We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Life Hacks: Strategies to Suffer Less (Best Of)

Episode Date: April 19, 2025

We can do hard things, and yet, sometimes we can try easier. Glennon, Abby, Amanda – and the Pod Squad! — share the strategies they’ve used to suffer less – giving us simple Life Hacks for relationships, home, tech, travel, and saving time. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hurry book at AirCanada.com or contact your travel agent. Conditions apply. Air Canada. Nice travels. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Thank you so much for really sticking there with us with all of these hard things we've been discussing over the last month. Today we are going to talk to you about some life changing ideas to make your life easier. This is, we can do easy things, life hacks.

Well, on the surface, they might feel like hard things. Oh no, really? Yeah, I mean, cause these are life hacks, but sometimes some of these hacks, I think are gonna be difficult. Okay. They're hard for me. Well, it's as easy as I get since college. Okay. Right. Okay. They're hard for me. Well, it's as easy as I get in since college. Right. Okay. Oh, I got it. I was a little late, but I got it. Yeah. Okay. I was like, you didn't work hard in college. Oh, I get it. Yeah, there you go. You were easy in college.

I mean, I wasn't hard. I'll tell you that. Can we all talk about what a hack is? Like what, sister, what's your definition of a life hack? I think hacks are things that people have discovered that simplify or streamline a smaller, big part of their life that if we all added to our portfolio of skills, we might make some things easier for ourselves. That was like the most amazing definition of efficiency. Do you have it written down? No, I don't.

Outrageous. So we have some categories here. We've got overall life hacks. We've got some relationship hacks. We've got some tech hacks. Home hacks, tech hacks. Travel relationship hacks. Travel hacks.

We have pod squad hacks. Pod squad hacks. That you have written, um... We have pod squad hacks. Pod squad hacks. That you have written into us or called with voicemails. We are very grateful. We are incorporating your hacks. Yeah. For me, I feel like life hacks are things also to help lessen suffering.

Really, all I'm trying to do is suffer less. Okay. Right. It's the idea of try easier. Yes. We can try harder, and in some ways we need to. But in some ways, we just need to try easier. That's right idea of try easier. Yes. We could try harder, in some ways we need to. But in some ways we just need to try easier. That's right.

And there are tricks that you can use to suffer less. That is how I feel about life hacks. So my first overall hack is called eat the frog. Where did that come from? Well, a lot of people attribute it to Mark Twain. There was like this quote that Mark Twain said that if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, then nothing worse than that will ever happen to you throughout the day. Ain't that the truth?

Which is kind of funny because it's like, just do a terrible, horrific thing and then everything's up from there. Can you give me an example of something you eat the frog with? Okay, so the way we explain it to the kids is worst thing, first thing. So here's the way I think about it. We wake up in the morning and we all have that thing that we know we have to do. Write that email, make that phone call, have the conversation. Yeah. Or the project at work that you want to do the least is going to require the most of you that you just are dreading. It's the dread thing.

Dread. Dread. What we tend to do is put that thing off and off and off and off and off because we're dreading it. So if you think about your time as like a long stretch, okay, you've got a stretch of time each day. What happens when we put off that hard thing is that we spend all of the time between when we wake up and that hard thing in dread. So we kind of have a little pit in our stomach because we're looking ahead towards this thing that we are

dreading. We're putting it off, putting it off, putting it off, which means that most of our time is spent in dread. But if you wake up in the morning, you do your little things, whatever you have to do. But then you do the worst thing first thing. It causes less suffering only because it shortens the time of dread. So it's a short amount of time of dread now and then the thing is done and then you have the rest of the day, you just feel lighter and happier. Yeah, everything's downhill. This feels like a really good procrastination hack too. Yeah, it's just the opposite of procrastination. And it has nothing to do with like,

being more productive for me. Nothing. It just has to do with suffering less and living in that drug space less. And I will say that this is probably the thing that I've learned the most from you in terms of how you live your life and that I've put into my daily regimen because early days when we first got together, I was the queen of procrastination. No, you did not want to eat the, you didn't want to look at the phone. I was just like, no, that's, that's for tomorrow. And now I really, I really admire and I have admired you for all of these years because you do that.

You do the very thing that you least wanna do first. And then I look at you and I have, I mean, for the first few years, I just would have so much envy, like, oh, she's done with her thing. I'm so jealous. And so then I started to implement it. Yes, you did.

And I am a considerably more happy person after noon. Yeah, yeah. And the other thing is people like me, you don't need to eat six frogs. If it's Tuesday, you do not eat next Wednesday's frog. Just eat one frog a day. You must have time after the frog for enjoyment, or there's no point in eating the frog.

Because I know you frog eaters will be like, great. So if I just spend Monday eating 365 frogs for the whole year, no, no, no. There has to be some discipline of rhythm in it where it's like eat the frog and then enjoy the fruits of the frog digesting. Okay, that's a surprise. And now we've jumped the shark.

And now to you sister, what's one of your overall hacks? I have a simple one and then a bigger one. My simple one is that I just learned that I've been breathing wrong for four decades. Oh yes. And that was a surprise to me because I know how to properly cite a foreign constitution in a legal brief, but I didn't know how to breathe.

I don't understand how that happened. So this is something I would like to share with the group. When you breathe, you are supposed to inhale and your stomach goes out. Your stomach goes out because then you're expanding your diaphragm. You are letting the air into your lungs. Then when you exhale, your stomach contracts, comes in. And then if you give it a little pinch, that's like expelling the bad stuff in there.

So think of it as that. You're like breathing in the new, it's filling you up. Then you're letting it all out and you're coming in. I was doing that wrong for 43 years. Yeah, like you're filling a balloon. I always think of it. Yeah, it's called- Yeah, filling a balloon, letting it out.

It's called diaphragmatic breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing. Yes, that's what it's called. I always think that. Yeah, filling a balloon, letting it out. It's called diaphragmatic breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing. Yes, that's what it's called. I just didn't know how to say that word. Okay, that feels important since breathing feels essential. Also, I realize something that I think that it's a good life hack to not ask to know things that you don't want to be responsible for. So, for example, on Thanksgiving, my amazing sister-in-law was here with us, Johnny's sister

Kate and she's wonderful. And she curious minds want to know about who was the person on the episode that wasn't. Ah, the person that, okay, reference the person that we canceled the interview with because she was very rude to our producer. So she said, I need to know who the person was. And I said, Kate, do you want that job? If I were to tell you who that person was, I would be giving you the job of holding that information and never telling that one single person who that is. So you would have the information, but you would have to protect it for the rest of your life. And she said, Oh my God, no, never tell me that I never want. And her like had kind of exploded about it because she, she hadn't done that calculus. She had only done plus for me in the column, if I know more things, but not on the other column of, now I have more jobs. Yes.

And I feel like that relates to so many things. Anytime someone butt dials me, I immediately like scream into it, I can hear you. Yeah, I'm so scared of somebody talking shit. I'm so scared, exactly. I'm so scared I'm gonna hear anything. I never wanna know anything that someone says about me. If someone starts telling me a story,

oh my gosh, I heard they were saying, I was like, please stop now, please. Why am I gonna accept that burden from you? I'm just walking around in my life. I don't wanna know things about things that are none of my business. It is a job. Being mad at people is a job.

Yes. It takes a lot of your energy. This is tough for me because I like to tell secrets. I know you do. This is revolutionary for somebody like me. Like tell secrets. I know you do. This is revolutionary for somebody like me. Like, don't tell me nothing. Yes. Well, and also similarly, don't give people jobs they're not qualified for. So if you are a person with a secret, a very upsetting way to live is to know there are people in your life who can't keep secrets,

way to live is to know there are people in your life who can't keep secrets. Then to know as you're telling them a secret that they're definitely going to tell it and then to harbor the anticipatory anger that will occur when they will tell it and then to be shocked, which is a bullshit lie because you're never shocked, that they did tell it. Because also it's the exact same thing as holding a very hot pot being like, I can't hold this shit. It's too hot. It's burning my hand. So you hold it, handing it to your friend and then being pissed when they helped give it to somebody else. You couldn't hold it yourself. That's right. It was too hot. So you just don't give people jobs that they're not qualified for and you don't ask for jobs

that you don't want to be responsible for. And I think everyone would just be better. More information is not better. Okay, babe, what's one of your life hacks? Okay, mine is in the same vein, a little bit as yours, Glennon, but it's kind of got a different vibe to it. So, every single one of us knows

that there are certain things in our life that when we do them, we just feel better. Like for me, I know that I have a few things that I sometimes struggle with, whether it's motivation or just the doing of them that I know every single time make me feel better. So for example, for me it's exercise. Even though I was a pro athlete, like staying fit and healthy was always something that was a big struggle of mine. So sometimes I would wait to be motivated or I'd wait to see how I felt that morning.

And that always ended up giving me an option, like a choice, like, oh, I get to choose. So I have in my daily regimen that I do things no matter what that I know make me feel better every single day, every single time I do them. Like every single time, I'm never like, oh man, I wish I didn't work out. Yeah, that's how I feel about walking or meditation.

So I put into every single one of my days something like that, whether it's working out or reading the book or meditating, the things that I know that never let me down when it's done. Those are things I do every single day. So treat the frog. Treat the frog. It's kind of like worst thing, first thing, next thing, best thing. It's like the hard, icky thing. And then the thing that feels like a treat to you, because it doesn't always have to be working out something that's miserable during it. Of course.

Right. Like, so like for me, it's showering. Oh, I know that sounds ridiculous. But it's like personal hygiene. Well, yeah, to some people, personal hygiene to some people treat. Like I will go days where I have slept in whatever I sleep in, wake up, go the whole day still in those clothes and go to bed in the same clothes that I slept in the night before. And it's just because I don't need to leave my house. I work from home. Whatever. To be clear, you work from your bed. So she doesn't need to leave my house. I work from home, whatever. To be clear, you work from your bed.

So she doesn't need to leave her bed. I literally don't. That's another story. It started with my broken toe where they said I had to work from a bed and then I was like, oh my God. Why have I not been doing this for my entire life? Treat the frog.

Treat the frog. But I often feel like I don't need to take a shower, but every time I do it, I'm like, that was a great idea. Good for me. Treat the frog, okay? Treat the frog. Treat the frog. But I often feel like I don't need to take a shower, but every time I do it, I'm like, that was a great idea. Yeah. Good for me. Treat the frog, okay? Treat the frog. So good, okay.

I have a couple more. One, I learned when the kids were little, I wanted to have like this vibe in my house that I thought would require me to create the vibe. So when the kids were little, I wanted everything to be like playful and cozy and fun, but I was miserable and tired and cranky. So I could not be the vibe that I wanted my home to be.

So- Be the vibe you want to see in the world. Yes, I could not be the vibe I wanted to see, nor can I still be the vibe. So what I figured out one day, I turned on some kids music, like a kindergarten teacher, like I used to play in my classroom, or circle time music, or kids music, and damned if I was standing there, just totally miserable, third cup of coffee, unshowered, cranky,

turned on that music, my house felt so peaceful, cozy, vibey, like preschool teacher ran this house. I looked at the kids and I was, I had not changed my vibe at all. This is when I realized you just have to play the vibe you want to be in the world. You just have to be it. All right?

If you want some peace, turn on some peaceful music. If you want to remember your freaking college vibe-y self, turn on some Dave Matthews. You don't have to be a vibe. You just have to play a vibe. And suddenly you want your house to seem peaceful. How often do I turn on some freaking spa music when I'm cursing and miserable?

And I'm telling you, it works. I walk into our room and I'm like, ooh, I feel good. Yep. Mm-hmm. She'll light some incense and I'm like, ooh. Yep. Are we getting a massage? Like, what's happening?

If you want to know how miserable I am and how cranky I am and how anxious I am, you just have to figure out how peaceful the music is on in my house. You're always the equal and opposite of the music. That's good. That's good. That's right. It's like joy to the world.

And Glenn's like, fuck this shit. Exactly. So that's a life hack. You don't have to be it, you just have to play it. Any others for you too. I have one. I just think that one of the best things that I heard long ago was don't make any big decisions

after 9 p.m. Like after 9 p.m. Like after 9 p.m. That's when all the things go silent, you're laying in bed and you start to, you're the worry list and you get up and you make lists and what am I gonna do to it? It's like, don't make big decisions. Nothing good happens after 9 p.m., 10 p.m.

That's right. And that dovetails a lot with that horse shit of never go to bed angry. You should mostly, when you're angry, go to bed. Because half the time you wake up and you're like, oh, I wasn't so much angry as I was real tired. Exactly. And then you wake up and it's done. Yeah.

Or you have some perspective on it where you're like, huh, yeah, I kind of see another side of it I didn't see before. When you're angry, like nine times out of ten, just hit the old saccharine. You're tired. We need to not make any decisions about how much our life sucks at night. We can only decide in the morning if our life sucks. Which don't worry, it'll probably still suck in the morning. Of course, it'll be there when you wake up to suck and suck and suck some more.

Sleep first. Imagine if you could ask someone anything you wanted about their finances. How much do you make? Who paid for that fancy dinner? What did your house actually cost? On every episode of What We Spend, a different guest opens up their wallets, opens up their lives, really, and tells us all about their finances. For one week, they tell us everything they spend their money on.

My son slammed like $6 worth of blueberries in five minutes. This is a podcast about all the ways money comes into our lives and then leaves again, which of course we all have a lot of feelings about. I really want these things. I wanna own a house. I wanna have a child. But this morning I really wanted a coffee.

Because whatever you are buying or not buying or saving or spending, at the end of the day, money is always about more than your balance. I'm Courtney Harrell and this is What We Spend. Listen to and follow What We Spend, an Odyssey Original Podcast, available now wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Let's hear from Maggie.

I loved this that she sent in about her life hack. Hi, Glennon, Abby, Amanda. This is Maggie. I think one of my favorite life hacks is the 10 second rule, 10 seconds of silence. When you are asking for something that you want, need or desire and deserve, when you explain what it is that you want,

just wait 10 seconds. Wait. Because it's so easy that we start explaining away the reasons why, or undermining our requests to begin with. And so allowing for those 10 seconds to just let your request or your requirement stand on its own. It empowers it rather than devalues it. I appreciate all of you so much.

Hold. Hold. Oh my god, it's so good. It's so good. I feel like we need a 10 seconds silence after that wisdom. It's so good because think of all the... We couldn't do it. We couldn't do it. No, we were like one. Think of all the, like the context where that applies. It's even when you're asking for something, when you're saying something and there's an awkward silence, and you're like, I cannot tolerate this. I'm just going to feel it, feel it, feel it, feel it.

And then it doesn't honor the thing that you put out there. And then you're actually allowing someone to respond to it, instead of just being like, oh, see, I knew I was wrong. Nevermind. I take it back. I think that this is revolutionary because sometimes it's easier to say the thing than to hold the line of the thing. Because after you say the thing, you're dealing with the other person's facial expression. You're dealing with what they might say or not.

You're dealing with the discomfort of what you just put into the universe. So then I think what happens is that we try to bolster our case. Like we try to bring more evidence to why we deserve to say the thing that we just said, which reminds me, babe, of when we are arguing and you just say, that hurt me, and then you just leave it. And I'm like, oh, you can't argue with that. You don't make a case of all the reasons because then you can like attack the reasons, but just saying what you just said

or what you just did really hurt me and then leaving it is very powerful. It reminds me of like getting the courage to say something that you want or need. And then the fear of rejection of it is what makes us want to like add more and add more and not just wait and hold the space. Yeah.

That fear of rejection, I think that makes it really hard to actually do this 10 second rule, but I love it Maggie. And standing strong in the disequilibrium that bringing your need to someone causes, because it does cause disequilibrium because people are not used to hearing people say boldly what they need. So there is a disequilibrium that happens and allowing that awkwardness

to be a sign that something new is happening instead of that you need to take back something. Yeah. I feel like that goes along with the idea of when you're drawing a boundary to somebody or you're saying no, and that person gets really upset, I used to really think, oh, that's a sign that I've done something wrong and that I should backtrack what I just said I needed.

And now I always think of it as a sign that I should double down, that I absolutely did the right thing. Like if I say something to someone that's a basic boundary or need and then they are angry with that, that just shows me that was the absolute right move in the first place. That just because someone gets mad at you because you have said what you need, does

not mean that you've done something wrong. It probably means that you've done something right because your establishing of a boundary means that they no longer get to override your boundary that was working for them. I also think it's just a lot of people who are most empathetic and most emotionally intelligent can see a hundred sides to the same situation. So we go through the process when we're figuring out what we need, we also can understand,

okay, this is how that impacts that person and they might feel when I say this like this. And so I am prepared with all of that when I go in and state just my need. And so we, as soon as we state our need, we feel the need to bring up. And I know that it might be that you feel like this. And I know that in this one instance that didn't work. And so you might be thinking that I'm not serious about this. We like bring it all to the moment. But I think if we can separate that and say all of this is true, and yet we still feel

like we need this thing, there will be time to get to the rest of it. Just give this one thing that you have decided you want the 10 seconds it deserves to stand alone. And there will be time for the conversations of all those nuances and holding your line and validating the other person. We just don't need to muddy the one moment where you need to say the thing you need to say. Mm-hmm. It would be a good life hack, I think, just to incorporate the pause into so many things. The pause is, you know, it's the difference between reacting to something and responding to something, which people talk about so much, but I have found to be unbelievably true that for me, the difference between war and peace

with someone is usually like 15 seconds. Responding to something right away, which feels like it's gonna feel good, almost always for me creates more pain for both people. But if I can spend just a long pause metabolizing it a little bit, getting some creativity in there, some space, some breathing, I can almost always respond in a way that works better for both of us.

And it's not just about being kinder, actually. It's about being more efficient, being more generous, being more able to come out with an outcome that works for both people. Yeah, it's just, it's so awkward. Like I could use a total master class in this because I can't handle awkward silence.

And that's what like is probably stopping so many of us from creating this space for even a pause in conversations. And not for nothing, I don't think that this is where Maggie was going with this necessarily, but from a negotiation perspective, if you are asking for a salary, if you are asking for more flexible arrangements, if you're saying what you need in any kind of negotiation, the one who can handle the silences

wins. Because what happens is you say, I need a $10,000 raise. And when you fill in that silence with, and I understand the business has been doing better and I understand better and like, you've been so good to me and you let me stay home with my kid for that week he was sick. What you're doing is handing the other person what they say back to you.

Whereas if you say what you need, I need the $10,000 raise. You are not showing them the keys to the kingdom. You are not showing them your vulnerable pieces that they know now to use against you. They have to fill that silence. And then you get to react to what they say instead of reacting to what is your biggest vulnerability, which is what you're going to fill the silence with to begin with. So good. Is that how you've been arguing with me all these years? That's really smart.

Yeah. I mean, I do think like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's correct. Okay. Here are some tech hacks. I have three.

My first one is turning your phone to grayscale. I'm not even gonna begin to try to tell you how to do that, just Google it. Here's the reason. My phone is on grayscale. It's so boring. Your eye does not go to it. It's not as pleasing.

It's not as like moth to a flamey anymore. It's like the world is suddenly brighter than your phone, which makes you look at your phone so much less. Yeah. OK, it really works for me. Grayscale your phone. Number two. I did it for one day and I had to switch back.

Yeah. That is true. Number two, if you don't want to constantly be held hostage to your phone, if you don't want to live a life of reactivity by constantly having to text people back, tell people in your life that you're not a texter. Tell them that's not how you communicate, that you don't use your phone for that. That's what I always say, oh, I don't use my phone for that. Just tell them.

And it's suddenly you put down 479 jobs. Okay. You can then decide with people how you prefer to communicate. That's different for everyone. Number three, my third one. Unfollow people who make you feel bad. I know this seems simple, but I do it every few months.

It is unbelievable to me how I will sit there and scroll through things that make me feel like crap for a very long time until I remember I don't have to do this. And what makes me feel bad or doesn't make me feel good is different all the time. So it does require a repeated curation. For me right now, I am allergic to anything that even has hints of diet culture. I'm learning about all of that. I don't like make myself prove why I deserve to unfollow this person.

It doesn't mean they're bad people. It doesn't mean I'm even making a judgment about them. It means it's not good for me. And also if you don't wanna hurt people's feelings, then you can mute people. I'm even making a judgment about them. It means it's not good for me. And also if you don't want to hurt people's feelings, then you can mute people. I'm not going to go through that, just Google it. But you can, there's ways you can unfollow or not see things where that other person won't know

that you have unfollowed them. That's good. Sissy, what are your tech hacks? Well, I am the last person in America to know this, but if you happen to be the other person, this is for you. Do you know how on text you can send an audio file? Like if you, if you press the little thing, you can say something, the other person receives it as an audio file.

There is another way to text that is you say it with your voice, but it goes into typed out words. Oh, okay. What is it called there? You go to your text, you click on the place where it says message where you would normally type. Then there's a little microphone at the bottom of your phone. You hit that and you say, hey, I'll see you at five o'clock.

Do you need anything from the grocery store? Question mark. You actually say question mark? And then you press it and it goes to them as writing. And I am the person who has written, you know, paragraphs and paragraphs of saying thumbs on the text. This has changed my life. Okay.

Number two, when you're writing an email, I'm always afraid that the email is going to go to the wrong person, that it's going to go prematurely. Write your email and then put the recipient in the email last. Then you don't have to worry about it going prematurely or accidentally sending it to the wrong person. That's good. Third thing, this is one for me because I wish people would do it for me and I wish to do it for other people. Venmo requests. So I live in fear that I accidentally owe someone money that they are now harboring resentment towards me for, but I don't know about it. Because like if we were to go to dinner, I am always afraid that I owe people money. So it is kind to send a Venmo request

then people know you owe me 30 bucks and then you can just press it. Also, it helps you not to harbor secret resentments if instead of saying, oh, we're gonna split this dinner, you'll just give me 30 bucks later. You can do it in that moment, send the Venmo request. Then you don't have to worry about whether that person is doing it intentionally.

It's a good job. I like that. I love that so much. Mm-hmm. All right, babe, what are yours? Well, having been a professional athlete for so many years, I was never very good at staying on task. Like, basically, I just followed the herd everywhere it went, you know? And so now in my post-career career, I early days, I would forget like to show up or to write things down in a calendar. So what I do is actually I set like 10 alarms

in a day because you know, when the calendar notification comes up on my phone, I ignore it every single time. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know. I'm like, why are you bothering me again? I know, like it's, I just, I flick it. I like clear it. So that's one. Another one is, uh, to take selfies in the iPhone app, in the photos, uh, section, you just press the volume up button. So people are always amazed when anybody has ever asked me for a photo. Oh my God. I just did it while you're talking. I cannot believe that works.

Yeah, I struggle to hit the dot in the middle every time. And then you have to hold it in a funky way. Oh my God. On the side and on the middle. Wait, so you just hold it up like this and press the up volume? Yep. I just did it.

Oh my God, that changes everything. It's a game changer for family photos. And you always take the selfies when we're out and someone asks for it, I hand it to you because you do it so easily and that is why. Yes, yes, that is why. Great. ["Sweet Home"]

Friendship hacks. I've got a few. Okay. Number one, when someone comes to your house, you can tell them what time you want them to leave. We always have start times for everything. And then there's no, the ending time is just this ghost. And you just have to like figure out when people want to leave and read the energy and you feel like they might never leave. No, I always say to people, well, to person, to Alex, to one person who comes over,

I say to person, would you like to come over from six to eight? What's wrong with that? Then the person comes. Then you're not wondering the whole time. You know when your stuff is have an ending time. Hack within a hack? Have the ending time a half an hour earlier than the time that you really must be done. Oh, for sure. Because then you can seem super gracious

when it goes to 8.30. Yes. Yes, yes. OK. The five-minute check-in. This has been very, very important to me. I don't like to call people for a few reasons, but one, because I don't want to talk for an hour. I just don't want to do the whole thing where you're just trying to figure out what to say and how are you and how's everything. Five minute check-in. Do

you have five minutes to just check in and see how things are going? 10 minutes, whatever it is. Every conversation doesn't have to be an hour long. That's a preemptive text. So, hey, do you have five minutes to check in? Yeah. And so everybody knows this is a five minute call. It's good. Yeah. And then of course, we've talked about this one before, but I really like the postmortem where you like are with someone and then you at the end of the getting together, you talk about all the things that you wish you didn't say or that you already feel awkward that you said at the end of it so you can get that out of the way so you don't have to do it on your way home and then for the rest of your life.

That's so sweet. I never, ever worry about that. I just want to be you in another life. I know. What about you, Sissy? One is the friend caucus during difficult times. When something happens in, like if there's a separation or divorce within your friend group, I think it is a really, really good idea to bring all the friends together for a meeting.

So recently when this happened in my friend group, I called a lunch meeting at my house where we just had lunch and it was with the express intention that the friend in our group who was going through a separation and eventual divorce could sit down and tell us what she wished to share about the situation to all of us together once. So we're not doing this like phone tag game. So smart. And even more importantly, hearing from her about what she wanted from us. So everyone is different when this happens. And I did this because I wish that I would have done it

for myself when I went through my divorce, but there's so many things that come up in that situation that are not intuitive, that people who want to be a good friend don't know how to handle and also don't know how the person wants it handled. So we talked about very specific things like, are you okay with us speaking individually about our concerns and worries about this, or do you want us not to? Because then everyone could hear together. So if she said no, then you in this group,

if you come and talk to me about it, you know it's not what she wants. And we can't pretend that we're talking in a concerned way if she said she doesn't want us to do that. Also the intention of how she could feel supported in our interactions with her ex. Do you want us to be gracious? Do you want us not to? Are you going to feel like we're disloyal if we say hello when we meet him? How do you want us to interact with your kids with respect to this?

What do they know? Do you want us to keep inviting him to the family barbecues? Do you want us not to? All of those kinds of things. And then we don't have to guess. Also, how do you handle the inevitable community members who during school pickup will say things like, what happened there? Because people are not equipped.

If you don't think of it, you get caught off guard, you eventually say something that you end up feeling disloyal about, it's terrible. And so we actually practice. Like what I'm going to say is, it's a really hard thing and I'm not discussing that. Or it's very complicated, you know how these things are. Or whatever it is that you don't walk away thinking, oh shit, I just shared my friend's confidence and I didn't even mean to and now I feel terrible. And also, do you want us to report back things you see?

Like, Z-Mac to the first thing about jobs you don't want. I didn't want to hear anything that people knew about my ex. I didn't want to hear they'd talk to him. I didn't want to hear anything. So I just feel like it's a really helpful thing to do because that is way too complicated of a system for everyone to be navigating independently

without hearing directly from the person. Really good. The only problem I have with this is that I don't have more than one friend. Oh my God, Abby. To need two caucus. I was just thinking that. I was like, who would I...

Who would be my caucus friends? Who would come to the caucus? Like, that's a good... I don't know. I think that's good for us to sit with. We need to find more friends. But it's different. This is the group that all of our kids went to preschool together.

All our kids are in elementary school together. It's a different phase of life where we are in this community at all of the same places. And so that makes it even more important that we are representing her the way she wants to be represented. God, sister, that is so, I don't know, I just love that so much. It just shows so much about you too, as like a protector of people. It has so much integrity. Yeah.

Like everybody wants to be, to feel held by a group like that. Talk about having gone through a divorce and needing a little bit of a playbook. Right? Yes! There's no playbook! That's exactly right. And then we're like, well, I hope all of these six people that are in this friend group that are all raised in a very different way, that all have different life's experiences, will

do what I wish they would do, even though we never talked about it. Yes. It doesn't make sense. And then some people feel like they need to be mean to the dude because that's the most loyal thing, but that might not be what she wants. And families don't even do that.

Like you're going through divorce with the siblings and whatever, they don't know what to do. They don't know if they're supposed to be talking to that. This is good for families too. The caucus. The caucus, sister. Very good life hack. OK, super quick ones.

Parenting. Number one, our biggest parenting hack, and also Abby's biggest relationship hack with me, is every time your kid comes to you with the drama and the trauma of little beingness or teenage-ness or whatever, not fixing the problem. The way we changed our relationship with one of our children is to every time they came to us to say in one way or another, are you wanting a solution right now or no? That changed everything because this kid needed a place to just be and have all of their feelings and have that space.

And every time we jumped into solution mode, it would steal away her whole transformation. We talked in the Sarah Bareilles episode about some people just need that cocoon time and don't want to be forced into being a butterfly because they know how to get to the butterfly place and it's to stay in the cocoon place for a while. It's not to be shoved because rushing the transformation doesn't work. And now what she does is she just comes into the room and is like, I need to vent. Yeah. She doesn't.

Go ahead. She knows. Okay. Number two, and this comes from my teaching years, little children are so annoying. OK? My fact. Children are so annoying.

And one of the reasons that they're so annoying, and by the way, I love them more than adults, so let's just say I'm obsessed with children. I would spend all day with them if I could. But the reason they're annoying is because they have no power and control. So they nag the shit out of you all day. When I have little kids, tell them what's going to happen that day.

Put a piece of paper up. Put a something. Have a schedule. This 9 to 10, tell them what's going to happen. And then 70% of their questions will be gone from you all day. Because you can just point back to the schedule. They just, what are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing?

Point back to the schedule. I used to do it when they couldn't read. I didn't even know what I was pointing to. It's just like something is there. Structure liberates everyone. Right. Number three, last one. When I was teaching preschool,

I would prepare for hours and hours and hours, all their activities all day. And then I would hear back from their parents that they didn't remember shit. They didn't know what we did. They know what we did all day. I might as well just stood there and handed them iPads. So here's what I figured out. In preschool and with children, you start strong and you finish strong. That's all they remember. All right? They remember the thing that they did the second they get to you. And they remember the thing that they did right before they get in the car with their parents. Rest of the day, abyss of nothingness.

So apply this to your life in any way with children. Start strong, finish strong, all the middle, screen time. That's so good. I love it. Abby, what are your bear dig things? I think one of the things that I like to believe that I brought to the family is when the kid asks a question, I just respond with, well, what do you think?

So good. Like before I go into my diatribe of, I know how to answer it, but I want to like call on them to start developing their own thoughts, agency. I mean, even something as simple as like, what do I get at a restaurant? Or what do you think I should get? Or what should I do with this friend? And I'm like, well, what do you think?

It works. Yeah, it's good. It works. It works with things like God too. Why would God? What do you think? And they also have the way cooler answers than I would come up with. So it's fascinating.

And they almost always have something and it's like, oh, they just needed a sounding board. My only parenting thing is to get a dog. Oh, that's good. Because it's just, it just takes the edge off the whole family. No one feels like talking to each other. No one knows what to say to each other. Everyone's talking to the dog. Everyone's talking as if they were the dog.

Everyone's imputing some kind of conversation to the dog's mouth. It's so much more fun than it used to be. It's like the bridge of all things awkward, silence, love, like energy, the amount of love that our children that are now in the teenage years that they're expressing themselves with this, our dogs, I'm like, wow, that's so beautiful. We don't even look at each other. All we do is sit around and stare together at the dog.

I don't even remember what anybody looks like. And it models the kind of thing, like I look at my reaction when my husband comes through the door versus my dog's and I'm like, take a lesson, Doyle. Yes. That is a lot of love when someone comes through the door. And that probably feels real good.

Yes. And then you personify the dog and work out all your own shit. I'll be like, look at Honey on the couch. She's thinking, why the hell doesn't anyone pick up their shit? Exactly. Okay, let's do travel. Travel hacks. Someone wrote this in.

Take a photo of your hotel room number so you don't forget it. So smart. Also, please take a photo of the nearest pole to the place you park in the parking garage. Yes. Cause you need that too. Yes. Okay. Very good. Okay. So I travel and I have traveled my whole life. And what I have found is if you find yourself traveling more than a couple of times a month, even if you just don't. I have a bag that is my travel bag. And I know that might sound obvious,

but every pocket in my travel bag has a specific reason for being there. My pens are in the same spot, my chargers are in the same spot where I put my wallet is in the same spot. My toiletry kit. I just bought double of everything. And so it just lives in my travel bag.

So whenever I go to travel, it's all done and dusted. Like I like to say, you do like to say that. And so when I travel with my family, they don't also understand this life travel hack that I have. And so it's like, I don't have a pen. And I'm like, bam. Yeah, she's got everything. Does somebody have a charger? Bam.

I'm just bamming everybody on the freaking plane. That's true. You taught me some cool things about driving. Do you remember when you taught me about the arrow? This is gonna blow the pod squad's mind unless it's something basic that everyone knows. I think a lot of people know this, but maybe if you don't, it might blow your mind.

Nobody ever remembers the side of the car the gas tank is on when you're going to get gas. And there's a little telltale sign on your gas gauge where there's a little gas pump next to your gas gauge. There's a little arrow and the arrow is pointing to the side that your gas tank is on. This has changed my life. The amount of times I pull up gas, hope, pray,

open my door, damn it, pull back around, there's a freaking arrow that points to the side. But then remember when you realized that on every elevator elevator there is a star next to one of the numbers and that star indicated for you where the lobby was? Remember when you realized that? That was after eight years of travel. Oh my dear God. Like every month and week.

What a sweet thing to do. What a sweet thing to do to put that star on there. I have one. When you're traveling, if you happen to be a family of four with two adults, like our family is, when you're traveling somewhere, you should book two of the three person rows and just book an aisle and a window in both sets of seats. And you book those seats because few people prefer a center seat. So they won't purchase that ticket in between and then you will have the whole seat to yourself,

which is lovely. Now, if by chance they do purchase the center seat and you get to your seats, you get to be a joy giver because you get to say, would you prefer to have the window seat? And then they say, yay. And then you're a hero and you didn't end up any worse than you would have. Love it. We have a call in hack for travel from Kim. Hi Glennon, Abby and sister. My name is Kim. My life hack is that if I go away, I tell everyone I'm coming back a day later than I actually do. That way no one is looking for me and I have a whole day for re-entry back into the world. Love what you guys do. Take you on all of my walks, even when a training. Really, really smart.

That's awesome. Good idea. Okay, we have got home hacks. I saw this home hack on the interwebs. I don't know if it works, but I saw that if you don't want your pot of water to boil over, you can put a wooden spoon across the pot and it will stop the bubbles from boiling over.

Do you even know what that means? What does what mean? How does that even work? The wooden spoon stops the bubbles. I know. Do you, do you put the wooden spoon just on the outside, uh, under the lid on top of the lid? So on the picture, Abigail, on the interwebs, the wooden spoon was splayed across the pot.

No top, just boiling water, lay it across the top of the boiling water. It doesn't overflow. It works. So good. Also fitted sheets. You know how annoying that is to find the way the fitted sheets fit. To put a fitted sheet on the bed, the tag should be in the bottom left or the upper right corner.

That's how you put it on correctly the first time. Oh my God, that's life-changing. I get so mad every single time. Every time, every time. Okay, we have a couple of call-ins from Hailey and Leanne on home hacks. Great. Hello, it's Hailey.

I am calling with a life hack. Okay. So it's actually really funny. It's not mine. It's my sister's. So I just got off the FaceTime with her. I was on FaceTime with her and she puts me down. She pops me up on her counter and she says, Hey, look what I did. She opened her stove and proceeds to pull out all of her dirty dishes from the night before because she had people coming over yesterday. So she literally put her dirty pots and pans and hid them in the stove because they had people coming over. And he's a mom of two

young kids. And I just thought it was the funniest thing. I'm like, that is the best life hack ever. If people come over, just hide your dirty dishes in the oven. Leanne Hey, it's Leanne. And I'm calling about life hack. Mine is claiming a corner of the couch as my own for television viewing. It is of course the most comfortable part of the couch. The part that comes out long that you can lay out in. And I claim it by, um, leaving a blanket there and I leave my shoes. So if anyone comes up, they think I've just left and I'm coming back and they

won't sit there. Although they're probably onto this now, but no one's sitting there so it must be working. Our kids wouldn't care. I feel like we need some kind of, we can do easy things award that we give out to people like Hailey and Leanne who just win at life. So love that couch.

The Leanne part of the couch is brilliant. I mean, Leanne, you paid for it. Exactly. And we never get the good part on the couch ever. No, I'm that couch. The Leanne part of the couch is brilliant. I mean, Leanne, you paid for it. Exactly. And we never get the good part on the couch ever. No, I'm always sitting at, the kids are always like laid out legs long and I'm just sitting with like, I'm trying to put my legs on the coffee table

and that's not comfortable. The coffee table's hard. I want to- And we bought the couch. Why aren't they deferential to what we want? I know. All right, let's hear from Laura. Or just deferential at all. I know. All right. Let's hear from Laura. Or just differential at all. Okay.

Laura and Catherine. Hi, Glenn and Abby and sister. I am Laura and I am calling with one of my life hacks, which is a mom life hack. If you have small kids and they bring home roughly 1.7 million pieces of artwork or paper and they're all special, but you just can't imagine where in the world you're going to keep it all. I would invest in black trash bags. That way when you throw it away, they don't see it through the white trash bag. It's completely blocked from their view. You just step it down there.

They'll have no idea when they inevitably forget. And then let me ask you where it is. Just to complete the fifth. But it's worked well for me. So hopefully some moms can use that. Hi everyone. This is Catherine. So my life hack is doing a load of towels.

I have three little kids. I have like endless, endless amounts of laundry. And when I get super sick of holding little shirts and pairing little socks and all of that, I throw in a load of towels. And the size of the mounds of that, I throw in a load of towels and the size of the mounds of laundry that I have to do decreases by, oh, I don't know, 50 to 60%. And so it feels like I have less to do then. And then also towels are super easy

to fold. So I feel like I win at life when I do a load of towels, when it occurs to me to do that. You know, you just got to grab the low-hanging food where you can. All right. Love you guys. Bye. I feel so strongly about the towel load of laundry. And when the towels are in the load of laundry, just pulling the towels out first, because then the whole thing is reduced. It looks like such a huge pile,

but really if you pull the towels out, it's not so big. Yeah, I feel like there's a life metaphor in there somewhere. There is, I'm too tired of this. A lot of towels in my life. Yeah. I'm gonna pull them out to the side. Eat the towel? And then also for you super moms

who feel bad about throwing away the art, you can take pictures of the art. Okay, You take a picture of the art on your phone, you make a little file. And then if you're really an overachiever, you can throw it all to one of those companies that make it into a book at the end of the year. So then you've got all your kids art, but that fits in a very small spot. And if you're not super,

please know that none of the three people in this podcast have ever done that. Oh no, of course not. Of course not. Of course we've never taken pictures of pictures. Of course we have no books. All right. I saw it somewhere. My laundry hacks are just everyone in my family knows if you have a piece of clothing that can't be washed and dried, that piece of clothing will be ruined. You have to know thyself. I have never once, not one time hand wash something, not one time ironed something. If you are gonna wear something that needs ironing, you are gonna look like crap.

I also have a little bit of a hack because Glennon is the one that does our laundry in our family. Not well. But one thing that I do as, and I don't know if you know this, but I turn all of my clothes right side out. I do appreciate that.

And I take my socks off from the toe so that the socks don't need to be folded right side out. So that is a gift that you can give the person who is doing laundry, you're giving them time back because they're not having to spend the extra time turning the shit right side out. Yeah, I appreciate that actually. The other thing is everyone in our family

just has to be fine with all of their white clothes being gray or brown. I don't separate laundry, I will never separate laundry. It's not ever going to happen. And what about the socks, honey? We saw that tweet. Oh yeah, so we saw this brilliant sock life hack from at WT flank steak, which said to declare sock bankruptcy.

And Abby and I laughed so hard because if you knew Pod Squad, the amount of time that I spend trying to put socks back together. I mean, we have entire bags full of single socks. Where do they go? We call it singles mingle. Where do they go? They stick together. Singles mingle!

Every couple of weeks, I lay them all out. I asked Craig to bring over his socks. We have a speed data. It's the eternal battle of reuniting socks. And so I just felt so much freedom seeing that tweet of declaring sock bankruptcy. It's also now kind of cool for like a teenage kid to wear different socks. And I see kids wearing different socks and I'm like, oh, I know those parents, those parents are us. Yeah.

You just can't find the other sock. Where the fuck do they go? I don't know. Like where the fuck are socks? I don't know. You guys, this is fun. Do you feel hacked? Yeah, I feel hacked.

You feel hacked. I feel hacked. I feel like all of these little things that can make life easier, I'm actually very grateful for. And if the Pod Squad wants to keep them coming, I'm open. I'm all about suffering less. If there's anything you do during the days that helps you suffer less, let us know.

We will keep reporting back because we live to make hard things easier. We can do our things, but we're going to try easier. Yes, that's right. We love you, Pod Squad, and we will catch you back here next time. Bye. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things first, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us

because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise Berman,

and the show is produced by Lauren Legrasso, Alison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz. ["The Last Supper"] you