November 13, 2024
Listen to our new podcast episode with Ryan Pyle on the Ryan Pyle Podcast!
In this latest podcast episode, our founder Emily joins host Ryan Pyle to delve into a rich conversation of experiences, insights, and personal journeys.
Join us as we discuss:
Tune in to gain insights on balancing personal and professional life, meaningful connections, and leveraging technology for positive impact.
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"Note: This transcript has been provided to improve accessibility for the hearing impaired. It has been edited for clarity and readability."
Ryan Pyle [00:00:00]:
Absolutely. So we're live. Well, we're not live, but we're in. How are you doing, Emily?
Emily Montgomery [00:00:03]:
Good. How are you doing?
Ryan Pyle [00:00:05]:
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for swinging by and coming to say hello.
Emily Montgomery [00:00:10]:
Thanks for having me.
Ryan Pyle [00:00:13]:
You've made the trip in from Austin, is that correct?
Emily Montgomery [00:00:15]:
That's correct, yeah. I've lived there for about five years.
Ryan Pyle [00:00:17]:
Okay. There's a huge exodus of people leaving Los Angeles for Austin. Is it worth the trip?
Emily Montgomery [00:00:22]:
It is definitely worth the trip. I'm hearing my fellow Austenites screaming right now because people are nervous about turning into California, so I can't hype it up too much.
Ryan Pyle [00:00:34]:
Okay. But prices are rising in Austin. Housing prices are rising in Austin. Everyone's moving there..
Emily Montgomery [00:00:40]:
I mean, it's either get in early or, you know, I don't know, wait it out, I guess.
Ryan Pyle [00:00:48]:
Yeah. It's interesting. I think Elon Musk just moved SpaceX's registration to Texas from Delaware.
Emily Montgomery [00:00:54]:
Yeah, I'm not really up at all.
Ryan Pyle [00:00:57]:
That, but it's happening.
Emily Montgomery [00:00:59]:
I know it happened. Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:01:01]:
So how has your year been for you so far? You've been enjoying 2024 and all it's cracked up to be?
Emily Montgomery [00:01:06]:
Yeah, it's been. It feels like time is flying. I think a lot of people are saying that, but, yeah, it's a great year. I can't believe it's been four years since COVID, that's kind of tripping me up a little bit.
Ryan Pyle [00:01:23]:
Yeah. A lot of people here are kind of excited because Covid kind of messed up 2021 and 2022, and then 2023, we had the writers strike and the actors strike. So now people are really looking for a fresh start in 2024, and I'm not sure it's happening.
Emily Montgomery [00:01:39]:
Well, we'll see. I mean, the year is still young. I actually wrote a newsletter that said that, around March if you're feeling like your year hasn't really started, in many traditions, it hasn't right, until the spring equinox. So there's always time to start over.
Ryan Pyle [00:02:01]:
And when is the spring equinox? Is it April?
Emily Montgomery [00:02:03]:
No, it was March 22 but that would mean we're just really starting.
Ryan Pyle [00:02:11]:
We're a month into 2024 according to the spring equinox.
Emily Montgomery [00:02:15]:
Spring equinox, Chinese New Year also happened.
Ryan Pyle [00:02:18]:
So have you ever been out to China?
Emily Montgomery [00:02:21]:
I haven't, no.
Ryan Pyle [00:02:23]:
I did 18 years in Shanghai.
Emily Montgomery [00:02:25]:
I know, it's incredible.
Ryan Pyle [00:02:27]:
It was a wild ride, it was a good run.
Emily Montgomery [00:02:29]:
What inspired you to go originally? Was it a mentor? Was it a thought? What happened there?
Ryan Pyle [00:02:37]:
I think I was just grasping at straws, I played basketball from university for the University of Toronto. And then when I finished, I wasn't good enough to play professionally anywhere. And I just decided, like, I needed a fresh start in a new place. And I just felt like that was the place that was furthest enough away from the culture and the environment that I was used to. So I felt like that would be a good place. And I just went and I took a class or two on Chinese history and Chinese politics in university, and it kind of sparked an interest. And then when I basically, like, when I was 22, I just had nothing to look forward to, so I was just like, oh, well, maybe I'll try that.
Ryan Pyle [00:03:15]:
Yeah, Slightly out of depression.
Emily Montgomery [00:03:18]:
Yeah, Well that can be a needed inspiration point. Like, maybe hitting rock bottom is probably maybe a.
Ryan Pyle [00:03:29]:
Little too dramatic, but, yeah, I mean, I had no dad, I had no money, I had no wife, and I had no kids, no pets, no nothing. Right. So it's just like, if I'm gonna try to do something different, that would be the moment. So that was kind of what I jumped on.
Emily Montgomery [00:03:41]:
I didn't know that when I was 22 that I was free. I found that out later, but, yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:03:48]:
Now you look back with envy about how free you were.
Emily Montgomery [00:03:51]:
Well, no I'm actually working on becoming more of a kid as I get older. I was so serious and just so had the weight of the world on my shoulders at 22.
Ryan Pyle [00:04:06]:
For no reason.
Emily Montgomery [00:04:07]:
I mean, for any reason and no reason at all. Yeah. It's interesting that we're sort of night and day on that front.
Ryan Pyle [00:04:16]:
I think, for a lot of reasons, why? I don't really understand. I think a lot of people in their twenties think, like, they need to act like that in order to get ahead or get a job or, or find their way, but actually, like, they just need to find themselves. Like, they don't have to be anything specific other than who they really are.
Emily Montgomery [00:04:33]:
Right. Which is what I am learning later, much later in life. I just was sort of, I think this is very common, but I was living. I was living the life that was given to me, not the life of who I am. Right.
Ryan Pyle [00:04:49]:
Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:04:50]:
So, yeah, that's been a good exploration.
Ryan Pyle [00:04:53]:
Yeah. Because I think, like, at the end of the day, we are just an amalgamation of our stories that we've collected along the way in life. Right. And I think people just want to be surrounded by other people who have lived or have done some interesting things or have some great kind of stories to tell or have used those stories to shape their lives in positive ways. Right. And I think everyone's looking for people with context and layers. And I think people should just, like, from 22 to 25, they shouldn't work.
Ryan Pyle [00:05:20]:
They should just experience the best there is of life, and then when they do settle into work, there'll be totally changed people. Now, obviously, you can't do that. Student debt. People have to work. People have financial constraints. They can't just take a few years off, but imagine the world if that was possible.
Emily Montgomery [00:05:35]:
I know, I'm totally on board with that.
Ryan Pyle [00:05:40]:
So what got you into wellness and technology and everything in between? I mean, your app is really interesting. Maybe you can introduce it for me and then we can kind of go back and figure out how this all happened.
Emily Montgomery [00:05:55]:
Yeah, it's like a story. It's like a ten year long story. So there are some bits and pieces to it, for sure. So my app is called HiLU. It's a place for people to record audio affirmations, words of appreciation to other people, and to store them all in one place. So when you're having those depression moments when you're 22 and can't get out of bed, you have a place to go and listen to all of these audio notes of people telling you the best parts of yourself.
Ryan Pyle [00:06:26]:
That's nice. So, what is it like? You know, it's like a fridge with full of cards of friends that have sent stuff to you. Yeah. Like love notes.
Emily Montgomery [00:06:37]:
A fridge.
Ryan Pyle [00:06:39]:
That's where you put all your postcards and all your, like, Valentine's things, you know? Yeah. Back in the old days, before we had social media and stuff like that, we would put all the nice things people sent us on our fridge with magnets.
Emily Montgomery [00:06:49]:
Yeah, no, exactly. I love that. Kind of forgotten about that, but, yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:06:54]:
It was a thing.
Emily Montgomery [00:06:55]:
It still is. Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:06:59]:
I always.
Emily Montgomery [00:06:59]:
Not on my fridge. No.
Ryan Pyle [00:07:01]:
I don't even think my fridge is metal.
Emily Montgomery [00:07:03]:
No, it doesn't. Right. There are certain stainless steel fridges, I think, that they advertise where you can magnetize them or put magnets on them.
Ryan Pyle [00:07:11]:
In college, I had one of those fridges that was like a bomb shelter. It was like out of an Indiana Jones movie or something that he, like, jumped in to avoid getting hit with a nuclear bomb or something. It was like. It was big and hefty, and I just remember I was able to stick stuff on it in college, but nowadays, I have no idea.
Emily Montgomery [00:07:28]:
Yeah, no, I probably not.
Ryan Pyle [00:07:32]:
So what made you want to create an app where people who weren't feeling their best could rekindle all of the love that people feel for them?
Emily Montgomery [00:07:44]:
There's multiple elements to the story. So I walked the Camino del Santiago in fall of 2022.
Ryan Pyle [00:07:52]:
Oh, congratulations. That's the pilgrimage in Spain. That's fantastic.
Emily Montgomery [00:07:56]:
I started in France. I walked all the way to the ocean. It was 660 odd miles. I mean, it was a profoundly wonderful experience. And a lot of that was, for me, exploring the ways in which I was walking alone, but I was not really alone. I was very supported by friends and a group that I was in and mentors. So I was actually thinking about.
Emily Montgomery [00:08:29]:
Throughout my walk, I was kind of thinking about what really matters in this life. A number of circumstances that had happened that had kind of caused me to start thinking about what really matters in life. People getting sick and dying, where I reflected deeply on what they did that really impacted me. And what they did was speak to me kindly over and over and over again in this repetitive way so that I could begin to hear it over the years. So the app is really an homage to my mentors and what they did for me.
Ryan Pyle [00:09:15]:
That's very nice. That's very sweet. It's a nice way to kind of memorize or remember everyone in your family and people you've worked with along the way who have been so supportive.
Emily Montgomery [00:09:26]:
Yeah, I've really found that if, you know, if you decide that you have mentors or you decide you have things to be grateful for, then you end up having mentors. Right. Some of the mentors I've had, I've almost kind of had them in post talk. I will just thank them for being my mentor and thank them for teaching me things, even though we never formalize this relationship. I see a lot of articles about people saying, how do you have a mentor? Like, well, you just ask them questions. Just ask people questions. If you learn and you thank them.
Ryan Pyle [00:10:04]:
Not something you need to put on your LinkedIn, like, who your mentor is. We have a contract in place. I'm allowed to mention them on Instagram and LinkedIn and blah, blah, blah. I think those less formal mentorships are the ones that are most powerful because they're people who actually care about you and who check in on you on a regular basis.
Emily Montgomery [00:10:24]:
Yeah. Well, somebody said, and I don't know who this is, and I don't know if this quote is attributable to anybody, but you don't really die until the last person stops talking about you.
Ryan Pyle [00:10:37]:
Oh, I've heard that before. Yeah. I can't remember who said that either. Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:10:41]:
And it may be just kind of a combination of different people's thoughts, but my mentors helped me become who I am, and therefore I do not stop speaking about them. Right. And I've tried to create this platform for other people to kind of do the same thing. And so they have a legacy. Like, they have passed, but that's their impact. I mean, there.
They have many more impacts than just me.
Ryan Pyle [00:11:14]:
May I ask you what was going on in your life before you decided to walk 600 miles across France and Spain and Portugal? Because. Because there's a story in there somewhere.
Emily Montgomery [00:11:26]:
So one of the great things about the pilgrimage, actually, is that everyone there walking, you just drop into these conversations, like, very deep conversations, and I'm sure you've experienced the same thing, but it's like, you're out here, there's a reason why you're here. Most people will ask you as, like, we don't talk about the weather. We're like, what caught you here?
Ryan Pyle [00:11:48]:
Yeah. What called you here? That's a nice way to say that. Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:11:51]:
So, you know it was - somebody recently called it a renaissance, a midlife renaissance. I've heard it called a midlife unraveling or crisis. I really trained. Avoid that word. I'm doing a lot of work to avoid that word. I think some of that was my mentors getting sick and aging.
Part of it was my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and part of it was just having been - this word is so cringe to me - but healing journey, I'd been on that for ten years at this point, so I really was just in a place where I needed a break from the routine. Like, I just needed a hard reset.
Ryan Pyle [00:12:49]:
I love that, I make adventure television shows all around the world, and I've fallen in love with not a 600 miles, but I would go out and make tv shows where we would do 100, 150 miles in two weeks, and we would film a desert crossing or climbing a mountain. And those times out in nature walking. It's so therapeutic, it's so meditative, it's so healing. It's so healthy. And it's so nice being out in nature and just not having to answer to the stresses of daily life.
Emily Montgomery [00:13:19]:
Yeah. I think the biohackers would say that there's a balancing of the steps. There's something that sort of rebalances our brain or energies or whatever. But walking in nature is phenomenal to me. I've lived a lot of my life where I've done a lot of not formalized, but caretaking in one way or another. I had a high demand job, and it was stressful. It was a lot about what other people needed. And this was a time where I woke up and it was very simple.
I had to eat enough food so that I could walk for the rest of the day, and I had to walk for the rest of the day. And that's it.
Ryan Pyle [00:14:06]:
Yeah. So simple, isn't it?
Emily Montgomery [00:14:09]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:14:10]:
I think back to our hunter gatherer days thousands of years ago, where all we had to do was find shelter, make a fire, find some food, you know, take care of the women and children or whatever. Right. Or maybe it was the women taking care of the men and the husbands and the children. Whatever it may be, but it was a simpler life. Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:14:31]:
Simpler life. Yeah. Much more dire, though. I mean, if you didn't find food, that was sort of it.
Ryan Pyle [00:14:37]:
Yeah. But then it's like hunting to find food versus sitting around and eating a ton of food and not exercising at all and killing yourself off like that. It's like, you know, it's. There's no in between anymore. That's the problem. It's like you're either way over here or way over there.
Emily Montgomery [00:14:54]:
Yeah, there are people that are finding a way to have the in between, to do something productive but also be able to be in nature and meditate or do whatever you need to do to get grounded.
Ryan Pyle [00:15:08]:
Yeah, getting grounded is hard. So this app, do you come from a technical background? Let's start from the very, very beginning. Where are you from?
Emily Montgomery [00:15:18]:
I was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I spent my 1st 18 years there. I spent about ten years in Los Angeles. I went to Pepperdine and UCLA. So I started as a lawyer, actually, and my first lawyer job was a prosecutor. Not exactly the wellness founder vibe going on back then.
Ryan Pyle [00:15:45]:
So you were a state prosecutor?
Emily Montgomery [00:15:46]:
County, I believe Clark County in Las Vegas.
Ryan Pyle [00:15:51]:
So you were going after criminals. Oh, wow. Are there a lot of criminals in Las Vegas? Are you allowed to comment?
Emily Montgomery [00:16:00]:
Let me check with my people on that one. I mean, of course there's crime in Las Vegas. Yeah, it's everywhere. So, yeah, that was the beginning of my professional journey.
Ryan Pyle [00:16:15]:
Yeah. Were any family members that were close to you in the legal profession? Like, what gravitated you towards wanting to put people in jail? Sorry if I said it like that.
Emily Montgomery [00:16:26]:
But sort of hyperbolic language, right? Let's see.
Ryan Pyle [00:16:31]:
Everyone has a story about why they wanted to.
Emily Montgomery [00:16:34]:
So this actually was a mentor that I had in my early twenties. I started working for him. He encouraged me to go to law school, and so I went. And it was not, like, a burning passion I must be a prosecutor sort of thing. The reason I chose it was because it had a nice balance of being out in the courtroom, interacting with people, problem solving. I hoped to solve real problems and actually doing the kind of legal work. I didn't want to get stuck behind a computer for 12 hours a day.
So that was it. I've always liked rules, so I guess in that sense, it was a good fit.
Ryan Pyle [00:17:26]:
Okay, it's nice. No, it's interesting because, like, you know, there's so many different legal avenues you can take, right. Once you have that law degree. That's what makes it so interesting and so versatile. Like, some people get into family law, some people get into corporate law, and then some people put away the bad guys. It's awesome.
Emily Montgomery [00:17:44]:
I mean, it was a lot of fun in a lot of regards, but I think you've done some work on personal rebranding or multiple versions of the self. I think that was sort of like an outfit that I put on that really started to not feel like myself. Once I had that realization, I went into civil defense work. In total, I think I did probably five or six jury trials before I left law altogether. So I then became a chief of staff at an investment firm, and that was a lot of fun. So I had no investment financial background at all.
So I had to learn that whole language. Like, who is that? What does that little outfit look like that I put on?
Ryan Pyle [00:18:41]:
Yeah, the chief of staff is an interesting job because it's completely up to the person that you're working with. Like, you know, I guess the most famous version is the president of the United States has the chief of staff who kind of manages everything for them, like their schedule, their meetings, and also keeps the troops in line and things like that. Was that kind of your job?
Emily Montgomery [00:19:00]:
Yeah, it's a role that's borrowed from the government, and I think there's a lot of tech/ venture kind of guys getting chiefs of staff now. Or I would say, like, five years ago, the movement really started where chiefs of staff became more prominent. So, yeah, people come in from all different backgrounds, like MBAs, JDs, and even people that have been assistants for a number of years can kind of graduate into it.
Ryan Pyle [00:19:29]:
Yeah, it's like a hyped up version of a personal assistant, but it's someone who can really have authority and get shit done.
Emily Montgomery [00:19:36]:
Right. Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:19:38]:
This green juice is spectacular. Sorry to put you on the spot. Erewhon. Right? An LA brand.
Emily Montgomery [00:19:47]:
Some turmeric. It's really spicy.
Ryan Pyle [00:19:50]:
Not a sponsor.
Emily Montgomery [00:19:51]:
Not a sponsor.
Ryan Pyle [00:19:52]:
Not yet.
Emily Montgomery [00:19:52]:
Not yet. There's a growth edge there.
Ryan Pyle [00:19:56]:
Yeah, we'll reach out to them at some stage, but, no, that looks like a hell of a green juice.
Emily Montgomery [00:20:01]:
It's gonna bring me an everlasting life.
Ryan Pyle [00:20:05]:
Is Austin as much of a health conscious society as LA is? Cause, like, I just feel like every street corner, there's a restaurant that specializes in healthy food. Green juice, vegan. Something.
Emily Montgomery [00:20:17]:
Something funny is Mecca Austin has its parts, but we also have barbecue and, you know, lots of bars and, you know, I.
Ryan Pyle [00:20:28]:
Mean, a bit of the south.
Emily Montgomery [00:20:29]:
A bit of the south, yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:20:31]:
Which is quite nice, actually. I remember I did a week in South Carolina. This was before COVID though, and I was, like, enthralled. I loved it, It was so different. Sounds so stupid to say, but, like, coming from China, and I was living in China back then.
I remember coming from Shanghai to South Carolina. I was in Greer, South Carolina, doing some motorcycle training for one of my shows. And the BMW has a big facility there. And it was just every night the guys would take me out for barbecue, and everyone was so sweet, and it was just so nice, and I was just like, oh, like, why can't most American cities feel like this? And just because it was a small town. Like, small town USA is the best, right?
Emily Montgomery [00:21:09]:
It's very family oriented, multi generational. you have moms and kids and grandma and grandpa, like, all hanging out in a restaurant, at least for me, from Las Vegas. That was not the vibe. I don't know. Like, the inclusiveness, I think, of the elderly is much more.
Much more prominent in the south and in Texas.
Ryan Pyle [00:21:34]:
Yeah, that's interesting. Cause, I mean, that's the key to people staying alive. Right? You ever watched those tv shows, like, those blue zones? Yeah, exactly. The key is keeping the grandparents part of the family and, like, living together and doing things together and having people around. Right. The moment you isolate someone, they just die slowly.
Emily Montgomery [00:21:49]:
Right? Yeah, I think Texas does a good job with that, for sure. Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:21:54]:
And less tax.
Emily Montgomery [00:21:55]:
Less tax. No state income tax. Although I will say that about Las Vegas and Nevada as well.
Ryan Pyle [00:22:01]:
Yeah, I heard Wyoming is the hotspot these days, especially for cryptocurrency companies and stuff like that.
Emily Montgomery [00:22:07]:
Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I'm not up on that one.
Ryan Pyle [00:22:12]:
So what was it like working for an investment firm? Was it like a hedge fund or something, or.
Emily Montgomery [00:22:16]:
It was a private investor, private equity firm.
Ryan Pyle [00:22:18]:
Okay. What was the pressure? Like?
Emily Montgomery [00:22:21]:
Quite a bit, yeah. I mean, I had a lot of fun doing that. It was a creative enterprise for me, which sounds a little bit counterintuitive, but I was able to put together events and think through. Okay, who should sit next to each other? What kind of conversations should those be? Just making sure all of our portfolio company executives felt included and felt supported. So I made it into something that fed me, for sure.
Ryan Pyle [00:23:00]:
That's great, those are important things. I mean, like, all those people need to feel like they're part of the team and et cetera, et cetera. No, it's massive.
Emily Montgomery [00:23:07]:
Yeah. And do the people being asked to do x, y, and z, do they have the tools needed? Right. Like, you have to sort of consciously think about diffusing any silos. Does this team know something? And this team and you could bring them together and they could actually move forward, but right now, they're stuck. Right. So, it's a lot of fun.
It's a very soft, skill oriented thing, talking to people and understanding what their needs, desires, constraints are.
Ryan Pyle [00:23:42]:
Have you seen that TV show billions?
Emily Montgomery [00:23:45]:
I think I've seen maybe one episode. Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:23:49]:
The Axelrod, the key investment guy, has a great chief of staff. His name is Wags, but he's an alcoholic and a drug addict, but the key on soft power. Knows which buttons to press knows who to talk to. So, famous one.
Emily Montgomery [00:24:02]:
Great show. Yeah. And I think you really have to, each role is really different, but learning how to lead from behind, I never really needed to be in the limelight, but I was supporting the people that were in the limelight, so that's interesting.
Ryan Pyle [00:24:21]:
And how long did you do that for?
Emily Montgomery [00:24:23]:
Six years.
Ryan Pyle [00:24:25]:
And then you walked across Spain. So was that the company that broke your back? Was that the one is like, I need to spend two months walking to recover from this?
Emily Montgomery [00:24:34]:
Oh, it wasn't. It really wasn't like that.
Ryan Pyle [00:24:36]:
It was a situational.
Emily Montgomery [00:24:38]:
My personal life, I think starting to take care of my dad, really pushed me away in that sense. You know, it's just the mental bandwidth needed to kind of take care of somebody and remember all of their facts or pay their bills and all that kind of stuff was a lot.
Ryan Pyle [00:25:02]:
I can imagine that must have been, like, having a stressful job and then also having to take care of loved ones is the hardest thing to juggle.
Emily Montgomery [00:25:10]:
Yeah I mean, it was a very kind of peaceful, supportive, you know, transition.
Ryan Pyle [00:25:19]:
Okay, so that's great.
Emily Montgomery [00:25:20]:
I'm grateful for that.
Ryan Pyle [00:25:22]:
And why did you choose the Camino de Santiago?
Emily Montgomery [00:25:25]:
That's a good question. Part of it is I was aware of it because my dad had done it, like, maybe five years prior, so he did, I think, the last seven days or the last nine days of it, I can't remember. So it was sort of in my consciousness, but when I was thinking about planning something and going somewhere alone, I mean, I didn't have any friends that could take that much time off. Right. So that's how.
Ryan Pyle [00:25:55]:
You know how insane your ideas are when no one can join you.
Emily Montgomery [00:25:59]:
Yeah, I'm sure you've had some of those yourself. I was really drawn to the simplicity of it, to having a mission. If I were to go to, say, Paris, I would need to put together my entire itinerary. Okay, I'm going to go here. I'm going to go there. Maybe I'll do this. That was too much for me. In the place where I was at, I needed to just arrive and then just let each day take care of itself.
Ryan Pyle [00:26:34]:
That was, and I think that's so amazing that you found that on your own, because I feel like walking is probably the most therapeutic thing you can do.
Emily Montgomery [00:26:44]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:26:45]:
And I think that if you've gone through trauma or you're suffering from depression I mean, I'm not a doctor, but, oh, my God, do I feel so much better mentally, physically. My soul feels full of goodness. You know, if you go out for five or seven days and you just leave the phone behind and just walk every day, it's so wonderful.
Emily Montgomery [00:27:04]:
You know, my mentors, like, years ago, my therapist made me sort, and I will say “made me.” I did not want to go.
Ryan Pyle [00:27:12]:
Can therapists force you to do things?
Emily Montgomery [00:27:16]:
No. I mean, at the end of the day, yes, I consented to this. Right but it was, you know, go out on a walk for 30 minutes a day, and you have a positive mantra that you tell yourself. It's, like, over and over. It's a meditation, basically. It doesn't have to be out loud, but in that way, you can kind of reprogram your brain by getting that physical in there.
Ryan Pyle [00:27:42]:
There's something to that.
Emily Montgomery [00:27:44]:
There is, yeah, I don't know what the science is, but it's physical, it's mental, emotional. But, yeah, anytime somebody calls me and they're so upset, somebody broke up with me, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say, whatever that is, I'm like, go for a walk.
Ryan Pyle [00:28:01]:
Go for a walk, breeze.
Emily Montgomery [00:28:02]:
Call me later.
Ryan Pyle [00:28:03]:
Get outside. Don't go onto Instagram or TikTok and declare your love.
Emily Montgomery [00:28:08]:
Very bad idea. Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:28:11]:
So, I mean, it's amazing that you were able to follow in the footsteps of your father, who did that trip previously. So it's amazing that you had the awareness that was even possible and that you knew that that would be kind of something that would help maybe, reset or refocus who you are and what you wanted.
Emily Montgomery [00:28:30]:
Yeah, I did.
Ryan Pyle [00:28:31]:
That's amazing. Is that where you think of the idea for the app while you were walking?
Emily Montgomery [00:28:36]:
Yes, I actually have audio notes of myself, like, kind of inventing the app along the way. And you can hear, like, the gravel underneath my foot along the way. So, yeah, that's where it all came out.
Ryan Pyle [00:28:52]:
And, like, how many days into the walk are you mentally fit enough to come up with groundbreaking technology business ideas? Cause by the end, you must have been just done, like, after two months, was it really grueling, from a physical standpoint, not from a mental? Cause I think after two months, you'd just be a vegetable.
Emily Montgomery [00:29:11]:
Now, after two months. You're actually so used to it, that you really want to keep going. So after two months, like, a nine mile day is before lunch, what's next? Right now, what do I do? I walked between nine and 20 miles a day. I also got used to speaking in kilometers. So now I'm back to miles, and that's a little confusing.
Ryan Pyle [00:29:37]:
I'm Canadian, so bring on the kilometers.
Emily Montgomery [00:29:39]:
Could we?
Ryan Pyle [00:29:40]:
Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:29:41]:
I don't know exactly. It was probably at least 15 days in, maybe 20. So while I was walking, my mentor actually had a stroke and he survived at that point, but it was a really scary time. Right. So I was able to refer back to these audio notes that he had recorded for me, telling me that I was doing the right thing, that I was on the right path. He recited a Robert Frost poem to me from memory about, it was the one, where the horse is standing in the woods and wondering why we're stopped in the woods. It's a beautiful poem.
So he's had this stroke. I have these voice notes telling me to keep going, and all I wanted to do was sort of fly home, even though they wouldn't have done. There's no practical effect to that except.
Ryan Pyle [00:30:48]:
Losing out on your once in a lifetime trip.
Emily Montgomery [00:30:50]:
Right. Which he would not have wanted me to do. So I kept going, and I used these voice notes as a way to keep myself going. And I think that was the beginning of. Okay, how do we kind of, like, democratize this experience? I'm extremely blessed by having these kind of voice notes and these mentors and, like, how do we bring that to everybody?
Ryan Pyle [00:31:18]:
That's a great origin story.
Emily Montgomery [00:31:22]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:31:24]:
On this 600 mile journey, almost a thousand miles. A thousand kilometers you dug deep and found something that helped you get through it every day. And then you now want to create a version of that which you can share with everyone.
Who needs that kind of affirmation or needs that kind of connection even though those people might not be with us anymore.
Emily Montgomery [00:31:46]:
Right. Well, and who needs those affirmations is all of us.
Ryan Pyle [00:31:51]:
All of us for sure. Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:31:52]:
The surgeon general report last year on loneliness. It's like, what, 50%. 55% of Americans at any given time are experiencing loneliness. So if it's not you, it's your neighbor or your loved one. But we don't really have any specific tools for how you combat that? Right?
Ryan Pyle [00:32:12]:
No, because everyone's online and not wanting to meet anymore.
Emily Montgomery [00:32:15]:
It's passive consumption of what we think is social interaction. And that's what makes it so very.
Ryan Pyle [00:32:23]:
Addictive, the passive interaction.
Emily Montgomery [00:32:27]:
So we are wired for connection and belonging. Right? Like, let's start with that. And I'll credit Brene Brown with that little snip. So we are wired for that. And what social media is giving us is an appearance that we are getting social connection. And that's the thing that makes us keep coming back. But it's sort of like eating fast food and thinking that you're getting nutrition, right? You're not getting the nutrients; that's not feeding your body.
Ryan Pyle [00:32:52]:
You're just dying slowly.
Emily Montgomery [00:32:54]:
You're dying slowly. And social media really is the same way. You know, we think we're getting interaction. I mean, you were around when Facebook started.
Ryan Pyle [00:33:04]:
I was. Yes. I am that old.
Emily Montgomery [00:33:06]:
I apologize. So am I. But it was about photo albums and connecting with people that we hadn't talked to in a couple years. Right?
Ryan Pyle [00:33:16]:
Those first few years were actually super exciting. Like, reconnecting with all the people you went to high school with and grade.
Emily Montgomery [00:33:22]:
School would have lost touch with otherwise. Now, it is a very different beast. Right? It is a bunch of information from people that you don't know
Ryan Pyle [00:33:34]:
Not real connection run by algorithms focused on monetizing our data and our eyeballs, and it's kind of gone disgusting.
Emily Montgomery [00:33:43]:
That is not real social connection, that is kind of one of the things that's playing into the loneliness epidemic. But, if you said, hey, I want to lose five pounds for my health for whatever reason, you have the tools, right? You know, it's kind of diet, it's kind of exercise, maybe there's some Ozempic playing in there now. But, like, you sort of know what the tools are. My belief is that we don't have a really good language around. What are those tools for this loneliness epidemic?
Ryan Pyle [00:34:14]:
No, that makes sense. Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:34:17]:
Part of that is this practice of active connection, and it's calling people on the telephone. And I feel like such a hypocrite. If you had called me on the telephone five years ago, I wouldn't have answered. I would have sent you to voicemail, and I would have texted you.
Ryan Pyle [00:34:33]:
But that's what I do now.
Emily Montgomery [00:34:35]:
I know, it's so common. But the research shows and these are. I will give you this for the show notes. But Amit Kumar is at the University of Texas, and he has all his wonderful research on happiness. And part of that is using the right modality, the right methodology for connecting with people. And a lot of that is about voice. It's so important to use your voice, almost like the walking thing that we were talking about, the balancing of our body, our chakras, whatever that is.
The voice is really what tells somebody else who we are in that moment and helps us really connect and as the receiver of a message, what I'm looking for is warmth and sincerity. And as long as you have those ingredients, that's all that matters, and you've successfully connected.
Ryan Pyle [00:35:31]:
Oh, that's interesting.
Emily Montgomery [00:35:32]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:35:33]:
I like sending voice notes to people. Does that count?
Emily Montgomery [00:35:34]:
Voice notes is perfect.
Ryan Pyle [00:35:36]:
I think that's one of the reasons why I started this face to face podcast is because I just really wanted to have real life connections again, because so much stuff was just done through screens.
Emily Montgomery [00:35:44]:
Right.
Ryan Pyle [00:35:45]:
And I just didn't want to have any part of that.
Emily Montgomery [00:35:47]:
Yeah. What's really interesting about the research, and I found this really surprising, is that video doesn't have an incremental benefit over voice. So definitely voice. Any kind of voice over text. Although I will say, if you want to send somebody an affirming text, I'm not here to stop you. I will say if you use voice, it will increase your well being and the well being of your recipient a lot more. But video doesn't help more than the voice.
Ryan Pyle [00:36:20]:
Interesting.
Emily Montgomery [00:36:21]:
I found that really surprising. And that's why the app actually doesn't have video, because video, I think, can be another barrier. Like, does my hair look right? Is my makeup wrong? Do I have something in my teeth? We don't want to give anybody any reasons not to send these sort of affirming voice messages.
Ryan Pyle [00:36:40]:
Yeah, you're right, actually. I think video can be distracting, too, because it can take your focus off of the words, and it can be like, oh, they're wearing a nice new jacket, or, oh, they're looking fit, or something like that. But you're actually missing the whole point.
Emily Montgomery [00:36:51]:
Right? Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:36:53]:
Yeah, that's interesting. There's nothing worse than getting, like, a five minute voice note for something that.
Emily Montgomery [00:36:58]:
Could be done in 30 seconds via a text message. I guess. But, you can sort of hear where your friend is at, even though they're rambling about whatever happened last night that you may or may not care about.
Ryan Pyle [00:37:13]:
There's a sense of authenticity and sincerity to it.
Emily Montgomery [00:37:17]:
Right, and if you can kind of wade through that, you can actually reflect back to them the positive parts of that note and have a successful little connection there. Maybe reframe what they're saying. If they're complaining, I don't know. Or you just thank them for connecting with you.
Ryan Pyle [00:37:37]:
So when did you study computer science and decide to build your own app?
Emily Montgomery [00:37:43]:
There's no part of that timeline. I have a wonderful developer.
Ryan Pyle [00:37:50]:
Team because it's quite daunting. Right. Like, if you don't have a technical background and you don't, and neither do I. Like, it's. How hard was it to be? Like, I'm going to create this technical solution to help people feel more connected.
Emily Montgomery [00:38:03]:
There were a lot of tears. So there's a couple different threads that came together there. I had invented a legal keyboard somewhere along the way, and that was probably, gosh, I can't fathom when that was, but I had a coifounder on that project who helped me kind of scope this document or scope this app, and a lot of that is leaving features on the cutting room floor which resulted in tears.
Ryan Pyle [00:38:39]:
Yeah, it's hard because all that stuff costs huge amount of money to develop, and then you have to say, will this get me more users or more interaction? And if it's not a yes, then it's a no, there's no gray area. It's so expensive to do what you've done and to have people around who are actually building this stuff out.
Emily Montgomery [00:38:58]:
Yeah, it's expensive. And with a minimum viable product, you want one option for your users that you can actually learn things along the way. That's kind of the methodology that I learned. I read a lot of books. I had a lot of conversations, and, yeah, I mean, there were a lot of false starts, but a lot of weeks where things wouldn't be moving forward, and I just had to have more conversations with people. Right.
Ryan Pyle [00:39:36]:
How long from when you came back from your trip in Spain and France and Portugal, like, the trek, the 600 miles journey. How long from when you landed back home did you start working on this?
Emily Montgomery [00:39:48]:
I think it was probably about two months, three months..
Ryan Pyle [00:39:53]:
But it was still percolating.
Emily Montgomery [00:39:55]:
It was kind of one of those burning things in my mind where it's like, okay, if I don't do this, I will have regrets and those are the moments that you never want to have, like, deathbed moments, like, oh, I wish I would have done x, y, z in the vein of, like, life is short, and this is not a dress rehearsal. I wanted to try it out.
Ryan Pyle [00:40:17]:
And did the connections you made working at the private equity company and stuff like that. Did they kind of, did those connections or that experience kind of help you frame an idea for how to raise funding for something like this?
Emily Montgomery [00:40:30]:
Well yes, very much so. And I will go back to the legal keyboard thing. That was a lesson in how to not do it. I ran that as an inventor, that was like a hobby and invention for me, not a business. I learned over the course of working in an investment firm how to actually run a business. So, yes, very important connections and just an ability to speak the language.
Ryan Pyle [00:41:04]:
It's hard to be a founder.
Emily Montgomery [00:41:06]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:41:08]:
It's hard to create technology and then get people to buy in. Right.
Emily Montgomery [00:41:11]:
Yeah. But, you know, what's harder, in my opinion, is not doing it, the pain of lost potential or the feeling that you could have done something, I think is something to keep in mind. Like, if you're trying to, write a book, right? It's the pain of not writing the book is something you really need to keep top of mind while you're procrastinating or having writer's block. I don't know if that's your experience.
Ryan Pyle [00:41:38]:
No, it's interesting. I've definitely always put trying to have these experiences at the forefront of life, but it's interesting you said that. Cause you talk to all these very successful men and women who are running these venture capital firms or these hedge funds that are investing in founders like yourself or investing in these projects, and they absolutely look for people who have already failed at least once, and they absolutely look for people who have just torched their first or second or third ideas and are now onto something new because they've given themselves a PhD in startups, and the only way you can get a PhD in startups is by failing. Right?
Emily Montgomery [00:42:16]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:42:16]:
And there's another person who was saying, I'm looking for someone who has failed at least three times at anything in their twenties. So it's funny, like, the risk-taking element in this whole idea of doing it and trying to do something and learning from that is so important.
Emily Montgomery [00:42:36]:
It takes a lot of perseverance, too. And a lot of you have a lot of moments where it's like, okay, I must have gone wrong here. I must have done something, where you don't see the path forward. And I think part of this last year for me has been getting a lot more patient with just waiting through those and waiting for the next spark of inspiration or the next conversation. That really helps me reframe something. The next book that comes my way, where I'm like, okay, this is what we're doing.
Ryan Pyle [00:43:12]:
That's wild, it's true. It's because you can get stuck. Like, it's not all this, right? It's peaks and valleys. And it's up and down, and it's very emotional and taxing. One question for you.
How many people around you told you not to do that?
Emily Montgomery [00:43:31]:
That's a good question. You know, I don't know that.
Ryan Pyle [00:43:35]:
Can answer it because I tell you, it's amazing how many people are surrounded by naysayers and how hard it is to ignore everyone and push through your dream or your agenda or your vision, you know?
Emily Montgomery [00:43:49]:
Okay, so I will say the hardest thing has been silence or non support. It's not like I have not been surrounded by people that have really dared to tell me, like, no, you shouldn't do this. Thankfully, I've been encouraged by many people. Part of that has been how I have chosen my friends and colleagues in the last ten years. But there's definitely some silence I can feel from some people, which is okay. They're just not my people.
Ryan Pyle [00:44:30]:
So, yeah, if you want the best way to clean out your friend and family connecting group, be an entrepreneur. Because anyone that tries to tell you otherwise or tries to give you some advice or tries to tell you it's not a good idea or blah, blah, you just stop talking to them. It's the truth. And it's funny because they come at you from a good place.
Emily Montgomery [00:44:50]:
You've activated something, a fear that they have, like a scarcity mindset or a lack of safety. What do you mean? You're not gonna have a nine to five, that kind of thing. Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:45:03]:
And it's. No, it's crazy. Once you kind of go out on that ledge on your own and start walking.
Emily Montgomery [00:45:10]:
I was about to turn 40 at the time that I did this, and I just. I knew that I wanted to be a founder. And, I've got that kind of entrepreneurial DNA. You either, I think, have it or don't. Maybe let's put a pin in that. Maybe that's not true. But I didn't want to die and, like, not have done it.
Ryan Pyle [00:45:37]:
Like, not have tried.
Emily Montgomery [00:45:39]:
Right.
Ryan Pyle [00:45:39]:
Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:45:40]:
Like, let's try this out. And you know, it was like a calling that I couldn't shake it.
Ryan Pyle [00:45:47]:
And to be honest, you have a very good background for it. Like, you've come through the legal system. You spent time at a private equity company that invests and researches and evaluates projects like this to invest in or not. Like, you didn't have the technical background, but you had the kind of ability to pitch it and raise money for it, which I think is the most important thing.
Emily Montgomery [00:46:11]:
Yeah, It's been quite the journey.
Ryan Pyle [00:46:16]:
So how long did it take you to go from idea to actually having an app?
Emily Montgomery [00:46:22]:
Depends on, if you count the time, I guess, where I was walking, that was kind of an idea.
Ryan Pyle [00:46:30]:
No. From the first day, you spent money on putting this together.
Emily Montgomery [00:46:35]:
Okay, thanks. Let's call it six months.
Ryan Pyle [00:46:40]:
Well, that's fast. Yeah. That's great.
Emily Montgomery [00:46:43]:
No, it was nine months. Yeah. So it's been out since January of 2024.
Ryan Pyle [00:46:52]:
Okay.
Emily Montgomery [00:46:53]:
It was out in December. I just didn't tell anybody because nobody cares about new things and during the holidays, in my opinion.
Ryan Pyle [00:47:03]:
And what's the app called again?
Emily Montgomery [00:47:05]:
HiLU. It's short for hi, I love you. HiLU. It's very cute.
Ryan Pyle [00:47:10]:
And where can they find it?
Emily Montgomery [00:47:12]:
It's at teamhilu.com.
Ryan Pyle [00:47:14]:
And have you had the chance to expand the reach of it through the Apple Store or the Google Store or anything like that?
Emily Montgomery [00:47:20]:
We actually decided to launch as a web app. People can download the icon directly onto their phone, so they kind of won't know the difference in the end. But just for early purposes, we're not on the app store.
Ryan Pyle [00:47:36]:
Okay. And what's the user experience? Like, if they go and download the app from your website and have the icon on their phone, when they press into it, what do they find?
Emily Montgomery [00:47:46]:
Well, they actually don't have to download the app to get the experience. So you hit the record. It's a big record button. You hit record, you allow the microphone access. You say the beautiful things that you want to say to your friend, and then you share it to them. And those friends do not have to have the app to be able to share it to them.
Ryan Pyle [00:48:09]:
Oh, that's what I was gonna ask.
Emily Montgomery [00:48:11]:
Yeah. You actually text it. You know how when you share a TikTok or something and they're not on the app, it texts it to them.
Ryan Pyle [00:48:18]:
I don't use TikTok. I don't know what's going on.
Emily Montgomery [00:48:20]:
Okay. All right, no worries. I think Instagram or Facebook does the same thing, but, yeah, you just end up texting it to them.
Ryan Pyle [00:48:27]:
So if I wanna send a nice message to one of my family members. So I got your app, I hit the record button. I say, I love you, you're amazing. You always support me. I wish you the best in your big thing this weekend. Right?
Emily Montgomery [00:48:46]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:48:47]:
I send it to them, but how do they store it? And how can they relive it and relisten to it over time without joining your app?
Emily Montgomery [00:48:55]:
So they can listen to it without joining the app. So they will get it in their text messages from you? They listen to it. And if they want to save it, they do need to give me a phone number, otherwise I can't keep track of them. So. Yeah, it's a one time sms login.
Ryan Pyle [00:49:16]:
Yeah, that's great. And may I ask how many users you have so far, or is that confidential?
Emily Montgomery [00:49:21]:
Yeah, it's not confidential, but we're still growing, we've got some early signs of excited users. And the great thing is that once people start using the app, we do have good retention.
Ryan Pyle [00:49:39]:
Okay, that's great.
I think the world is waiting for a social media or some kind of app or some way of connecting with people that doesn't make them miserable. I think the whole world is ready for it.
Emily Montgomery [00:49:49]:
Yeah, here I am.
Ryan Pyle [00:49:53]:
It comes from such a good place, though.
Emily Montgomery [00:49:55]:
Thank you.
Ryan Pyle [00:49:56]:
Because so many other things are just preying on you. Being miserable. Right. That the user experience is making you sad and insecure.
Emily Montgomery [00:50:07]:
Consumerism, right? Like, you must buy all the new clothes and do all the new things. It's not a good thing. And it's so disheartening in some way because there's no. The research really is pointing us in the direction of active participation in relationship is a key to longevity. That's one of the things I get really amped up about.
If you're doing the biohacking thing, the longevity stuff and the health stuff, and you're not really paying attention to your relationships. You're kind of missing the boat. Like, those blue zones do not survive without real connection.
It's so important. And I love those statistics because it's about your physical health. And so, you know, for so many years, I think we stigmatized mental health as less than a thing to be concerned with.
Ryan Pyle [00:51:09]:
Sure. Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:51:10]:
Where people kind of suffer in silence. But when you have physical effects of loneliness and disconnection, it's like, okay, maybe we should pay attention to this.
Ryan Pyle [00:51:21]:
That's interesting.
Emily Montgomery [00:51:22]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [00:51:22]:
I was speaking with someone the other day, and I was saying, because I've lived abroad for 20 plus years, so coming to the United States, I've only been here, like, five months now, and I was kind of amazed at how people are so willing to talk about their mental health problems or their depression or. I feel like now, like ten years ago, no one would do it.
Emily Montgomery [00:51:42]:
That's one of the wonderful things I think about Gen Z. There are many things that I really appreciate about Gen Z in this.
Ryan Pyle [00:51:52]:
What is Gen Z? How old are you if you're Gen Z?
Emily Montgomery [00:51:56]:
It's definitely younger than me, I think. Let's see. I don't know. They're in their twenties and thirties right now. Gen Alpha is after them. So the really young kiddos, I think the people in high school now.
Ryan Pyle [00:52:11]:
So the ones that are really getting messed up by social media.
Emily Montgomery [00:52:14]:
Well, both of them have, because they haven't had the analog experience that we did. I mean, I didn't have a cell phone until I was 16, and it was like a Nokia thing where you had to press three times to get
Ryan Pyle [00:52:32]:
I almost want to go back to the bricks.
Emily Montgomery [00:52:34]:
Some people are doing that.
Ryan Pyle [00:52:35]:
Yeah. I'm tired of having my phone listen to me and follow me around and let everyone know where I am all the time.
Emily Montgomery [00:52:40]:
Yeah. Well, speaking of Gen Z, there is a movement within Gen Z of going back to the flip phone sort of thing.
Ryan Pyle [00:52:48]:
The brick Motorola style.
Emily Montgomery [00:52:49]:
Yeah. And honestly, they're not wrong. I really will give them credit for being able to speak about mental health and social emotional wellness. And I think they're starting to be really conscious about what methods are we using to connect with people and are they hurting us or are they helping us?
Ryan Pyle [00:53:15]:
Yeah, I think it's great that people are having these conversations, but I also feel like in some circles. And these are definitely the minority of these circles in some days, like, the conversation has gone so far, maybe all you need to do is tell someone to get off their phone for a half an hour and go for a walk. But people are so enticed by these ideas about wellness and health that walking can't help me or the society needs to change before I can go for a walk. And it's like, no, no, like, you can go for a walk and feel a little bit better and then come back with a clearer mind about what's happened. Like, taking a beat.
Emily Montgomery [00:53:53]:
Yeah. I think some of that is about personal accountability and responsibility. It can be sort of alluring to blame society or blame the government or be kind of negative about the way the world is going, and I'm not minimizing that at all. However, at the same time, this can also still be true. There are things you can do today to make yourself feel better within the circumstances that you have. And, you know, to be fair, that can come out sort of harsh.
Maybe today you're not resourced. Maybe today you are just on the couch and you've done your best, but maybe tomorrow you can get up and get some sunshine in your eyes. Andrew Huberman is really big on that. But it's so simple. It's free, it's widely available unless you live in Seattle. But even then, you can go outside and, like, you just have to be out there longer if there's cloud cover, which there is today.
Ryan Pyle [00:55:03]:
Someone told me not to make light of mental health issues and stuff like that, but someone told me today that there's been more rain in Los Angeles since January 1 of this year than there has been in Seattle.
Emily Montgomery [00:55:13]:
Wow.
Ryan Pyle [00:55:13]:
Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:55:13]:
Yeah, I can sort of hear you guys screaming about the weather from.
Ryan Pyle [00:55:20]:
I don't know, though. It's my first winter, so everything's fine for me. But compared to last year and the year before and the year before, it's a little bit different.
Emily Montgomery [00:55:27]:
Right? I know it. I mean, it's just rain. I don't know. It's needed too, we're kind of in a drought. The west as a whole is in a drought. And being from Las Vegas, the level of lake Mead is always something that is really important.
And LA and Las Vegas are on the same water system from the Colorado.
Ryan Pyle [00:55:49]:
Yeah. So it's not easy.
Emily Montgomery [00:55:51]:
The rain is good. Let's not curse the rain. I get really nervous when people don't want it to be raining.
Ryan Pyle [00:55:58]:
No, I understand. Okay, so let's go back a little. So you're doing this 600 mile walk across Europe. You are using messages sent from your mentors, one of whom had a stroke to kind of, you know, get you focused and motivate you and make you feel like you're going to be able to do this. And it was kind of like an invisible coach, maybe something like that. Right. And then you decided to build a whole app around this.
By building an app out of something that helped you. Now, I mean, how do you feel now? Because you're kind of becoming kind of like a mental health guru or advocate for helping people find a hack that makes them feel more loved, feel more supported, feel less isolated.
Emily Montgomery [00:56:47]:
How do I feel taking on that new role?
Ryan Pyle [00:56:52]:
It's a big job, you're now trying actively to help people feel less alone, and now you have to speak to that. You're not just trying to make money. You're actually trying to make people feel more connected. And that's no small task like getting the verbiage around that, correct?
Emily Montgomery [00:57:16]:
Yeah. It's been fun sort of experimenting with that role. I will say. It can be tough, right? advocating, I think, for a positive mindset. You almost become hemmed into that talking track.
I mean, that can be, I guess, a challenge. I will also say I have so many people that are in my corner that I can call when I'm a mess, and that is so important. You know, we're here together acting like normal humans.
Ryan Pyle [00:58:00]:
I'm a total mess. Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [00:58:03]:
Okay, so I'm at least pretending not to cry right this second, but it's a journey. It's not all pretty.
Ryan Pyle [00:58:11]:
No. And you do have to find the hacks that get you through, because I feel like we all fall into the traps. Like, we all fall into the doldrums, right? We're not all just coasting at equilibrium, and we're not all on a rocket ship of endorphins, right? We're kind of rocking and rolling all the time. So how do we get through the darker bits
Emily Montgomery [00:58:30]:
Which I think is important to talk about, particularly because I'm talking about social media. It's like, one of the things that's so toxic about social media is the fact that all we're seeing is the highlight reel. All we're seeing is the things that we're comparing ourselves to. All of the best and the brightest. I mean, I have lots of pictures posted about my walk, less so about the days in sweats and lying on the couch.
Ryan Pyle [00:59:04]:
Yeah, it's true. No one, no handsome actor with a six pack is gonna post a video of him crying on the couch at 09:00 p.m. because he didn't get the role that he really wanted.
Emily Montgomery [00:59:13]:
Right, which you know, part of that, it's very natural. We just have to.
Ryan Pyle [00:59:20]:
But if you're 14, I mean, how, like, you know what I mean? Like, how that's the danger.
Emily Montgomery [00:59:24]:
the way everything that I put into the app is, what I needed when I was a kid, when I was twelve or 14, that, you know, I really had to kind of provide that eventually for myself, and I was able to meet those people later. Right. But, it's a really interesting thing. And, I guess going back to your point about wellness guru or whatever, I do not want that label at all. And I guess I will say, I always point back to the research. None of the research is my own.
I do not have a PhD in. What would it be?
Ryan Pyle [01:00:09]:
Psychiatry? Psychology?
Emily Montgomery [01:00:11]:
There's biochemistry to all of those. I'm not a licensed therapist. I've just been to enough therapy that I probably could have just paid for a degree.
Ryan Pyle [01:00:22]:
Probably might have been easier, but it's gonna come. Like, I mean, your app is a great idea, and I feel like if it helped you, there must be millions of other people around the world who also need or would like to have that kind of affirmation from their loved ones. But I can see, like, people are gonna start asking you, well, what's wrong with current social media? Or where does your creation fit into the current field of the way people connect.
And of course, yours is much healthier and. And hopefully making people feel better. So that's how it is. But it's very anti establishment, or it's very anti current social media.
Emily Montgomery [01:01:09]:
Yeah, I'm glad you see that.
Ryan Pyle [01:01:11]:
Yeah. But people are going to start, I think everyone's going to be asking you, with what's wrong with current social media? Like, why did you feel this was different? Or, and what gives you the
Emily Montgomery [01:01:21]:
It's really about the distinction between active and passive.
Ryan Pyle [01:01:26]:
Right.
Emily Montgomery [01:01:26]:
Right. Like, when we are passively consuming, it is not helping our happiness or wellness. When you are feeling miserable, if you can take the active step to go on a walk, get some sunshine, and actually reach out to somebody else, it just makes all the difference. Right. And we're not going to hack our way out of our biology. Our hardwiring is that we must actively participate in the community. And one of the interesting things about being in Europe actually, was that when you get sick in Europe, you actually have to go to the pharmacy, like, physically and get a meal. They don't do a lot of going and grubhub and postmates and stuff.
Not quite as common in the US. We have created all these systems that allow us to just sit in our apartments, in our homes alone. And we've created all this technology that is now hurting us.
Ryan Pyle [01:02:34]:
Put on absolute steroids by the pandemic, which was supposed to be saving us.
Emily Montgomery [01:02:39]:
Right.
Ryan Pyle [01:02:40]:
Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [01:02:40]:
And it did. Like I don't want to negate those practices for the pandemic. But I guess I am calling awareness to the continued use of that. And, you know, don't get me wrong, I use postmates, like, you know, quite a bit. Is it better when I can cook and invite people over for dinner? Yeah, absolutely.
Ryan Pyle [01:03:03]:
Or even go out for dinner.
Emily Montgomery [01:03:05]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [01:03:06]:
It's funny how we created all this stuff to get through the pandemic so we could keep working and keep spending, but now that the pandemic is over. Yeah. Some of us are going back out into the world and some of us are just kind of continuing on as if it was 2020 again.
Emily Montgomery [01:03:23]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [01:03:23]:
And that's probably where some of the problems exist.
Emily Montgomery [01:03:26]:
Yeah. But I will say the research of the surgeon general based his loneliness report on was all pre pandemic.
Ryan Pyle [01:03:35]:
Oh, that's even interesting. That's even more interesting.
Emily Montgomery [01:03:37]:
Right.
Ryan Pyle [01:03:38]:
Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [01:03:39]:
So none of that is baked in.
Ryan Pyle [01:03:40]:
So that's back in normal times.
Emily Montgomery [01:03:43]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [01:03:44]:
Okay.
Emily Montgomery [01:03:44]:
Yeah. Which is, you know, it just goes to show, like, you know, I think probably if we were to rerun the numbers, It's even higher. So can we keep talking about it? it's not comfortable to talk about.
Ryan Pyle [01:03:59]:
No. And if you ask someone if they're lonely, they'll always lie to you.
Emily Montgomery [01:04:03]:
And actually, that's probably the smart thing to do because there is some other research that shows that when you're lonely, the way that you start interacting with people has this tinge of neediness to it. So you actually start repelling people.
Ryan Pyle [01:04:18]:
Oh, that's interesting.
Emily Montgomery [01:04:19]:
So you have to kind of get around that. So you actually kind of have to reach out, but be cool. Whether or not this particular person wants to go to a movie or not is not the end of the world. You know, you kind of have to fill up your own life and then start attracting people to you.
Ryan Pyle [01:04:42]:
That sounds like good advice. Like, you have to be happy yourself before you can make people around you happy. Right. Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [01:04:48]:
But, yeah, I find that research about loneliness making you sort of, like a little cringe. It's unfortunate. It makes sense because we've got that kind of herd animal mentality. So I think it feels a little threatening to us to bring in somebody who's struggling.
Ryan Pyle [01:05:18]:
If you sense someone struggling and you reach out to try to help them and they push you away, kind of end up writing them off eventually, don't you? Because it's like, well, how many times can I try to invite that person out? And they keep saying no? And actually, they're really going through something and it's. But it's hard. Like, maybe you're just not the right person.
Emily Montgomery [01:05:34]:
Yeah, right.
Ryan Pyle [01:05:36]:
You came up with this idea when you did your walk in 2022. And I find the timing, like, quite interesting because it's post Covid. Right. I think, you know, this is your tool that you're giving people for, you know, reconnecting or trying to find support and connection in a post Covid world. And I think, and, yeah, I do see it as an anti social media, feel good kind of experience of which we're in desperate need of.
Emily Montgomery [01:06:10]:
Yeah, I thought deeply about how I wanted to present that on my website. it's like, do I really want to wade into those waters of the antisocial media part when I'm speaking? I do wade in there, though.
Ryan Pyle [01:06:27]:
Yeah, you have to.
Emily Montgomery [01:06:29]:
Right.
Ryan Pyle [01:06:30]:
Because it's making us miserable collectively.
Emily Montgomery [01:06:33]:
Yeah, I will say it's not just that. Right. It's an accumulation of different factors. And I think if people were to use social media in a way to connect with people like we did in. What year was that in 2003?
Ryan Pyle [01:06:52]:
Four, five.
Emily Montgomery [01:06:53]:
Yeah, 2003. You're right. 2003. Then I think if we went back to that and we were not just scrolling in passive consumption mode, there's a path forward there, but that's not what it's designed for. And so everything in the algorithm is going to push you into passive consumption.
Ryan Pyle [01:07:17]:
I remember it used to be so exciting. You used to, like, used to upload your entire email address book, and then all of a sudden your friends would just start popping up out of nowhere. And every morning it'd be like another ten friends that you totally lost track of.
Emily Montgomery [01:07:29]:
And Facebook was like, we don't know why people are giving us all this data, but we love it. We're keeping it forever.
Ryan Pyle [01:07:35]:
Yeah, those were exciting times because you have to remember, too, for me, I was living in China at that time, so I was already, like, a world away from these people. And it was very. At that time, social media was a super helpful way for me to stay connected to family and friends before it became just a place of politics and racism and whatever else it's been built into.
Emily Montgomery [01:07:57]:
Right. Do people still write on each other's walls? Is that a thing?
Ryan Pyle [01:08:02]:
So I have a business account at Facebook, so I kind of disabled my personal account, and so my entire Facebook experience is one way.
Emily Montgomery [01:08:12]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [01:08:12]:
Because that keeps it easier, but I think people still do write on walls and share pictures and things like that.
Emily Montgomery [01:08:18]:
Yeah It's just, I think it's kind of slipping into the background.
Ryan Pyle [01:08:23]:
Yeah. I mean, young people don't use Facebook anymore. They just use Instagram and TikTok, and even the younger people don't even use Instagram. So what age range of people do you think could benefit most from your app? Like, have you done anything kind of research as to what age people need this or feel like they could use this kind of connection? Or is that.
Emily Montgomery [01:08:47]:
It depends on the person. If you're talking about the senders or the receivers, the senders, I think, can be a couple different people. They can be the college age type people sending affirmations to one another, um, if one of them is struggling and some of the other senders, actually, I have one of my, one of my high-volume senders is 74 years old and she absolutely loves it. And so it was really designed to be really simple and intuitive.
In terms of the recipients, it's really, I guess the heaviest proportion would be 20 to 40, but, yeah, it's really for anyone, although I will say a little legal disclaimer, it has to be people who are 13.
Ryan Pyle [01:09:43]:
Okay. That's a thing, right?
Emily Montgomery [01:09:44]:
So, like Instagram and Facebook, they don't let you use their platforms if you're under 13. I mean, officially.
Ryan Pyle [01:09:51]:
So that's the legal limit for as low as you can go in age.
Emily Montgomery [01:09:56]:
There's all sorts of regulations on apps and technology aimed at people that are under 13. And I may eventually try to figure all that out, but I haven't.
Ryan Pyle [01:10:08]:
Yeah, no, I think it'd be great. Like, you know, like, you think about going to school and maybe someone says something mean to you or something like that. And it'd be great to have, you know, be able to open up your phone and listen to your mom tell you how much she loves you and how smart you are and things like that. And don't let bullies, you know, get in your way and have that saved as something that you can, like, reach back into instead of, like, trying to remember it.
Emily Montgomery [01:10:29]:
Right. We're not good at remembering that kind of thing. And what you just said reminds me of another study, which I believe was an Amit Kumar study, but I will give you the citation on this. But. So there's a study of teen girls who are in a kind of situation, a negative situation, and if they talked to their mothers over the phone, they felt more connected, happier, you know, felt recovered from that stressful situation. If they only talked to their mother on text, they did not have that similar boost in well being.
Ryan Pyle [01:11:05]:
Yeah. So, because there's no context when you text and there's no rhythm in the voice, and you can't really get an understanding of how someone else is being compassionate for you. Texting is so cold and it's making us cold.
Emily Montgomery [01:11:22]:
It's useful in the right context, but there's a common theme in social media to hate on the boomers, right?
Ryan Pyle [01:11:37]:
Is that a thing?
Emily Montgomery [01:11:38]:
It's kind of a thing. There's a millennial boomer tension, and some of the memes are kind of, like, funny. Right?
Ryan Pyle [01:11:45]:
Is that. Because all the boomers own all the property and no one can buy a house.
Emily Montgomery [01:11:49]:
People are upset about that. Yeah, no, it's true. But in terms of, you know, kind of like the therapy wellness space. It's. There's a lot of talk about how the boomers are less in tune with their feelings. Right. And I think there's some truth to that. But I will say what the boomers get, right, is they will call you on the phone.
Emily Montgomery [01:12:09]:
They call you on the phone, they will show up to your house, and they don't, you know, like that. That is how they interact.
Ryan Pyle [01:12:15]:
I think that's great, though. I love that generation.
Emily Montgomery [01:12:17]:
Yeah, right.
Ryan Pyle [01:12:18]:
Because, that generation, they remember either World War Two or they remember the aftermath of World War Two. And when you think about where you were in 2019 and where you were in 2023, imagine where people were in, you know, between 1940 and 1945 or 1935 and 1945. Like, it changed everything. And all we had to do was stay at home and eat pizza.
Emily Montgomery [01:12:45]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [01:12:46]:
No one went to war. Sure, maybe loved ones did pass away. You know, maybe there were some issues there, but. But it wasn't like, you know, being thrown into Nazi Europe. I just find, like, that generation does things kind of old school and a little harsh and a little rough, but you have to remember, where they've come from and in comparison, our generation is so soft. I was speaking with a military vet the other day. He was a combat vet. He was in Iraq, and he was saying, when veterans come back from war now, in a lot of ways, they're vilified because there's so much negative media around.
The amount of money that's being spent abroad and these wars that are going on abroad, some people think they're useless or they're not important. But back in the day, if you fought in World War two, you were a hero. You were a hero, and you came back a hero, and you were treated like one, and you came back with a purpose. And you went with a purpose. And nowadays, that's all gone. And I feel like that generation, the way they do things kind of is a little hard. And they might not be in touch with their feelings, but I feel like at least they're maybe more in the right place than we are. Does that make sense?
Emily Montgomery [01:13:55]:
There's some truth to that. I think the millennials have had a lot better access to mental health services and therapy, and we've had that ability to speak about it. There's been more openness there. To the extent that, you know, maybe the boomers are not that great at their feelings, we're speaking in really broad generalizations here, but if that were to be said, you know, I do think your point there are some reasons for it, and I also want to sort of caution the millennials and the Gen Z, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are some really wonderful qualities of the boomers, and that is the real connection.
Ryan Pyle [01:14:54]:
So, yeah, that was a very general conversation. Not to be specific at all, but, no, I mean, like, there's something to it, I think. Yeah, yeah. You know, speaking in really, really broad, general stereotypes, there's something to that in some way. I feel like. I feel like a lot of, you know, the world is very hard now, and I feel like it used to be much easier, maybe, or feel like.
Emily Montgomery [01:15:18]:
Every generation has said that.
Ryan Pyle [01:15:20]:
I think you're right. But I feel like a lot of people these days feel like. Like they're on a sailboat and it's rudderless. I feel like the sail is full, they're flying along, moving through life, but they're unable to maybe turn the boat the way they want or something like that because of all these other things that they feel part of or caught up in. I feel like maybe life nowadays can be much more distracting.
Emily Montgomery [01:15:44]:
I think some of that is maybe diminishing the third place, like the church or, the other thing, like community like three h clubs or whatever. There are many different ways that people did that, and there's so many options now. And those options have yielded many good things. Right. Like, we have more diversity and openness, and there are places for many people to go and feel included, but it has kind of made things a little bit more diffuse.
Not everybody is in the same place.
Ryan Pyle [01:16:32]:
I think your app could be really good for athletes, actually. Cause I grew up as an athlete, and I remember sometimes you play a terrible game or. And it would be nice to have, like, some memory or some recordings of your mother or father or your coach saying, like, hey, you're better than this. You know, you can do better the next game or whatever, instead of actually having to sit across from someone, which can be quite intimidating, but at least to have access.
Emily Montgomery [01:16:53]:
Yeah athletes, I think, it's a good avenue. Even your teammates.
Right. Like, your teammates see you at your best and also your worst.
Ryan Pyle [01:17:07]:
Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [01:17:07]:
Right. So are there ways in which they can encourage you to be more in your best, which then helps the team.
Ryan Pyle [01:17:15]:
Yeah, absolutely. That's interesting. You're coming at this world in a very kind of helpful way.
Ryan Pyle [01:17:28]:
But again, you're like. You're like a beacon of light in a storm.
Emily Montgomery [01:17:33]:
Really nice.
Ryan Pyle [01:17:34]:
I was just trying to find some analogy because it's messy out there. Like, when it comes to the way we communicate with each other, the way we treat each other, the way we connect or disconnect, and. And I feel like, yeah, this connecting with people verbally through voice notes, in a way where they can hold onto them and reuse them to kind of get the benefit, get the feel out of them is something that a lot of people would probably really love to use, love to experience.
Emily Montgomery [01:18:04]:
I mean, our negativity, I think, can be so strong, and it's so alluring, and so there's, like, a siren song that goes along with, like, negativity and depression, and it can be really, really hard to get out of it. And so I have a lot of people asking me, what should I say in these sort of voice notes. And I would say, it doesn't matter what you say, as long as you say it with warmth and sincerity. And I would try as much as you can to let go of any perfectionistic tendencies. I can see it happening in the app. And also, people will give me feedback as, this is my fourth time recording, and that's very normal.
And I would say, if you can kind of persevere through that, good. But don't give up. It doesn't have to be perfect. It really doesn't matter what you say. And that, again, is shown in the research. It just doesn't matter. Obviously, if you say horrible and mean things, the other person has the option to delete that message.
But it's really about getting it out of your head and out there. And all of our surveys show that people really universally wish that they gave more words of affirmation or positive feedback, however you want to say it. But we have all these reasons why we don't. And part of it is busyness. We forget we have a thought and then we, I don't know, get distracted. But part of it is that we think we have all these, like, notions about how we think we're going to make it really awkward. And the research shows that the awkwardness level is, like, here, and our perception is that it would be here.
And we also underappreciated how good we can make somebody else feel, and I think their actual appreciation is here [high], and we think it's going to be here [low]. So we just have these misaligned expectations about this kind of thing that can be done, and it really can be done as a practice. It's 60 seconds. Do it for 60 seconds a day, and it's something you can come back to. Just like a yoga practice. Like, fall off your mat. Go ahead. Like, take a week off, but then come back to it.
Ryan Pyle [01:20:31]:
Interesting. I hope this isn't too much of a tangent, and I hope I'm not going too far. Let's do it. You know, what you're dangerously, wonderfully on the edge of is having people who are getting towards the end of their lives who want to tell everyone that's been a part of their life what they've meant to them, right. As a way of having that keepsake, like you said, like, I didn't give enough love to these people when I was alive, and my life is almost over, so I'm going to send all these people messages and stuff like that in my mind. That's one really nice kind of way. Someone might use your technology, but then you're getting quite close into this space of, like, well, AI. Like, what if that person does pass away? And what if you have thousands of hours of voice notes which you can now reuse to have someone who's no longer alive actually talking to you or sending you notes in that voice? In that, like there's people working on this right now.
Emily Montgomery [01:21:30]:
There is a guy, there is a product that's out that does this.
Ryan Pyle [01:21:33]:
Yeah. Where do you stand on that?
Emily Montgomery [01:21:36]:
Oh, boy. You're gonna. Okay, we're gonna go there.
Ryan Pyle [01:21:39]:
Because AI is gonna change everything.
Emily Montgomery [01:21:41]:
Yeah, it is. So I guess I have real reservations about our ability to. Again, like, kind of going back to that ability to out-tech our own biology. I'm not sure if we force dead people into saying the things that we wanted them to say. I just really question where that goes in our being and how helpful that really is.
Ryan Pyle [01:22:13]:
That's true, right? Hypothetically, if your grandfather was an asshole, not that my grandfather was great, but if your grandfather was an asshole, and now some app is sending you all this love from your grandfather, you'd be just like, fuck that.
Emily Montgomery [01:22:26]:
Yeah, right? And how does that help you be a better human today? I guess that's where I guess I would put a strong question right there.
Ryan Pyle [01:22:38]:
You know, and how healthy are you mentally if you can't get through the day without talking to your dead grandfather.
Emily Montgomery [01:22:43]:
Right and the other thing is, we have AI now, helping people write messages to break up with people. Right.
Ryan Pyle [01:22:52]:
Oh, I didn't know that. Is there an app for that?
Emily Montgomery [01:22:55]:
There is an app for that. It's not a full app, but people are feeding things into AI, and there are breakup text messages.
Ryan Pyle [01:23:09]:
Terrible.
Emily Montgomery [01:23:10]:
It's terrible. So the whole. And I guess I would go back to, like, the active participation in human relationships. If you have AI, write something for you that you don't really have any buy in to. Like, how is that? Like, if you're breaking up with someone, part of that is saying, like, okay, this is who I am, and this is who you are. And our journeys are, you know, diverging it.
Ryan Pyle [01:23:35]:
And I took five minutes to write this down and.
Emily Montgomery [01:23:38]:
Right. I felt like you were a valuable person and a valuable human, and so I took time to participate in this. I just don't know whether we can shortcut that whole process. Does that feel good to you?
Ryan Pyle [01:23:55]:
It probably feels terrible.
Emily Montgomery [01:23:57]:
I think there's a place in HiLU for AI to sort of do, like, screen some of the messages and make sure there's no bullying and those sorts of things. I do question using AI for human relationships. I will be really interested to see where people come out.
Ryan Pyle [01:24:23]:
Yeah. I think it's going to be. Well, I think we can all be sure the pendulum is going to go way too far before it springs back a little bit.
Emily Montgomery [01:24:31]:
Yeah, as I said.
Ryan Pyle [01:24:33]:
So what do you have coming up for the rest of this year? I mean, are you speaking, how are you growing the app? Like, what's for the rest of your 2024 agenda?
Emily Montgomery [01:24:44]:
Yeah. It's an exciting year. We are reaching out to therapists and coaches and getting them as high volume users. So that's first on my agenda. More speaking, more podcasts, more awareness, and that's it. I'm looking forward to the summer, really.
Ryan Pyle [01:25:15]:
It's exciting. I think this year, I think coming out of COVID and coming out of where we've all been the last few years, I think people are looking to get connected in more meaningful ways. Yeah, I think that's. That's definitely, like, a trend that I've sensed in just speaking with people. And I think going after coaches is really interesting, too, because they have people that they're helping on a daily basis. It doesn't necessarily have to do with mental health or anything. You can just be business coaches or physical coaches and people you're training with. You can, you know, send some messages out to people, you know, and it's a really good way to kind of manage those relationships.
Emily Montgomery [01:25:52]:
Right, well, they're doing it already. It's just, you know, it may be on a phone call or something that's not really permanent, so you can't go back to it over time. And, you know, maybe they're super organized and they're putting it in a Google Drive folder. I'm not sure, but I sort of doubt it.
Ryan Pyle [01:26:07]:
I don't think so.
Emily Montgomery [01:26:10]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [01:26:11]:
Interesting.
Emily Montgomery [01:26:12]:
So, yeah. How about you? What do you have going on for the rest of the year?
Ryan Pyle [01:26:16]:
I mean trying to get some adventure back into space. I was very busy before COVID and since then, it's been a little bit slower. Television has changed a little bit also, so fundraising has been a bit challenging. You can imagine, like, traveling. So I used to travel about 253 hundred days a year in 2019. And, I was on a plane all the time and, um, globally, which was great. But you can imagine how that stopped in March 2020. I was actually in Ethiopia when the world closed in March 2020, and that was quite difficult to get out, and then I didn't know where to go, and then I couldn't go very many places, so that's when I ended up in Turkey for a couple months.
Emily Montgomery [01:26:58]:
Wow.
Ryan Pyle [01:26:59]:
Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [01:26:59]:
Yeah. So you got to Turkey from Ethiopia and that's how you're going to get out.
Ryan Pyle [01:27:04]:
Yeah. So the very funny thing is, in March 2020, I was a legal resident of Dubai, but I'm a Canadian passport holder and I was a property owner in Dubai and a business owner in Dubai. So I was running all my television productions out of Dubai. But in March 2020, I made the calculated decision that the rest of the world is probably going to start making travel difficult and I'm going to go to Africa because Africans are resilient, and no matter what happens to the rest of the world, people are going to wake up every day and go to work and people are just going to muddle through. Right. I think if you've traveled a lot in Africa and I have people there, just get on with life, and I love that about that part of the world. So I was like, I'm just going to go to Africa.
And it's just a three hour flight from Dubai to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. And then I was just like, I'll just film and make television in Africa for a few months while the, you know, while the rest of the world sorts this shit out. But then it just, like, Ethiopia. What happened was that the rest of the world blocked African countries from traveling back. So then I couldn't go. Yeah. So then I couldn't get back into Dubai, and I only had two options. I had Canada, which I was a Canadian passport holder, so I could go back to Canada, or I had.
Or Turkey. Had their borders open. But then, actually, I flew to Turkey, landed in Istanbul, and then Turkey closed their international borders the day I arrived. Yeah. So then I was there for a bit, and then I tried to keep the band together for a few months. And then in the summer of 2020, we got back to filming all in Europe. I got everyone back into Europe. We were filming in Europe, which was great.
We filmed in, like, I walked across Switzerland, which was amazing. We filmed in Poland, Germany, Malta, Croatia, Montenegro. But then the second wave closed in November 2020, and then that was the one that was pretty rough. And then I ended up back in Dubai. And, yeah, I've just been hanging out. And then I wanted to come back to LA last year, 2023, but then we had the writers strike and the actors strike, so that kind of pushed me back. And now I'm here and the hope is I can make adventure documentary films or adventure television and then keep running the podcast and meeting wonderful and inspiring people in between.
Emily Montgomery [01:29:14]:
Well, thank you.
Ryan Pyle [01:29:15]:
No worries. It's been an interesting relocation.
Emily Montgomery [01:29:20]:
Yeah. So how many months have you been in LA?
Ryan Pyle [01:29:22]:
Just five.
Emily Montgomery [01:29:23]:
Just five. Okay, great.
Ryan Pyle [01:29:25]:
Still fresh.
Emily Montgomery [01:29:26]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [01:29:26]:
I didn't know about the green juice place. That's how fresh I am.
Emily Montgomery [01:29:29]:
Yeah. Erewhon, you guys.
Ryan Pyle [01:29:32]:
Yeah, get on it.
Emily Montgomery [01:29:34]:
No, he didn't know. I'm slightly scandalized.
Ryan Pyle [01:29:38]:
It's beautiful.
Emily Montgomery [01:29:39]:
It's a wonderful place.
Ryan Pyle [01:29:40]:
Okay, I'll have to make sure I check it out. Healthy food. LA is the health food capital of the world, right? Yeah.
Emily Montgomery [01:29:46]:
So I've been here for three days and I have been there twice.
Ryan Pyle [01:29:52]:
And you even texted me and asked me if I wanted one. And I was stupid to say no, because looking at it now, it looks delicious.
Emily Montgomery [01:29:58]:
Yeah, we all make our choices.
Ryan Pyle [01:30:02]:
Well, I just wanted to thank you so much for swinging by, telling us about the app. So, just again, what's the app called? Where can people find it? And of course, I'll put the link on the show notes here.
Emily Montgomery [01:30:11]:
It's called Hilu and it's at teamhilu.com.
Ryan Pyle [01:30:16]:
And HiLU is short for Hi, I love you.
Emily Montgomery [01:30:19]:
Hi. I love you. U at the end.
Ryan Pyle [01:30:22]:
It's so sweet. And I wish you the best of luck. Yeah. This is going to be an exciting year. You just launched it in January, so this is really the first year that it's going to get going.
Emily Montgomery [01:30:32]:
Yeah. Thank you.
Ryan Pyle [01:30:33]:
Best of luck.
Emily Montgomery [01:30:34]:
Yeah.
Ryan Pyle [01:30:34]:
And now we can go to this one and we can. So people can see we're in the same bloody room shaking hands. Very nice to meet you. Thank you for swinging by, for having me. More out.
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