Good Life Project - Grace Bonney on Design, Evolution and Serendipity

Episode Date: July 24, 2018

Growing up, Grace Bonney, was all about culture and music, with a strong connection with jam bands that landed her on the business side of music and media in New York City. Along the way, she launched a side project blog called Design Sponge, to share insights about growing passion for accessible home design.The blog exploded and, eventually, she left her full-time job to build Design Sponge into a full-blown media company of her own with a massive, global audience, a book, travel and an increasingly public profile. But, along the way, Grace’s interests evolved, creating a gap between what she was creating, what she genuinely cared about and how she wanted to live.That all came to a head about 5 years ago when pretty much every part of her life, her marriage, her health and work-life were profoundly disrupted, setting in motion an awakening to a new direction in all three domains. Grace was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, her marriage ended, she came out, fell in love with her now wife, Julia, wrote a new book called In the Company of Women not about design, but about powerful creative women in business, launched a print magazine called Good Company, moved out of New York City, her home of 15 years, to live in a country hamlet with 400 people and rediscover true community, purpose and presence.We dive into this transformational journey in today’s powerful, revealing and inspiring conversation. -------------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.

Growing up, my guest today, Grace Bonney, well, she was all about culture and music with a strong connection to jam bands. And that eventually landed her on the business side of music, media. And along the way, she also just kind of happened to launch this side project called Design Sponge. And that was all about sharing her insights about a growing passion for accessible home design. That blog exploded.

Eventually, she left her full-time job to build Design Sponge into a full-blown media company of her own with a giant global audience, a book, travel, and a fast-increasing public profile. But along the way, Grace's interests evolved, creating a bit of a gap between what she was creating professionally and what she genuinely cared about

and how she wanted to live. Well, that all came to a head about five years ago when pretty much every part of her life, her marriage, her health, her work life were profoundly disrupted, setting in motion kind of an awakening to a new direction in all of those domains. Grace was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, completely changing the way she would live her life. Her marriage ended and then she came out, fell in love with her now wife, Julia. She wrote a new book called In the Company of Women, not about design, but about powerful, creative women in business. She launched a print magazine called Good Company, moved out of New York City, her home of 15 years, to live in a country hamlet with only about 400 people and rediscover a truer sense of community and purpose and presence.

And we dive into this really remarkable, powerful, and inspiring journey in today's conversation. 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 Series X 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. 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.

You grew up in Virginia? Mm-hmm. And at some point, from what I know, your dad became an entrepreneur when you were a kid. I'm curious to sort of like learn how did that happen and how do you experience it as a kid? It's interesting. He was not an entrepreneur by choice. My dad worked in advertising forever. And I think to the best of my knowledge, sometime when I was in elementary school, I just remember

him coming home and my mom kind of shuttling him off to another room and there being a very intense conversation, mentions of how Christmas was going to be a lot smaller this year and not realizing that everybody had been let go from my dad's firm. And he decided to open his own business. And I remember the first few years being very shaky and my mother and everyone else involved kind of, you know, really tightening down the hatches and trying to figure out how to make it work. And the end result for me was, you know, cut to 20 years later is really just seeing how well my dad did on his own and how the respect he built at that firm really carried through.

And I think he's someone who's tried to truly evolve in his business as he's sort of gotten older and he works in market research and used to do focus groups, which is a really dying art. Yeah. The whole sort of like qualitative research field is like, people are like, no big data, numbers, numbers, numbers. Or it's just, why can't I do that with an online survey? It's that sort of thing, which I understand both sides of the spectrum, being a small business that could probably never afford to hire someone like my dad. I completely understand. But growing up and seeing that if you don't like the way that things are going, or you don't want to change the things that you believe in to go work for whatever job

is available, while it is a luxury to make that decision, it's not an easy one. And so it was good to grow up seeing that as a possibility. Yeah. How old were you around when this happened? I want to say I was probably like in sixth grade or something. Did they, and it sounds like you locked into the possibility side of that moment in time. Were you aware of, because now obviously, you know, like the intimate details of the uncertainty and sustain just like, oh, of being an entrepreneur. Were you aware at that young age also of that side of it? Oh God, no. No. I mean, I just knew that I got fewer toys at Christmas. That was what I remembered that year. How does this affect me?

Yeah, you know, I was an obnoxious preteen. So I remember them being very stressed out. I'm an only child. And so I think the relationship between my parents and I was very close and they weren't good at hiding a lot of things about them being, which I'm kind of, I'm glad. Like, I want them to just live the way they're living. And so I remember at that time, everyone being a little kind of on edge, but then I very distinctly remember in high school, my dad having his first year that was just really, really profitable. And I remember him talking about the amount and being just so proud. And that really stayed with me. I don't even remember like what the number was. I just remember my dad being like, I did that. I did that by myself, like without a team

of people. His company is called Bonnie and Company. And we always joked my mom is the and company because she would like copy edit all of his reports and just him. And with my mom's help, they really, you know, floated the whole family. And that's a really powerful thing to see at that age when I think, especially growing up in a very conservative town and a conservative state where what you do is you go to one of three schools and then you go into one of three fields and then everyone moves to DC and that is their trajectory. And it made me feel like you can just blow that box open and do something completely different if you work hard enough. Yeah, it must have been so cool to see.

When you were a kid, what was the thing you couldn't not do? What was the thing that kind of breathed you? Writing. Writing was my everything. I think it was the place that I felt okay to be me. I didn't realize fully that I was gay when I was in like elementary school and middle school and high school. I always kind of knew things and there were rumors about me and things were really uncomfortable for me as a kid personally. And so I think from an early age, I threw myself into what would have been my

work at that time, which is schoolwork and such a big way that writing was this place where I could escape. And I felt like I was good at it. And I did well in school in my writing and English classes. And so it was my safe, happy place. And those teachers are still the teachers that I keep in touch with on Facebook today. Oh, that's amazing. Those are the teachers who I think recognize this kid needs this space. Let's just let her have this space. Yeah.

I mean, it must have been interesting also. I mean, you described a really conservative town. And if you're questioning your identity on multiple levels in an environment like that, that's got to be, you know, it's different than growing up in New York City. surfer town and we have like surf competitions and everyone's real cool and they wear flip-flops everywhere. But it is very dominated by super right-wing Christian communities. I mean, so much more so now than it ever was when I grew up there. And I worry for the kids who are growing up there right now thinking that, I mean, especially, I mean, I was a white, able-bodied, cisgendered girl and I had a lot of things that made it a lot easier for me to exist. And it already wasn't that easy. So when I think about the kids that are growing up there, who maybe identify in ways that put them into multiple categories of being underrepresented

and not supported, and I'm very worried for them because that community is very much becoming shaped through the lens of like, you know, the Pat Robertsons of the world who are blaming them for world tragedies. Yeah. Do you, do you feel like, you know, since then with access to, you know, everyone's so hyper-connected now on the internet and, you know, which we can talk about, there's so many angles to that, but, but in this context, do you feel like that kid growing up in that town without the support structure that they need locally, do you think it's easier or harder now being able to sort of find potentially, if you can't find it locally, like, can you maybe find your people? Can you find a community? Can you find support in some group somewhere? And does that even come close

to giving you what you need? Those are good questions. I think in one way, yes. I think that you can probably find kids who are into the same thing and connect with them on the internet. But at the end of the day, you go home to where you live and you go to school where you live. And I think most, especially a lot of kids who are growing up identifying on that sort of LGBTQ spectrum somewhere, you're not growing up necessarily with family support or financial support. And, you know, I was able to essentially run away to New York because I got a scholarship, but that's not everybody's option. And not everybody can, even if they get a scholarship, can afford to get themselves there or buy books. And so I think a lot of things often come down

to just financially, what are you able to do and what systems exist for you in the place you want to go. But I do think that a lot of the LGBTQ networks online are doing a good job of trying to let people know what support systems exist in these places near them. Because if you're in the middle of the country, going to New York City isn't a feasible option, but there might be a bigger city closer to you that does have a better support system. So I try to spend a lot of time looking for those organizations and trying to figure out how to support them. Because I think sometimes we just get lost in the idea that all people, especially people who identify as queer, have access to LA, San Francisco, or New York. But places in coastal Oregon, and there's all over the world that just you don't

have access to these kind of amazing wonderlands of acceptance. Yeah. So you kind of poured yourself into writing and academics and then as you're using your words, escape to New York. So many people do escape to NYU. We were just talking before this, like we're waiting to escape out of New York now. It's like the mafia. Every time we try and get out, it keeps pulling us back in. There's so many great things about it here. And, you know, it's always a yes and. It's like the mafia. Every time we try and get out, it keeps pulling us back in. There's so many great things about it here. And it's always a yes and. It's always just the great parts about New York are also combined with the parts about New York, like the cost of living here, that are just astronomical.

Yeah. Why did you want to come to New York? Why that instead of somewhere else? This is so embarrassing to admit. Felicity. I love that. and feeling like, wow, this is not a thing I have ever felt before. But I hated every second of NYU, which is not the school for me. And so I ended up transferring back to Lehman Mary in Virginia, graduating from there, and then literally the day after graduation,

getting in a car and driving right back up to New York City and starting work the next day. There's this really interesting contrasting sides inside of you. So I know that when you were in school, you were a total jam band person and you were in a radio station or a radio show around being a jam band. And then at some point in your life, you become obsessed with MMA too. They seem so totally different sides of the spectrum. What's up with that? I think in hindsight, I think I've always, I've never felt like I belonged anywhere. I've always felt in this in-between zone. I don't, I mean, even in like my own queer community, I don't,

I still don't feel like I fit in a hundred percent. And so I think I've always been looking for places that felt easy to fit in. Like it's very easy to figure out as a hippie, how to dress, how to act, what to listen to for people to immediately be like, oh, we got you, come hang out with us. And I think MMA was another weird part of that, of it's very clear what that particular community is interested in and the phrases and the people to follow. And, you know, every sort of sub community has their own sort of barrier to entry. And it was so easy with communities like that. And it wasn't the only reason I was interested in them. I always grew up really enjoying that type of music. And I just really loved MMA. I mean, I still love lots of forms of sort of athletic endeavor, but that's

one that the community attached to it became too problematic to be a part of. But I think I was always looking for a place to belong. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting that that was, I think a lot of us gravitate towards it. And certainly like sort of like the jam band community is really well identified, defined values, language, symbology. It's like, boom, it's all there. And, but it's also, it's very dogmatic. I mean, what, what from the outside looking in seems like it's completely laid back and chill and let's all move. It's almost like you're in or you're out. Like you believe everything or you believe nothing. It's a hundred percent accurate. It really,

and also it was just, I didn't do enough drugs to fit into that community. And that was, I've, I've always just been too boring to be a part of whatever group I wanted to be a part of. And in that community in particular, I was like, oh, I'm not, I'm not willing to like risk my life enough to do all of the things that were happening around me. And I also, I mean, just in the era of kind of Me Too reckoning, like the experiences that happened to me, I worked for a record label and that community is my first job when I moved to New York. And the things that happened to me working there are really to this day still affect me. And I think that that particular community has really covered up a lot of people who are beloved to have not so great behavior pasts. And it just,

it just kind of, the veil was lifted for me. And I was just, I was out. It was like overnight. I was like, oh, this is, this is, this is the band that I've loved forever, but this is what they're actually like. And you can say that about any famous musician for the most part, that they've got some sort of unsavory thing, which I'm okay with for the most part. Everyone makes mistakes, but it was just for me. I was like, oh, this isn't a real laid back community. It's actually not. It's all covering up some stuff that's not so great. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting to think, I mean, there's a whole conversation about what happens to people when they step into a place of power, and that power sort of like is in the context of having large numbers of, quote, followers. I saw that. I have a history in the yoga community also, and I saw a lot of that in that community as well.

In the wellness sphere, my brother-in-law works in meditation, and to see some of the gurus that have fallen in that community as well, it's disappointing but not surprising, which is disappointing all over again in a whole different way. Yeah, no, I know. It's odd. At one point, I was actually going to do a TV treatment for a show about the inside of what actually happens in the yoga and spirituality world. I mean, we're all humans. We are. No, I know. And it is interesting.

It's like you deny like a certain, there's nothing that I'm saying right now, which is designed to let anyone off the hook. But there are certain social dynamics, power dynamics, behavioral dynamics that are, rather than just being sort of like, let's talk about and explore these openly and like figure out, you know, like what is the most respectful way

for everybody to interact. It's just nobody talks about it. It's true. And part of the reason I'm so excited that podcasting has sort of really come into its own is that it is allowing sort of the way that I think blogs did 15 years ago or 20 years ago was allow people who wanted to have these longer, more nuanced conversations about the systems that are swirling around us. It's allowing those conversations to happen in a way that don't happen in mainstream press. Yeah, soundbite culture. They need to happen.

Yeah. So you're hanging out in New York City, moving out of the music business, involving yourself in writing editorial as your mainstream gig. And somewhere around 2004, you're like one of the blogging OGs. It's 2004, right? The Design Sponge starts happening on the side. And for those who don't know, Design Sponge blossomed into this incredible community around sort of like inviting everyday people into the idea that they too can experience beautiful design in their surroundings. Does that do any level of justice to it?

Absolutely. I always think of especially early era blogs as kind of the reality TV show programming of the blog world because I think our whole thing was always we're not interested in the big names. Like I'm not going to go to the big trade shows and talk about like the 10 famous designers that everybody else is talking about. I want to talk about the kids who go to Pratt who are making furniture out of weird leftover mattresses and talk about that. And then everything evolves over time. But I think for me, my beginning project was definitely about elevating the voices of people that I felt weren't getting enough attention. Although then Brooklyn Design became like the thing that everyone replicated, which is great. Although I don't think most people who were kind of the heart and soul of that movement necessarily profited from that explosion. Do you feel like you played

a meaningful role in sort of bringing attention to Brooklyn design? I don't know if I did on a big scale. I think that people like Dave Alhada used to run a store called the Future Perfect in Williamsburg, and he was very much like the Pied Piper of sort of that era of designers. But looking back, I think I've always kind of been the person three rungs below the person because I've always been a bit more grassrootsy and I don't have access to PR and money and things like that. That's not something I have for my business. So I think that I've always been really comfortable being kind of the person who was a few rungs below that. So I don that I've always been really comfortable being kind of the person who was a few rungs below that. So I don't know if I had much to do with that. I feel like I feel proud of

the way that Design Sponge was able to sort of lift up and support local businesses and local businesses in cities across the U.S., but not like the big national names. Like we've just, we're always a little bit below that. I remember someone wrote about Design Sponge a few years into starting and they called us like the indie rock girl band of the blogosphere. And it felt very accurate. I was like, we are like, we're never going to be the people who like fill a stadium. We're going to be the people who are like doing the things that are outside that are a bit more DIY. And I like that place. It feels more comfortable and it feels like there's more room to shift and change and make mistakes, which I do a lot of. Yeah. As does everybody. Did you, when you were doing that, I mean, start on the side and eventually a couple years into it,

I guess it becomes your mainstream thing. You step into it full time. When you were looking to make that decision, did you go back to your dad and sort of like really bounce this and say, hey, listen, like I remember parts of what you went through, but can you help me talk through this? It's so funny. No, I didn't talk to my dad, but I thought of my dad 100% because I also had to sort of involuntarily be pushed into the blog being my full-time job. I always thought my end-all be-all was to be an editor at a magazine. It's all I ever wanted. And then I did that at several magazines, and then all the magazines closed. So it kind of rocked my world of, oh, this is what I thought the safe job was. Like, there is this part of me that I think just wants an old era of job that doesn't exist

anymore. Like, I like security, I like stability, I like to explore change and growth within the confines of a very safe job with health insurance. So I always thought like, well, you know, you'll have to drag me out of here. I want to stay here and work my way up the ladder, but then all those options closed. And so Design Sponge was the thing that was still really growing at the time. And so when I think Domino was the last magazine I was at, I think, and then when Domino closed, I was like, well, they can't make it. This is not going to be my option for a while. era of blogging when advertisers didn't have any control over the market and bloggers were just adding zeros to everything at the end and doing really well and things have completely reversed now. But it was a good time to be a blogger. It was fun. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting also because it sounds like at that time, if somebody had asked you, what do you think is the potential or the lifespan of physical printed words on a page anymore?

I'm guessing you would have been like, done. Give it a couple years and then it's over. Well, it's funny because I kind of grew up in semi-riot girl zine culture. And so I've always liked very niche-y print. I think working at big Condé Nast magazines made me very aware of how they just bleed money. And when you're working with budgets like that and everybody is getting paid six figures and everyone's got a private driver taking them home to Connecticut, of course that model isn't going to work long-term. And so I think a lot of times when people talk about those

magazines closing, I don't think they needed to. I think it was just the whole industry needed to kind of reimagine how these things work. And I still don't think anyone's figured it out. I mean, I just launched a magazine and I still haven't figured it out either, but paying people what they're worth and also making a living is very difficult in print. So I do think niche is kind of the future for right now, like keeping things small, not trying to recreate the next People magazine or whatever. Like it's hard to do something that is profitable and isn't super duper mainstream. So I don't know what the answer is, but I definitely thought print was on its way out then.

And I think that type of print is not doing so great right now. Yeah, I mean, I think all signs agree with that on the large scale, but in the same way that, you know, Brooklyn Design got kind of hot and chic and then expanded, the Brooklyn artisanal movement has kind of taken over the world also. And then when you look at,

so you've got like an amazing new magazine, Good Company out, and it's beautifully printed and you can like feel the letterpress imprints on the cover. And it's like stunning. It's like, this is not just, you can like feel the letterpress imprints on the cover. And it's like stunning. It's like, this is, this is not just, you can tell the difference just as soon as your fingertips hit it from the glossy stuff that you find in a newsstand. My sense is that the pendulum,

I don't know if you feel, I'm so curious to know what your sense is. My sense is that the pendulum is swinging back, that we've gone so digital and we're wired for the physical, that we're missing the tactile, physical experience of interacting with media? I think a lot of us are. I don't know the answer to this, but I really- Maybe I'm just hoping that. Well, I also wonder, are people younger than us feeling that? Because I don't interact with a lot of teenagers, but from my friends who have younger kids in their lives are like, oh no, those kids don't touch anything printed. Everything is who's the YouTube star,

who's the Vine star, or I mean, I guess Vine is pretty much gone now, but typically like the YouTube generation. And I wonder, am I just creating printed matter for people who are over 30 at this point, which I'm a hundred fine with. Like, that's totally okay with me. But I do wonder, like, this next generation that grew up with social media, like, they won't have the nostalgia for print that we have. I mean, I really, like, I still have some stacks of magazines. And for ages, I collected, like, full anthologies of particular magazines and their histories. And now that all kind of seems a little outdated to me. So I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, I think the nostalgia is part of it, but I wonder also, it's just, if you've never experienced it in the first place,

like you don't get how yummy it is. I just miss ripping things out. I mean, my entire life was just, who can I rip out and stick to my wall? and how many collages can I make on things? And, you know, I just, I miss that tactile part of things. And I see that aesthetic represented, like Rookie Magazine that Tavi Gevinson did. That aesthetic was the aesthetic of the 90s that I grew up with, but digitized. And that always just, I think that there were so many women in particular of my age bracket in their 30s who felt drawn to that magazine for that very reason of like, this is the stuff that we like, but wait, but you didn't grow up with it. Where is this coming from? I think every generation finds their version of tactile nature. So I hope that print always has a place somewhere because I do think it's important. But I also hear from a lot of readers who are just like appalled that I would consider doing anything in print because of the environmental implications. And so I'm trying to do a better job of paying

attention to that concern because I do, as someone who likes to kind of create these spaces to tell stories, I do think some stories live better in print than they do online. And I don't want to give that up entirely, but I also want to be mindful of the way, I think we interact differently with physical objects. It's interesting, the last book that I came out with, we did a campaign where we partnered with a tree planting foundation. And for like every book bought, we actually funded the planting of a tree, which actually a tree that's harvested yields something like, you know, the equivalent of 60 books. So, you know, we were trying to like 60X whatever, you know, like we were doing. Not that that necessarily makes it all, you know, like copacetic, but it is, I think it's a really interesting balancing act. And it's great that you're even starting that conversation to say like, okay, if we're putting this into the world, what are things that we can do to try to contribute to

an issue that is affected by this particular medium? And that's just great to see. That's such a great idea. I love that. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. 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 X 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. So, we just left like a hole from 1.2. Let's fill in a hole from one point to another. Let's fill in a little bit more of the journey.

So, you're hanging out. Design Spun becomes a full-time thing. It's growing wildly. Millions of people visiting the site. It becomes your main thing. And you become a boss at some point. How does that feel for you? I mean, the idea of managing people and also being responsible for other people. It's, it is heavy. It's a, it's a real privilege, but it's also a really heavy one.

I honestly don't think until probably this year or maybe last year, I fully understood what it meant to be a good boss. I think I was someone who really flew into this, just figuring it all out as I went along, as I think most bloggers did. And so I hired people that I was friends with or friendships, you know, became some other work thing or vice versa. Nothing was ever, I'm having a formal casting call and I'm going to talk to people. And it was just about who do I enjoy working with? And that doesn't necessarily set up the healthiest work environment or the clearest work expectation. And I found myself in a lot of places where I was not a great boss. And I was a person trying to be a friend and a boss at the same time. And that's a really, it's a really tricky balance. And I think particularly with women, there's this expectation

that we not ask for the things that we actually need from people. And I talked to a lot of women who manage other people who talk about just not wanting people to dislike them. And it took me, I mean, the better part of 14 years to figure out like, okay, yeah, I'm not going to be friends with everybody. I can be friendly and supportive and care very legitimately, but I need to stop worrying about whether or not this person is going to go home and say that they're mad at me because this is a business. And I don't think we run it as tight of a ship as we should, but I do think that I run things a lot differently. And I feel like I own that label in a way that I was very afraid to for the first 13 years of my business. Yeah. It takes time to get home. I still struggle with that to a certain extent. I think everybody, I think anyone who cares does. You know, it's like you want everyone, A, you want everyone to like you. You have to get over that, right? But also you want to take care of other people too and make sure that they're, you know, they're rising along with you and you want to be friends.

But it is in the container of a business. It is. And it's tricky in particular with this kind of new era of online business where the younger people who are coming up are so savvy and so smart. And unlike me who grew up with this still in the back of my head, wanting the safety and security of a job that I would stay at for multiple years, you know, 20 something people who are coming straight out of school and into this work, they're with you for max two years. And then they are on to launch their own project with them at the forefront. And for me, that was something I had to be dragged into because it seemed too risky and too scary. So it creates this dynamic with a lot of people that we've worked with where I can tell they're very much figuring out how the business works to then take it and launch their own thing. And so we become a launching pad for people who either go on to much bigger companies

with much bigger budgets or start their own thing that will sometimes feel very, very similar. So it's this weird dynamic of wanting to know that I can trust people to stay with me for a while, but also accepting this is kind of the new normal for me. Like if someone stays longer than two years, I'm always shocked. Yeah, I mean, and at the same time, it's like, let me give them everything I can give them.

But do I give them everything? It's a really interesting dynamic that I think, and everybody thinks that I think to a certain extent, but doesn't necessarily talk. We saw this in the, going back to the yoga world also, it's like we trained a lot of teachers and and i it was very obvious we were we can only hire a certain amount of teachers you know and we would nurture them and and meaning we're sending a whole bunch of people and but we decided like let's just give them everything we get and we know at some point some of them are going to turn around and become our quote competitors and that's okay you know well like we do us they do them and the universe of people who are going to interact with whatever we're putting into the world is big

enough. I think if you approach it that way, or else you just end up being miserable. It's true. I like the way that you kind of described it as like, I think the universe expands to make room for all of that. And I think sometimes it means that we occupy slightly different spaces. And I think as I've gotten older, I've accepted like, oh, I'm not going to be the blogger that I was in the beginning where I wrote about everything that was the newest, the coolest, the fastest first. And I remember like staying up until, you know, a designer was like, wait, let me like take some pictures. And so you can get it up at 8am before anybody else has. And I would never do that anymore. But I back then couldn't imagine a different world of

blogging where it wasn't important to me to be the first person to write about a new collection of some sort. And now I don't write about products at all. So I think it's just about understanding that there's a place and time for every person in that community. And that if I kind of move in a different direction, it doesn't mean that this new wave of people is pushing all of us out. It's kind of the community is expanding constantly to let in new voices who are talking about things in different ways. Yeah. And I mean, you've also, it's been really interesting too, because you have, you know, this is, I'm not a math person, 14 year project at this point, right? You as an individual have gone through massive change, your lens has changed,

and you're pretty transparent about that in what you put out into the world. So even on the most fundamental level, your design ethos has changed pretty dramatically over the window of time. And a lot of people would have been like, you know what, do what you need to do personally, but stay in your lane professionally because this is why people are following you. And you have made numerous decisions along that 14-year window to say, no, no, no. I'm evolving personally. I'm going to put it out into the world, into my work. And if people follow, great. If not, not. That's what it looks like from the outside in. Yeah, that's very much how it operates. I think that there's always in the back of my head the thought that at any given time, there were at least one or two people who depended on their mortgage payments for their job with me. And so as I've gotten older, and as the business

has gotten older, it's been a little bit more difficult to make the kind of like, screw everybody else, this is what I want to do type decisions. And so I don't, you know, I've gotten older, and I feel the weight of that responsibility. And so it's just a different era of business. But that's absolutely how I've always run the site. And it's still how I run everything because I fully feel like if you've got a platform of any type, especially like me with books and a magazine, if you were asking someone to pay for something, it needs to be really worthwhile. And I think there's a lot of stuff out there that's like the content, the word content just like makes me so sick to my stomach because I think everything is content now. I don't want to just create more content. So I want to be really mindful of things and to be honest about it. And if I don't want to write about products anymore, people can 100% hear that in my voice. If I'm just like, this is a new thing that so-and-so put out,

what's the point? There's somebody else who'd be really excited to talk about that. So why on earth would I take up that space? I'd rather just move into a different space where I'm talking about the people instead of the products. And that's just a normal change. Like I was 23 when I started this. You mean you're allowed to change from the time you're 23? I have people who come up to me who are so disappointed that I don't look, particularly

look the way that they would expect me to look based on the aesthetic of design sponge because even though it's evolved a bit I think people expect me to be like I say the whole time like a human cupcake I think they expect me to be like full-on confetti makeup with a fascinator and a pink short dress and that's not how I dress in real life and it would be fine if I did. It's just, I think sometimes people don't understand that you can write about and enjoy an aesthetic that isn't actually the one that you live in real life. And for me, Design Sponge was always this place to live out all the things that I didn't actually want to like invest in in my house,

but that I loved for fun. Like, it's so great to talk about hot pink everything. And I love crazy wild patterns. It's just not actually what I to talk about hot pink everything. And I love crazy wild patterns. It's just not actually what I want to live with at home. And having this platform has given me a space to indulge and imagine and daydream and window shop all the things that make me excited. But I think people want you to be that aesthetic. And when you're not, it's like you've shattered that wall for them. So I think that I'm always talking about growth and evolution really honestly, because I want people to understand that yes, we put out a fairly cohesive aesthetic because that is what the site does. But the people behind the site are not these little cookie cutter versions of a site.

Yeah. And it's interesting because that, that also kind of speaks to the evolution of blogging in general, right? In that, like in the early days it was, Oh, there's one person and this is like, you know,

they start on blogger and this is what, it's just their mind chatter, like flowing out into the world. And it was all always kind of associated with one person. And then it evolves into these bigger magazine style blogs. And then it's, you know, years and years later, there's a zillion people doing it. And there's not necessarily an association with one person, but with you, I think there still really is. Yeah. And I, I feel very close to the generation of bloggers who started around when I did, because I think we all understand what it felt like to be like,

oh, okay, no matter who writes here, people still expect to hear us and they expect us to be the face of that business. And we had to kind of grow into that in a way that I think bloggers who start now, they are fully aware that like from their head to their toes, they have to be their personal brand. And that is just something that we kind of stumbled into in a different way. And I think I was talking to Jamie Derringer, who runs Design Milk the other day, and she was like, no one wants to see what I do with my hair. Like, nobody cares about me in that way. Like, today's younger bloggers, their physicality is content. Like, what makeup you wear, what your hair is, all of that. Even if you're not a beauty and fashion blogger, you are still expected to be part of the product.

And so I'm thankful that I'm close enough to 40 that that is not something that people are concerned about with me. It is very much a part of being a blogger in this era now. Yeah. And I think also that attention is so fragmented now that it's just a completely different game. I remember, I don't even really blog anymore. It happened for a couple of years, but I started a couple of years after you. It was like late 2007. And a month or two into my, quote, career as a blogger, I saw all this traffic coming

to my blog. I was like, oh, something good must have happened here. And I traced it back to a link in the comments to another really established novelist, actually, who was destroying, like wrote a long post, like eviscerating me for talking about something commercial on my blog. Because back then, like you didn't have ads. Do you remember the ad-free blog campaign with the buttons? Yeah. And this was like bastardizing everything it was all about. It's fascinating to see so dramatically the culture has changed and how fragmented the tension is. And now, yeah, people do want to see like,

show me on Instagram or Snapchat what you looked like while you were writing this or doing this. And so what's that like for you still being in this space, still being a big voice, still having a large community, but being at a point in your life where you don't want to participate in that side of it, but you look at it and say, but I can see from a business standpoint that it's kind of a helpful thing to do or an important thing to do. I think that I think of myself as like the less financially well-off version of like an investor now. And if I had money, I would actually be doing that too, but I don't. So I try to essentially de-center myself and say, okay, if this platform still

exists for whoever long, I have no idea how much longer Design Sponge will be there or how long this platform will exist. But if I have it, I'm going to take myself out of it and just continually try to put other people into it and say, here, like, I've done a poor job of giving this community a voice here. So now I'm going to try to just turn everything else around and hand that over to somebody else. And I'll still be present enough, you know, that I need to be so that it still stays around and that people want to do things. But I just, I don't want to be the center of it anymore. And I think one of the interesting side effects of leaving New York City and moving a little bit further out into the country is I recognize what I do need and what I don't need. And I don't need that much more money. I mean, barring, you know,

knock on wood, any unforeseen circumstances, like I'm comfortable, you know, to be able to stay afloat and be sustainable. And I'm very fortunate to have a house and a partner that I love, and I don't need anything else. I don't need any more. And so if I can find a way to just maintain this and anything else extra that happens, if I just continue to pay that forward to the next generation or just people who haven't had the same platform, that's all I want to do right now. I have no interest in continuing to center my voice because that's also just not where my passion is anymore. I love people's houses. I mean, when I walked in here, I immediately started paying attention to

all of the details that I love, but that's not what I want to write about anymore. And so I'd rather just continue to hire and support people who haven't had a chance to talk about these things that they love. So I think that's how I'm seeing at least the next year or two of my work is just, how do I take the platforms that I have and use them to open things up even more and to lift up those voices as much as possible? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And you mentioned to write about the things you want to write. And it's interesting because the last couple of years, I've seen a really cool evolution from what you're writing.

I mean, from you started a company to literally create a magazine. And before that, your latest book in the Company of Women, which if I remember the backstory right, is not the book that you sold the publisher. Nope. I put my publisher through the ringer. Yeah, I had a contract and a due date that I had pushed back many, many times to write a DIY encyclopedia, which was the expected follow-up to a book about houses and projects and things like that. And then over the course of those two years, I just became increasingly less and less interested in design.

And I was more interested in the people behind design than I was the actual stuff people were making. And it just, it came to a point where I tried to like, I got to the point where I thought about hiring a writer, which I was like, I'm a writer and I'm thinking of hiring a writer to write this. This is great. It was just, I remember sitting at that meeting and being like, this is done. Like, let this go. Give the money back. You can't do this. Like, your heart's not in it. And I know what it is to do a book. I mean, so many people beyond me would put their time and their effort into that. Then I'd have to hit the road and promote that and stand there in front of something that I didn't feel great about. It just felt like such a, like, what a disrespectful waste

of that platform. Like people would love to have a book contract. I don't want to take up someone else's space. So I met with my accountant and I was like, what would it do to my business to give this money back? And it wasn't great, but I could survive it. And so I was essentially ready to walk in and be like, here's your money back. I'm so sorry. I've wasted your time. And Julia, my wife was like, but maybe there's something else you could do. Like, is there any other topic you've wanted to time. And Julia, my wife was like, but maybe there's something else you could do. Like, is there any other topic you've wanted to do? And I had this idea to really kind of celebrate these voices of women in business that I felt were drastically overlooked. So she helped

me write a one page, which is a proposal. And I went to Leah, my publisher and said, I know this was due in two months, so you can have your check back. Or here's this complete 180. What do you think? And she was like, let me think about this. This is some big information for me to process. And the next day she was like, let's do it. Can you do it in two months? And I was like, yep, let's do it. And so we hit the road with Sasha Israel, who shot the majority of the photos, and we got it done in two months. And it was the most fun I've ever had. Yeah, and by the way, for those who have not seen this book,

A, get it, read it, but also touch it, feel it, look at it. I mean, it's big and it's stunning. I mean, visually, it's full color, just tons of imagery. It's beautiful. So I can't imagine, I mean, it's hard enough to sort of like put together the editorial for a good book in two months to do that along with the level of like visuals and design and photography.

And it must have been really fun, but also a bit insane. It was. That's kind of how I work, though. Everything is either full-on laziness right up until the deadline. And then that's just, people who work with me, I think have just thankfully gotten used to that. You and I sound very similar in that way. I do. I'm just, you know.

I'm the exact same. I mean, I think I typically wait till the end because I like that pressure. When I have a ton of time to do something, I feel very uncomfortable. George, who is the designer and the art director for a good company, our new magazine, we were working together in person the other day, and he was like, I want you to have time to sit with these pictures and the layouts and get what you want. And I so appreciated where that was coming from, but my brain was like, no, I want to make all the decisions right now, get it done, get it off my plate so I can just move on. So I'm trying to find a middle ground, but I still wait to the last minute. But I mean, I've just always really. So I'm trying to find a middle ground, but I still wait to the last minute.

But I mean, I've just always really fortunately been able to find somebody like Sasha, who was like, yeah, you want me to get on a plane for two months and just travel around the country? Sure, let's do it. That sounds like fun. And so I think I've just always been fortunate to connect with people who are kind of along

for the ride too. Yeah, I mean, and what you create is really beautiful and really moving and valuable in a lot of ways, because you're taking people inside the lives of all these women who are creating stunning things. And some of them are better known, but some of them aren't. And it's just really beautiful to see their stories, their wisdom, their light shine. When you did this book, this was an intense two-month experience. How were you changed through the process of doing this book?

It cemented the fact that I was done with my work as I knew it before. I think it was a real pivot point, to use a kind of of-the-moment phrase, where I realized I don't want to go back to talking about houses. I don't want to talk about pillows and chairs. And my heart's not in that. And there are plenty of people for whom their heart is fully in that. So stop trying to be that person. Just let it go. I hate traveling and I hate leaving my house. And when I came back, my wife Julia was like, you're not tired. This is like a whole different you to go away for that long and be away from home and all my normal schedules and routines that make me feel comfortable. And she was like, you're doing the right thing. If this is, you can do this type of traveling and this type of intense work and not, you know, be completely crushed by the end of it. And so I think that

was when I realized, at least for right now, this is what I would like to be doing. And I think for me, I always feel like I want to keep doing this thing until this dialogue and this community has reached a point where I don't need to be there supporting it anymore. And that was kind of with Design Sponge, everything was about handmade work and DIY and the handmade community. And that community is beyond supported and commercialized at this point. So there doesn't need to be a platform that's talking about how important handmade work is in the same way that there used to be. And so I think until I see mainstream business publications giving credit and space and celebration to businesses that look and sound and

are shaped differently than what they typically talk about, I want to keep doing this because I think that so often people are set up to think that there are only one or two ways to run a valid business. And I think the best side effect for me was, A, seeing the women who were included in this be like, I can't believe that I got included in this. Like, my business is something I do only on the weekends. And I'm like, why is that any less important of a business? Why would you? But that's a, I think there was a lot of imposter syndrome. And so that was really interesting to see people just kind of owning their business more when they kind of got this support. And then talking to people on the road during the book tour who were just like, thank you.

I've never seen someone who looked like me running a business. I didn't know this was an option or I didn't know that, you know, it was OK to still have maybe a kind of mainstream corporate job, but also have an artistic company on the side. And so kind of seeing those moments of representation, those were so motivating to just be like, go in this direction. Just keep moving this direction. Figure out what comes next. 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 10. 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 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. Yeah. So beyond the, I mean, it sounds like having a diversity of sort of like types of businesses and blends of full-time, part-time and was important to you beyond that criteria and the fact that they're all women, what was important to you in figuring out who you wanted to shine a spotlight on?

I think primarily I looked for a few factors. I wanted to make sure that there was a diversity of business type, that there was a sizable age range of people. Because I think so often we see young 20-something white people from a certain major city in the country. And so I wanted to make sure that there was diversity of age, race, business type, ability, just all of these factors that are essentially very intersectional. And I wanted to make sure that not everybody who was included in this was someone that maybe anybody had ever heard of before. And I think that's one of the skills I've learned from blogging is how to sort of contextualize things in a way that helps people who haven't gotten as much attention yet

be lifted up. And so, you know, for every Genevieve Gorder or Carrie Brownstein that's in the book, I want there to be somebody who to me is just as amazing and should be just as famous, but maybe aren't yet. So I think for me, that's the fun in a project like this is to see how do I weave these people together and one solid book and the flow of that book where there's enough big names that people keep coming back for book and the flow of that book where there's enough big names that people keep coming back for that and then end up discovering a business that they didn't know they loved yet. Yeah, I love that. Is Good Company sort of like the evolution of the

book? Absolutely. It was, Artisan came to me and said, book two, where do we start? And I was like, there is no book two. We don't't like, why would I replicate the format? Like, why would I wait two more years to write about a hundred women? I could do that on a blog in a month. So where's the in-between? And I've always wanted to do a magazine, but I've known that they are very difficult to make work. And so we talked about approaching it in this kind of journal way where we had themes and we kind of followed a similar format, but we're able to have more nuance and deeper conversations because the book is an encyclopedia. It's, you know, the same 10 to 12 questions that everybody answers with, you know, similar portrait formats. And I really wanted us to be able to kind of stretch creatively a little bit

more with the magazine. So that's the goal. And the magazine also is not gendered, even though it is still primarily people who identify as women. I wanted to leave that door open because I think particularly the work that I do being a part of the LGBTQ community is kind of recognizing that ultimately I don't want there to be like only one gender that I talk about. And I want to leave space to create a community of allies that identify in a broad range of ways. And so I think if the magazine is able to evolve over time, I see it being something that isn't firmly gendered and that creates safe space without needing to so limit labels that way because I keep meeting really exciting, interesting artists and designers who don't identify at either end of that binary. And I don't want their stories to be left out in that way. And I think there are plenty of publications, both online and off, who only support people who identify as women.

And I consider myself a part of that community, but I don't want to feel limited in that way. So I think as it evolves, I think we'll continue to kind of open that door a little bit more. Yeah. No, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. And I feel like I see that expressed in when I was flipping through the recent copy. It was interesting because in the beginning, my first thing was like, oh, this is the evolution of telling the stories of more women in business from the book. And then as I'm flipping through right more, I'm realizing, oh, actually, that's not entirely the story that's being told in this. And it took me a minute to sort of see that more expansive story being told.

But it is being told, and it's like you notice it. I hope so. I mean, we're figuring it out. It's, you know, it's, I don't know why the magazine is so much harder than a book or a blog. And maybe it's just, I think with a book, you like, you rush to meet this deadline and whatever gets in, gets in. And then you kind of, you know, throw your hands up and with a blog, you can always go back and edit and you can constantly change. And with a magazine, it's this weird in between of like, we have a little bit more time. So I tend to overthink things. And so I can see

my overthinking in this first issue. And so the second issue, I think we really kind of ironed out a lot of those wrinkles a bit and figured out what format feels substantive, but not overly so. Like, I think this first issue, I definitely was like, I can write long articles, so why won't I have a ton of articles that are 20 pages long? So I think we're finding our happy medium. But I wanted to open that first issue with this very didactic explanation of, you know, this will represent women, you know, non-binary people, trans people. I wanted to really spell it all out. And my editor was like, I think that's actually really patronizing. Like, you don't need to tell people that, just show people that. Like, you don't have to tell them, you know, how inclusive the publication is about to be. And I completely agree.

I think she was totally right. So I hope that over time we can just show rather than tell up front. Yeah. I mean, so interesting also in the backdrop of this sort of forward-facing evolution for you, the last five years in your personal life have seen dramatic change. You were married. That marriage came to an end. You came out, quote, officially.

You fell back in love with Julia. You get married to her. You build a life together. You leave Brooklyn after 15 years and move up to the country for all of us New Yorkers, like anything outside of a 30-minute drive. And a couple of years back, you also get diagnosed with diabetes type 1, which I thought I was pretty well read on sort of like health and wellness and didn't actually realize that that happens. To so many people and nobody knows. Yeah. I mean, I could talk about that for hours. Yeah. It's been

a five years. It's a lot has happened. I constantly think about just how, if you had told me five years ago, what would have happened in the arc of the last five years, I would just totally be in disbelief. But I think I've fully kind of eased into my humanness and just how many mistakes I've made and that I continue to make. And I've kind of fully moved into this place now of like, oh, stop, just stop trying so hard. Like stop trying to be this fully formed package of everybody else I knew who's a blogger who's been working for this long. They are like the human embodiment of their brand. And they are this full package of perfect hair, perfect makeup, perfect shoes, perfect sponsors, like everything feel. They have these offices with desks that are all the same color lined up in a row.

And that I think I wanted that so badly to be who I was. And I think the last five years have taught me like, no, that's not you, but that's okay. You're just going to be something different. And I've really learned to kind of embrace that in a way that feels very calming. I think that's also just part of getting closer to the next decade marker is letting go of those layers that feel superfluous at this point. Yeah. So what was, let's break all the stuff that happened down a little bit. Moving from being in the city and really identifying as a Brooklynite. Yeah.

Up, completely out. I've been ready to go for a while. I honestly thought I would move back to the South at some point, but like the deep South. And then I don't, that's, I've always felt very drawn to like Savannah, New Orleans, like these deeper parts of the South. I don't know why.

My grandmother always thought it was like a past life thing. I have no idea. I just feel, I remember the first time I got off a plane in Savannah years ago, and I just, I felt like crying. I felt like I was home. It was so weird. And then I just, I've made so many wonderful friends who live there and it's a place that just feels like home to me. I still don't rule that out. And I think Julia likes the South too. So who knows, maybe one day we'll live there. But I used to spend summers up in the Catskills

in a little town called Margaretville. And I just rented a house, like the same guy's house over and over again. And so it just seemed like a great place to escape eventually. But way more than me, Julia is a city person with a capital C. And so for her to have been born and raised in New York City, to move to Brooklyn was a way bigger deal than to move upstate. And I remember- It's like you're selling out. Yes. And all of her friends just- If you're going to be here, choose the right borough. Yes. It will never cross the bridge. So I think once she had moved to Brooklyn to move in with me, the move to upstate was just like, that was no big deal. But for me, I needed to find a quiet

place. And I had no idea that I was about to be diagnosed with something so life-changing, but it was pretty soon after we moved there that I started getting sick and couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. And I think being in a place that was so quiet and so empty and so rural was a very healing place to be because type 1 diabetes is really dramatically life-altering and very scary. And so having that place to figure it all out, I'm so, so thankful for. Yeah. What were the signs for you that you were starting to not feel right? The most, I mean, I was exhausted all the time, which I just couldn't figure out. And I remember it was before, I think Christmas and sometime in November, and we had gone to see a movie

and I was leaning in my movie in my seat and I went to cross my legs and I was too tired to lift up my leg. And I was like, this isn't normal. This has gotten, and it had been building for a while. And I just thought I work a lot. Like, you know, I keep weird hours. I'm always my computer. This, this is why I'm just sluggish. I'm not actually sick. And then I went to get into a GP. Upstate is very difficult because there aren't a lot of them. And so there's like a huge waiting list to get in just for a regular checkup. And so I was horrible, but I lied. And I told, I called the doctor and I was like, I think I have Lyme, which is a very real thing where we live upstate. And that was one of the things I was like, maybe I was bitten by a

tick and I didn't realize it. And everybody here has had a bout with it and it's very scary and lethargy and like lack of energy is a big part of that. So I called the doctor and was like, can I just be seen for like a quick round of blood work just to see what's going on? And they pulled me in and I remember they were like, you have type two diabetes, like here's your metformin, see you later. And no one told me what my A1C is, which is the sort of standard measure of what your average blood sugar has been over the last three months. They just gave me pills and were like, bye, we'll see you in a few weeks.

And I wrote a friend of mine whose son has type 1 and I was like, can you believe it? Like I have type 2 and my dad has type 2. And I was like, well, I guess it runs in the family, but that's, I don't fit all of the sort of typical things you would expect for that. And she was like, please, please go see somebody else and please get tested. Like, I think you probably have type one. And I was like, I'm 30. What made her say that? Well, I think people who have, who are a part of the type one community know how common it is to be diagnosed later in life.

Like there are people who are 65 who are being diagnosed with type one, but there are doctors who don't know that that can happen. So like, you know, all of these things in my life seem to crumble around this diagnosis, including sort of the trust I had in traditional medicine of like, oh, well, no doctor would ever misdiagnose me. And so I went back in to be seen here in the city and came down to a specialist. And I walked in the room and he looked at my chart and he was like, you don't have type 2. And he took my blood work and he was like, stay here. Like, I'm very sure that you don't

have type two. And they tested me and it's a very easy, quick test you can do to look for markers of type one. And he was like, yep, you have those. We're changing your plan entirely. And so it overnight became a like, welcome to the world of needles and shots and very risky, scary things. Did you have, before then, did you have any sense for what that would actually mean? I mean, the second I was diagnosed with type 2, I knew that like shots might be a thing that would have to happen because I know a lot of people with type 2 still have to take like long-acting insulin once a day. And when I first got diagnosed, he was like, you might have to, we need to figure out what your A1c is. And when I finally got it, my A1C was,

I think, 14 or 15, which is not even on the chart. Like the chart stops at 10. And so it was one of those things where I probably should have been hospitalized, but my doctors were just kind of like, well, it's type two, go home and take your stuff. And so, you know, it was, I think, probably like a month long thing of seeing a bunch of different doctors, both Western and Eastern, to try to figure out what was going on. And I finally found a really great endocrinologist here in the city who got me on a good regimen and kind of got me up to date with like the latest technology. And so, in hindsight, I'm so lucky that I didn't get this until I was in my 30s, because I had a lifetime of eating and behaving the way that I wanted to without any care. And so, you know, to be an adult and diagnosed with this,

like to really restrict yourself and live within all of the rules and things that exist for people with type 1, it's a lot more manageable than if I was like 7. Yeah, and still, it is a pretty big change in lifestyle. I mean, it is. Like I have this thing on my arm that is always there and I have to move it my arm that is always there and I have to move it every two weeks. And there's a lot of stuff that makes me-

Is it like consistent blood sugar readout or something? Yeah, the CDM. So it's a continuous glucose monitor. And a lot of people wear an insulin pump too. I don't wear those yet because this was a big move for me. It's this little kind of, I don't know, two inch by two inch thing that like inserts into your arm and people stare at it and point at it. And it's one of those things that makes me feel like a cyborg. And so I have to limit how many of those I put on my body. So I still feel like me, but now I'm used to it and it's great. And it's a very valuable tool, but I mean, it was being thrown for a complete loop. And it was, I think again, just another reminder of like, Hey,

life is really important. Don't work yourself to the point where you're ignoring things in your physical life that are more important to pay attention to. So I think the last five years have been about me really just reimagining where my priorities are. So where are they? They're home. They're family, personal. I was just talking with a friend the other day, and we're both turning 37 this year. And we were like, I don't need to be challenged anymore at work. I feel challenged enough. I don't need to pursue the next mountain to climb right now. I feel like I want those challenges and that investment to be put into my personal life, because I think, at least for me and a lot of women I know,

like who moved to New York City at a certain time and who really found themselves and created a business, all of their time and investment went into that business. And I wish I had put more of that into my personal life. And so I'm in the point now where I want to invest in my community, I want to invest in myself and the people that I care about around me and really step out of the light a little bit more at work. invest in my community. I want to invest in myself and the people that I care about around me and really step out of the light a little bit more at work.

Yeah. I mean, it feels like you're also spending a lot of energy really focusing on human stories, on uncovering human stories, on whatever spotlight that you have accumulated over the last 14, 15 years. How can I use that to actually shine the light on other people who are doing good work in the world? It also sounds like you've, I mean, conversations we've had, you've really awakened to the importance and to your own value system around community.

Very much so. I didn't know, we were talking about this before, I didn't know what community was until I left the city. I think that New York City, at least from- Which sounds so strange. Yeah, which, and this is only my experience of New York City. I'm sure there are a lot of people who don't feel this way. But living in your first shift volunteering somewhere, it just feels like, oh, that's already done, which is not true. But that's how it feels a lot of times. And it can become very difficult to plug into communities. At least that was my experience. And so when I moved upstate into much, I mean, we live in a hamlet of 400 people. So when you are a part of

something, you see it and you feel it. And that dramatically changed the way that I looked at community. And I think I moved up there, even though I tried to take that giant chip off my shoulder, I was aware of how much was still there. I think I was looking for people to have the exact same value system that I did, the exact same belief system that I did, the sort of what I saw as progressive politics. And I think I've really learned a lot more compassion and a lot more understanding and a better understanding of how much judgment I came into that situation with. And it's been a really nice process of just continually taking layers off just over and over

again and being more vulnerable, accepting how many mistakes I've made and continue to make and being better able to accept that in other people and just being quiet, listening more. And like this past weekend, Julia and I went to visit the women that we volunteer with who are around 80 and then 90. And Georgine, who's 90, had fallen and broken her hip. And we went to visit her in the hospital and then at home. And I'm so aware of how precious and short life is, even though I'm so thankful that she's lived a very long life so far, just sitting there and talking to her and realizing like all of this actually goes by at a blink. And I think early in my career, I got really caught up in what it looked like from the outside. And I'm really trying to refocus that now. I'm like, how does this actually feel on the inside? Do I feel good about this? Do I feel good when I go to sleep at the end of the

night? And if I don't, then something needs to change. And so I think right now I'm just trying to figure out what feels good. As we all are, right? Exactly. We're all in good company. Yeah. Which feels like a good place for us to sort of come full circle also. So as we sit here in the context of this Good Life Project conversation, if I offer up the term to live a good life, what comes up? I think to live a life full of compassion. I think the world could use a lot more of that right now, myself included.

I think that was something I really had to learn how to do. And so I hope we can make more room for each other to be full human beings, which includes things that are frustrating as well as moments that are great to do. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So if you're still listening, thank you, thank you, thank you. I just completely love that you enjoyed this episode so much that you've listened until now. You're an awesome human being.

And while we're wrapping things up, might as well share a quick shout out to our super cool brand partners. If you love the show, and I'm guessing you do because you're still here, please support them. They help make the podcast possible. Check out the links in today's show notes. And don't forget also,

your spot at this year's Camp GLP. As we recently announced, this will be our final year. We're expecting about 400 amazing humans from all around the world. It's going to be more epic than ever. And if you've been waiting, be sure to register soon. You can find that link at goodlifeproject.com slash camp today, or just click the link in the show notes. See you next week. 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. 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.