Intersections in Learning with Dan Ralabate and host Monique St. Paul

Monique St Paul  
Thanks for listening to the Intersections in Learning and Development Cast, a series from the Training, Learning and Development Community. My name is Monique St. Paul, and this cast focuses on forging relationships that foster effective learning no matter where you start. Whether you design, develop, deliver, support, or consult, and or all of the above, we hope to provide you with new ideas, inspiration and connections across the L&D community.

Dan Ralabate is a UX designer at Walmart Global Tech. His professional experience spans the corporate agency and freelancing industries to get learners and end users alike, projects that look good and function better. Creativity takes the helm for this profession to enhance interactions that are intuitive to the masses. We want to speak to him today about the intersection between user experience and l&d. Let's get to it.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to intersections and learning and development. I am Monique St. Paul, co host Lisa Crockett. And today we're going to speak to Dan Ralabate, who is a UX designer for Walmart global tech. And he is a former former coworker of mine, who a decade later, I decided to dig up and say, Hey, do you want to speak on my webcast? And the reason I did was because UX and UI design in general, is something that people hear about, but we don't really talk about in depth. So as someone who's very interested in that, I wanted to talk to Dan, because he's had experience in both graphic design and UX design for a corporation for an agency and as a freelancer. And Dan, do you want to explain a little bit more about who you are?

Dan Ralabate  
Sure. Thank you so much for having me. And hello, everyone. Thank you for joining. And, and yeah, I'm super excited to be here. It's been a wild journey. Sometimes the the market will kind of push you in certain directions, and opportunities will arise when you don't expect them and, and so I'm just very fortunate to have worked in all these different industries and can provide perspective on all of them in different ways. And again, I'll elaborate more as we go on here. But I'm super excited to be here. And thank you for having me.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent. We'll start with an easy one. What is UX design?

Dan Ralabate  
UX design, for those who are unaware is user experience design. And so it's primarily been focused in the digital space, especially lately, where everyone's interacting on phones, and, you know, this technically is user experience as well, right. And what I like to do is think beyond the digital space, because I've, you know, as I mentioned, I've, I've experienced in different industries, coming all the way back to, you know, working on product development for a natural soap company, and, and that experience is beyond digital, right? That's something tangible, this is, you know, a label that I did once and holding this bottle in your hand and using this, this nozzle, that's technically a user experience, right, and, and how we interact with mobile apps that is an inter that is an interactive user experience. And you know, why we have buttons, the size that they are, and why text is the way it is, and what colors mean to you. They're all this is, in this broad space called UX. And where opportunities arise in this space are, you know, more or less on the digital front, but if you have that understanding of how people interact with things and why they do that takes you beyond digital and, and that's why I love this space so much. Because the learnings from a UX perspective can can really, you know, apply to so many different markets and industries. And and that's really why I love this so much.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent. I think people don't understand design until something doesn't work the way they want it to. That's the greatest way to explain it. If you like anchoring, go, who designed this not bad user experience? Right? I'm someone in the audience here. Kim mentioned, she was a member of UX PA for the past 20 years. So the usability Professionals Association, are you part of any UX or professional organizations,

Dan Ralabate  
I am none now I'd love to join if there, if it's something that I need to apply to, or if it's open to everyone, but I would love to be a part of that. And I think that's, you know, that's the beauty of this is that there's so much learning that you can acquire from other people in the space and, and you know, I'm working with Walmart right now I'm working with designers from all over the world and developers and engineers who are just brilliant and they're wonderful to work with and, and you learn so much about the retail space and the online retail space. And then in another experience, I'm in an agency world where I'm working with a creative director who's you know, constantly pushing me to learn more and to acquire new skills and to learn up learn about like UX and the psychology behind, you know, UX. And so, it's really just, you know, the, the environment is getting larger, the you know, it's as it becomes more mainstream people are understanding it more And I'm and I'm truly just really excited to continue to learn more and to be part of new platforms like the USPS.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent. So, when I met you, you were a graphic designer. And that's how we worked in I was in marketing. So can you share what your experience has been to best prepare you for moving from graphic design into something like UX?

Dan Ralabate  
Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, um, it even starts earlier than that, right? Like, it's, you know, at a very young age, we're taught, you know, you're either creative, or you're not. And it's, it's something as simple as in kindergarten, like, I did a drawing and somebody, you know, didn't like it. So I don't, I don't like it anymore. I'm not an artist, or I'm not creative. And it's a problem that we have in society. And we really should work on this, because at the end of the day, everyone is really has some sort of creativity in them no matter what industry they're in. And I always held on to that I held on to that, as a young child, that was good artist, but it wasn't the greatest, but I love doing it. And it was my passion. And it took me into, you know, graphic design. And when we work together, at Life Care, it was a wonderful experience. And we had a lot of learnings, and we work very well together in the marketing department. And then what that did was, you know, it's, you know, it gave me a lot of experience working with larger corporations. But more importantly, the people behind those corporations, and they're just as human, as you and I and, you know, they might have a really senior role to certain company, but at the end of the day, they're, they're people, they're humans, they interact with the same platform as we do. And they interact at events the same way we would, and they're looking for the same things. So having that general understanding took me into the agency world, where now we can actually build things that people are going to be interacting with on a daily basis, whether that's an app or a sales tool, that they need to do their jobs, or if it's, you know, for planning for an event, you know, putting, you know, making sure that the event goes smoothly, you know, and the different people that are involved in that, and, and so the agency world really prepared me for just understanding how people, you know, we're all in the same boat, we're all kind of looking for the same things on a day to day basis, and just trying to, you know, get our jobs done, or, or, or make sure that we, you know, can fulfill the needs of our, for our family, whether that's shopping for groceries on an online platform, or, you know, you know, buying things off of Amazon Prime, like that's all user experience, and that's all design. And, and I feel that my skills in graphic design, have really highlighted okay, like those details, like, Okay, you you got the idea. Now you have the the you know, the plan in place for how you're going to put this app together this website together. Now, let's start applying those skills you learned in graphic design with determining, okay, what photo works best here, what font works best? What color, positioning, layout, all that fun stuff? And that's where my, you know, graphics and UX design merge? Well?

Monique St Paul  
Yeah. And so I have a background in marketing. So I've worked with many a designer. What about people who don't have that background? Or an understanding of that? How do you help explain to them why it matters where this button is? Just can you talk about that? How do you work with teams who might not understand what you do?

Dan Ralabate  
Oh, yeah, sure. No, that's I actually love those opportunities, because it really highlights what they do know, and what they feel that they don't, but it really enlightens people, and gives people a sense of empowerment that, hey, you know, I can understand this too, and I want to learn more, and I want to contribute more. The best way is I can really share that information is when we go and I do presentations with folks or present my latest rendition of a design. We go through and I kind of, you know, walk through a whiteboard or walk through my presentation, whether it's a prototype or collection of high fidelity comps. And we talk about like, Okay, this is where this button goes, because it's close proximity to all the different actions that they're going to perform on this page. And then I'll ask like, the audience, whether that's an engineer or project manager, or even, you know, my end user, you know, and we're thinking through their lens, what would you click on? Why would you click on that? You know, what is the first thing that you notice on this page, and then they start giving you the answers to reassure that your design works or doesn't work? And, and they start to see, okay, this is, this is why I, you know, this is why they feel that this is important to them, and they, they can start contributing and start to see that there's value in providing their feedback, but also being able to understand why I'm positioning things the way that I am. And they really start to understand that this is valuable for me to contribute. And furthermore, I know more than I think I know, and it's really awesome to watch that transition.

Monique St Paul  
Right? How many iterations is too many iterations? Because I

Dan Ralabate  
once thought that I mean, it depends like in the freelance space, it could, you know, that it depends on the client's budget sometimes. You know, the goal for me is to work closely with the client and make sure that they're, you know, I'm pretty clear as to what they want, where they're, you know, what inspires them so I'm not going to give them something that's totally off brand or you know, something that they're disinterested in. And it's kind of narrowed down to maybe a couple iterations sometimes. Whereas in the, in the corporate space, you know, there's more time, there's more, there's larger budgets. And there's more time to harp on like the smaller details or positioning and having to go through more collaborative steps, like, meeting with new teams are getting the handful of designers opinions on this. And, and sometimes those project timelines are like that, because you have other things you're working on with them. So

Monique St Paul  
Right. So you, again, have a background in design. So you understand the principles and things like that, when you see things that are like self starting things like Canva, where someone who's not a designer, can all of a sudden create things, what do you think about sort of those self service tools that get people to get things to look well, but don't necessarily have the skills to make too many edits to it? I'm talking with myself here, but you can? No, no.

Dan Ralabate  
It depends on the initiative, right? Like, if it's, um, you know, sometimes, like, if I'm putting together an ad for an Instagram post, or whatnot, um, you know, it's, it's sometimes best that, you know, the tools like Canva are very easy for folks to use. And I really admire the fact that you can quickly put together a campaign without needing a graphic designer, and that's totally understandable. Like, sometimes we overthink things. And sometimes we, you know, make things too complicated when it's like, I just wanted a photo text and a button, and it's like, Good, go for it. So and I, you know, I think Canva is an excellent learning tool for folks to really, you know, dive into their creativity, as I said before, like, everyone is inherently creative, they just keep telling themselves that they're not, or they had a teacher, a professor, or a parent or a friend, who said, you know, like, maybe, you know, arts out for you, or maybe creativity is not for you. And it's like, no, like, there's so many ways to be creative. And it's not necessarily always about pen to paper, or choosing a photo for an ad. It's, it's bigger than that. And I really appreciate people dabbling in those tools, because they see what they're capable of. And you know, what, like, sometimes you can generate more content when more people are involved. And, you know, a tool like Canva really makes a broadens that spectrum for people to be able to use their creativity and showcase what they're capable of.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent. So how do you tap into your creativity? What do you do?

Dan Ralabate  
Oh, there's starts with coffee, everyone, or whatever. It starts with starting coffee now, like, I'll even show a little I have, so my business card is a is a coach parents, it's probably backwards for all of you. But it says your next cup of creative fuel is on me. And the idea there is that this, you know, this is obviously a coaster, it sits next to your desk, and you put your cup on that whatever that cup might be, and whatever you want to put in the mug. But the idea is that everyone has their own creative fuel and what's going to get you going throughout the day, what's going to get you started what's going to make you think differently, what's going to make you add value to your project or your job that you're doing that day, whether it's helping somebody you know, with their car or if it's you know, helping somebody book an appointment or if it's, you know, designing a web, you know, web application for a company, like whatever that fuel is always have it with you and always like that's what's going to get you going wherever that favorite drink is. And in nonetheless, the you know, the process I sometimes throwing headphones at sometimes throwing music, sometimes you know what, you know, I'm looking at a screen for hours a day, sometimes it's best to get away from your screen and go walk or go hop on the peloton, which is kicking my butt lately, like, go do that, get away from it. shut yourself off for a little while, take a shower, like it's the best thing take in the world. You know, I can't tell you enough. Like how many wonderful ideas come out of the shower. My wife's like, why are you writing on the glass? It's like. So um, so I highly encourage you sometimes to step away and think, think about the project and sit on it for a day. And believe it or not, more ideas will come that happens a lot with me as logo, logo design. I'll be designing concept and like falling in love with this one idea. And I sketched it out and I'm like, Okay, this is great. This is wonderful, wonderful. And they walk away. They later on putting together their next version. And it took me like two minutes to put together this next concept because I was just in the flow of things. And next thing you know, the client loved the idea that took me like 10 minutes to put together. And it's like, wow, like this is this is how it all works though, right? You're getting yourself in the right mindset and you don't know what's gonna come of it. And I guess that's the beauty of the industry that I'm in so

Monique St Paul  
I think so I would say for myself, I'm actually better when I'm tired, because my inhibitions are turned off so I don't want to be perked up and excited. I want to be exhausted because I'm not editing myself. Oh, yes, going for it. But you've done freelance before. So how do you build a portfolio when you work for a corporation? I know like for something like Walmart, I'm sure a lot of that is proprietary. You can't share it with other people. So can you share with people how you might build a portfolio? But some of the things that you did without breaking any of the rules of your organization or prior organizations?

Dan Ralabate  
Oh, yeah, no, that's, that's always a big challenge. And, you know, I've know really three of my biggest, you know, companies through the companies that I've worked with in my career, all the client work is proprietary. You know, I'm not gonna mention the names of the companies it's on the Life Care was a great company to work with, and all of our clientele like, amazing opportunities that Monique and I worked on together. And a lot of big corporations, but um, but you can't show that work. And then all of an image was a wonderful agency that I worked in, worked for, in Shelton, Connecticut, and amazing experience there. For years, we learned, that was where I really started to learn the value of user experience design and, and a wonderful agency that I worked with, and we did a lot of work for larger corporations, Salesforce work, and, and again, like, a lot of that work is proprietary. So what do you do? And same goes for Walmart. And I guess the how you display that on a portfolio is to speak to case studies of what you did. But also not, you know, obviously, white label, make sure you don't display like what the product was or what the tool was, when the client was, but you can talk about the process. Like we did a design studio, we got these different departments in our room, we went through 12 hours worth of brainstorming together. And we walked out with a plan. Like we walked out with a business requirements document, like we now know, everyone knows their marching orders, right, we now know what we need to go and do to accomplish this task. And so you could talk about the process, you can talk about the learnings, like, hey, you know what, like, this is something I learned in this project that I never had before. And I never acquired that until I was, you know, sharing my ideas with this person, the next thing, you know, they provided some new input. So there's, there's a lot that you can take out of that. And then what I try to do is apply to that learning and not understanding to a new account or to a new client, like I still freelance here and there and then I want to make sure that I can deliver that same level of skills and knowledge to to that business and help them grow. And that's really where I can show my skill set and really make it more tangible. So um, so yeah, that's, that's my best advice. And it's been difficult. I'll be honest, like, there's like eight years of my life that I've done work and you can't show up.

Monique St Paul  
Yeah, someone asked, Do you need a portfolio to do UX work? Like to get a job in UX?

Dan Ralabate  
Oh, yes, I would say so. Yeah, I would, you know, if I'm looking to, if I was hiring, you know, I mean, when I was running my own business, I was looking to bring on some graphic design support. And, and you like to, obviously, you know, see the resume went out, but the portfolio is extremely important. And if it's not a portfolio, it's, it's, you know, okay, if you're very active on, you know, social media, what are you following? What do you what do you find intriguing, I want to know more about you and what you're capable of, and what interests you. And then when it comes to, if it's a design specific role, a portfolio will really seal the deal for me, I can actually see your work and interact with your work and, and see, you know, how you went about designing these things and how they all work together. And quite frankly, if there's, if there's nothing for me to review, then it's kind of hard for me to gauge your skill set. So I think a portfolio is arguably more important than a resume when it comes down to, you know, applying for a UX designer role for sure.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent. And so I'm going to make you answer your own questions. Who are you following? And what are you? Yeah, on line to

Dan Ralabate  
get oh, I, I'm, uh, I'm on Instagram. I first off, I'm not as active on social media from posting standpoint, I just don't have enough time. Like, if I do have time, it's like, because I'm shutting off from work. And, or I'm not volunteering somewhere. I'm very much involved in my son's little league program in my daughter's school. Like, I try to make sure I'm there for my kids. Because that's the one caveat to with freelance workers that you have to be able to shut off. And if you don't, you're in trouble. Because, you know, I regret like, there was like a nine month stretch when my son was only like an infant. I'm like, I wish I was there more. But I had like committed to 16 hours a day of work and sleeping for like five hours, and I was just not there for him. And I'm like, I'm never doing that. Again. I have to shut off at a certain point and make time for my kids. But nonetheless, social media in my world. I do follow like the inspirational folks like I do love to i There's so many of them. I can't I can't remember the handles, but they're, they're amazing. I every now and then we'll scroll through and just you can always use more inspiration more those motivational speakers. I like to follow artists, you know what they're doing. It's incredible to see how many amazingly talented artists are out there. And it's again, you know, I used to paint way back in the day always inspires me to pick up that brushing, go do it. And it's like, when are you going to have the time it's like, but, but nonetheless, I tried to make sure that I'm following material that is going to get me motivated to, to get back on board and get on that project or, you know, go, you know, teach my son's baseball team, you know, a life lesson that they haven't gotten before. And, and that's really what I use social media for, is to really get inspired.

Monique St Paul  
I definitely am a lurker myself, so I can, okay, ask which readings or resources would you recommend for someone who wants to learn about design?

Dan Ralabate  
Yeah, I think the the, one of the best reads that I ever did. One of the best books that I've ever read, was by the Kelly brothers, who are the founders and partners over at IDEO, out in California. And the book is called creative confidence, unleashing the creative potential within all of us, within us all. Sorry. And it's an amazing book about how again, we are, you know, stripped of our creativity at a very young age, and what are the ways to get through that obstacle and overcome that, for not just ourselves, but for our children like, and saying, you know, what, this next generation needs to understand that, you know, what they just put together as a masterpiece, and what they just put together is amazing, and that they should continue to do so. But as, as adults, like, Okay, how do we overcome this, this struggle that we have been dealing with our whole lives, I'm not a creative person, I can't do this, I can't do that. This book instills practices that will get you thinking differently about everything. And it's amazing. Like, I have a giant whiteboard here. If I had my way, this whole office would be painted whiteboard, like my wife would kill me. But it's awesome. Because any opportunity, you have to just go write down an idea or draw something that say, You know what, like, kids, this is what I think we should do for mommy's Valentine's Day gifts. Or, guys, this is, you know, what we should do for our elf on the shelf, like for my wife, I should say, not the kids because I'm filming. But the, you know, and thinking that beyond just the creative space, like imagine, I don't know, you're a patient in an exam room, and the doctor has a whiteboard there. It's like, okay, I can explain to you what's going on with your body. Or I can just quickly just, this is what's going on, like, you know, this is what's happening to you like, and be able to just sketch it out real quick, all of a sudden, like, there's no like language barrier there anymore. Right now I understand, okay, I understand the visual, you just said, like, there's, this is a blurb that's right here, that's not good. You know, that's something where that's another case, an example of where somebody just used a different, unconventional method of teaching somebody else, something important. And, and for that, like, this book teaches you about how they, they have whole tables of just posted notes, or they post it notes everywhere, and there's no wrong idea and, and they try to establish an environment that cultivates creativity and make sure that people are comfortable with just not sharing a bad idea. Because that's another problem in society is that there's people are afraid to speak up and, and because they're afraid that they're going to be stupid or sound stupid or not have the understanding of the project at hand. It's like there's never any bad question. That's one thing I've learned from Walmart to everyone's encouraged, just ask questions dive in, not everyone knows everything, like, you know, we are collaborative environment. We, there's a lot of moving pieces here. Everyone loves, some of you are new, some of you don't understand the lingo. Let's, you know, help out each other and make sure that we answer questions no matter who's asking or what they are. So. So that's what I gained out of this book. That's amazing book.

Monique St Paul  
No, I'm glad you asked the question, Kate. And we got such an awesome answer to that. And I know, don't worry, I'm paying attention to time. But through that question there about creating things and asking questions. I think people are often like you said, afraid to ask questions. But we need to remind people that might spark something in someone else. Like we might not run with your idea. But what you say might make someone think, Oh, what about this? And then it sort of becomes a collaborative process? Yeah. We're done. Oh, I have one other real process question, then we'll start to get to know a little bit more about you. And that's sort of like what's the software that you use? So we're saying yeah, for design and, and UX, but what are you doing on your computer? What do you have there to make it all happen?

Dan Ralabate  
So I separate in three buckets. UX wise, I primarily use for designing my my work, I'll use sketch. It's probably the best UX design tool out there. In my opinion, for designing high fidelity comps and being able to store patterns and styles. They call them symbols and you can have like you pull from the symbols library and use that pattern in your design. And there is that I transitioned over to envision, which is my go to prototyping tool. Amazing platform, and they have amazing content too. So I highly encourage any UX designers, or anyone interested in learning a little bit more about UX to follow them and read some of their blog posts, because even some of their articles from years ago are so very applicable today. It's just an amazing wealth of knowledge there. But an amazing prototype tool. And then usually at Walmart, we pass things on through Zeplin, which is another like tool where developers can go in and see where your styles are, and be able to, you know, quickly see what information you have behind each component. But we are also transitioning that whole process over to figma, which is an amazing tool, I'm dabbling in it now. I'm a quick learner, I'll pick it up in like a week. And it's allows you to do a lot of those stages all in one place, as well as like wireframing. So, and in terms of, you know, I also use whiteboards a lot. As you probably can imagine, for wireframing you know, there's other tools like balsamic that you can use for wireframing that I've used in the past. For graphic design, I stick to the Adobe Creative suites, Photoshop, you know, primarily for photo editing and, you know, putting together some graphics, illustrator I use for my logo designs, I actually done a lot more work in Illustrator for print materials, well, all the labels that I did for pure sees all was all gone in Illustrator, it's probably your best tool for, for anything that's going to be printed, you know, because vector allows you to scale to, to endless sizes, for billboards and whatnot. And, and then I also use InDesign for some printed materials as well, but it's been a while since I've typed in there. And then for websites, you know, I primarily stick to WordPress. You know, I have a great group of people that I work closely with that host you know, different sites for whatnot for from WordPress and I also have a company's budgets a little bit smaller, I you know, try to entice them to get into Wix or Squarespace and I just help them get started with their with their web piece of web presence, if you will. So um, so those are the tools that I use.

Monique St Paul  
Excellent. Now we're gonna ask questions about you because we can see it's fun. All right, what is the last song you listen to?

Dan Ralabate  
The last song I listened to? Oh, my gosh, I'm in the Gosh. What was this so it was in the car with my kids. I was dropping Vivi off this morning. We were listening to kids play house or whatever was on satellite radio and I want to say the song was by Hansen. I am born or born of something along those lines. I'm bad with song names, but it was awesome. We were getting all jacked up on the way all the way to school in the same Hansen from when, like back in the 80s. Okay.

Monique St Paul  
Um, okay, the last thing that you painted,

Dan Ralabate  
the last thing that I painted was a mural. It was actually a backsplash mural. This is years ago, but my parents had redone their kitchen and they had a backsplash over there. So and it was all marble tile and they they wanted a backsplash paint, you know, designed painted on there. So I painted this whole Italian scene of like a vineyard and wine and cheese and I even put ralbag Khyati on the wine bottle and made it very personal so it's kind of hard when they had to sell the house like what are you gonna do with that I'm like, that's it's instilled in the wall can can

Monique St Paul  
can do it not doing it now. What is your favorite guilty pleasure? PG obviously.

Dan Ralabate  
Oh gosh, a cookie dough. So when we were putting the cookies on the tray and dad just scoops a spoon and without anyone watching just Okay, we're good at making the cookie. Yeah, well favorite chocolate chip. Like

Monique St Paul  
just stick to the basics. Yep. Last thing that you read

Dan Ralabate  
last thing I read was this creative confidence but it's been a little while since I've gotten some reading in what I've tried to do to take in more content is take on some listen to some more master classes which are awesome. You know, the last one I listened to was literally a week ago. Teaching advertising and creativity by Jeff could be in rich Silverstein they have a an agency out in San Francisco highly recommend anyone who wants to get into marketing. Just listen to these guys. They've got so many amazing stories of campaigns that they've done in the past and I highly encourage anyone to just join and get a subscription and masterclass because there's so many things you can learn whether it's cooking, gardening, advertising, I listened to Aaron Sorkin's on video, and storyboarding and whatnot and just an amazing platform I highly encourage people to get into masterclass

Monique St Paul  
excellent. I can change this question a little bit, but what is the last product that you purchased that you thought wow, how did I live without this before And particularly if you have good user design or user experience. Yeah.

Dan Ralabate  
Um I mean, I'll be honest with you. It wasn't very recent, but I don't you know, push me because I might just buy another one like that. He is an amazing product. Amazing brands. We have like more than enough mugs now, but like there are no I can't live without this bus stop like, this is my body like driving her to school. Any long distance car rides. You need this. And any anyone out there who doesn't?

Monique St Paul  
Right now? Yeah, yeah,

Dan Ralabate  
I mean, the knockoff brands, I'm sorry, just not up to snuff. I think this is the best brand by far and they're durable. And, frankly, I can't live without it.

Monique St Paul  
Yeah, this is not an advertisement. He does not work for Yeti Oh.

Dan Ralabate  
But at the end of their lives in Austin, and it's awesome. Like, it's just another brand to just follow what they do, like, read their stories, follow them on social sign up for their emails. They're just fun, have fun brand to follow. And you know, everything. They just focus on bugs and coolers but they're just awesome.

Monique St Paul  
Hey, sometimes Maxim coolers getting yourself hydrated. It's really important to stay alive. My last question for you, which makes me super sad. But could your wife was accurately just I said, Could your wife accurately describe what you do for a living?

Dan Ralabate  
Yes, I finally taught her.

Monique St Paul  
But yeah, it's finally Potter.

Dan Ralabate  
It took a couple of lunches, and a couple, you know, I have to really narrow down my elevator speech to her sometimes because her she's like, Listen, I'm and that's the other one big caveat. My wife is a nurse. And there are times when bad days for me don't resonate with what a bad day could be for her. She's no longer. But those days were tougher. I'm like, Oh, I'm an agency. Well, I'm up all nights working. She's like, really, Dan, like, do you really want me to tell you what I write. So talk about, uh, you know, just a reality check. And just, you know, if nothing else, don't take work too seriously, because there are people out there who have to and love what you do, you know, follow your passions. And always try to keep learning more because this world is it has an abundance of resources to learn from and, you know, kudos to the two of you who put this whole platform together. This is amazing. I highly encourage more people to watch, you need the two of you work and, and to learn from each other. And I hope I provided some insight for some others and, and I look forward to helping out any way I can.

Monique St Paul  
Thank you so much. And I would definitely say this is a community created by Luis Malbas. Without Him we definitely would not be here. Anyone who's part of the TL DC community understands how great it is. But I will also say thank you for randomly taking a message from someone you haven't talked to him and God knows how long but was very chatty with. And I really enjoyed our experience when we work together Life Care. And it's great to have connected again, and hopefully everyone here has taken what he said and plans on going to check out some of those resources. But as far as me and Lisa are concerned, our next session is on March 1 with cyan is how you pronounce it. Now she's not in Can you unmute yourself, Lisa?

Lisa Crockett  
Yeah, that sounds like fun. And she is a voice artist. She's a storyteller. She's a writer. She's amazing. I had the best conversation with her and you guys are gonna love her. And she has so much to share with us about her work, and about how to work with her. And we all know that as instructional designers that can be challenging to get a voice right the first time around, and I think she can help you. I'm going

Monique St Paul  
to do an intro for this podcast a little bit later. It's going to be at least seven tries. So Dan, thank you for your time today. Have a fantastic vacation with your family. Thank you for sharing your time. And for everyone else. Have a good rest of your day.

Dan Ralabate  
Bye guys. Thank you so much, everyone. Take care have a good day.

Monique St Paul  
Thanks again for listening. And if you find value in our content, please consider supporting to DC with a membership. Go to detail DC comm backslash join to sign up and get access to hundreds of recorded videos, free entry to all of our live virtual conferences and events and more. Your support helps us continue to build community and share valuable resources for l&d professionals around the world. Thanks again for listening

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