Why I Wanna Be Keeley Jones — Episode 188

**This episode was recorded prior to season 3.  Not sure where Keeley is going in the future but I want to talk about what happened in seasons 1 & 2 **

Keeley Jones is a character on the show Ted Lasso on played by Juno Temple, and today I’m sharing why I’m no longer focusing on WHY women don’t support each other and instead just wanting to be Keeley. 🙂

Producer: Drew Erickson

Transcript

[00:00:00.170] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on Episode 188, we are talking about why I want to be Keeley Jones. Let’s untangle it.

[00:00:19.520] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson, the curly head behind the Pulling Curls Podcast: pregnancy and parenting untangled. There’s no right answer for every family, but on this show, we hope to give you some ideas to make life simpler at your house. Life’s tangled, just like my hair.

[00:00:39.360] – Hilary Erickson

As a note, at the time this episode was recorded, before watching season three of Ted Lasso… If anything, Ted Lasso has taught us that characters are complicated. And while we may love what Keeley does in season three, or we may not love what Keeley does in season three, I’m using examples from season one and two. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode.

[00:00:57.880] – Hilary Erickson

This episode was actually first entitled Why Don’t Women Support Each Other? I have to say that I have had a rough go of women in the past year. I have had some big names on this podcast who I’ve had a relationship. Sometimes they’re asking me questions about how to run a business or all these different things.

[00:01:14.310] – Hilary Erickson

And then that we released the podcast and it is just crickets from them. I email them, I tag them. Sometimes they email back and they’re like, Thanks, and that is it. They don’t promote it, they don’t talk about it, nothing. I’ve just been like, You’re asking me questions. You’re wanting help from me. But when I do something, I try to be really complimentary.

[00:01:32.840] – Hilary Erickson

Anyway, it’s just been rough. And then recently I was on a trip and I was taken back to junior high. There were just some mean girls on this trip, which I was like, What is up with that? It was a business thing, too. It just really took me aback. I was like, I want to talk about women supporting women. But I am also a huge Ted Lasso fan. If you are not a Ted Lasso fan, I would encourage you to watch it.

[00:01:55.380] – Hilary Erickson

I know a lot of people don’t love all the swearing that goes on. For me, I’m like, It has an accent, it’s fine. It is well worth the swear words for me because of the things that I’ve learned about supporting each other from the show. So the big supportstress, I think, is Keeley Jones. I think a lot of people give credit to Rebecca, but the more I watch it, I feel like Keeley is constantly the one that is making the relationship better and has enough confidence in herself that she’s able to support other people.

[00:02:23.500] – Hilary Erickson

So today I wanted to give you three ways that Keeley supports other people. If you don’t know, Keeley is one of the actresses on the show. She does the PR for the team, has her own PR business, all that stuff. So one of the things that I think Keeley is great at is that she prioritizes what is right. I love it when she brings hard news to a friend and how she breaks it to them. She doesn’t beat around the bush. She is willing to be that friend who, beyond like you have partially in your teeth, has some really hard news to share, but then follows it up with just how amazing they are and how the media got it totally wrong and all those different kinds of things.

[00:03:00.990] – Hilary Erickson

I think being the friend who is willing to tell you the hard things but also love you is such a good example for me. I absolutely love it in that show. Keeley also has a huge abundance mindset. When Rebecca’s childhood friend Sassy comes on the scene, Keeley immediately just loves her. She throws her arms around her, builds a relationships with Sassy that’s separate from Rebecca’s. And instead of creating a hate triangle, which is what the media has always seem to done with women, each woman has their own relationship and they all love each other and nobody seems jealous that they love each other.

[00:03:35.380] – Hilary Erickson

And I think that is so important. I’m watching my daughter in these later junior high years headed into high school. I see those triangles and I’m like, I’m actually letting her watch Ted Lasso. I know a lot of people don’t like the swears, but the swears are totally worth it. And I told her if I hear her swearing, then she can’t watch it anymore. But learning to have solid triangular relationships or square relationships or octagonal relationships is such an important thing. I wish we could learn to do it better.

[00:04:01.500] – Hilary Erickson

And it’s been really nice to see that on TV. And it reminds me that I don’t need to worry that there’s not enough friendship to go around. We have enough friendship, right?

[00:04:10.550] – Hilary Erickson

The third thing I really like about Keeley is how well she takes ownership of her actions. She’s willing to say she’s sorry. She’s willing to say, what I did was not great, and I’m really sorry about it. And I think combined with her honesty, plus that, it just makes her a great friend. We don’t know much about Keeley’s back story, at least at the time that I’m recording this, but I would be really interested to see how did Keeley grow up?

[00:04:36.570] – Hilary Erickson

How was she as a model? Because she came out of a cutthroat, like women eat women type of world, and yet was still able to have all of these amazing ways to support women. So I think that’s been really interesting for me.

[00:04:48.430] – Hilary Erickson

Honestly, one of my favorite things about Keeley is she and Roy are talking. It’s before they know each other very well. And Roy is complaining about playing soccer. And Keeley goes, I’m Roy Kent. I play a game and it makes me mad. And that echoes in my mind all the time. I am Hilary Erickson. I am literally living out my dream. If I could have picked my dream job, this would have been it. And it makes me mad sometimes.

[00:05:15.780] – Hilary Erickson

I just love how she gets right to the point. And so Roy takes that to other players a lot of times in the show. And it always reminds me, and a lot of us, I bet you that are listening, there is a lot of your life that is the dream that you always wanted. And it sometimes makes you mad.

[00:05:32.590] – Hilary Erickson

And so sometimes when you remind yourself, this is what I always wanted. I’m playing the game, right? This is what I would have done for free, but this is what I’m doing for a living. And I shouldn’t be mad about it because it’s amazing. It’s a game. Yeah.

[00:05:44.190] – Hilary Erickson

So as I watched Ted Lasso, and of course, we had two years without new episodes, I watched other shows. And I just finished watching Emily in Paris and watching the relationships in that. They had co worker relationships. They also had girlfriend relationships. And I’m hoping that the media is starting to see that positive female relationships are great in the media because she and her friend had a really good relationship.

[00:06:08.170] – Hilary Erickson

She and her boss had a bit of a complicated relationship, but she seemed to bring in other friends and nobody ended up having the hate triangle that a lot of people refer back to. Mean girls is probably the thing that most of us transition to. We just think that there are mean girls out there. There are mean girls out there, but can we be the Keeley that’s honest with them and still shows them generosity and kindness? I hope that we can be.

[00:06:31.440] – Hilary Erickson

So anyway, I want to be Keeley Jones. I probably would like to swear less, but I’m hoping that I can take more of her traits into my life and not just focus on the fact that why don’t women support women? No, women can support women. Let’s be more like Keeley. Let’s do it.

[00:06:44.470] – Hilary Erickson

I hope you guys got something from this episode. If you liked it, come find me on Instagram, comment on the post for this episode and tell me what you love about Keeley. I hope you love Keeley as much as I do. Coming up, one of my favorite midwives is coming on next week to talk about what nurses or providers think when you are in labor, and the next week we are talking about helping your baby to sleep, so stay tuned.

[00:07:04.660] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. The Pulling Curls Podcast grows when you share us on social media or leave a review. If you do, please tag us so that we can share and send you a virtual hug, which, frankly, is my favorite hugging. Until next time, we hope you have a tangle free day.