WHOA That's Good Podcast - How to Walk Away When You Have To

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

Author and television host Dana Perino is no stranger to controversy, and the advice she's picked up along the way about love, confidence, and integrity is pure fire. Dana tells Sadie about her movie-worthy love story that started on an airplane, how she almost let him get away, how she learned to embrace God's plan even when it's not her plan, and how she protects her integrity at all costs and walks away from anything that could compromise it. Check out more in her book, "Everything Will Be Okay: Life Lessons for Young Women (from a Former Young Woman)." Sadie and Christian close it out by answering a caller's question on where to begin if you want to read Scripture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome Dana Preno to the WoW That's Good Piecast. I'm so excited that you're on today. I love the title. WoW that's good. It feels like the best possible podcast title. I know right? It's very exciting. It's pretty funny because it's spelled W-H-O-A, which a lot of people will spell WoW-O-W-O-A-H, and so some people will come on and they say, we're so excited to be on the whoa with that's good podcast. That way, hey, you know what, whatever works, it's fine. I hadn't thought of that, but I spell it the way you do. Okay, good, whoa, that's good.

Well, I'm so excited. Before we get into anything, we'll ask the first question that I always ask my podcast, what is the best piece of advice that you've ever been given? So I was thinking about this, you know, and I have enjoyed getting to know you a little bit, obviously from afar. This is the first time I've ever had a chance to speak with you, and I really admire you for so many reasons. One of the things I write about in this upcoming book, but I've said for a long time, is about my marriage.

I met my husband on an airplane. There were so many reasons why he and I would probably never be together. And I, one of them being that he's British. So he was living in England. I was in DC. He's 18 years older than me. He'd been married before.

He had children from his previous marriage. He had a whole different career and life track, but I was really in love. However, I was sort of talking myself out of it. I was worried about my career very much. I was only 25, but I was really thinking, my gosh, if I go to England to be with him and get married, my career path then is going to end.

Or like, I mean, I just, I thought that. So the best advice that I ever got, and I've been given so much advice, and I could probably give you a top five, but the best advice was a family friend recognized that I was struggling with this decision, and she pulled me aside at Christmas that year, Christmas 97, and she said, you know, what are you thinking,

what are you worried about, and you know, I made it kind of clear that I was a little bit worried about what everyone else would think about my decision, rather than just thinking about my own decision, and she gave me this advice. Do not give up on this chance to be loved. Wow. And she said, you have to choose to be loved. And she said, you might never meet anyone else who will love you like he does. So don't give up on this chance to be loved. And when I look back at everything now, I realize that all of my career success is great. I don't think any of it would have been possible or enjoyable if I hadn't been with Peter the entire time.

Wow. So I have to go, I have to say of all the advice I've been given, that's the best one. That is so good, that is a blow, that's good. You know, I can tell you the same thing actually whenever I met Christian, we met and it was really in the, it was at a time where a lot of things that I had really been working towards were finally starting to happen. And so I kind of felt like this is bad time to get into a relationship. However, same thing.

He was so amazing. He was so incredible. But I was like, I think I'm too busy. And I remember one night after we had had the most amazing first day. And clearly we were like, already kind of falling in love. And I was like, hey, I'm so sorry, but I'm gonna have to end this because and I go and on to tell him like I have so much stuff going on and I would just feel really bad if I was so busy and not giving me the time and I'm just blabbering and he literally stops me and he says, Sadie, he says don't ever apologize for the things God's doing in your life. And it was just like the, I mean it was the sweetest thing ever and he said if it's a win for you

and if it's a win for the kingdom then it's a win for me. And I realized in that moment like wow like this isn't it you know I don't have to choose. Like I don't have to choose like work or to be loved you know you can actually have both whenever you have a man secure in who they are and y'all can run the race right beside each other. And so I love that. I also love how you and your husband met. I was actually gonna ask you about that.

I saw an interview that you did where you were talking with somebody at the time when you were kind of like afraid that you might not ever meet anybody or you thought you were gonna be a relationship. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because I think that's so relatable to people. Sure.

So I went to college in my whole life. I thought I was going to be like a big city news anchor, like a local news anchor, somewhere big. Like, and then I started working in local news and I actually, I didn't love it. And I didn't think I was that great at it. And I ultimately ended up going to Washington DC. I worked for a congressman who was quite a senior and was a Republican congressman from Colorado. He actually has since passed.

The light Dan Schaefer. The thing about DC that is so funny, I wrote about this in my first book about how the guys that you meet there, there's just not many great ones. And this actually caused a little bit of controversy in Washington, DC, where the men were a little bit offended. But most of the women were like, yeah, that's exactly right. You meet these guys who look like they've never been outside a day in their life.

They're not outside working, like they're real kind of nerdy and they're real sort of nerdy, and they're real sort of ambitious and just too involved in politics and not wanting to commit. So I had gone for a long time without even a date, a long, long time. And I was part of my church group's singles group, my church's singles group, and we met every Wednesday, and we had a little bit of like a potluck supper and we would just talk about things and catch up and then Thursday nights that same group we did volunteering for tutoring. So we were quite involved with one another.

We knew a lot about each other and I shared that when I was 25, I felt like what I now call a quarter life crisis. I didn't know what it, I didn't really name it at the time, but I felt like my career was going well, but I didn't see how I was going to get to the next big step. I also sort of questioning whether I even wanted to be in Washington, DC. It can be a pretty disheartening place. I also was like, well wait, I thought that I was gonna like meet this great guy that's apparently miss mythical. I was planning to have children by the time I was 30 in this second home when I'm 34 and I had all these plans and nothing was working out and there was this woman in our single group. She was a little bit older than than others in the group. Look, she was only 40, but she had gone through

some tough times and things, but she was a little bit more wise. And she took me aside and said, everyone goes through this. If you remember what God said, which is to fear not. You are written in the palm of his hand. If you truly believe that, then this stress will be alleviated. You let it go, and then you open your heart to a possibility. It's good. It's so good. So I kind of, I don't know, you know how your mind, you hear that and then your mind tries to say, but I did try to just say, okay, let's just take her advice, let's just try it for a month, okay?

So that conversation I remember was in the May, because I had turned 25, my birthday's May 9th, turned 25, and then, I don't have a date or anything, but I just stopped worrying about it. And on August 17th, I would nearly miss the flight. And my husband was on booked on the same flight. We were assigned seats next to each other just randomly. And we were the last two people to get on the airplane. And it was 13 A and C on American Airlines going from Denver to Chicago. And then I was going on from Chicago to DC. And on the flight, when we were about to land in Chicago, I remember looking out the window and saying, Lord, I know I asked you to help me find someone. However, I'm falling in love with this man.

Two hours on a plane. And he lives in England. He's 18 years older than me. He was married before. By the way, did I mention he lives in England and this can't possibly be happening. But then for the next two weeks, I could not eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't drink, I couldn't read, my job was reading,

I couldn't even read the novels that I loved to read. I was just a wreck because I was totally and completely in love and that's when everything turned around. That is so fun. I wanna see this in a movie, which I feel like I might have. It's like such a movie scene story. You know what's surprising, Sadie?

Actually, when I tell this story, you'll see in your life. You will be surprised how many people have actually met on a plane. Really? It's a weird thing. Yeah. Some single people were about to go buy a plane ticket right now. Like, wait, I want to be on A&C with number and insurance. Oh, that's so great. I love it so much. Okay, so you mentioned a little bit

about things that you've done, things that you do. For the listener who might have never heard of Dana Prino, tell us a little bit about your story, which I know you talk about in the book. You give us a little recap in chapter two, but tell us for those who haven't picked up the book yet, which everybody should go get, it's available now. Everything will be okay. It's so great. But I would love for you to share just with listener, a little bit about your story because your life is very impressive. And so just cool seeing where you came from, where you were born and where you

ended up. It's amazing. Well, I appreciate that. I do write one of the chapters titles is who is Dana Perino anyway? So if you never saw, if you didn't care about politics and you didn't know me from the Bush White House or you never watch Fox News, then you wouldn't have any idea.

So why would you buy a book of advice from me? So I do think it's important when people are trying to get some advice for their own life and maybe their career path or otherwise, you know, if they're looking for some personal life guidance, I think it's important to just listen like, well, how did you do it? How did you end up White House Secretary? How did you end up this anchor of Fox News? So I also just want to make sure everybody's clear. I did not know anybody to get involved in this. Well, I was born in Wyoming. I grew up in Colorado and Wyoming. My family cattle ranches and Newcastle Wyoming. And in

fact, I was just talking to them last night and they're calving. The calving season and they're working all hours of the night because well, you're going to find this out soon when a baby decides to come. That's their decision. You don't have any say on the timing. So I had a really rural upbringing. But my dad was the first go to college in his family and he went to University of Wyoming fast forward When I was in third grade, you know, I had my dad was very important in my life

And I missed him at work and things and so he started an assignment for me that every day I had to read the Rocky Mountain news and the Denver Post before he got home from work And I had to pick out two articles to discuss before dinner And it could be any article I wanted and he he would ask, yeah, it was great. I mean, it was a good way to, one, get me interested in the news, but also, Sadie, it was really important, as I looked back after I was the White House press secretary,

I would think, you know, those afternoons and evenings at the kitchen table were really important for my future because I could express myself in front of a dominant male figure. Have my critical thinking. Be prepared to defend what I thought about whatever the issue was. I was really into dinosaurs, I remember articles about dinosaurs. So then I went to, I think the other big thing that I did that was really important to my future and I'll shorten that part.

I joined the speech team, the speech and debate team in high school and then I went to college on a speech team scholarship. And you are, I think a great example of this, but a lot of young women have trouble finding their strong voice and they can be very meek. And I write about in the book how it important is to find that confidence and to harness it into energy. My speech coach in college used to say, it's okay to have butterflies in your stomach as long as you make them fly information. That's good. I love that. It's really good, right? That's so good. So, and then I was gonna be in TV,

but that didn't necessarily work out. I worked on Capitol Hill. I think the thing that's very important is, I used to stay in touch with people all the time with an old-fashioned thing called postcards. So this is before social media, where you would have just sent a text or an Instagram post to somebody to say,

hey, I was thinking of you. I used to do that with postcards. When I moved to England, I would choose three to five people a week from my address book and then I would just randomly send postcards to keep in touch with people. And the reason was, one, I didn't want to lose touch with my friends, but two, I wanted to keep building my network. Cool. So that when I wanted to change career, change a job, or seek another opportunity, or maybe even advocate

on behalf of somebody else, I would know somebody in a lot of different places. Yeah. And I've kept doing that. And so now, here I am, I am the co-anchor of America's Newsroom with Bill Hammer, which is such a joy. It's a new role for me. It's cool.

We started anchoring together on January 18th. We both had our own shows in the afternoon, but now we do shows in the morning and it's 80. It's so wonderful. In fact, we have this thing called top line. It's like texting, but it's within the company. And during an interview today, I sent him a top line. I was like, I love this job so much.

It's awesome. I'm so happy in doing what I'm doing. And he's very joyous in his work. So it makes it makes for a very good colleague. So I take all of the experiences that I've had both from my professional life and then my personal life and try to put it all in one place. So it's a little bit of a up to updated guide for young women who are trying to make their way. That's so cool. That's so cool. I love hearing your story because it's the things in life that seem very random

that you actually end up saying was just really gods and tensionality. You know, I mean, I think about whenever I was little, whenever I was like five years old, I would stand on my kitchen table and I would preach to my parents, which was really funny at the time, and they would video me, and it was all cute and funny. And then, fast forward 20 years later, and I'm doing that now, you know? And so it just really is cool. Yeah, I have a funny story like that. When I was seven years old, I got to come to Washington, DC. My dad had a conference, and my mom and I got to come with us. That was back in the days when the company's paid for those kind of things. And we did all sorts of things in Washington. And I remember my little sister wasn't allowed to come with us. That was back in the days when the company is paid for those kind of things. And we did all sorts of things in Washington.

And I remember my little sister wasn't allowed to come. So it was like my big trip. And when I got home, there's this picture of me standing on the milk box that we had outside our house. And there's a flag up above us. And apparently I said, one day I'm going to work in the White House. Well, come on.

But you know, the other thing, you talk about intentionality. So one of the things I recognize when I, and the reason I wrote House. Wow, come on. But you know the other thing, talk about intentionality. So one of the things I recognize when I, and the reason I wrote my first book, it's called And The Good News is, I've had that title for a few different reasons, but I'm a planner and a warrior, right? Or I used to be more or so. And when I look back at every junction

when I've had a career opportunity that pushed me forward, it was not something I planned. Yep. And in fact, the day that I got named White House Press Secretary, I went into the office that day, intending to resign. Wow. Are you kidding?

And I said, can I see you after the meeting and communications director, and he said, yeah, I need to see you too. Wow. And so after the meeting, everybody left, and I sat down and I was so nervous to just blur it out. And he goes, do you mind if I go first? I was like, oh, no, go ahead. And that's when they said you're going to be the person to be hitting.

That is the coolest thing ever. I did not. Imagine if I had gone first, right? And so I've learned so many times that your plan is not going to be what ends up happening. God has a plan for you. Now you have to be prepared and you have to be well rested and you have to take good care of yourself and you have to be open-minded and you have to have kindness in your heart and you have to be open-minded.

But you don't have to try to plan it all out. It's just wasted energy. That's good. and you have to be open-minded. But you don't have to try to plan it all out. It's just wasted energy. That's good. I love, actually, I wrote down this point and you're less than alert, which I love your less than alerts. But lesson number three was changing courses

to be expected, not avoided, embrace change. And I think that that's such a struggle for people my age and maybe even just a year or two younger who are in college. It's like when they change their major, they think, oh my gosh, what if I mess it up? What if I mess up the plan? What if I go to the wrong school? What if I do this? And, you know, I heard somebody say one time that's like, you don't even have that much

power to mess up God's plan for your life. It's so true. And I love how you embrace the change that, you know, your life throughout. I have to say, if we, your life throughout all of you. I have to say, if we go back to the beginning of the conversation about the best advice I ever got, I haven't always practiced this that well. I mean, my husband has helped me a lot.

When I was first asked to come up to New York to do the five, which is a show on Fox that I've been doing for almost 10 years, I lived in DC. We owned a home there. I have to say, New York City wasn't my idea of a good place to be, a good healthy place to be. I've changed my mind on that.

I remember they called me and said, would you mind coming up for, I think, five weeks from July through late August, which is the worst time to be in Manhattan. And I was gonna be away from my dog and my husband. And I was like, oh, so I called Peter. And he was actually traveling overseas, he's an international businessman. And I called him and I was like, Peter, oh, guess what? And then I told him the offer.

And he said, congratulations, my darling. This is exactly what you've always wanted your whole life. That's awesome. I was like, why didn't I think, why didn't I have that right? You know, because it wasn't in my plan and so I've learned to try to embrace it a little bit better, but I'm not,

I'm not great about it. I definitely have help. Yeah, hey, you gotta learn that. That's so good. I love how you brought up even the practical advice of how you speak to people, because I've actually had a lot of conversations with girls who see what I'm doing and they wanna do something similar

and they have very timid voices or very meek voices. And they're like, how do you talk so strong? And I always tell them, I actually had a voice coach as well. And I had a voice coach tell me, like before really I even started, she said, you know, you're naturally gonna speak at about a seven. And she said, but you gotta bring it to a 10. But bringing it to a 10 tanks of tensionality.

And so she was just basically talking to me about how, when you're speaking to somebody, you actually have to think about how you're saying it and make sure that it's actually bringing the amount of energy that's gonna bring people in. And so people don't even think about having a voice coach. You know, you were like, wait, why would you? You were nice when she said, you were a 70,

a 10, was that an energy level? So she's saying like, you naturally are just gonna give about a seven. She's like, so bring it to a seven. Is that anybody or just you? She said anybody. She said anybody. And I think it's really good because naturally, yeah, you'd probably just stay in this zone

where it's very natural. But if you're gonna go on stage, or if you're kind of wanting to demand people to listen in a sense or draw people in, then it takes intentionality. So anyways, I've talked to girls about that, but you do such a good job of sharing that too. Even your subtitle of Life Lessons for young women from a former young woman.

And you actually are giving advice that everybody needs to know. One of the things I love is how you had a dinner party before, how you invited girls in, and you asked them to come prepare with what is the biggest problem you're trying to solve right now? What were some of those things that you heard girls say? So I the reason there's a couple of reasons I asked them that I do a lot of mentoring people come in this office all day long and I found that

especially ambitious young women they have a long list of worries. There's so many things on their mind. And when there's so much on your mind, you can't actually focus. And I was trying to get to the other reason I was trying to get them to focus is if you can narrow that down, what is the biggest problem you're trying to solve? It's to be real honest about it. Because it might not be the jerk that is

in the cubicle next to you. It might be that you're upset about something at home or in your personal life or something. So I asked people to be real serious. So I got a range of issues. I think I'll give you two examples. One was professional, one is more personal. So the professional one was a lot of people

in this age group where it's not your first job, but let's say you've transitioned to your second or third opportunity, and you're ready for more, right? You're ready to take things on, you want to move up, you want to be promoted. And when you go to look for those jobs that are the next step, many of the jobs will say you need five to seven years experience. And you've got two to three years experience. In my life, what I've seen with young women is that they advance so quickly.

It's like, wow, they're already moving up and moving up. So there's a frustration that they think that there's a gap that they don't know how to leap frog. So I write some very practical advice about how you can try to deal with that, which is showing that you're a more resilient person in the office, learning how to, basically I call it managing up, that basically means to me, can you make your boss's life better? Can you make her life easier? Are you indispensable? Are they going to turn to you for advice? And that's the key for this step in your life.

When you are ready to go to management or leadership or strike out on your own and do something like you're doing, if you have a young woman that's like, I'm going to do it, Sadie's doing. Okay, well, there's some steps beforehand that you need to do. So I talk about that. It's great.

It was one thing, it was very interesting. And it was a cultural issue that this young woman was dealing with. Her family is Muslim. They came from the Palestinian territories and they moved to America. A huge success story, her father, like an amazing,

successful businessman, real leader in the community, very generous and philanthropic. Thing is, his daughter was raised in America and she is not so strict from the cultural sense. And there's a big push for her to both cover and to get married to someone that, you know, that necessarily her choice. And she was really struggling with that. And she was also brilliant.

And she wanted this career track and this kind of life. And so she was struggling with how to handle the pressures at home. Right. That many young women in America might not even have anymore. You know, you would think that. But I've seen that with a few people. I have a really good friends, a couple of them, good friends who are just kicking rear end when it comes to their careers.

They are doing so well. They're getting to be like late 30s and they're not married. And their families are putting a lot of pressure on them, a lot, and it is not helping. So I would say that there was this big range. There was professional questions and then also, just things people are dealing with in their life.

That's really cool. It's really cool to know the backstory on even like some of the things that this book was birthed from because those are such real struggles that a lot of people go through. And I love how you're speaking directly to them. One of my favorite parts of the book, which is when he was actually in the introduction, I loved the advice that you gave. You said personal integrity is your most valuable asset. And I thought that was so good because then you can kind of share the story about the girl coming up to you. But I do think that a lot of people think that they have to kind of surrender their personal integrity in order to gain success. But

that is so scary and that is never going to work out. But it seems like even in conversation, I'll be like, oh, no, no, no, no, don't, don't lose who you are in the process. And so he can speak to that a little bit because that that does actually say, it's interesting. I would love to tell you this story, but I also want to say, I'm so glad that you liked that intro and I'm getting great feedback about it. Scott Adams read the book and he said it was the best intro of any book he's ever read. And he was actually, you know, not exaggerated. And I called him and said, thank you so much. I said, it's great. The interesting thing is, Sadie, there were three guys involved in the project from like an editing standpoint. Each of them separately suggested that I take that story out of a chapter that it was in because they thought that it didn't sound humble enough. No, I love it.

And so I almost took it out. Wow. And even though I love the story and I prayed about it, I slept on it, you know, I just had a prayer. Wow. I woke up in the morning and I thought, I'm not taking that out. It's the whole point of the book. Wow.

So, and I actually, it speaks to the point like, that's like actually the point you're making Your personal integrity That's awesome. Yeah, so I'll just describe the story I got a call from a young woman. She worked in communications on Capitol Hill, you know They all call me all day long No, that's not true not all day long, but they know that I'm I want to help them so they reach out so her long, but they know that I'm I want to help them so they reach out. So her, the Congressional Office she worked in wanted her to issue a statement in her name that she thought was

inappropriate, off-putting, unproductive, just like bad in tone, and she was like, she didn't want to do it. And so she called me and I said, well, then don't do it. She said, well, I, you know, she said, I was, she was afraid that she would get fired or, you know, that her office would be mad at her or whatever. And she said, I said, well, don't, I said, don't put your name on it. Don't say it.

And she goes, well, I don't think I can say no because I'm not Dana Perino. Mm. And I said, how do you think I became Dana Perino? Mm. And that's how that ends, basically. And I said, how do you think I became Dana Perino? And that's how that ends, basically. It's that, God gave us personal integrity. That's one of our most important assets.

It's the most valuable assets. You have to protect that at all costs. And there will be pressures on you from a personal standpoint and professional, where you are going to be tested. But if you do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, you'll never, ever forget that. And you could come to really regret it.

I'm not saying that mistakes are fatal. Yeah, they're not. Yeah, but she worked it out. She found a way for the statement to be put out and under the congressman's name, not her name. And you know, it all worked out okay. I hope she reads the book and remembers that. That's awesome.

Because it's not always easy to stand up for what you think is right. That's also another reason why young women should make sure that they're taking care of themselves financially as well. Because you want to be able to walk away if you have to. That's good. I feel like some people might have the question

for you because, you know, most people have this question, how do you have confidence? And you're such a confident person. And not even, I mean, and people might say, well, yeah, like you've been on Fox News, you were the first woman to be the White House press secretary for the Republicans, so it's like all these different things.

Maybe that's what made you confident. But I mean, back in and up, like how do you even have the confidence to take that job? That's so huge. How do you have the confidence to go into these rooms? So what is it for you? How do you think you've found such confidence to do the things that you have been able to do? Well, I think it's what's interesting is that for a lot of people that you might look to as a role

model or think have all this confidence in the world that inside, that's not the case. I mean, you've done a lot of interviews here and I I think about even like big performers, like Luke Bryan, you think, oh, like he never has any concerns, he never has any problems. That's not true. And he was quite open about like, there's vulnerabilities there and worries and they're human.

I think that the public speaking competitions that I did really helped when I was in high school in college. Because the number one fear of all humans is public speaking. The number one fear, nothing else. And it's because we're afraid of ridicule. We're afraid of being judged. And then we judge ourselves very harshly.

Look, I would pray before a briefing. But the interesting thing is that when I became the White House press secretary, I had been the deputy for two or three years before. And I was very, very comfortable being behind the scenes. I didn't want to be out there at the podium. I wanted to help Tony Snow get ready for his briefing. I loved prepping President Bush for his press conferences. That was one of my favorite things to do, but I didn't want to do them myself. Yeah.

And Sadie, what happened was Tony Snow was suffering from cancer and was getting treatments and in order to focus on his health and his family, he decided to step down. and that's when I became the press secretary. So here's the thing. I didn't raise my hand. I got pushed.

Yeah. Because there was literally nobody else in the government who could do it. Yeah. Wow. So that first briefing, oh my gosh, I got a call from Secretary Margaret Spellings over at the education department.

She called me that morning and she said, well, how are you doing? I said, I'm really nervous and boom. I just said, well, you're gonna have to put your big girl panties on and deal with it. That's awesome. And she was right. And you know, that's the other reason I wrote this book

is that I feel there's an, that I have an obligation to help younger women that are coming up through their professional development because I've been grant, I've been given so much and I've learned so much and I've learned not to worry so much. And sometimes you just need somebody who's been through it to reach out and give you a little bit of a helping hand. Well, it's so helpful and it's so good.

The last thing I want to ask you because I actually heard you say this in an interview and I thought this would be great advice for a lot of people is you talk about how there was a moment in the White House where you kind of caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and you were like, who am I? This is not who I want to be. And I feel like many people might be in that position now. They might have gotten the career that they wanted to get. They've gotten the successes that they want to have,

but they look in the mirror and they don't recognize who they are. For that person, and for you when you were there, how do you get back to who you are? So I love this question. I actually think that this could also be true following a very tense election, right where maybe within your family or your friends group or something that things were said that are hurtful to either side and maybe posted something on social media that you regret or as you're saying,

it can happen in a lot of different ways. I remember that day very clearly, like it was yesterday, you know, the last year of the Bush administration, things were very tough. The war was well underway. We were seeing a lot of loss. It was getting better. It was getting better, but that progress was slow. We were under the gun for all sorts of reasons.

The media really loved to have a go at George W. Bush. And there was an election ongoing between Obama and McCain, and they both were attacking George W. Bush. And I was trying my best to just deal with all of it, and try to be cheerful and do the right thing. But also, the financial crisis was happening, and we just felt like we were taking incoming all over. And I just remember I wish I could even draw the face for you right now because I feel like I don't really wasn't me, but it was

like a clunch jaw, just scowling, like dead in the eyes, no lightness, no brightness. And I realized that I had gotten away from prayer. I was relying on myself to try to improve things. And I had become way too insulated. I was way too much in my bubble. Yeah. So how did I deal with it? Well, my husband and I decided to do something

right after the White House. So I think was the best possible thing for me and for our marriage to regroup after all of that. We went to Africa and we did two weeks of Safari vacation type thing, amazing. So all that beautiful wildlife and nature and amazing majestic animals. And I loved that.

Also drank a lot of red wine and ate a lot of great steves in South Africa. And then we went to a pep far site. So pep far was President Bush's HIV AIDS Initiative. That was worldwide, but really focused in Africa, in particular, where there was a lot of suffering and death. It was called the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

And we went and volunteered there for two weeks. And I remember that on the first day, we got some training. It was a faith-based organization. So we got some training. It was a faith-based organization. So we got some training and some materials to be able to use in our ministry and sitting with the folks in the hospice. He went to the men's ward and I went to the women's. Well, I was under this mistaken.

You would think I would be a little bit more enlightened. But I thought that most of these women would speak English because we were in South Africa where that is obviously a language in addition to many local languages that are spoken by people that were born there. I get there, they don't speak English. I'm like, what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit here?

I don't know what to do. I don't even talk to them about God. I can't even talk to them about anything. So I just sat there. and one of the patients, she was picking at her nail polish and she asked the nurse to bring her nail polish remover and a nail polish so she could fix it. And the nurse comes out, she's like,

this is all we have left and she's pouring the alcohol into the bottle to thin it so that it could go farther. And I had this idea. And I went over to the men's ward and I asked my husband, can you take me to the store? So we go to the store, it was like a CVS type thing. And I went in and I bought a manicure set for eight women, eight manicure sets. And a whole bunch of different nail polishes, they call it nail varnish. And I take it all back and I set it up on a table like you would like at a nail salon. And I said, who here wants their nails done?

That's awesome. Guess what, Sadie? They spoke English. What? They just didn't know who I was. Like who is this blonde girl that comes in the sissy near? So they were also very touched that I was willing to touch them. So I did their nails and they told me their stories. I think that going there, getting out of Washington, D.C., being able to focus on someone else through a ministry that I think that that's what reset my whole body cloth and my mind and my and truly my

heart and what I write about in the book is getting perspective with a capital P. That's good. That's so good. I love it. Wow thank you for sharing that. I have similar stories in my own life where my family's always traveled overseas and gone different places. And people ask me, you know, how do you stay humble? How do you, and I agree, it's perspective. And it's constantly thinking about people outside

of just thinking about yourself. And so that is so good. Dana, you are amazing. And I'm so glad you wrote this book for young people, like myself, so that we can, you know, walk in some, a good path and a good track. And you've given us a lot of great advice. So thank you for being on WoW, that's good.

And given us great advice, you're incredible. Well, say, I have to say that, you know, one of the things I say is you look for role models everywhere. And I can look to you as role models everywhere and I can look to you as role model as well. I really appreciate what you're doing. I'm excited to see what all the future brings for you and good luck with the baby.

Thank you, that means so well. Thank you so much. Hello. Hey. Hey, is this page? Yes, it is. Hey, girl. Hey, page.

This is Sadie and Christian. Hey guys. How's your day going? Hey, is this page? Yes, it is. Hey, girl. Hey, page. Sadie and Christian. Hey, guys. How's your day going? It's going so good.

Oh, good. Awesome. Well, Paige, thanks for sending in a question. Um, my team grabbed that question and wanted us to answer it. So what was your question that you sent in? Yeah, so I've been a huge fan of the world that's good podcast for a long time. And the question that I was hoping you guys could answer

was how do I even begin to read scripture? Because I really want to jump into scripture and reading God's Word, but I don't know where to start. Hey, that's real. Well, first of all, thanks for being a fan of the podcast. That means a lot. I will say, the Bible can be such an intimidating book to pick up and read because for me,

as someone who doesn't like love to read, when you look at a book like the Bible, you're like, what in the world, how do I start that? And so my encouragement to you would be start with like, the gospel. So the gospels is of course the story of Jesus. Then you can go read the letters, you know, letters to the different churches. For me what I always like to tell people is, you know,

I think it's better if you don't try to like just read a scripture day. If you read, I think you should read like a book at one time. So say like I'm gonna go read the book of Joshua. Well, I'm gonna like not just read chapter one and then tomorrow read Psalms. Like I'm gonna finish Joshua, you know, just because then you get to see like a whole story come to life. Just like you'd read any other book. You wouldn't let pick up a book and just like read one page of a book and then jump to like page 100 and read another page of a book. Then you'd be very confused by the book, you know? And so read Genesis, you know, then read Exodus, then go read, you know, Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and all these different books.

And I'm not saying you can't read books at the same time. I'm actually doing a plan right now on the Bible app, which is the Bible in one year. And I'm reading all types of different books at the same time, but we're finishing them. And I think that's the most important part so that you see the story come together. Um, yeah, Matthew, I was gonna say Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the four gospels in the New Testament. And I usually encourage people to read Mark first. A lot of people say John or Matthew, but I think Mark is really good. Mark is a little shorter than those, but it really gets to the point.

And it's the some of the language can be easier to read for people. So I usually encourage them to start with Mark. Yep, so the gospel is for people who don't know, that's the story of Jesus. And so that's why we say start with that because that'll help you really understand the heart of the Bible, the story of Jesus, you know? But I hope that helps.

I mean, just reading books through, actually finishing the story because that's when you're gonna be like, drawn into it and you're not going to want to stop. That's going to be contagious about reading the Bible because the stories are so amazing. And then practically also, like I said, I joined the Bible at plan, like join a plan, follow somebody else's lead that might know how to lead you through scripture and there's no shame in that. Like, doing it yourself can be really hard by doing it with somebody leading or even

friends that you're studying with makes it a whole lot easier. But I hope that helps. I hope that helps your journey page. And I'm excited that you even asked a question like that because that shows you have a desire and that's the first set to reading scripture, having a desire to actually read the story. Yeah, it's so true. Yeah. Yeah, thank you guys so much. Yeah, so thanks for being on the way that desire to actually read the story. Yeah, it's so true. Yeah. Yeah, thank you guys so much.

Yeah, so thanks for being on the One That's Give Hi, guys. Bye! Bye! Bye. Thank you. Yo, I love these questions coming in. Keep sending in your questions to the One That's Give Hi, guys. Instagram page, go follow us there.

And we would love to feature your question about answering it. Christian, he loves, he loves a good swipe up. Go swipe up on a both-step high-cast. No, go sit in your questions. We'd love to call you and be able to answer some of those and bring some clarity to your life. And you know what, we're going to get to some, whoa, that's good things.

And after you send the questions in, swipe up. Yeah, you can just swipe up for a ride. You know, a little finger-pull. Spark it. All right, bye guys. in swipe up. Yeah, you can just swipe up for a ride. Yeah, a little fingerflap. Alright, bye guys. you