243: Plot Twist: How Embracing Sex Talk Propelled Dr. Emily Morse to Discover Her Life's Work

In this special “Plot Twist” episode of The Light Watkins Show, Light Watkins shares an inspiring conversation with Dr. Emily Morse, one of the world’s top sex therapists, authors, and media personalities. The episode features a pivotal moment in Dr. Morse’s life when she faced a major setback—losing all of her money, couch surfing, and driving friends to the airport for extra cash. But instead of giving up, Dr. Morse found this plot twist led her toward her true calling.

Listeners will hear how Dr. Morse transitioned from working in politics alongside well-known figures like Barbara Boxer and Willie Brown to becoming a leading voice in the world of sex and relationships. She opens up about the ups and downs of her journey, sharing valuable lessons about perseverance, pivoting, and following her passion.

This episode dives into Dr. Morse’s personal challenges, including financial struggles, burnout, and how she used these obstacles to fuel her purpose. Along the way, she also talks about the early days of her podcast Sex with Emily, the importance of open communication, and why it's essential to embrace life’s detours.

Tune in for an inspiring and motivating story that reminds us all to lean into our own plot twists, as they often lead us to the path we were meant to take. If you’re looking for a story of resilience and transformation, this episode is for you!

And if you’re curious to hear how Emily became Dr. Emily, click here.

Transcript

EM: "Things were happening. I was successful. I was like, oh well, I’m going to quit this job, because it’s all happening. Then I took out a loan, a business loan, because I was very naive. I just thought, I didn’t live in LA, you remember this. I do no entertainment. No one was doing what I was doing. I thought that if may lawyer called me and said, they want to syndicate your radio show for five days a week, and it’s an $800,000. I remember him saying this to me. That’s an $800,000 deal. I was like oh my God! I was like, it’s all happening! I took out a loan to get me by, because I had no money, and then the recession hit in 2009." 

[INTRODUCTION] 

Hey friend, welcome back to The Light Watkins Show. I’m Light Watkins, and I have conversations with ORDINARY folks, just like you and me, who’ve taken extraordinary leaps of faith in the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they’ve identified as their mission in life.

 Today, we have a bite-sized “Plot Twist” episode. A plot twist is a shorter clip from a past episode, where the guest shares the story of the pivotal moment in their life trajectory where they found the gateway to their calling. And the idea behind sharing their plot twists is to inspire you to lean in to those plot twists when they happen in your life.
 
 Because usually, when you get turned around from what you thought was your path in life, what’s actually happening is you’re being detoured toward your actual path. 
 
 And sometimes that looks like getting a life-changing diagnosis, or getting fired, or in the case of today’s guest, Dr. Emily Morse, it’s losing all of your money and having to sleep on couches and drive your friends to the airport for money..

Today, Dr. Emily is recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on sex therapists, in addition to author and media personality, and this is the plot twist that propelled her in the direction of her true calling. Let’s listen in…

LW: I know you worked with Barbara Boxer and Pelosi and Willie Brown. What did you glean from your time in politics that informed your path later?

EM: It’s funny. I remember seeing Barbara Boxer speak. I drove to San Francisco when I graduated from Michigan. Barbara Boxer was running for senate. It was her first campaign for senate. I remember, I was an intern. I went to her first event and I saw her speak. She got there, spoke about politics and rights and America. I had never heard a political speech like that. I remember, tears came to my eyes. I was 21-years-old. Like, wow, this is a powerful woman and she's speaking to my soul. There's so much change, and we can do it. I got very rallied and excited about the cause of the movement for people's rights and for all income families and diversity and fair pay for women's rights and women’s – all the things. I got very motivated.

I was really into the policy part of it and just – I really enjoyed going around and speaking to different groups about voting. I mean, I was an intern at the time, but I was very driven. I was very – I showed up every day. This is what I found. If you're an intern, this is a great message; interns are listening. Make yourself indispensable, indisposable. Indispensable, I guess. I showed up, I would do anything. I will clean the tables. I will sweep the office and I will call people for money. “We're calling from the Barbara Boxer campaign.” I did everything. It was a thrill.

Also, working in politics is thrilling. There's a campaign, there's a deadline. My adrenaline junkie loved that we were all working towards this goal. I really got to learn San Francisco. We would drive to different parts of the city and knock on doors and ask, do the – get out the vote efforts. I love that part of it. Then I worked for Willie. There was a bunch of things that happened. They wanted me to move to DC to work for her at DC, but I just gotten to San Francisco and I wasn't ready to go.

Then I got a job working for another woman in San Francisco, who was the first openly gay member of the board of supervisors. I ran her campaign. Then Willie Brown was the first Black Mayor of San Francisco. He was a legend in San Francisco. He had been in the state house for 32 years as a speaker. I got a call from his campaign like, “Do you want to work on the Willie Brown campaign?” San Francisco's a very small town. It's a small nation in itself. It's less than a million people. If you work in politics, you knew everybody.

It was like, you could really make change. It was just a smaller group of people. You could have a big impact. I guess, what I learned is I learned about connection and communication. I learned about being able to talk to anybody about anything. My favorite thing and people still laugh at this. I used to walk into a room where I don't know anybody. I've constantly put myself in situations throughout my life, where I'm like, “I'll go to this place where I don't know anybody.” Even in high school, my brother went to one high school and I chose the other one at first, but that didn't – Whatever. I just always want to do what people aren't doing.

With Willie Brown, I loved being able to talk to groups of people about why they should vote for him. I loved the ability to get people to think differently about things without judgment, because – I'm not an angry – How I get mesmerized. I'm not a divisive person. I don't enjoy argument, or conflict. I'm also conflict-avoidant. I think I know how to meet somebody and how to hear them out and listen. I learned how to listen. I learned how to make change. I was in politics for 10 years. There was a bunch of other things. I could talk about it forever, what I did. I find it really interesting. It was very pivotal in my growth.

I also, towards the end of it, became disillusioned with politics, because so much of it was about raising money. Then you see everything, the shadow side is like, these candidates have to get up every day and they have to kiss babies and shake hands and raise money. I kept getting pushed towards that part of it. Can we get this donor, or this thing, and they get appointed a certain commission? Just everything that we know about politics. I just thought, this isn't filling my soul anymore. This isn't doing what I thought it would do, make me happy, which we know nothing's going to make me happy, unless it comes from inside.

 At the time, I was like, “I'm not interested in this anymore.” I learned how to communicate, how to make change, how to be bold, how to be aggressive, how to get anything done. I think, I really learned that anything is possible, because Willie Brown was such a mentor. All these people were. If you become a politician, you have such a work ethic, and you also know how to get things done. Maybe you're a little manipulative. Just everything's possible. The rules don't apply to you. You can walk on water.

Working for people like this, this other woman I work for, you can't take no for an answer. Everything is possible. I learned to pull off amazing feats, working for these people. Things that were impossible. Willie Brown got elected mayor. To me, one, it was exciting. It was 50 of us on the campaign. He took 10 of us to city hall. He said, "I want 10 of you to be on the transition team." I was 25 at the time. He said, “I want to do an inaugural ball for the entire city of San Francisco and I want everybody to be invited, but we don't have a budget.” I was like, “Okay.”

I went around to every single food service, restaurant, vendor in San Francisco. We got the entire port of San Francisco. I don’t remember what it was. One of the ports. I lived there for 20 years, but I can't think pier, it was a pier. Pier something, donated their whole space. I went around and I spent six weeks getting all the food donated, all the singer – I basically coordinated this entire event, the inaugural ball that everybody in San Francisco was welcome and invited to come to an event, and there was no cost.

That was stressful and intense and amazing. I had big trucks rolling in and my mom, she came. I think, I was talking to my – No, maybe there was no cellphones, but I don't – Maybe she was visiting me, because there was no cellphones. She watched me. These U-haul trucks coming in. I’m like, “This way.” I'm like five-foot one. I just coordinated this entire event to happen. There were several things like that, that I did events for him, where people would show up. It was 300 people. I think Maya Angelou spoke. She did speak, but it raised $30,000 for him. I did nope. I got everything donated for the event. That stuff that I wouldn't have known how to do.

 LW: Did he have full confidence that this could actually happen, or was he testing you to see if you could actually make it happen?

 EM: I don't remember. I'm trying to remember. It wasn't just me, but I was in charge of the inaugural committee. Yes, we had people. I think that he was just like, “Yeah, anything is possible.” That's why he's so successful. Because these people are like, everything is possible. I don't want the citizens of San Francisco, who live in the Bay View, who live in these areas that can't afford tickets to be left out of this momentous occasion.

I think, that if maybe, looking back, if I’m like, these people need money. I'm sure, we ended up paying for some things, like cost of whatever, but we really got people donate. Because remember, they also got to a part of this exciting moment and they got to put their – they had a booth with their signage. I think, that he believed that he could make anything happen. I then believed that anything could happen.

Maybe I always had that mindset. I don't know where that comes from. That's interesting, because I moved to San Francisco with nothing, no money. I packed up my geo-prism and drove cross country in three days, and I had nothing. I live with a friend. I had six jobs. I think, I have that mentality, too, that anything could happen.

LW: How did you link up with Kelly Duane, and how did this idea of doing a documentary come about?

EM: Okay, so that's my next chapter is that, with politics, all the stuff, I thought, this is no – I was exhausted. I was burned out. I thought, I really want to do something. I felt I was essentially a producer. I was essentially making stuff happen for all these people. I had those skills. I also, at the time, I became obsessed with documentaries. I was watching every documentary. I loved The War Room about Bill Clinton's candidacy. There were so many great documentaries. I saw all of them, all the documentaries from the big documentaries from the 70s, 80s, 90s. There was a few about politics that I was just really taken by.

After the election, Willie Brown, I said, “I need a break. I hadn’t had a day off in four years.” I bought a one-way ticket. I went backpacking for nine months in Southeast Asia. I did my first meditation retreat, my first silent 10-day retreat in Thailand. Because I knew, I was suffering too. My dad had died and I decided to – I was in therapy, but I wasn't really working on myself. I just got busy. He died. I went back up to college three weeks later. I got six jobs. I took three classes, got two jobs. I was just working.

 I decided to numb the pain by filling it with work and drive and not slowing down. I was exhausted. I went on this trip to find myself. It's like eat, pray, love. I did all those things. Then I came back and I was like, I really want to create something that is meaningful, that I can create. I remember saying this at the time. I didn't have better words for. It was like, something that I can point to and be like, I created it. This is something that I've made. It's not just helping other people with their missions.

I didn't know what it was. Then I came up with idea for a documentary, because Willie Brown – I came back from Asia and he's like, “Hey.” Because I have a very good relationship with him. He's like, “You're back. I'm going to China. Will you lead a trade mission to China for me? We're going to China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.” I was like, “Sure.” Then I'm the expert on China. Then it was ironic, I went back. Then for two years, I had a job being an international consultant. I started a business, essentially. Antonio V. Rosso, when he was speaker of the state legislator, before he became mayor of San Francisco said, “Well, you do want to go to Mexico?”

For two years, I traveled around the world with politicians, on trade missions, making these events. We'd go meet with the minister. We went to Buenos Aires and met with the head of transportation in Curitiba, when I went with Antonio. We just went everywhere. Willie Brown, I made this trip happen and I traveled. I got them to keep the wall, Great Wall of China open, because we weren't going to be there in time for something. That's the shit I did. I'm like, “It has to happen. It's Willie Brown.”

Anyway, I did that for two years. Then I thought, I still need to create something that's my own. I was driving over the Golden Gate Bridge one day, and I had this vision of a film about Willie Brown, because he is a fascinating man. He's brilliant. I saw him work in meetings. I was also his issues director for a while. Sit with him in meetings with policy, where all these people would be sitting around. He just wouldn't say a word for two hours, then he’d come up with the most brilliant way to solve a problem.

Anyway, so I loved him. I liked his work, but I knew he's controversial. I said, I'm going to do a film on him running for reelection. I didn't know what's going to be, so I took a class at a film place in San Francisco called the Film Arts Foundation. In that class, I was like, I'm already doing this film. He's launching his reelection campaign. I need someone to shoot it. What's that person called? They're a director of photography, or I’m like, “Okay, great. I need that and I need whatever.”

Kelly Duane was in my class with me. She's like, “I'll help you make the film.” Literally, my whole class, my teacher ended up shooting and Kelly was being my producer, and that's how it happened. I went on this wild ride of making it. I raised all the money for it, because I knew how to raise money, and I knew all the big donors in San Francisco. It took me a long time. It took me about two, or three years. It was my baby. It was my first baby before Sex with Emily. I was like, I'm in it. I shot a 160 hours of footage. I whittled it down to an hour. I made a documentary and took it to festivals. I was on PBS. It was a great film. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, which is also a theme in my life, we'll come back to. I never knew what I had been doing.

LW: Did you imagine that you would continue doing that, shooting documentaries?

EM: Yeah. Because I did a film and I loved it, but it was so hard. This is classic. I was so burnt out that, by the time it came out, I was like, I'm so tired. Because at every stage, I had to learn how to shoot. I had to learn how to edit. I mean, I had an editor, but I had to learn how to market it and promote it and cut a trailer and apply to film festivals. I applied to a 160 film festivals. I had to take the VHS tape to the post office.

I still have the letter. I have a 100 rejection letters. I got into film festivals. I got into good ones, but whatever. It was a whole thing. I was exhausted and I was like, “Okay, you know what I like?” This leads me to current day. I love interviewing people, which is funny, because now it's harder for me to interview, whatever. I love telling people stories and I love the interview process. I thought, yeah, I was going to do another documentary, but I thought, what could I do? I started a cable access show, a very short-lived one, because anybody can have a cable access show in any city, just so you know. You just have to take a weekend course.

I was going to say, sex and relationships was the wild card in my life. I always dated, but I didn't really want to commit. I've never thought of myself as a monogamous person. I thought, what is the deal with sex and relationships and why they seem so complicated and half of them end in divorce? By the way, the sex I'm having is okay, not great. I'm also an overachiever. Everyone was like, “My sex was amazing last night.” I was like, “What does that mean?” I was always asking people.

When you say you had amazing sex, back up. What did that mean? Was his penis double jointed? Were you swinging from the rafters? Were you what? Were you having 16 orgasms? I always wanted to know, so I thought, I'm going to do a show about sex in San Francisco. I had an intern for my film, and we started doing the show. Then she said to me, “You should do” – She goes, “You know what? Maybe you should try a podcast.” I'm like, “What the hell is a podcast?” This is 2005. She was, “It’s only audio, and you just need to record files and you don't need video.” I'm like, “Thank God, because video is harder.” I'm like, “Let's do that.”

That's where the Sex With Emily started. I invited a bunch of friends over to my house, in different stages of relationships, and dating and love and gender orientations and sexualities. I interviewed them all day. This is where the change happened. I sat there for five hours. I hired a sound guy off Craigslist. I just talked. I realized that the conversation that was coming out was about people being really open and real and authentic, but they didn't really understand their bodies and their sexuality. They were on a journey, and everyone was on a different path.

The common theme, everyone was like, they didn't really know what a great sex was. They didn't really know about relationships and the way that I needed to hear, that I – We’re all trying to figure it out. I thought, there's really nowhere else to go for this information. I sat there. It was almost akin to what people say when they – love at first sight, or they fall in love. Or they knew the moment I saw it. I knew this was my path.

In that moment and that day, I thought, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Because remember, I've been on this path, pivoting when it didn't work. I was like, that was worked, that didn't work. I’m like, “This is it.” This is a dialogue. This is a conversation that's going to change people's lives, because no one's talking about it and I was so – I remember, I want to be in – I was like, there was so much to learn, so much to unpack. I just read every sex book on the planet. I started going deep into podcasting. Every week, I released a podcast, and I interviewed people. That's where that all started.

LW: You invited these friends of yours to come to your apartment. You had a camcorder. You're going to put them on camera. This is before Instagram.

EM: It was this. I still have it. It was this audio. Oh, no. This was my traveling audio player. It was a soundboard.

LW: Right. They were going to talk about their sex life and their ideas about sex on record, for you to then do whatever you want to do with that, and they were fine with tha

EM: They were fine with it. Because remember, and what I found out is that people are like, how are you going to get anyone talk about sex? Everybody wants to talk about sex. Not necessarily on a podcast, but everybody has questions. Everybody is lost. Nobody had marching. No one understood it. It was like, how do you stay with someone long-term and have great sex? How do you know what you want? No one was talking about women's masturbation, or women's orgasm at all.

People were open. They were like, “Yeah, I will tell you my opinions and beliefs.” Now, not everybody got into the nitty-gritty details. People were like, “Here's my beliefs on it, or here's why I got divorced, or here's what I like in the bedroom.” It wasn't as specific as it's gotten over the years, but people were open. I actually did film the first 20. I have those tapes, but I never used them, because I didn't know what to do with video at the time.

LW: How did you come across Captain Erotica?

EM: Oh, my God. I met Captain Erotica because I was really into Burning Man. My friend, Mark, would go to Burning Man. That was before I went. He's like, “You have to meet Captain Erotica.” Remember, once you get into this realm of sex and relationships and dating, everybody comes out of the woodwork. Also remember, it's San Francisco, where people are very open and people – deploys someone naked, or walking down the street, someone flogging. You're just like, “Okay, yeah. They're trans, or whatever.” Welcome to San Francisco. People are doing their thing.

He said to me, “Captain Erotica was at my Burning Man camp last year. He is somebody who works with people in open relationships. He helps men with their wives. He teaches them how to be better lovers to their wives. He teaches them how to,” whatever. He's open. He's like, spanks. I don't know. I was like, “Okay.”

I met him, because people thought it'd be a great interview. He was one of my first interviews, because he was the person I knew that was in the sex space doing – but typically pretty quick with the catch up that open relationships, and people don't have to live in a monogamous life and that's okay, too, and that it actually does work. It's not just people who are horny, or people who are sex addicts. Some people are, but some people just know that monogamy isn't for them and they know how to practice excellent communication and rigorous honesty. All that.

He was my first person. I was like, “Wow, people do this.” Men let you have sex with their wives in front of them, and to show them how to have sex with them in a way that's completely ethical. Who knows? Maybe you went off the grid and something crazy happened. At the time, it was really groundbreaking for me.

LW: Also, because you had already shot a documentary with hundreds of hours of footage, you knew how to interview people. You knew how to bring out what was most compelling about their story. When you uploaded that, and it got, however many, 75,000 downloads, or what have you, were you surprised that it got such a big reaction?

EM: Yeah. Well, here's the thing. I think I said 75,000. I don't remember how many, but it was – Remember, it was 2005. It was the first month of podcasting, or the first three months. I remember, just uploading the file and being like, “Holy – I hope this is good.” Obsessing, worried. Then people started emailing me and saying, “We like your show. It's really helping us.” I was like, “Wow, this is, I’m getting reinforcement. People want to hear this. I'm not alone.”

Because remember, also, I was trying to find my own answers. I wasn't a doctor of human sexuality. I hadn't studied. I was just curious, really curious and wanted to help myself and others. I think that I realized that so many people were in the same boat. That felt really good that people were like, “It helped me” and “thank you,” and had questions. Yeah, it felt incredible. It's so funny, I wish – and this is something I'm still working on right now is how do we take that in and appreciate in the moment, rather than onto the next? “Oh, that's great, but I have no money. Oh, that's great, but how am I going to keep getting it out?” All the worries that come up.

I wish I could have been like, “Wow, congratulations, Emily. That's awesome. People are really into your show. That just feels good. I should go out and celebrate.” I think, and I still do this, so thank you for this moment. How do we work on receiving? I work on that a lot.

LW: Were you still meditating at that time, since you did your 10-day retreat in Thailand?

EM: No. I wanted to be meditating all the time, but I was never able to make it a –Even though I thought I would go back and do another 10-day, because I thought that would help. Then I realized, it's about integration and consistency. No, I wasn't.      

LW: You mentioned that you would burn yourself out from time to time. What was your way of releasing, managing stress?

EM: My way was exercise.

LW: I know, and you met, you learned masturbation at 25, so maybe that was a part of it as well.

EM: Yes, I masturbated a lot. For me, my release has always been athletic and working out. I used to run marathons. I thought that was a release for me and rock climb and I do yoga. I started doing yoga in the late 90s. Yoga to me was a little bit more – that felt a little bit meditation adjacent. My release was mostly my friends. I would say, it was moving my body in whatever way.

LW: What was your financial situation like in 2005?

EM: I did something really silly. I did not know what I was doing. I had some money, not a lot. I had a job at the time. I was working for this production company in San Francisco, trying to sell shows and come up with shows. It was something I wasn't that into, but they were paying me a couple $1,000 a month.

Early on in the podcast, I had a lot of “success.” Meaning, within the first three months, I got offered a live show on the radio for the station in San Francisco, CBS Radio, which is big. They were like, “We love your podcast. Can you come do it in Saturday nights, 11 to 12?” It’s expanded to 11 to 2. Then I got a TV company. This was 2007. 2005, I was still working on another job. Then 2006, it started doing well. I got this radio show. 

Then I got a book offer. Then I got TV, a potential TV thing. Things were happening. I was successful. “Oh, well, I'm going to quit this job, because it's all happening.” Then I took out a loan, a business loan. I was very naive. I didn't live in LA, you remember this. I do no entertainment. No one was doing what I was doing and I thought if my lawyer called me and said, “They want to syndicate your radio show for five days a week, and it's an 800,000.” I remember him saying this to me, “That’s an $800,000 deal.” I was like, “Oh, my God.” I was like, “It's all happening.”

I took out a loan to get me by, because I had no money. Then the recession hit in 2009. I had no money. I ended up completely not having any money. My mom lent me money. I lived in this apartment in San Francisco and I sold everything I had. I didn't have a lot. I sold my juicer. Things I had that were expensive. My juicer, my curtains, my suitcase. Whatever I could sell, I sold. I sold it all and I moved in with my friend and I slept on her couch for about nine months. I rented out my place. It was very humbling. 

It was probably one of the best things that happened, to be honest. I drove my friends to the airport for 40 bucks, because there was no Uber. I was like, “If you're going, let me drive.” I was very like, what can I do? Because I had this. I knew. I knew that Sex with Emily, that there's no way it can't be successful. I have people listening, it’s helping people, and there's interest. I'm not going to walk away from it. I'm just going to do what I need to do to get by. I got a job. Remember, I'm older though. I was in –

LW: You’re in your mid-30s. You're in your mid-30s. Your brother has this skyrocketing legal career. Other friends are probably making well in the six figures.

EM: I did everything. Yeah. My mom flew out from San Francisco. She was trying to do an intervention because she walked in my apartment.

LW: An intervention.

EM: I had these papers up. It was like that scene from A Beautiful Mind, with all my – I’m like, “Mom. This is the plan. It's all going to work.” She was like, “You could get a job at Nordstrom. And Starbucks has a health plan.” I'm like, “I'm not.” She thought I was insane. I was a little bit insane. 

LW: You have to be insane. You have to be out of your mind.

EM: Out of my mind. I'm like, I believe in this mission. It's going to happen. There's too much interest, whatever, so I didn't walk away from it. Everyone’s successful. Yeah, my mom's like – my mom paid for my health care. She's like, “I'm not helping you out though.” Which again, even though she has money and my brother tossed me a little bit of money. He's like, “I'll help you, but I'm not helping you too much.” He paid me to pay my rent. I appreciate, because while my mother and my brother are successful, they could have bank rolled it. They could have been like, “Fine.” They were like, “No.”

That's when I moved in with a friend. I didn't ask them for anything else, because I was like, “I'm going to make this work.” Oh, my God. Then I got a job. This was actually really good for me. I got to say, this is inspirational. I'll just say it. I was 40. I was working for a woman, since I went back to my political roots, who was running for mayor, and she needed some help in her office. This is actually really humbling. I don't think I've ever talked about this, but I went in there. I was essentially answering phones and assisting her when she needed help.

The good thing about it is that it was consistency and I went in five days a week, 9 to 5. I sat there and I did office stuff. I remember getting the paycheck. Maybe it was 400 a week, or 500 a week. After a month, I had $2,000. Then I had $3,000. I started building a bank account again, from the way of me being responsible. I actually liked having this job, because it wasn't stressful. It was a little humbling. I wasn’t obsessed and churning on Sex with Emily, what I could do.

In that period, I was still doing Sex with Emily, after work, I'd go and record it at the studio with my friend who had worked at CBS still. Manis, who was on my show and he helped me, but it wasn't my all-consuming. I had another responsibility. I took the attention off of it. I wasn't trying so hard. In that year, period, where I had this other job and I was trying – I moved back into my place, other things started to happen.

What happened then, I got sex toys sent to me from this company called Je Joue. They make this toy called the Mimi, which honestly, is still one of my favorite toys. I couldn't believe I got a free sex toy. Then I got a box of them, but I liked this one the best. I talked about it on my show. They called and said, “Our sales went up by 40%.” For me talking about it on my podcast in 2010 or 11. I was like, “Wow, okay. Well, let's do something. Pay me and I'll give you a YouTube video. I'll give you a tweet,” because I have Twitter and YouTube and I had – There was no Instagram at the time. Then I got started being in business. I started talking to brands. I went to sex conventions. Then I just started hustling for sponsorships and figuring out how to make a living.

[END]

That was Dr. Emily Morse, and to hear how Emily became Dr. Emily, you can go to episode 59, and start listening at the 45 minute mark. And in addition to listening to rest of Emily’s episode, I also recommend following him on the socials at @sexwithemily

And if you connected with this conversation, you also want to check out my interviews with Emily Fletcher, ep 236, as well as my conversation with Sahara Rose, which is episode 110. Both Emily Fletcher and Sahara Rose have incredible stories of finding their way and incorporating sexual freedom and empowerment along their journey.

And if you happen to know of anyone whose making the world a better place, and they had an incredible plot twist in their life, email me your guest suggestions at light@lightwatkins.com. 

My other ask is that you take a few seconds to leave a rating or review for the show. You hear podcast hosts like me ask listeners like you for ratings, because that’s how guests determine if they’re going to come onto a podcast. So it makes a huge difference. And all you do is look at your device, click on the show name, scroll past the first five episodes, and you'll see a place with five blank stars—just tap the star all the way on the right to leave a 5-star rating. And if you're feeling generous, write a one line review, just letting a potential new listener know which episode they should consider starting with. And that can go a long way as well.

Also, you can watch these Plot Twist episodes on my YouTube channel if you prefer see what Arjuna looks like as he’s sharing his plot twist. And don't forget to subscribe on youtube as well. 

Okay, I’ll see you on Wednesday with the next long-form conversation about an ordinary person doing extraordinary things to leave the world a better place. And until then, keep trusting your intuition, following your heart, and keep leaning into those Plot Twists in your life. And if no one’s told you lately—I believe in you.

Thank you, and have a fantastic weekend!