Good Life Project - Jennifer Louden | Rediscovering Desire and Meaning

Episode Date: April 23, 2020

Jennifer Louden is a personal growth pioneer who helped launch the concept of self-care with her first bestseller, The Woman’s Comfort Book. Since then, she’s written seven additional books on well-being and whole living, including The Woman’ s Retreat Book and The Life Organizer, with close to a million copies of her books in print in nine languages. Jennifer has lead retreats and workshops internationally since 1992, written a national magazine column for a Martha Stewart magazine, and been profiled or quoted in dozens of major magazines; two of Brené Brown’s books, Daring Greatly and Dare to Lead; and appeared on hundreds of TV, radio shows and podcasts—even on Oprah. Her new book ,Why Bother (https://amzn.to/2xfESk9), challenges you to choose what you devote yourself to in a more intentional way.You can find Jennifer Louden at: Website: http://jenniferlouden.com/| Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenlouden.writer/-------------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, Jennifer Loudon, is a personal growth pioneer who kind of helped launch the concept of self-care with her bestseller, The Woman's Comfort Book. Since then, she has written seven additional books on well-being, whole living, including The Woman's Retreat Book and The Life Organizer, with close to a million copies of books in print in nine languages. She also leads retreats and workshops internationally, has written for many different places, including Martha Stewart Magazine, been profiled all over the place, included in two of Brene Brown's books, appeared in hundreds of TV and radio shows, even on Oprah, which we talk about

because there's a really interesting and unexpected twist on that. And now she is in this moment of her life where she's kind of being called to re-examine who she is, to re-imagine the life that she wants to craft after some major disruptions and changes and ask the question at this point in life, why bother? That in fact is the title of her new book, Why Bother? Discover the Desire for What's Next. And we touched down on so many pivotal moments and awakenings in this wide ranging and moving conversation. Cannot wait to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. 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. Did you have any sense for what lit you up when you were younger? I always wanted to make stuff. I always wrote. I made films. I wrote plays.

I was always making stuff. Yeah, from a very early age. So were you aware of the fact that that was your jam from an early age? I don't think, you know, when I, it's hard to go back because now we think so much about what's our purpose and, you know, what's our, where did we come from? But I don't think there was ever anything else for me that I, I always wanted to create stuff. And I think it became toxic at some point for me as, as an adult, because it became about identity and being special. But as a kid, it was just pure creativity.

Okay. So looking back in those early years, as the maker just sort of like takes the lead, do you have a memory of a, or a story of like the coolest thing that you made? You know, I think one thing that comes to mind is I took Romeo and Juliet in seventh grade and wrote a rock and roll version of it with Stairway to Heaven as the theme song. And we performed it in the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater because Burt Reynolds owned a dinner theater in our town. And I think he came and saw the production of it. No kidding. That's my memory.

It might not be true. That is amazing. That's my memory. It might not be true. That is amazing. So that's a great memory. And it also has a memory of early creative shame because I also thought I wanted to be an actor. And I made everybody, including myself, audition for that play. And I was so afraid I couldn't audition. And so I remember there being a feeling in making that play that was so pure and so me and so ballsy. And also like, but I didn't do it a hundred percent. I didn't, I wasn't that, you know,

writer, director, actor person that I wanted to be. So, I mean, it also sounds like there's like perfectionism is touching down really early too. I mean, or was it something different? No, I think for me, it was more about, you can talk about the Enneagram a little bit, Enneagram four, wanting to be special, wanting to be different. I'm not a perfectionist at all.

Okay. I'm not like, oh, that's good enough. Right. You can just look at my social media posts for all the typos. Yeah, the number of responses we get every time we send out an email, they're like, dude, I love your writing, but somebody's got to check your work.

I had people unsubscribe over the years in my newsletter because of my typos. We finally got a regular copy editor. They're like, you can't call yourself a writer. It makes a difference. But you were also, I mean, you were dyslexic as a kid also, right? I am dyslexic, yeah. Right. How did that show up?

Because it sounds like you were also writing really early too. I don't think I could have become a professional writer without computers. So personal computers came about when I was at film school and it allowed me not only spell correction, but it allowed me to move things around. And that was huge for me. The dyslexic diagnosis was the best they could come up with in the 80s. They said, there's something really weird about you, how you learn and how you spatially organize things. Something's really not regular here. We're going to call you dyslexic.

We don't know what else to call you. Got it. So spelling errors for sure. Number, completely directionally challenged, spatially challenged, which is very funny. I wanted to be a filmmaker. Yeah. But the time that you, I mean, you know, if we're talking about like the time you went to filmmaking also, which was right around the time, because everything was still

analog then. Oh my God. Which actually for somebody who's dyslexic or dysgraphic probably makes it more accessible. Nope. Okay. I would edit a film and I would put it the wrong way on the reel got it I would have ended up being an editor if I would have learned it two years later I probably would have gone into that even over writing because I could take things and move them around and put them together I love that so when you're doing your rock and roll version with Stairway to Heaven in seventh grade. How does that actually, I mean, how does the creative process work for you? How do the lines come out?

How do you actually get your brain to organize it and make it all happen? Because that's a lot of complexity and moving pieces. It has been always something technological helped me. I don't remember in seventh grade. Now it's Scrivener. Sometimes it's printing stuff out and cutting it up and moving it around, especially if I'm editing someone else's work. But I get it. I mean, I can feel the tension in my body when you ask me. It's almost like a panic, like, will I be able to do it again? Will I figure out that way to organize things?

It's a huge challenge. Do you feel in any sense that the sort of the workarounds that you've had to create to thrive sort of like with your learning style has in any way benefited you? And my curiosity is because I've actually, I have a number of friends who are either dyslexic or have various learning challenges who are astonishingly accomplished in business and in the arts and have sort of shared with me that it was really, really, really hard when they were younger, but they were forced to kind of like see things differently and come about things differently in a way that almost gave them

access to creative output, which was distinct as well. I'm curious whether you've experienced that at all. Your face is telling me, nah, I don't think so. No, no, no. I mean, I wish it sounded like, yes, I'm Elon Musk. But really for me, what it was is I was unemployable. So I had to make my own way. I had a straight job for a year of my life. I've been self-employed ever since then. And my friend yesterday, we were running and she's like, you're just so amazingly risk taker. And I'm thinking I had no choice, right? I had to make my own way because, I mean, I got fired. I couldn't type. I couldn't spell things. I, you know, so I think it really just forced me into learning to make my own business and make my own way. Yeah. So it kind of pushed you into not only the world of creativity, but entrepreneurship. Totally. Because it's like you had to earn your living also at the same time. Your dad was also, your dad was in business. He was an entrepreneur also, right? So does that, did that play a role in sort of like seeding that as a possible way to go about life? When I got that straight job out of college, I, it was in a literary agency to be a literary assistant. I thought it was the coolest

thing ever. I called my dad, dad, I got a job. And there was dead silence on the phone. And he said, why'd you do that? Classic entrepreneur. He was like, I thought you wanted to be a writer. So I was like, so like, but dad, I'm really proud of myself. Because there was a part of me that wanted to be competent and fit in into the world. And, you know, plus, of course, I needed to make a living. So your dad on the business side of things. I know you've also talked about your mom as in sort of like this really interesting sort of like dualistic way. On the one hand, you're Shira. On the other hand, also living in this kind of like very typical conservative 1950s model where she wasn't actually even sort of like, quote, allowed to work. Curious how sort of seeing the way that

she navigated the world, especially when you were younger, affected your lens on how you might navigate the world and also your decision to effectively be in service of and create for women over the last three decades. Yeah, I didn't know it until I spent four years and 500 pages writing a memoir that completely failed as a work of literature. But it taught me so much. It changed my life so profoundly to spend those years writing that story. And out of that, what leaped out over and over again is how I saw her stopped by her culture, by her father, by my dad. And I think my entire work has been in support of not wanting that to happen to other women, but I didn't know it. And I think that's fascinating. How often are we motivated by things and we don't get it until we're in our fifties. Oh my God. If we're lucky. I mean, it was so obvious

once I saw it on the page of the story, trying to make it a scene, trying to bring people into it. And I, it just, it hit me over the head as if you slapped me right now. Yeah, it is really interesting when we reflect on things like this, because I feel like we love to believe that we are, that we have so much free will and so much agency. And we know, like, especially when we feel like we've sort of spent some time doing the work, we kind of know who we are and why we're doing what we're doing. And then you cross like over into this next precipice where like, I have no idea what's going on or why I'm doing anything. And you know, there's a, there's such a surrender and kind of pleasure in that. I look back at my younger self, we thought she had it all figured out, her motivation,

you know, whatever. And now I'm just like, wow, I have no idea. I have no idea what's motivating me. I have no idea why I'm making the choices I'm making today. I'll try. I'll try to hack the system, but we'll see. Yeah. Let's jump back into some of those choices. So you do end up going to USC, studying film. Was film something, was that kind of like a default or were you seriously thinking, I love film and I want to make this my jam? No, I was seriously, I mean, I had written, I love the literature, but I, I mean, I went to the movies every single weekend. I made, I think I spent a year in eighth grade making a super eight film. I made some super eight films at my first school, the University of

Florida. I transferred from there to USC. And I mean, I just thought I want to be around creative people. I want to be around people who are really alive, who were doing this work. That was really about as much as I told myself. And I got some kudos at University of Florida as being making some movies that people like. So I thought, and my film school teacher said, you should go to film school. I'm like, okay, this is about as much thought as I gave it as a 19 year old. Right. So you end up in USC when you went, but when you get out though, is that when you get that first job working as a, why not straight into the world of films or like doing the PA and working your way up thing? That's a really good question. I think that I was

feeling pretty lost. Oh, I know. No, I know the answer. That's for sure. That was true. I was feeling lost, but I also started realizing that cinematography and directing, which is where I thought I would go, were not my talents, but writing was. So I started to write more in film school, got more, again, you're doing a good job for that than other things. So I thought I'd go the writing route, the screenwriting route. And plus it gave me an identity. It gave me something to hold on to. It gave me someone to be, which was really important. So the early days then the focus was, I mean, were you actually coming out of school saying I'm going to write movies? Yeah. In those three years that I was there, that was the, I came in thinking I'll make movies. And then quickly went, first of all, women in 1982.

Okay, women in 2020. You know, so I pretty much quickly figured out this was going to be frustrating. I also realized that I didn't have the balls at that point to tell people what to do. I was completely unequipped to direct a film. I played around with cinematography and editing and again, both found my learning disability getting in the way with that.

But writing, I'm like, I can do this. I can figure it out. I think I could be good at it. So that's where I ended up. Did you have a sense that you could make a living doing this? Because that's always been one of the early knocks with the entire career of writing, whether it's screenwriting, whether it's novels, whether it's memoir, whether it's prescriptive, the big curiosity and the word from parents is, well, that's nice. You can do that on the side. Did you have a sense from the earliest days that you actually might be able to support yourself doing this? I never, ever thought I wouldn't. I never occurred to me that i wouldn't i thought i mean i had i had colleagues i had astute friends that got out of school and they they sold stuff right away why wouldn't i and that actually didn't serve me how so because i wasn't willing to take the

time to learn my craft i had a boyfriend who's gone on i I won't name his name, to be super, super successful. And he was like taking a show that was, he started in television. He's done most of his work in television. And a show that wasn't produced anymore and studying it and taking it apart and writing a sample script for a show he couldn't sell. And I thought he was crazy. Who went on to have a super successful TV career? He did. I was too impatient. So I thought totally I would be successful. I thought I'd sell a screenplay in six months. What happened? I didn't. I got an agent. I got meetings. I did all of that. But I think when I look back at that,

I didn't know how to be mentored. I didn't know how to find a mentor. I didn't know how to become a, to be mentored. I didn't know how to find a mentor. I didn't know how to study the craft. I didn't know how to be patient. I didn't know how to take a meeting and I didn't know how to build, you know, build a community or network. And I got really, really depressed, seriously depressed. I started drinking too much. My boyfriend and I, who later became my first husband, we broke up. It was just a, just, I went down pretty quickly. Because I wasn't having the success that I thought I should. Yeah. To become someone.

As a, what, 23-year-old? No, by that time I was probably 25, 26. Okay, but still. I know, it's insane. Super young in this, in the, you know, super young in the spectrum of the career. It's embarrassing to tell that story. But I mean, you must get this question so often. I know I do, so I'm sure you do probably a lot more than me, which is, what would you tell your 20-something self? And so often I just think, like, just let go.

Exactly. Relax. Just chill. Take a longer view. Right. You have so much more time than you think you have. Just figure out who you are and what you care about. That's exactly what I say to my 25-year-old daughter.

Yeah. Yeah. So what brings you out of this dark place in your mid-20s? I would have a small voice that would say, you need, this is God's honest truth, you need to be kind to yourself. You need to take a break. You need to stop pushing yourself so hard.

You need to stop beating yourself up. I would sit at those big original personal computers and put in that floppy disk, and I would try to write the screenplay that I had an agent that was interested in. And I would rewrite the same couple of pages over and over again. I was so stuck. And then I would drink too much. And this voice would keep saying this to me, different ideas. I just take some time off, go get a job at the bookstore, go get a job at the plant store. I was really interested in gardening. And I would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, when I sell this screenplay, which is insane now, but it felt like I was going to die if I quit

writing, if I quit trying this. And I was so envious of my friends that were selling things. And so I had one particular friend who had decided to be a writer like a year before, and she had gotten a better agent and she'd sold the treatment. And I was so envious of her. And one day I decided I have to take a break from writing. And I called her and why I called her someone I was jealous of, not good, not good thinking, but I did. And I told her I'm going to take a break from writing. And she was like, whatever. And I hung up the phone and I remember feeling like I was falling. Like it was such a moment of just surrender of this identity that I had built up in myself. And at that moment, I heard the title for what became my first book. Very, very clearly, like someone said it in the room.

And in fact, I think I remember looking over. I had that kind of front door that opens, has a, I don't know what that's called, a split door. It's like a barn door yeah yeah yeah and i thought it was open in my name my landlord who lived above me had stuck her head in and said this title so which is the woman's comfort book right and i remember thinking well what is that like a bathroom book like a book you write you know i don't know and but it became this kind of grail to my own, my own journey to learn to be kind, start to learn to be kind to myself. I'm still learning.

I mean, it's so interesting. So the, the, the actual title just kind of drops from the muse. I know. Did you have a sense for what the thing around the title needed to be at that time? Or did it sort of like reveal what it needed to be over time as you start to move into it? My memory, and I sure wish I kept better records because I would have a copy of this, is that I wrote some notes on a piece of notebook paper about what the book would be and then forgot about it. Tried to go back to screenwriting, you know, which is so much what we do, right? We have something that leads us forward. And then we try to go back to what is known or what is safe or what is our identity. This is what screwed me up over and over again

in my life, that and many times in the future. And I finally wrote a book proposal for it, but I wrote it the way I thought I should write it. So I called it my pseudo therapist voice, my pseudo PhD voice. It was such a bad book proposal. Oh my God. And everybody turned it down. But two of the publishers, Harper, who ended up publishing it, and I think it was, I forgot who else. That would have been Harper and Row then, right? They just got bought. They just became Harper and Row. Got it, got it, got it. They both said, this is a really interesting idea. if you did this and it gave me some ideas and

then i went back and found that piece of paper that had the original spark of the idea on it and i felt it you know when you feel that original idea i bet you felt this for your books if you've ever lost track of what you're doing or this podcast or all the other things you've created jonathan right and you're like why is this feeling dead? Or how did this get, you know, or why did this die? What was the original spark? I almost wonder these days, whether that's almost like a, I love to think that you could just leapfrog that, but in almost anything I've created, I'm sure it's the same with you and probably anyone who's listening to this, who has spent more than five minutes in a creative endeavor, like there is, you do lose your way. And it's actually, I don't think that's a bad thing.

I don't either. If you come back. I don't either. I don't think you can prevent it. Maybe you can shorten it, but I don't think you can prevent it. Because some of it is the exploration of what do I really want to say here? What am I a stand for? What is this really about?

Some of it is market testing, if you're making a product or a course or. Yeah. I remember when I was working on uncertainty and here I am writing a book about how people create extraordinary things by navigating high stakes, sustained levels of uncertainty. And I'm like halfway through interviewing people and they're telling me the best stuff only happens when you let go of the plan. And I'm sitting there thinking, I'm literally checking off items in a fiercely detailed outline, like, because at least this is what the book has to be. And it dawned on me, I'm like, but everyone's telling me I need to just completely let that go and just give it the life that it slowly is revealing to me.

But it's terrifying to do that. It's terrifying and it's essential. I think it's the process that we have to live through over and over again, not just in our creative work, but in our lives. And when we fight it, which I totally agree with you, we do. It's the way our brains are built. That's where we get stuck. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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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. 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. So you get this download, right? And it's starting to reveal itself as you're writing this book.

What's interesting too is that you're in your late 20s at this point. You realize, okay, I got a book. I got a book deal. I got a book deal from a major publisher who is willing to trust me based in part on the title and in part on the idea that I'll figure it out along the way. Yeah, it was mostly the title. I had one writing credit. I had written a television show in that interim, the two years.

So yeah, I had no, I don't think I'd published a magazine article. That was totally the title. Do you think that would happen now? I don't know. I mean, I look at a book like Educated. Yeah, which is huge. Huge. I mean, it's been over a year on the New York Times bestseller list in hardcover.

That was her first book. She had no idea how to write. She had no platform. So I think that there, or where the crawdads sing. Yeah. You know? Incredible. And actually, Susan Cain, Quiet.

Sure, sure. Same thing, right? Massive phenomenon. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because I think a lot of people think that in sort of like the publishing industry these days, stuff like that just doesn't happen anymore because you need one person who has power within a publisher who's willing to basically trust in the idea and your ability to execute on it. But I do think it's really rare, but it can happen. I believe if I listened to everybody who told me I couldn't in

my life, especially with learning disabilities, if, I mean, I remember when, when I got the deal for the woman's comfort book, I remember this so clearly. I was with a girlfriend and her husband, boyfriend, I don't remember what it was at the time, was sitting on the couch. He's like, well, really good for you. You got a publishing deal. Do you know how hard it is to sell any copies? I mean, really, you know, you're just, and I just remember thinking, you just watch me, you just watch me. You just watch me. And then I, you know, so there's always someone who's going to say it's not possible. It might not be, but that's not the point. The point is something's calling you. Something's bringing

you alive. And we get so caught up in these Instagram times that it has to have success immediately. You know, we're all my 25-year-old self. And I fall into it too. Totally. I totally fall into it. Yeah. That continues to follow us for a long time. You end up writing this book. There's an interesting moment also where I guess maybe the book is done, the manuscript is accepted. Publisher tells you, Harper tells you, hey, we're going to do a 50,000 book print run, which is insane for anybody at any time, but then kind of backpedals away from it. Yes. What happened? They said they read the manuscript and had too many candles in it. What did they mean by that? They thought it was too new agey, which is really funny because, I mean, it was such ahead of its time, well, actually right on time when it was

published book. And now we have entire candle industries, if only I would have known. So they thought it was too, you know, too many candles, too soft. And so they pulled out and what they said, and I had no, I mean, this was 1991. The book was published in 1982. So there was no social media. I mean, I didn't know the internet existed. So I sat down and somehow I got held of a story of what Wayne Dyer did with his first book. The legendary station wagon, right? Exactly.

And I'm like, I'm going to do that. So my parents gave me their Ford Taurus station wagon right exactly and i'm like i'm gonna do that so my parents gave me their ford tourist station wagon the wally wagon and i bought a mailing list from like adult education they had a mailing list in manhattan kansas i remember and then i got all these and i would i mailed off proposals and I made a little book tour based on given workshops. And then I filled it in with book signings and book talks. And I spent three months driving around the country in the Wally Wagon. And then word of mouth started to happen. And Harper gave me media support.

And I started getting national media and lots of, you know, and this is when newspapers still existed and radio shows. And it became a word of mouth bestseller. Yeah. And that becomes not just a bestseller, but truly a phenomenon. I mean, that book becomes huge. And to this day, I believe it's still in print. It still sells a couple hundred copies a year. Right.

I get these little royalty days. Which is amazing when you think about it. And really sort of like is the flag in the sand that launches this career into the world of writing. Very much so. Did you have any sense at that point also, because it doesn't just launch the book, but as you said, too many candles, right? This idea of devoting energy to taking care of yourself, especially for women, as much as it is completely a part of the zeitgeist today, it really didn't exist in a meaningful way before that, did it?

It did not exist outside of recovery movements, especially recovery from sexual abuse and eating disorders. There was not a popular book on it. There was not. Oprah was still Jerry Springer. I mean, it was just a really different time. And when I would go and give talks or keynotes or workshops, people would be like, I take care of myself. I get my nails done. And I'd be like, wow, this is a way bigger idea I'm trying to get across here. You know, it's a way bigger idea.

It's really what I realized. It was my feminist manifesto, which was, if you're not in your life, this is not your life. What do you mean by that? That if self-care is getting your nails done or taking a bath instead of living the life that you want to live, we're missing the point entirely. It's so much bigger than taking a bath or getting whatever you know, whatever it looks like now. Yeah. So it's, it's sort of like positing the idea of self-care, not just as the appointments that you make to do X, Y, and Z, but your willingness to actually explore and express the essence of who you are. And know that you have not only, that you have the right,

that you can claim, if you don't claim the agency to do that, no one's ever going to give it to you. And I think that's what is more common now, but I still see my daughter struggle with it a little bit. I still, it's a different struggle. It's definitely a different struggle than I had. And it all goes back when I think about my mom. She didn't have the agency to say,

this is how I want to create my life. I'm not that it's ever going to be all about you, that would be horrible. And not that it's ever, you're going to get to do it all. But if you don't have that deep sense of, yeah, this is who I am. And this is what it looks like to live my life. Then all the baths and massages in the world are just, they're not going to do any good. I feel like we're in this really interesting moment now also in so many different ways, like beyond Me Too and what's happening there. In terms of that willingness to say, this is who I am, deal with it. And I think the people who are stepping up to sort of become the voices of the next generation that like certain celebrities like Lizzo.

Oh, yeah. Right. I mean, it's fascinating to see who she is and, and how people are rallying around her and her sense of identity and full expression and just like world. This is me and this is all of me. And that is amazing. So take it or leave it. I really don't care. This is so beautiful that you said that when I follow her on Instagram, I quoted her in the new book. I mean, I wouldn't know who she was if it wasn't for my daughter, right? I just want to totally not pretend to be cooler than I am. I'm like, that is exactly what I meant with that book.

That is exactly what I was trying to get at. And you are living it. And thank God, right? And I think that's part of doing something really early on is at some point you have to let go of it and go this is not my banner to carry anymore this is being done a million times better than i could ever talk about it and lived and by example what she's doing for other women yeah people so so that So that one book, which comes out in 92, launches you into a career in writing

and also leads kind of like a, maybe not entirely a name, but a bit of a franchise around the idea, right? So like Comfort for Couples, for Pregnancy. And then eventually it leads you to a writery book on women's retreat. And that is the book that ends up creating this really interesting scenario for you where you get the dream, right?

That book lands you on Oprah. Back in the day when Oprah was, had this massive, massive audience, everyone was tuning into her. And in theory, anyone who wrote a book who ends up on the show is minted for life as an author. You had a very different experience both being on the show and in the aftermath. Tell me a little bit about that, Linda. You're just like bringing up all my shame stories. Thank you. Thank you so much. So I very much bought into, I think the thing that's important to step back is because the first book was successful, I fell very much into the narrative, I have to keep getting chosen. I had no sense. I mean, I know irony, let's just ring the irony bell.

I had no sense of my own agency. And that's also ridiculous. I did. I mean, I was self-employed. I was taking care of my family. I was making stuff happen. But like deep inside, I didn't believe that I was the one that had a business that could make stuff happen.

I kept wanting someone to choose me. And that really became a scenario of Oprah, Oprah, Oprah, choose me. And even though all evidence outside of that was pointing to the fact that you did have the ability to do all of this. I wanted, I think there was such a part of me that thought if I could get her to love me, I would finally feel like enough. If I could get her to anoint me, I would finally feel like enough. And I also was feeling like, hey, I was here first with this idea and other people are getting attention for that. And that's not fair, which is again, super embarrassing to admit. And so when I did get

invited, they invited me to be a guest on the show to talk about a subject that they wanted me to talk about. That is not the same thing. And there's a big part of my brain that knew it, but I was so like, this is it, this is it. So then when I did the show, I felt false. I felt out of alignment. I felt, I'm sure, I just remember just being, oh my God, out of my body. And when I walked off that set, I didn't get what I wanted, which is for her to tell me she loved me and that I was good enough. And that sent me into a pretty profound depression for a while and a real sense of what the hell am I doing and why bother to do it? Yeah. So where do you go from there? I mean, how do you, because you still, um,

had to make a living, right? You know, you're married, you're a mom, you're a, you know, you're providing for the family. So how, how do you function? How do you sort of like navigate that, that season that season wow I remember I remember feeling so stuck and so lost I had an idea for a new kind of planner which ended up becoming the life organizer. I spent a lot of time on that, trying to figure out how to start a company around that. That didn't go anywhere. I wrote 40 pages of a whining memoir that didn't go anywhere, but sort of started to, those two things came together into the, actually before the Life Organizer, the Comfort Queen's Guide to Life.

So I think for two years, I just pretty much tried things. And I don't remember how, I'm sure I was still doing speaking stuff. I did a lot of brand stuff then. Brands would call me. They would look up, they would Google Comfort. It was before Google. And they'd find me and they would hire me for a lot of money. I didn't endorse stuff, but I would come and talk about self-care. And then I would be next to like their brand or on their stage.

So I know that, I remember there was one time when I was like, how am I going to pay the bills? And I got a call and it was a $40,000 gig. So I think I got bailed out a few times that way. Yeah. Well, I mean, bailed out, but also bailed out because you had spent years building yourself into this place. Right. That's not how I thought about it. I am the name who sort of like put this on the map. Right. Yeah. Like when you're in the middle of it, that's it. You's not how I thought about it. I am the name who sort of like put this on the map. Right. But yeah, like when you're in the middle of it, that's it. You're not looking at it

that way. You're like just, wow, that was quote lucky. And it really became a story for a long time and I would leave it and I would come back to it

that I had failed, that I had really failed and that I hadn't, that I'd had this incredible opportunity, not Oprah, but the whole thing and I hadn't leveraged it. You know, I hadn't been Jonathan I'd had this incredible opportunity, not Oprah, but the whole thing,

and I hadn't leveraged it. You know, I hadn't been Jonathan Fields with it. You know, I hadn't been, you know, whoever I would put up on a pedestal. By the way, I'm like recoiling. But I mean, in a good way. Because I look at so much of like how much, you know, like I've walked away from or crashed and burned so many times, but I think that is, that's what we all do. Right. We project, right. Whoever we want to project on that day. You end up, part of that, I guess that's also the season where you start teaching a lot more. Or was it sort of like after that? Was that the thing that was part of the emergence from it?

That was really part of the emergence. I became, like I was called and asked to do a keynote really early on. And I remember going, what's a keynote? And I remember like, oh my God, I think I memorized the whole thing. I was so nervous. I did such a good job. And then I started being asked to do retreats and workshops. And I had started doing workshops on my own, but I started getting asked from outside sources. But I had, I struggled so tremendously with teaching and speaking. And again, I look back at that young woman and I think, oh my God, honey. And part of it was I thought anytime I gave a speech, everybody in the audience's life should be changed or I failed.

Right? It wasn't enough to provide someone with a little laugh or an idea that might take heart, or it wasn't enough to say, I have no idea what's happening. It's not, my job is to show up. And the same thing with workshops. So I, every time I would speak or, or, or teach, I would say, that's it. I'm never doing it again. I'm never doing it again. Cause I, cause I don't know that I changed everybody's life. I mean, I know, I know he's, if you all could see his face, he's giving me great compassion. It is compassion because so many of us, I think, hold ourselves to this standard, which is so impossible. And the fact that maybe we try something once and we don't hit it makes us back away from doing this thing. But for the fact that we held

ourselves up to this insane, almost impossible to meet standard, we could have so much joy in our lives and affect so many people potentially as well. But we don't do it because we're not instantly and always at the absolute top and also persistently hitting impossible goals. And I had no idea how to break down becoming a good teacher or a good speaker. Again, this was a long time ago. There was no resources for that. I had no idea how do I get better at it. I had no idea how to judge myself. I mean, I got great feedback, but how did I know it was really changing people's lives?

And that has always been so important to me, to know that my work is an integrity and is really helping. And it became a noose around my neck. So that is part of what I had to start to undo. And it took, I probably didn't undo it until well into the 2000s. Was there, was it a gradual undoing or was there something that happened? Ready for some more irony. Here it comes. I created a course. It's no longer available. It was called Teach Now. And it was to take what I knew for non-traditional teachers and help them

figure out how to be more effective and enjoy the process more. And in doing that, I'm like, oh my God, look what I've been doing to myself. And look what I do know. And look what I have learned. So just by putting it together, of course, I'm taught it, I don't know, five or eight times. I'm like, it just totally changed everything for me. I think the other fear, Jonathan, is it goes back to that identity. I want to be a writer with a capital W. I don't want to be a teacher. And my husband said to me a few months ago, he said, you know, you may be a better teacher than you are a writer.

How'd that land? Oh, my God. It took everything I had in it to say, you're sleeping in the guest room tonight. What is it about the identity of being a capital W writer versus a capital T teacher. That was like, so it's special. It's special.

It's creative. It's different. And it's harder. And I think there's such a part of me. I think probably got this from my dad, but what matters is what's hard, not what comes easily. Tell me more about that.

You know, born into poverty went to world war ii borrowed money afterwards spent 25 years building a company working you know seven days a week you know when i was born he was successful so it was always the origin story of you should have a great life but but look how hard I worked and never like holding it over our heads or anything, but just like, and I think I took in like, you're going to create something. It's going to, it's going to take it out of you. And that what's easy or delightful doesn't, it doesn't count. I don't think that anymore, but yeah, I think that's part of that. Yeah. So interesting how that gets wired into so many people.

Or not that it doesn't count, but don't trust it or don't put, you know, it's going to be hard. And I mean, he's right. It is hard. But there's something about the way I hold it now that the pleasure is more front and center. Yeah. I love the way you framed that because it's not about only taking a path when it comes easily.

It's about acknowledging that it's hard, but hard isn't necessarily wrong. And we can make the experience of hard so much more suffering than it actually needs to be. Rather than just saying, well, yeah, it's hard, but it's actually like it's okay. And it's leading to some really powerful, amazing things. And when you say that, it's like, I know I can feel the difference in my body. It's like the body that armors up and like up come my ears to my shoulders and my breathing gets, you know, and this is why I get pain when I run because I run this way sometimes. And, you know, and then like the body that says, man, let's be here for this.

Let's trust ourselves. Trusting ourselves doesn't mean it's going to work out. Trusting ourselves doesn't mean this is going to be a great interview I recorded with you. Trusting myself is like, am I here? Am I speaking my truth? Am I breathing? Am I loving myself? Cool.

Okay. Yeah. Then let the outcome be what it needs to be. Yeah. And of course you want a good outcome. You're always going to want a good outcome. Yeah. But it's just not always possible.

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Charge time and actual results will vary. You end up, it sounds like really, you continue to write, yet there is this one really strong and extended season where teaching becomes teaching, leading retreats. It really becomes the center of a lot of what your contribution to the world and people's lives are.

And during that sort of like season as well, especially the last decade or so, I mean, just on a personal level, tremendous trauma, tremendous shifts, you know, like a marriage of decades long from that person you talked about, you know, out of film school comes to an end after he survived cancer and, you know, like wanted to live a different life. You're also raising a kid, a daughter who's coming into adulthood and your parents are reaching a time in their lives where their, your mom ends up struggling with dementia and Alzheimer's and your parents pass. And in the middle of this also, you are trying to figure out, okay, so how do I figure out like, this is who I've sort of like told the world that I am. And I am being challenged to be that person where like, I've never been before. Like, how do I navigate this whole thing? Oh God, so much so. And especially because part of my identity was I'm a successful person. I

write books. I publish books. My books sell a lot of copies. And I had book after book after book fall apart on me. And I would email my agent, oh my God, I've got the best idea. Oh, that's a fabulous idea. And then I'd sit down to write it and I couldn't write it. Or I wrote the memoir and totally failed. So there was all of the personal stuff happening, which I don't think was unique. I mean, we all go through, especially in midlife, there was all of the personal stuff happening, which I don't think was unique. I mean, we all go through, especially in midlife, there was a few periods in that when it was very jolting. But I think what was so hard is that I wasn't having creative success.

My business was doing well. I was making enough money, sometimes making a lot of money. But that deep sense of I'm doing what I want to do. I often felt not out of alignment, but just, I don't know if the word is, it's not quite right. Not quite right. I don't know. I still don't have the words for it. How did that feeling show up for you? Did it show up psychologically, physically?

How does that manifest for you? You know, interesting. Again, irony bell. Just didn't see this until I wrote about it. I had a back issue on and off for seven years that no one could figure out. And what was it? My muscles twisted. So it almost looked like I had scoliosis. And it wasn't until we moved here and I kind of put together all started to put together things I'd learned writing the memoir that became the book that that I wrote that my back just never bothered me again never bothered me again also great physical therapist in Boulder I want to

say I did get some help but he's like he solved it in three weeks. Yeah. Funny the way the body tells us. And we're like, at some point, it's like, just going to keep layering on symptoms until you will listen at some point. I can't believe. It may take years. How thick I can be. How thick. That's all of us.

Yeah. So you mentioned also, so you ended up, because you were in the Seattle area for years and years and years and years. Fairly recently, like six, seven years ago to Colorado? Five. Five years ago. What was behind that? Because it's a big movement.

Your life was there. Your daughter's still there. Husband now is, I guess, so your stepson's still there. Why the sort of like giant shift in geography? My husband's work, he works in large-scale conservation. Okay. And he's worked in the Great Plains area. He's's worked all over the world but his work ended up being here so we needed to move here yeah yeah so it's very prosaic but incredibly fabulous for us disruptive

though because i know for a lot of sort of people who where the focus is really a strongly creative professional life ritual and routine can be critically important. Were you able to sort of like easily recreate what you needed in Colorado to sort of like continue to operate creatively at the same level or maybe even different, but on a higher level? I needed a new start. I discovered so much about how I was collaborating with my own stuckness. So it was such a grace that we moved when we moved. Lily had graduated from college. Aiden was going to college. So, you know, we weren't leaving them like in high school. We sometimes say, we moved and we left the kids. They're fine. They're 11.

You know, they can make eggs, you know. Got an ATM card. It's all good. Come on. There's Uber. And so it was a really great, it's hard to be away from them, but it was incredibly good for me because I realized how many things that I was doing to myself that were causing my own suffering. And I could see them so clearly in the last year or so that we were in the Seattle area and moving here, I just was determined to do it so differently. And I think it really helped

with my regeneration and rebirth. Yeah. So it seems like along with the geographic move was a recommitment to not just changing location, but also really making some more substantial changes, which I think is fascinating because I wonder sometimes whether a lot of us feel stuck or unhappy or straight up miserable. And we kind of look to cross the ocean or move across the country or somewhere else. Because once we're there, everything will be different. Not realizing the location matters, but we're still the same person. There you go. You can do wherever you go.

There you are. It sounds like you were very aware of the fact that you actually't, like you actually had to make some substantial personal shifts. And I started to make them before I moved. Yeah. I mean, in the last year, year and a half, I made a lot of changes that I realized from writing that failed memoir were how I was collaborating with my own unhappiness and stuckness. Yeah.

Yeah. Your new book, Why Bother? You've been here about five years. It sounds like that book has also had its own very long life, you know, and took years and different shapes and different formats to eventually land where it is. I'm curious about the sort of, you know, like that early journey and how and why you landed on what it is now and what it actually is? It started probably six years ago, seven years ago. I gave a keynote and I took that haiku we all know so well, barns burned down, now I can see the moon, and I used it to organize these stories of those years when so much was falling apart.

And it ended with meeting my now husband and thinking, oh my God, that's it. I've been good. I've learned my lessons, and now I get the great guy, and then realizing, oh no, this brings a whole other set of challenges, which is actually letting someone love me and see me. And I got off the stage, and somebody who was the husband of another speaker was like, oh my God, you know, I work in brand stories. That was an incredible keynote. You need to write those stories down. And I went, okay. And so I started working on a book around it. I thought it would be a memoir. And it just, again, we all know four years later, it didn't work, but I was committed to writing. And I, Jonathan, for so long, I felt that there's a book that I need to write that I

haven't written yet. The book that I need to write that I haven't written, the book that I'll be so proud of. And I know that's terrible to say when you have seven other babies and you're like, I love you, but there's something else. And I thought this was that being more literary, that writing a literary memoir was going to be it. But the story didn't lend itself to that. But the journey of writing it taught me what I needed to know. So I'll be forever grateful for that. But when that failed, I then tried to write another book based out of that. And my agent turned that down. And then out of that, I was having a conversation with someone and they're like, what? And I wish I had recorded it. What's the, what was the moment? But I was actually thinking about a friend who had always done everything she thought

she should do her whole life. And then in her late fifties, woke up, realized she didn't want to be married to her husband anymore. Realized she didn't know what she had, she had nothing that was hers. And I had been talking to her a lot about that. And I had said to her at one point, you know, you just have to fight for your life. And I realized I wanted to write a book about that. How do you, how do you fight for that? Whether it's your, your, you've given up your life to other people or you've done all the right things and you've been successful and now you're like, shit, what's next? Or whether you've been too scared to do it or whether it's just one part of your life. A friend of mine's been trying to read the book and she had to confess to me yesterday that it's bringing up too much stuff for her because she wants to keep

coasting around her work. The rest of her life is great, but her work is not satisfying. She's like, I'm just not ready. I'm not ready to make a change. I'm like, oh, I hope everyone doesn't have that reaction to the book. But it's interesting because when you hear something like that, in a way, isn't it also validation that you did what you came to do? I know. That's what my husband said.

Right? Yeah. Yeah, that I'm disturbing you in a good way. Because I think the thing that we're here for is to live as fully as we can. I don't think life gives up on us. And I know I gave up on life over and over again in those years. I pushed life away. I pushed that sense of being excited and engaged.

I put conditions on it. And I want to be a stand for let's not do that. The book is a number of different things, but one of the things that really stood out to me is it feels like this really fascinating meditation on desire. Both its existence and its non-existence. And to a certain extent normalizing both tell me more well you tell me more because it's sort of like it says like you know there's so the fundamental question you're asking is why bother right um which which to me fundamentally underneath that is like, how do you navigate desire and meaning and this sense of like, what is worth investing myself in? And also understanding that it's not always going to be there.

What do you mean? And that that's okay. Or maybe you're not always going to be aware or actualizing it in your day-to-day life. Right. Yeah. I think one of the sentences that I wrote in the book that jumped out at me, I've been rereading it. What did I say? Do you get creative amnesia? What did I write in those 300 pages? Is that in every transition, big and small, there's a loss of desire. Now it may not be gone for long, but we've lost sight of it or touch with it. And I think the thing that's missing in what we talk about when we talk about transition

is desire. We don't have that stage in there where we go, okay, what does it feel to want? Where is there permission in me to want things? And so much of the work I've done with people around this, around desire for so many years, is they are so afraid of one thing. And it's not just, I used to think it was just a female thing or people who identify as female, but I see it in my husband. I see it in men that I know as well, that we feel like we're going to be selfish or become monsters, or we've been told as children that it's impossible. Who do you think you are?

That was dangerous to want things. So I think there's so much in there to unravel little by little so that we can feel that flow of life again and let it animate us. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting also because that is, from what I understand, I haven't been on a retreat with you. Maybe one day that'd be awesome. But isn't that also one of the central questions that you constantly surface in every retreat that you've done, which is like to just sit with this idea of what is it that I want? And if it doesn't come easily, don't walk away from it. Right. You're exactly right. And even on my writing retreats, because in the last few years I've done primarily writing retreats, that helped be in the final circle what many people will say was the most profound thing. They'll be like, I got a lot of work done or I got around my fear of this or whatever, but they'll be like, I kept asking

myself, what do I want? And I'll be like, you don't have to come to the afternoon sessions. You're not here for me. If you're like, what do I want? And you're on your way into the door and you're like, I want to nap or I want to go look up at the mountains or that's, it's following that. And then it's paying attention to how does it feel? What does it tell you? Or we always have these amazing buffet spreads, right? And every, it's like, instead of going like, I have to have something of everything. What do you want? What do you want? And it's huge for people. It's fast. Every, No matter how many years I've done this, I'm always fascinated by it. Are there – I imagine every person's answer is going to be in some way unique to their circumstance, their life, their history, whatever brought them to that moment. Are there a small number of common themes that just keep repeating over and over and over and answer that question?

I would say rest is usually the top. Time to just nap, rest, to not be connected to a device, to not be connected to your to-do list. There's one woman who's come to my retreats for a number of years. She has a profoundly disabled daughter who has been damaged repeatedly through malpractice on top of her birth issues. And so this woman's life is really hard. She has support. She has money. But it's just she's the primary caregiver.

And for her, it's always the sense of returning to the fact that you can hear my own mind, my own ideas matter. I get to be with my own ideas. I get to explore them. I get to rest. I get to, so that's, I think the number one. I think the second thing that comes up a lot is permission, which sounds so archaic going back to my mom's story. But I think because of the way our brains are wired and the way the world works right now, we have so much of a sense of productivity shame of if I'm not producing, if I'm not getting ahead,

if I'm not taking care of someone else, and it just becomes our default. I know it can happen for me. And then Friday comes around and I'm like, oh my God, who am I? I am a little husk of a person. What happened to what do I want? Raising my hand also. Yeah. More regular occurrence than I want. Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting, those themes. And I

guess, I guess probably not entirely surprising also, sort of like given the way that we are and the pace that I think life has taken on for so many people these days. Yeah. I think the other one that comes up a lot is creating for creating's sake. Is that pleasure in making something, whatever it is, and how just to find that joy again and not have it immediately have to be something that you do something with. So in Why Bother, it's kind of interesting to me also because you're sort of saying, and it's about these inflection points of like, okay, I'm at a moment in life where it's time to make some decisions to to like figure out what am i going to substantially say yes to

as i sort of step into a new season and and and into a place of agency and co-create it with the universe people whoever it is and what do i say no to like why bother actually saying yes to this what is it underneath that you actually lay out six steps or so, like you give a process and we can kind of like just touch on like those elements briefly, but there's something bigger that I thought was really curious too, which is that you do have a defined process and you have clearly thought so deeply about this and mapped it in your own life and seen it unfold in the lives of so many others. And at the same time, you also share that your primary intention with the book is not prescription, but companionship. Tell me more about this. I don't think prescription works. I mean, none of my books are prescriptive that I've written. I think what we most profoundly need, and I say this when I

teach, is to know someone loves us and someone sees us. And it might be kind of creepy to say, how can I say I love you when I don't know you? But I know that I love you. I know I love your humanity. I know I love your essential goodness. I trust you and your kindness. And that's what I wanted the book to be.

I wanted it to be what I didn't have, which is someone to say, this is really normal. This is really natural. This could really be a good thing. Everybody needs to ask this question. It comes to all of us. Let me just walk with you. And we're, we're lonely. You know, I was so lonely in those years, even with a family. And so that's what I wanted is to hold out my hand and say, you don't know me and I don't mean to be creepy but really I'm right here with you yeah I don't mean to be one of those Facebook ads that follows you around and it is interesting that you offered that you can say to somebody like I love you not really knowing them a whole lot it immediately brought me that my automatic

signature line in my emails is with a whole lot of love and gratitude. I love that. And I will sometimes pause and think about, should I just make this with a whole lot of gratitude for certain people? I'm like, you know what? There is something to, like, I may not know you well at all, but there's like you said, you're a human being who lives and breathes on the planet yeah and i want to be that person who tries to live in that place i do the same thing i don't have an automatic signature line but i usually write love and then sometimes like oh is that weird right maybe i should just say a new business relationship

or something like that warmly sincerely regards Right. Sincerely. Regards. Regards. I'm always like, regards, what does that mean? I never figured that one out. Yeah. I mean, a dear friend of mine, Cynthia Morris, years ago told me, I was like, what is your purpose? And she's like, to be love.

And I'm like, yeah, well, if that is fundamentally who you are, then it's not really when you have to say like, I love you or to say, you know, like a signature that says love or whatever your variation of it. It actually, it, it makes it just about a state that you want to exist in rather than the other person. Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. One of my favorite meditations is from Ram Dass, now our late Ram Dass. And I am loving awareness And I am loving awareness. I am loving awareness.

And so, you know, just I can feel it when I say it and the relaxing of that place. And that's the intention that I wanted in the book. And also, you know, yes, I lay out stages. And I did that because beta readers told me, and these are highly well-known, accomplished people who revealed to me without me knowing it when I sent them the book, I'm in my own why bother time and I need to know it's going to be okay. And I need to know, like, give me some kind of roadmap. I mean, that was in the book, but it wasn't super clear in the second draft.

And that's why I made it clear in the third draft and without, again, trying to be prescriptive, because I just think we're all too old for that, you know? We're all too sophisticated. At least the people who I work with, they're not going to be taken in by, and do this, and everything will be, and you will totally get your bother on. Yeah. It's sort of just things to think about, things to consider along the way. Yeah, and things to try. I mean, there are practical things in the book to try.

There's tools. Yeah. I mean, it's practical things in the book to try. There's tools. Yeah. I mean, sort of like I'm just moving through them very quickly. You talk about leaving behind. And I think even just the names that you use, people will kind of get what you're talking about without going too deep into it. Leaving behind, easing in, settling, desire, becoming by doing, and then eventually so much of what we've been talking about, which is being seen, but being seen in this next evolution of not who you're,

not the change that you're, but really just like what part of you, like how do you want to show up in this season of life, and what's deeply meaningful, and how do you want to be witnessed for that? What's calling you? You know, the difference between someone who, I remember this is years ago, this woman became a repeated student a dear friend she came to a retreat and i'll just never forget her body you know arms crossed legs crossed foot going a mile a minute and by the end you know body completely

open and you know and she said she didn't tell anybody in her family where she was going. And the few people who asked her, she said, I'm going to a financial conference. So that, I mean, it's fine if they don't tell the people you can't trust, but if we can't be seen in claiming our desires and at least someone that we trust, it's very hard, I think, for our brains and the way we're wired as human animals to believe in it ourselves. I have a student right now who has a famous writing friend and she's finally going to tell this famous writing friend that she's working on a memoir this week. And I'm like, I totally get why that matters. It's huge. I have a friend who's reading the book right now, an advanced copy, and he was the person I was most nervous about reading the book because I think of him you know such an intellectual and he was going to think my ideas are silly and he's loving it and it just like the fact that he's reading it

I mean oh my god it makes me feel both really exposed naked but excited too so we see it still it continues is my point it continues the irony is not lost on me. Like as we sort of like touched on this very conversation, you're actually wearing a t-shirt for the Paris Review, which is like the bastion of literary writing, like for generations and generations. Like that aspiration is still, like there's something that you still want to present to the world that says I'm this person.

It's true. I put it on today. I'm like, really, why are you wearing that t-shirt? I'm like, oh, whatever. Yeah, I want to be cool. I want to be cool. I want to be literary. I'm never person. It's true. I put it on today. I'm like, really? Why are you wearing that T-shirt? I'm like, oh, whatever. Yeah, I want to be cool. I want to be cool. I want to be literary. I'm never going to be literary. That's great.

Yeah, a good place for us to come full circle as well. So hanging out here in this container of the Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To be here for it all. That's my intention. And I try to remember it every day in meditation.

I try to remember it when things are hard. I tried to remember it as my mom was dying from Alzheimer's. I tried to, you know, how can I be here for it? How can I be here for it? That's the only thing I don't want to regret when I'm laying there dying, if I'm lucky enough to be conscious. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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