Simple questions for one hundred people. Welcome to our experiment, the one hundred
person Project. I am Bill Correll, and this is my investigation. This
is a research project to gather data from one hundred beautiful human beings for the
sole purpose to see what actually happens across the interviews. The questions are fixed
and all the interviews will remain consistent with a variable being the actual participants themselves
and their answers. So it's as if I'm having you come sit on my
porch, Sean, to share your thoughts so I can learn about people.
We're looking forward to what we're going to learn when we're done, and we're
very interested in the people, the process in your particular story. So it's
my distinct pleasure to introduce. Well, how about I let you do that
for me. What is your name? Your full name? My full name
is Sean denin no middle name. I do you have a middle name?
My middle name is Ashley. There you go. And not a lot of
people know that right now? Well they do now at least you and me.
That's fantastic. And how do you feel about that name? I always
hated it, so obviously Sean is not typically a girl's name. I've gotten
over that, having it for thirty three years now. Now I tell people
that boys names build character for girls. But I was always like double upset
about it because of my middle name. So Sean Ashley Denene. My initial
is spelled words sad son. You had to give me a boy's name,
and you had to give me initials that I can't put anything out, put
on anything because it's sad. But whatever, a little bit like a boy
named Sue where you'd have to get tougher die right. I like it.
That's so irish. So, Sean Ashley, what is your favorite nickname that
most people don't know? So most people who are really close to me,
my mom, my best friends, they all call me Shannie. And then
my best friend her son, he calls me Shawnnye Bonnie. That's cute.
Yeah. My godson's name is Shan se a n and his sister Emily always
called him Shawnee. So that's good. I like it, so you know,
and the other part of it is it's kind of neat to see the
shoe on the other But because I've known a guy named Carol, he didn't
like it all that much and Kim has been one of those kind of ambiguous
could be anybody my watch likes to talk to me from time to time.
I could probably turn it off, but you know what, we'll just roll
with it back to you. So about about Shannie and Shannie Bonnie who and
tell me about how it makes you feel. So if someone like a stranger
just calls me Shannie, I feel a little weird about it. There are
specific people that that's all they call me, So if they don't call me
that, it also feels weird. So it really just depends. He was
his mouth that's coming out of Can I share a little Irish lore that I
never realized until my friend Johnny McCullough explained this to me. Both of us
are going on seventy years old. I think I'll be seventy a little bit
before him. He could has always called me Billy, and he known me
since the third grade. And after a lifetime of being called that by my
family and some very special close people, I asked John. I said,
John, you know, we're a little bit long in the tooth to be
calling each other, you know, ending up with an e. He says,
well, Billy, he says, you got to understand that that's an
Irish demonstration of respect. You know that almost anybody who was anybody back in
the day. That's why you know, scotsman are the same way Johnny Black,
Johnny Walker Black. You know, there's a good reason that the Johnny
is there like handsome, handsome, billy boy, you know, billy boyd
so Shannie in our country would be probably most people wouldn't know that, and
you'd have to explain it to him. And then if you've got to tell
him the joke, then it's not really funny anymore, is it. Yeah?
Anyway, so we'll move on from there. And when did you first
notice what color hair you had? So I don't I have no idea,
I have no recollection of being like, oh, I have brown hair.
But I do know is when I decided to change my brown hair and when
I wanted my hair to be blonde instead of brown. And I think I
was I was either I think I was around like eighth grade. My mom
let me get highlights. Maybe it was earlier than that. I'm not sure,
but yeah, so oddly enough, I don't remember just realizing what it
was, but I do remember changing it. That's interesting now, were you
one of those ladies that did something else to your hair, like perming it
or ironing it or something else, Curling it with a curling iron in high
school sort of thing. Never perm but I'm straightened, my hair curled with
my hair, it always just wants to be somewhere in between, so I
don't do much to it anymore. But yeah, well I don't think you
need to in my humble opinion. Okay, so we'll move on from your
hair as interesting and exciting a topic as that is. What is your favorite
thing to do to intentionally waste time? Well, I mean, I think,
like a lot of people now, I just find myself scrolling on my
phone. TikTok will kind of eat your brain. So I find that if
there's a downtime, I am like scrolling on TikTok. I'm trying not to
do that anymore, though, So if I'm trying to kill time now,
I try to put the phone down and pick up a book instead, but
my brain always wants to go to the phone immediately. It's interesting. Is
there a particular feed or a channel or something. I know nothing about TikTok,
but I'm imagining that it's probably like Facebook, where there's different categories of
stuff that you can, you know, then kind of subscribe to, et
cetera. Does it work that way, yeah, kind of, So it
kind of learns what you like and then starts showing you more of that.
It's not always spot on that, so sometimes you get into these like weird
little niche things that you kind of get to be like. I don't know
how I end up on this side of TikTok, but yeah, you can
search particular things and come up with a whole bunch of videos for anything.
Yeah, I do think there. Say again, I do a lot of
my learning on there. I don't do it on TikTok, but I do
do it on other social media. A lot of people making big time money
on TikTok? Is that so? Oh yeah? Yeah? Millions of dollars
and you. Yeah, so we've got an interesting connection here, and it
looks like only one of us can talk at a time. So I'm going
to be a lot more quiet till I'm pretty sure you're done speaking. Okay,
Because you're my guest, I want to treat you with most respect,
Shawnnie, And as a result of that, this is your story. So
TikTok. Is there anything else that you do? You did say, go
to a book. What kind of books do you read? I like a
good like corny love story. I'm not big into like thrillers are historical.
I like things that are fakes, so things that are like an escape for
your mind. I don't necessarily want to have to do a lot of thinking
about plots and things like that. I just want it to be corny Hallmark
movie cheese. We're really talking a snack here, right, I got it.
So what is your favorite movie to watch by yourself? See, I
don't watch a ton of movies. I'm like chronically one of those people that
will fall asleep the second you put a movie on. I really like the
movie big Fish, though I don't know if you've ever seen it. It's
agree like the title I heard, who's in it? Oh, I have
no idea? Okay, you're usually asleep by the time they run that at
the end. Quit. Yeah, I get it. Okay, but big
Fish, I'll have to look that up afterwards and just see what's what the
attraction is. Yeah, it's a good one. It gets a little like
weird and mythical almost, but it's a good one nice. So if you
were to have an action figure of like super Sean made of you, what
superpower would it have? And what colors would its uniform be? What superpower
would it have? I always wanted to have teleporting superpowers because I hate driving
and I just want to get places. So if my superpower could be just
to go somewhere teleportation not have to waste time or do any driving or travel,
I would like to have that. And it would probably be no what
it would wear leggings and probably some like bright colored thing. Any two colors
has come to mind. Could be more than two colors, but what would
be the first two you think of? I mean, I have pink on
today, so that's probably a good go to. I do a lot of
like olive green or like burnt orange. Lovely, I can imagine, especially
with the leggings. That sounds comfortable more than anything. Yeah, I think
COVID taught us that we don't have to wear like real pants anymore. We
can just wear leggings. However, it is advisable to wear some pants,
right, Yes, yes, that didn't work out for certain people very well.
I can't even imagine, you know, and the really neat. Part
of all of that is is that having a superpower to be able to transport
that so resonates with me. You know, I'm in the IT industry,
right I started a computer company back in the early nineteen nineties. I thought
that email was the coolest thing ever, So starting in nineteen ninety four nineteen
ninety five, I was constantly trying to figure out how to send myself as
an attachment in an email. I've yet to crack that code. So if
anybody out there who's listening has a way to do that, I'd love to
hear about it. And it sounds like Sean might be interested too. Yeah,
definitely. I don't mind the travel, but I'd rather get where I'm
going and get busy, you know. So what did you want? This
one's interesting, not like the other ones weren't interesting, But this one is
interesting from the perspective of placing yourself in the past. So what did you
want to grow up to be when you were five years old? I don't
know if it was specifically five years old, but I know when I was
younger, I wanted to be a fashion designer, and I don't know what
happened to that, but at some point I phased out of it. So
that might have come from movie, maybe the Devil Wears Product or something like
that. Maybe, and not so I remember wanting to be that when I
was young. But then I remember also, like probably more high school age,
there was a show called The Hills and they were like working for fashion
companies and going to fashion school, and I just like thought that was the
coolest thing. Yeah. Did you ever watch a project runway at all?
Yep? Make it work? Yeah? Yeah, I love that. I
but so I can't sew to save my life. I've taken sewing classes,
and it's just not for me. I'm more of a digital design kind of
person. So I don't think fashion design was really in the cards for me.
You really are a digital design person, and that's kind of what you
do, is your your secondary passion, as I would say, you know,
and you want to spend a minute or two talking about that. How
so do you think that the passion for being a fashion designer wound up getting
redirected into design, you know, for digital stuff or was it something else
along the way that caught your eye or some program that you stumbled into that
you said, WHOA this thing can actually do what I might have gotten my
mind. Yeah, So I've never been like a drawer painter. I couldn't
make like my own art authentically basically. So when Canva came out, I
thought that was the most incredible product. And I still use Canva for everything
because a lot of it is people have made the little characters or like formats
of things, and then you can change them and make them your own.
And so I have an eye for like color and layout and things like that,
but I couldn't draw you my own character. So that allows me to
use else's talent, merge it together with mine, and then get what I
want out of it. So I can I design my own journals. So
a lot of that is done through Canva. Not again things that I drew
myself, but somebody else put their one little piece out there. I took
that, I combined it with something else, and then I made my version
of art out of it, which is the journal covers. So it all
kind of together with Canva. So there was this man back in the nineteen
sixties and seventies. His last name was Deming, and he went to all
of the manufacturing companies, the big manufacturing companies, automobiles, textiles, you
name it. And he was trying to bring statistical quality control to them and
he went to the Japanese and they just lapped it right up. They said,
holy mackerel. You mean there's a way we don't have to have so
much scrap and trash and everything, And he said, yeah, it's his
first thing you do is you shamelessly steal all the best ideas. And I've
carried that forward, you know, thing that's not patented, not the van
product, but shame You know, if you want to take the process and
shamelessly steal that, do yourself a favor. Don't reinvent the wheel every single
time. So I love you saying that. Is that part of what you
go on TikTok for is to kind of like get an idea of late breaking
visual images and that sort of thing. Not so much. I do use
it sometimes, Like there's different creators that will show you how to use tools
on Canva that maybe you didn't know existed. Actually, I a couple of
months ago discovered this new tool through TikTok that you can take an image that
you like and you can have Canva apply the color scheme to whatever you're making.
So if you're doing something branded, you can take your logo and have
the flyer apply the color scheme from your logo. It's just so cool.
It would probably take me hours playing around with it, but instead I can
just click one button and have it all match perfectly. Terribly convenient. Huh.
Yeah, that's wonderful. So all right on to the next question.
Now, this is a This is where I get to know you a little
bit. Okay, what would you say, Sean, is your greatest accomplishment?
My greatest accomplishment? I don't think it's like I guess we usually think
that we want to have, like an award or an achievement or whatever.
But I think my greatest accomplishment is just the perseverance that I've been able to
have. So my fiance passed away in twenty twenty two, and instead of
letting that destroy me, I've used it to fuel me and to be able
to build off of it. So although it was something tragic and unexpected and
nothing that I could have planned for, it's given me this whole different lights
now, and my perseverance was able to take me on the journey that I'm
on now and meet the incredible people that I've been able to meet go on
the vacations and trips that I've gone on. So I credit that to my
perseverance, and I think having that is a great accomplishment for myself. I
really agree with you, and for me and the folks at home, we
are sorry for your loss, but also inspired by how you're dealing with it.
You are a very strong woman, and you're very self effacing, and
you do good stuff for everybody you know all the time. It's very much
appreciated. Thank you. I agree that's your greatest accomplishment, and also being
that beacon of light that basically says, as long as you're still breathing,
you still got work to do. Yep. Yeah, I'm sorry. Day
before but people will say like, oh, well, how do you carry
on and how do you still stay so positive and things like that, and
all I ever say is I still have my life, so I have to
keep living it, living my life because I have it, and as long
as I have it, I'm going to live it in a way that hopefully
brings me the most joy as possible. I love that, and quite frankly,
my whole life. All the songs that I've known were not about being
joyful and loss. They were about how can I live without you and all
the rest of that sort of thing. So that subliminally has really kind of
created this thing that we can't point to and understand why we feel the way
that we do. And I like that you're balanced. That's the best word
I can come up with, you know, And enough said, onto the
next thing. So, who is your favorite person to listen to? Sean
in any way? In any way? I don't know. I mean,
I would have to say my mom, just because my mom's my favorite person
in general. She is the person that I laugh the hardest with. She's
the person that I talk to if I need an year, So I don't
always want to take her advice, but she's probably ultimately my frorit person to
listen to, and you enjoy listening to her no matter what you choose to
do. Right, And in my adulthood, I've realized that she is almost
ninety nine percent of the time right. So usually if she's telling me something,
I should probably listen. And you usually find that right after you don't.
Right. Yeah, teenage me would hate that, Oh my god,
Yeah, this is not right. Something's wrong with it, and I appreciate
obviously she did a pretty good job with you, and she still considers you
a work in progress. That's pretty cool. So please complete this sentence.
When I grow up, i'd like to and I grow up, I'd like
to be happy and fulfilled whatever that looks like. Say some more, please,
So I think that a lot of times we strive for like career success
or success monetarily, and those things are awesome, But at the end of
the day, I want my life to be one filled with joy and as
much experience as possible. So, yeah, it's complicated and simple at once.
Well, here's the thing. I like it because, you know,
happiness is always a matter of perspective, and it's kind of on a sliding
scale, you know. It's very context sense, as they say, And
quite frankly, I think most people that run into you are going to think
you're already pretty happy and joyful, you know, so for you, it
would probably be off the hook for most other people. And I can just
imagine you walking around every single day. This is the best day I've ever
had. I can't wait for tomorrow because there's more fun stuff come in.
Yeah, and I specifically use the word joy instead of happiness a lot,
because I don't think that it's the same. Like to me, joy could
be being content, being relaxed, being at ease. It doesn't necessarily have
to be some explosion of smiles and laughter, but it's just good all around.
Yeah, happiness is kind of like comfort, where joy is more or
less getting lost in the moment, do you think, Yeah, like suddenly
you look around in three hours, have gone by? What happened there?
You know? Right, let's do it again tomorrow. Yeah, it's a
little more deep to me than just saying happiness. I agree, And now
that you've explained it a little bit more, we have that distinction, the
difference between happiness and joy. Thank you. Now. So what is the
most important thing in life to you right now? The most important thing in
life to me right now is complicated. In order to pick just one thing,
I think experiencing things is important to me, Trying new things, anything
that's going to allow me to not be stuck in this like grief hole is
important to me. So anything that I can do to get out and feel
like I'm alive and living and having purpose, that's what's most important to me
right now. That's very cool. So now that you've said that, is
there something else that's close to being that important to you? My relationships with
people Since losing John, I think I have a different perspective on what a
good relationship with anyone is. So means good friendships that are quality friendships that
give back to me and don't just suck things out of me are important to
me. And whether that's what friends or family or whoever, having those quality
connections is really important to me. I appreciate that's that's really great sharing.
And I imagine there are a lot of people that are listening me included that
that's very informative too. You know, the whole notion of relationships sometimes disappears
while you're just in the middle of having another day with you know. It's
like I had a friend, you know. He used to say, I
wake up in the morning and I look over at my wife and I go,
oh, you again, you know, And it's like I said,
John, you know, it's over right, dude, And I said,
go ask her if she's feeling the same way he did. And they had
the most amicable, you know divorce. They are the happiest married to two
other people. It just happened in such a way that both of them were
not ready to break the other one's heart. And then when they told each
other nobody's heart was broken, it was like, oh, thank god too.
You go first, No, you go first, No, you go
first, you know. And the remarkable thing they're still very good friends.
As a matter of fact, the four of them travel together to this day.
And it's remarkable to me because I don't know a lot of people that
have that going on in their lives. And I appreciate you highlighting the whole
notion of the relationship, especially with a partner. For you, I would
imagine you're looking for something completely different than you were the last time. Absolutely,
and honestly, I've tried to go back on dating apps, and it's
kind of torture for me because people just don't understand the kind of relationship that
I'm looking for. Because I have this comparison of I had the person that
was perfect in my eyes that I wanted to be with forever. I'm not
just interested in checking off a box that all right, married, check,
having baby check. Like I want a connection, a person, a person
to do life with, not just to check off all those timeline boxes.
That's a wonderful thing to say. What if being married is a person is
a person to do life with. I like that. You can count on
me to steal it shamelessly. Okay, go right ahead, all right?
So these are great answers. I love where you're coming from. What would
you like to leave in the world after your time here is done? What
would I like to leave? So I think I just want people like to
think of me fondly because when I think about all of the people connected to
John and how they feel having lost him, it's just such a like significant
thing to say about his character that all of these people so deeply miss him
and we're sad by him not being here. I mean, I have he
had more male friends than any guy I've ever met ever, Like he maintained
this close knit circle of guy friends from early age, like elementary school,
and some of them will still message me and just tell me, like how
much they miss him, or posts that they went to the cemetery and how
much they missed him. And he was just such a light and an energy
and a presence. And I want people to remember me as fondly as they
think of him. That's amazing. I'm sure it'll be quite different. And
at the same time, that's a It's a powerful way to share a loss,
to just be back in contact again and say this is how I'm feeling
today and thank John for what do you left for all of us with very
cool I'm gonna smile now. Okay, So all right, do you have
baker? Is there somebody that you go to to get donuts or bread or
any of that kind of thing. I do some baking myself, so usually
if I want something, I will just make it. But there is there
is a bakery that I'll go to. It's in South Windsor. It's called
Two Spy Spell Boalty makes some incredible stuff there. It sounds good. My
first experience with a bakery was when I was I don't know, probably about
five or six years old. My grandfather took me all around and we bought
a bunch of ingredients and we went to the bake shop and he ordered a
dozen donuts and the guy counted out thirteen into the bag, and I was
like amazed, he gave you thirteen donuts? He said, any good bakery
always does. You're buying the done, but a dozen you might as well
get another one. And so to this day, I think the Baker's dozen
is a concept that everyone ought to use. You know, when you're doing
things for people and don't do twelve, do thirteen right, always more than
is expected. So here's your Baker's question. What is the thing Sean that
most people misunderstand about you? I think, especially lately and post John's passing,
maybe even a little bit before, people I post a lot of stuff.
So I post my feelings, I post about stuff that's going on.
I post about however I'm feeling that I'm missing John or I just share a
lot social media wise, and I think people really think that that's like kind
of a tention grab kind of thing, and that's not at all what it
is. Like Partially, it's therapeutic for me because I get to just like
talk to a blank space about how I'm feeling, and that's a good outlet
for me. But at the same time, I also get to reach people
who may also be feeling the same way and help them if they're struggling.
I've had people come and ask me for resources and I have them to provide
to them. So by sharing those things, I wouldn't have naturally known that
that person was struggling, but they saw that they could connect with me and
then sent me a message. So it depends on perspective. I guess that's
brilliant. And you know what, You're more than willing to be misunderstood,
aren't you. Yeah, And if you don't like what I'm sharing, or
if you think it's ill intent, or whatever the case may be, it's
a you problem. This one. This one was never for you, Okay.
Yeah. You know when when you're speaking and I watch you kind of
like muwing something around in your head before you say what's going to come out?
I am to the point where you've got me conditioned to expect nothing but
empowerment. It's a wonderful trait that you have and a wonderful skill. And
I appreciate being around you. I appreciate sharing your space in conversation. I
will appreciate working with you in the future if we pull that off. But
in the meantime, I've got a question for you. Do you have any
questions for me? I don't know. I wasn't prepared for that to be
the one asking the questions. Yeah, I like to give a zinger last
before everybody leaves, but everyone gets asked that. I don't think I do
at the moment very good. So anything else that you'd like to say,
either about the experience experience, what you have had to say, what you've
shared, anything you want to do to kind of wrap up. Yeah,
I think it's just important to know that, like, this is your life,
so you get to choose how you live it, and you get to
choose what the outcome of it is, Like you get to choose the path
you're on. And I've discovered through this entire grief and lost journey and process
of finding people, that, like I was always my own biggest darrier.
I was always judging myself more than anyone else was, And I was thinking
about is that person smiling, laughing at me or mocking me? And at
this point, like I said before, that's a you problem. Now if
you have any judgments about me, that's a you problem. And because I
experienced such a significant loss, I kind of get to go on and live
my life. That the worst thing possible happened to me and I'm still here
and I'm alive, So what's the worst that could happen if that person smiling
or laughing is laughing at me. In the grand scheme of things, It's
not that bad. So we just keep moving on excellent, and I think
we will leave the interview right there. But my parting words to all of
you that are listening, and to you too, Sean, is there are
people in your life and in all of your lives at home that would love
to hear from you, and you don't know it and they don't know it.
But if you were to just call them, send them an email,
send them a text, and basically say hey, I really appreciate that you
are here and that you're in my life. My life works because I know
you're out there. Please call me if you ever need anything. Love you.
Bye. So give that a shot and do it at least four or
five people over the next week and see what happens to you personally. I
highly recommend it. So again, here we are simple questions for one hundred
beautiful persons, and Sean Ashley Deneen, thank you so much for your absolute
great answers and for spending time with us all. Thank you for having me
very welcome. Bye for now bye. You've been listening to simple questions for
one hundred people part of the x Audio podcast network. You can find every
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