Live Talk Tracks Episode - Love Beyond Words

Hi everyone. I'm Ky Dickens and welcome to a very special episode of the Talk Tracks. Today we're thrilled to share our first ever live recording captured at South by Southwest in the heart of Austin, Texas. In honor of Autism Awareness Month we're releasing this conversation now because it touches on something vital, how we navigate love, dating and consent in a neurodiverse world.

Our panel includes some truly remarkable voices, including one of the beloved parents from season one of The Telepathy Tapes. So without further ado, here's our live recording from the Stunning Gardens at the Hotel Saint Cecilia Austin. 

Well, I think we can all agree that love is something we all seek, but the way we express it and experience it and communicate it is as diverse as our own neural wiring.

So today on the Talk Tracks live from South by South West in Austin, we're diving into love and connection in a neurodiverse world, breaking down misconceptions [00:01:00] and celebrating the many ways people build meaningful and deep relationships. I am joined by three incredible guests, truly remarkable people.

So, first, Whitney Wolfe Herd the founder of Bumble, who changed the game from modern dating by making connection intentional and empowering. Um, Jezz Chung, a multidiscipline disciplinary artist whose work explores identity, neurodivergence, and connection through creative expression. And my dear friend, Libby Ingram, whose non-speaking son, John Paul, as featured on The Telepathy Tapes, captured our hearts with his relationship with his girlfriend Lily, which also included a bit of telepathy.

So we're gonna talk about love and connection and ways technology and understanding and empathy are shaping the future of relationships for everyone. So first, you know, I'm gonna give you guys all a [00:02:00] question, but I think it was, we kinda set the tone for the night, the one thing I want everyone to remember is that, you know, love isn't ever fitting into a mold. It's just not. It's about finding the person who sees you and understands you and celebrates you exactly as you are. So let's get into it. This talk track live from Austin, Texas. 

So first I want to ask you all the same question. Love looks different for everyone. Uh, I'd love to know what love and connection mean to each of you.

So why don't we start with you, Libby? 

Libby Ingram: Um, for me, love and connection, it's unselfish. Uh, you really look at the person and you see them for who they are and accept them right where they are. Um, and you want the best for 'em. You're proud of them. You, you love that from here. You love from here more than you do from the outside.

And that's the way I see is true love. That's what I see. 

Jezz Chung: To me, [00:03:00] love can't exist without safety, respect, and dignity. And so that's kind of foundational for me. And then from there, um, I'll actually read you a quote that I wrote a life philosophy statement when I was 13 that kind of summarized summarizes my philosophy on love and connection.

Um, and this was me thinking about the meaning of life at their 10 years old. To strive to fulfill the potential of complete and utter happiness, we all bear inside ourselves. Transforming each challenge life throws at you into a lesson of wisdom and strength. To attain all your goals while maintaining your personal morals, despite how corrupt the rest of the world may become. To stay true to oneself, even after enduring the best and the worst of life.

So all of this to me, is a kind of love and connection that makes life worth living for. 

Whitney Wolfe Herd: Wow. That was profound. I can't go after that.

You know, I've been thinking a [00:04:00] lot about love, uh, because it's kind of what we do all day long is help people find love. And I think when I, I, I left Bumble for a year. I took a little break. We didn't, we didn't fully break up. We just went on a little separation. Um, but I realized that love is kind of the love of my life.

And that's why I'm back at Bumble because what could be more important in life than learning how, and I do think it's learning, how to love yourself and love others and then help other people find love and connection? And that's, you know, it's so funny, everyone's like, did, is this always what you wanted to do?

And I'm like, "oh yeah, like you didn't wake up at six years old and wanna run a dating app?" Like No, I, of course, this isn't what I wanted to do, but when I think about what love has been for me in my life, it's bringing people together. That is love for me. Mm-hmm. It's like just uniting great souls and [00:05:00] helping them expand because they meet each other.

And love also does feel like a language. We all speak different dialects of it. We all feel different versions of it, and some of us don't really understand the, the, the way to communicate it in certain ways, but we can all feel it. Like I think even with the nonspeakers that I've learned about and that you've all been so close to, they're the most loving people on planet Earth, and it just shows you that love transcends anything that we can do at the human level. Yeah, that's what I think love is. 

Ky Dickens: So Whitney, you created Bumble to empower connection. What opportunities do you see in the future for making dating maybe more inclusive for neurodivergent users? 

Whitney Wolfe Herd: I think it's a very important topic and I think it can't come just from what we think might be best.

I think it's including, uh, [00:06:00] the, the people that want to use this product, and I believe it was, episode seven, correct me if I'm wrong, of The Telepathy Tapes, I've listened to them like 25 times at this point, where there is this desire to meet people. Mm-hmm. And loneliness, even with the Hill and all of these other ways to connect.

Loneliness is something that every human experiences and we all deserve to find connection. We all deserve to find friendship. We all deserve to find love. So I think the beauty of technology is if we can find ways to safely empower, uh, communities of all kinds to connect. That would be the most beautiful way to fulfill the vision of our business.

Uh, it it is about listening to the customers and, and the members and the, the, the people in the community that want this and letting them build with us, right? And so really building for them, not for us. And I think that's where a lot of dating apps, including ourselves over the years [00:07:00] have gone a bit astray. I think everyone wants to find love, but no one wants to use a dating app anymore because it just hasn't spoken to the true needs of the customers and the members. So I think we just have to be better listeners and, and build for the community. 

Ky Dickens: Yeah. Beautiful. Um, okay. Jezz, your work as an artist, it's amazing and it explores identity and belonging. How has your personal journey with neurodivergence kind of shaped the way you approach relationships and connection? 

Jezz Chung: What I love about this podcast is it's getting people curious about autistic people's experiences, and as a saying goes, if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. And, um, I'm more on the hyper empathy. I'm actually hyperverbal. I need to verbalize things to process it out. I'm more verbal than anyone that I know. And, um, I, looking back, I think I just didn't have access to myself for so long [00:08:00] because. I don't see my experience represented, um, in media and in the few autistic stories we have because I didn't have supportive parents who, um, listened to me when I said, "Hey, I need help."

Uh, when I was having symptoms of ADHD at a young age and there were all these things, I was in the talented and gifted program and people said, you're getting good grades. And I looked around and I said, yes, but. Everyone seems to be having an easier time than me. I feel like I am, have having this experience that no one else is having.

And so from a young age, I learned to build this intimacy and connection with myself. And then as I got older, I realized that I was autistic in my late twenties. That's a long time to go without accessing a huge part of who you are, a fundamental part of how you experience the world. So once I unlock that, I got really, I'm pretty loud about everything I'm passionate about.

So everything that I believe in, all the experiences I have, I just [00:09:00] share that loudly and that has I think made me realize so much of the work I do is to help people feel less alone and more alive. Because I want people who, who are like me, who are later realized, who don't have a supportive family system, who use friends as their family system, who have a different experience, who's first generation, who's Asian, who's queer, et cetera, multiply neurodivergent to know that your experience matters and that your voice also deserves to be heard.

Ky Dickens: Mm. I love that. Libby, what have you learned watching John Paul navigate a romantic relationship and what stands out to you? 

Libby Ingram: Oh gosh. Um, the thing is, when you have a non-speaking autistic, they can't tell you unless you ask the questions. That's the thing. You can feel it. It's, um. I just felt like John Paul had the purest soul.

He just loved unconditionally. There was no [00:10:00] ego. There was no ego attached to it. And he would say to me, you know, if people were ugly or unkind to him. He would say "They don't understand. Just love them." And it, I, I just, I felt like their love was so pure. His and Lilies and his love was so pure. He, there was nobody he didn't wanna go up to and high five. And then lean in for the kiss, you know? And it taught me some, I, I, I loved the way people responded to him. I could tell, uh, so much about someone the way they responded to him, because he went in with just this pure heart. And he could handle them not loving him back. Mama had a hard time with it, you know, because we don't want our children to be hurt, you know?

But he didn't get hurt 'cause he saw the bigger picture. Hmm. He saw that nothing here really matters. Love is what [00:11:00] matters. Everything else is superficial nonsense. And that's what I took from John Paul. He just, he was brave, you know? He just brave and put it out there. That's what I loved. Yeah. That's what I, and you either accepted or you didn't.

Yeah. You know, and it was your loss if you didn't. That's the way I saw it. 

Ky Dickens: And Jezz, you've spoken about, you know, the importance of self-expression and relationships. What advice would you give to people who maybe don't communicate in ways that neurotypical partners may or may not expect? 

Jezz Chung: I've learned through thorough personal experimentation that uh, you will find people who just get you where you won't have to overexplain.

And I really believe that you shouldn't force a connection out of obligation, and that's come from hard choices I've had to make. And realizing the the safety that I feel, not even just the freedom, and [00:12:00] the the love, but just the safety that I feel in myself when I'm able to say, actually I think there's something better.

I think sometimes we can fall into scarcity mindset, especially if you are survivor of childhood trauma. You might not even know what real true love looks and feels and sounds like because you've never experienced it. So even to this day in all my healing practices, I'm trying to recognize love when I feel it in me, when I'm receiving it, when I'm giving it, being really present with it.

So I would say that, you don't have to force something that's not working because there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with who you are and how you feel and, um, and how you communicate and what you need. I think I, I say all the time, it is okay to have needs, and the biggest question shift that has helped me in my healing process is instead of asking myself, "What's wrong with you? Why can't you do this? Why can't you be like everyone else?" I say, "Actually. What do I need? What do I [00:13:00] need that I'm not getting?" And that has been a huge shift for me. 

Ky Dickens: Yeah. Yeah. So Whitney dating apps often, you know, they rely on quick interactions, like fast conversations and swiping quickly. Like what ways can we diversify or improve upon dating apps to really help kind of support people, build relationships in different ways or more meaningful ways.

Whitney Wolfe Herd: You know, we are really focused right now on this emotional shift, and the emotional shift is going to be put into every corner of the product, every part of the experience, which is moving away from this decade because it's been about a decade of dating apps of, of judgment and rejection. Hmm. Dating apps, and I take a lot of accountability for this, I've been involved in it from day one. So all well intentions, you know, all good intentions behind this, but these things take on a life of their own. It has sparred this generation of people feeling [00:14:00] very rejected and very judged quickly. So if you are judging people quickly and you are rejecting people, yes, no, yes, no left, right, left, right, it's happening to you on the other end.

And. I think what we're trying to do now is recreate this new experience, this emotional shift from, from those emotions to curiosity and confidence. And if we can get more curious, and that's about ourselves as well. It's everything you are saying. We have to get curious about ourselves because we have, we have two sides of us.

We have the side we were told we're supposed to be, or how society wants you to show up or how you're supposed to make a dating profile or how your parents wanted you to show up. And then you have the real you. But what's wild is that takes a lot of work to figure out who you really are. And so we are going to really put a lot of emphasis on this journey of self-love.

And you say the word self-love to a lot of people and they go. Huh? What does that mean? Because we've never been trained to [00:15:00] choose ourselves. We've been trained to choose other people or wait to be chosen by other people. So I really believe the future of love online and offline is meeting yourself, starting to like yourself, being bold enough to hold boundaries for yourself, command what works for you, and then go out and meet people on your terms.

So I really think you will see. A real reinvention of how we show up in this next iteration. And I was just saying this today in the office Bumble. When I started Bumble, it was all about women making the first move because the end goal was how do we get to healthier relationships? And my personal experience had been that men were in charge of the experience.

So, okay, well let's flip it. But that's not what this is all about. It's not about man or woman or gender at all. This is about love at its core. And so now the next decade of Bumble is all about make the first move for yourself. Because if you can do that, then you [00:16:00] will find good relationships. And I just think we have to, we have to help people meet themselves before we help them meet others.

I think it's too important. 

Ky Dickens: Yeah. I love, love that Libby. What was the most rewarding part of watching John Paul have this loving relationship, which I'm sure you didn't expect would happen. 

Libby Ingram: No, it was fabulous is what it was because you worry about your, I mean. Uh, all autism moms worry about their children.

Are our children gonna have love? Are they gonna be cared for? Um, you want them to experience everything you got to experience. And what I loved was, first of all, everyone was at Hirsch Academy, where he went. Everybody loved this romance that was blossoming at the school. It was fabulous. Like the Miss Susan called in she said, " I think there's something with these two," I said, I [00:17:00] was so excited. I think I accosted Karen in the, at the school, in the parent pickup, like, "Hey, hey, we're gonna become really good friends because our kids really dig each other, you know?" Mm-hmm. I wanted to make it happen. I really wanted it to happen.

Um, I was thrilled and I, I loved everything about it. I loved, I wanted to make it easy. I wanted to make, you know, I had no idea all the extra that was going on telepathically, you know, I didn't know about that so much at the time. Um, but those two just had a love connection almost instantly, instantly.

Ky Dickens: You know, you brought this up and just since we're here and I think people would love to hear about it, can you talk about how telepathy did play a role in their relationship and what a date would look like for them sometimes? 

Libby Ingram: For sure. So we would call uh, Lily would come over and our house, if you've ever been to uh, non-speaking, ASD3 autistic person's home, what you notice is that there are a lot of [00:18:00] modifications to the house. So I love it 'cause I love to have autistics over because our house is set up for it, you know? Um, so Lily would come over and Karen come over, and Lily might be caught in a loop so they can get caught in loops.

And John Paul might, they might walk by and, and he may pat her on the head or he may come up and stem a little bit, and then she might be stemming on the window sill. And, and then he would go upstairs, she would be walking, doing her thing. And then, um, when, when she, they would finally go home. John Paul would spell.

"That was fabulous." 

Whitney Wolfe Herd: Oh my God, this is so sweet. 

Libby Ingram: Because they're, you know, it was just, they knew what they were doing. It was their connection. I cannot put a neurotypical ideal or what I think it should look like [00:19:00] because they're not neurotypical. And so, you know, when he said, "I wanna marry Lily," I said, you know what?

We can make that happen. That's okay. I said it may look different. Who knows? Let's just wait and see what happens. I, the sky's the limit, you know? So yeah. It's different, but it's as equally meaningful and beautiful to them as it, it's just different. Yeah. I loved it. I love my Lily. She calls me her mother and soul. So, yeah.

Ky Dickens: Jezz, you know, dating can be overwhelming, I think, for anyone, but in particularly. So, for someone who's neuro divergent, what has made you feel confident on your journey? 

Jezz Chung: Oh, the first thing that comes off to riff off of what you said, Libby, is, that sounds like parallel play, which is one of the five neurodivergent love languages.

For anyone listening, I highly recommend it. Think there's a website called Stimpunks and it's five neurodivergent love languages. Um, one is please crush my soul back into my body, which I love, like just deep [00:20:00] pressure. So it's, it's just letting people be. So a lot of the time I'll, um, text a friend because I feel like I'm dating my friends all the time, and I'll text them, "Can we parallel play? I really have to get this done and I can't get it done alone."

But to me, what keeps me curious about friendship and dating, et cetera, connections in general is honesty and curiosity are so sexy to me, those are two of the sexiest traits where if someone is being honest in who they are and they know who they are because they've spent time with themself, they're so much wealth of wisdom to share from there.

And I like, I hate small talk as most autistic people I know hate small talk. So I wanna get deep. I wanna know your inner world. I wanna know all of these things. And whether we do that through parallel play or conversation or whatever it is, I feel like I practice that honesty and curiosity through my singing, my acting, my writing, my screenwriting, my [00:21:00] poetry, everything.

Even talking online daily, I share my, my thought proccess out loud. And that to me is keeping that muscle alive because I think we get better at anything we practice. That's one of my creative mottos, so I think. It's, it's not about perfection. Perfection isn't the goal. Honesty is a much more attainable goal.

So as long as I have that as a metric for myself, I just say it's okay. If it was awkward or weird or whatever it is, I'm still trying, and that's what matters. 

Ky Dickens: I love that. Yeah. Um, Whitney, what role do you think community and family play in creating a more inclusive dating culture? 

Whitney Wolfe Herd: It's really interesting, you know, it's so different around the world, right?

And this has been one of the more fascinating parts of my journey is learning about love around the world. It's super different and you know, it was fascinating. This crazy thing happened to us in France. Several years ago we were launching in Paris and all of our [00:22:00] metrics looked very similar around the world.

So women were making the first move at the same rate. Retention was at the same rate. Kind of everywhere we went, the numbers looked the same. And we go to France and we try to launch it in France, and it just like, flatlined and we were like, what in the world is going on here? This is the center of love. Like something's off. 

So I flew over there, we flew over there and we sat down with a bunch of women and they felt like we were telling them what to do. They're like, this feels like my mother or my aunt. And like the community is like telling me who to choose and who to be with, and I don't like this. So we had just used certain language, certain words that that completely turned off an entire city of love from finding love on our product. 

And so I really do think the way we engage people and make them feel safe. You said this earlier, making people feel safe and accepted I think is so critical. And I've seen that the way society has controlled our relationships throughout history has actually made people feel the opposite of [00:23:00] safe and accepted.

Mm. Yeah. So it's made them reject a lot of, of, of norms around love. Yeah. So I, I just think it's fascinating, but what I will tell you, the one thing we see in the data, people actually find the best relationships in shared values. And that is so rooted in what your version of family is and what your version of community is.

So if you do want to have a certain type of family in the future or a certain type of community. Those are the relationships that are the ones that go the distance from what we've seen versus the ones that are like, it was the hottest person I had ever seen. You know, and I swiped right and it was my swipe right love affair, like those ones don't really work.

So I do think shared family values and community do really drive the way we think about connection. 

Ky Dickens: Absolutely. Are, are there shifts right now in the apps or technology to kind of incorporate that more global culture or family and you know, community? 

Whitney Wolfe Herd: Yeah. I mean, we have a product Bumble for Friends and everything that we're [00:24:00] thinking about right now, and I would actually love to talk to you at some point about how we can make this super inclusive and desirable for all communities.

Even the way you're talking about love languages. It's so interesting. We're talking about love languages today, but it's the neurotypical love languages. Like, you know, there's the little quiz you can take on the internet that you stay up until three in the morning doing, you know, like, what if I was a box of cereal, which one would I be?

Or whatever we're all doing in the middle of the night. But it's, it's a totally different world and I, I would love your help and understanding because we're missing the mark right now. Like even just hearing that one comment, I'm like, oh, we are getting this all wrong. And so, you know, I think community is everything.

So Bumble for Friends, everything we're going to focus on is the tagline is really Friends First. Hmm. And I think every great love story. That you hear every other one or every third one. It's like, oh, we started as friends. You know? Friendship is so underrated, like genuine, true friendship and [00:25:00] connectivity.

And I think, you know, befriending yourself too. This is super important. You were just saying that people that have spent time with themselves, yeah, they're attractive because they're okay with being alone and I think that that's the way we have to think about it. 

Ky Dickens: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Libby, what advice would you give to other parents who are hoping to navigate through, you know, a romantic relationship with maybe a neurodivergent child or to encourage that?

Libby Ingram: Well, basically my, I can speak on nonspeakers because that's my experience. I, there's so many different, as we talk about autisms, really, and I, the, what I know is the non-speaker. And I think that what we have to do as parents is you can't micromanage this thing. You really can't micromanage them. And it's hard not to because of the motor planning thing.

So for John Paul, I [00:26:00] had to do everything for him really. I mean, take care of him from head to toe, literally, because it was, he, he just, it couldn't do it. That's their issue. It's sensory motor. It's sensory motor planning. And, um, but I, I can't micromanage his relationships. And I certainly, I, I loved being able to send him out into the world with a caregiver.

And I didn't wanna know. I didn't wanna know everything. I don't need to know everything. He's a gr, he's a grown child. I want him to have autonomy. And I think some parents really struggle with giving up that that control. And maybe it's 'cause I'm type B, I dunno. And I'm not really tied. I, I just knew that you cannot control everything.

You wanna keep 'em safe and that's important, but you don't need to know everything. And you, you let them have a relationship. Let them let John Paul had a life I knew [00:27:00] nothing about because when his caregiver took him out, I, I have no idea where they went. He took them to family reunions. He went, they went to Goodwills all over downtown Atlanta.

I have no idea what his life was, and that was fine. He needed that. So if the parent can do that, then I think everyone's happier. And it's, I think they're happier 'cause that's what they want some freedom for goodness sake. You know? Um, and, and I don't know how that looks for everyone, but I just really had to trust people.

You got to be able to trust people. Hmm. Or your child is not gonna have any freedom. So that would be my advice. Yeah. Really. Yeah. Let you have to let some things go. Mm-hmm. 

Ky Dickens: Yeah. And Whitney, I mean, a lot of people just simply feel like love is outta reach, you know? They haven't found it. They haven't gotten it.

Like what's a piece of advice you would give to people who feel that way, whether or not they're neurodivergent? 

Whitney Wolfe Herd: I would check in with yourself. I mean, [00:28:00] every single person I know that has now found love, when I reflect on it, I'm like, oh, they got into a good place themselves. They met someone after they had met themselves.

Everybody I know that has struggled to find love, it's genuinely because they're struggling to actually love themselves. Mm. It's just the truth. And I'm not saying, oh, sh you know, shame on someone for not loving themselves. I just don't think we as a culture or a society have ever really enforced this.

And I think we're, we're early here, right? Meditating and breath work and getting in touch with yourself, but no one's really, I mean, could anybody in this room really if I gave you a pen and a paper and, and, and I said, write down the top five values you have in life and orchestrate your entire life around these five val values.

Like maybe you can, that's fantastic if you can, but I know that when I was asked that question, I couldn't do it. It's like, what are my values? And you can't say like, oh, kindness. And, [00:29:00] and, and, and love, like I'm talking like, what do you really value in this world? Like what matters to you in a relationship?

So if you can't answer that for yourself mm-hmm. How could you possibly accept or expect somebody else to be able to answer that for you? And so I do think you just have this beautiful, term. What did you say? You said? 

Jezz Chung: Um, interdependence. 

Whitney Wolfe Herd: Interdependence. It's explain it. 

Jezz Chung: It's kind of the in-between of codependency and hyper independence.

The way that I see it, it's this knowing of you matter to me, I matter to you, I need you, um, and you need me. And it's working in symbiotic, reciprocity relationship with each other and deep, deep, deep listening. 

Whitney Wolfe Herd: Right. But also being okay, and knowing who you are, right? So it's not like I need you because I'm not okay without you. And I think that's the energy we all need to a adopt and, and really adapt to candidly as society. [00:30:00] Because I do think we've all been trained on. "Well, you're gonna meet someone. You're gonna meet someone, and then your life will be perfect. You know, just go out and meet someone." Like the person that you've been waiting for is you. You complete you. And I would love to be a small, tiny part of that human journey. How can we use this platform for love to actually flip it inward and say, well, if we really wanna get to healthy relationships for people, for all people, for all types of people. That date that you described at your home sounds beautiful.

How can we also recognize the need for those connections? Right? And I think that's really the future of where we go. I think we need to expand the way The Telepathy Tapes and the Talk Tracks have, ultimately, what have they done for us? They have expanded our awareness, our appreciation, and our acceptance for these beautiful layers and levels of [00:31:00] love. And I think it's time for the products out there, ours included, to evolve with it. 

Ky Dickens: Love that. Jezz, what's next for you as far as your relationship journey goes? Do you have any goals or .. 

Whitney Wolfe Herd: Building the new Bumble app. 

Jezz Chung: Yeah, exactly. Okay. There we go. You have a job. Big tasks ahead.

 I, there's so much resonance and what both of you share because just to go quickly back to friendship, that's why I was, I am a big cinephile and I looked at the landscape and thought, where are the queer love stories about friendship? Yeah. I want a romcom, but instead of two lovers, it's two friends, but it follows that same arc.

So I wrote it. And I really need help make getting it made. 

Ky Dickens: We'll make it for you. 

Jezz Chung: Okay. Amazing. Let's do it. And, and it's, and um, to what you said about having that consent and agency and choice. I write about all these things in my book Interdependence, and this access to me is this trifecta of consent agency and choice.

And also to what you said of can you name [00:32:00] your values and then design your life around it. That's literally what I did. Really, and that's why I wrote my book to to give, give people questions and prompts to get into that and really reflect on their lives and think, "What matters to me? How can I live a life that is more aligned with who I am?"

So to answer your question, Ky, that's where I am. I want to be even more aligned with the essence of who I am, and I want to meet people who are aligned with who they are, so that we can build a better world together. A world that's more safe, compassionate, um, collective care minded, and yeah, loving.

Ky Dickens: I had not thought this would go this direction at all, but it really does feel like your book is like a template for the app. 

Whitney Wolfe Herd: It does. I told you. Yeah, it's, it's remarkable. You think I was joking? Great. We're going into business together. That's really like tonight. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think this is amazing. Oh, it's so cool. 

Ky Dickens: Tell us the name of the book really quick so people can find it online if they want to. 

Jezz Chung: "This Way to Change: a Gentle Guide to Personal Transformation and Collective Liberation," please [00:33:00] support local bookstores they are in need of our support and they're hubs for community, resources and care.

Ky Dickens: So Libby, I think back to a few years ago, the heartbreaking day, mm-hmm. But John's Paul, John Paul's parting message that day was, "Make your life about love."

Yeah. Yeah. What does that mean to you and how are you gonna carry that message forward? 

Libby Ingram: Um, for me, uh, make your whole life about love is I like to, when I'm doing something or, um, thinking about how I'm gonna interact with somebody, I try to say, is it loving? Is what I'm gonna do? Is it loving? Um, especially if I'm making a reel on my Instagram where I wanna talk about the, I either wanna talk about autism or the things that are making me unhappy and regarding whether you believe in spelling, you believe in telepathy, or this or that, or, um, I literally, I feel like I [00:34:00] have John Paul right here with me all the time.

He really is. And I will sit there and I might have this reel ready to go, and I, all of a sudden I hear this "Mom, did you think about love? Are you being loving? You need to edit a little more. This is, this is a little rough," you know? And I'll look back 'cause, because really if we all just came from a place of love, um, I I just think we, life would be so much better. Every, everything would be easier. We wouldn't, autism parents wouldn't be stuck at home in isolation with fear of going out and having their feelings hurt. And, um, if we could just all take a second and say, is this a loving way to be? Or it's so much easier to love than hate it.

Just it, it's better for your health. It's better for the everybody, you know? I think that's when John Paul said, you know, "make your whole life about love." That's what matters. Mm-hmm. [00:35:00] And we remember that everything else, it teaches you having an autistic, like John Paul teaches you so much. I mean, went through times where he flushed my jewelry down the toilet or he threw my plates over the balcony we call it in the back, there's this, uh, I call it "broken plate alley." Mm-hmm. Where it's all my, it's like you can't fall in love with your material, superficial things. Mm-hmm. You fall in love with people, you fall in love with things that matter. And that's what I felt like he said, make it about love. That's what I took from that.

And I think I really try to remember that not perfect. And I can, Peter, my husband can say she's not always about love, but I try to remember that, you know, I really do. It's, it's a good way to to be. 

Ky Dickens: Yeah. So our final question, Whitney, why don't we start with you, you know, what's one of the takeaways or you know, something that you [00:36:00] wanna share about love, whether it's on a professional level or personal level that you've learned or you wanna leave people with?

Whitney Wolfe Herd: Well, I think I have to tell my story with The Telepathy Tapes because I credit you for why I'm even sitting here tonight and why I'm back at Bumble, why I'm in Austin. So this is a true and crazy story, which, you know, as all of these beautiful stories that you've brought to the world go. 

So on a Tuesday in January, I was living my best work free life, having a massage on a Tuesday, which was something I had never done once in my life. And I was listening to The Telepathy Tapes and it was listening to episode nine sobbing. And my heart had just expanded in a thousand different ways from your beautiful story and John Paul and Lily and their amazing, amazing majestic story. And when I heard that the whole purpose of our existence, not just the parting message he left for you, but for [00:37:00] all of us was just love, like love is the way, love is everything.

And it struck me so profoundly. Every, every cell in my body just lit up and I had this kind of out of body experience and I was like, "Oh my God. This is, this is ever, this is why I did Bumble, like this was why I exist. This is what it's all about." And I had this crazy moment. I went home that afternoon and I was, had zero plans of becoming the CEO of Bumble again, and I went home that afternoon, I was just telling Ky this. 

I looked up to the sky and I said, "Universe, use me for love and light. I don't know what it means. Just use me for love and light. I don't know how that manifests." Three days later, our brilliant and glorious current sitting for one more week, CEO decided it was time for her to leave the company for, for her own reasons.

Out of nowhere I was expecting her to be there for five years. So this is within three days, and basically I'm [00:38:00] almost positive that somewhere telepathically someone in this beautiful realm, I kind of said, you gotta go back and you've got to reinvent love because the way these dating apps are working right now, we're not really what you wanted them to do and it's not leaving society in the best way possible. Go back and fix it. Build a real love company. Don't build another dating app, right? Like go back and transform love. 

And so I kid you not here I go back to Bumble within like five days. All of a sudden it's like off to the races. And then Caroline calls me and she goes, "you won't believe this. I know you've been texting me to listen to this thing called The Telepathy Tapes 112 times a day, but they've just gotten in touch with us and wanna know if you wanna do something with Bumble and The Telepathy Tapes with Ky."

And I was like, what? This is my Super Bowl. This is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me. So it was just this crazy moment of the power of love. Like this is what happens when love leads. Magical, magical things happen. [00:39:00] That's just genuine, authentic, and true output of when you say to the universe like, just use me for love and light.

Like that's what I'm here for. And let it take you on a magic carpet ride wherever it takes you. And so thank you for this. Thank you for this opportunity and thank you for sharing your story and your beautiful John Paul with the world. It really means a lot to all of us. 

Ky Dickens: Jezz, what would you like to leave us with?

Jezz Chung: Wow. I think love is a way of being. And love is a way of being with yourself. Um, one of my favorite thinkers, Grace Lee Boggs said, "transform yourself to transform the world," which is the thesis of my book. And to build off of that, love yourself, to love the world, and not just, you know, love as in fleeting or empty or surface love, but deep present love.

How, how do you move through conflict with yourself? How do you love yourself when you're, when you make mistakes? How do you love yourself when you are not at your best? And that [00:40:00] is, as we've all been saying, the way we relate to ourselves will also shape the way we relate to others. So I really believe that when we do that, we can re return to our original state, innate state, which is love, and that's how we can be forces of healing for each other.

Ky Dickens: And Libby, what about you? What would you like to leave us with as far as love goes, 

Libby Ingram: Make your whole life about it? No, truly, already said that. Wait a minute. No, I just think that, that we need to care about each other, you know, even if, um, that if we just all cared about each other a little bit and just did our, all of us just did our own little parts, the world would be so much better. Just do something that makes a difference if we just all did that even. And as far as like autism, if you want to go autism for like the more "severe autistics," and I say that in quotes, you know, like John Paul, if [00:41:00] everyone just take a moment, if you see a parent out in the wild with their, I love to see an autism parent out with their kid, and I always look at 'em and I go.

I always point to them and I get, I see you like that. Mm-hmm. You know, and I might even come up to them and, 'cause I had people do such kindnesses, I remember every single one of them. And I, I mean, even if it was, it seemed so insignificant, but it was, it made such a difference and I was so, it, it, I, we don't want to be scared to be out.

We wanna be out and, um, I think we all just did that little thing. It would make every, it would just make life so much better. It would. 

Ky Dickens: Libby, on that note, if we get this question a lot, and I'd love for you to answer it. People are writing in quite a lot saying, if I see a, a non-speaker at the grocery store, at a movie theater, what's one way I can let them know I love them?

Libby Ingram: A non-speaker tell 'em in your head. Mm-hmm. [00:42:00] I said, just tell 'em in your head. I do it all the time. If I see one out, I said, I see you, you fabulous thing. And I say it in my head, you know, and sometimes they'll kinda look at me and, and even at my mother's place, um, one of the custodian ladies, she would bring her daughter and she's in her twenties and I'm still trying to get ahold of her to teach her to spell because her mother needs to see this, 'cause I know she could. And um, and I remember I, I said to her, I said, you and I are gonna get together. I'm gonna come on a Saturday and we're gonna spell, I'm gonna teach you this. And, and I said, and I, and I think you're fabulous. And she, and I just said in my head, and all of a sudden she looks at me and she looks up and she goes,

she waves at me. And I, and so I would say, you don't necessarily, I mean, if John Paul said, nonspeakers, we can do this, we hear you just have good [00:43:00] energy around 'em. Mm-hmm. They feel the energy. Just have your energy. Good and just, you can say it out loud if you want, but they can hear you, just so you know. 

Jezz Chung: Oh, my thoughts really do matter.

Libby Ingram: Yeah, thoughts matter. Energy matters. Be positive. That's what, don't sit there and if they're doing something funky, dwell on it 'cause they do some, John Paul did some crazy things, you know, and, um, it doesn't matter, you know, just accept them. If they're doing the best they can, they're very brave to be out in the world with all the challenges they have.

They're the bravest souls I know. And, um, I think they should be admired for that. 

Jezz Chung: What about you, Ky? You have to tell us. 

Ky Dickens: Well, I've been thinking about this so much lately because, you know, I have asked various nonspeakers how they would define love, and it was so simple. "Love is anything that unifies."

Mm. And that is just so simple because we make so many [00:44:00] decisions to divide. You're different than me, you're different than me. How are you different? And I'm more like this. And, and none of that is loving. And that's based in fear. And they always say there's two choices. We always have love and fear. It's just love and fear.

Mm-hmm. But it's, it becomes easier to make that, that decision if you constantly think, is this unifying, is this helping? And if you ask that question before you make a decision, it really changes the optics. And I think another thing too is, um, to Libby's point, you know, it's not just, I think the ability for certain folks to hear our thoughts, but I think we all can feel each other's feelings.

Mm. And knowing what you feel and trying to love yourself and just putting that energy toward loving other people, it will change. Everything about you and your makeup, it changes your frequency. It does. Mm-hmm. 

Jezz Chung: Embody it. Yeah. Embody love. 

Ky Dickens: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, to wrap it up, I think it's important to just remember that love isn't following a script, right? It's, it's writing your own. And you have to have the [00:45:00] courage to show up as your authentic self to do that. Otherwise, no one's gonna write your script for you. What is it? It's not. It's a blank page. So we have to show up and, and I, I think about this all the time. At one point when we were going through how do you test telepathy, how do you test this?

And a non-speaker said, why do you need instruments to test this when you could? Um, when you're not looking for instruments to test love, which is the greatest superpower? It causes parents to jump into choppy waters, to save a child, people to lift a car up when they can't, when someone's pinned underneath it.

I mean, love causes us to do the most remarkable things. It is our greatest superpower. So let's just remember that, that we, we create magic in the world every day with just. Basic love. Thank you so much for being here all to close out this special episode. We're honored to feature Somebody Someone who performed live music at this recording, their song Better written three years ago during a deeply personal chapter of coming out as both neurodivergent and non-binary has become an [00:46:00] anthem for self-acceptance in a world that doesn't always embrace difference.

Somebody Someone: Make me a memory

Put me away

I’ll let you down easy

And then I will fade

Into the ether, to the unknown

Make me a ghost

Just someone you knew

If you’re looking for her

She’s not looking for you

That girl is gone now

There’s somebody new

And I feel

Better, better, better,

Better off without your love

When it’s all said and done

I feel better, better, better

Better off without your love

Yeah I call myself someone

I’ll write a postcard

From a faraway place

I’ll write “wish you weren’t here”

With a smile on my face

Now that I chose me,

There’s no looking back

And if I did

I just might turn to stone

Cause that’s how I feel

When you won’t leave me [00:47:00] ‘lone

Numb and unfeeling, and under attack

But I feel

Better, better, better,

Better off without your love

When it’s all said and done,

I feel better, better, better

Better off without your love

Yeah I call myself someone

Better, better, better, better…

Better

Yeah I call myself someone I

Thank you. 

Ky Dickens: You can find Somebody Someone, and follow their journey on social media and streaming platforms at Somebody Someone Music. 

That's it for this episode of The Talk Tracks, but new episodes will now be released every other Sunday, so stay tuned. As we work to unravel all the threads, even the veiled ones that knit together our reality, please remember to stay kind, stay curious, and that being a true skeptic requires an open mind.

Thank you to my amazing collaborators. Original music was created by Elizabeth PW, original logo and cover art by Ben Kendora design. The audio mix and finishing by Sarah Ma, our amazing podcast coordinator, Jil Pasiecnik, The Telepathy Tapes [00:48:00] coordinator and my right hand, Katherine Ellis. And I'm Ky Dickens, your writer, creator, and host.

Thank you again for joining us.

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