Lydia Fenet, THE MOST POWERFUL WOMAN IN THE ROOM IS YOU
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:12]This episode is brought to you by Boombox Gifts.
[0:15]Memory boxes filled with personal messages and photos from friends and family for your next
[0:19]special occasion.
[0:20]Check it out at boomboxgifts.com.
[0:22]I'm excited to be here today with Lydia Finay, she is the Managing Director, Global Head
[0:26]of Strategic Partnerships at Christie's, as lead benefit auctioneer of the firm, she has
[0:31]led auctions from more than 600 organizations.
[0:34]She's been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal Forbes, Vanity Fair,
[0:38]Vogue, Town and Country, and many other publications.
[0:40]Graduate of C. Money University, and originally from Louisiana, Lydia currently lives in
[0:45]New York City with her husband and three children.
[0:47]The most powerful woman in the room is you, command and audience, and sell your way
[0:51]to success is her first book.
[0:54]Welcome, Lydia.
[0:55]Thanks so much for coming on, Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:57]Thank you so much for having me.
[0:59]I'm excited to be here.
[1:00]So can you please tell us, near is what your new book, the most powerful one
[1:04]woman in the room is you, is about?
[1:07]Absolutely.
[1:08]So the most powerful woman in the room is you, is a story about my 20-year career at
[1:13]Christie's Auction House.
[1:15]But it's more than a story.
[1:16]It's really a lot of stories about life lessons learned through being on stage for almost
[1:22]16 years as an auctioneer.
[1:25]And a lot of these stories, as I realized, and as I was writing this book, a lot of
[1:29]the stories really apply to things that I've learned over the course of my career, but
[1:33]there were things that I wish someone had told me very early on in my career.
[1:36]And that's really what the book ended up being, which is not actually what I thought
[1:40]it was going to be when I started.
[1:42]And so I think more than anything, it's just a fun read about a 20-year career with a
[1:47]lot of life lessons woven in.
[1:48]And it's so neat for me to be interviewing you because so much of the time in the book
[1:52]you're referencing your career, especially your onstage portion of the career when
[1:56]you go to different events and raise money for charities as an auctioneer.
[2:00]And I've been in the crowds and seen you over the years many times.
[2:03]So it's like, you always wonder, like, what's the conversation there?
[2:07]So now I actually have your story right here next week.
[2:10]That's pretty cool.
[2:12]Your book has really great advice and not just sort of the generalized advice you might
[2:17]get from some businessy books or even self-helpy type books, but specific actionable
[2:21]tips.
[2:22]So I was like underlining as I went the whole time, so some of the tips you gave.
[2:25]Some of them sound general, but you build them up with specific examples afterwards.
[2:30]So it makes them very user friendly.
[2:32]So like telling everyone and anyone, your life goals, sell as yourself, hard work and practice
[2:37]will get you what you want in life, negotiate what you deserve or you won't be compensated
[2:41]adequately, ask others who have achieved what you want and how they got there.
[2:45]This is a good one.
[2:46]Turn your computer to face the wall when you're on an important call so you don't
[2:49]get distracted.
[2:50]Absolutely.
[2:51]Right.
[2:52]And I used to be so good at it and I've like really gotten badly, which is terrible.
[2:56]So I was interested stylistically when I read it.
[2:58]Did you consider, and maybe this is what you were just referencing, did you consider
[3:01]making it just about like having bold tips with little paragraphs under?
[3:06]Because the way you have it, it's all woven in, like you said, like a story.
[3:09]Yeah.
[3:10]And you have to kind of find them, find the nuggets and then you just sort of find it.
[3:14]I grew up in the South.
[3:15]I grew up in Louisiana and storytelling is so much a way that people relate.
[3:19]My dad is a trial lawyer and as a result, everything he tells, he tells in the form of
[3:24]a story.
[3:25]And so it's sort of up to you as to how you digest it or how you take it and then run with
[3:30]it over life.
[3:32]And I feel like that's kind of the way I wanted people to see this as well.
[3:36]Because as you said, a lot of these tips people have heard before.
[3:39]I mean, I'm not the first person who will tell you that you're going to learn through
[3:42]rejection or failure.
[3:43]It's written on every poster board that you can see.
[3:46]But I wrote the story of the third chapter or the fourth chapter where I talk about
[3:50]rejection in the form of a story.
[3:53]And you know, I started off small.
[3:54]I was, I was rejected early on in an Rockefeller singing group and, you know, everybody's
[3:59]been there.
[4:00]Everybody has been through something that seemed really heartbreaking and heart-wrenching
[4:04]at the time.
[4:06]And then you get over it and you realize that that wasn't so bad.
[4:10]You know, it's still painful.
[4:11]It's still embarrassing, but it wasn't so bad.
[4:13]And then the next time it happens, you draw from that and remember it.
[4:16]And so I remember, you know, I was rejected from hydraulics the first two times and then
[4:20]ultimately made it into the singing group.
[4:23]But then I got rejected from my first choice college, which seemed like it was going to
[4:26]be a slam dunk.
[4:27]And I remember being, I was at boarding school.
[4:30]And so you sort of are processing this without your parents in front of you.
[4:33]You know, there are phone call away.
[4:34]And so I remember sitting outside and crying and thinking, I've been through this before.
[4:39]I've been actually on this wall.
[4:40]I've been seated here crying.
[4:42]It was for hydraulics first time.
[4:44]And I lived through that and it was okay.
[4:46]And so that was really why I wanted the story to start out small because at the end, you
[4:50]know, I'm on stage with Bruce Springsteen getting rejected in front of 6,000 people.
[4:56]And what does that feel like?
[4:57]Well, it feels pretty painful at the time.
[4:59]But at the same time, having been through smaller rejections is actually not that painful
[5:03]because you realize you just sort of come back stronger every time.
[5:06]That's awesome.
[5:07]It's, I feel like some of these permanent moments, especially for my kids when I watch
[5:10]it.
[5:11]This is going to help you later.
[5:12]I know.
[5:13]It's so true.
[5:15]You can cry.
[5:16]I had a friend who is one of four children.
[5:19]And I remember she said to me once she was fired from a job.
[5:23]And she just has an incredible resilience about her.
[5:26]And she said that her parents, you know, she's like, if I call my parents right now, they
[5:29]would say, well, too bad for them, they're missing out on a real amazing woman or something
[5:34]like that.
[5:35]And I remember thinking like how amazing to be able to turn that around so quickly and
[5:39]make it about somebody else's loss in your gain because you're getting this next adventure
[5:43]in your life and they're losing out on you.
[5:45]And what a great way to live life.
[5:46]What are they?
[5:47]I love that.
[5:48]And speaking of like role models, you have a lot of quotes and passages written by other
[5:53]high-power women throughout from an Olympic athlete to Martha Stewart, a lot of CEOs with
[5:58]different various businesses, Barbara Corcoran, Shark Tank, magazine editors.
[6:03]Were there any tips that they gave you that you found surprising or you weren't really expecting?
[6:08]Anything you've really taken out of what they added to your book that's helped you.
[6:12]Well, I think with the case studies, there certainly are people who are at the top of
[6:16]their game like a Martha Stewart or a Nina Garcia, but there were also a lot of people
[6:20]that I just knew in my life or I reached out to friends and said, do you know somebody
[6:25]who's just killing it in their job?
[6:26]Not necessarily somebody that everyone has heard of, but someone you just think is a powerful
[6:30]woman in their own industry because I wanted people to relate.
[6:34]That was the whole book, right?
[6:35]It's about relatability and something that you may not be able to be a Martha Stewart, but
[6:39]you could be the CEO of a small business that you start, or you could just be killing
[6:42]it in your home and you could be doing a podcast in your home.
[6:45]I mean, you can choose your path.
[6:47]So I think the piece of advice that I loved the most was a woman named Gemma Burgas who's
[6:51]a screenwriter and she's just an amazing woman.
[6:55]And I asked her about the negotiation chapter, have you ever been through anything that
[7:01]you want to talk about?
[7:02]And the interesting thing about the case studies, I didn't send them the chapters.
[7:05]I just sent them the chapter heading and asked them to relate a story that they had been
[7:10]through, something that they had seen in their own life.
[7:13]And Gemma said, you know, when I was in my 20s, I used to ask any woman in her 30s to
[7:18]go out for lunch or coffee.
[7:20]Everybody likes to talk about themselves and she's like, I was so desperate for information
[7:24]at the time.
[7:25]She said that one woman gave her the best advice ever, which was whenever you go into
[7:28]negotiation, make them wince.
[7:31]And I thought it was just the most genius thing because if you think about it, you go
[7:34]in fearful of what you're going to say, right?
[7:36]I'm going to negotiate.
[7:37]I'm scared.
[7:38]Make them wince.
[7:39]Go big.
[7:40]And the funny thing throughout this entire book, I have an older brother and a younger brother
[7:44]and a ton of guy friends.
[7:46]And I told them this and they were all sort of like, yeah, I told women and they were
[7:52]like, this is literally the nugget I've been waiting for my whole life.
[7:56]And I just realized, you know, half the population already makes them wince when they
[7:59]go in for a negotiation.
[8:01]And even in my own office, I see it.
[8:02]Women never come in and ask for double their salary.
[8:04]I had a guy once who came in.
[8:06]I hadn't even offered him the job and by the way, I had no intention of offering him
[8:10]the job.
[8:11]And he sent me a preemptive email to tell me what he would require and, oh, by the way,
[8:15]the title wasn't enough and I just were being like, good Lord.
[8:18]But then also, wow, look at what a different way to come at this because all of a sudden,
[8:22]now I'm thinking, well, if I did this, I would have to get him more money because he made
[8:27]me think about it.
[8:28]And I had not up until that point thought about it.
[8:31]So make them wince.
[8:33]I remember my very first job out of college.
[8:36]I remember where I was.
[8:37]I was like sitting on my bed, like my old fashioned, had like my white, berry stuffed animal.
[8:41]Like this is like so long ago that room has been redone.
[8:44]It's like in my mom's house.
[8:45]Anyway, but I remember like talking to my first boss on the phone and asking for something
[8:49]that I thought was a lot of money, which was not even like industry standard for like
[8:54]my entry level job.
[8:55]But it just sounded like a lot.
[8:56]I don't even know where I got this number.
[8:58]And I remember and they gave me something even lower than that.
[9:01]But I was like, okay, it was close.
[9:02]And I remember calling my dad and I was like, well, I asked for X and he's like, oh, God.
[9:06]Like literally I'll never forget the disappointment in his voice.
[9:09]Like how, you know, you can't start there.
[9:12]He's like, make them wince.
[9:14]Yeah.
[9:15]I mean, I was like, oh my gosh, they were like, this is the cheapest tire ever.
[9:18]Oh my gosh.
[9:19]Anyway, so that was all super useful.
[9:21]For public speakers, you also have a lot of really great advice and not everyone is going
[9:26]to be talking in front of thousands of people trying to raise money.
[9:29]But even something simple, even speaking to your class as a class mom or speaking to your
[9:34]whole team at work or whatever, you have a lot of really great tips.
[9:37]One of the tips I like the most was to make the audience part of your performance and
[9:40]talk to them like they're your friends.
[9:42]Yes.
[9:43]You can tell a little more about that, please.
[9:44]Well, I think it all comes from this belief that when you get on stage, everybody sitting
[9:49]in the audience is against you.
[9:51]I teach all the charity auctioneers for Christie's.
[9:53]And so when I train them or when I'm sort of trying them out to see whether or not they'll
[9:56]become charity auctioneers, one of the first things that I do is ask.
[10:00]them to tell a story and you should see how quickly people that I know and have known
[10:04]for 10, 15 years fall apart in front of me and not me, but you know, 10 people, they
[10:10]start shaking, their voices shaking, they're flipping their hair back and forth.
[10:14]And so what I always say to them is just remember that the audience wants you to succeed.
[10:18]We are here to support you.
[10:20]We are not here to make you scared and if you are nervous, message that to us.
[10:25]Tell us that you're a nervous speaker because think about it from the audience's perspective
[10:29]does anybody want to sit there listening to somebody who's stumbling through a speech,
[10:33]of course not.
[10:34]They want you to be articulate.
[10:35]They want you to be enjoying what you're doing.
[10:37]And so that's sort of the first tip that I talk about when I'm discussing that.
[10:42]And one way to make yourself feel very comfortable if you're a nervous public speaker is
[10:46]immediately point out something that you see in front of you in the audience because it
[10:50]helps your nerves because you feel like you're talking to someone.
[10:53]So, you know, I was doing a talk at the Charleston Library Society last week and this
[10:57]gentleman in the back row, you know, 745 at night, yawned halfway through.
[11:01]And I said, oh, sir, I'm so sorry that I'm not entertaining enough for you.
[11:04]I will try to really ramp it up for the second part of this speech.
[11:07]And again, it was just kind of acknowledging it.
[11:09]He laughed the audience laughed.
[11:10]It kind of woke them all back up and I think it made them a little fearful that maybe
[11:13]I would say something about them, which kept them on their toes, which is always a good thing.
[11:18]But just giving yourself the ability to step over that line, make people feel comfortable
[11:23]in your space.
[11:25]It's what makes public speaking fun.
[11:27]It doesn't have to be this formal presentation.
[11:29]And frankly, you will see the audience really engage more if they feel like there's a chance
[11:33]they may be called out while you're up there.
[11:36]Excellent.
[11:37]One of the most helpful parts for me also as a busy mom in New York City and running around.
[11:41]Not that this is New York City specific, but was how you structured your time each day
[11:44]to help you accomplish your goals.
[11:46]And you do it so thoughtfully.
[11:48]You create a daily schedule that you call your roadmap and you really think it's through.
[11:52]I try to do this occasionally, like even just a flat out, like how are we going to get
[11:56]everybody picked up from school at the same time to go.
[11:59]And sometimes at night, I'm like too wiped out to do what I think it through.
[12:03]So you do it at the beginning of the week sometimes.
[12:05]I do it now.
[12:06]So tell me how you do it and what we should do to follow your great example.
[12:11]So I start Sunday, because I feel like people always say to me, oh, the Sunday night
[12:16]scariest because I have to go back to school, it's all this stuff.
[12:19]And a lot of times I think to myself, it's because you really haven't thought through
[12:22]your week.
[12:23]It seems overwhelming because you haven't been proactive about it, which frankly is
[12:26]like anything in life.
[12:27]It seems scarier when it's being thrown at you versus you taking the first step.
[12:31]So Sunday night, I sit down with a calendar.
[12:33]And by the way, this is a paper calendar.
[12:35]This is not my iPhone.
[12:36]This is not an eye.
[12:37]This is nothing technological.
[12:39]This is literally a paper calendar where I fill in the numbers just for the week.
[12:43]And I write down exactly what's taking place that day, every day for the entire week so
[12:48]that my husband can see it so that I can see it so that our nanny can see it who watches
[12:52]our little ones so that there's no ambiguity about who's going where, what's going to
[12:56]happen.
[12:57]And then for myself, over the course of the day, I print out my calendar and work the
[13:01]minute I arrive and I make notes so that I know exactly what's happening throughout the
[13:06]day.
[13:07]And if something gets rearranged, then it's very easy for me to sort of, you know, put an
[13:10]arrow to something else and quickly email and say, like, I'm not going to be there quite
[13:14]on time, but I could be there within this time period or frankly just cancel the meeting.
[13:19]So I think as more than anything is a mom because of those logistics, I mean, Zimino's
[13:22]is I have three children as well.
[13:24]For me, it's the logistics and making sure that all of those things are down on a calendar
[13:29]well in advance of when I need to be there.
[13:32]And also just giving myself the flexibility to not be like, I have to be there at 815.
[13:37]I'm going to arrive at 815 because we all know with children, you know, I still have one
[13:41]in diapers.
[13:42]And honestly, that's the biggest outlier because you kind of never know when you're going
[13:44]to have to change a diaper.
[13:45]You're walking out of the door and all of a sudden you have to run back in or, you
[13:49]know, in my case, a lot of times I'll be out somewhere and then I realize I don't have
[13:52]a diaper.
[13:53]So then I have to recruit a random person who might have a diaper which don't ever
[13:57]be afraid to ask.
[13:58]I've done that many times.
[13:59]But I think all of these things is just giving yourself a time period, you know, within
[14:04]which you are hoping to achieve something.
[14:06]But then also don't beat yourself up if it doesn't happen.
[14:09]A lot of times things can be pivoted into a different day or frankly even a different
[14:14]week.
[14:15]And we all set ourselves up to have these strict schedules when in fact, it's not feasible.
[14:19]So just don't beat yourself up.
[14:21]I think that's actually my biggest time management, my big time management skill.
[14:24]And in your schedule, you always carve out time uninterrupted time with your kids after
[14:29]work, before you go to an auction, no phone, no phone, no phone, you're in it, no phone,
[14:35]no TV, that's us, like playing on the floor.
[14:37]And I feel like especially as a working mom, you know, that is, that's what keeps me from
[14:42]the guilt, which is so pervasive.
[14:44]And I say that as a working mom, I think stay at home moms have it as well.
[14:47]I mean, it's just this, am I doing enough?
[14:50]You're doing enough.
[14:51]You've had your children, you see them, they know you love them, like you're doing
[14:54]enough.
[14:55]But I also feel like because I am not in my home during the day, especially with my
[14:59]little one, I do want them to understand that every single night when I am in town and
[15:04]not traveling, there will be time when I walk in the door where I do not have my phone
[15:08]out.
[15:09]I am not checking Instagram.
[15:10]I am not sending work emails.
[15:12]I am literally hanging out with them on the floor, helping my daughter do homework,
[15:16]or really playing, you know, that's kind of our thing right now.
[15:19]And then putting the baby next to us with beads so that she doesn't jump on top of the
[15:22]uno pack, which she does almost every single night, which ends the game and signals that
[15:27]it's time for dead.
[15:28]And do you also carve out time with your husband?
[15:30]I was wondering where this fast sort of fits into the roadmap of the week.
[15:33]Yeah.
[15:34]I feel like Chris, Chris is my husband.
[15:36]Chris and I are very conscious about like our mornings are spent together.
[15:40]We both get up at the same time.
[15:42]We really make sure that whatever we're doing for the kids, it's sort of like in the kitchen
[15:45]at the same time.
[15:46]But at night, any time that I'm home or he's home, even after an auction, we just kind
[15:51]of sit and talk for a while because I mean, I know in the best case scenario, we could
[15:56]have a date night every single night.
[15:58]That's not realistic in the life that we live right now.
[16:00]So we try to sort of carve out that time in small pockets.
[16:04]And then if we feel like we're not getting enough time together, that's when we sort of
[16:07]sit down and we're like, okay, what are we going to do?
[16:08]We're going to a wedding together this weekend for three days instead of just two because
[16:13]I've been on a book tour and I've been kind of insane with the book, having a great time.
[16:18]But at the same time, the relationship is also very important because it is the one thing
[16:21]especially with young kids that seems to get shoved aside very easily and you do have
[16:25]to make time for it.
[16:27]The other day I actually sent my husband a paperless post invitation just for an hour.
[16:32]It wasn't even a dinner.
[16:34]I was like, I can do from 815 to 915 to 915 to 915 to 915, there will be no phones.
[16:42]Like you bring the drinks and snacks or whatever and we can talk and then we'll go back
[16:47]to doing whatever we have to.
[16:48]And I think sometimes too, a call during the day instead of a text is a really nice thing.
[16:53]I mean, if my husband calls and I was the immediate thought is, oh my god, one of our
[16:55]children is going off a jungle gym, which happened last week.
[16:59]So no.
[17:01]No, it happens.
[17:02]He's taking it in stride, but I do think that, you know, just even having that point of
[17:06]connectivity where you pick up and you're like, hey, what's going on?
[17:08]Nothing.
[17:09]Okay.
[17:10]Great bye.
[17:11]You know, at least you hear each other's voice and it just kind of reconnects you because
[17:14]it is tough with so much going on, but it is one thing that I think that can easily be done.
[17:20]You also wrote in the book that you, this is a quote, you truly believe that life places
[17:24]things in front of you at the right time, but it's only when you're open to these opportunities
[17:28]to things really start to happen for you.
[17:30]Absolutely.
[17:31]What's an example of this?
[17:32]I think, I mean, writing the book for me is the perfect example of this.
[17:36]I was waiting around for somebody else to write a book for me for many years because
[17:40]I wanted to do it, but I didn't want to do the work.
[17:44]And I had a New York Times reporter who years before, maybe 10 years before, had written
[17:48]sort of a small fluff piece for Crane's business about, at the time I was head of events,
[17:54]she called me out of the blue, I mean, literally out of the blue.
[17:57]And I still have the same number because I've been at the company for 20 years and she
[18:00]said, hi, this is Alex Strauss.
[18:02]I wrote an article about you 10 years ago.
[18:04]Is there any chance that you would be willing to do an article that I just pitched for
[18:09]the New York Times about how you worked during the day and take charity auctions at night?
[18:13]And she said, do you still do that?
[18:15]And I was like, I do still do that, but I actually am pregnant with my third child.
[18:19]So I really have a limited time, well, a limited window.
[18:22]I only have another month of this and really only have one more auction between now
[18:26]and your deadline.
[18:27]And so she came to the auction, they shot photographs the whole day for the piece.
[18:33]And at the end of the day, she asked me as I'm sort of exhausted after being in heels,
[18:37]which I probably would not have been if the New York Times did not have been chronicling
[18:40]the piece.
[18:41]She asked me what I do at the end of the end of the night.
[18:44]And I said, well, I don't actually turn on any kind of screen because I'm so wired.
[18:49]So I either read a book or I write this book that I've been writing, that the writing
[18:54]of the book was a little bit of a, it was an entirely tried, I've written a chapter
[18:58]and I've been sending it to my best friend's agent who kept saying, this is great.
[19:02]You have a book and you just not this book, okay?
[19:05]So I wasn't really far along in my book writing process.
[19:09]And it was something about reading that in the transcript, that to the point, like life
[19:13]gives you these opportunities, do you take them or not?
[19:16]I called my best friend and I said, what do I do?
[19:19]And I actually already knew the answer, I just needed her to say it out loud.
[19:22]And she said, you'd be an idiot if you didn't get your proposal done in time for this
[19:25]piece to run.
[19:27]And I said, you know, you're right.
[19:28]I have to get it done.
[19:29]So the piece luckily was bumped, I had the baby two weeks later.
[19:32]The piece was bumped until later that year.
[19:35]And I completely forgot about it between that first sort of moment.
[19:39]And then when I was about to have the transcript printed.
[19:43]And about six weeks before I emailed her and said, by the way, is this piece ever going
[19:46]to run?
[19:47]She said it yet, it's running in six weeks.
[19:48]And you know, it's funny with timing, because if it had happened, if it had gone out in
[19:52]April, as it was supposed to, I would have had a baby, I would never have done anything
[19:56]about it.
[19:57]But at that point, it was October or September and it seemed like...
[20:00]like it didn't seem quite as daunting.
[20:01]I mean, the baby was six months old, not a day old.
[20:04]And so I really poured myself into it.
[20:06]I had round trips to California,
[20:08]just day trips to California, one after another.
[20:10]And I wrote just non-stop on the plane.
[20:13]And the funny thing was when I sent it back
[20:15]to my best friend's agent,
[20:17]she said to me and all caps, this is it.
[20:20]But I actually already knew it before I sent it
[20:22]because it felt like exactly what was supposed
[20:25]to be happening at that time.
[20:26]It was just that life had placed it in front of me
[20:28]and I had grabbed it and run with it
[20:29]and that's why it worked.
[20:31]So what was the first book that they didn't think
[20:34]would be successful and how to do change?
[20:35]Like what was the difference?
[20:36]What the difference?
[20:38]So she'd asked, one of the things that my agent said
[20:41]to me the entire time throughout the writing process
[20:43]was remember that you worked for Christie's.
[20:45]So that's gonna be so highbrow
[20:47]that most people won't even really know how to relate.
[20:49]You grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
[20:51]Talk to us about how you got to this job.
[20:53]Were your parents art collectors know?
[20:55]Did you know anything about auction?
[20:57]No.
[20:57]Talk to us about how you got there
[20:59]and make this book for every woman.
[21:01]So I had started out.
[21:02]My original introduction was about a lemonade stand.
[21:04]I'm sure you're all glad that that's not what it ended up
[21:07]being.
[21:07]But talking about selling and how I loved to sell
[21:09]even as a child and how I used to put up this lemonade
[21:12]stand and recruit all of my neighbors
[21:13]because I realized sitting in front of a lemonade
[21:15]saying it gets you nothing.
[21:16]But you have your friend with a broken arm out there.
[21:18]You can really garner some extra change.
[21:21]And so that was originally the chapter that I'd
[21:23]sent her that she was like, this is good.
[21:25]And now you're gonna have your son with a broken collarbone
[21:27]out on the action stage at the end of the day.
[21:29]It's coming New York.
[21:31]Like if only I can keep him in that cast for a long time.
[21:34]But when I wrote the first chapter,
[21:37]I was thinking to myself, the question I always
[21:39]get is, do you get nervous before you get on stage?
[21:41]So what if I brought the reader in through the first 10
[21:43]seconds leading onto the auction stage?
[21:45]What does that look like?
[21:46]What do I see?
[21:47]And how do I get from the person who's seated at dinner
[21:50]and then five minutes later is on stage in front of 1,000
[21:52]people?
[21:53]Like what is that transition and what does that look like?
[21:56]And once I started writing through that,
[21:58]it just felt like a completely different story.
[22:01]The story that I was meant to tell,
[22:02]because it was different than Alumni
[22:04]would stand that everybody had been to throughout their life.
[22:07]It was something that was people were walking
[22:09]into this room.
[22:10]And then I could back into the story about how I got there.
[22:13]So that's kind of how it happened.
[22:14]So it seemed like throughout the book,
[22:16]you're just incredibly driven.
[22:17]You know what you want.
[22:19]You set your sights on something, and you accomplish it.
[22:21]And I feel like somehow you've managed
[22:22]just to do this with this great book.
[22:26]You know, you tell the story of how diligent you are
[22:29]about getting, not even diligent, what's the word?
[22:31]I'm sorry, tenacious.
[22:33]Tenacious about even getting the job at Christie's
[22:36]to begin with, all of it, like every step of the way.
[22:39]And I feel like with writing, people are like,
[22:41]well, let's see what happens.
[22:42]You know, sometimes it's like a process.
[22:43]But I feel like your approach to everything
[22:46]is very targeted.
[22:48]Like, does that ever get you in trouble in any way?
[22:50]Like, daily.
[22:53]I mean, you know, and I say this too about Instagram.
[22:56]You know, I have a lot of friends who are sort of like,
[22:58]oh, and then you did this on Instagram.
[22:59]I'm like, remember, high gloss, right?
[23:02]This is a very beautiful curated image
[23:04]of what's taking place day to day.
[23:06]And I say too about the auctions.
[23:08]I mean, people see that I take auctions
[23:10]with Madison Square Garden with Bruce Springsteen
[23:12]because I started posting on Instagram, I think, two years ago.
[23:15]I also was an auctioneer for 14 years before that.
[23:18]And if I could show you real time,
[23:21]the number of auctions that I went to
[23:23]that were so painful, like painfully hilarious
[23:26]where I would slink off stage and go off the back exit
[23:30]because I didn't want to see anyone
[23:32]because nobody paid attention.
[23:33]We didn't reach the goal.
[23:35]All of these things were what taught me
[23:38]how to be in a place where I feel confident on any stage
[23:40]no matter what the size.
[23:42]But I tried to message that too.
[23:44]It's the same thing with the book.
[23:45]It's like, you know, I had sent Meg that chapter,
[23:47]but I'd also sent her other things over the years.
[23:49]Meg being my agent.
[23:51]Who I got through my best friend, by the way.
[23:52]This is not some agent who picked me out of a crowd,
[23:54]like literally my best friend handed me
[23:56]her agent's information and I kind of stalked her.
[23:59]But there were many things that I sent her
[24:00]that she was just sort of like,
[24:02]oh, sometimes she just didn't email back, you know.
[24:05]So yes, I do have drive.
[24:06]There's no question about it,
[24:07]but there's so many missteps that go into everything
[24:11]and every success.
[24:12]And ultimately, I think much like Hi-Drox,
[24:15]that's why it feels so good.
[24:16]You know, when a good auction takes place
[24:18]and I walk off stage,
[24:19]I think to myself sometimes,
[24:21]that would have been a disaster if I had taken it 10 years ago
[24:23]because the crowd was loud
[24:25]and I would not have been confident enough to pull that room
[24:28]or I would not have been able,
[24:30]I would have been fearful of them feeling like I was being bossy
[24:34]or too sort of sharp or something like that.
[24:36]And I've just learned how to really control a room
[24:39]through practice.
[24:41]And now you've had the practice of writing this book,
[24:43]which you did at night, right?
[24:44]Didn't you say this at night?
[24:46]So this was probably the most intense period of my life
[24:49]because the book sold in October and a week.
[24:51]And remember what I said,
[24:52]at this point I had two chapters,
[24:54]which were good chapters on like the one lemonade stand
[24:56]chapter that nobody wanted to buy,
[24:58]but the two chapters, that was it.
[25:01]And so they wanted the book by April 1st.
[25:04]And so we finished the contract in December of 2017
[25:07]and they wanted by April 1st of 2018.
[25:10]And I think if you are truly a writer
[25:13]and this is what you do, you have a method,
[25:15]I had no method, I had nothing.
[25:17]I really didn't know what I was doing.
[25:19]So it was kind of like the chapters.
[25:20]I'll just start writing and see where this ends up.
[25:23]I had a picture that I showed my friends
[25:26]right after I finished and handed in the proposal of,
[25:29]I'd taken post-it notes where I'd put the chapter titles
[25:32]and stuck them on the wall
[25:34]because I didn't know how to story arc.
[25:36]So I was like, okay, well, I started this when I was 21,
[25:39]so clearly this needs to be further along
[25:41]because this is present day.
[25:42]But it was just sort of making up things as I went along.
[25:46]but the one consistent part that I did
[25:48]that if I ever write a book again,
[25:50]I will say it was very helpful.
[25:52]Was instead of looking at it as a book
[25:54]or writing these broad chapters,
[25:57]I figured I had to write 60,000 words
[25:59]because I only had 10,000 words written by January 15.
[26:01]I said, okay, if I have 60 days
[26:03]and I write 1,000 words a day, religiously,
[26:06]1,000 words every single day come hell or high water,
[26:09]I will hit my target, I will get there by that time.
[26:11]But if I don't, then I won't.
[26:13]So let's just see if we can make that happen.
[26:16]And you know, before you know, at day one happens,
[26:18]I start on the subway in the morning,
[26:20]I start on my iPhone after I drop the kids off at school,
[26:23]so if anything that came to mind,
[26:25]and I would forward it to work,
[26:26]if I had any spare time at work,
[26:28]anything came to mind,
[26:29]I would just jot it down on that,
[26:31]send it back to myself on the subway,
[26:33]and then I would write when I got home.
[26:34]So if the kids, I put the kids down at seven,
[26:37]they bounce back up and down a couple of times,
[26:39]but really I would go into my room around 745
[26:42]and I would say to my husband,
[26:43]do not come in here, I don't need anything,
[26:45]I will be out as soon as I'm finished with my 1,000 words.
[26:48]And it would take about an hour to an hour and a half,
[26:50]depending on how I was feeling.
[26:52]And if I got into a groove and I wrote more,
[26:54]then I meant the next day I had to write less,
[26:56]which was exciting.
[26:57]So if I made 1,200 only I'd write 800 words the next day,
[27:00]but it really was amazing to just chip away at it.
[27:03]And I have all these chapter titles with a number of words
[27:07]that I'd written in each chapter where I'd mark off.
[27:09]And probably, I guess it was maybe like three weeks
[27:12]before the book was due, I started using a calculator
[27:14]to figure out how many words I had.
[27:16]And I realized I was actually getting close
[27:18]and it was just this unbelievable feeling.
[27:21]I mean, when I finally finished the book,
[27:22]I was on a round trip to San Diego for 20 hours
[27:24]and I cried solidly for 15 minutes after I finished,
[27:27]because I was so stressed.
[27:29]Oh my gosh.
[27:30]And the woman next to me was like,
[27:31]are you okay?
[27:32]I was like, I'm not okay, I'm really stressed out.
[27:35]But then it's done, you know, and it's,
[27:37]I mean, that's really feels like my fourth child.
[27:40]Wow. So that's really impressive.
[27:42]It was exciting, but it's not something
[27:44]that anybody couldn't do.
[27:45]You just have to sort of set something
[27:47]that seems attainable as opposed to looking at it
[27:49]as a, I have to write a book.
[27:51]This is like your whole thing.
[27:52]And this is how like everything seems achievable to you.
[27:55]Yeah.
[27:55]Like so inspired by the way you look at everything.
[27:58]Like if you just break things down
[27:59]and figure out how to get there, you will get there.
[28:01]You will get there.
[28:01]Like there was no part of you that was like,
[28:03]maybe it'll be late.
[28:04]No.
[28:05]And actually when I handed in the editor said to me,
[28:07]I can't believe you turned this in on time.
[28:09]And I said, I didn't know I had an option, right?
[28:11]Yeah.
[28:12]But it was also so good because I didn't want it hanging
[28:14]over my head anymore.
[28:15]I wanted it to be done, you know?
[28:17]And, and I was so excited to give it to her
[28:19]because I was so excited to not have to work on it anymore.
[28:22]I didn't want to write a thousand words anymore a day.
[28:24]I wanted to just have my days back.
[28:26]But the funny thing is, and this is,
[28:27]this is true to my parents.
[28:29]I said to my mom, and I finished the book, you know,
[28:31]I did it all and she goes, well,
[28:32]you're going to have all this extra time.
[28:34]You should start writing the next one.
[28:35]Oh my God.
[28:36]Can I just have a break, please?
[28:38]Just a short break.
[28:40]Do you want to write another book?
[28:41]You're not really.
[28:42]I mean, I feel like now I know how it feels less daunting.
[28:47]You know, I wouldn't mind having a small break
[28:49]before writing another one.
[28:50]But I do want, you know, we've been talking
[28:51]about a young girl adaptation,
[28:53]the most powerful girl in the room is you.
[28:55]Oh, I love that.
[28:56]Which is fun.
[28:56]Actually, a friend of mine was in Nashville with her daughter
[29:00]and her daughter's in third grade
[29:02]and they've been listening to it the audible in her car.
[29:05]And she said to me, her daughter was about to do her first
[29:07]guitar performance and she said, hand to God,
[29:11]she said to me, mommy, can we listen to Lydia's chapter
[29:13]on public speaking again?
[29:15]And I started to cry when I read the text
[29:17]because can you imagine that this little girl felt
[29:20]like she'd heard something that was going to inspire her
[29:22]and make her less nervous on stage?
[29:23]I mean, it really never goes into tears now.
[29:25]It's just, it's amazing to see how people take a book
[29:28]and use it to really make themselves feel inspired
[29:32]and powerful, which is what I wanted.
[29:34]Yeah, I love that.
[29:35]It was good.
[29:37]Now, I mean, I'm going to play that chapter from my older dad.
[29:38]I know.
[29:40]So you've already given me a lot of advice
[29:42]for aspiring writers, but do you have anything else
[29:44]that you would tell someone starting out
[29:46]or who's always had a lofty goal of writing a book?
[29:48]Just do it, do it.
[29:50]Find your angle.
[29:51]That's what Meg my agent said to me many times.
[29:53]Just find your angle.
[29:54]And once you find your angle,
[29:56]the words will come out of you.
[29:57]And I think that a lot of people sort of,
[30:00]in their wheels about what could I write about it.
[30:02]It's like you have to find the place to enter.
[30:04]And once you get in it,
[30:05]then it helps inform the entire book.
[30:07]But don't be scared of it.
[30:08]I mean, it seems scary to write a book,
[30:11]but look around you, they're books everywhere.
[30:13]People do it all the time.
[30:14]So if you have it in you and you want to try, then try it.
[30:18]And again, set yourself in a attainable goal.
[30:20]Get it done by the summer, right?
[30:22]100 words a day, right?
[30:24]200 words a day, just make it not as daunting.
[30:27]And that way, I think it's just easier to achieve everything.
[30:30]It's like running a marathon.
[30:31]Don't run 26.2 miles your first day out.
[30:33]Run one mile.
[30:34]And then see if you can do two.
[30:35]I love that.
[30:37]I feel like 100 words a day might be more my speed as well.
[30:39]100 words a day would get a book in a year, right?
[30:42]A year, year and a half.
[30:43]Wow.
[30:43]So yeah.
[30:44]100 words a day.
[30:45]100 words a day.
[30:47]I owe thanks so much for coming on mom's dinner time to read books.
[30:49]Thank you so much for having me.
[30:50]It's been so fun.
[30:52]This episode has been brought to you by boom box gifts.
[30:54]Memory boxes filled with personal messages
[30:57]and photos from friends and family
[30:58]for your next special occasion.
[31:00]Boom box gifts.com.
[31:01]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at Texture Sound
[31:04]for the audio editing and mixing.
[31:05]Thanks for listening to mom's time to have time to read books.