Corinna Bellizzi, Care More. Be Better Podcast, The Truth About our Neanderthal Kin

In this episode Anne Marie talks to do-gooder Corinna Bellizzi, host and producer of care more. be better podcast. Corinna reaches back to her anthropology roots and shares her take on the archaic human species Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, better known as Neanderthal, how the species has been misinterpreted and misrepresented by the academic gatekeepers of anthropological and archeological studies for hundreds of years.

Corinna lives, works, and podcasts from her home in Scotts Valley, California. She is available for brand development, CSR planning sessions and speaking engagements. She will fire you up, and propel you into action.

care more. be better. is a podcast and a community that share stories of inspired individuals, social entrepreneurs and conscious companies from around the globe who create a positive impact in their communities. From pay-it-forward marketers to not-for-profits and community activists, the stories we feature will get you thinking about what you can do differently to be the change you want to see in the world.

Resources

care more. be better. Website: https://www.caremorebebetter.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caremore.bebetter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CareMoreBeBettr
Faceboook: https://www.facebook.com/CareMoreBeBetter

Smithsonian Website; Homo Neanderthalensis:  https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-neanderthalensis

Clan of the Cave Bear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clan_of_the_Cave_Bear

GEICO commercials: https://youtu.be/C34_Lf5L-Gk
                                                https://youtu.be/H02iwWCrXew

care more. be better. episodes mentioned in Episode
The Power of One with Kayra Martinez, Love Without Borders for Refugees in Need: https://www.caremorebebetter.com/episodes/the-power-of-one

Saving Sight with Robert Bellizzi: https://www.caremorebebetter.com/episodes/saving-sight

To Support Armchair Historians:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/armchairhistorians
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/belgiumrabbitproductions

Transcript

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Anne Marie Cannon: 0:00

Hello, my name is Anne Marie Cannon and I'm the host of armchair historians. What's your favorite history? Each episode begins with this one question. Our guests come from all walks of life, YouTube celebrities, comedians, historians, even neighbors from the small mountain community that I live in. There are people who love history and get really excited about a particular time, place or person from our distance or not so distant past. The jumping off point is the place where they became curious that entered the rabbit hole into discovery. Fueled by an unrelenting need to know more, we look at history through the filter of other people's eyes. armchair historians is a Belgian rabbit production. Stay up to date with us through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Wherever you listen to your podcast that is where you'll find us. I'm chair historians as an independent, commercial free podcast. If you'd like to support the show and keep it ad free, you can buy us a cup of coffee through coffee or you can become a patron through Patreon links to both in the Episode Notes. Today my guest is Kareena believes he host and producer of caremore be better a podcast that shares stories of inspired individuals, social entrepreneurs and conscious companies from around the globe who create a positive impact in their communities. Today Kareena reaches back to her early academic days when she was studying anthropology as an undergraduate student at university she shares with us her take on a topic that she fell in love with them, and is still passionate about today, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis better known as Neanderthal. Now, I want you to think of the word Neanderthal. What comes to mind? Is it a hulking unintelligent caveman, or perhaps the Geico commercials that feature the all too misunderstood species? So while you listen to this episode, I want you to think about where you're messaging about the Neanderthal species came from? And perhaps, just maybe, you will even begin to question your beliefs about the species whose DNA we only recently discovered, is part of the human genome. Kareena blizzy. Welcome, and thank you for being here today.

Corinna Bellizzi: 2:28

Well, thank you so much for having me. So we talked a little bit about the history you're going to talk about, and I don't have a lot of information, but I have one thing that I'll contribute. So why don't you just take us there and tell us? What is your favorite history that you're going to talk about today? Well, my favorite history is actually a pre history. Now, what defines history is essentially the written word, having a written record, having the ability to go back and see somebody's perspective on the things that happened. And what I loved so much when I was first going to college was learning about anthropology and picturing a world that hadn't been written down. One in which we had to go from the solid materials that were left behind, or the cave paintings to really kind of discover what human life would have been like, without somebody's perspective to color it. It's almost like taking a biological perspective into what our history really is. And as I explored and deepened my own interest in anthropology, I got really enamored with the Neanderthal species. And I think partly that may have come from reading clan of the cave bears when I was, you know, a young girl, just kind of discovering my own wants or desires. If I wanted to read something for fun. You know, when I was growing up in the 80s, Daryl Hannah played this character, and I think it was a made for TV movie. And I just kind of fell in love then I fell in love further with Indiana Jones. And it was like, I think I was at an age where I was exploring what I wanted to be in life. And so it was something that just opened my mind and continued to get me seeking. And when I learned about the Neanderthal in particular, the thing that fascinated me was that they cohabitated with modern Homo sapiens in Western Europe for over 30,000 years. So the question I got to thinking about was, what would it have been like to live with a species that's different from you, inhabiting the same space for that long? Almost every other species on the planet has that, and the closest thing we have today in our modern life is a chimpanzee. I mean, I've often encountered people who didn't believe in evolutionary thought, who say things like, Oh, well, I'm not condescended from a chimpanzee. And they just don't understand what evolution really means. I think that's ultimately at the root of it. But there was this whole thought process as I was going to undergraduate school. Can I just ask you? And I know if you don't want to say, tell me. Okay, what year was that? Because I was just reading about the things that we found out about Neanderthal and just the past 10 years, I think. Yeah, so I was in college as early as 93. And my senior year in high school, I started attending classes at deanza. College, while I was figuring out what I wanted to do and what I might want to stay. And so I took my first anthropology class with Tyga, absher. Walker, who at the time, I had no idea what her background was, she ends up being she's actually a Stanford schooled, PhD in anthropology, incredibly bright, incredibly charismatic. At the time I had a class from her she was, I think, in our 60s, white haired, and talking about really controversial topics, right? Like our whole thought process around Neanderthals, she thought was quite antiquated. And what she had to say about that was that there was a really good reason. And that good reason was that what she called dwemer, dead white European males, had basically written our history of archaeology, and that these people had essentially hung on to their tenure and in their positions at universities and doing research until their dying breaths, that these coveted positions didn't often come open. And when they did, they were occupied by other European white males, who further perpetuated the same ideas or similar ideas to what had been seen in the past. And so what she described to me at that phase was, was something that resonated with me because it was something I saw, even just in our culture here in the United States, like it seems like histories are written by those who who win the war, or, you know, what we're taught in school is so focused on the perspective of the winner, which is, I think, what ultimately got me so interested in prehistory, because there was no one there to say what actually happened, you had to go to the science to figure it out. And while that was true, there was still that cohort of dead white European males that had their thoughts, essentially leading where the science would go or where perspective would go. So when you ask the question about how much things have changed in the last 10 years, I mean, it has been dramatic. When I was writing my thesis at UC Santa Cruz. I graduated in 1998. Right, so my thesis was in winter of 98. I graduated December that year. And I decided to write on the capabilities of Neanderthal to have modern speech capabilities to communicate with other homosapiens living at the time. And here's something that your audience may not know. We are Homo sapiens sapiens. We have named ourselves wise wise man, because Sapiens means wise. Okay. So, wise wise man is actually what we've called ourselves, Neanderthals or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. So they are only a sub genus so to speak, they're part of the same species. And we, however, continue to try and separate ourselves from them for all of my education path. There was Eric Trinkaus. He's a Neanderthal specialist had written a book specifically about the Neanderthals after a hyoid bone had been discovered. And hyoid bone, it's just a bone in your throat by your larynx that is, you know, really has a lot to do with speech capabilities and modern human beings. And so he was making all of these scientific suppositions about their ability to speak, and what that could have meant for the 30,000 years that we lived side by side in Western Europe, right? So if we lived side by side in Western Europe for 30 years, and the entire academic world is trying to say, Oh, well, they might have lived side by side, but they didn't share technology. They might have lived side by side, but they didn't interbreed. I mean, they were two different. These were dumb, big oafish people that didn't represent this refined human perspective. I mean, that was everything of what we were being taught. While I had more, I would say, professors that were a little bit more open to the alternative and the possibility that, hey, maybe they did speak, and maybe they did an upgrade. And do we know if they were physically capable of actually breeding or not. And of course, a few years ago, we found that that we were able to extract the DNA from teeth in a particular Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, right and Neanderthal. And we were able to sequence that genome. And then we were able to analyze modern Homo sapiens genes and say, guess what? This is actually present in our current genome. That means that Neanderthals did breed with modern Homo sapiens.

Anne Marie Cannon: 10:16

Well, and that's my one contribution. I was looking at my 23andme, because 2% Neanderthal.

Corinna Bellizzi: 10:23

Yeah, you know, and it's like, if you were from Western Europe, the reality is that you are likely to have more. And so I'm I have I took my 23andme specifically to find out how much Neanderthal I have by reference to the rest of the population. And I have more Neanderthal than 34% of the current human population from what they've been able to see.

Anne Marie Cannon: 10:47

Okay. Yeah, more than 37. So we're about the same Wow.

Corinna Bellizzi: 10:51

Yeah. So So I think the natural question then becomes what is different between us? Right? What was different? What does the evidence show was really that different? You know, what we see is that their bodies were a little bit more robust, right? Their brains were actually quite different from our own. And that is what is really fascinating to me. The Neanderthal brain was actually a little bit larger than modern Homo sapiens by a couple 100. cc. But what was different about it is that it had less crenellations, it was less ribbed, so to speak, which modern people and evolutionary science have come to say, well, that means that they had less dendrites or less neurons firing or less of an ability to have the same cognition as modern homosapiens. But the reality is, we don't really know, we don't really know how different they were. All we have are these endocranial casts are basically the cast of what would have been the skull, right, we're able to take that and see what looks different from the outside. And what this gets me to thinking about is really, how different are we between species that are similar, like among the monkeys, and chimpanzees, apes, orangutan, whatever, and other species that are far less related to us? I mean, we have this sense, we have this continual kind of quest, it seems to try and separate ourselves from other species as if we're somehow better, we're wise, wise man, right. And I just don't think that as science continues to advance that that is going to continue to be proven. In fact, we just keep disproving it, we say first, oh, what separates us from animals is that we use tools. Oh, well, a chimpanzee uses a tool? Oh, well, no, no, no. What separates us from animals is that we modify tools. Oh, well, the chimpanzee modifies a tool Oh, and so does a crow. So, so what is uniquely human? And I would argue that really, almost nothing except for war. You know, it's like we have this tribal nature, that has some really great things about it. This sense of community, the sense of helping one another, the sense of being there to support the health of our population, or our grandparents and our children or those that are less abled, or differently abled than ourselves. Yet, what do we do we create things like war, to battle one another for resources in a way that is more brutal than one you often see in the other parts of the animal kingdom.

Anne Marie Cannon: 13:31

I might even go on to say that. The other thing that goes hand in hand with wars ego,

Unknown: 13:40

wise, wise man,

Anne Marie Cannon: 13:42

ego is the downfall of a lot of things and people and myself included that pigheadedness pigheadedness. What's the Latin for that?

Corinna Bellizzi: 13:54

I don't know. Why can't we just say, I don't know.

Anne Marie Cannon: 13:56

I don't know. Yeah.

Corinna Bellizzi: 13:57

Why can't we get more comfortable with the I could be maybe

Anne Marie Cannon: 14:03

I in one of the things that I love about this in the way that you're explaining it is that I love history. I've studied history, I've written historical fiction. And what is the thing that comes to mind is that there was a belief that this particular there was a particular instrument, medieval whatever. And they believed that it was written that it didn't come into being until like the 17 hundred's. And why? Why would Why did that become a fact because it wasn't written down. But in the 15 at some point in the mid 1500s, there was a ship that sank in the input is now the English Channel. And it was called the Mary Rose. And in that ship was a lot of well preserved artifacts. So when it was brought up in In the 1980s, it enlightened us about a lot of things. And one of those things was that instrument that was actually found on that ship. And so I think what this tells me and, you know, I didn't start to realize until more recently, and kudos to you that you had those professors and the open mindedness to think about things in the way that you did back in the 1990s. And be so controversial. Well, just to be honest, I think you were just being you were on a quest for truth, right?

Corinna Bellizzi: 15:31

Yeah, I mean, I just feel like we've been sort of book of lies. As we have studied history in school. I think one of the things that I found most frustrating about history, and in school, I'm talking about high school, elementary, etc. And probably the reason I didn't really want to study it was everything seemed so sequentially organized, like I was supposed to remember the date that something happened. And I was supposed to memorize a thing that some particular person said, but it didn't have a frame of context that was meaningful for me. And I think part of that is in how history is taught in school, just in the public school system. But I think part of that is really getting to not being willing to really form a context for people for fear of stepping on their personal beliefs and raising problems with their parents. And I'm speaking in particular of religion, when I when I talk about that, because I think it gets in the way of us being able to have open conversations about things that may be a little controversial, that maybe open that don't have an answer. I just wish that we could get a little smarter about how we educate our student and body from that perspective, so that we raise inquisitive individuals who are seeking to have a better understanding of the context of the why. So we don't keep repeating the same problems that keep repeating the same mistakes.

Anne Marie Cannon: 17:06

That's really important. And I had an experience in college when I went to, I actually went to a community college, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And I never really liked history, I never had a connection to it. And that connection is so important, because I ended up with the teacher who taught history. And every day, it was a great story. She taught it like it was this epic story. And I couldn't wait to go to her class because it had context meaningful context, to me. And I think that's really important and enlightening what you said, I think you had that experience also in college, right?

Corinna Bellizzi: 17:51

So I did. I mean, there was just this moment to when an instructor is really inspired to open your mind. When they come from that perspective, when they're tackling the job of giving a lecture. It changes everything about the experience of the students. And I had no idea how lucky I was to be in that classroom. That anthro one on one with Ty's abs, your Walker. I had no idea until it started. One of the can we cuss on the show?

Anne Marie Cannon: 18:19

Absolutely. Yeah,

Corinna Bellizzi: 18:24

so she gave this lecture. And I described her already like she's in her 60s, white hurdled lady. And she gave this lecture on the etymology of the word, and the etymology of the word Fuck, okay. And so she went way back and started talking about how this word came to be and how it first started as almost an uprising against the royalty of England. And its first use was in the 15th or 14th century, I can't remember which and so she goes from talking about it was first deemed as an insult as you are being a fuck. And if you fucked something, you were didn't have anything to do with sex. That's the thing it was, it was really just this lower class of individuals that was working to kind of raise up against the monarchy, so to speak. And I remember very little of the lecture, except for the fact that I was just sitting there jaw dropping over the fact that this 60 something year old woman was saying the F word like 100 times in a variety of capacities in a variety of ways. Over the course of an hour,

Anne Marie Cannon: 19:31

you had me at foc,

Unknown: 19:32

right?

Corinna Bellizzi: 19:35

This is not something that you expect, right? And just by being in a lecture with somebody where you had this really unexpected experience, just got you thinking differently and got you more engaged and suddenly I was going from a student who may have dragged my feet on the way to certain classes to I had that spring in my step saying, you know, well, what else can I find out today and even quiet It says that we're related at all to hers, just because that inspiration had gotten inside my belly. And I think it was just so meaningful to me to see something done in such a different way, in a traditional classroom setting.

Anne Marie Cannon: 20:17

Wow.

Corinna Bellizzi: 20:19

You know, think back to all the moments over my life when I've been in an educational system. And all of the moments that I dreaded going to that history class to only find that I, you know, spent four years studying pre history, because one teacher opened my eyes to seeing something a little differently, and asking questions about what might have been. I have another kind of anecdote about the Neanderthals like this relates back to how we saw them as different, right? Yeah. You know, we got to a split, a place where we described what was different between homosapiens or Homo sapiens, Sapiens wise, wise man and the underdogs. And these professionals leading the charge would say, Oh, they were different, because they were different, because oh, their brains were different. Oh, you know, they didn't have the same art that we had. And so if you look at what was happening in Western Europe, 30,000 years ago, suddenly, you see this explosion of fixed art with art in caves, right? In France. Yeah, all over France, Lascaux, Spain. There's Lascaux, too. There's all these different spaces that you can go to to see replications of those artists renderings, and also just all over the Americas to like, we just see this explosion starting around 30,000 years ago. And so when I think about that, what happened, right, like Neanderthals had been living with modern Homo sapiens over the course of about 30,000 years, up until around that point, up until around that point, when suddenly there was this explosion. And so that gets me to wondering if there was perhaps some unique kind of influence that came from Neanderthal DNA into modern Homo sapiens that literally created something new. Because that period of life, what we refer to as this around 30 30,000 years ago, where we start to see fixed art, not just the mobile art, not just the things that they bring around with them, you know, like the Venus statues that you might have seen, or the stone tools or the jewelry that you might have seen, from different archeology, archaeological digs, then you see this explosion of, you know, really fixed art that doesn't proceed that moment. So could it be that right around the time that we see Neanderthals phase out, they've essentially come in to our species and changed it. And if something around that moment happened, and this suppose that behavioral modern experience, this behaviorally modern human, became behaviorally modern, not only through evolution, but through influence from the Neanderthal species, and something I think about it, I don't know if it's anything that could ever be proven. But to just try and think differently about the things that we're taught in school. We're not just man, we're wise, wise man. Well, what makes us so wise? I mean, shouldn't it be the skepticism and the seeking and the thinking that makes us wiser?

Anne Marie Cannon: 23:20

Being able to sit in the discomfort instead of going to war? Have the conversations? Yeah.

Corinna Bellizzi: 23:28

Well, and just share technology share resources, like why can't we get to a space where we can say, you know, there's enough diamonds in the world for everyone to have one, let's stop making this, you know, some precious gem that we will wage wars over or that individuals will die mining for like, why do we have to have that existence? Why do we have to have that human experience? Can we shift? Can we moved to something different?

Anne Marie Cannon: 23:56

Well, let me ask you that question. Why can't we? I asked the question. Yeah, I

Corinna Bellizzi: 24:04

don't think it's a we can't I think there is resistance to change that is also endemic in our species, like we, in particular, after about the age of 30, resist change, resist learning something new resist trying to discover new music. I mean, there's statistics about on this, that people actually stopped discovering new music, often in their early 30s. Like by the early 30s. It's like their music taste is fixed, it doesn't change. They don't find new things. They might not even listen to new music. So if there's a way that we can move forward and pass that or we all kind of seek to embrace continual learning throughout our lives, if we can all accept that we don't know what we don't know. And seek to continue learning then I think we can shift out of it but there's resist Even that

Anne Marie Cannon: 25:02

I'm guilty, I have to say I'm guilty of all those things. And yet, putting new things in is always vital. There's like a vitality to learning new things and hearing new things and thinking in different ways. And yet I have to say, I'm that person. I'm way past 30. And, yeah, well, there's

Corinna Bellizzi: 25:20

comfort in what you know. Yeah, right. Yeah, there's a lot of comfort in what you know, like, what do you reach for when you're feeling sick? It's probably the same basic staple foods that you had when you were a little kid. It's not likely to be something new, right? Because there's comfort in it. It's a warm path. I think forging new trails is important. I think continuing to read and learn is important. I mean, I'm 44 now and I just started, I embarked on graduate studies two years ago, I'll be graduating this June with an MBA from Santa Clara University. And I would have never thought that my path would lead me there. You know, I'm, what did I start out as this hopeful little kid that wanted to be Indiana Jones, I graduated with a degree in anthropology writing a thesis about Neanderthal modern speech capabilities based on lithic reduction sequences and stone tools, like what stone tools had to say about the share of technology. That's what I was looking at. What did I end up doing? I ended up going into natural products and sales, marketing and spending 20 years doing that before I decided I wanted to go get my MBA, which is again, not related to anything in anthropology, archaeology. So why why did I make that choice?

Anne Marie Cannon: 26:39

I did want to ask you, just to kind of stay with the history. before we delve deeply into who you are, where you come from, and what work you're putting out in the universe. today. I'd like to ask you, one of the things you already kind of touched on, is where do we see this history in pop culture? And you say, Clint clan of the cave bear was one that I thought, Oh,

Unknown: 27:02

yeah.

Corinna Bellizzi: 27:04

We see, we see that. God Neanderthals have never been portrayed in the kindest of light. Yeah, it's interesting, because we see them as brutish. Yeah. If you look at cartoons from, you know, evolutionary science history over the course of the years, they were essentially these lumbering hawks of people with wood stick, that they'd clobber you over the head with or hunting for mammoths, right? You'd see, in kind of the cave bear, you're exposed to this species that is seen as really rudimentary, only grunting, not having the ability to speak, the primary character who is played by Daryl Hannah in the movie is, you know, seen in a rape scene where she's taken by this Hulk of a person that is seen as depicted as lesser than modern homosapien. So even, you know, in that first exposure, when I was first discovering what this caveman was, like, I was being influenced, in a way by our culture to think of this other as bad. That's something that we encounter kind of constantly. In our culture today, like you, you see this hate towards other from one group to another, it's kind of like connected to that tribalism I was speaking of earlier, that same thing that Bond's us together also has the capacity to create some toxicity and dislike between groups, or prejudice between groups is so I feel like how we have seen the Neanderthal for the bulk of my living life and the bulk of history is of this other brutish and kind of necessarily bad in the perspective of pop culture. And that's only starting to change a little bit. As we understand that we have 2% or 3% of Neanderthal DNA in our bodies.

Anne Marie Cannon: 29:04

Well, I also thought of the insurance commercials, or the Neanderthal characters, I can't remember if it's Geico, it's probably Geico. But do you know which one I'm talking about?

Corinna Bellizzi: 29:19

I think they've seen it. I don't really remember it clearly,

Anne Marie Cannon: 29:22

where they're like, they're really actually the cerebral ones, but they're tired and they're tired of being depicted the way that they're depicted. And they're actually very funny commercials, because it kind of embodies this whole idea of how misunderstood Neanderthals really have been. Based on that. What did you call them? The the dead white,

Corinna Bellizzi: 29:46

European, dead white European male? Gwen's Right.

Anne Marie Cannon: 29:50

Yeah.

Corinna Bellizzi: 29:51

Yeah. I mean, if you remember clan of the cave bear, if you read that book, I saw

Anne Marie Cannon: 29:55

the movie.

Corinna Bellizzi: 29:56

If you read the books, which is an entire series, it ends up being almost Like a romance novel, I mean, it's there's a lot of sex in those books, which is I think, probably also why I wanted to read them at 12 and 13 years old, right. But you know, if I look to their their theory about what's different, what they shared was that the Neanderthals in that book series like had this memory of generations, like thinking about how their brain was different, perhaps they actually had some sort of stored memory where they could remember the lives of the communities that existed before them somehow, or something kind of magical along those lines. But I think that also leans to considering the Neanderthal more like an animal more based on instinct, which is, I think, also still kind of a common thought, like, we would just see them as, you know, more animal like than human like, which is just it's, you know, we don't know, that's the reality, we just don't know.

Anne Marie Cannon: 30:53

And as, as technology advances, the more we know, the more we realize how wrong we've been. The dams have really ruled, and based on what their egos

Corinna Bellizzi: 31:07

are just what was the path that has been well worn, you know, like, from Socrates to present kinder

Anne Marie Cannon: 31:12

than I am,

Corinna Bellizzi: 31:14

you know, they get used to a particular idea, okay. And that particular idea gets passed on, and it gets passed on and gets passed on. And one of the things I really love about science and scientific theory, in general is that it's, you know, really seeking to prove and replicate what your ideas are, and being open to being disproven. I mean, how many times in my lifetime now, have we considered Pluto a planet or not right now? I mean, I don't know if it ever it will affect me personally to beyond just being like, no, when I learned when I was in school, it was a planet. So it's got to stay a planet, right? Because that's a well worn path for me. But it doesn't have any real impact in my daily life. You know, the sorts of things that I think we need to be concerned with, as we head forward, particularly through this time, when there's so much polarizing thought out there is that we are more similar than more different. There's actually no difference between the races, and we're all the same race where the human race, all of our differences are essentially skin deep. And you know, there are a few very minor, like physical traits that exist beyond the grave where you can analyze bones and see small differences, like the orbital Ridge is slightly sharper in my eye, or I have a more pronounced shoveling in the back of my teeth, which is an indication of Mongolian history. And guess what, I take the 23andme test, and they show me No, no Eastern Asian ancestry. So what does that say? I mean, maybe the test isn't even completely accurate, right? Because

Anne Marie Cannon: 32:50

they're constantly changing it for ancestry. They're like, they're taking away some of the things that they told me I was, and they're updating their algorithm or whatever. So it's constantly changing.

Corinna Bellizzi: 33:03

Yeah. A few weeks ago, I was 2%. No, read Norwegian. Now, I'm not at all now I have Malta on my history. So I'm like, oh, more North African. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, the thing is, we we still don't know what we don't know. And we should still be in a discovery mode. And we should remember that we are one species, and that our neighbors don't have wants and desires that are all that different from our own, then seek to understand one another and lock arms together and get through the difficult times together, like the time of COVID. I mean, this has been an insane year. And if I look back on my entire the history of all the prehistory that I've read over the years to, you know, I don't know that I could put my finger on a single time, that is that I've studied where it's been this kind of toxic and crazy, where human connection has been more challenged, because of, you know, a disease that can just wipe out a significant portion of the population, it's been a difficult time to be alive.

Anne Marie Cannon: 34:11

It has been that coupled with the political climate over the past four years. But we don't need to go there because I keep when you're talking, I'm like, she's, she's a better person than I am. And that's probably not the right way to put it. I just have such a knot in my stomach when I think about reaching out to what I consider the other the other side, so I've never felt this polarized from a part of the population in all of my life than I have. So I, I am part of that may be problem. You know, where I think we all are and you know, so this is what goes on in my mind. So I need to take a look at myself, but are they doing that? No. So this is where like my thinking goes, and then it just builds up all this energy.

Corinna Bellizzi: 35:06

And that's a negative thought cycle to get stuck into. You know, I think one of the bits of knowledge that I've gleaned from the past few years of my life, is that if we spend more time together, if we actually talk and connect with people that we disagree with, typically, you're able to mend bridges. It's a path that is more uncomfortable than some I mean, there's this whole perspective of I can't remember the exact person's name, but is an African American male that started to, to befriend people in the KKK to try and kind of change their mind through friendship. And actually was successful in converting a couple of people to walk away from that, because they had this one framed idea of how black people were. And because they had this singularly framed idea of who this other was, they had developed all sorts of prejudice thoughts about what that other person was like. As similarly, I was listening to a podcast recently, where an individual had a roommate that was from a completely different religion. And they had a lot of ideas that were very dissimilar, and over the course of living with one another and eating meals together and cooking with one another, essentially became best friends. And how would that change their perspective on the other person's culture. And so what I think we need to keep in mind is that we really aren't that different. And if we can find commonality with one another, we can actually bridge gaps, we can solve complex problems. And we can start to see one another as same as opposed to different, but it doesn't come without work. And people have to be willing and open to doing the work. And I think that's the hardest thing.

Anne Marie Cannon: 37:06

That's very insightful. There's a lot, there's a lot of truth in that. I see it, I feel it, even though it brushes up against that, you know, what is that that tribal mentality and may

Corinna Bellizzi: 37:19

or, you know, it's hard to look at oneself. And so it's easy to get defensive. And I think that's what happens often when you have two polarizing opposite ideas in the same room, right? Like one person will get defensive about their beliefs. I mean, I've even had it where, like, just, I just actually interviewed somebody for my podcast about sustainable minimalism. And I consider myself to be a sustainability champion. And I try to be mentalist minimalist, but even reading a book about minimalism, I mean, sometimes I had to put it down, because at first I felt judged by the book, with the words on the page. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, I look too much like that. Am I a packrat? Like, I have this hard time letting go of things. I'm obviously internalizing too much some of these judgments about myself like I could have should have didn't, would have. And I think we just have to give ourselves a pass, you know? Yeah, give ourselves a break.

Anne Marie Cannon: 38:32

I needed to hear that today. I really needed to hear that. Thank you.

Corinna Bellizzi: 38:37

I was just thinking about, you know, the, the differences. And there was a really interesting effort in San Francisco, this gentleman created this kosher hollow company where he's doing both things at once. And there aren't many that are doing that, right, because you have the people that want to code your product and the people that want to Hello product, and the practices are quite similar. So you could certify both, but no company had really taken the charge to do that. So he decided to, and he also decided to launch a conversation with Abe's kitchen. So he would host these dinners. And this is, of course before COVID. And he'll probably get back to it soon. But he would host these dinners where he brought together people that were Muslim, and people that were Jewish, and also people that had no faith like atheists together for these dinners. And he would organize the seating arrangement so that you didn't have any people of the particular faith sitting together. And so by doing this, his whole quest was to essentially enable people to open that conversation with one another and discover that their differences were less than they had thought. And so one of the stories that he works to tell is about the people that would come to him after the dinner and talk to about it like they say, Oh, well, that made me really uncomfortable. But I actually want to talk to you about this because it got me thinking about X, Y, and Z differently. I think that's where we kind of need to head as a people, we need to, to be able to create these opportunities, these spaces where we can connect, as opposed to only hearing our own points of view. Because as we look at social media, we are essentially being fed what we want to hear. And that is not encouraging an inquisitive mind. We follow the particular news channels that are telling us the things that we agree with already, or the things that we have been taught to be concerned about in a particular way. And then we're not hearing the other side, it's like the the old journalism of our you This seems to have died. And I think we should seek to try and replace that with more truth and a broader perspective. If we can kind of push in this perspective where we're, we're seeking to be informed in an open way, and able to extend the hand across an aisle to somebody who has a different point of view, I think that would be tremendous progress. Would you host a dinner with people of different faiths? Like after, you know, I mean, wouldn't that be so interesting, I just,

Anne Marie Cannon: 41:29

yeah, I, I was married to a Muslim, a Palestinian Muslim. He's the father of my daughter. And it's been interesting watching her evolve and grow up. You know, she embodies that, because she would go and spend summers with a grandmother and Jordan, and she learned how to cook. And she was really tapped into the, the culture and the rituals. And really, that's when my eyes opened up was when I traveled to Kuwait to meet my in laws back in the, I guess it was the 80s. And I saw that, how narrow minded we tend to be if we're in this country, and we don't move out of especially like the, the towns that we grew up in, and we don't move out of that. And, you know, I did, right, it really enlightened me, and I started seeing the world in a very different way. And unlike you, you seem to intuitively have your own sense of, I don't know, morality, when you were in college, even probably before that I admired that about you that you were able to see through what you had been fed. And with this new information that you're getting, were able to, you know, write that paper for your thesis. So everything you're saying, I know to be true. I, for myself, have struggled, because to protect myself for four years, I had to, you know, put on literally a wall figurative wall to survive. And I don't even know that I did that. But what you're saying is true. And I know that and I'm glad that you're sharing this with me kind of your thank you for taking me down the rabbit hole as they ring true. And so is there anything else about the history that you wanted to talk about before we kind of delve into who you are and your podcast? Yeah, you

Corinna Bellizzi: 43:33

know, I think the takeaway I would want anyone to walk away from conversation about history with is simply that, you know, we only have the perspectives that have been written down or studied. And we don't have everything, we never have the complete picture. As hard as will work, we'll never have the complete picture. And so remaining open to new thoughts and new ideas, I think is imperative no matter what you're looking at. There's this whole concept that we've worn these paths before that history repeats itself. And I would argue that that's not exactly true. I think it's something that we've been told time and again, if feels true, it feels like cycles repeat themselves, but never quite in the same way. And so if we are to learn anything, I think it's that we don't know everything. And we should just continue to stay open. With regard to Neanderthals, I would just say, if you do decide to study them, study them with a kind of mind, you know, understand that a human history is really interesting. There's so much to it, but we're not unique. In the challenges we face, we are in a sense, just like the chipmunk that's trying to survive today, out in their natural habitat, the primary difference between us is that, hey, we can we can build a house and build in air conditioning and cyclic eat, it doesn't mean that we're all at different. So I think that's it. That's really what I want to say about history.

Anne Marie Cannon: 45:24

We found each other on Facebook, it was a group on Facebook, and it had nothing to do with podcasting. But you had set I don't even remember what the group was. And you said something about your podcast, and then we started talking, and then we connected and, and then you extended, you know, a hand and said, Oh, I'd love to talk to you. And I was like, Oh, yeah, because I'm still new with this. And I'm always interested to talk to other podcasters, about how they do what they do what they're doing, can I fit them as in his guests to talk about their favorite history. And we had a couple conversations since then, to now and one of the things that I noticed is, as you would talk about your history, and probably also from listening to the podcast, but it seems like everything that you have done from your undergrad studying the Neanderthal to today and what you're doing the things that you were doing, because you're not just doing one thing, if you looked at it, it would have been the perfect design to leave you to lead you to where you are today. So I want you to talk a little bit about that history. What happened after your undergraduate? And then I want you to talk about the podcast because I feel like the podcast came about because of all these other things that were a part of your life. Yeah, that makes sense.

Corinna Bellizzi: 46:43

Yeah, no, it does. And I appreciate the invitation to tell my story. I mean, it's not always easy to describe what choices you made along the way, and why I studied anthropology and archaeology in school, because it's kind of a silly story. But my dad was putting pressure on me to go into the sciences. Like he knew that I loved biology. And I really loved the life sciences, everything animal related, I was really into. And so he's like, honey, but these are growing fields, why not become biotechnologist, you could do this. And I'm like, Dad, but I hate math. Like, I can't do this. And I was an avid reader. I loved just reading literature and writing. And so I wanted to study English and literature. And he's like, No, no, he didn't want to fund that. And it's not like he was giving me a lot of money for college, but he was giving me some of it. So I compromised on anthropology after taking ties abs, your Walker's class, right. And then four years later, I'm graduating, I've done a couple of archaeology digs in Western Europe and France, as well as in Central California. And I knew I loved it. I mean, I loved digging in the dirt, exploring it, the site, trying to discover something new spending the time in the lab, and you know, cataloging what you'd found and writing about it. I loved all of it. But I also didn't have the money that I would need to fund an education for a PhD. And in the world of anthropology. This is something that's a little unfortunate, but it's not super funded, specifically archaeology and prehistory. That's, you know, you're relying on endowments and things like that to help fund education. But it's expensive. So what did I do, I chose to go to work, and try to figure out what I would do next. And maybe I would be able to pay down my college debt and get enough money to go and pursue my PhD one day. So I decided to go out into the workforce. And I had five things that I wanted from a job I would take, I hoped that it would help me continue to learn because I wanted to always learn, I hoped that it would be rooted in some way in the sciences, so that my inquisitive mind could be, you know, really kind of scratched that. I wanted to make sure that if anything, I was doing good, like, in some way, putting good out into the world. I also wanted to be around $15 an hour or more. That was the financial piece that's not a lot of money. But you know, as a recent college grad in 1998, it was kind of slim pickins we were entering, you know, the bubble burst and all of that from Silicon Valley, which is where I'm based, right. And then lastly, I wanted not to fall in love with it. And that was, you know, one of my five requirements. And I fell in love with it. I was working in the natural products industry for an herbal extra company, helping other companies to make finished products that would support people's health. And so I dug into the science I've learned about how over 100 different herbal extracts benefited health. I started to you know, work with big companies and creating products that would benefit people And I felt like well, there, here's the difference, you know, like I could have gone and studied archaeology, and what good would that really have done? Like, how would I have improved people's life by studying archaeology, then I'm improving people's life by creating products that support their health, I am helping to further my own education, about nutrition and how it will impact my health and the lives of those around me that I love. So I'm doing good, I'm fulfilling all these other things. And now I'm also making a good living. So I guess I'm saying goodbye to Scholastic life. That was a conscious choice, right? Like, but I missed education, I missed formal education, I loved being in school, I loved singing. And so 2019 hit, I had a disagreement with a CEO I was working with, and I wasn't able to get past it. And I said, You know what, I'm just want to go explore something else. And chose to apply for an enrolling graduate school for business, which is what I've spent 20 years doing, and just kind of ratify and learn and, and see what I might need to know differently if I was to start my own business. And weirdly, I'm kind of deciding, I don't necessarily want to be in that traditional business space, I want to do something different. So I'm kind of decided to go this podcast route. Because I want to put more good out into the world than I'm even able to, through my work and highlight some of the social challenges and sustainability issues that we confront with the hope of inspiring people to get involved and, and maybe create their own effort to do some good in the world.

Anne Marie Cannon: 51:49

So you're you're doing a traditional MBA, what are you getting out of it, though, that's leading you into this path? Or have you already come into it, taking what you can get out of it and reformulating it into a way that's more meaningful, that leads to what's the name of the podcast care

Corinna Bellizzi: 52:07

more, be better.

Anne Marie Cannon: 52:10

That has led you to this the ideas that are in the podcast, you know,

Corinna Bellizzi: 52:16

I think about this at the end of every term, right? Like each term is 10 weeks I've been going for this is my eighth, I'm entering my eighth term eighth and final term, I haven't taken summers off, so I'm completing it in, you know, two years, I've typically had between one and three weeks off between the terms. And every time I asked myself some simple questions. What did I learn? And has it been worth it? I mean, it's it's kind of simple, right? You know, I came to graduate school, because I felt like there was a hole in my understanding with regard to how the financial back end of a business was run. I mean, I've been on the sales and marketing side, I have done a lot and cost analysis and building projections. And you know, all that other fancy stuff that you do within a business. And what I've often learned is that I knew more than I thought I did. And the holes in my knowledge are in different spaces than I expected them to be. I expressed earlier that I hate math. And that is still true. But now I've had to learn calculus. And that was something I avoided like the plague when I was in undergrad. I mean, I just took the bare minimum I got through statistics. And that was it. Because I had such a hard time even I tried to pass algebra to trigonometry and I couldn't get past it. Now, the mathematics I understand, at least on a theoretical level is so much more advanced than I had anticipated. I don't know that it's all that usable. To be frank. Technology has come so far that, you know, I joked with another marketer and another class and said, You know, I think we'd be fired if we tried to do it this way. Like all the longhand, you know, like there's, there's cheap tools out there that can do all this stuff for you. You know, it's a, I think the thing that has given me more than anything is the time to reflect and think about what I don't know, and continue opening my mind and reading case studies that are really interesting thinking through problems and meeting other like minded individuals who are trying to work through similar problems in their own lives. I mean, that's given me more than I think I had anticipated before just the new connections I built,

Anne Marie Cannon: 54:34

you found out that you know, more than you thought, you know, yeah. And you're forging meaningful connections with like minded people who have similar ideas. And so tell us about the podcast that in how did that evolve and, you know, where did you get the idea to do it, and what it's about, okay, so

Corinna Bellizzi: 54:58

this actually started a couple years ago, before I started graduate school, I met with a girlfriend of mine from a prior job. We worked together at Nordic naturals, and she was the marketing manager, and I was a sales and education later, we're sitting down over a long cup of coffee. And she said, You know, I was thinking at the time, I was going to build a company that was going to create products that gave back to bees in some way, like so supporting the health of bees. And I was going to call the company care more, be better and be like, be E better. Okay. And so I have the URL for caremore B. And she said to me, but Kareena, you know, as long as I've known you, you've always had this desire to help those that can help themselves and but your passions have kind of been all over the place. And she's like, and I'm not saying that as a criticism, but it's like, you want to help the sea turtle, you rescued a horse from, you know, a racetrack and that's your horse, or you decided to get a rescue animal for this, like your your don't want to support puppy mills. And you're like, you know, always thinking about all these more mindful ecological ways to live. What if you were to do something different? Like maybe you could help match companies to these not for profits or something along those lines? And so I was chewing on that for a long time and deciding whether or not that was something I actually wanted to do, do I want to spend time trying to create a monetization path for myself as work for that, like, do I want to pitch companies with a service like that. And I just didn't feel like it was right for me, in a way. And so it was this fall, I started listening to a particular podcast. And I had not been a podcast consumer. And I suddenly was listening to podcasts, every time I was out for a walk with my dog, or every time I was at the gym, or every time I was, you know, doing chores around the house. And then I was discovering new podcasts, and another one and another one. And I felt like they were feeding my brain and getting me to think in different ways and bringing up different passions, and just making me feel like I had more full days, like my life felt more complete. And I think part of the reason that my life felt more complete, really has to do with COVID. Like, we've been so disconnected over the course of the last year, not being able to meet with my girlfriends and have, you know, weird conversations about just the thing that came into our mind that day, living on zoom or, or on a phone hasn't provided that same experience for me. But when I was listening to some of these podcasts, I was finding myself getting that same itch scratched. And I thought, you know, if I'm going to put more good out into the world, maybe I can use podcasts to do that. Maybe I can use my skills as a marketer, and also, as a storyteller, to, you know, help amplify the good that some of these companies are already doing. Or some of these inspired individuals. Maybe I can get over some of the hurdles I have, like, I don't really love networking with people, I don't know. But this podcast gave me an excuse to do it. And now I'm meeting incredible people like yourself, but tell great stories, and that I

Anne Marie Cannon: 58:45

did. Oh,

Corinna Bellizzi: 58:46

it's true, though. I think you're one of the kindest people I've met, like you've criticized yourself earlier. And here's the thing, oh, you're kinder than me. And I'm just thinking, I don't know that that's true. I mean, I feel like you are our, you know, really a gentle soul. And that's just a compliment.

Anne Marie Cannon: 59:05

Thank you. That means a lot to me.

Corinna Bellizzi: 59:07

So I felt like, you know, if I could tell some stories, and also, in so doing, put some good in the world and inspire other people to act, or to open their minds, to see their neighbor down the street a little differently, to consider the homeless person that's living on the street and not think first that they're there by choice. That suddenly I could be changing things a little bit. That's the hope anyway.

Anne Marie Cannon: 59:38

So tell us about the podcast. You know, what is the premise and I look at it like,

Corinna Bellizzi: 59:45

I look at care more and be better as a, it's an invitation. I'm inviting the audience to care more about a particular issue on each podcast show so that we can be better and It takes way to be better. It's not something I can do on my own. It's not something they can do on their own. So I, I consider it an invitation to a community of people that are going to support a better future, I consider it an invitation to think about something differently to stretch yourself. I feel like if that's the gift that I have to leave the world with, that will be something. It's an incredibly difficult thing to do. Because I feel like I'm putting myself out there in a way that's way more revealing than I'm typically comfortable doing. The so I don't know if you encounter that yourself, too. But it's been something for me to get used to.

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:00:42

I guess I haven't really thought about it a lot. You do do that. I think you allow yourself to be vulnerable. I was just re listening to you mentioned love without borders, which I'm really interested in talking to you about? Is it Kara yet Kira

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:01:00

Martinez,

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:01:01

Karissa Martinez, she works with refugees, basically. And she provides them with the opportunity to create art, and then she sells their art. That's one of the parts of it I, I think there's more to it, which you can find I'll put a link to because I was just looking at the art, trying to figure out which piece to buy, because they have an Etsy shop. But that's, you know, neither here nor there. I've gotten something out of every single episode that you've put out, I think I'm caught out.

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:01:32

Wow, well, thank you.

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:01:34

And I think I've listened, I've really listened to a couple of them, you know, to prepare for the podcast to prepare for this interview. But also because they're very compelling. And I get something new out of them every time I listened to him. And I like it. Because it can be really daunting. I was just having this conversation with my boyfriend the other day, actually, I think it was this morning. And it's this idea, well, what can we do, and it feels overwhelming when you think about, you know, the fractures of the world and that type of thing. But you break it down into little bite sized pieces, and you say, well, this person is doing this. And, you know, you could buy a piece of artwork. And, you know, that's not overwhelming. That's not daunting, and they're lovely pieces, and

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:02:22

there's such a great story behind them. Or, you know, just supporting a local charity or donating your time. I mean, like the thing that I keep wanting to tell, I want to interview people that are in the early phases, often in developing their businesses, because, you know, it's reveals that each of us can be the change that we want to see. And it's and it starts to make it feel less alien, I think, unless like you're staring at Mount Everest, because I think that's the biggest challenge I run into when I'm tackling a big problem. You know, it's, it looks so big. And you have to break it down. I think it's exactly what you were saying.

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:03:03

And I think you bring us that. And all those little pieces of your past have equated to this. It seems like, isn't that funny how when we get to a certain perch in our life, and we look back on all the times that were so uncertain, and we weren't sure if we were making the right choices. I don't know if this does, but this happens to me. And it's like, and then I have this moment of enlightenment. And it's like the angels saying and it's like, well, that's why that happened so that I could do this. And I don't know. I don't know if I believe that idea. But it feels

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:03:35

like serendipity. Right? Like, it's just yeah,

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:03:37

serendipity.

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:03:39

Seems like it's supposed to happen. Because, in a way because it is maybe Yeah, I've had many of those moments in the past year, I've also had moments where everything just felt hard. I have two young boys three and six. Right. And, you know, at the time I when COVID first hit. I was in my just almost completing my first year of graduate school that really committed to it. And I suddenly looked at this and said, this could cripple me. What am I going to do? Am I going to suddenly stop working on my contract work and pull out of grad school and just be here with my kids all the time because the daycare shutting and this out and the next thing a lot of women had to make that choice. I was able to tap a friend on the shoulder and get her to move in with me short term which ended up being over half a year to help support our household and make everything work while we adjusted to a kids at home and zoom class lifestyle. That was really hard. And there were days in that where we had more bickering than any of us wanted and just sick of seeing one another. It's

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:04:52

a break. Oh, I hear you. I don't have kids, but I have a partner domestic partner. Yeah. And it was challenging. It is challenging. Well, I

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:05:04

think when the kids finally were able to go back to school, they were so much happier. Because I mean, they got to spend time with other kids. And I mean, I say school for my three year old as a preschool, but it's so good for them to have other kids to play with, like, they're never going to be the same as that for them, you'll never be able to do that. So, you know, I'm just thankful that at this phase, you know, I'm coming out of grad school, I'm almost done. I've created

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:05:33

this. Congratulations. Yes. Amazing.

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:05:36

That's huge. I'm really proud of just doing it. Because I mean, I am, you know, you mentioned, you know, oh, this is what led me here. Well, I've had those moments that are opposite of that, which is just like doubt I was, you know,

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:05:50

as I was saying it, I was thinking the same, the same thing. So you know, like,

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:05:54

okay, so I'm 44. And I, you know, I'm proud that I'll be finishing this before my 45th birthday. But at the same time, you know, I'm double the age of many of the students in these classes. And I get to bring with me a different perspective, and the history that I've been able to glean from a professional perspective to the Scholastic work, which is all great. But it also means that I understand the experience I'm having in this graduate program is much different than the one they're having. And, you know, I think that's just part of trying to remain aware of what your experiences versus the experience of others around you, I think, keeping that perspective is, is helpful, and helps to reduce one's own prejudices.

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:06:39

Wow. That's quite an interesting path. And I'm excited to see where you go with it. Also, the other thing that you do that I read about is that you also do brand development. So you're talking about contracts? And you do see SSR planning sessions with CSR?

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:06:59

Oh, yeah, see corporate social responsibility.

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:07:03

That's it, right. I didn't know that. And I think that, especially in this climate of the pandemic, we've all had to pivot. That's the word pivot, right? Which means we've all had to be creative about our resources, and looking at them and seeing the context or in, you know, making use of them, basically, is what it is. And I think you've definitely done that. I've done that with the podcast as well, with what I'm doing, because I had the opportunity to do it. And I saw it. And so you did that, and you capitalized on it. And it could go so many different ways do you like to in the podcast, I

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:07:39

love it, I think otherwise, I wouldn't be spending as much time on it. We've released now, I think, this week will be nine episodes when we're when you and I are recording. And I've recorded 16 I have number 17 coming up here in just a little bit. So I've been working to build a bank so that I can take this last term of school without really stressing about it too much tomorrow, because this one's gonna be quite hefty, and I don't want to lose momentum. You know, I'm not monetizing it. And I think that's a big difference, too. Like a lot of people, if you're in these podcasting rooms are saying, How are you making money at it, this isn't the next thing. And, you know, at least presently, that's not my plan. I really do look at it as my effort to put more good out into the world. And it's kind of stoking these passions in me that I don't necessarily get a chance to exercise in my everyday otherwise. So I think that's healthy from a brain perspective. You know, I think about something else. My father in law is going to be 90 next month. Okay.

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:08:40

You interviewed him? Yeah. This site guy,

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:08:44

yeah, corneal dystrophy. So he has a foundation for that. And, you know, he is one of the most vibrant, smart, quick witted individuals I've ever met at almost 90, right. I haven't seen I met him, you know, over 15 years ago. Now, as I was dating, my husband and I have not seen a mental decline remotely in him. And I think that is largely due to the fact that he's constantly seeking working reading, you know, he hasn't given up he's, you know, not kind of doing the traditional what you would consider retired lifestyle of a nine year old. He's still the executive director of this company, helping people to solve their site challenges. And he's motivated by that, and he's connected to it and working at it constantly. So, you know, perhaps this will become the thing that long term keeps my brain quick witted and strong.

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:09:43

Yeah. Is there anything else that you want my audience to know about? Or something that you just remember that you wanted to share? Well, heck,

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:09:54

I just really like to invite people to connect with me if you have thoughts about you know, particular social impact causes or sustainability issues you'd like to see featured on caremore be better. I mean, you can always just reach out to me directly I'm at caremore be better calm. If you're curious about Neanderthal history, I'm always ready, willing and able to have a conversation about it, because I just am so intrigued by the idea that like a fish swimming in a stream, we had another species of humans sitting alongside us for 30,000 years. We just don't have that equivalent anymore. So I'm, I'm just always in forever curious about what that would have been like.

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:10:37

I really enjoyed talking to you. Kareena, thank you for giving us your time and your knowledge. And, you know, just sharing this fascinating history that I don't think, you know, I, I never thought about Neanderthals being on the show. So here we go. Thank you.

Corinna Bellizzi: 1:10:56

Well, it's been my pleasure. I really enjoy listening to your podcast, so I'm honored to be featured on it.

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:11:01

It's so lovely. Oh, thank you. Well, yours is definitely as a subscription. It's in queue. So I enjoy listening to yours as well. You have some really great content and I love I love your interviews. I love the way that you approach your guests. And so I really urge my listeners to listen to care more, be better.

Unknown: 1:11:25

Thank you so much.

Anne Marie Cannon: 1:11:27

There you have it. Kareena ba Lizzie and the often misunderstood Neanderthal For more on Karena her podcast. caremore be better, and the Neanderthal, please check out our episode notes. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.