Good Life Project - This Will Be My Undoing | Morgan Jerkins

Episode Date: August 1, 2019

Morgan Jerkins (http://www.morgan-jerkins.com/) is a journalist, author, editor, and professor at Columbia University. Her debut essay collection, This Will Be My Undoing (https://amzn.to/2XR5P9Z), exploded into the public’s consciousness last year, becoming an instant New York Times bestseller. She writes with a raw transparency and fierce sense of self-examination and revelation, sharing deeply personal, provocative stories, moments and reflections that often center around her experience as a woman of color, intersectionality, feminism, the writing life and the world of publishing, gender and race and so much more. Morgan has also been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic and is a Senior Editor at ZORA.-------------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.

So my guest today, Morgan Jerkins, is a journalist and author, editor, professor at Columbia University here in New York City. Her debut essay collection, a book called This Will Be My Undoing, exploded into the public consciousness last year, becoming an instant New York Times bestseller. She writes with this raw sense of transparency and a fierce sense of self-examination and revelation, sharing really deeply personal, provocative stories and moments and reflections that often center around her experience as a woman of color, around intersectionality, feminism, the writing life, and the world of publishing, which was part of

our conversation, gender and race, and so much more. Morgan has also been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, Rolling Stone, all these other awesome places. This conversation was deeply powerful, opened my eyes, opened my heart, opened my mind on so many levels, both after reading her words in her book and also in sort of deconstructing both the language, the stories, and the experiences that led to these essays, and so much more. Really excited to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. 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. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. I'm fascinated by people's writing processes because it's so different for so many people it's like I'm a writer

I've known so many writers and I's like, I'm a writer. I've known so many writers. And I literally read a story about a guy once who did all of his writing at a diner. The diner burned down. He couldn't write. So he literally had like a version of the diner recreated in his backyard. Oh. So he had this plate, like he could only write at that one booth in this one diner.

So he literally had that one booth rebuilt. But how is that sustainable? I don't know. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. In New York, do you write in your place all the time? Yes, I do not.

You're not a cafe writer. No. Like, it depends. Like, let's say if I have a meeting at noon and it's down a certain way, I like to work out in the morning. So if there's like a couch in like two hours, I'm like, I'm not just going to go back up town. Then I'll bring my laptop with me and I'll try to do work. But generally speaking, I do not work in cafes or anything like that because first it's like, I think about the little things. When I need to use the bathroom, I'm going to trust somebody to look over my stuff. You know what I'm saying?

And also just the noise. I like to be able to control the noise. And when you have espresso machines or people conversing all the time, it's hard. And also the chairs aren't really comfortable a lot. You know, so. Yeah, no, I totally hear you. I've experimented with all the different things.

I kind of go back and forth depending on the mode of writing. Yeah, yeah, so. Yeah. No, I totally hear you. I've experimented with all the different things. Yeah. I kind of go back and forth depending on the mode of writing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When did you, so as we're sitting here today in the studio, we're in New York City. You had a debut book come out last year at this point while we were recording this, which we're going to go into a whole bunch. You grew up just outside of the city, New Jersey.

Well, South Jersey. Oh, okay. So I was near Atlantic City. Like I grew up in the southernmost tip of New Jersey. Yeah, what was it like? It was nice, but it's interesting because I'd mythologized New York so much. I mean, I grew up in a very closer community

where people usually stayed in South Jersey. They probably didn't go any farther than like Philadelphia. And if they did go farther, they would just come back, you know, like get their feet wet in another town and come back. So it was nice there. It was, you know, it was cool. I mean, it wasn't anything that interesting, but I try to talk about it more because I guess that informs who I am as a person.

Yeah. Well, I mean, clearly, because you write about certain moments in a really powerful way and how transformative they are. And I want to dive into some of those. I mean, clearly, because you write about certain moments in a really powerful way and how to transform them there. And I want to dive into some of those. I'm curious also, before we get there, when you have such a devotion to the craft, you know, of writing right now, how early can you trace back? Like, did that start to show up in the earliest days for you or was it later? Oh, it depends on what you mean, because I would say later, but then I'm only 26. So when I first started writing, it came out of a place of desperation.

I thought that I wanted to be a doctor. My father is a doctor and he owns a medical business all throughout New Jersey. So I was trying to be the heiress apparent. And it wasn't until my freshman year of high school where I was being bullied every single day, as I detailed in my book, that I was trying to find an outlet through which to vent. I wasn't the type of person who would just express myself whenever I was going through something negative. And so I just started writing these fictitious stories, creating these characters and creating these new worlds within which I can find solace. But I wasn't even a person who liked literature like that. It felt like a total freestyle. And it wasn't until, so I was writing

all throughout high school, all throughout college. It was more like therapy for you. It was therapy, really. And so it wasn't until towards the end of college when I didn't get a job in publishing like I expected. My mother was like, well, why don't you apply to MFA program? My late stepfather was a veteran and they had this program where they would provide monthly stipends to those who did grad school. My mom's like, you know, my mother, she's in real estate, but she's also into finance. And we used to watch Susie Orman together on Saturday nights. And she was like, Morgan, this is free money. You don't understand how many people in this country, in this world, would take this opportunity.

And I was like, fine. Begrudgingly, I applied to one school. And one of the reasons why I applied, well, a couple of reasons why I applied were because the GRE, I didn't have to take it. Deadline didn't pass. And it was also low residency, which meant that I didn't have to be on campus full time. And so I applied to Bennington College in Vermont, and I expected to not get in, and I did. And it was there that I learned about craft, tone, syntax, development, development in plots, narrative momentum, all of these different things.

And I don't think I'd be able to find that elsewhere. Yeah. It's so interesting, like the things that lead us like to those experiences, which flip a switch, right? Right, right. I had no, I only applied to appease my mother and I expected a rejection. So I could just wave it in her face. I'm like, here, here you go. Check that box. Yup, yup. And I'm like, I'm just gonna goase my mother and I expected a rejection. So I could just wave it in her face.

I'm like, here, here you go. Check that box. Yup. Yup. And I'm like, I'm just going to go do my own thing. And then when they called me and I got in, I was like, oh, well, then that just changes everything. Yeah. When you got there, how long did it take to actually for you to realize like, oh, this is actually something that like is doing something to me?

Oh, that's a great question. I think it was my second term. So we do it in terms. So I think I came in June. That was the first term. My second term was January of 2015. And I was writing this story. And it was about writing a novel.

And about two or three drafts in, my advisor said to me, she would say, you're not writing in your voice. She said, you're not writing in your voice so why don't we just table this novel and you start again? And I had never had someone say that to me. Did you understand what she meant?

Yeah, I knew exactly what she meant because all my life I have been trained to, I would say, ventriloquize the voices of white men, dead white men. And so for this white woman to tell me that, I'm like, where that plainly and say, no, we're just going to get rid of this whole thing. You're going to start anew. I don't even want you to revise it. Yeah. When that moment happens and you start to write in your own voice then, I mean, did you immediately start to write in your own voice or did it actually take some work to get back to it? I think when I, I still remember when I opened the email, I just sat at my desk, like stupefied. I was just like, I wasn't offended I opened the email, I just sat at my desk, like stupefied. I was just like, I wasn't offended.

I was just, I just felt seen. And I thought about, you know, the Toni Morrison quote about, you know, if there's not a book out there that you haven't seen, like you should write it. And I was like, I think I do. I know what I want to write about. And so I just went from there. It didn't take a lot of time to think of ideas. It was just finding my voice to write said ideas and therefore the authenticity would come out. Yeah. But this was still fiction.

This was fiction. And it was interesting because around that time I was writing professionally online with nonfiction and I was developing my voice there. But for some reason it wasn't immediately translating into fiction because when I was doing, I was developing my voice there. But for some reason, it wasn't immediately translating into fiction, because when I was doing I was studying comparative literature in college, I was studying fiction and I wasn't reading people that looked like myself. What's the Jones around language for you? I'm just a nosy person. I never wanted to be, I never wanted to grow up in this world, be a monolingual. I didn't. I've always wanted to be versatile. I don't know if it's because I'm a Gemini or I don't know if it's just because, I don't know what it was. Like I remember when I was younger, I took, I had to take mandatory, a mandatory Spanish class in grade school.

And I really was into it. And I remember I would watch telenovelas and I would put the caption on. I would learn all this new vocabulary. Are you kidding? Yeah, I would learn all this new vocabulary. And it was funny because I would go to choir practice at church. And I'm like, Ma, can you please record this? I need to watch this episode.

And my mother saw how much I was progressing. And she was like, well, I'm just going to get you a private tutor because you want to go quicker with this and you're going through your homework at school too quickly. So I've been told by former instructors that I think you have a gift for language because it's not hard for me to, it's hard, but I can pick up languages really quickly. And that's something that I can pick up languages really quickly. And that's something that I just don't take for granted. I just hope to keep nourishing that skill for the rest of my life. Yeah.

Because you speak, what, four or five languages? Four, like five, five foreign languages. Yeah. Right. Is part of that related to a desire to travel at all? I'm curious. Oh, yeah. Always.

Yeah. Because I think what, you know what, it's interesting that you bring that up because I remember, I think I spoke about it, I wrote about it in my book. The first time I went to Japan, it was with a program called People to People. And it was like a student ambassador program. And you would go to a country for like two weeks and, you know, explore everything. And I was with a majority white group of Pennsylvania kids. And they were a lot of, they were just, a lot of them were just jerks. They really were. And they, you know, they went into this country with the expectation that

people were going to speak English. And, you know, they made fun of the people that tried to accommodate them. And it really did something to me even back then, because I was like, how can I go to somebody's country and expect them to speak my language? Like I should be trying to figure out certain phrases like them, you know? And the fact that like, it wasn't, it wasn't a part of our preparation because we had to do these preparatory workshops where we went to Japanese restaurants. It was like, you didn't even, you didn't make it mandatory for us to learn even simple phrases. It bothered me. So I was like, I want to learn languages, you know? It's almost like a, like a respect thing, I want to learn languages, you know? Yeah. It's almost like a respect thing.

It is. It's like how, you know, there's almost a certain amount of, I often wonder this about Americans in general, because we've got to be one of the few countries where it's not really, you know, we all speak English. We try. I hear. And, you know, you can kind of sneak by most schools having to learn a second language.

Yeah. But most people graduate high school really not being able to speak another language. Absolutely. But the rest of the world is like pretty much studies multiple languages. Right. I mean, when I was in Japan for the second time and I was doing this internship at Temple University has a satellite school in Tokyo. And every so often our coordinator would have these lectures and all that and they invited someone over for us to have dinner before the

lecture. And one of the men, he was Hungarian and someone was like, yeah, he speaks five languages. And he said, as a matter of fact, and I was like, oh, that's amazing. They were like, he's European. Europeans on average speak about two to three. And I was like, and he didn't say to me, but I was like, he's European. Europeans on average speak about two to three. And I was like, and he didn't say it to me,

but I was like, oh, you know, I was like, yeah, I'm American. So it's like, that's not to say. But I wonder also just like what it does to our brains. I sometimes wonder, it's not just the language. It's like, okay, so if you get fluent enough in another language, then you start to sort of code switch a bit with your thinking, too. Absolutely. It's very hard because it feels like, imagine going into an attic or you're going into a wall and you got to fix cables and you really don't know which one does what. And you're just kind of like grabbing, you know, your appliances and trying to like take this one out of. Oh, that change.

No, no, no. So sometimes I'll be writing something. I'll be like, I can't. There is no word that adequately fits what I'm trying to say in the English language. It doesn't feel right. Rhythm wise, it doesn't it doesn't even sit right in my mouth. But if it were in Japanese, it would be perfect. No kidding.

Yeah. And I'll be like, but I can't say that. Like, I can't say, so I have to find a medium. I'm just going to have to, you know, find an inferior alternative. Yeah. Do you ever get tempted to just like drop a foreign word? Sometimes I want to, but I'm like, first of all, I'll be pretentious on the page. But yeah, there'll be times where I'll be writing and I'll be like, I'll be saying it in my head as I'm writing and and the Japanese world would just like bloop drop and I'm

like you can't say that but it's like it just it fits so well you know and it's like well what do I do in fact that might be a good essay to write like what do you do when you know multiple languages and you realize that writers already I think a lot of writers I talk to they have a problem with like you have it in your head but sometimes when you write on the page, something gets lost. So you have to sort of contend with that. But when you know different languages, you feel like you're dealing with a series of losses as you're trying to gain insight by documenting whatever it is that you're trying to do on the page. It's a matter of net positives and negatives and all that. Yeah. No, I mean, you just threw something out, which was interesting to me also, which is that you don't want to be perceived as a pretentious writer. Yeah, no.

Is that a frequency or thing that spins in your head while you're writing? Yeah. And so I'm curious what's behind that. Right, because I remember when I first got into the, well, people started knowing me professionally. I definitely boosted the fact that, like, I knew all of these languages. And, oh, I think it kind of rubbed certain people the wrong way.

The way that I was just trying to boost, like, how exceptional I was, and I kind of sort of succumbed to that, when I was like, you know, maybe I should, even on my website, like, I don't say on my website anymore, like, hey, I speak five languages. I'm just like, if you ask, I'll tell you, but, you know, maybe I should, even on my website, like I don't say on my website anymore, like, hey, I speak five languages. I'm just like, if you ask, I'll tell you.

But, you know, I don't want to be seen like, because, you know, already it's like people already know I went to Princeton. And even that to this day, when people ask me where I would go to school, I'm always hesitant to say because of what it evokes when you say things like that. Snobby, you know what I mean? Uppity, pretentious. If you say you're, I believe, to some people, not all people, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting too, because so you came out of Princeton

and like you shared, one of the reasons that you ended up going to Bennington, aside from just like telling your mom I could check that box, is you were struggling to actually find work out of Princeton, which a lot of people would be like, wait a minute. And I tell people that all the time. Isn't that the golden ticket?

And I'm going to end that. And I'm so glad you brought that up because I'm going to talk about that until, you know, I just cease to exist on earth. Because, you know, I was told in college that in order to gain entrance into the publishing industry, and I'm talking about just an editorial assistant, you have to do unpaid internships. So already, you can just imagine how many students are

eliminated off of that alone. I was able to do it because I didn't have student loans. I was saving up money, working two jobs during my upperclassmen years. And I also had friends who were living and working in New—one friend in particular who was living and working in New York City and allowed me to sleep on her couch while I interned in the summer for like $60 a week. And sometimes I need to pay that. And so I did it. I did the unpaid internships. I had the Ivy League degree. I was studying the right kind of major and I did not get any callbacks. You're in the office, you're in there for 15 minutes, and then you shake their hand and then you leave. And you go back, but by that time, it's like half the day is gone. And then it's like, you don't hear anything. You don't hear a thing. And then when I came back to

South Jersey, my whole day would be gone because it would take 45 minutes for me to get to the boat bus, two hours, 15 minutes to get to Midtown. The other 30 minutes, again, 15 minute long interviews. So it was like emotionally taxing, you know, and just like I'm spending all this money for what? And I think about like when I was interviewing for these jobs, I never shook hands with any other editorial assistant who was not a white woman. There were always white women. And to this day, I'm like, it should not have been that hard. It should not have, it goes to show you that, and this has to do with my race, obviously, but it's like, it goes to show you that you could be Ivy League educated. You can have a literature-based major. You can do the unpaid internships, but you can't get a job. I finally got a job in publishing after a year of writing

online and building up my bylines and having people from digital media companies and agents alike follow me on Twitter. That was how I got my, that was, I had to do all of that on top of the academic expertise to be able to come in as an editorial assistant. Yeah. I mean, so many industries have all sorts of issues with gender, with race, with equality, with privilege. You know, publishing as a whole, interesting. It is.

It's its own sort of like bizarre universe. Yeah. And it's very small. Yeah. And I didn't feel comfortable talking about what I just disclosed earlier on because I wanted to get a book deal and I didn't want to piss people off. And I'm thankful now that I can be more honest because I feel like I the, I totally get what you're saying. And at the same time, one of the ways that you ended up, it sounds like finally sort of like going and getting an editorial position was you just started writing on your own. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But the stuff that you were writing in that first year or two, you weren't really holding back.

I mean, it's strong writing. Right. You're taking position. Right. But I wasn't talking about the publishing industry. I was talking about the world at large so I was never like the publishing industry

blah blah blah I was talking about like no like stop killing black people you know what I mean and you know it's interesting like you're the first person

that brought that up like I was very I would say ferocious like in terms of my tone a lot of times but also because it just politically

it was I mean the Black Lives Matter movement was starting you're seeing all these police brutality videos. I just, I didn't have the time. I didn't even have the tolerance anymore to sweeten or polish the edges of whatever I wanted to say. Yeah.

And yet at the same time, you still, it's like, I think we all do this, right? It's like if we so, so deeply yearn to have this thing that's out there, and if we know that there's still a system of gatekeepers, as much as we can be really strong and opinionated and put our voice out there in the context of the world at large, society at large, in this one domain where we still want access. It's like, we still were like, should I or shouldn't I? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's such an interesting dynamic. Even after I moved to New York, I was like so upset because I was like, after I wanted to get a staff writing position so badly, I thought that that was like the pinnacle, despite the fact that I had published in like, if you could think of like some of the top five to 10 biggest publications in the country, in the world, I was in them. And I was still like, why am I not getting a staff-run position? As if like a position validates all the stuff that I've

already been doing. And I had to really just learn to relinquish that for many reasons. And one of it was just like, why are you trying to desire for something that you already have? You desire to obviously you might desire to make more money, but like you're not failing financially. You're able to pay your rent. You're able to go and do that. You're trying to get recognition. You do have recognition. I mean, you're getting invited on panels. You're getting invited to do readings. And it's like if you are privy to anything that's going on in digital media, it is extremely volatile. Even if you are a staff writer, your job can be slashed tomorrow. Anybody who's in the industry that can tell you that. So it's like, when I'd seen so many of my friends and colleagues alike just being

laid off, like just going to work one day and the 9am the next day, they're being laid off. It really made, it really told me as someone who was on the outside, you have to reorient your thinking and not try to attach happiness or self-validation from anywhere. Yeah. 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. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. So, right around this time, I mean, so you're in the industry.

You're writing on your own. And the next big thing is, okay, so it's book time. So you could take in so many different directions. And, you know, for you, it seems like, okay, so you also, you care about your reputation, you care about the industry, you care about the craft. So you know that, like, whatever this debut thing is, it's got a, you know, and you want a future in this industry, right? Absolutely. So the debut thing really has to land. So take me behind the scenes a little bit in the decision-making process about choosing to

write the book that you chose to write. Well, first I didn't even want to write nonfiction, ironically. I mean, I went to school for fiction. I started writing fiction and I had this idea that nonfiction was only for two categories of people. People like Malala, who have had these extraordinary lives, or those who were PhD people, who had knowledge on something that they'd been studying for 30 to 50 years. Not a young 20-something. I didn't really think that that avenue was for me.

And I didn't want to sort of posit myself as a person who just knew it all. You know, I didn't. My agent of posit myself as a person who just knew it all. You know, I didn't. My agent was the one who suggested to me, maybe you should start with nonfiction because people already knew me for that. And around that time, you know, I remember it was it's so interesting how life works, because when I went to go meet my agent for the first time before I before I even signed with her. I had a copy of Bad Feminist in my purse. I was reading it en route to the restaurant where I met her in northern New Jersey. And I think when I read Bad Feminist, I was like, even though Roxane Gay is obviously a doctor and she's older than me, I was like, okay, well, maybe there is a space because she's a black woman. And maybe there might be a space for me. And so when the book sold, which was interesting because I was taking calls from editors probably two days before I graduated from Bennington.

Like I was literally on the grassy nose of Vermont, just like taking calls. And when it sold, I just got to work. I think for me, I have been in many different spaces in and out of publishing. I write online. I worked in Catapult. And when I was in the offices at Catapult, I would go to editorial meetings. I'd see so many books go through the pipeline. So the fact that my book was even acquired was a good thing for me.

And I also read about debut authors. But most of the stuff that I was reading was not about whether your book becomes a success. It's about if your book fails, when people don't show up to your readings, when your book is a flop, or when you have to take a waitress job. These are the stories that I consumed all the time. So that's not to say that I had a negative, that's not to say that my book is not going to sell. I just was like, my book, I need to really work, work and work and promote myself like I've been doing for my shorter form works online so I can have a longer career in this industry. And it's weird to talk about it openly now, but my experience with my debut was just, it wasn't like that.

It was actually the complete opposite and nobody prepared me for that. And that's not a bad thing, but it's like, what if your book does become a success? Like, what if you do become a New York Times bestseller? What if you do, you know, what if you do go on a month long book tour? You know, what if, you know, when I was when I was when I did my readings across the country, there was no empty seats. Every single every single store that I went through, it was at least at half capacity. And it's like it was it was shocking to go from Boston all the way to Santa Cruz, California to see that and it's like nobody can nobody prepares you for that and it's like I wonder if there's a

there's a space to talk about that too without bragging you know I always have this you know worry that I'm bragging when it's like but it's the truth it it's not and I don't take for granted how my experience was I still think about it and I'm like it's the truth. And I don't take for granted how my experience was. I still think about it and I'm like, whoa, did that really happen? Yeah. I think the industry is just, it's so filled with, it is, I mean, populated largely by failure. I mean, it's an industry which is defined by the vast majority of people who are writing don't support themselves full-time as writers. If they write a book, if they get a book deal, which seems to be the aspiration for everybody,

the vast majority of books completely outright fail. You know, like a handful of books do okay. And then the really rare book does, you know, just exceptionally well. So it's almost like I wonder if there's a lot of talk, you know, among the writing community and among the publishing community around dealing with failure

because you almost want to just expect that so that if and when it happens, you're not devastated and you don't just completely stop writing. Whereas people just assume that if the opposite happens, like you'll know what to do and everything will be good. And also, like you said, it's like there's an assumption that maybe it's arrogant

to assume that I'm the one who actually has the chops or whatever it may be, the fortune, the timing to be the breakout person. Absolutely. And the thing is, did I have dreams? What if my book, The New York Times bestseller? Yeah, I thought about it. I'm sure every author would think, what if that did happen? But I tried to push it in the back of my mind as much as possible because I was like, at the end of the day, even the promo, the buzz surrounding my book was like anything else I'd ever seen. And so that was, I mean, I just had to tell myself, you have to just surrender. You surrender.

Like I had to tell myself, did I do enough promo on my end? Did the publicity team at Harper-Ferrano do what they had to do? Absolutely. I just had to wait. Yeah. So the name of the book, This Will Be My Undoing. And it's a collection of essays, right? So 10, if I remember correctly, right?

10, 11? 10. 10, right? It's deeply personal. And it's almost like, yes, it's a collection of essays, but it's also kind of, it's a lot of memoir. It's not just you picking a topic and saying, here's what I think on a topic. It's a lot of deeply personal stuff. And it's interesting to be sitting here with you also.

So I read it and I'm a 53 year old white cis-gen male, right? Not the person I think you wrote the book for. Well, it's interesting because it's like, and I was having this conversation last night. When people ask me, who did you write this book for? I always wonder if white authors get the same question. And that's no offense to you. It's just like, because when you are a person of color, there's always this expectation to be as universal as possible.

And I think that's so interesting because being in America, we know that predominantly the TV shows we watch, the movies we consume are white people. I, as a South New Jersey born and raised girl, can completely empathize with a white person in Kentucky because I see that on TV. I don't have a choice, you know, but it's like, well, can somebody empathize with me? Can somebody understand what I'm going through, the motivations for why I thought this way, and to understand that we don't all exist in a vacuum? So even when I was writing my book post on there, we're like, well, who's this for?

And I was like, oh, millennials, Black women. I'm like, you know, trying to be specific. But a part of me was like, I just want to say everyone and not be difficult, but it's the truth. Because it's like, I absorb books by all different types of authors. I've had to. And so many of them didn't look like me. And I had to do that in order to be considered literate, to be able to go on to the next grade, et cetera, et cetera.

And I want people to be able to devote 200 something pages of my book, learning it and being literate in me and hopefully being literate in other types of works by other black women and understand that they can pass it off to another white person. It doesn't have to be another black woman. It can be for whoever likes to read as well. Yeah, I totally agree. And it's interesting because my focus in the question was more, it was less white versus black. It was more like male and middle-aged male. Oh, yeah. Well, same thing.

And I agree. So, like, I'm in a really fortunate position. I get to sit down with so many incredible people. And I could care less. Like, I want to read the most diverse and broad set of experiences that I can. Because it's all about fundamentally, it comes down to the human condition. And if I can understand the human condition better, you know, then, and if I can introduce our listeners

to a wide just, you know, gathering of people from every walk of life, it just helps us all understand each other on a completely different level. I completely agree. So it's interesting, because I, what was interesting for me was what I was noticing as I was reading your book was as a middle-aged male, I was resonating so deeply with it.

And I was wondering within me, what was it that was resonating so deeply with me? I'm also a father of a daughter. And I think that's probably part of it also. But you share some experiences within these essays. One of them, which kind of starts off the book, is an experience when you're pretty young with the cheerleaders. Can you share a bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. I grew up thinking that cheerleaders were the pinnacle of beauty.

The movies that I watched, the most popular girl in school was a cheerleader. And she was usually white and she was usually blonde. And I did not think that I was an attractive person at all. I did not believe, growing up, more people complimented me on my intelligence more so than my beauty. But even as your girl, even as nine, 10 years old, you still want to be pretty. I mean, I have a four-year-old niece that feels like she's not going to be able to be pretty without makeup. You know what I'm saying? So I tried out for the cheerleading squad and, you know, it was an all white cheerleading squad. And I remember I was trying so hard. I mean, I was trying, you know, just practicing the moves and all of that. And I tried for the spot and no black girl makes it.

It was like me and two other black girls, I think. And we both tried out, neither of us made it. And I was devastated. And my mother and another black mother knew what was going on. They were like, we want to talk to the administration about this. I didn't even know what this meant. And a couple of days later, maybe weeks later, I was having an argument with another girl, a girl of color. And she basically said, like, do you know, like, why you didn't make the team?

It's because Monkees, like, you don't make the team. And that was, that just shattered. It's one thing to, shattered me. Like, it's one thing to be in a conversation with someone, you're going back and forth. But there's always that, like, one hit or quitter, I say, that someone says, and you're like, I can't even respond to that. Like it's one thing to be in a conversation with someone, you're going back and forth, but there's always that like one hit or quitter. I say that someone says, you're like, I can't even respond to that. Like, I just can't. And I think that that's so traumatic. That was, and I knew I wanted to tell that story because I remember just like it was yesterday. I remember being at night. I remember the types of food that certain people brought, you know, to sit outside

in the corridors of the school, the school hallways to wait for the people to come out and say, who made the team? And I try to tell people all the time, don't you think that is the most devastating? That's one of the saddest things in the world for a Black girl to know that she's Black by being compared to an animal. That was how I knew that I was Black. I knew I was Black in the sense that I looked at my mother and my grandmother and we were different shades of brown, but I knew I was black in the world to the entry point of being an animal.

And that is the saddest thing I think ever. And that's what I wanted people to understand. And so when someone like you, who is a middle-aged white man, says it resonated with me because you saw my humanity. You see, you saw that like you didn't question, maybe you just weren't good enough. You didn't say to yourself, well, you know,

maybe the other girls would have done better. You understood why I thought that way. I'm thankful for conversations like that. I'm also proud of myself because I tell people all the time, you don't have to agree with me, but if you can understand the motivations or the societal forces at work for me to understand why I felt that way or why I made the decision to do X, Y, and Z, I've accomplished what I said I'd do as a writer. I think the best writers in the world, like I love when I watch movies and let's say if it's a good versus evil, obviously this isn't that type of story, but if let's say if it's good versus evil and we are set up to believe the villain is bad but then we look at the backstern we're like oh okay so we kind of see what happened those are the best stories

it's like you don't probably have to agree with who they became who they chose to become but you understand why they became it you understand the motivations for or the foundation for why they turned and chose this path. Yeah. I mean, it's sort of like that's the seed of compassion, right? Yeah. That's it. That's the thing.

As a Black woman and as a writer, I'm like, have compassion for me, for being vulnerable enough to talk about this, even if it makes you uncomfortable, even if you don't necessarily agree, if you have compassion for me, that is something that I don't take for granted because so much of the world presently and historically do not have compassion for people who look like me. When that moment happens and it kind of brings you to your knees, are you aware of you being in some way different, living in the world, experiencing the world, experiencing relationships differently after that moment?

If you go back to that one, your friend drops this one line. You know what? It's interesting, again, because no one's asked me that, but I think I was hurt. And I think for one to two weeks, we didn't talk, whatever. And then we just continued being friends. So much of my life has been characterized by someone doing something to me. And then I just get over it because I don't want to sit in that pain. I want to have friends. I want to make connections, often at the expense of my mental health. So I just kept going. It wasn't until I wrote the book that I was like, man, that is traumatic. Man, that was terrible. You know what I'm saying? And that's the, hence the

title of my book, This Will Be My Undoing. It wasn't supposed to evoke sort of a bad omen. What it was meant to evoke was reversal, being able to go back to these memories that I just know so viscerally, that I feel so viscerally within my body and finally be able to head to, to just, to remain in them a little bit longer and not try to run away and jump to a different conversation or different topic. Yeah. And kind of say, okay, so what really, what was really happening here? Yeah. Yeah. You also reflect on something which happened a little bit later in one of the essays, which is once you got into high school, there was some pretty serious bullying. Oh yeah. And it's an interesting conversation, interesting story because one of the, and it kind of reflects

a lot of the through line of this book also, which is that you clearly made a decision to write what you were feeling, even if what you were feeling, like people may look at that as they read it and they're like, that's not okay. Like that's, how can you say that? How can you feel that? But you made a decision to say like, no, like I was bullied and I wanted this bad thing to happen to this person. And people got so mad at me for that. People got so mad at me. I've had literally people ask me, well, not people ask me to my face, but assume that the way that I felt at 14 is the same way that I felt in my mid-20s. And I'm like, that is just preposterous for you to assume that someone cannot train,

that I cannot change in a decade. But I know where that was coming from because they may not have ever seen someone be, or read of someone being that honest. Yeah. Let's tell people what we're talking about also. In terms of the scenario. Yeah.

So the pushback, I think, was in part because you were bullied by another woman, black woman, who you perceived to be different still from you. Describe a little bit more. So basically, every day, like, pretty much I was bullied by this one girl and I didn't understand why. I was like, why is she bullying me? I don't, we're not friends. We sat at the same lunch table. I was like, I'm she bullying me? I don't, we're not friends. We sat at the same lunch table. I was like, I'm not doing anything to her.

But I also knew that I had been raised to be respectable and she was not. I was raised to dress a certain way. My mother tried to dress me in the preppiest of clothes. My mother, you know, I was in honors classes. The girl that, you know, I was raised in a middle, upper middle class environment pretty much for the vast majority of my life. And the girl that was bullying me, she wasn't any of my honors classes. She was not like the mannerisms and gestures she had, like being very loud, being very assertive. That was not, all of that was not, I was meant to

suppress all of that. So we were just polar opposites of each other. And even at 14 years old, like one of the things that sort of kept me was because I just thought that society, like in society, I was just better. I was just going to be better because I had the socioeconomic privilege. I was being respectable. And I wanted, like I told, like, I think I wrote that I had a fantasy of like, just calling the police on her. I was like, she is harassing the hell out of me, excuse me. And I would just like for nothing more than to like a policeman, a police officer to tackle her and to like, to watch her be humiliated

because I can't do it. And I was like, terrible. And I was like, this is terrible. And I even write it like that is a terrible thought. But when you are, when you're traumatized, when you are, when you saying, talking about the entryway point of you being a black girl through thinking that you're an animal and that stays with you, you become anti-black, You become anti-black girl. And that showed not through my actions, but through my thoughts. And that's why I had those feelings towards her that even though she still bullied me, even though I never did anything to her, I still was like, I want something terrible to happen to her. And I just thought because of,

you know, I was taught to assimilate to white people better, that she would be more on the outs than me. Yeah. And I mean, and in that conversation, like when you write about it, you come full circle even like then. But it's interesting to know that you got so much pushback. I got pushback.

When the book came out, because I mean, we all think horrible things when we're 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 years. Yes. And God willing, we are not the same. Like we evolve. Right.

We find compassion. Right. We find like dignity and respect for other people. And yes. To hold you. It's interesting that people didn't allow space for that evolution. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.

I know that there are certain people of the, you know, and it's funny because here's the phenomenon. People, you can have a person, you can have two people read the same essay and come away with different things. I've spoken to some black women who said, I read what you wrote and you literally say like, it was terrible. And I went full circle and you have other people like, oh, well, she felt this way and she, you know, da, da, da. It's like, one, I have to remind myself that once I release something in the world, I have no control over anymore. You're allowed to think whatever you want to think. But also part of me is like, well, I want to defend my own work. And it's like, well, did you read the entire essay? Because if you just read that one paragraph, of course, you're going to think that. But it's like at 14 years old, I had no concept. I had no really larger concept of systemic racism, had no idea about police

brutality, racial policing, the history of that with Black community, especially towards Black women. I had no, I was 14 years old. So it was like, of course, like I was writing about the Black Lives Matter movement, like to think that I still think that way, to assume that it's like, it's just dangerous. And I think the heart and the thing is, is that we all have horrible thoughts. And I did, I was afraid to write that essay. I didn't want to write that essay, but I had to tell myself, I commend black women who grew up loving their black girlhood, their black womanhood throughout the entirety of their lives. That is not my story. That doesn't make me

any less black woman than you. I had to come from a place of self-hatred. And you see that self-hatred. And we have to have space for black women to say, hey, I didn't like myself at first because that's what the world did to me. It wasn't my fault. Nobody gave that to me. So if I made people uncomfortable with that, good, because it is uncomfortable and it's disgusting and I can read that part and it still is like, oh, but that's where I was at the time because I was dealing with a lot of pain, a lot of unresolved pain. And I can tell you now that I don't have that anymore, that I've healed in more ways than one.

But if people are still stuck on me as a 14 years old with that, I have nothing else to say. I can't. I can't say anything else with that. 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.

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it's interesting too because you share a conversation that happened later what's this um shortly after after graduating college, right? It's under the essay, what's it called? Human, Not Black. Yeah. Right? Which kind of ties in a different way into this whole thing. Share a little bit more about that moment.

So, you know, I was invited to have lunch with a woman who I became close with in college. She was in the academic department, which I was studying. And she's Eastern European descent. And she had an uncle and aunt who wanted to meet me. And I met them. They were really nice people. And I was regaling them with my conversations of my experiences at Princeton, going to Russia, Japan, et cetera, et cetera. And the man says to me, I don't understand why you would even call yourself a Black, I'm paraphrasing, I don't even understand why you would call yourself a Black woman. You don't present to me as a Black woman. So why don't you just say human? And I'm like, this is what I'm talking about, is that you're just seen as respectable. And it's like, well, then why do you have to be, what is your, and I wish I could have

said, what was your idea of a black, how am I supposed to present as a black woman? But I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable at the dinner table, at the dining room table. So yeah, it kind of, it does play off of that. Yeah. I mean, what an uncomfortable moment for you also, because like you're in the home of somebody who's a friend and a mentor. Right. And at the same time, like there's probably a conversation you really would have loved to have

had if the context was different. Right. And it's funny because I just, I was giving a speech at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, and there was a white female student who asked me, if you could do that moment over, what would you have done? And I said, I wouldn't do that moment over because anytime I feel like I want to get on my soapbox and talk about intersectionality and the like, I always look around the room and say, who's going to have my back if I go there? And there was no one else at that moment who looked like me. And that's not to say that just because you don't like me doesn't mean you won't support me. However, there was no one else in the room that I was getting sense from that was like, well, you know, back up a little bit.

Because when he started talking like that, no one was like, no, like that's wrong. So once I got that, I was like, I was kind of on my own. That's even though everybody was nice and everybody was trying to, you know, have a good time. I was like, no, I wouldn't change that moment because who's going to have my back? I don't want to always be the only one, you know, have a good time. I was like, no, I wouldn't change that moment because who's going to have my back?

I don't want to always be the only one, you know, in my own corner. This work is for everybody. Yeah. One of the other, I mean, sort of touching down in some of the other areas of the book, one of the chapters I thought was really powerful,

both in terms of what you said, but also the structure, how to be docile. Was that the name of it, right? Yeah, yeah. It was interesting because it's like a bullet point list, essentially. One, I'm curious, what's in your mind when you're thinking, okay, this is my debut book.

I'm writing these really beautifully crafted essays. I'm going to have this one thing, which is essentially just, it's a list. I'm curious about the choice of rolling with that format. And then the bigger thing, just tell me what was that about and what was the intention behind it? So I was going through a rough time dating at the time. I was dealing with a lot of emotionally unavailable men and wondering if like whether they were intimidated by me because of my success or whether I was just too emotional or too talkative, too opinionated. And I was speaking to an aunt of mine. My aunt has been divorced for years.

And she was like, you know what? Next time you go on a date, just be docile and see what happens. And I don't know. I think she was being sarcastic, but it really stuck with me. In fact, I think it was that same night or the following morning,

I just wrote that essay. And I was just trying to be as satirical as possible. And I did not think my be as hysterical as possible. And I did not think my editors were going to let me keep it, but it just felt really good to write. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, no. Let me just get this out. Yeah, no, yeah.

And I was like, I'll include it for them. But if they say no, I'm like, all right. I just needed to get it. I just felt good. You know, it's like if you think about the painter that just goes back to their studio and just starts, you know, going with the, just going crazy with the colors. That's just how I was.

Yeah. Switching just how I was. Yeah. Switching energy a little bit, you love Michelle Obama. So you devote essentially a solid chunk of an essay and a book kind of like to a love letter to her. What is it about who she is and what she represents that you feel was compelling, where you're like, I

need to speak to her and to this? Yeah, you know what? I think about when Barack Obama, when it was called that he was going to be president, and then he went on stage with Obama and Sasha Maliha were so small then. And I think I just remember a tear falling from my face, from my eyes, I guess. And I was mainly looking at her. I wasn't even looking at him even as he was speaking. And I was just like, you know, she's the most famous woman in the world now. Like she's the first lady of the United States. And who would have thought that such a thing would happen? You know, growing up, I used to

watch a lot of black communions and they would make jokes about the first Black president, but it was always with like, this is never going to happen, or if he's the first Black president, he's going to get assassinated. And I think when I thought about Michelle was like, because she gave me so much life in the midst of that fear that something was going to go wrong. Despite all of the egregious insults that she had to go through throughout the years, despite just the distress of being in that new position, she did it with so much grace. I think anybody else probably would have cracked under that much pressure. And so I felt like writing about Black womanhood, writing about privilege, and also the fact that we, you know, I went to Princeton just like she did. And she was exalted, almost like a mythical figure.

So I've had that connection in that way. And so I just wanted to, you know, to write something to her because she just took on something very personal for me and I'm sure for a lot of other Black women as well. Yeah. So zooming the lens out, you know, a lot of, if you sort of like looking at this and a lot of your current writing in the book and just like around the book is in what people might sort of like put under the category of intersectional feminism. Yeah. And part of what you write about also is how the black woman's experience of feminism is different. Talk to me more about that.

Well, because mainstream feminism is very white women centered or, you know, it's like they'll talk about women and it's like black women are such an afterthought. And so that was the thing about it is like, oftentimes I have to just choose between my womanhood and my blackness. Like if we're talking about Bill Cosby, for example, you can have black men that are like, they're trying to take a black man down. It's like, well, what about the women? What about the black women in your family or in your community who have been sexually assaulted? Or when we're talking about feminist issues, it's like, why is it always the white woman at the front? So I got to put my Blackness on the back burner. So like, why can't we, why can't you see that I can't divide myself in that way? Black women can't divide themselves

in that way. And so when I think about Black women's experience with feminism, it is a very multilayered thing because, you know, Black women have been fighting for women's rights for years, for years and years and years. But they've often been kept out of the mainstream arena. And so I think that the relationship that Black women have with feminism, it depends on who you talk to. Because you might have some Black women that are like, I consider myself a womanist, which is like Black woman-centered. And you have someone like, I'm a feminist, but I want to make it clear, all these different disclaimers, because the relationship can be very fraught a lot of times. Do you, I mean, is it something that, I know you speak about it and you write about it. Has your thought, I mean, do you see anything, do you feel like anything has changed in this context

over the last really just handful of years? More black women are speaking up. I mean, I remember the hashtags in 2014. Man, I feel like there could be a long form article about that. Like just like the hashtag solidarity is for white women, the hashtag like not your Asian sidekick. Like you had just, and it would go on for days, just people talking about for the first one,

like not, you know, solidarity is for white women. Like just people talking about what white women do at the expense of others, you know, under the guise of innocence and the guise of ignorance. Being more vocal, yeah. Like I just, and that's because of the internet, I suppose. And, you know, with the advent of Twitter, like to be able to have these different conversations and be able to destabilize these barriers between like the language you'd use for feminism, like the Academy versus, you know, just on the stoop talking to someone.

So that's been exciting. Yeah. Hashtags also. You're a fan of Twitter. Yeah, I'm very much a fan of Twitter. What does it give you? Oh, my God, that's such a complicated question now because I have a very different relationship with it now

than when I did five years ago. So I tell people all the time, I owe a huge chunk of my career to Twitter. I was able to find editors' contacts and then pitch them and be able to build a portfolio through Twitter. I met my agent through Twitter. The acquiring editor for my book was through Twitter. So I owe that to Twitter and

just like the conversations, but my relationship with Twitter now, it's like I have to have a little bit of distance on it, distance from it even while I'm on it. And what I mean by that is, you know, Twitter could be a very evil place. And I think I noticed that the more public I became, and I just know there can be a lot of performative cruelty, you know, especially when people are trying to work out their ideas or whatever. And I had to remind myself that Twitter is full of real people, but it is not real life. And a lot of times it could be an echo chamber. And I have to remind myself that, you know, I don't know a huge amount of these people and they don't know me. We're not friends. So I have to make sure that everything needs to

be taken with a grain of salt at the same time. And I think before in the beginning, I didn't have that healthy separation of boundaries there. Yeah. And I also get concerned. I mean, completely agree. And I see that, you know, the minute you put a screen between two human beings, especially two human beings are strangers, but for the fact that one person is interacting through a Twitter account with another one, there is a substantial loss of humanity that happens. Because it's so easy. You would say things on Twitter that you would never say to someone if you're just sitting with them face to face, even if they were strangers.

Right. I remember Lindy West. I'll never get this. Lindy West, she was on get this. Lindy West, she was on an episode of American Life where she actually had a conversation with one of her biggest trolls.

I'm talking about a troll who had the audacity to try to maybe like impersonate her dead father or something like that. And you know what he told her? He said, God, I was just miserable

with my life. And she handled it really well because if that were me, oh, I would have been so vicious with that. But that's how I tell myself a lot of times on Twitter, people are dealing with a lot of unresolved pain and they project it on other people, whether it's a troll or whether it's just some random person making fun of an article that you wrote. And I have to remind myself that I am not responsible for that. I am doing my work through writing and through therapy and through communing with people who love me. I can't say

that everybody else is doing the same. That is my hot take for the day. Yeah. Therapy. Talk to me about that. I mean, therapy is just like, it has been monumental for me. I just learned the tools and, you know, through which to be okay with having negative emotions, okay with telling somebody that they hurt me. And I don't think I've never really been taught to say that. Okay. With telling people like, Hey, being communicative and saying like, this is what I need. This is what I desire, not having a feeling that like someone's going to desert me for that. And if they do, then I think that's even better, you know? So I think therapy has been helpful because everybody just needs some help. We go through a lot, like our bodies and our minds take beatings and sometimes we can't do it alone.

Sometimes we need a person to give us apparatuses through which to work through it. And that's why I was so happy that I, you know, I decided to take that leap to do it. Yeah. Do you ever wonder, because I've heard this from different people, whether the painters or writers, but I think you hear it from writers more, especially writers who came to writing in the beginning a lot

to kind of like as their form of therapy, where they're like, okay, so, but if I go in and I do therapy or self-care or some blend, whatever it is where I get myself okay through other means that I'm no longer going to have that sort of like raw material level of angst and raw material to process through my craft. So I'm not going to be able to create stuff, which is as raw, as meaningful, as compelling anymore. That's not true. I don't believe that. I don't either.

I don't believe that. Yeah, I don't either. I don't believe it. I think the thing is, is that, well, one, I would say, not everything you write has to be about pain. Yeah. And I think that that's what I want people to understand is that what I'm experiencing now in my own life is the other side of it,

the healing, the spiritual grounding, and no one prepares you for that, right? And it's like, I have to employ a new language or maybe just further elaboration on old language because I've been doing the mental work. And so I think that for people to assume that if I don't take care of myself, because that's really what they're saying. If I don't take care of myself, I won't be able to use my best work. It's like that, it doesn't come from them. I think that is almost like a societal expectation.

It's like with people with madness. People think that people who have mental issues are geniuses. And yes, there are a lot of what we consider geniuses that have had mental issues, but mental health issues, excuse me. But that doesn't, you know, just because you have something bad going on doesn't mean it's going to be perfect art. But we have seen throughout, you know, history, people making great art from paint. But I think you have to do, you have to be, but it's not tough if you have to want to stay alive. That's at the bottom. And you can't do any work if you're not alive. And that's just not physically. That's also in your head too. You have to be engaging and being active. And so I think for people who

are afraid, like, what if I don't have that edge anymore? You will find an edge to a different style. One that is sustainable, one that is healthier, one that is going to be more nourishing than what you were doing before. But you have to be okay. It's just like with starting a new project. You have to be okay with that blank slate. You have to be okay with that new territory. You have to be okay to just be like, I'm going to explore this new terrain for a while and see what happens. Yeah. I so agree. I'm trying to remember who taught me this. It was years ago, probably, you know, that it's not like what draws people in and is not the fact that you're sharing that it's like a big shared pain.

It's the fact that you're, you're sharing a scenario where expectation and reality don't meet and the story lies in there. And like that gap is where people get drawn in. Sometimes that gap is defined by pain. Sometimes it's defined by love, by compassion, by service, by transcendence. You know, like it's not, it's less about the sort of like the driving emotion or whether they're suffering. It's more about the fact that that gap exists, that there is some surprise. There's a gap between what you expected to happen and the truth of what's actually happening and

how you fill that gap is what really draws people in. You don't have to create pain or endure suffering to make it compelling. So as we start to come full circle, are you working on your next one? Yes. How does it feel to be working on the second book after having such a major debut? Good. I want to keep working. I never get comfortable. I'm like, listen, Harper took a chance on me again, and they're going to get another fine book. And I have to make sure of that because it's an investment. But it feels good because I like working. I've always been that type. I've never liked type words. I remember when I got published in like a publication that I wanted to be in for so long, I was already revising another piece. I just I'm I am trained. It's just my mode.

Just my most. So it feels good to have something else to be working on and also to flex my skills. Like my next book is going to involve so much more reportage, so much more historical research, you know, incorporated into personal narratives. So that's, it's like, I feel like I am maturing as a writer in tandem with me maturing as a person. And it feels really good. Nah, I love that. Do you still have fiction in you somewhere? Oh yeah, no, I have a novel too.

So it was a two book deal. So doing narrative nonfiction next and then novel. Ah, very cool. I can't wait to read it. I'm very happy about that. Because I'm like, finally, my 14-year-old self is like, yes! It's like, I get to just completely make up something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Super cool. So as we sit here in the container of this Good Life Project, if I offer out the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life is to be vulnerable and be okay with heartbreak because you know that the risk will yield great returns somewhere. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life?

We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

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