The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Lessons Learned: From the Short Stories of My Life by Laurie Koss

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

Lessons Learned: From the Short Stories of My Life by Laurie Koss https://amzn.to/4ajQbog Everyone has a story. Laurie Koss has five hundred and fifteen. In her page-turning debut book, the award-winning Canadian artist has crafted a memoir like no other. Each page of Lessons Learned is a single story concluding with a thought-provoking quote. Perfect for today’s busy lifestyle, Lessons Learned is unique because the reader can choose to enjoy the stories chronologically like a novel, flip to a random page to uncover which lesson they chance upon, or read one-story-per-day for a daily dose of inspiration. The quotes that complete each story originate from diverse literary, cultural, and historical sources. They make Lessons Learned a one-of-a-kind experience as the reader is encouraged to take a moment at the end of each page to ponder the lesson or have a laugh. Koss’ childhood stories begin in 1960’s Vancouver, B.C., with topics spanning from her budding interest in art to her keen intuition and family ghost stories to the tumultuous family dynamics created by a loving but alcoholic parent. With each story—and each life lesson learned—readers witness the coming-of-age and self-discovery of a young artist determined to create the life she dreams of living. But life rarely goes as smoothly as we plan. Following the dips and successes of her romantic life, family, and career, Koss also illustrates the unexpected heartache of a life-altering illness and ongoing struggles with friendships—and the spiritual growth that can arise when we’re open to learning from these experiences. Offering a blend of introspection, vulnerability, and creativity, Koss brings to life universal experiences that connect us all, interspersed by unique and often hilarious “Only Me” moments. Koss’ storytelling takes the reader on an unforgettable journey from 1960s hippies to the 2020 pandemic. Her tales are a time portal to various eras and a reminder that we, too, have stories and history worth sharing. Story by story, quote by quote, Laurie Koss entertains with self-effacing humour, compassion, and insight, proving there is a lesson to be learned in every moment life offers. Lessons Learned is a collection of short stories to treasure, savour, and share with loved ones. It is sure to become a must-read for those seeking a refreshing, laugh-out-loud, heartfelt, and entertaining book. What You’ll Discover Inside: 515 One-Page Short Stories Family and Friendship Popular Culture The Unexplainable Married Life & Parenting Overcoming Challenges Achieving Goals Trusting Intuition Finding Meaning in Life Over 500 thought-provoking quotes About the author Laurie Koss is an award-winning contemporary Canadian artist best known for her close-up floral paintings. Her work adorns two national commissions: Canada Post’s 2015 Flower Series stamps and a 2015 Royal Canadian Mint twenty-dollar collector’s coin. She is a Senior member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and enjoys her role jurying art and mentoring emerging artists. Born and raised in Vancouver—where she studied Fine Arts and English at the University of British Columbia—Laurie now lives in Kelowna with her husband. When she’s not painting or writing, (or stumbling into “only me” moments), she enjoys spending time with family and friends, hiking, teaching/practicing yoga, travelling, tending her vegetable garden, and pursuing a path of self-improvement. Lessons Learned is her first book.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go. She sings it on that Monday morning. That just gives it a wonderful sharpness that wakes everyone up. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends.

We certainly appreciate you guys. As always, we have the most smartest, brilliant minds on the show. The people who come on share their stories of life, their stories of their journeys, their lessons. And as we always say, stories are the owner's manual to life. So as always, refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Voss. LinkedIn.com, Fortress Chris Voss, Chris Voss 1 on the TikTokity, and Chris Voss Facebook.com. You can find all the different Chris Voss channels and groups and all that sort of good stuff. Today, we have another amazing author on the show and she shares her

journeys as well. Her book is entitled Lessons Learned from the Short Stories of My Life. November 1st, 2023, it came out. Lori Cost is on the show with us today, and she'll be giving us all the great lessons that we need. There's somebody out there that needs her lessons. That's usually how it works with authors. Someone told me years ago, there's someone who needs to hear what you have in your book, Chris.

You need to get this book done because someone needs it, and you don't know who it is. You may never meet them, but they need your help. So Lori Koss is an award-winning Canadian artist born and raised in Vancouver, B.C., and is best known for her large-scale up-close flower paintings, two of which can be found on Canadian postage stamps, eh? And one on a Royal Canadian mint coin. Her uncanny intuitives, refusal to see the obstacles and tendency to attract amusing only me situations combined with love of reading and writing prompted

her to author her first book, Lessons Learned. She holds a bachelor of education with the University of British Columbia, where she studied fine arts, education, and English. She currently lives in Kelowna, BC. There you go. I learned something new today. Where she and her husband relocated 30 years ago and enjoyed the companionship of their adult children and first grandchild. If Lori is in her art studio overlooking Okanagan Lake.

Okanagan. Okanagan. Okanagan. There you go. Beautiful country up there. She can be found writing, gardening, cycling, skiing, or stumbling into only me situations. Welcome to the show, Lori. How are you? I'm doing well.

How are you? I am excellent. Thank you for asking. Give us your dot coms. Ask where people can find you on the interwebs. So my website is www.lauricost.com. And that's L-A-U-R-I-E. And then Cost is K-O-S-S.

And also at lauricostart on Instagram. There you go. So you have all your art on the Instagram that you do there. I do. I do. And my website is actually both for my author, my author page and my art page. So there you go. Give us a 30,000 overview of your new book. My book lessons learned from the short stories of my life is a collection of 515 one page stories. And each story ends with a

thought provoking or humorous quote. And it's in chronological order of my life. So starting from my very first memory right up to just a couple years ago. So this is the book. I don't know if your viewers can see it already, but each page has a quote at the bottom, and each page is a single story. Oh, wow. That's a lot of stories.

That's a thick book, too. That's a big book, I know. That is a thick book. And one story per page. You have a lot of stories. That's a thick book too. That's a big book, I know. That is a thick book. One story per page, you have a lot of stories going on. Yeah, more than I realized actually. You know, somewhere around 50, I realized that I had been a story

collector. I had been a griot collecting my stories and other people's stories through life. And I wish I'd realized how important stories were sooner. It didn't really occur to me that, you know, movies, TV, books, the arts, you know, plays, symphonies, all these are stories, and stories are these things that we use to learn through life because, as I said earlier, you know, the owner's manual to life are stories

because, you know, I didn't get one in the mail, did you? An owner's manual? Somehow it's like the that great american hero guy on tv where he didn't get the owner's manual to his superpowers so yeah so that's awesome now you you referenced in your bio something called only me situation oh gosh what are only me situations there's there's a lot of them actually more than i realized you know once i started writing the book I realized how many only me situations there have been in my life. But it's, I think it's a term that first started when I was a child. And my parents, or whoever would say only you, Lori,

like only that would happen to you. And I don't know why I attract these kind of situations. But I always have. For instance, I'll give you one example right off the bat the first one I can really remember it well no there's a few more because I fell off an elephant when I was nine but but when I was 12 this is this is one of those only me moments when I was 12 I wrote a limerick about my dad for school and it was I remember the first two lines vividly because it prompted social services to show up at our door, actually. And it was, there once was a man named Bruce, and he was as horny as a moose.

But I thought, you know, roses have thorns, so that makes them thorny, and moose have horns, so that makes them horny. So you were just being cute with your limerick. Yeah, so social services showed up at the door have horns so that makes them horny so you were just being acute with your limerick yeah so my social services showed up at the door to check to make sure that my dad wasn't up to something but so that was probably my first only me moment i'm sure your family enjoyed that moment too i think my parents i remember actually the story is actually i've got it written down because like

there's so many to take keep track of the only me, oh, where is that one gone? Oh, here it is. Yeah, Story 61. Yeah, so Story 61 has my parents being like quite mortified that the social services showed up and they had to kind of stumble through explaining that no, there's nothing going on. But they end up, I could see that at 12, age 12, I could see them laughing at each other and looking at each other and just being so amused but so horrified at the same time. So that was probably my first only me moment.

And then, you know, there's been a lot over the years. Do you want to hear more? I mean, it's... Yes, yes, please. On my first date with my husband, I lit my menu on fire. So, yeah. You know, I've been on a lot of dates. I've never had that happen.

So you've scored highly on the only yeah that was the first date and he still he still married you huh he did that wasn't a sign a bad sign maybe it was a good sign yeah it was i don't know he i said i think he said at the end of the date i know it's you know this is going to be an interesting life if you know i can see that it would not be boring if he married me. And I guarantee you, it's not been boring. Does he let you near matches or any flames since then? Rarely. Yeah.

That's a good choice. Yeah, so that was funny. And there's been times. I mean, I looked through them recently, and I think there's about 40 or 50 different ones in the book. So about 10% of the book are only. You could do a stand-up thing and take this on the road, you know. You know what? Here's a funny one. I once tried to convince Howie Mandel that we knew each other,

went to high school together because he looked familiar to me. So you honestly believed it then? Yeah. Are you sure we don't know each other? I'm sure we must have gone to high school together. You look so familiar. It was so mortifying. And, of course, you tell my family after that,

and they're always like, only you, Lori. Your family knows you pretty well. Exactly. Great stories. Yeah. Here's one that's funny. I, okay. This one's, this one's so awful and funny at the same time. When we moved to Kelowna, we didn't know anyone here. It's a four hour drive inland from Vancouver. And it's a town of 150,000 now until back then it was even smaller. And we didn't know anyone. And my husband is a family doctor. And he wanted to meet colleagues and make friends. So he invited, I think it was four couples over for dinner. And I make my what I was trying to do is make a really good impression because we wanted friends. And so I was trying to do is make a really good impression because we wanted friends and so I was trying to make a good impression on these there were mostly doctors

they were all medical people at the very least and I hear I'm the artist anyhow so his pager goes off and he has to go see a patient right before dinner so he said just kind of draw out the you know cocktails or whatever so I did that and we took a little tour, slow tour of the house and we get to my art studio and there's a painting of a flower on the easel and one of the physicians say, what type of flower is that? And I couldn't remember for a second and then I remembered, oh, it's a chlamydia, I said. And a chlamydia. And they all looked at me with the oddest look. And I said, does, does nobody know what chlamydia is? And one of the doctors said, oh, we're all very well acquainted. Chlamydia, Laurie, it's a venereal disease.

And I went, oh my gosh. I mean, I mean, cyclamen, now I remember. But you know, I said afterwards, doesn't cyclamen sound more like a venereal disease and chlamydia sounds more like a flower? So anyways, it was an honest mistake, but oh, it's so embarrassing to do that. They should just probably name a flower after this point. Right? Exactly.

So that was a bad one. And then let's find out. We'll round back to the book. Tell us about how you grew up. People usually want to know about the author early on. How you grew up, what shaped you. You kind of became this only me person your family is like. She's going to have some interesting experiences.

And then when did you know you were a writer? When did you start writing and stuff? Oh, those are great questions. As you said, I grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia. I was born into a family of storytellers. Right off the bat, my mom and dad, they're still alive and they will be 87 and 91 this year and live on their own. And they are with it and awesome. And they were super supportive of the book.

And I told all their dirty secrets and they were completely fine. No, their marriage, they're actually, they've been married 64 years and their marriage is a testament to the power of forgiveness in healing a relationship. It's a lot of forgiveness. A lot of forgiveness. And they are just best friends and they are incredible. Anyhow, so lucky to be born to them.

And they have had so many funny things happen to them over the years and weird things like I you know and I've shared in a lot of those when I live with them like we have we lived in a house that seemed to be haunted I don't I can't say I believe in ghosts but I don't know how else to explain the haunted house that we lived in the haunted house they so they've had a lot of great stories they've told them well over the years to my two younger sisters and to me, family, friends. And then I just kept having a lot of stories. The more things happened as our lives went on.

And then I married, my husband and I married and moved to Kelowna when we were young parents. After you brought everything down on the first date. What's that? After you brought everything down on the first date. Basically, yeah. And yeah, that's about it. I guess I would say that my parents are just very grateful that I was born to them. Now you asked how I became a, first of all, I became an artist because my mom was a very successful artist in the seventies.

She had her work across Canada and was relatively well-known at that time. And I took, you know, I just followed in her footsteps. I was exposed to artists at a that time. And I took, you know, I just followed in their footsteps. I was exposed to artists at a young age. And I think the most shape, the thing that shaped me the most was that I started to repeat the words, I am an artist to myself, started around age seven. And it made me believe in the power of intention and how important intention can be, not because it necessarily changes the world or makes things happen to you or for you, but because once you set an intention, you start to work toward that intention and you start to make that intention happen. So me repeating the words, I am an artist

meant that I studied art and I, and I, you know, work toward that goal. So, but when I was in university, I, I did, like I said, I studied commercial art and then fine arts, then art education. And then I found that I loved writing and English and I took every elective. And I knew that one day I would write a book and people that know me well, friends and family that know me well, it's no surprise I wrote a book. She's got those only me stories they knew they had to be done actually my daughter's the first person that said you've got to write these stories down mom and that was about eight or nine years ago but yeah so I always knew I'd write a book but I have to say it's been an interesting journey releasing this book because people that only have defined me as an artist

I think have had an odd reaction to the fact that I wrote a book. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're three-dimensional. You're a human being, eh? Yeah, but it's been like, but you're an artist. Yeah.

Oh, they try and pocket you or kind of rat hole you into this one person and they're like, we didn't know you had other things. Yeah. It's interesting how people do that to us. So now you've had two, you've had a large-scale up-close flower painting. Two have been found on the Canadian postage stamps. One on a Royal Canadian mint coin. That's pretty exceptional.

Thank you. It's pretty unique. Yeah. Was it the chlamydia flower by chance? I wouldn't have made a good coin or stamp. You want to wash your hands after you touch that coin. There you go. So that was interesting because to me, there's also been,

like I've had a lot of only me moments, but I've also had a lot of what is the chance moments. I think there's got to be a couple dozen of those in the book as well. And honestly, to have my work displayed on Canada Post stamps was a what is the chance. They contacted me. They asked me, this is in the book of course they asked me to if I would submit paintings for stamps for Canada and I actually to be honest ignored the email at first because as a as a exhibiting artist I actually

would get a lot of requests I still do for you want to be in this book or that book or this thing or that thing and a lot of them just turned out to be scams and Nigerian princes maybe yeah exactly that kind of thing so I just thought what's the chance what is the chance you know Justin Trudeau guy I'm sure this isn't really him yeah right so exactly so I anyways I ignore the email and very very casually mentioned to my husband a couple days later I'll Canada Post wants to put my art in stamps. And he said, did you check their email address? And I was like, no. So that's probably an only me moment.

Ignore the, you know, email from Canada Post. But I actually phoned them and they were so accommodating. I was working toward a show at the time. This is 2014. And I actually had to say, I can't get this done in it and you know I think their deadline was six weeks away or something I said I can't do it and they said we'll give you an extension how about you know three months and I was like oh okay so I did it and the coolest thing for me about that there's so many amazing things that happen around the stamps you know like brides emailing me to say they've designed their whole wedding around amazing things that happen around the stamps. Like brides emailing me to

say they've designed their whole wedding around the colors I chose for the stamps. Really? Actually, if I turn this, I don't know if you can see. There's the stamps right there. So there's the two stamps. They're right there. Even in French. Yeah.

That's Canada. For Quebec, you know. Exactly. He always thinks it's his own bloody Quebec, you know. Yeah, exactly. He always thinks it's his own bloody country. Uh-huh. So that's, but the coolest moment for me, hands down, would have been when my husband and I visited Ottawa and went to, just outside of Ottawa,

the Canadian National Museum, and my stamps were in there. So that was pretty cool. That is awesome. I mean, there's very few artists that can say they've acclaimed that honor. Now, getting back to your book, this has inside of it 515 one-page stories with a quote at the bottom, which is kind of, you know, we've had a lot of authors on, a billion authors on basically at this point. It's kind of unusual for a memoir too that you did. So why did you choose to do in that format of one-page stories? Yeah, that is an excellent question.

It started, I have to go back just a little bit. My daughter, I guess about eight or nine years ago, said, you've got to write these stories down. And she knew I was a writer, so it was encouraging me. But because she had that faith in me I I wanted to do do it well like really give justice to our family stories and to all the crazy things that have happened to us and so I put everything into it and I did a terrible job at first I was very aware that my it wasn't my writing so much it was just it was it was just wordy and and I could not for the life of me figure out how to take all of these stories and find transitions within a book

to make it flow I just couldn't figure it out and I put I shelved the project probably three or four times and every once in a while Sarah would just just say, Mom, are you writing our stories? Finally, I was a little sort of exasperated with the fact that I should be up to this. Actually, in the meantime, I read three fantastic books on writing, which I highly recommend. Stephen King's On Writing. Is it called On Writing?

On Writing. No, On Writing by Stephen King, I think. And a couple other ones. Bird by Bird is another one that's great by Anne Lamott. And what's the third one? On Writing. I think i wrote them down here really great books on writing well by william zinzer so i read those and i i tried to really work hard at this skill of writing and and hone my skill but i still could not figure out how to link all these stories together so this is where the story gets a little woo woo, but this is exactly what happened. And all the rational people in my life will attest to the

fact that it did is I went to bed one night and I said, okay, Holy Spirit, God, love, universe, intuition, intelligent energy out there, whatever you are, because i believe i've come to believe in my life those are just all names for the same thing whatever that might be if you want me to write this book if you want it written then show me how because i haven't a clue i went to bed and that night i had a dream and this this story is in my book and the dream was so vivid that I could see a large italicized number I could see a full page story and I could see the quote and I hadn't thought of a quote that was not my idea so it came to me in a dream I don't know where it came from I don't even know what I really believe in to be honest as far as that goes can you just ask and something

is just given to you but because it came to that clearly, I just laid in bed the next morning and I knew what to do. And I started the next day and that was five and a half years ago. And I never stopped. I wrote every day for probably three years solid and then a couple of years of a lot of editing. But to me, it feels as though it were a gift from the universe or whatever and so to me I don't feel it's mine or my idea I feel it's an idea that I want to share with others so if the only thing someone takes from my book is the fact that they could write a book like this too and use this format then to me that's fantastic that's what it's all about so

I love more than anything to share this idea with others and for people to write their stories. Cause as you said, the storytelling is a almost lost art and I think it, we need to revive it. We definitely do. I think social media and, you know, having media on every corner, 5,000 channels and 5, 000 media delivery services you know amazon and disney and paramount and all these places we've we've become numb to telling our own stories you know and i've i've met people that i'm like do you have any stories because i'm a story collector too and and they're like no you know i met people like what happened to you today anything cool happened

today no this this is what happened yeah i had a girl for one time wonderful wonderful girlfriend but she worked for delta as a flight attendant and so she would fly sometimes to three or four cities and you know however whatever they do somebody's gonna write me they don't do four cities to stop but you know she would meet hundreds of people because you you know there's a couple hundred people on each plane And she would do that and then she would also stay in like New York or Chicago Or you know all these various places and she would come home when I'd be like I'm like hey And I usually have like five stories of my day of some crazy shit that my employees did

Or some weird stuff that happened at the office and so I would have my stories stories, and then I'd be like, so what happened to you? She's like, nothing. I'm like, you came in contact with 700 people and traveled to two or three major cities, and you didn't see anything weird? Like, nothing weird happened? Nothing unique? Stories? I actually started thinking,

you know, I might plot to have her kidnapped one day. And, you know, they just kidnap her for like half a day and then release her. And that way she'll have a story to tell me. But you're right. We don't realize how important stories are and telling stories. We used to do a thing, you know, back in the day before TV and radio, people would entertain each other in the family.

They would have family get-together nights, and it was kind of like talent night. And a lot of great talent, a lot of great actors and singers and people who came from that era came from that era because there was that seeding of telling stories and entertaining each other and taking some interest. And now we just kind of sit there and drool out the side of our mouth and go, eh.

And stare at our devices. Yeah. and taking some interest. And now we just kind of sit there and drool at the side of our mouth and go, yeah, yeah, yeah. We stare at our devices. I think that now more than ever, this time in history, we are lacking connection. We seem like we're more connected, but we're actually not. And connection is what, you know, we learn from each other when we have an emotional connection. And stories provide an emotional connection. And if you tell somebody what to do, they're less likely to bring that into their life than if you show them through a story.

And, you know, what I'd like to say also right off the bat, I guess it's not right off the bat anymore, but what I'd like to say about the book is that I don't give any advice in this book. I'm not in any position to give advice. I'm not a counselor. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a this book. I'm not in any position to give advice. I'm not a counselor. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a life coach. I'm not anything. I'm just an artist, an art educator.

If you want to ask me about painting or art, I can give you good advice. So this book has no advice in it. It's just my stories. And if someone learns something and they take something away from my stories and they learn something that they can apply to their life because of what I'm sharing, then I've won. I will give you one

example of a story that a lot of readers are responding to me with about this particular story. I don't remember the story number. It doesn't matter. But it just happened a couple years ago. But I said maybe three or four years ago. Now, my husband and I, we stopped by Starbucks, and he went in, and I was sitting in the car waiting. When he came out, he said, you're not going to believe what happened. I got my coffee for free. And I said, why? And he said, when the baristas arrived in the morning,

I think they arrived at 5 or 5.30 or something like that, they made a pact that they were going to give the first person to say please and thank you a free coffee yeah mike was the first person to say please and thank you and it was 1 14 or 1 15 in the afternoon and by the time he said please and thank you the baristas were depressed like they were just bummed out that that no one else from.30 a.m. to almost 1.30 had said, please and thank you. So I've had more readers say to me, I'm really polite in Starbucks now. And I think if that's all my book does, that's good enough for me. That's quite the inspiration. I mean, people don't do that. They're so busy looking at their phones and badgering about their attitude

or their day. But, you know, great lessons packed into these. Now, why did you put the quotes on the bottom of each story? Because it came to me in a dream, and I decided I shouldn't argue with the universe. That was the main reason. But I guess it goes back to me always being a lover of quotes. I've collected quotes my whole life, and I can look over on the wall of my studio.

I'm in my art studio right now, and I can see I've got one, two, over, you know, on the wall of my studio. I'm in my art studio right now. And I can see I've got one, two, three, four, five quotes about painting that are right there that I read every time I sit down to paint. So I just have always loved quotes. And so I guess my psyche or the universe figure that out and decide that quotes would make sense on the bottom of each page. They sometimes highlight the lesson. Like I don't have to say the lesson in the story. The quote does that for me. Ah, I like that.

Are these your quotes? Are these quotes from other people? No, they're not my quote. Actually, it's interesting. I can look at them as a whole, and I would say they come from a variety of literary, cultural, and historical sources. But there's also, I did quote people in my life that have said,

like, I've got a quote for my daughter. She's, she's currently, she was on hold because she's a mama right now, but she is writing a book about connection. And so I quote her in the book and I quote my son. Cause he said something that really resonated with me a few years ago.

And that is that we should have high hopes and low expectations in life. And I just always love that. And then I quote my husband. I can't remember offhand which quote of his I use. So there's a few like that. But for the most part, it's, like I said, literary, cultural, and historical, and entertainment. If, for instance, I mentioned somebody in, like, I've had a few funny, like Howie Mandel if for instance i mentioned somebody in like i've had a few funny like howie mandel friends i've had a few funny celebrity encounters i will sometimes try to bring

or if i mention a song i'll try to quote something to do with that in i'll use something from the story in the quote there you go there you go oh that makes for much out of stories i love quotes because i think they just kind of an ad enrichment enrichment or I suppose maybe a recap on your thing. And so in the book, you talk about family and friendship, popular culture, the unexplainable. That's always good. Married life and parenting. I'm sure there's some interesting married life and parenting stuff there. Overcoming challenges, achieving goals, trusting intuition, finding meaning in life. I think that's why a lot of people go after stories is, you know, like I say, the stories

are the owner's manual to life. So I think that's what people are trying to do. They're trying to find meaning in life. They're also trying to find other people who solved maybe complex or simple issues. And sometimes, you know, on the show, I have a lot of epiphanies from authors where even if I know something, I'll see it from a different angle or a different paradigm that they're using. And that makes me go, wow, I never really thought of looking at it in that sort of way.

And then you sometimes get a deeper meaning or a different understanding of something that can broaden your horizons and your mindset. But finding meaning in life, I think that's one of the big reasons we collect stories. The very last story that I have basically is about what is the point of life, what's the meaning of life,

and what I've kind of, looking back on my life and what I've discovered. And I can't tell you what I discovered because you have to read the whole book to find out. Because it's the very last, actually, I quoted myself, the very last quote on story 515 is a quote from me i can tell you i guess i tell you what the quote will be it'll give it away so

i'm not going to tell you but it is that's a big part of it i think that we're i believe we're here in this world to evolve and we're here to to learn and grow to develop self-awareness and self and improve ourselves compared to our former selves, not compared to anyone else. But we try to improve ourselves and evolve and grow. That's one of the meanings. But the ultimate meaning that I came up with is highlighted in the final story of the book. There you go. So this sounds like a great book and a fun read. And you've lived an adventurous life too. And it's thick as hell too.'s giant 515 one page short stories and what's great about them is is it's a page turner because usually with shorter chapters and you tend to page

turn a lot more you're like i gotta find out what happens next and you can read this on the beach you can read this sit down and read it cover to cover and you can you can just really delve into it any other stories you may want to tease out? We, of course, want people to buy the book. I've had quite a few of the what is the chance stories. I had to write some down because I can't keep track of 515 stories. It's a lot. What is the chance?

My car's been hit by lightning, but that's not the one. Your car was hit by lightning? Wait. Yeah. Yeah, my car's been hit by lightning. I that's not the one. You've always been hit by lightning? Wait. Yeah. Yeah. My car's been hit by lightning. I've had so many crazy things happen. No, you have no idea.

I've got 515 stories. You wouldn't believe what's happened. But I guess one of them, I'd say, this is not a funny one. It's a shocking one and also one that I think it had to be written down. It had to be in a book. When my husband and I were, we'd been dating for three or four years. We went on a trip to Mexico on a budget

and we backpacked around the Yucatan Peninsula. And back in those days, you used a travel agent for everything. So the travel agent had booked our flights for us and all that. And when we were doing a kind of a milk run and we were going from cancun to to mexico city to somewhere else mexico city la seattle home like you do when you're young and you're or whenever and you're trying to be on a budget and when we

arrived at what i think it was mexico city we arrived the we weren't listed on our flight and i guess that and so we were frustrated initially this is a we arrived, we weren't listed on our flight. And so we were frustrated initially. This is a good example why we can't judge anything that happens because it would feel like you want to judge that it's a bad thing, that we didn't get listed on this flight, and this is going to screw up our day or our connections or whatever. But what actually happened is, so we end up wait-listing on that flight. This is 1983 or something like that.

We wait-list on that flight, and then it turns out there was another flight flying into LA as well, so we wait-listing on that flight. And this is like 1983 or something like that. We wait-list on that flight. And then it turns out there's another flight flying into LA as well. So we wait-listed on both of them. And what happened is we got called for both our flights at the same time. And we actually, we were originally going to go just on our original flight. But we had this other flight and it got in a few minutes earlier. And I kind of did an eeny, meeny, miny, moe, which flight should we go on? And then I went quiet for a second and I had this such a subtle little tug to

the other flight. And I thought, let's go on that one. It was just enough that I was just barely aware of it, but I could feel a slight tug and I decided to follow that because I'm really big into following your gut instinct, your intuition, whatever. I followed it. A bunch of things happened on that flight, which is all documented in the book.

But the most important thing in a nutshell is that the original flight we're supposed to be on crashed and killed all people on board. Wow! Yeah, it took a long time to be able to talk about it, never mind write about it, but yeah. Wow. That kind of messes with your mind too, survivor guilt.

That's kind of, wow. That is something else. There are people that, you know, that happened to them on 9-11 and stuff and they missed the flight or didn't go into work that day for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. That is crazy. I'm glad you picked the right flight because now we've been able to get your stories

and read the book and all that good stuff. So give us your final thoughts as we go out, tell people where to pick up the book and your dot coms, et cetera, et cetera. I guess I would say that if you like to learn and you like to laugh and you like to wonder about life, you got to read my ghost stories. You got to read my ghost stories. It's shocking. And ghost stories. They're just talking. And I still don't know if I believe in them, but they happened, whatever they are. So if you like to wonder about life,

like I said, laugh, learn, and you love quotes, and you've got very little time in your life and you only have a minute, you can read one story in basically a minute and 15 seconds, then I would say my book is probably perfect for you. So I think you really enjoy it, and I hope you do. You can buy it at Amazon and local booksellers around here, but Amazon is the main place where you can buy it.

There you go. Pick it up, folks, wherever fine books are sold. Lessons learned from the short stories of my life, November 1st, 2023. Thanks, Lori, for coming to the show. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, FortressCrispFastLinked 2023. Thanks, Laurie, for coming to the show. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com,

FortressCrispFoss, LinkedIn.com, FortressCrispFoss, CrispFoss1, the TikTokity, and all those crazy places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.