How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - ON GRIEF… With Mo Gawdat and Bonnie Tyler

Starting point is 00:00:00 Okay, a breaking news, because I absolutely have to tell you about my new TV obsession, the Real Housewives of London, streaming from the 18th of August only on Hey You. It's going to be the talk of the summer. Trust me, you are not going to want to miss it. I have seen the trailer, I've got the BTS Goss, and let me tell you, if you're already a superfan like me or a newbie, prepare to be totally hooked. You probably already know that I love that. I love the the Real Housewives franchise. My favourites are Atlanta, an old school New York. Thanks so much for asking. And the Real Housewives of London is even more special as it's Hayu's first original series streaming every week. Why wait when you could join me and everyone else talking

Starting point is 00:00:46 about it now? Sign up for Hey You now to start watching the Real Housewives of London and see the drama unfold. A subscription is required and you'll need to be 18 plus. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Squarespace is here to support entrepreneurship and help turn your passion into a business. It does so with cutting-edge design, seamless check-out for customers with simple but powerful payment tools. It helps you turn leads into clients, allowing you to grow and communicate with your audience. Their customers include the dusty knuckle bakery and cafe in East London, And if you know, you know, their bread is amazing.

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Starting point is 00:02:11 With a brilliant back catalogue and years' worth of content and conversations, I wanted to revisit some of the most meaningful and powerful conversations. I know that these episodes have resonated with you because I hear from you all of the time about how certain insights or most moments have really shaped how you see life and have made you feel less alone. And it felt to me that maybe the best way of doing this was by theming the episodes and exploring different topics. So this week we're exploring a big one. We're exploring grief. First, we hear from one of our favorite guests of all time, the incredible Mogadat, who talks in the most inspiring

Starting point is 00:02:54 away about how he managed to reframe his mindset around his son Ali's death. Secondly, Bonnie Tyler speaks about her mum, losing her daughter, Bonnie's sister. These stories are raw, moving, unflinching, and in their own ways, beautifully uplifting. I hope they resonate with you as much as they did and do with me. Now, here's the trick. had a friend, I apologize if anyone listening to us is called Becky, I call my brain Becky. Okay? If you have a friend in school, Becky, who was so annoying, she showed up every seven minutes, told you awful things about yourself, made you feel horrible and then left with no

Starting point is 00:03:41 positive impact whatsoever on your life. Would you wake up the next morning, go to school and say, I miss Becky? Would you listen to Becky when she speaks? What would you do with Becky when she starts to do that? You'll say, no, Becky. Please don't do this to me. If Becky starts to tell you weird lies, you'll say, Becky, do you have any evidence to back this up? If Becky doesn't, Becky's a third party, you would say, Becky, this is crap. You don't have the right to waste my life on crap. And that's exactly what our brains do. I stop in the middle of a conversation.

Starting point is 00:04:14 I say to myself, Becky, what did you just say? Now, here's the interesting thing. It's not you talking to you, it's a biological organ talking to you, as horrible as that sounds. It's a three-pound lump of meat. Okay? The other interesting side of this is the following. If I give you a Ferrari, Ferraris are horrible cars,

Starting point is 00:04:33 if I give you a really good car, okay? And, you know, I tell you to go around the track with that car and you don't know how to drive, you're going to kill yourself and everyone else. Understand how that brain works. Now, we think there is one type of thought. As a matter of fact, there are three types of thought. The type of thought that makes us unhappy is incessant thinking.

Starting point is 00:04:52 Incessant thinking is basically your brain sounds, sounding the siren. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. That incessant thinking doesn't lead to anything, doesn't change anything in the real world. It happens in the midline areas of your brain. There are two other types of thoughts that are useful. One of them is insightful thinking and the other is experiential thinking. Insightful thinking is when you solve a problem. Experiential thinking is when you observe the world as it is. Okay? Those happen mostly on the right hand side of the brain, some in the prefrontal cortex, some in the insula and so on. Those kinds of thoughts are the thoughts you should allow your brain to give you.

Starting point is 00:05:28 And by the way, that's the attitude we use at work. If someone walks into my office and complains, I don't let them complain incessantly. Midway, I say, is there any information we're missing about this? Should we look at this differently? This is insightful thinking, okay, and experiential thinking. This is basically looking at the world as it is. Then I ask, what can we do about it? And that's exactly what I do with my brain.

Starting point is 00:05:50 Ali, my son, leaves our world. people think that I'm not given a choice I am given two choices one of them is to cry for the rest of my life and then 27 years later when I'm on my deathbed Ali will still not be there is that a wise choice

Starting point is 00:06:06 the other is to do something about it that doesn't bring him back nothing's going to bring him back it's the truth he left right but what I can do is I at least can make my life a little better and his life and the life of a billion people, a little better than the day he left.

Starting point is 00:06:25 Isn't that a better way of doing it? Now, of course, I feel pain. I miss him tremendously. But pain doesn't dictate how my brain tortures me. Pain is different than suffering. Pain is I remember him, I feel that I miss him. Suffering is my brain telling me you should have driven him to another hospital.

Starting point is 00:06:47 And my brain did, by the way. Okay? I allow my brain only two, types of thought. One is useful thinking and the other is joyful thinking. Anything else, I say Becky, stop, behave. Useful thinking. If my brain tells me you should have driven him to another hospital, I basically say to my brain, I cannot do this right now. Do you have something you want to tell me that I can do? I wish I could, but I cannot give me a useful thought. So my brain says, why don't we write the happiness model we learned with him? Share it with 10 million people was the

Starting point is 00:07:20 original target and make 10 million people remember him and love him and send him a happy wish that would be a good way to honor him great that's a great idea brain thank you that's how we should think right or a joyful thought until today i promise you three to four times a week i wake up in the morning or i go to bed at night and the only thought that comes to my head is ali died he's part of my heart it's just i feel that part of me is missing right i answer in a very simple way and I say, yes, brain, but Ali also lived. Do you understand that? Ali died is a horribly painful thought.

Starting point is 00:07:58 Ali lived is the same thought, but it's a beautiful thought. It's 21 years of joy, of wisdom, of learning, of insightful discoveries, of memories of him taking care of Aya, taking care of me, taking care of his mother, that I wouldn't replace for anything. Honestly, even if you tell me, we'll take away your pain for losing your son, I wouldn't say, no, no, hold on, I want him. I want the 21 years. Don't lie to me, brain.

Starting point is 00:08:29 Don't lie to me. But think about those. Because when I say, Ali lived, I start to get memories that are all happy, all joyful, all things that we did together. That's me being the boss. That's me telling my brain to take charge so that if there is something we can do, we do it. If there isn't, then don't torture me. Because there is no point to torture me

Starting point is 00:08:52 if there is nothing I can do about it. Mo, that is so beautiful. Thank you so much for expressing that with such eloquence and passion. You say you have three sisters and two brothers. Yeah. There was another sister. Oh, yes.

Starting point is 00:09:15 Pauline. Yeah. Pauline was. still born. My mother never, ever got over Pauline dying, you know. She was full term, you know, nine months, I can't, do you know, the thing you see, when you're young and you told that you would have had another sister, but she was still born, it doesn't, it doesn't sink in what actually my mother actually must have gone through carrying a baby for all those nine months. months. And then nothing at the end of it. It must have been traumatic. But she never really

Starting point is 00:09:56 showed us her pain, but it must have been terrible for her. But she never did get over it. And she always, whenever people said, how many children do you have? And she always counted Pauline, you know. And actually, in 2020, my brother, my eldest brother died, Lynn. He was so proud he was you know he was wonderful and he wasn't ready to go he was enjoying his life you know he loved life he loved his kids he loved his grandkids and he just died in his sleep i'm so sorry you know and now it was awful shock awful shock oh anyway sorry i'm so sorry oh well you know he had a wonderful life and i know he's in a good place but it was a terrible shock. Yes. And so you could relate, presumably, even more to what your mother must have been

Starting point is 00:10:52 through. Yeah. Yeah. You know, because... Yeah. At least he's with my mother and father. Now I'm Pauline and, you know. Will you tell me the story of the father Christmas napkin? Oh, right. Oh, God. I'm sorry, I read it and it was so beautiful. Yeah, I know. But my mother, She died of Alzheimer's, bless her. And shortly before she... We don't have to talk about it. I'd be all right now. Okay.

Starting point is 00:11:32 Shortly before she, you know, got really bad with Alzheimer's. She was at my house and it was near Christmas, I suppose, because I had these placemats on the table that they had like a Father Christmas on them and like a pocket where you put the napkin in and it was very Christmas here, you know. And she folded it up into a all the way into like a little triangle. It was a linen place mat that you put over the placemat, you know. and she folded it up into like a little triangle and she gave it to me in my hand and she said

Starting point is 00:12:21 when I go please put this in my coffin right I said mom don't talk like that you know I want you to put it in my coffin She said, because I want to give Pauline something when I get there, she said, in there? Oh, God. Anyway, so she, I did it, along with us all, putting little things in coffee,

Starting point is 00:12:59 you know, photographs, like as you do, you know. But she wanted me to do that, so I did it. And I still got one. You had a tear as well. I've still got one in my house. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I'm so sorry.

Starting point is 00:13:19 Oh, gosh. Oh, I had the best mother in the world, though. I know we all say we got the best mother, but I did. Yeah. She was an angel. Please do follow how to fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast.

Starting point is 00:13:46 Thank you so much for listening.

How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - ON GRIEF… With Mo Gawdat and Bonnie Tyler

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