really, really hard to watch. So I’m glad that you’re able to do that. Okay, so when did you make this change? How recent is this?

Angela Gallo [00:31:12]:
So I took early retirement at the end of last July.

Amy Stone [00:31:15]:
Okay.

Angela Gallo [00:31:16]:
So it’s still fairly recent.

Amy Stone [00:31:18]:
Six months?

Angela Gallo [00:31:19]:
Yeah, six months.

Amy Stone [00:31:20]:
So big, big change. So then the next. So there’s two parts to this question. One is if you remember what you hoped it would feel like to make this change, like when you said, okay, I’m going to do this, like if you remembered what you hoped it would feel like. And then the next part is what feels good now about having made this change. Like, what feels right and good.

Angela Gallo [00:31:40]:
What feels right is, you know, being able to kind of. When opportunities come up for different things for, you know, all kinds of opportunities for guests, teaching or, you know, in all kinds of teaching, whether it’s Pilates or dance or, you know, working, you know, at an elementary school with some of the students in movement, being able to kind of pick and choose the opportunities that really feel like they resonate with me. And that is. That has been really great because for a while it was, you know, you have to do these things. Because you have to do these things. Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:32:17]:
Independence and autonomy, control of your own schedule.

Angela Gallo [00:32:21]:
Yeah. And I mean, it’s a little crazy and I mean it’s definitely can be unnerving at times, you know, doing your own thing because it is unstable and it’s a moving target and you know, just, you’re kind of figuring it out as you go along. But it’s, you know, I think you can think of it as scary or as exciting and it’s kind of, kind of walks the line of a little bit of both. But. But it is, it’s exciting to be able to do another thing.

Amy Stone [00:32:47]:
That is very nice. Do you remember what you thought? What were you. What did you hope you would feel like before you made the change? What were your hopes? That, I mean, was that. Is it a match?

Angela Gallo [00:32:56]:
Um, yeah, I, I mean I was hoping I would feel less stressed because I was really, I mean I was really coming home with a lot of like frustration from work and taking that out on my family. And so I think I was really wanting to not be having that kind of level of stress being directed at my family anymore. And so that, that is definitely something that I have felt.

Amy Stone [00:33:24]:
Very good. Very good. And I’m sure they appreciate it as well. I’m sure.

Angela Gallo [00:33:27]:
Oh, absolutely.

Amy Stone [00:33:29]:
Yeah. All right, so in a minute we’re going to do the final questions and we’ll wrap up. But before we do that, I want to give people, give you a chance to tell people how like we talked very detailed about what you’re doing now with the travel and the retreats and the Pilates and the wellness. But tell people about your business and tell them how they can find you online.

Angela Gallo [00:33:50]:
Yeah, sure. So it’s again, the name of it is Hemisphere Dancer Wellness and Travel. The website is ww HD wellness and travel.com and we’re also on Facebook and Instagram under same name. And you can also email me at angelness and travel dot com.

Amy Stone [00:34:14]:
Fantastic. All of that will be in the show notes as well as in the email that goes out to anybody who subscribed. And you have made a very generous offer to the audience. Audience which I will share so you don’t have to remember what you said, what you offered, which is a free virtual private 30 minutes Pilates mat session which you guys. The Pilates is expensive of all of the Pilates is like the horseback riding of the wellness industry. Like it’s very expensive. So that is a really, really wonderful offer. And people can claim that by emailing you at Angela at HD Wellness and Travel and mentioning the code Virtual30. And that will be in the show notes and in the email that goes. I hope that people take advantage of that. Very generous offer. I say thank you for offering that up. And now to close up, I’m going to offer you three. I’m going to ask you three general questions that are not related to your career change. They’re not related to Pilates. They’re not related to anything. They’re just for fun. I call them rapid fire. And the idea is that you try and answer in just a couple words. Okay?

Angela Gallo [00:35:16]:
Okay.

Amy Stone [00:35:17]:
Nobody gets this right. I’m the person who doesn’t get it right. I have lots to say about everything. Okay, so question number one. Were you a rule follower or a rule breaker as a kid?

Angela Gallo [00:35:29]:
Little of both. A little of both. I mean, I think in terms of school and trying to do my work, definitely a rule follower trying to get all my schoolwork done. But I definitely clashed with my parents in terms of, like, when around when I became, like, 16, 17 of what I was doing and when I was doing it with whom. That was a point of contention.

Amy Stone [00:35:48]:
A point of contention as a teenager. Shacker. So, all right. Are you an early bird or a night owl?

Angela Gallo [00:35:57]:
I am definitely, if left to my own devices, would be a night owl and sleep late, but since I’ve had a child, it has had to shift somewhat and I’m begrudgingly more of an early bird now.

Amy Stone [00:36:10]:
Do you think you will reset once, like, in many, many years when you have your own timeframe? Do you think you’ll reset to being an idol?

Angela Gallo [00:36:17]:
I think I’m starting to shift as he’s getting a little older, I’m shifting a little bit more in that direction.

Amy Stone [00:36:23]:
Yeah, because he’s right on the cusp of being able to do, you know, I mean, he being able to get himself up, get himself to school, do all of those things and. Oh, is that a wonderful change? That is a wonderful change. So, yes. All right. Very good. So can you think of something that you do that somebody else might consider a bad habit?

Angela Gallo [00:36:45]:
Oh, I am totally a perfectionist.

Amy Stone [00:36:49]:
Okay. That’s it. Okay. All right. Yeah. Well, you know, I think that that ties in to be. To being a performer and shooting for perfection, specifically in. I don’t know. We didn’t ask. What type of dance did you. Did you. As a performer, what type of dance did you really gravitate to?

Angela Gallo [00:37:06]:
I did mostly modern and contemporary dance, but I studied a lot of ballet as well. And so that goes along.

Amy Stone [00:37:13]:
Ballet is very rigorous with the perfection. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That. That ties. I can see that very much. All right, thank you very much. That’s it. Angela Gallo, thank you for being a guest on the Art of Imperfect Adulting.

Angela Gallo [00:37:26]:
Thank you, Amy.

Amy Stone [00:37:26]:
This is great.

Angela Gallo [00:37:27]:
Thank you so much.