Oftentimes, the journey to our true calling is winding and unexpected. Take Lainey Morse, who went from office manager to creator of the viral trend, Goat Yoga, thanks to her natural affinity for goats and throwing parties.
Back in 2015, Lainey bought a farm in Oregon and got her first goats who she named Ansel and Adams. "Once I got them, I was obsessed," says Lainey. "It was hard to get me off the farm to go do anything else."
Right away, she noticed what a calming presence they had. "Even the way they chew their cud is relaxing to be around because it's very methodical," she says. Lainey was going through a divorce and dealing with a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis at the time, but even when things got particularly hard, the goats provided relief.
"I found it impossible to be stressed or depressed when I was with them."
She started inviting friends up to the farm for what she called "Goat Happy Hour." Soon, the word spread about Lainey's delightful, stress-relieving furry friends. At one point, she auctioned off a child's birthday party at her farm, and the mom asked if they could do yoga with the goats. And lo, the idea for goat yoga was born.
A baby goat on a yoga student. Photo courtesy of Lainey Morse
Goat yoga went viral so much so that by fall of 2016, Lainey was able to quit her office manager job at a remodeling company to manage her burgeoning goat yoga business full-time. Now she has 10 locations nationwide.
Lainey handles the backend management for all of her locations, and loves that side of the business too, even though it's less goat-related. "I still have my own personal Goat Happy Hour every single day so I still get to spend a lot of time with my goats," says Lainey. "I get the best of both worlds."
Lainey with her goat Fabio. Photo courtesy of Lainey Morse
Since COVID-19 hit, her locations have had to close temporarily. She hopes her yoga locations will be able to resume classes in the spring when the vaccine is more widely available. "I think people will need goat yoga more than ever before, because everyone has been through so much stress in 2020," says Lainey.
Major life changes like Lainey's can come around for any number of reasons. Even if they seem out of left field to some, it doesn't mean they're not the right moves for you. The new FOX series "Call Me Kat", which premieres Sunday, January 3rd after NFL and will continue on Thursday nights beginning January 7th, exemplifies that. The show is centered around Kat, a 39-year old single woman played by Mayim Bialik, who quit her math professor job and spent her life's savings to pursue her dreams to open a Cat Café in Louisville, Kentucky.
Jeff Harry started making similar moves when he was just 10-years-old, and kept making them throughout his life. After seeing the movie "Big,"Jeff knew he wanted to play with toys for a living, so he started writing toy companies asking for next steps. He finally got a response when he was a sophomore in high school — the company told him he needed to become a mechanical engineer first.
He did that, and eventually got a job with Toys R Us in the Labor Planning Department where he was almost immediately disillusioned. "There was no play, no fun, no high fives, and no kids," says Jeff.
Soon after, in late 2001, he decided to quit the business and move across the country to Oakland, California. While there, he found a job posting on Craigslist for a STEM education company called Play-Well, which uses LEGOs to teach kids about engineering. Even though they only had 7 employees and only paid $150 a week, he thought it sounded promising and applied.
Courtesy of Jeff Harry
Over the next 16 years, Jeff helped grow the company to over 400 employees. By "embracing a play-oriented mindset, we said yes to everything even if we didn't know if we would be able to figure it out," says Jeff. "We were constantly doing experiments, open to failure, not fixated on certain results." Through this method, they became the largest LEGO-inspired STEM organization in the United States.
Since they were teaching lots of kids whose parents worked in Silicon Valley, they were eventually asked to run team-building workshops with some of the top tech companies in the business. They did this for nine years and excelled at it, but eventually, Jeff began to feel like the importance of play was getting lost. In response, he created a consulting business called Rediscover Your Play, which uses positive psychology and play to help reinvigorate employees and help companies tackle workplaces challenges.
Now, he finally feels like he's found his purpose because he's living, and sharing, his passion for play every day.
Your life and career path don't have to look like anyone else's, in fact, it's usually better when they don't. If you follow your gut and buy some goats or apply to an unorthodox job posting on Craigslist, you might just open a door to one spectacular future.
So, this New Year...Quit your job. Open a cat cafe. Live your best life.
Call Me Kat premieres on FOX Sunday, January 3rd after NFL and continues on Thursdays beginning January 7th at 9/8c. Starring Mayim Bialik, the show is about a 39-year-old woman who quit her successful, yet unfulfilling, job to pursue her dreams to open a cat café. Kat couldn't be any happier with her new life… despite her mother pushing Kat to get married already!
Beaver in water. Photo by 
An actual beaver dam on the now-thriving Price River
Not just coworkers—family, friends, strangers, kids… 
Imagine having to go so badly but being out of euros. 
Anything hobbit-esque can't be wrong. 
But what if you need pain meds AND mascara?!
Imagine how this would affect childcare.
Honestly…where's the lie? 
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Urgent dash to the bathroom! 🚪🏃♂️
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."