Good Life Project - Danielle Henderson | The Ugly Cry

Episode Date: July 29, 2021

Danielle Henderson is a TV writer, former editor for Rookie, cohost of the film podcast I Saw What You Did, and author of the achingly poignant and funny memoir, The Ugly Cry. Abandoned at ten years old by a mother who chose her drug-addicted, abusive boyfriend, she was raised by grandparents who thought their child-rearing days had ended in the 1960s. She grew up, in her words, “Black, weird, and overwhelmingly uncool in a mostly white neighborhood in upstate New York, which created its own identity crises.” Under the eye-rolling, profanity-laced, yet unconditionally loving tutelage of her uncompromising grandmother—and the horror movies she obsessively watched—Danielle found writing as a powerful outlet and form of creative expression. Along the way, she’s written for many major outlets, TV shows, and as she shares, “she drove from New York to Alaska by herself, survived a bear chase, four Alaskan winters, junior high school, working in a convent, Aquanet hairspray, acid wash jeans, and the entirety of the Mets' 1987 season.” We talk about it all in today’s conversation.You can find Danielle at: Website | Instagram | I Saw What You Did podcastIf you LOVED this episode:You’ll also love the conversations we had with New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Somebody’s Daughter, Ashley C. Ford.-------------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.

My guest today, Danielle Henderson, is a TV writer, former editor, rookie co-host of the film podcast, I Saw What You Did, and author of the achingly poignant and funny memoir, The Ugly Cry. Abandoned at 10 years old by a mother who chose a drug-addicted abusive boyfriend, she was raised by grandparents who pretty much thought their child-rearing days had ended in the 60s. She grew up, in her words, black, weird, and overwhelmingly uncool in a mostly white neighborhood in upstate New York, which created its own identity crisis. And under the eye-rolling, profanity-laced, yet unconditionally loving tutelage of her uncompromising grandmother and the horror movies that she obsessively watched, Danielle found writing as a powerful outlet and form of

creative expression and went out into the world and started to build that as her life and career. And along the way, she's written for many major outlets, TV shows, and as she shares, she drove from New York to Alaska by herself, survived a bear chase, four Alaskan winters, junior high school, working in a convent, Aquanet hairspray, acid wash jeans, and the entirety of the Mets' 1987 season, which as a kid who grew up on Long Island, I remember that season as well. So we talk about it all in today's conversation. So excited to share it with you.

I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. 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 or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been start in a really important and maybe touchy area, because from what I understand, you actually recreated rapper Rick Ross's famed jewel pendant of his own face, but with sequins for your husband's face. Yeah, my ex-husband now, but yeah. Ex, right.

Yeah, I'm pretty crafty. And, you know, I didn't have access to jewels in grad school or now, or now, let's be fair. And I just love, it just cracked me out that those pendants were just so present. They're just so present. And, you know, my ex-husband had a beard and glasses, and I thought it would look really funny to kind of recreate it. I know. There was that window, right, where it was sort of like the giant hanging pendant. You had like Flavor Theta, the clock, and there was a moment. There was definitely a moment. And it might come back. Things come back around. I've heard that thin eyebrows are coming back and maybe we can bring big jewel pendants back with them or fake jewel pendants back with them.

I definitely won't be in style if thin eyebrows come back in, but I could probably somehow find a big old pendant somewhere. I got you. I got you. Don't worry. You got it? All right. Good. Good. We'll trade images. Two hours at Michael's and we're done. I love that. But I mean, for you, crafting for you actually touched down really early in your life, it sounds like. Very much so. And it was, it started, my earliest memory with it is, you know, watching my mother and grandmother crochet and watching them kind of do their thing. And, you know, my grandma taught me how to crochet and I would do like, you know, eight feet long chains. And she's like, all right, I need to do my border now, so rip that out. Let's go. But I got into it because I watched them doing crafty things at home to relax.

And so I started making outfits for my Barbie dolls out of candy bar wrappers. So I would take the tinfoil and kind of make dresses and cool things. And something sparked, something sparked there for me where I figured, you know, figured out a connection between my brain and my hands and, you know, that brain body connection. But it really, it's just a way to kind of relax and explore for me. Yeah, totally get that. I was a kid who was constantly making stuff with my hands also. And similarly to you

in certain ways, you know, ended up where a lot of my creative process now, like the output side of it is actually writing. So it's, you know, it's keyboards and digitals. But when I'm away from actually creating with my hands for too long, I feel it's like you can feel the loss. Completely. It is. It feels like a heft of something's missing. And I started getting into Bargello over the past year or so, just a yarn craft. And it just kind of kept me going. Explain what that is. Because I've seen my wife's grandmother actually used to do Bargello. And we have somewhere like a giant, like three or four foot square of like these intricate patterns that must have taken months and months to do. But share more about what that is, because I think it's so cool.

So it's a yarn craft that I got into. There's a website called Hello Bargello, and she sells kits. And that's how I got into it is just, you know, she has these designs and these great kits. But it's basically, it's a yarn-based craft where you take, you count stitches in multiples of, you know, in odd numbers. And you kind of just make small lines. You stitch small lines to create a bigger design. And it's very mathematical and it's very precise. But it's also, much like knitting, it's very easy to get into the rhythm of it. And you can just use these vibrant colors and these great, you know, just these great designs to kind of make beautiful images and, you know, pillows and

eyeglass cases and tissue box cases and just things that you can actually utilize in your home to just remind yourself of creativity and beauty. And that's kind of what I like because a lot of things that I knit or, you know, I knit a lot now to give things away. So I'll give things to people who have children or, you know, people in my life who have small, small beings. And I don't knit for myself very often anymore. I will now that I'm back in New York, I will be knitting some scarves. But it's nice. It's a nice way to kind of do something for myself. It's one of the only crafts that I do that I keep, you know, for myself. So it's kind of nice. Yeah, I love that. And is it on the bargella that I've seen, it's almost like these fractal patterns, like these sort of like geometric

symmetrical patterns that sort of like expand out. And it's almost like it's a little bit hypnotic, actually. It is. And the act of creating it is also hypnotic. Oh, no kidding. Oh, yeah. It's just very relaxing and very soothing to kind of create something so intricate, but so easily. So I just, I love it. I love it as a way to just, you know, especially over the past year and a half, just to chill out. And I have made so many things that I'm grateful for. And I did actually make something for a friend. I made her a kind of one or two foot Bargello pattern and framed it for her because she likes, you know, kind of bright colors and fractal patterns and stuff like that. So yeah, I love that.

And it sounds like you described, you know, when you're younger, it becomes a way to be around your mom and your grandma in a way where maybe there's a little bit more peace. Yes. And I think part of it, too, is that I figured out pretty early on that as long as I was quiet, I could hang out with them. And I would learn more and kind of hear secrets and kind of dig into a little secret life because they didn't, they forgot I was there. So yeah, I kind of learned that, you know, I kind of gravitated towards indoor things as a kid, because I've just been, I've been pretty observant for most of my life. And I wanted to be around adults. I wanted to be around that life and kind of try to understand, you know, what are they

talking about? Or what are they trying to figure out? And as long as I was quiet, I could do that. So I could, you know, read a book, I could create, I could craft. And it was also a way to connect in a much more calm way with my grandmother and with my mother, which was not a given in my household, that we would have that peace or that calmness. Yeah, I mean, and you write about that in a lot of detail in your book and we'll dive into some of the moments because there are a lot of them. There are so many. But you know- And nothing's off limits. Nothing is off limits. Cool. But one of the things that really strikes me about your writing and it's this book, but it's also your writing beyond that. I mean, it's sort of like almost anything you touch is that you have this astonishing ability to

be brutally honest, to talk about painful things, but also to talk about it in a way where you bring humor to it, not as a way to sort of make light of it, but in a way to almost say, and this is all part of a human condition. And there's a lens, you know, upon which I reflect on it now where I'm maybe not okay with it, but there's something about it where I can, I can paint this with a different, you know, like paintbrush or context in my life. It's a really beautiful and rare ability in, you know, when, when, and I read a lot, but the way that you can kind of weave profound honesty, hard truth, and a lot of times like, you know, LOL, but for real, like you're actually laughing out loud,

it's really extraordinary. Thank you so much. I think that that's something that I wasn't sure if it would translate or not, especially when the book first came out and I was reading some reviews that were focusing either on the humor or on the trauma. And I thought, oh no, did I not get that right? I wanted it to be more cohesive than that. Because in my own life, humor has been a bomb and it's been a salve to me, of course, but it's been the way that I got through and it's been something that sustained me through the hard times. And then, you know, to the benefit of hindsight and the beauty of hindsight, being able to look back and say,

you know, this was definitely hard, but it was funny. And I think that that for me came through a number of years of therapy. There were some things I was able to recognize in the moment that were very funny. But for the most part, the majority of it did come from hindsight and, you know, processing later on. And I think that it was just, it was part of the reason I wrote the book is that I, for years, thought, ah, my story's not that important. And people have had it so much worse. And like, it's, I got through it.

It's okay. But then I really, as I started to evolve and kind of grow into the person that I am now, I realized that the way that I was raised was unique and foundational to who I am. And so when people ask me now, how did you do all of these things in your life? How did you, you know, move to Alaska and how did you do all of these things in your life? How did you move to Alaska? And how did you work for the United Nations? And how did you write for TV? Now I have a text I can give them and say, I was raised by these people. And that's a big part of how I was able to do all of these things. And humor is a huge part of that.

I think that I'm not humorous about the brutality and the trauma, but I tend to be more forgiving of myself through humor. And I think that's something that I learned as a writer over time. Yeah, no, and you definitely feel that. And the other thing that occurs to me is, you say that, okay, so I realize my story is not unique, but in fact, it is in many ways, it's your story, nobody else lived it. And at the same time, there are enough moments that can be universally experienced. People can transfer their own facts into it. I love when somebody is willing to sort of be so open

about tough moments in life because if nothing else, like even if there's no redemption at the end of it, there's no like great, fantastic solution. And we all, at least anyone who connects with the story can walk away saying, okay, so I'm not alone. Yes. And I think there's so much power in that. That has been so hugely important in my life. And I've always been a voracious reader. done that for me were, you know, like Mary Carr's Lit or, you know, Jamaica Kincaid writes

beautifully about, you know, her life and even in fictionalized ways. Maya Angelou. I mean, just again, when I was younger, like, you know, 10, 11, 12, and just reading some of these women and realizing that I wasn't alone, that was part of the way that I was able to begin healing and just start my journey towards healing is realizing even the very simple fact that you could talk about it or you could express it. So that was hugely important for me. And I think that, I don't think we tend to give ourselves enough credit as people who are in a common humanity that that's a big, powerful thing that you can do to share your story. And it doesn't have to be perfect and it doesn't have to be specific. It's just sharing parts of yourself is what keeps us

connected to our humanity. And so I think it's important for me as a writer to not forget that, because it's very easy to, you know, I'm very hard on myself. So it's very easy for me to say, you know, nobody cares about that, or that's not something I need to dig into. But if it's something that, if it's something that I keep, that keeps like, you know, kind of burrowing in the back of my head, then I'll realize, you know, over the course of like a week or a couple of days, like, nah, I should, I should write about this. This is, it's important to me, which I think is something that I also wrestle with is this feeling of selfishness and not wanting to be selfish. And I want to be a generous person and a generous writer. So I don't hold back. I can't hold back. Yeah. I mean, which on the one hand is really powerful

because then it resonates, I think, more deeply and more honestly with potential readers. But on the other hand, what you're writing about, especially in The Ugly Cry, is sometimes tough stuff. And it's about some people who are still very much alive and in differing levels, a part of your life. And so it's such an interesting tension for me. How do you go to that place where you feel you need to go to honor the thing that's inside of you that has to get out? And at the same time, when you have, you know, that you're writing at least in part about relationships of people who are still around, who you still care in some way about the quality of that relationship. How do you dance like that really tough line?

So much of that work comes before I even get to the page. So, you know, for example, in writing this book, there's nothing about this book that's surprising to my family because we've talked about this stuff for years. So it wasn't as if I was revealing a secret or talking about something that they had never known from me or from my point of view. So I felt really comfortable writing my, you know, my story because we've talked about it. And it doesn't mean that we agree or that we have the same emotions around certain things, but they know how I feel. And that kind of removed a lot of people, I think, when they tend to write memoir are stopped and stymied by that point of,

I don't want to upset the people that are still in my life that are alive. And my manner of thinking is like, well, are alive. And, you know, my manner of thinking is like, well, this happened. And if you didn't want me to write about it, then you should have been a better mom or like, I can't help what happened. We can still move forward, but I cannot sugarcoat what happened. And so I think that before I even get to the page, all the work that I've done to be independent and to be fiercely unique in my own way and to kind of be who I am, that's the work that I did before I started writing so that I could just sit down and tell the story. And that's where, again, like you were just saying about, you know, telling your story and how important it is to share. That's where I think we don't often focus

on that as artists and creators and particularly writers that so much of that work happens in your life before you sit down to write about it. So I'm always grateful to my friends and family members who can hear me and listen to me and give me that space and really care for me in that way because it makes the writing so much easier. Yeah. No, that makes so much sense to me. I remember I've had Dani Shapiro on the podcast a number of times and she's a friend of mine.

I remember she wrote this really beautiful kind of memoir-y thing called Hourglass about her 20-year marriage. And she's very much still married and very much is in love and wants it to continue for life. And yet at the same time, she's somebody who also like you. She's like, I need to write the truth because that's what you do. And I remember her telling me, once she wrote this, she gave it to her husband to read. And he actually was sort of like nudging her to see if she could get even more honest, even if it wouldn't reflect well on him. Right.

So it's really interesting to see how sort of, you know, those interactions can come. I wonder if like, you know, with you and you had any surprises like that. I did. I did with my brother. So my, my brother, Corey and I were about a year and a half apart and he was with me through the, through this story. You know, we grew up together and he was with me in this story. And, um, I didn't let anyone read anything as I was writing. Cause I don't want that kind of input. You know, I don't want anyone else's I'm very empathic and I don't want anyone else's input while I'm writing.

But I did share it with him when I was done. And I was really surprised because his immediate reaction, and he sent me a text and then we hopped on the phone. But in his text, he said, you know, I read it and it's beautiful. And I just feel so sad that I wasn't there for you when you were a kid. And that really touched me because he's a very sweet, sweet man. My running joke about him is that he has looked like Drake for about 10 years before Drake was born. So his life has been very easy. People have flocked to him to take care of him and he hasn't, you know, he's just very easygoing and not deeply

emotional about a lot of things. You know, he's very supportive. But we never had that kind of depth of conversation. So for him to say that was a big deal. And when we talked on the phone, I said, you know, we were both kids and we were both figuring out our lives in our own way. And I didn't expect for you to, you know, to be there for me as a source of healing when we were 12, 13, 14. But I'm glad that we got there in our 20s. And I'm glad that we continued that process. So in talking to him, he would read chapters and say, oh, yeah, and you could have put in this part about how I used to hide razor blades in the seat of the car. And I said, well, I can't because that's not my story.

And I didn't know that., I can't because that's not my story. And, you know, I don't know. I didn't know that. So I couldn't write that. But he would tell stories, you know, that kind of went further than my stories about his side of the experience. And it was really interesting to kind of have those moments. And it was a lot of humor and a lot of levity, but a lot of deep emotional work that I didn't expect that we'd ever be able to do because of something that I put into the world. So I was really, really touched by that. Yeah. I mean, what an amazing, you almost think that just as a genesis of that alone would be incredibly powerful. Absolutely. If it did nothing else, if it actually created that new conversation and place for opening

and safety between you and your brother. And even to be able to go deeper myself. There are things that you can do in therapy or with friends that are helpful and healing, but there are only certain people in the world who can bring out some of that, that your deepest emotions and your deepest issues and your deepest, you know, complaints. And he's one of them, you know, he's probably the only one because we were on this journey together and, you know, my, my mom and I don't speak really. So, um, you know, my grandmother is alive, uh, and we still, you know, we're very close, um, but she has really. So, you know, my grandmother is alive. And we still, you know, we're very close,

but she has dementia. So there's things that, you know, are too emotional for her now at this point to talk about. But yeah, I think that it's really important as someone who's lived her life in a pretty solitary way, in a very independent way that I can still find ways to connect with my own family members and with people who are so important in my life. Yeah. And I wonder if that's even, if it's even a more compelling mandate for writers, because I think we spend so much time, there's like the inner life of a writer is sometimes horrifying, sometimes electrifying, but I've never really met a person who will actually say, identify as a writer and who doesn't spend a lot of time in their head.

Absolutely. Even if they're in a public space, even if they're surrounded by people, their body is there, but so often their mind is not. And to know that you can have these moments to pull out of that, to keep pulling out of it, I think is so important. Absolutely. Because that's the reason for the work. I think that it probably sounds absurd as someone who just published a book, but I wrote it for myself and I wrote it for my present self. I didn't write it for my teenage self because that kid turned into me. She turned out okay. And I don't think she would have, that kid would not have been able to

understand a book like this at that time. So I wrote it for my present self as a way to kind of honor my own journey towards, you know, becoming more emotionally stable and sound and, you know, to honor where I've been able to take my life. And you have to live in your head for so much of that process because you're thinking about all of the steps to healing and you're thinking about all of the steps towards growth and evolution. And so, you know, on a very in a park and just be physically there, but be kind of just in my head thinking about how do I actually want to say this? Or what's the most important thing about this thing I'm trying to write? And just really turning things over and over. And I think I keep attributing this to Kurt Vonnegut. So I hope that this is

the case because I remember it being something that he said, where he described writers as either swoopers or bangers. Yeah, right. There are some people who can sit down and just bang away and eventually come up with what they want, but other people have to think about it, and then they swoop in and write it and leave. And I'm definitely a swooper. Yeah, I am too, actually, and I've kind of been jealous of theoper. Yeah, I am. I am too, actually. And I've kind of been jealous of the others. Yeah, I think I think it works both ways. I think the bangers are probably right. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program,

they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.

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 10.

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 gonna 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. But it sounds like we probably have a similar process because a lot, when I write, so much of it is already sort of like formed in my head that the actual, you know, like when my fingers hit the keyboard, it's, it's almost more transcription at that point. And then, you know, like optimizing and stuff like that. But so much of it is formed in my head and it's been sort of like being written for months, sometimes years. And then it kind of pours out super fast. Absolutely. And I don't know if this is the case with you as well, but at every different level of school that I've been through, I used to think, oh, it's such a drag

that I wait till the last minute to write all these papers. And oh, I wish I was the person who could start three weeks ahead. But then I realized in grad school, actually, I realized I am the person that starts three weeks ahead. I just started in my head. And so it's not very last minute to sit down two or three days before and actually type it out because I have started that process already. So that was kind of a nice revelation for me. No, I so feel that. I have a very past life as a lawyer and our grades would be based on a single essay exam at the end of a semester. And you just, you know, the days of the old blue books.

Yes. And they would give you like a 10-page fat pattern. And the question would be like, identify every possible cause of action, argue both sides and tell me who wins every single one. And you would hear, and you get three hours and you would hear like, everyone would immediately just start writing and writing and writing and writing and writing.

And I would do the exact opposite. And I also write really slowly and I print in all caps, which like these days is yelling, which does not suit me well. Just emphasizing how well you know this in this case. Right. I'm like, no, I want to be an architect when I'm eight. That's really all it is.

And I would just sit there quietly. And then like in the last 45 minutes, I would write a single blue book, you know, because it was, and it was largely formed. And it sounds like, I think people's brains just work differently in that way. Absolutely. And I think that it's, it's something that I do that I think is considered strange now, because we're all so tied into our computers. I still write in longhand quite a bit. Oh, no kidding. So I write letters and, you know, I write every Saturday, I sit down and write letters to friends and people and I love the act of writing. But when it comes to my projects, I outline in longhand and I'll outline it in a notebook first because I've thought about it and I helps me kind of keep the order of it together. And it's kind of a maybe a stutter step, but it's a way that I can kind of translate what's in my head onto the page. And I love it. I love it. I don't think I'll ever stop doing that. I think it's just part of the process part of the way I work. Yeah, I keep threatening to do that. And I

never have done it yet. So it's gonna happen. Because I know that the output is different. Also, when you do it, you know, longhand versus just on a keyboard. I know I've seen the science on like the way that your brain functions differently. And it's, uh, I'm so curious about when you, when you can move between the two and how that affects sort of like the final thing that you create. It's not difficult at all if I'm not super specific. So I think that if I were to be super specific with, you know, the A1, A2, A3, then that would drive me up a wall. But it's easier for me to move through the page if I can just see, okay, I want to write

14 chapters, 20 chapters, whatever it is. These are the main points I want to hit. And then I think about, well, what do I want to say about those points? And that's what helps me the most. That's how it translates to the page for me is just giving myself a little bit of a map of my interior. And so that's the part so often is non-linear and so story driven that i'm kind of fascinated the fact that you sort of like you build it out of an outline um that's fairly linear yeah and it's and it's it's linear only in that i i kind of feel as a memoirist that i'm i'm mostly reporting you know i'm reporting what happened and so it feels almost like journalistic in a way right

and i think that that is that's the process for me is that kind of journalistic way. And that's a way for me to get out of my emotional space also. I want eventually, I always, at the end of a chapter or at the end of writing something, I want to feel the emotion that I'm putting into it, of course. But while I'm actually writing it, that's not helpful to me. It's not helpful to me to feel the depths of my sadness or my joys, because then I'll just walk away and watch TV or do something else. If I'm too stuck in the emotional part, it stops the physical act of writing. So I think it's the way that I learned or taught myself how to get out of that space that would often stop the

process for me. And if I have something to look at, then I'm never at a block and I'm never at a loss. And I think that's where the rest of my creative life comes into play as well. I don't really have writer's block because if I'm feeling stuck in a particular way, I can just move on to something else. I'll do some embroidery, I'll do some knitting, I'll do something else and kind of get out of my own head a little bit and come back to it. So I think that works for book writing. Sometimes it's not great for deadlines, but sometimes that works. You can spend a little bit too much time knitting and not enough writing.

But I think that that is. Yeah, it's like this knitting feels a lot easier. I'm going to just keep doing this for a while. There's a pattern. There's an immediate end result. I'm just going to keep it going. So yeah, that's part of the, again, like how I synthesize my entire creative life, even though I'm emphasizing the writing part of it as a career. Yeah. You said something that my brain translated as, if I get too empathic for the experience of my former self, it can shut down my ability to be sort of like

cognitively and creatively functional now in the process. So you'll almost like, you've almost learned to put up some sort of boundaries. Like I'll go here and then I go into journalist mode, like, and here are the facts. Exactly. And then I come back. So it's almost like you figured out where the edge is, where you can still stay in a generative place, but also go where you need to go. Yeah. And that's something that was, it's almost like a trick. And it's something that I just kind of taught myself because I was experiencing so much

of a block with this book. I mean, it took me, you know, four years to write and, you know, it was contracted for one. And I was really surprised by that because I thought like, you know, I know my story. I know what I want to say. It'll be so easy for me to put it out there. But because my memories are so specific and so vibrant, it is difficult for me to stay there for too long.

And the part that stopped me is I think the part that stops a lot of writers, which is, you know, I just lost confidence in myself sometimes. And I lost faith in my ability to say what I wanted to say in a way that felt good or real or true. And I was a big part of why that book took so long to write because I, there were so many times where I would go back to this place of dread and just, you know, say to myself, you know, this is not going to be a good book. You shouldn't finish dread and just, you know, say to myself, you know, this is not going to be a good book. You shouldn't finish this. Or, you know, you don't know what you're saying here, so you shouldn't tell this story. And that's where editors are wonderful people. They jump

right in and help out. And I love working with my editor in particular. And editors in general, I think, are great at giving the nudge and kind of talking you back and reminding you of why you wanted to do this in the first place and how you wanted to do this in the first place. But I was really surprised to discover that in writing this book that there were so many times where I just said, it's not worth it. And somehow you kept coming back to it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not just the editor that's also and i i wonder if it's okay so yes you had a great editor and yes you had other things that you could sort of like redirect your creative juices to for a moment but also i i feel like sometimes there's

that thing that stays inside of you that says this still needs to be told absolutely and i still believe i still believe it can be told you know i, I haven't figured it out yet, but it needs to be, it needs to get out and it can get out. So my, my job is to stay in it, even if I don't want to right now. Absolutely. And that kind of perseverance does not come naturally to me. Like I am quick to move on and quick to, you know, to, to put something away. And that was a real lesson in writing this book. And I hope it will make it easier to write the next one, or at least that when I write the next book, that I'll understand that feeling when it happens.

But it's true, there's always that voice. And it was definitely present for me that said, no, there's something here for you that there's a reason why you need to write this. And I think that that's also the really wonderful and gracious part of writing is that the only time you really have with your work is during that time.

Once you put it out into the world, it's not yours anymore. So I tried to be really focused on the joy of that and the joy of actually being able to write it in whatever way it came, whether it came in fits and starts, or I could sit down for three days straight and write half the book. I really wanted to honor the process. And I started to lean more into that than I did my other feelings because I felt the power of it. I felt the power of it while I was doing it. And I wanted to keep that going. Yeah. I would imagine, I mean, to access a sort of a savoring mindset when you do it,

I think it's brutally hard for so many people, especially for you, right? So, I mean, part of your story, and this is part of what you write about is, you know, you come up in a house where things get tough fast. Eventually a man moves in with your mom mom, and then there is a long history of abuse on multiple levels. And you end up being raised, effectively dropped at your grandma's, who is, well, we'll talk about your grandma. She sounds awesome in a lot of ways. Awesome by every sort of like, you know, like explanation of the word. So when you grow up in an environment where you know there's a threat around you almost all the time, invariably most kids in that environment develop this sense of hypervigilance and fear and suspect. And to go from there, you know, not that it happened overnight, to a place of openness and savoring is a really,

really hard process where you sort of say, I'm okay. Let me just find, let me just relax into the moment rather than constantly be scanning for something that could go wrong. That is not something I think I was effectively able to do until like three years ago. Truly. Um, I have had a lot of joy in my life. I've had a lot of love in my life, but I always had that hyper-vigilance and I, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop always. And it might've been minor, it might have been major, but in every situation, I felt like I had to prepare emotionally for the worst because it could happen. And I think, you know, when I really started doing some deeper therapeutic work and recognizing my own patterns and really talking with my therapist about my greatest fears, and the primary fear being that I wouldn't be able

to take care of myself. It's always been first thing, top of mind for me that I am the only person I can count on to survive. So if it means getting two or three jobs, I'll get two or three jobs. If it means moving, I'll move. If it means, you know, whatever it took for me to survive, it's something that became kind of a habitual fear for me, even when I was finally at a point where I was completely fine and I knew I could take care of myself. It took me a very long time to honor that and to accept it. And it affected my whole life, not just my writing life, but it affected most of my relationships and, you know, my relationship with myself. And so I think it's just important to me that I was able to finally get to that point and really grieve for that kid and that young adult who missed out on so much

because she was so worried all the time. But then to kind of really, again, honor the perseverance and the fact that I was able to get myself to a point where I did not have to have that fear anymore. And that fear, it's not just financial, you know, it's the fear of abandonment and the fear of loss and the fear of, you know, not having people in my life that will love me or be there for me. And I was never able to count on my family for financial support, but there's a lot of love there from a lot of people. And I could work the rest of it out if I, once I recognized that I had that, you know, I could kind of work through the rest of it. And I worked really hard to get to a point where I felt like

I could take care of myself enough to relax and do the work. And I think that's, again, something that a lot of people don't talk about. I had to find a really strong foundation. I had to build a really strong foundation emotionally before I was ever able to do the kind of work that I do right now. Yeah, I hear that. You mentioned there was a lot of love in your family. And it sounds like, you know, the center of a lot of that was your grandma, who really ended up largely raising you and your brother. And it sounds like just kind of like, I mean, literally, she's got to end up on screen, like her character based on her at some point, because like, there's such a visuality to her presence that I just kind of want to, I want to, it's in my brain. I kind of want to see what it looks like on screen, but share a bit more about her. I guess she sounds like quite a woman. Oh yeah. She is, she is a fierce little tugboat of a woman. She is, she's always been so herself. And when I say that, what I mean is, you know, she has never, she never capitulated to being the person that other people thought she should be. So even when

she became a mother and she was a stay at home mother for, you know, 30 years, she was still smoking and, you know, playing cards with her friends and, you know, just be cursing and just giving the worst advice. She loves horror movies. So she would plop us down in front of horror movies to watch with her when we were kids. And she is very independent. So what she modeled for me at a very young age was that ability to be yourself. And, you know, I cannot stand the word unapologetic because I feel like, well, what do you want me to apologize for in the first place? But she definitely lived her life with such a fierceness that it didn't leave room for apology. And in a lot of ways that translated to a lot of fear on my part.

But she leads with love and she is the very definition to me of tough love, because she's never going to sugarcoat anything. And she doesn't feel like it's her job to make you feel better about the the only person who could control my life and who was in charge of my life for better and for worse. She really is something else, you know, and she's hilarious. You know, she's very into pop culture. She always has been. So as a kid, that translated to, you know, her stealing our Nintendo that she technically bought for us for Christmas, but we somehow didn't play it for months on end. Her favorite TV show is The Walking Dead. She just really loves life

and she loves being herself. And her form of love is not sweet, but it's deeply caring. And she really listens to me. And it's, it's, it's a remarkable thing that at 44 years old, I still have my grandmother in my life. But even more remarkable than that is that we are so close and we're such good friends. And, you know, I just love her completely. She really, she really leads through love, but in a very strange way. Yeah. I mean, she seems to be just an incredibly transparent person.

If it's on her mind, it's at her mouth. This is the way it is. This is the way the world is. And yet at the same time, it took you a really long, you kept a really big secret from her. There was something inside of you that says as tough as she is. And as much as I have been shown this model of really complete transparency, even when there was a little bit of certain momentary cruelness mixed in with it, that's just the way that you need to be. Your abuse was something that until you really hit this profound breaking point,

you didn't share with her. I'm curious, what was it that was inside of you that said, I can't actually go there with her? Part of it was the fear of retribution. You know, she had made it very clear to me that she did not like my stepfather and that she was incredibly angry with my mother for not just being with him, but just the way that she left us. You know, she left us at my grandparents' house one weekend and just never came back. And, you know, she checked in with us a couple of years later and tried to start the process up again, but, you know, we were already gone. You know, my grandmother and grandfather had taken, you know, they were our guardians and we lived with them and we were in our life and immovable at that point. And my mom didn't want us back. She just wanted to be in

our life. So my grandmother never hid from me her feelings about how she already felt about those two people. And then seeing that toughness and seeing her anger, I felt like just from my knowledge of her up to that point, she could have been angry at me for not doing something to protect myself. And that's that child mind, but that's where I was, where she might be mad at me for not stopping this and for not protecting myself. And it was really scary to tell her that I had been sexually abused because she also didn't understand my depression at all. And her way of dealing with harshness and sadness is get over it and get through it. And I think that's also something that you hear in a lot of Black families and a lot of

Black culture is it's part of that survival that we learn in a different way as people who live in this country in such a marginalized way. So there was a lot of misunderstanding from me interpreting how she would understand what I would tell her. And I just was terrified. I was terrified that it would somehow be my fault. And since I already had the fear of having my abuser say things to me, like, if you tell someone I'll kill you and, you know, making me feel like I didn't matter, then I felt completely lost and I felt completely alone. And it took a lot of courage. I can say it now in retrospect, took a lot of courage for me to say anything to anyone, but particularly to my grandmother. I also feared that it would impact our relationship in some way that, you know, I was kind of soiled or, you know, kind of lesser than in her eyes or that I would be once I told her this. So we talked about everything. We talked about things on the news. We talked about sex. We talked about everything. So I knew her opinions

were tough and I knew that she wasn't always super rational and I didn't always agree with her. So I didn't want to take this deepest part of myself and this deepest hurt and expose it to someone who was so, so tough. I'm glad that I did. And I learned a lot from that, but it was a tremendously courageous move for me to make. Yeah. And I mean, you describe it as a moment where, I I guess a different side of her came out to a certain extent. Oh, yeah. And you saw something that maybe you hadn't seen before. Yeah, that was shocking to me in the best possible way that her response was so loving and caring. And she didn't jump to the place where she wanted to. I'm sure she wanted to

ask questions and she had so much more to say, but she really just saw me in that moment and focused on me, which is something I hadn't had in my childhood. It was always me and my brother. It was always, we were living with my grandmother until I was five and then we lived with my mom and she was scattered. And then this guy came onto the scene. I'd never had personal attention like that before. And to have it from her and have it be so loving, kind of rocked my foundation of what I thought people could be in this world. And I didn't know that she had that in her. I always felt love from her. I always knew that she loved me. I did not know just how much until that moment. Yeah, that's beautiful. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era or yoga era,

dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna 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 gonna die. Don't shoot if 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 8 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. You know, at the same time, there is that fierce sense of independence. So it's sort of like these things were seeded in you. Like you said, basically as soon as you're done with school, you're out in the world. You know, there's no, hey, we're going to help support you for a while.

It's basically like actually even before then then you were sort of like, you want money, go make it. You want to buy something, figure it out. So when you go out into the world, I mean, it's interesting also. So, so you move out of this sort of younger experience into the world, I guess, originally thinking that you're going to be a fashion designer. Starting out at school, not the right fit, end up emotionally and mentally really struggling for a bunch of different reasons and dropping. And you've been transparent in the way that you've shared. You struggled with depression

over the years. You struggled with suicidal ideation and took time to really go on this sort of like long meandering journey, not just professionally and say, okay, I'm not locked into this dream that I had, but personally and also geographically. I mean, all different places, including four years in an Alaskan fishing village. But it feels like you were the whole time. It wasn't this random wandering. I mean, maybe this is the benefit of hindsight or me being a complete outsider looking at the long, you know, arc of what you described. It feels like there was something guiding you to keep running different experiments to a certain extent.

I'm curious, is that in any way valid? That's completely valid. That's completely, completely valid. And again, in hindsight, I was searching. I was searching for myself out in the world. And at the time I was doing it and moving and making these decisions, it just felt like, if I don't try this, then what else is there for me? And if I don't leap into the world, I'm just going to be

at home in Warwick, sad in the same existence and living, not able to live. I didn't feel like I was able to truly live in Warwick when I was younger. So it's very bizarre that I've just recently moved home. But I think that at the time, it felt like there was nothing to lose. That's also a big part of it. Like I had nothing to lose. I wasn't being held up to any particular standard in my family. And I wasn't being, I wasn't holding myself up to any standard other than to just survive. So I felt like, you know, if I'm going to bag groceries, why not bag groceries in Alaska?

You know, why not bag groceries somewhere else and see what happens from that? So I think that, yeah, I was definitely looking for something that would give me a better life and that would give me a happier life. Even if I couldn't put my finger on it and I didn't know what it was and I definitely didn't know how to attain it, I wanted to live. I wanted to really live and have experiences that would help shape me into something else. Yeah. It's so interesting to hear you say, there was part of the consideration was I've got nothing to lose in part because there's no real familial expectation other than I'm not going to ask for money. Yeah, exactly. And beyond that, it's just like, do what you got to do, which is a really unusual experience for a lot of people. I think especially, you know, it's really their late teens, early mid twenties, they

feel so much weight of expectation, you know, from both family and society that it guides them in a particular direction. And as tough as things were for you, that was something that was not really a factor in your decision-making. Absolutely. And that again, is part of the toughness of my grandmother saying, you know, you're old enough to get a working card, you know, you're old enough to get your working papers. So you should, because if you want to buy anything, if you want anything, you have to buy it. And I'm talking like cassettes, jeans, anything. She would put me in the bare minimum. She's like, I'll make sure you have stuff to wear, but it's not going to be cute. And it's not going to be

what you want. We're going to go down to Playtogs, you know, the discount store and get you what you need. But she wasn't interested in funding my teen adventures. And she wasn't interested in, you know, this is also part of the way that I wrote about growing up in the 80s. We were kind of the last generation of kids who had that freedom of not having the internet and not having, you know, helicopter parents and not having the weight of expectation. So I learned very, very early on that if I made my own money, I could do whatever I want. And it didn't have to be a lot of money. I bought my first car for like a hundred bucks. It didn't have to be a lot of money,

but if I did it on my own, nobody could tell me what to do. If I got a job and bought a car and wanted to go to a concert in Connecticut, nobody could stop me because I'm not asking them for anything other than the permission to not be in the house, which was always a godsend for my grandmother when we weren't in the house. So yeah, that's something that really impacted me very heavily that, you know, by the time I left high school, I knew how to balance a checkbook. I had my own bank account. I had several jobs. I purchased my own car. I got my own car insurance. I knew what bills looked like. I kind of was ready to just be out there. And again, the independence comes from, for me, it came from not having that

expectation. And as long as I was happy or as long as I was doing things in my life that felt good to me, then that's all my family ever asked is that I not go out in the world and flail. I think that if I had, my grandmother would have said, like, why don't you just come home? But she didn't want, but I think she would have offered that if she saw me really struggling. If you really, really have to for a short period of time. For a month, you can come back. But yeah, that's something that I didn't see it as a gift at the time. I thought this is so cruel that all of my other friends have families that are paying for them to go to college and to be drunk and do whatever they want. And I have three jobs. And I'm working at a mall in Northern California at a coffee shop and at a bookstore. And then I'm waitressing on the

weekends. It felt so deeply unfair to me at that time. But it wasn't. It was really what built, again, that foundation that I needed for the rest of my life. Yeah. And from there, you end up eventually, about a dozen years later, you go back to school, studying English Lit, Women's Studies, end up getting your MS also, and then building this tremendous career as a writer, writer in different ways, editor, rookie, writing for TV, now books. But the writing side, I'm really curious about because it seems like it almost comes out of nowhere, you know, and the way that your career has evolved, it seems like it's, it's this thing that was, you know, you start out thinking, okay, I love crafts.

At one point you're thinking the world of fashion, that's everything for me. So was there a great, brilliant plan for you to step into the world of writing, that's everything for me. So was there a great, brilliant plan for you to step into the world of writing? Or has this just been sort of like, let me try this. That feels good. Let me try this. That feels good. Because also your writing voice is astonishing as well. So it's like, God, it's this, I have to imagine that level of craft doesn't develop overnight and you had to run a lot of craft doesn't develop overnight. And you had to run a lot of experiments and take a lot of risks to certainly be able to write that way. And at the same time, you're doing that when you know you don't have a net to catch you

if people don't like it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My resume reads like I was on the run from the law for like 20 years. I mean, there's no plan. There is still no plan. There has never's no plan. There is still no plan. There has never been a plan. It's as freeing as it is terrifying, but I've always been a writer, even when it wasn't

public, even when I wasn't getting paid for it. So my great aunt told me when I was younger that I should keep a journal, but that never felt like a safe thing to do in my house when I lived with my mom and her boyfriend, because I felt like, well, they'd find it and make fun of me, or he'd find it and be mad at me and hit me for anything I said about what was going on or anything I said about him. And when I was with my grandmother, I was kind of too busy adjusting to life to write about it. But that's where that interior life developed, where I would think so much in my head about what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. But I always wrote very vibrantly. And I loved my English classes at school.

And then when I left school, I did start keeping a journal. And I have a suitcase full of letters that I've written back and forth to friends over the years. And when the internet happened, I started keeping a blog. And just really, I have always done that. I've always found a way to write. And it never was my plan to be a writer, to put it out in the world. I just thought this will be a facet of my life that will keep me happy while I'm doing

this other stuff to pay the rent. And so it was a real leap for me to say, I'm going to try this full time. And that happened, you know, I got my master's degree when I was 33 and moved to Seattle to start my PhD. It absolutely did not work out. You know, I left the program within the first semester. And also my marriage wasn't going well. So, you know, I got divorced and I moved back to New York. And before I had left Seattle, I took a job at The Stranger. And that was kind of my first time, like really taking a big leap into a career move towards writing. You know, I had published Feminist Ryan Gosling at that point, but that felt like something that was done. And that was

really my first step was I wrote a couple of articles for The Stranger. And then when I left the PhD program, I applied for a job there and got it. And when I moved to New York, I decided I wanted to do more freelance writing. I started doing some freelance writing when I was in grad school, when I was working on Feminist Ryan Gosling. And I just kind of hit up my editors and said, you know, I want to do this more. And so for a number of years, like a few years, quite a few years in New York, you know, I lived in this fourth floor walk-up, maybe 300 square feet, it was a very small apartment. And I sustained my life by writing recaps and writing about television. And that was shocking to me, even though I had to, you know, beg people to pay me, I was still able to eventually get paid and use that to pay my bills. And I was like, what,

I can do this. And then that very strangely translated into a career writing for TV because my agent found me through my recap. She said, you know, she reached out and said, I like the way you write about television. You should consider writing for television. And I was like, oh, how do you do that? Like, I don't know anybody in the business. I didn't go to school for it. Like, what are you talking about? But I already think in dialogue. So it wasn't that hard of a shift. And so I kind of taught myself how to write scripts with her help by reading scripts for about a year straight, and just reading and reading and reading. And once I recognize that, you know what, I don't have to get too

deeply into the transitional clauses or anything like that right away. I just have to have, you know, a way to get in and out of each scene and I'm good. And so I kind of pared it down in my, you know, the self-taught course of mine, I pared it down to the, to the essentials and really just had fun with it. And I wrote my first Beck script based on a story that I just pulled directly from my life about my family. And then she sent me out for jobs and I got hired. My first job was on Difficult People. I was friends with Julie Klausner and told her I was interested in writing for television. And she's like, you know what? You should just come to the room and see if you even like it

because it's a whole different experience. So I'll forever be grateful to her for that. It was kind of just like a consulting position for a few weeks, but just to sit in a room with people, the smartest people and the funniest people, and that was your job to just be smart and funny and to say things out loud was revolutionary to me. And I loved it. I jumped feet first into it, feet first. And once I decided that that was

kind of what I wanted to do, it still didn't stop me from writing in other ways, but I definitely, you know, that, that was the first time I saw a direct and clear career path that was based in writing. When I was freelancing, it always felt like I was kind of piecing things together, you know, whole cloth. But I, that was the first time that I thought, oh no, like they, they have a guild and you can have a pension and like, you could really do this for a long time. It's still hustle but you can pay people do the hustle for you that's where agents are great they bring you jobs you gotta love that part of the business um but you know it's interesting because i think if you if you don't have any exposure to tv writing which which most people outside the industry don't you actually don't know that shows are written by not just one person, but a writer's room.

Like often staffed with a whole bunch of really smart people bantering back and forth and working it all out together. So it's this massively in the moment, real time collaborative process, which some writers I know love, absolutely love. And some absolutely hate because they're like, no, this is mine. I want to form all parts of it. So it's interesting to see that you have both of those in you. You've got the side where I'm writing a piece, which is completely mine. I'm writing my memoir. Nobody else except my editor. And yet you also love this fiercely collaborative real-time

environment at the same time. Oh, completely. And I think it's because writing is so solitary. I think that, like we discussed earlier, in order for me to get out of my own head sometimes, it's really beneficial to be in a room full of people who can do some of the lifting with you. So it's nice to see that it doesn't translate to my book writing at all. It's still a slog during the book writing portion of it and very solitary. But I just, because of that, I think I just appreciate that collaborative experience so much more. I didn't know that writing could be so collaborative until I started TV writing. And the name that you see on the screen, the story by or written by, isn't always the full truth because you sit in a room with a lot of people to come up with how that looks and how that goes. It might be your words on the page in the end, but I do love that process of working through stories with people and to see how other writers,

how their brains work and what they gravitate towards and the you know, kind of the differences in how we communicate the same idea. I just think that it's fascinating. Yeah. And I mean, writers are being able to have different perspectives also coming in. Although traditionally that writers rooms were not exactly known for being the most diverse and inclusive places on the planet. But it feels like at least from what I'm hearing from the outside, that's changing.

I mean, you having the lived experience of it, what's your sense of what's happening there? It's a very slow change. I think that the people, the rooms themselves are becoming more diverse. The stories that we're seeing on screen are becoming more diverse. But the people at the top

who are still making most of the decisions, there's not a lot of diversity at all. And so that's a real stopgap for a lot of stories making their way to the screen. Because if you have people who don't understand what you're saying from your perspective or from your lived experience, they will often not know how to make that show

or how to make that show good or how to help you make that show. So there's still a ton of work to do. There have been some big strides, but I think that it is, I'm still far too often the only brown person or woman in a room. And I just started running my own, my first show.

I'm running a show for Lena Waithe. And that meant I got to hire my own writers and kind of really decide what I wanted that room to look like. It was up to me to shape the room. And I learned from all of the horrible experiences I've had and all the bad experiences I had, how to actually make a room that worked. And for me, the key to it was being organized and just being transparent and hiring the best people I could hire. And once you do that, and if you come to the room with a plan and say, this is what we're doing today, people feel cared for and they don't feel unmoored and they don't feel like you're flailing and just it's up to them to figure it out. So I tried to be more of a guiding ship in that way so that I could open the doors to let them do their best work and be their best selves. And I love show running. I love it. I hope I get to do it so much more. But I think that is

something that people often forget with writers is that you can just let us go. You can just let us kind of free wheel for a while and we will bring you ideas and we will, we will get there. We will get there, especially as a team. So I think, you know, it's, it takes a lot of, of a lot of trust to be able to do that. But I, I trust the people that I work with and I think that it's important for them to know that and to feel it. Yeah. You know, what's interesting is there a little bit of what you're describing now is you stepping into the role of creating the safe container, the home, the place where people can step into their selves, like find their voices. It's almost like there's an interesting synergy, like interesting reflection on your upbringing

and saying, okay, so now I'm in a place in my life where I can create this space of safety and collaboration and cooperation and letting your voice be heard and developing it and sharing it and knowing that you're going to be okay. You're doing it in a professional context, but it feels like it's something bigger than that. That's a really astute observation. Thank you. I've never thought of it that way, but it's very true that that is probably because of the way I was raised. It's very important to

me that I'm able to do that with people in my life. I would always rather be someone who is supportive in that way because I think that that's what I needed. And it's that this is an age old tale that you try to give people what you need or you create things that give's what I needed. And it's, it's that this is how, this is an age old tale that, you know, you, you try to give people what you need or you create things that, that give you what you, what you thought you needed at the time. But I really did feel for most of my life, like if I had, if I had had the safety and security and love in the very specific way that I needed it at certain times in my life, I could have been the president. I could have been like, I was a pretty smart kid and I could have done so much

more so much quicker. I don't regret my life at all, any part of it, because every part of it has been so important to being who I am now. But I do think sometimes, I wonder what if I had had that and who could I have been? So I think that because I know that that feeling is so intensely sad sometimes, I don't want people to feel like that. I want to be part of creating the other side of that process where you don't have to wonder what you can do. I just want you to do it. I just want you to go do it. I love that. People should know the smile on your face right now is amazing. You're like, yes. It's such a great feeling.

Yeah. And it feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation. So sitting here in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life, you need to be kind to yourself, be honest to yourself, and not gravitate towards the things that make other people happy or just not gravitate towards what everyone else is doing and keep your eyes on your own plate. I think that a good life comes from within. It's not something you can grab outside and bring in. So I think that the more time you spend cultivating your true self and really knowing what you love and how to translate that love to other people is where the best parts of life come through. Thank you. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. I could talk to you for 95 hours. Truly, truly wonderful. Hey, before you leave, if you love this conversation, safe bet you'll also love the conversation we had with Ashley C. Ford. You'll find a link to

Ashley's episode in the show notes. Even if you don't listen now, be sure to click and download so it's ready to play when you're on the go. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app so you'll never miss an episode

and then share the Good Life Project love with friends because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. 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 or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna 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 gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.