Good Life Project - A Toymaker With a Dark Secret and a Giant Heart: Melissa Bernstein

Episode Date: March 19, 2018

Melissa Bernstein is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Melissa & Doug, the global toy company committed to igniting imagination and a sense of wonder in all children so they can discover themselves, their passions and their purpose. A mom of six, Bernstein is also leading a movement to Take Back Childhood. For her entire life, though, she's lived with a secret. From her earliest memories, a sense of foreboding, sometimes consuming darkness has followed her and remains to this day. Yet, while working on ways to lift it, she's also learned to harness the energy of this heaviness to create light and laughter for millions of children and families, including her own.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's such an awakening to know that the very thing you were trying to kill your entire life is the one reason you were probably put here on this planet. That really was a wow moment for me. From the outside looking in, this week's guest, Melissa Bernstein, is a wife, a mom of six, a partner with her husband in a legendary toy business, Melissa and Doug, that has become massive and a huge-minded, helping young entrepreneurs and all sorts of different things, and created toys that have delighted and created joy in the faces, the smiles, and the lives of millions of kids and families, which is why it makes it really hard to believe that underneath it all, from the time she was a young child, Melissa has lived with a veil of darkness that has sort of followed her through her entire life,

that she has struggled mightily with in many different ways and kept hidden, kept secret from the world. And she asked to share what's been going on behind the scenes in a very powerful, moving, raw, beautiful conversation. She takes us into a part of her life that has been entirely private, known to almost nobody, and how she has recently learned to almost mine that part of her life as source fuel for beauty and joy and delight in the world.est Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

Flight risk. There's actually a really interesting backstory that starts with you. I think the language you used was being born in a state of existential angst. Yes. You know, it was only through listening to your podcast, truly, that something was evoked in me. And I felt for the first time that maybe I had something even deeper than the toys to share with your audience. And I've never been moved to do anything before. I literally was moved to contact you and hope that you might want to share my deeper story. Yeah, which I love and I do want to share. So take me back. Right now, people know you as the co-founder

of this incredible toy company that has been built. It's giant. It's impacted millions of lives and families around the world. And we might go sort of a little bit down the entrepreneurial path in some of the entrepreneurial education work that you're doing. But take me back to when you were a kid, because if you looked back then, I'm guessing where you are now is a profoundly different place than how you were feeling you were existing in the world. Yeah, I always say that, you know, my mom always said I was born colicky. I was never able to be

soothed. And now I realize it was really my existential angst rearing its head even from the moment I was born. You know, I never felt normal. I always had these really deep questions in my head from my earliest recollection, you know, questions that weren't normal for a three-year-old. Why am I here? What's the meaning of it all? What's the point of even trying if we're all going to just disappear? What's my purpose? And I was forever turning without anyone to really answer my questions.

And these are questions that most people don't ever deal with. And if they do, usually it's somewhere in the middle years of their lives. And this is something you were dealing with at your earliest memories. Yeah, when I was five, I literally wrote a poem because I have the year on it. It was crazy. I wrote, the burden of myself is almost more than I can bear. Yet rather than slip further down this mountain of despair, I think I'll cry for help and hope that someone hears my plea before there is no chance at all to ever rescue me. At five.

And these poems would just appear in my head continually, but they were all of fear and doom and gloom and dread. Like nothing was happy about them really. So I would constantly write down the words, and there were notes too, music, songs, and words that appeared in my head, but they were very, very desperate and not something that I could ever share with anyone because they were so dark, deep, and full of despair. Did you have an understanding of what darkness and despair was in the sense that this was something that would not be comfortable to share even at that age with your parents? You know, I really didn't.

I just knew that I didn't want to feel this way. I think one of the biggest issues that I grappled with my whole life was feeling different, feeling that nobody understood and nobody cared to understand, and yet wanting so desperately just to be like everybody else. I just wanted to be quote unquote normal and to be able to, I would look at people, and that was the other thing. I always saw these incongruities in life and people around me. Like I'd see people having fun and laughing and dancing and, you know, being mirthful and joyous.

And I was like, why are they able to be that way? I don't get it. Like, why is something wrong with me that doesn't allow me to ever feel free? So sort of channeling these thoughts into words and notes and music became, I guess, not even really an outlet because it doesn't seem like it released the pressure for you. Exactly. No matter how much I wrote, more filled its place. And I think it was because what I learn now, because in the end, this has a powerful ending for me, it wasn't able to connect with anyone because it was so desperate and so gloomy and dark. And I was so scared to share that with anyone. I was really scared that they would see me as odd and different and dark and depressed. And I tried to hide it as much as I could, even though it did come out in these poems and these songs. No one really ever. And still,

to be honest, this is the first time I'm actually even sharing that I've ever had these thoughts. Well, tell me more what was going on just in terms of the family and the family dynamic. Did you have siblings? What was it like at home? So the other thing that complicated it, the good news is now I realized that I was born this way so that the family dynamic just sort of added to it. But unfortunately, I also had a very dysfunctional family situation as well. You know, my parents, no fault of their own, you know, didn't have great childhoods themselves. So my family was very dysfunctional. And my only sibling was a special needs brother who was suicidal most of his life.

I was his only source of comfort to help him feel that his life was worth living and that he shouldn't take his own life or kill some of the others who had made him so miserable. It further isolated me and made me feel that any emotion that was negative wasn't something you could ever share. You know, I always sort of had to fix everything. And, you know, there was a lot of anger in my family. And I always felt that I had to be good, perform well, be the best I could be so that I didn't irk someone and get them angry at me and so that my brother wouldn't do something terrible. I can't imagine the burden of that at such, at any age, let alone such a young age when nobody is equipped to understand how to process any of that. Yeah, it was, I mean, I didn't know it at the time. I thought this was,

you know, how every family was. So I never thought about it that way. You know, my family seemed to be a normal family, you know, in other ways. And I think I didn't realize it until, again, sort of got to be an adult and began to process all this that I saw that, wow, you know, not only did I sort of have this heavy, deep, dark personality, but I also had some other complicating factors that really just added to the repression that I already engaged in. When did you, I'm making an assumption that you ever did actually, did there come a time when you said, okay, I can't keep this to myself anymore. There's somebody close to me, whether it's a parent, a close friend, your brother, who needs to at least know what's spinning in my head. So it's funny. There are only two times in my life that I can remember even letting out a little bit of it. And I'll tell you, it came out certainly through my self-punishment later.

But one time when I was literally having truly a nervous breakdown in college, and I was at a moment where I just needed to talk to someone so badly. I called a friend of mine on the phone and I started to tell her how I was in a very bad place and I was having these awful thoughts. And she said something, again, I still don't forget, you know, 30 years later, she said, what are you telling me that Missy Landau which is my name then is having these thoughts like I thought you were perfect I can't believe that you of all people would be in such a dark place and I heard her say that and I literally started to have a panic attack and I quickly was like oh well those were thoughts I was having a few days ago. But actually, I feel fine now. And I quickly sort of hung up the phone, you know, because no one, everyone was shocked.

And no one thought that someone like me, because I gave this, again, this persona that everything was great, could ever have those feelings. So I felt like a fool. And actually, I berated myself for months after, like, how could I have ever let her know that? And then later on, just maybe five years ago, I shared with someone very close to me, a family member, some of my poetry, and some of my dark poetry. And it was funny. I was so nervous about sharing something so deep

and personal. And I was like, really, I say, nervited, nervous and excited about hearing her response. And her response was so disappointing. It was, wow, you must have really been in a dark place when you wrote that. And I'm so glad you're better now. And I had to laugh. I didn't say anything to her because, of course, I repress my feelings. But I thought to myself, honey, that's how I am every single day, even today. Like, those are the thoughts that run through my head on a daily basis. And, you know, sort of that she didn't want to go there. And she was kind of like, wow, you were that way a while ago.

Thank goodness you're over it now, as opposed to sort of realizing, no, I'm trying to share with you that this is actually what I still feel like every single day of my life. So, you know, I didn't ever share it with anyone. In fact, I hid every little remnant of being weird, which I thought I was, I felt like I was truly from another planet and did every single thing I could to fit in. But interestingly, what I've learned is you can't hide feelings like this and repress them. You can only do it for so long because they start to come out in other ways. What would you do to fit in? Because if you're looking out at the world and you're like,

okay, I need to play the role of being normal. What did you perceive that role to be? So I was desperate to be popular for whatever reason. And I'm talking not just desperate. I was obsessed with being the most popular for whatever reason. I'm a small, petite brunette. I wanted to be tall and blonde and have a really great figure, none of which I have, for those of you who can't see me. And I literally, and again, part of my issues are I live a lot in my imagination, and I would literally become someone who was leggy and blonde and beautiful and outgoing, and I just desperately wanted to be that person. So I tried my whole life to fit in with those types and to be seen as popular and with the in crowd, I never in a million years embraced any of who I was and struggled so hard and never felt, I felt like I was always clawing my way to be accepted

by the crowd when the truth was I wasn't anything like the crowd. And it was so not me, which they clearly saw because I was always sort of like on the fringes, but never, you know, never quite there because, you know, the truth was I wasn't anything like them. Yeah. So you literally created an alter ego. I did. I had, you know, part of what I'm realizing now, part of this, you know, when later on I just by accident came upon the word existentialism and started to actually research what it meant, I realized with awe and shock and actually some wonder that this was a personality type. People who do what I do at a young age have a certain type of high reactivity in their central nervous system that makes them really different and ultra sensitive. And part of it is this living in their imagination. So I grew up, I kind of left the world I was in for much of my childhood because I was so, so, so unhappy. Had these imaginary friends who were my best buds,

and I did everything with. And at many points, even in middle school and high school, I developed an alter ego, the person I really wanted to be and would tell people it. I actually, you know, in my adult life, I try not to have a lot to do with people from my childhood because I honestly sometimes don't know where the truth begins and the fantasy ends because I would tell people things about my life that weren't part of my life, that were this thing I created in my head to feel like I fit in and I was normal. At some point also, I guess it was early teens. It sounds like part of what you were seeking was a level of control and you found that in through how you ate. Exactly. I developed a few times in my life a severe, I guess it's more a control

disorder because eating was just one small part of it. At 11, I had my first eating disorder. And I was so unhappy in who I was and so desperate to fit in and look like others that I just, I guess, I mean, 11, I don't even know. I just decided that I was going to take control of the one thing I knew I could, which was what I put into my body. And I did. And I was shocked at how easy it was. You know, everything was so hard for me my whole life, but not eating? Oh my gosh, I could do that because I was pretty much in control of what I did, you know, in terms of bodily function. So I started to lose weight. I lost like 10 pounds. I was, I felt really good. It actually made me feel powerful for the first time ever. And then it

was funny. What happened was sort of odd. I was getting rather thin. And one day I was walking to my room and I heard my parents sort of whispering in their room, and it was about me. And it was about, she's getting really thin. Do you think we should take her to a doctor? And the minute I heard that, I said, oh my gosh, they think something's wrong with me. Like I'm fallible. And I immediately started eating again and nothing was ever said after that. But of course, that was just the first bout. The other things I started to control too were my performance. Being the best and academically superior to everyone else became a goal beyond all goals. And for my later teens,

superseded every other goal I had in my life to the point where, you know, it basically took over and became this demon that pushed me when I didn't even want to be pushed anymore. Do you have a sense that that was sort of just another manifestation of something that you found that you could both control and it was something that you were praised for and like had, there was like some indicia of acceptance from it. Absolutely. It was exactly what that was. I mean, it was the thoughts in my head were so unable to be solved. Like I couldn't figure out why I was here and what gave my life meaning. And at some point I stopped creating, even though the creating didn't bring me relief.

It had to be an outlet. But at some point, I just channeled everything I had into performance, thinking that through that, I would become omnipotent and achieve the love that I so desperately wanted from everyone. My teachers, my professors, my parents, the people around me, because I couldn't wanted from everyone. You know, my teachers, my professors, my parents, the people around me, because I couldn't control being accepted. I couldn't control why I was here.

I couldn't control those silly thoughts that kept running through my head so that I could control, you know, how much I studied and how much I exercised. And it was everything. Anything I could control, I tried to control. I controlled my food, my exercise, my money, and my performance. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. The

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I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting to me on a lot of levels. One theme that keeps rearing its head in a lot of conversations, a lot of sort of what I've been exploring these days is

the relationship between accomplishment and purpose. And I feel like we have conflated the two and said, okay, a life of accomplishment is by default a life of purpose. When in fact, a life of accomplishment that is not connected in some way to being the true expression of the deepest parts of yourself and what's meaningful to you almost is a distraction from the fact that you don't feel this sense of purpose. And you never will feel it from checking off the to-dos on that list, no matter how big the to-dos are. But I feel like societally, we don't recognize that. And we just say, accomplishment, that's it. The more, the better. So I can tell you that for a fact is true. I mean, for me, to be honest with you,

I don't even remember one thing I studied. It was only about getting the A. And to be honest, that superseded everything. I would cheat. I would do whatever it took to get the A. It was almost like I had a higher moral purpose and nothing mattered other than getting the A. Didn't matter how I got it. It was literally like I was motivated by this internal force that I couldn't even control. And anything short, by the way, of an A-plus was failure. It wasn't gray. It was A-plus, you succeeded. Anything short of that, you are a failure. And it was literally my self-punishment was so great and so severe that I was deathly afraid of that person that would come out if I didn't perform perfectly. So you're living with this through and into college.

And as you shared, there came a time where everything fell apart. But it sounds like on the one hand, everything fell apart. But then at the same time, you are still trying to sort of paint the picture of it not having fallen apart. Yeah. I mean, again, nobody to this day even knows I went through these things. But my junior year of college, I reached a point where I had put, I had channeled all my social misfit, misfittedness into academic pressure. And when I realized that I was not going to achieve that perfect A-plus average, I literally crumbled like a, you know, a teacup, a China teacup.

And I experienced a complete nervous breakdown. And it was ridiculous. It was over one class that I was having some trouble completing a term paper for. And that term paper became literally like my nemesis in every single challenge in my life and pain in my life that I hadn't been able to overcome. And the bigger that became, the harder it was for me to finish it. And I literally got to the point where that term paper became everything I stood for. And I knew one day suddenly that I was not going to be able to complete it no matter what.

So I ran to my dean. I literally made up some crazy excuse that my mom was ill and I wasn't gonna be able to finish it and got an incomplete. And anyway, that led to a complete crash. And I ended up, I was studying abroad the next semester in Japan. So my crash ironically came when I wasn't even home. I was in severe eating disorder mode and severe exercise mode. And I basically was, you know, I mean, an eating disorder is trying to kill yourself, but very, very slowly.

I was starving myself to death. When I came back after that eight-month period, I weighed 82 pounds and literally looked like a skeleton. Now I weigh 20 pounds more and I'm still thin. So you can imagine what 82 pounds was. And exercised each day to the point where when I would sit down, my limbs would just involuntarily shake because I had so overused my body. So I couldn't stop moving, and I wouldn't let myself eat, and I didn't really ever see the country around me. I just was walking the entire time. But again, all part of the journey to the point where when I came back, literally, I met my now husband, Doug. And that's when sort of I started to see sort of a light at the end of the tunnel. How did you meet Doug? Gosh, I don't like to say it's the Jewish matchmaker story, but in a way, it was. I have Jewish parents, and so does he. And they met each

other through a mutual friend and were trying to introduce the two of us for quite a long time. Now, I didn't want to have any part of it. I had a boyfriend and he had a girlfriend, so we would kind of pay them lip service but never really call each other. But as he says, at one very weak and desperate moment, he decided to call me. I picked up and we had a really long talk. And he ended it by saying, hey, would you like to continue this over dinner? And I was like, sure. I was 19. So we went out to dinner. His first thought, we never talked about it, but his first thought when he saw me was like, oh my gosh, she looks like she is emaciated. What happened then, and again, never talked about it, he said he felt that he needed to make me eat. And because I was a pleaser and never wanted to

get anyone angry with me, when he told me to eat, I would eat. And I didn't want to eat. So when I wasn't with him, I would starve myself still. But I didn't want to displease him. So when I was with him, I would always eat. And he would make me eat dessert and all these things that I viewed as bad. But gradually, because of that, I started to, despite my not wanting to gain weight. So it's like he was a caretaker and you were a pleaser, which in certain circumstances is going to be really bad.

But it seems like in some way it worked. At least right for that moment in time. It was exactly what I needed. At any point while you're going through this, this idea of talking to somebody, this idea of therapy, is it something that in your mind comes up? Is it something that is even a possibility? Or is it something where you look at that as, well, that proves that I'm not perfect, so I'm not even going to go there? I'm just curious whether that was part of what was the internal conversation with you. So if you can believe it, until like this year, I never even knew that this was going on. I mean,

I just was going through my life thinking that I was just abnormal and weird. And, you know, I didn't ever think, wow, I really need help. Or I was so repressed. You know, my entire life was pushing down any emotion I felt that I thought was bad and that I couldn't show to people. And it was literally, I had so many layers of emotion deep, deep, deep down under phoniness and inauthenticity. I mean, you know, I had no idea who I was. So I certainly didn't know that I had problems. And yes, if I did know, I would have definitely pushed them down and not admitted them because I had to be perfect. Have you talked to Doug since then more about those early days and sort of the, what he was thinking in the early dating times around you and how intentional his sort of his

behavior was and whether he questioned whether there was something else going on? You know, it's interesting. And I think one of the reasons we got along is he isn't that type of person. I am so ultra deep in a bad way and heady. And, you know, everyone always said, you're too this, you're too heady, you're too sensitive, you're too intense, you're too emotional, you know, and he is not. He is about action and doing and not thinking a lot and not talking a lot. So we really didn't. That's the thing. You know, I haven't even talked to him about these things. It's just, it's again, I, that's why this conversation is such a odd thing for me because I haven't, you know, other than a therapist I'm now talking to who's helped me a great deal, I've never talked to anybody about it until literally maybe a year ago, including my husband. So, because again, these feelings are not good ones. You know, it's not a happy, it's not like, hey, Doug, let me tell you what's on my mind today. What do you think's

going to happen when we're not here anymore? You know, it's deep stuff and it's stuff that I'm uncomfortable with too. It's not happy. So the things I think are not good thoughts. I have to push, you know, well, now I'm doing something different, but my whole life I pushed them very, very deep so that I could have the happy thoughts above it. But the truth was, like I said, you can't repress things forever because they well up like a blister and ultimately, you know, have to pop. Yeah, it festers. It's just a matter of when and how. So you meet Doug, you start dating, then she got married and you both become partners in life and partners in business, which.

Well, actually we start our business when we're just dating. That's right. So, so fill that in a little bit for, for people that don't have a sense. So to further complicate things, which is really hysterical now and is great fodder when I talk to young entrepreneurs. So here I am, you know, a closet creative my whole life, a musician, a poet, like, well, words came out in poetry. I don't know if you'd call me a poet, but someone who did all these creative things. And here I am in college deciding I want to be a lawyer because I thought it was the thing to do and it looked good. So I go into the LSAT feeling deep down that this isn't right for me, that a law career is going to be a little bit too rigid for someone who is completely in her imagination

and out of the box. And I panic in the middle of the LSAT. I don't end up finishing the LSAT. And literally, in horror, I stand up, null the test, and walk out of the room. What am I going to do? My whole life, I had told my parents, my family, everyone thought I was going to be a lawyer. So what do I do, right? Choose a path of creativity, right? Nope. I decide that I am going to be an investment banker. So the coveted position of the time then in the 80s was an investment banker, like work on Wall Street. That's when Drexel Burnham Lambert was like really hot and Michael Milken. The hottest jobs were being an analyst at some of these investment banks. So because of my stay in Japan, I was fluent in Japanese. The investment banks were

very excited about that, even though, again, I don't like numbers. Numbers don't speak to me like words do. So I get a job at the most, at the time, highly coveted investment bank on Wall Street, Morgan Stanley. That was my number one choice. And for the first time in my life, I felt like, oh my gosh, I've been accepted. Here, I literally got what some view as the most coveted job you can get out of college. And I didn't even try to get it. Like, it was, they sort of came after me. So I was, for a brief respite, I was like basking in the glow of acceptance. Then what happened is we got a mini MBA at Columbia before we started. And in the middle of that MBA, I suddenly realized with horror that I don't like numbers. In fact,

I don't like them at all. They don't speak to me. They're boring old numbers on the paper. Like, what am I doing here? And I didn't get it. I was having trouble with all the worksheets. I was asking my peers for help, and they were just whipping through them and like, you don't get this? I was like, no, I don't get it. So I start in investment banking. Doug was in advertising. This is getting to how we decided to get off the boat. I especially was the most miserable I had ever been in my life. After about a year in that, I literally felt like I had a two-ton gorilla sitting on my shoulders. I couldn't get out of bed. I felt like a flower without water and sunlight. I was like withering away, sort of falling into the ground and knew that there had to be something

better. So Doug and I decided that we were both going to step off the corporate treadmill and do something that allowed us to get up each day and feel like life was worth living. So we went away for a weekend to this bed and breakfast in the Berkshires called the Cliffwood Inn. And that was our fateful weekend. We went there. We're not leaving. You know, most people would go there to a bed and breakfast and say, we're not leaving on a weekend. But with us, it was all about we're coming up with a business idea and that's it. It's making lists, nothing more. We ended up immediately honing in on children. You know, three out of four of our parents were educators and we loved children. Children were just, you know, something happy and uplifting. And we said, we're going to do something with kids. So we left there. After

dating for three years, we decided to pool our money in one joint account and start a children's company. 1988. Doing what? Making what? Well, we said we decided we wanted to make tangible products. And I think when we really started to find our path was when we looked at some of the toys that had inspired us in our childhoods, him more than I, because mine was mostly in my imagination. But we looked at some of those classic timeless toys that were made of wood that sort of made you feel nostalgic and

they were solid. That's what childhood should be, really on firm ground, solid. And when we looked around to find those, we realized they really didn't exist anymore. And when they did, they were really expensive, kind of dull, boring, lackluster, and needed to be reinvented to be accessible to regular people and captivating to kids. So we kind of had that light bulb moment where we said, ooh, maybe we should make some wooden toys. That's what started us on our path. We started with puzzles, a dull, boring, lackluster category that needed to be dusted off, taken out of the attic and reinvented. And that was our first category. Yeah. And I mean, the story on the business side is kind of legend at this point. You guys hustled fiercely, worked, made a lot,

basically figured out everything along the way as you went. A lot of, as every entrepreneur experiences, a lot of stumbles, a lot of trials, a lot of errors, and ended up building a tremendous company together. When you started to actually create this, what was going on with you? Did your inner talk start to change? Did your experience of the world start to change? Was it giving you some of what you were seeking? So it's funny. And again, I never, you know, when you think about the random dots of your life and like how they're going to connect, I mean, I never would have guessed that they would all connect in a way that would lead me, ironically, to toys of all things. Because there's nothing more joyful and fun and playful than toys. And it's the complete

antithesis of everything that I thought my entire life. My life was so dark and bleak and desolate, and toys are so light and airy and playful. It was like, I can't even believe that, you know, when I think about it today, that of all things, I am creating toys. So I didn't think about it, though, at the beginning. And I think, you know, it was a slog. I mean, for the first 12 years, I was our only salesperson. So, you know, Doug helped too, but he did a lot of other things as well. So although I was creating a few toys at night, you know, we didn't have that many at that point. And I was really selling, which was one of the most challenging things of my life because,

you know, I'm the last person who should be selling product. Right. And also I'm just thinking that, I mean, sales is the one thing, like sales is defined by sort of like nonstop no's. Exactly. So you- Which for your, like the state and the sort of like seeking approval state and sort of like the existential questioning. Yep. How do you do that? really bad because I would envision a toy store with the one sole proprietor in that store sitting behind the counter waiting for the phone to ring to be a customer and then pick up the phone and hear me on the other end, hi, can I sell you something? So it was the most challenging years

of my life. But the irony is by the end of it, I actually grew to need it because sales is a drug. And if you, and I made, I ended up making quite a game out of it to try to convince the person on the other line, you know, the other end of the line that my product was going to change their lives and to get them to go from saying, absolutely not, I will not buy your product to saying, sure, I'll take it, got me a high unlike anything I had ever experienced to that point. And when I stopped selling 12 years later, I actually started the days very depressed. I had to artificially get myself up. So as challenging as it was, I had to do it or we would starve. As it was, we were eating, you know, the story,

ramen and turkey hot dogs. We truly were, you know, the hot plate for two meals a day. So without the sales, you know, we would have had to give up the dream. Getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

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Flight risk. Yeah. So you're creating, you're selling. Along the way, you guys got married, started to make a family together because creating things for kids wasn't your only passion. It was parenting. Exactly. I mean, so that's the other amazing thing about my life. You know, I now see that this personality that I've been, I will say, given isn't the most conducive to raising kids either because I'm highly sensitive and highly reactive. But along the way, yes, Doug and I have had six children as well as a whole bunch of

product children. So both. So yeah, trying to do both at the same time was in itself a huge challenge and something I talk a lot about to other women. And also, I mean, it's challenging enough to be a parent, to then be a parent to six kids plus a company, whether you're like a father or a mother. But then if you add on top of that, the sort of the inner world that, you know, tends to default to a not great place. I'm curious how you navigated that as a parent and interacting with kids and sort of, yeah, I'll just throw that out there. Well, in a way, those years were really good for me because I couldn't think too much. It was so reactive for so many years, you know, responding to their needs and doing

everything they needed to make them happy and, you know, school meetings and business. I literally didn't even have a moment to breathe, you know, 24-7 sleeping, you know, four to six hours a night. And in a way, that was good for me because I couldn't think and I couldn't despair. I just had to put one foot in front of the other and make it happen for my family and for the business. Like I said, to do that for too long, though, obviously, you know, it starts to bubble up. But for literally 20 years, that is what I did. And I think the hard part, you know, in parenting, being the type of person I am, though, is I do, I am a fixer. My biggest mistakes in being a parent, and I joke sometimes the reason

I had six kids is so with the last two, I could fix the mistakes I made with the first two. But I still am making those mistakes. So, and I can't have any last two, I could fix the mistakes I made with the first two. But I still am making those mistakes, and I can't have any more, so I don't know what I'm going to do. But, you know, I was too much of a fixer, wanting things to be perfect for my kids because I didn't want them to go through the pain that I felt so much as a kid. And, you know, I don't think they suffer the same kind of thoughts I suffer. So I should have let them more find their way on their own. But instead, I'm very quick to swoop in and want to make everything better because part of my issue is

I have a very hard time with other people's pain. I feel it so deeply and profoundly that it just, it hurts me like in my soul when my kids are not happy. So I wanted to fix things. And that's not a good thing as a parent. You should allow your kids to fix things for themselves. One of the hardest things I think any parent can do because of the fact that the way you saw the world, you were aware of at such a young age, do you wonder how much of that was actually environment? How much of it is just kind of the way that you're wired?

And do you wonder whether any of your six kids may be wired similarly or have conversations about that? So just recently, again, so this idea of wiring being different is totally new for me. I never thought, I just thought of myself as really weird and never accepted any of this and tried to push it down, not realizing that this is the very reason I can do what I do. Like it never, it only recently connected for me. And it was like, I mean, I might have sobbed for days when I realized that because it was such an awakening to know that the very thing you were trying to kill your entire life is the one reason you were probably put here on this planet.

That really was a wow moment for me. So I have wondered in my kids if that exists. I don't think so. There may be just one. There's one who, from a very young age, had night terrors and talked a lot about her worry about fear and being alone. So there may be one. And interestingly, her wiring is a lot like mine. She's very, very high strung. So I am extra close with her because I'm really fearful for her.

I don't want anyone to, you know, it's hard to believe I'm still here, to be honest. And, you know, my goal now, which is one of the reasons I'm here, is to hopefully connect with people who feel as despondent as I did my whole life. I mean, I was really close to killing myself many, many times. But I didn't. And I'm really glad about that because if through that I can create and help others, then it's all worthwhile. You mentioned that it wasn't until very recently that you realized that this different wiring, different doesn't necessarily mean horrible or bad or needs to be fixed. To the extent that it causes great suffering, of course, we want to see if we can minimize that. But also, very often, different wiring can be a source channeled in certain ways for

powerful outcomes, powerful output, powerful creations. Tell me more about you making this connection. So it was quite accidental. I read Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning. I literally reread that every year. And in the end of it, they talk about, or he talks about, existentialism. And I was like, hmm, existentialism, existence, wow, kind of interesting. And I just looked it up, literally. And as I read, I sort of had this moment of like, oh my gosh, this might be exactly what I've been dealing with my whole life and started looking at extensional depression. And then it suddenly led me further and further and further. And rapidly for the next six months, I started researching and realizing

that I, you know, I don't know what you call it. I have a condition, basically. Like, there's a name for what I have felt since the time I was born, which is, you know, existential depression. And that's what I've kind of had, this chronic low-grade depression because I have a meaning crisis. And then it talks about some of these books I got were so profound. They talk about the types of people who suffer from existential depression. And it was like I was reading my life story. It was talking about these overexcitabilities and high sensitivities in every one of them. You know, they're in five areas. And they said, some people have one area lit up. And I was like, what does it mean when you have all five, like on the highest level? You know, I realized that,

oh my gosh, like this explains it. Like the reason I have this is because I'm the way I am. And the best book, it was like the most life-changing book, and I, you know, openly wept when I read it. It was talking about a creative person's path through depression. And it mentioned the word creative. And then suddenly, I saw this link. It said that people who suffer from existential angst and depression are also usually really creative and live in their head. And it was like, oh my gosh, because, you know, I've also always seen the world very differently. Like nature always talked to me.

I mean, weird things that you don't tell your friends, like that tree over there, you know, it's actually talking to me right now. Or, you know, the wind was whispering to me or I'd see the rustle of the grass and I literally could hear it talk. And when I did write not so much about despair, I wrote a ton about nature. Like I love, love nature.

And I do feel like nature is alive. And, you know, when I see the waves on the shore of a beach, like I see it, you know, I wrote a poem once, the waves so gently lap the shore, then hasten back to ask for more. And I can only sit and stare witness to such a strange affair. Like I saw the waves lapping the shore as like a lover, like, you know, saying, come get me. And the, you know, the waves saying, ha ha. And like the shore saying, come on. And the teasing game, like everything was this metaphor for me.

Again, that heightened level of awareness is the reason that I can create. So the most profound awakening came when I read a book about people who constantly ask the question, why? Why am I here? What does it mean? What's the point of it all if we just all turn to dust? Because those are the questions that unfortunately forever plague me. And it said, you know, something so profound. It basically said that, you know, the universe doesn't tell you what meaning is. Like, it doesn't say, here is meaning and go find it. It's up to you. Like, you have to define, create, and commit to what meaning is for you, and it's different for everybody, and then get out there and start doing it so you don't fall victim to despair. And that was so profound. It basically said,

like, you aren't going to get the answer, but if you continue to take that angst and turn it into something that has the power to touch others and impact others, you will find your meaning. And that was like such an amazing moment because I suddenly saw what I had been doing through, I'd never even seen it this way through our business and through, you know, the fact that the toys can impact people as sort of completing that circle that I had been so longing for. And suddenly it was like, you know, I said like a feeding tube being jammed into my, my, you know, chest. And suddenly I could breathe air for the very first time because suddenly I saw the why. It was like, why am I here? What is the point? What am I here to do?

And it was like, Melissa, you're here to make stuff, and hopefully that stuff, but you're not here to make depressing stuff because depressing stuff can't do anything. Depressing stuff just sits and makes other people depressed and it just sits there and it looks really dark and gloomy. You're here to make like happy stuff, to take the pain. It's still pain because 100% of what I create is out of pain, really ugly pain. But if I can take it and turn it into, like I write about, it's like this writhing ball of just snakes, you know, just all angry and hissing. And it's like, but if I can take that pain and stare it in the eye and calm it down and mold it into something

that actually looks at the end of it kind of beautiful and has the ability to impact someone in a positive way, then it's like, wait a second, I have found a lifeline. And that was the first time I experienced a sense of like, oh my gosh, this is why I'm here. That's powerful to be able to find a way to see your own suffering and understand that there's either a path that you see or that or to look back and see that there's a process have been embracing for years as a way to, in a way, transmute suffering into joy and meaning. I mean, that's what Viktor Frankl, that was his fundamental message. That is what the whole logotherapy was about, is that, you know, there is, we all experience suffering and certainly at very different levels, what he endured in the camps

versus what somebody might endure in their lives individually, in their heads in a modern society. And there's no, you never compare. There is no reason to it. There's no way to compare one person's suffering within others. But the fundamental idea that if we can in some way see that as a source of meaning,

it changes the way we experience it. It doesn't necessarily make it go away, but there's something else that sometimes gets attached to it. I'm curious how you experience this, which is that when sort of a persistent suffering that's been with you for such a long time, so long that you almost perceive it as a part of your identity, when you see that then as the gift of seeing it as a source of fuel for creativity and meaning is wonderful. But it also raises another interesting question, which is if somebody came tomorrow and said, I can take this suffering away, what do you do with that?

I would never give it away now that I know why it's here. It's almost like suddenly this thing that I've despised for so long has become my little secret. That is my special, you know, it's almost like I've got this little special secret that no one knows. And it's kind of like the power to turn white space into creativity. And that feeling, despite the fact that I go through such angst and turmoil, you know, continually, the feeling of being able to turn white space into something beautiful is unlike any drug I would ever be able to take. So, you know, I've swung between the lows and highs, but I would never now, knowing it, give it away. So where do you go from here? It sounds like a lot of this is very, very fresh in terms of your understanding, your history, where you are now. So as we sit here now and you're starting

to look forward, you're like, huh, there's a new sense of who I am and a new sense of awareness and how I want to be in the world, how I want to lead, how I want to parent, how I want to be a partner in business, in life, in relationships, mentor to others. How do you move forward? Like how does it change you? So my creativity has never been through my own words other than written on paper. It's always been through things I make with my hands. My channel has been through my arm. I'm either

writing or I'm writing notes, writing words, writing notes, or crafting products. So this is a whole new era for me to speak with my mouth. But I think for me, I desperately need to connect with people. And I think I've been able to connect through a product with people, but never through myself with people. So, you know, I always convince myself. I mean, part of my heart exterior, my shell was convincing myself that I didn't need anyone my entire life and that no one understood me, so I didn't care. And I convinced myself of that really up until, to be honest, like the last couple years, that I don't need people.

I'm fine as I am. I'm a rock. I'm an island. You know, like I write about it all the time. Not like that. But now I've realized kind of with shock that I actually do need people and I do desperately need to feel connected. So this next chapter is about, and my whole life I've been so inauthentic and such a shell, you know, for what I thought others wanted me to be or what I needed to be to be accepted that this is about like

removing the cloak and saying, here I am, like I'm real. You're seeing me for all my, you know, turning and all my flaws, but maybe we can connect that way and I can help you to be a better form of who you really are. So my goal is to not only create toys, because that's one of the ways I channel the pain, but also to do it through connecting personally and through my voice and my being with people and helping them to find their voice and their passion and figure out why they're here. So as we hang out here right now, the name of this is Good Life Project. So if I offer that phrase out to you, to live a good life, what comes up? So there's a great Gertrude Stein

quote, that is, the artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence. So what I needed to do to be whole was to create for myself a mantra that I could use every day when I started to feel myself go into that really dark place. And so I wrote, of course, I wrote a poem because again, my job is to find my way out of this. That's why I'm here. Otherwise, why would I be here? So basically my poem for that is step on out of the brain and move into the heart free to channel the pain into jubilant art. And for me, that says it all because when I live in my head, it's a very

dark place. And that's where all the thoughts come. The thoughts are dark, very dark. And when I live in the bottom of my heart, in my gut, that's despair, that's depression, and that's very low. So my goal is to step out of my brain, move into my heart. When I'm in my heart, like the upper heart, that's where I'm free to channel the pain into jubilant art. And the goal for me is to take all that pain, transfer it into something tangible, but not something tangible that's dark and gloomy, but something that's jubilant, something that I can then take and I can say, look what I made you from all this pain, but look, there's no pain in it. It's full of joy. It's full of light. It's full of laughter. And I can hand it to them. And through that, I can impact their lives in one way. Because my true goal is that

if I give and they receive, that giving and receiving becomes the very same thing. And that the rest of my life can be spent giving while receiving. Because in the end, we really are all one. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening and thanks to our fantastic sponsors. If you love this show, please support them. They help make the podcast possible. Check out the links in today's show notes. And don't forget, by the way,

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