How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S17 BONUS EPISODE: Rachel Cargle on reimagining the life we want to live.

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

TW: A heads-up that we talk about racism in this episode, and that we mention the murder of George Floyd and how this impacted Rachel's anti-racism work.Rachel Cargle is a public academic, activist and author. Her debut book, A Renaissance of Our Own, is out TODAY and asks us to have the courage to live life according to our own values, rather than the ones we might have inherited or been conditioned to believe in. She joins me to talk about her anti-racism work, the 'weathering' effect such work has on Black bodies and her new-found understanding ease and joy have to form part of the same fight for equity. We also discuss her upbringing as the child of a disabled single mother, her divorce, her decision to be childfree, what happened when she dropped out of conventional academia, as well as her failures in business and what they have ended up teaching her about who she is.Rachel is one of those people I just want to sit and listen to for hours. I barely had to ask any questions because I realised, very quickly, that the most powerful thing was simply for me to shut up and hear her speak.--Rachel's book, A Renaissance of Our Own, is out today and available to order here.--How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail]--Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpodRachel Cargle @rachel.cargle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and

journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Rachel Cargill is a public academic, activist and author, a woman whose influential work has made clear the power of unlearning. Unlearning, that is, in the sense of questioning context and social conditioning, in the sense of decolonising bodies and minds from generations of racism and white supremacy. Cargill was raised by a black disabled single mother and grew up with a strong Christian faith. After a protest photo of her taken at the 2017 Women's March in Washington DC went viral, her public prominence prompted a re-evaluation of feminism and how it historically excluded black women. As Cargill embarked on her

own journey of knowledge, she shared her findings with a growing online community. On Instagram, which is where I first came across her extraordinary work, she now has over 1.6 million followers. The Great Unlearn, her academic community, is an invaluable resource for the curious autodidact. As the CEO of the Loveland Group, which encompasses several businesses and a non-profit offering free mental health care to black women and girls, Cargill can add entrepreneur to her ever-growing CV. But she rails against the girl boss ideology, refreshingly insistent that rest, joy and pleasure are essential components to the continuing fight for equity. joy, and pleasure are essential components to the continuing fight for equity. As she writes in her debut book, A Renaissance of Our Own, struggle isn't the only place where our work must be done. Rachel Cargill, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, thank you for that introduction. I am so delighted and so honored. I feel that I have learned so much from you. And I really value

the chance to get to thank you for that myself. Because I know this work comes at a personal cost. And I wanted to start by asking how you are today. How are your energy levels? I'm doing well. I'm back in New York City. May is heavy. It's a heavy month for me, the month of May. I'm coming up on my first Mother's Day since my mother has passed. So that is, you know, the weights of that is here. Her birthday was a few days ago as well. And May is the month that my first book is coming out into the world. So I'm really surfing the highs and lows of my emotions and feelings. I'm in this ongoing balance of grief and gratefulness, and I find the value very much so in both of those. And so I'm just resting in wherever I've been landing lately, one or the

other. And I'm really excited to be in conversation with you. These moments of community and conversation are a salve for me. And they really are wonderful conduits into a softness in life right now that is sometimes hard to find. What a beautiful answer. And what wisdom in those words. I'm so sorry for your loss. And I know how profoundly your mother shaped you and you write about her a lot in your book and very movingly and you also posted something on Instagram recently because I know

it's American Mother's Day coming up which I felt so seen by as someone who is child free but not by choice I always really value how you have this quality of intersectionalism to your work, where you always take a personal starting point, but you expand it and it's so accessible and generous. So thank you for all of that. But let's talk about reimagining because that is a continuous theme through a renaissance of our own. And I understand that you actually reimagined the book in the process of writing it. So tell us a bit about that. Yes, I signed this book deal in 2018. anti-racism book in the style of the writing and the work I was doing at that time that was

directly associated with exploring racism within the feminist movement. And the work that I was doing online in that space was filled with a lot of the righteous anger that I had for justice that was needed within the feminist movement, within society as a whole, looking at the ways one of the first pieces I ever wrote about this conversation of race within feminism was a title called Feminism is Just White Supremacy and Heals, and really feeling very strongly about the justice that needed to be and continues to have necessity to be called out in that space. And so that was what the book was going to be centered in. That's what I had signed the book for at that time when I was in the midst of doing that very specific work. Then as I

continued to write and 2020 came about, I was continuing to do my work in this space when there were these racial uprisings in America around the murder of George Floyd. And it was another intensive time of me writing and speaking and being in conversation, very heated conversations oftentimes about the need to insist that Black Lives Matter. And in 2020, I got to a point where I said, if I do not make a decision about how this work flows through me, I will dissolve. There's a weathering that happens to your system when you're constantly in what I was in, the storm of racism, the way that many people of color, particularly Black people in America, feel on a day-to-day basis of microaggressions, of macroaggressions, of just the ways we have to prove ourselves, our humanity

over and over again in big and small ways day to day. And I reached out to my publisher and I said, I have to do something different. If I'm to survive and be able to continue to do this work, I have to reimagine what this work is because it was never that I wanted to do different work. I just had to do it in a way that didn't weather me. And my friend, Ebony Janice, often says, Rachel, you too are the Black girl you're fighting for. You can't be doing this work and completely ignoring what your needs are. And I had to consider what my needs were and really reimagine who I could be as someone who was fighting a fight with conviction and with the intensity that it deserved and it not be something that left me to wash up on the shore after. I have a banner

hanging here in my living room and it says, I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. That this fight isn't just something that I am hoping will happen one day at some time. I deserve my freedom. I deserve my ease. I deserve my softness. I deserve my wellness now. And so I have to incorporate that into my understanding of liberation, that into my understanding of the fight too.

And so the book shapeshifted into a memoir on reimagining. It's funny because the book still is this space where I teach, where I share, where I invite people to be critical, where I invite people to take on frameworks to aid them in order to care for myself as well, in order to give everyone a soft place to land to make these critical considerations. And I hope that is what readers take from it. I certainly did. It really made me think and it made me feel welcome and seen. And one of the things that you write about is trying to identify what your three highest values are. And yours are ease, abundance and opportunity, which I thought were terrific. I wanted to ask you how you arrived at them because you inspired me to find my own. And it's been really helpful. But tell me how you arrived at those three.

Yeah, you know, I see highest values as these throughways, these conduits to our chosen selves. Oftentimes, society hands us so much of what we understand about ourselves, so much of what we value, so much of the direction towards goals. And I find highest values to be a landscape for us to say, wait, what are my goals? Because I don't want to be running a race towards a milestone that isn't even applicable to me. I think it's so funny when I ask people, what's your definition of success? And often they'll go with our collective understanding of success that was handed to us either by capitalism, by patriarchy, by all of these isms that don't represent hopefully what our actual values are.

So when people are saying, I'd love a big house, I'd love a few cars, I'd love this particular type of marriage, I'd love to have kids. And then I ask them and I say, well, how does that align with what you really value? And when they think about it, it's like, well, actually, I'd really love a small cabin

in the mountains with no children and just 20 dogs. And then that completely changes the way that they show up in the world. Are they going to stress about climbing the corporate ladder? Probably not. They might find a craft that can make them the amount of money to let them live well instead of trying to constantly get more. Are they going to stress about what is expected from them from family? If they can just go to their family and say, I hear what you're requesting from me, but it doesn't align with my values. And who's going to argue with you about your values? That might give you insight into the type of people you want in your world.

And so really taking the time to know yourself and find your values. I find it to be kind. I find knowing yourself to be one of the kindest things you can do in relationship to yourself, to perhaps lovers, to friends, to community, to comrades in the work that you do towards liberation, towards justice. This knowingness gives you a clear lane to do your work. And for me, it strengthens my yeses. It strengthens my no's. I've been sharing that anyone with a book coming, you know, this is my first book. I'm feeling a lot of comparison. I'm looking at everyone else who has a book coming out. I'm looking at all the pre-reader

reviews. I'm looking at what media someone else got and what opportunities other people are having. And my highest values have been the strongest tool for me to combat these really hard feelings because I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't even really want to be doing these things that they're doing. Those things that they're doing clearly speak to their values and it shows and I'm so happy for them. And instead of sitting in spaces of comparison or jealousy, I'm able to say, oh, actually doing that wouldn't even give me ease. So it's not anything for me to really feel lusty over or me to really feel

jealous about. Or for me to say, oh, they're actually getting this opportunity, this really big opportunity that goes to an audience that I'm actually not even interested in being in conversation with. And it really allows me to just be happy for people doing the things that align with their values and doing the things that align with my values. And it's really such a beautiful calibration device. It's really such a beautiful tug back to center. When you take the time to know yourself, when you take the time to find out your highest values and use those as a lens to move through the world. Oh, I think that's so powerful. That's so good.

And I think you've touched on something there because I'm someone who I've always felt inherently competitive and comparative. And of late, and it's taken me a long time to get here, I've realized that one of my highest values after reading A Renaissance of Our Own, I've decided is space. Space, creativity creativity and love.

They're my three. And actually, I think that we have been sold a lie by the capitalist producer system that we have to win everyone over in some way. And actually, there's so much power in acknowledging and being grateful for the audience that you have and the audience that you speak to, the audience that get you. And I know that you say in this book, and it's such a zinger of a line, anti-racism isn't a self-help practice for white people. That this book is intentionally addressed to black women, albeit I got so much from it. But can we unpack that quote a bit more? Because I think it's so riveting anti-racism isn't a self-help practice for white people what do you mean by that exactly

Rachel yes well I think that in my anti-racism work I've seen the ways that white people and anyone with privilege and in this space that's working with white people enjoy this opportunity for a checklist to feel better about their positionality. You feel better when you can say, I've done all the things, I've checked all the boxes, I've read all the books, I've donated to all the organizations, I've asked myself all of the questions.

And I recognize that people were approaching it in the same way they might approach being more organized in their homes or their approach to time management. Being anti-racist is not a self-help space. This is a societal situation. This is a critical conversation. This is not a space for white people to feel better about themselves and move on with their lives. It is a collective effort to shift, to reimagine, to completely undo what exists and make something better. And it cannot be in a passive checklist task-based way. I talk in the book about having a radical empathy, an empathy that is not saying, I'm so sorry for what you're going through. I see you and I hear you in your pain. It's saying, I see you and I hear you in your pain, and I'm going to start to consider how I

play into your pain. What is it about how I get to exist in the world that affects how you get to exist in the world? And that type of radical empathy changes us. We cannot be the same if we now have an understanding that the way that I am able to move through the world directly affects the way that you are not able to move through the world. And that also is a knowing, a self-knowing, a thoughtfulness to say, what is the fact that I am neurotypical, that I have an education, that I have access to food and good food, that I wasn't going through a foster system, or I don't have a disability. All of these things play into how I must be considerate of how other people are experiencing those things. And it's not enough to just know about it. It's not enough to talk

about it or intellectualize it. We do it with our feelings too. Sometimes we feel like if I think about the feeling, then that means that I've processed the feeling. And that is not true. As any of us go through our healing journeys, processing and taking on grief, sadness, anger, rage, jealousy is very different than just understanding it. And so there has to be a visceral body engagement with the issue. It's not simply a checklist to get through or an opportunity for white people to get a sticker saying they've done it and to move on to whatever else they might find important in their worlds. You cannot marry condo white supremacy. I think I like that. So well put. Before I get onto your failures, I would love to know what eight-year-old Rachel was like. Oh, eight-year-old Rachel was a reader. She was reading a lot. I loved learning. I loved

to play teacher. Playing teacher was one of my favorite things. I actually write in the book about how I loved creating, which is so funny because it's essentially what I do a lot now. I love creating syllabi. I love creating worksheets. I loved creating, which is so funny because it's essentially what I do a lot now. I love creating syllabi. I love creating worksheets. I loved creating questions for my teddy bear students to answer. I really did enjoy those things. I was very active. I loved playing soccer.

I played soccer a lot. My mother had a disability, so she stayed home. So I was very up under my mother often and all the time. And my mother had polio. And so one of the ways that my mother would most easily play with me is that she would sit on the floor. That was the only way we couldn't like run around together or anything like that. So my mom would often be on the floor doing puzzles with me or showing me yoga poses. You know, I had a big relationship with my mother in that way.

So eight-year-old me was very rooted in play and in learning. And I'm proud to carry her a little bit right now into my career. I was about to say, you strike me as someone who feels very connected to her child self in the most powerful way. Very much so. I write about it because it is also a tool that has held me in a lot of ways, It is also a tool that has held me in a lot of ways, this relationship to my younger self and to my older self, this belief that I have some information inside of me coming from these two versions of myself that I might not always be able to see now. And in reverse, particularly as I begin to really heal with and through the grief of losing my mother and how there are many ways I must reparent myself to gain better tools and skills to move through the world in ways my

mother just couldn't offer me as a poor Black disabled woman in the world. Being in relationship, holding space for, holding compassion for my younger self has been life-changing. And it also has really moved me to be in relationship with my older self, who I believe is somewhere on another timeline, holding space for me now, seeing me go through my hard things now and feeling like I have kind of this version of me who's tending to me. And I tend to her too. I often talk about how it's a wonderful meditative moment to step out of the shower and lotion my often talk about how it's a wonderful meditative moment to step out of the shower and lotion my body knowing that it's the skin that my older self will live in.

Being in relationship with her in a very visceral way has been really important for me too. Do you think that need to reparent your inner child played a part in your decision not to have children yourself? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I have been a caretaker my whole life. Being born to a disabled parent kind of puts you in that space a bit immediately. And then my mother ended up taking many children into our home, my nieces and nephews, a cousin of mine. And I became a bit of an involuntary co-parent in a way to supporting my mom to support these children that she had taken custody of. And a lot of my childhood trauma centers around I was the most functioning person in the household often, even more so than my older sisters who had their own battles with addiction. And what that meant was that my needs, because they were few, were rarely prioritized. And I didn't have much sovereignty in how I moved through the

world because it had to be in service to everyone else in a way that my mother did in a very self-sacrificing way that I don't think I would have chosen myself. And so now as an adult, I relish in being able to choose how I move through my day, how I spend my time, how I spend my energy. And sometimes the way that I spend my energy is really caring for myself in a way that my mother just couldn't, in a way that my father didn't have access to even show me how to care for myself. And by caring for myself, I don't just mean my wellbeing, but also my joy and my pleasure and the way that I use my time and my space and my decision not to have children really was out of me wanting to hold on to that autonomy in a way that my younger self just couldn't. And I really feel so certain and feel secure and excited for all of the ways that I get to reparent myself with the time that I have.

Even, you know, my mother, she walked on crutches. And so it was very hard for her to get up and down the stairs. And so as a child, whenever I was sick and I stayed in the bed, my mother never really came to take care of me while I was sick. I had to come downstairs and, you know, get the food and go back upstairs. I, you know, thinking of things, my mom just couldn't care for me in that way. And so one of the biggest things that I think about every time that I'm sick and every time that I'm able to take care of myself or every time that I'm able to call someone to come care for me, I'm so grateful that I don't have children of my own to care for in the midst of being sick. Cause I really want to have a sick day. I really want to care for myself in a way that my mom just wasn't able to. Me having child-free

sick days is powerful to me in my own healing. And I think that sort of thoughtfulness for myself, like I said, this knowing is a kindness that maybe in another lifetime, I have a husband and five kids and I love that version of myself. But I think I'd be regretful to not get to really deep dive into this single child-free New York City writer version of myself that I can take on and indulge in this time. Well, talking of a husband and five kids brings us neatly onto your first failure, which is you were married and you got divorced. To a man at that. To a man, to a military man. It was so unexpected when I read about it in the book. And I think you

do a beautiful job of writing about him kindly. And I speak to you as a fellow divorcee, and I'm not sure that I would have paid quite the same kind respect to my ex. But let's talk about your marriage ending, because I know that you don't view it as a failure. And I completely understand why. Why did you choose it? Because I know so many people do. I know so many people absolutely see it as a failure. And I guess in retrospect, it was. It was the failure of this thing that we were trying. But a failure, I found it as a conduit to the next thing. When something falls, it opens some space.

And so it was a failure for that version of myself, who at the time was a young Christian woman who understood my value really to be in the hands of a man who might choose me to marry him and who would give me a space to feel seen and validated by the community as worthy in the way that we often find a woman who is convinced or found a man who finds her worthy of being a wife. And all of these understandings of myself from outside sources compounded into me feeling like getting married was what would be best for me, regardless of any other perspectives. And it was a wonderful marriage. It was wonderful. He was a wonderful person. He still is a wonderful person, as you read from me in the book. And he's still in Ohio where I wanted to perhaps,

you know, I wanted to fly away and get into a bigger city and do other things. And I'm so happy he's doing exactly what he wanted to do. And I'm doing exactly what I wanted to do. That's also the knowing the values to be able to make decisions that really could change things. And that decision of me knowing that that marriage wasn't where I really wanted to be changed things. And so it certainly would have been a failure if that version of me who went into the marriage saw it and said like, oh, we didn't do what we set out to do. And I think this version of me is recognizing it as certainly the beginning of a whole other storyline that came out of my life in that moment. But my mother certainly saw it as

a failure. Other young women who maybe even now, peers of mine who haven't yet gotten the opportunity to get married or been proposed to, which I think a lot of us are really just looking for someone to tell us we're wifeable, not so much that we are insistent on getting married, but that validation means something to so many still. And so they see it as a failure, you know, perhaps that I let go of something that they so much would love to have or experience or be validated in. So I think it can be both at the same time. How much soul searching did you have to do before you had the conversation with your ex that you felt your marriage was over? Oh, so much soul searching. So much soul searching. That started before I even got married.

I felt the seed of it before I even got married. And I allowed every other influence to quell that because it felt safest for me. And I do not blame, you know, 19 year old Rachel for moving into what felt safe for her. And it felt safe to do this thing that was celebrated, that had a structure to it that I could follow, that had, you know, my ex-husband, he would tell me that like he knew I was the woman who was supposed to be his wife, you know, this compelling seduction of someone desiring you in that way. And it offered me an opportunity, that seed that I couldn't ignore. It kept kind of knocking and saying, but what about, but remember this,

remember this, remember this. And I don't know what the remembering was, what it was trying to convince me of, but it was a bit of, remember that you have the option to stay true to yourself. Remember that you have the option. It wasn't necessarily telling me to leave,

but it was telling me to remember that there's possibility. So it's kind of teasing me about whether I would make the jump towards possibility or I would stay with the safety. And I wrote a piece recently where I'm talking about, it would have been my 10 year anniversary with him this year. And I wrote a piece kind of speaking to it. And the piece talks about decisions unmade and how I really believe that if I would have stayed in the marriage, I would have been excitedly this year celebrating 10-year marriage to a wonderful man. I might've had kids. We might've still been living in Ohio. We might've built something

out that we love. And I think I would have been a great wife and a wonderful mother. And I think I would have had a great marriage, but I had options and I had my own values and I had an opportunity to do something that was much more true and not just the thing that was handed to me. And so I'm grateful for that self-questioning, for those hard conversations I had to have with myself. My husband used to go to work during the day and I would literally walk to a local church and just sit in the pews and cry in the sanctuaries. At the time I was a Christian. And so I was just begging for any answer, any sign that I was in the right place or

that I should go. It's funny because I feel like I never got an answer per se in the way that I would have preferred. And I had to come to a conclusion. And I felt that powerful muscle of coming to a conclusion about yourself for yourself really propelled me to make bigger, bolder decisions moving forward. And it really was a gift. Do you think you were brave? Is that a word that you would attach to your decision? Yeah, I think it was brave. I would certainly call myself brave because of the fact that I

didn't have any resources of my own. I knew that I was coming out of a situation that was very safe and very financially secure. I had no degree. I had no money saved. I hadn't necessarily been working. His mother had a daycare. I'd work there sometimes and I had never paid a bill before. I went straight from college to getting married, living with my husband. I had no real world experience. So I think I was a bit brave in assuming that I could figure it out. So the end of your marriage prompted the first phase of your self-exploration. What did that consist of for you? It was a lot of curiosity, a lot of reading, a lot of studying. I think one of the first steps to understanding ourselves is to study others who we find value in or who move us. And so I took a lot of time

studying other women in particular who reflected to me how I wanted to live in the world, whether it was because of what they were able to do or who they were, the personalities that they had, do or who they were, the personalities that they had, the characteristics that they took on, their personal style, how they related to their communities. The first leg of my deep self exploration really started in studying and looking at clues from other women on how could I exist in the world? What options did I have? What was possible? And I think that's what definitely led me to be a feminist because I was just so incredibly moved by all of the powerful women I was reading about and learning from. I think what is so interesting and helpful about that first failure that you've chosen is that I imagine there will be people listening to this who do feel stuck in a marriage or a relationship,

but they don't feel that their own instinct about it is enough of a reason to leave or dismantle it. And I really value you saying that actually that seed, that sort of knocking seed is very much worth paying attention to because to go back to your previous point, there's a kindness to it. To know yourself is also to be able to show up for others and to enable others to live their most authentic lives. Absolutely. And I mean, the truest truth, if you think about it, is that he wasn't right for me, then I'm not right for him. And it's unfair to keep him in a space where it's very clear that we're not right for each other. And it's kind to release people to go and find what's true for them. Because if I really had the feeling that he is not right for me, then it wouldn't make sense that I would be right for him.

And I told him in the moment that I told him that I would be leaving the marriage, I said, you deserve someone who feels sure of you. And I'm excited for you to experience that type of love because it just can't pour out of me because it's not true for me. And so I would like to also feel that way towards someone. And it's only fair that we release each other to go find that and have the opportunity to have something more true and deeper. and deeper. Peyton, it's happening. We're finally being recognized for being very online.

It's about damn time. I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo. All the time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions,

if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second, then join me, Hunter Harris, and me, Peyton Dix, the host of Wondery's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mess, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like, it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides, Don't you worry.

The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise. Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History,

a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Join me and world-leading experts every week as we explore the incredible real-life history that inspires the locations, the characters, and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. Listen and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. So you mentioned your curiosity there and the amount of autodidactic education that you were doing. Your second failure is dropping out of Columbia, which is one of the most prestigious higher education institutions in America, if not the world. Tell us first the story of how you got into Columbia. I was working as a nanny in New York City and the little girl who I would care for would go to her Girl Scout troop meetings at the church right across the street from the campus. And me, you know, a poor black girl growing up in the Midwest of the United States,

I had never heard of Columbia. I wasn't aware of it. I didn't understand the prestige of it. And what really pulled me in when I, you when I recognized it and kind of looked into it was that the prolific Black woman anthropologist and writer Zora Neale Hurston attended there. And at that time, I was really enjoying studying Black women who did race work, particularly in the past. And so I was intrigued. And then I learned about the prestige of Columbia. And I was also curious by the possibility of if I could get in. I had already dropped out of school to get married once, and I didn't have any other education. And I was kind of intrigued and seduced by this idea that I might be able to get into an Ivy

League school to study something that was really pulling me at the moment and continues to be such a central theme in my work. I applied and I got in and it was a really special and exciting moment of affirmation in the way that institutions often affirm us, yet they shouldn't. But also, it again was another lane of possibility of like how I could learn, where I could learn, who I could meet and what I could do in my own interest of career. And Columbia was a really special place to be for the time I was there. There's this fascinating passage in your book where you talk about being shown into the library at Columbia and you realize that you are surrounded by a wealth of knowledge, but a wealth that is guarded by elite white institutions. Can you tell us about that moment? It's bizarre. It's so bizarre to me how these universities and institutions work so hard to gather, analyze, create knowledge, and then it's not accessible

to the public. I just don't know who they're doing it for or what they're doing it for. And it becomes this very eerie situation of holding knowledge and power for a society or for a culture that you say you are both part of and invested in, yet it is behind paywalls or actual the walls of the university that no one else can get through. And it's very eerie that all of that is being held in a space where it could be used even more so by politicians and how they're making laws by individuals to understand the world better. This knowledge being dispersed and accessible could really change how we all move through the world. And it was very off-putting to walk into the Columbia Library in particular because it's so beautiful. It's so grandiose. I was just all tingly excited about all the things I could read, all the things I could write,

all the connections I could make, all the knowledge I could gain. And it was very much so it had this cloud of eeriness over it for me because it's just an unfortunate use of power that isn't serving. What was your experience of Columbia for the year that you were there? I was able to sign up for some really wonderful courses that challenged me and added to the material of my knowledge. One of them was looking at sexuality and gender in West African culture and being able to find some new language and understanding about queerness and indigenous communities on the African continent and how that relates to our understanding of queerness, gender, sex here in

the U.S. or in Western culture. I took a wonderful writing course that was taught to me by a graduate student and she really supported me in my craft of writing. I don't have a degree. And so my writing that everyone sees in the world is really just whatever's on my little heart. And so I was really invested in the craft and looking to find ways to be a better writer, be a better writer and hone that. And so I really enjoyed sitting and thinking.

And whenever we'd be assigned a work, I always took it from a Black feminist angle. And she always gave me such wonderful feedback. And I was able to grow a lot in that space. I remember taking another course, and I can't remember the name of it right now. But what I loved about that course is that the teacher was willing and exciting for us to be critical about the university itself, that he invited us to challenge what we understood about the university and how it related to the culture and the society that surrounded it. And I found the classroom, you know, I was older. I was, I think, 28 when I was there taking

undergraduate courses with these younger students. And I feel like the students were just as prolific teachers to me as the actual professor at the front of the room. So I feel like the students were just as prolific teachers to me as the actual professor at the front of the room. So I value the classroom so much, so, so much. It is just another one of those shaky bridges that you have to decide whether you want to cross with the underbelly of racism, the alligators of racism below the, you know, the planky bridge. It came down to that decision for me. So talking about that shaky bridge and beyond the classroom, there were a few things that struck a sort of horror into you as they should have done. One was, I think it was an induction talk where they said something about how they've not changed since 1893. Is that

right? I don't want to misquote, but another one was an incident involving a young black man called Alexander McNabb. And I would love you to tell us about those two things. Yes. So the first one was, as you said, during orientation and they were giving us the tour and, you know, doting on the university. And it was a white woman who was giving the tour at the time. And she said, you know, we're so proud that we've maintained the history of the university. Sometimes when you step on campus, you feel like you're right in the 1890s. And I remember me and another Black student being like, why on earth would she say that? And if that's the truth, then I need to rethink the fact that I'm here.

And if that's the truth, then I need to rethink the fact that I'm here. And that kind of tone deafness, that type of lack of consideration really concerned me. And then, of course, the incident with Alexander McNabb was what ultimately had me leave the university, not only because of the way he was mistreated by the guards, the security guards on campus, where they assumed he was a random black man just trying to get access to the library, but he was an actual student who had every right to be in that space, yet they had wrangled him and accosted him, then the way that the university responded to it was really a nail in the coffin, so to say, because the response essentially was, you know, we're working harder at diversity and we invite students to join these diversity groups. And it's like, well, it's not the students, it's your staff and you need to fire them and you need to make a declaration that you will not accept any forms of racism. And that lack of critical, thoughtful response moved me to leave the

university and start reimagining my own education and pursuing something much more autodidactic and much more rooted in my values and the people I actually want to be learning from. You also make the excellent point that part of your decision-making was shaped by the fact that this institution, along with many others, whilst they might have lots of courses and workshops for students from different backgrounds, students of colour, to know how the institution runs and how to quote unquote fit in, actually what they should be doing is introducing anti-racism workshops for the white student body so that we are not racist in what we do. And I just thought that that was a really necessary point to make. When you left Columbia, it really was the start

of the person you are now in so many respects, isn't it? Because you essentially invented your own syllabus for life. Oh, yes, maybe. Yeah, I think I might agree with that. So tell me more about how you started sharing what you were doing online. You know, I really feel like my work is to think, learn and feel out loud and to invite others to join me. And leaving Columbia, I had to start getting creative about how I'd want to learn and not just learn, but learn critically. And without the shape of an institution holding me, I could be more pointed in what I wanted to learn and who I wanted to learn from.

And I started to take on these subjects that I was interested in, everything from the real birth story of America. What is this without the whitewashed lens of the celebration of the founding fathers? What don't I understand yet? What can I know to give me a better context for what I'm experiencing now? Looking at the history of black cowboys in the American West and how they helped shape our understanding and our ranch culture and how we were able to tend to the land, looking at the ways Indigenous people use their fire knowledge to help control the wildfires happening in California and when and why they have and haven't been heard by the government, even with their wealth of knowledge.

These are the conversations I want to be having, and I want to be learning them from indigenous people, from Black people, from disabled people, from these voices that often are quieted because white male voices are centered and celebrated as the canon. I'm very intrigued by what another canon will look like. That gives us the baseline for our understanding of the world. I really did have to create a syllabus for myself and my work ended up being inviting others to join me along in that. You quote your mother in this chapter of the book saying, you can't build your truth on what other people think, which I loved.

I almost wanted to print that out and laminate it and frame it for myself. That idea of removing yourself from the colonization of other people's opinions and other people's version of history is a very potent one. Your third failure are your first attempts at business. So why did you choose this one? What kind of failures did you have? Oh, I had so many failures. I had so many failures. My first attempt at business was right after my divorce. And it was my first time making money by myself and for myself. And I was both thrilled and terrified. And one of the easiest things for me to do, I was 23 at the time. One of the easiest things for me to do was babysit.

And so outside of my office job, I was doing this like side hustle of babysitting to try to make money. All of my friends, of course, were starting their graduate programs and starting their PhD programs. And so I was very intimidated by who I would be in the world next to these people who seemingly got a head start on me since I had spent so much time away being married so young. And one of the first spaces of agency for me was financially. And so I started to really look into entrepreneurship and be curious about whether it was something I could do or wanted to do. And it became a challenge for me not only to be able to support myself financially, but to also I thought the coolest thing about entrepreneurship was that I could also pay other women.

I just thought that was so exciting that I could create something that would benefit us. And I just thought that was so exciting that I could create something that would benefit us. So I ended up babysitting and I would like make these forms and try to create these processes. And I would get so much critical feedback from these parents who were like, no, that's not going to work. Or no, this isn't what it should look like. And even all of the ways that your ideas feel good in your head, but they don't look good on paper. They don't look good in real life. And these failures really shaped me as a designer of things, as someone who creates something. And I really enjoyed the opportunity. Business has always felt like a space of creativity to me. It felt like an art form to me, a place to be creative. And so I failed in so many ways.

I had so many spaces that I had to deeply apologize to people who I failed in one way or another. And to get a, I hate to say thicker skin because I don't necessarily feel like it's a thicker skin, but I had to be able to weather the criticism that would refine me. And so as I continued to grow and learn in business, I had to get comfortable with sitting in a space of knowing nothing. I would sit in front of my lawyer, or even with the foundation, I would sit in front of my advisor and they'd say, Rachel, that thing can't work. That's not how it is. Or for them to be talking to me to be like, wait, I don't know that word.

Wait, I don't know that concept. It was so hard. It's so hard to have to sit with what you don't know. But I had two businesses before I created Loveland. And it was a babysitter placement agency, which I really enjoyed the opportunity to serve parents and pay mostly other women to be doing the work. And then I had the same business model with virtual assistants where I would match really high end executives in New York City with administrative support in my hometown of Ohio and getting them really good jobs and getting them really good support. really good support and neither of those were able to grow the way maybe they would with my understanding now but they certainly ushered me into how I understand myself to be as an

entrepreneur and a businesswoman. So how do you set up a business then having learned what you did how did you go about setting up Loveland what were the things that you knew you had to get right? up, Loveland, what were the things that you knew you had to get right? It again started with studying other people, with studying and seeing who was doing something that inspired me and how could I, as I say in the book, take the meat and throw out the bones of their approach, take what applies to me, take what aligns with my values and try to build out something of my own. And I studied Oprah a lot. I was so intrigued by the fact that Oprah, aside from who she is, who we understand her to be in the world,

I was really just intrigued. Like, how does she get to, she seems to do whatever she wants. She seems to have so much fun. I was like, she has a TV network and she has a pizza. Like, how does that work that she just has this space to do whatever she wants? And I wanted that type of freedom,

that type of sovereignty in my career. And so I really looked into not what Oprah was doing, but the shape of her company. And so I really modeled the shape of my company after Harpo, which is her umbrella company that holds all of her other ventures. And so that's what the Loveland Group has been, an umbrella company that gives me space to create businesses that align with not only my values, but whatever I might be interested in at the moment. So if it's something new that I want to run for three years, it can happen under the same umbrella as where my bookstore is living, as where my online learning platform is living. I really studied and looked around at these entrepreneurs and I was interested in the

shape of their company because as an entrepreneur, I'm less interested in what I do, but how I feel. I feel like I could do anything. I could do many things. I have a bookstore. I could have an ice cream shop. I could have, you know, there's many ways that I could do my work, but I'm interested in how I want to feel in it.

And I wanted to feel grounded. I wanted to feel meaningful. I wanted to feel in it. And I wanted to feel grounded. I wanted to feel meaningful. I wanted to feel free. And I value so much that I called it Loveland because I really see my career as a landscape, as opposed to a lane I have to be in or some race I have to run. I really view Loveland as this landscape. And there's these plots of land that I get to tend to. My bookstore is a plot of land. The foundation's a plot of land. I invite people to help me till the ground of this space. I can plant new things if I want to. I can expand and I can grow or I can make it smaller. And I can, you know, there's a expansiveness and knowingness. And I think that Loveland has become this landscape that I feel very grateful to get

to tend to. I love that image of a business as a landscape. Can I ask you just a really prosaic question? Do you worry about money? Because when you are an entrepreneur and when you are a CEO, you have many people's livelihoods depending on you. Yes, you do. I'd be so stressed. You do. You do have a lot of people to consider. stressed. You do. You do have a lot of people to consider. And yes, I think, yes, I am stressed. To answer your question, yes, there absolutely is stress. And I think that in capitalism, which is a whole other podcast, but you know, that is a necessity to keep you a little bit stressed to keep you doing the work. So I think we all feel that by design, not because of anything being wrong with us, but by design, capitalism insists that we stay a little bit stressed to keep doing the work that it wants from us. I do feel that pressure. I'll

speak to one of the really special things about my company as well, is that when I started to explore what a career might look like for me, who I might be in the world, I used to have these team Rachel meetings where I would invite all of the people who believed in me, all of the people who had proven that they believed in the work that I was doing. So this was like, you know, my lawyer who was giving me some pro bono work, the PR agent who was offering me like super low points of her time in order to support me, the advisor who was just there and loved the work that I did and was willing to support me. And I would have these team Rachel meetings just to say what was going on, ask if they had any advice or any insight, questions on what directions they might

give me. And that very team that was coming to my team Rachel meetings, as soon as I started making money, the majority of them came on as full-time staff at Loveland. And so I had this intention and this pull towards what I wanted. And I think that that momentum kind of brought towards me this type of people who would be invested in the work that I'm trying to do in the world. Okay. Thank you for answering that quite nosy question. There's a quote in your book, which it comes from someone else and it made me laugh, but

it also has such a grain of truth in it is it manifestation or is it white supremacy have I got that right okay because I think a lot of listeners might think isn't Rachel amazing she manifested this she had the idea and then manifested it but my understanding of that quote is actually that's a privileged position to come from. A white person can quote unquote manifest something much more easily because there are all of the structures and systems in place that are already in our favor. Whereas you were someone who had to be so intentional and work so hard. So I just wanted to ask you what you thought of manifestation culture. I love manifestation culture. I love the conversation of it. I love the thoughtfulness. I think it provokes the thoughtfulness that

someone might need that little bit of magic to insist for them. I do think that there is value and truth in the concepts of manifestation. And I think that we could be critical about who and how people are able to manifest opportunities and what positionality exists to make things easier. You know, me and my friends often laugh about how particularly, and as a nanny, I've seen many, many kids across the city, particularly these like very rich white families who like put their kids in like the best theater school and they have a tutor after school and they say, oh, my kid is so smart. And they've gotten like, no, he's not any smarter than the black kid, three neighborhoods over. He just had every single resource possible to ensure he succeeded. There's a difference.

There's a difference. And so it's not just a manifestation, but we can have this very same conversation around talent. We can have this very same conversation around someone's ability to succeed in any space. Is it that you were just inherently so talented? Or is it that you had every single resource or many more resources at your disposal than some other marginalized group? Because I can promise you, if you put anyone in that situation, they will thrive. And that's what everyone deserves, actually. Yes. And I think it's a really key conversation to have around the notion of failure too,

because I'm very aware that I, as a white middle-class person with a roof over her head, I'm given multiple opportunities to fail and to fail upwards, whereas others are not. And actually, I suppose that leads me onto my final question, which is, I wonder what the concept of failure and its shadow success, what they mean to you? You know, I'm 34 now. And I think that in this time, especially with the passing of my mother and having a particular empathy for her failures that might've felt sharper when she was alive and that kind of get faded away after the passing of someone. I find so many nutrients that's so nourishing these failures. It's kind of like, what it's making me think of is when we burn the land in order to burn off.

Yes. And the ash offers nutrients for the ground. But that doesn't make the fire any less hot. It doesn't make the burning any less crisp. You know, it's still the fire. And so these failures, I feel like the fire. And it takes a lot of intention and heart and stomach and gut to be able to suss out the nutrients of it. But I think that it's possible.

And I think that's a practice we can do to really sit with failures and say, I failed, I failed and sin in the sorrow and the frustration of that. And then to take some time to say, okay, well, let me spread the ashes of this to give some nourishment to whatever might come next. to say, okay, well, let me spread the ashes of this to give some nourishment to whatever might come next. Rachel Cargill, you are a dazzling ray of wonder. Thank you so much for giving me your time and your brilliance. I can't think of a better metaphor for failure. I'm going to use that all the time now with appropriate footnoting. And I'm so grateful to you. And I just can't believe you're 34. And I'm excited about meeting the future older version of you too. I can't imagine what you're going to be like at 70. It's going to be wild. I think about her all the time. Hopefully I'll be in a flowy

caftan on a boat somewhere, but I'll reach out and let you know where I'm at. Please do stay in touch. I want to see that flowy caftan. Rachel Cargill, thank you so much. And everyone must rush out and buy a renaissance of our own. I can't recommend it more highly. Thank you for the work that you do and the person that you are. Thank you for having me.

This was wonderful. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with elizabeth day i would so appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe apparently it helps other people know that we exist