Eve Rodsky, FIND YOUR UNICORN SPACE: Reclaim Your Creative Life in a Too-Busy World
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[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:40]Ian Brodsky is the author of Find Your Unicorn Space,
[0:44]Reclaim Your Creative Life in a two-busy world.
[0:47]Eve is the New York Times best-selling author of Fair Play,
[0:50]a game-changing solution for when you have too much to do and more life to live.
[0:54]And that, by the way, has already been on my podcast.
[0:56]So go back and listen to my first episode with Eve.
[0:59]A Harvard-trained lawyer and former foundational manager at JP Morgan.
[1:03]Eve combines her experience in organizational management and family mediation
[1:06]with the science, connecting creativity with improved mental and physical health.
[1:10]Her step-by-step approach in Fair Play, which helps partners rebalance their domestic workload,
[1:15]has been recognized by Reese's Book Club, who picked this book as one of the Reese's Book Club picks of the month.
[1:21]Good morning, America.
[1:22]Today, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and other outlets.
[1:26]It also has a accompanying card game and you can learn more at fairplaylife.com.
[1:31]For Find Your Unicorn Space, it has already been written up.
[1:34]I know in both Katie Kirk Media's Wake Up Call newsletter and Good Morning America's Best Books of December,
[1:41]because I put them there.
[1:42]Anyway, Eve lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their three children.
[1:46]And I was also, by the way, I've said by the way a few times,
[1:49]but I was also interviewed in this book.
[1:51]So if you read it, you will see my name pop up
[1:54]because I have found my Unicorn Space, and you are listening to it right now.
[1:58]Welcome, Eve.
[1:59]Thank you so much for coming back on Momstone of Time to Read Books.
[2:03]After Fair Play, and now you're here for Find Your Unicorn Space,
[2:06]which is like near and dear to my heart, I am like over the moon excited about this book
[2:10]and have been talking it up a storm already.
[2:12]So welcome.
[2:13]Well, thank you.
[2:14]I mean, you're the epitome of the framework.
[2:17]So we'll be able to do some lessons in Unicorn Space through examining Zippy's life,
[2:24]putting words in your mouth.
[2:26]But wow, talk about a creativity revolution that you've sparked for the people around you
[2:32]and how it just becomes its exponential.
[2:34]It's literally like math.
[2:35]It becomes exponential.
[2:37]And so I think that's the beauty of this book is that it shows that it can't,
[2:42]it's not, I don't have time for this as you say.
[2:44]We have time in common.
[2:46]The bottom of my to-do list.
[2:47]I can't believe this woman is asking me to squeeze another thing in my overwhelm life.
[2:52]It's the opposite.
[2:53]It's that these are the big rocks.
[2:55]You put them in first and then the sand can come in after.
[2:58]But the big rocks are your own creativity.
[3:03]I mean, prior to this book coming out, the one line I quoted a lot when people
[3:09]asked me about like, well, how did you know you wanted to start all the stuff?
[3:12]And what did you do?
[3:13]I would talk about this interview I did with Dr. Amy Shaw.
[3:16]I don't know if you read her book.
[3:17]It's called, I'm so effing tired.
[3:18]No, but I will.
[3:19]I will download it now.
[3:20]Really good.
[3:22]But her theory was when you feel like you have too much on your plate and you keep
[3:25]taking things off, that doesn't make you happier.
[3:28]You have to add the right things.
[3:30]Come on.
[3:30]And I feel like that's what I did for so long.
[3:32]It's like I kept taking things off until I was left.
[3:35]Like, well, what is this?
[3:36]This is, you know, but really I had so much I could have put on.
[3:38]So I feel like that's the crux of unicorns face.
[3:41]Maybe you should just outline what you even mean by that because you have a very specific.
[3:45]Actually, I could just read this paragraph if you want.
[3:47]You said please.
[3:48]You said so.
[3:49]If it's not a hobby of vanity project or distraction, what are we talking about exactly?
[3:52]I'm referring to the active and open pursuit of self expression in any form and which requires
[3:58]value based curiosity and purposeful sharing of this pursuit with the world and activity
[4:03]that you lose yourself in that you crave to go back to when you're away from it that gives
[4:08]you pleasure outside of your work, your family and your other obligations.
[4:11]It's something you do just for yourself.
[4:13]And because it brings you so much joy, you want to share it with others.
[4:17]Correct.
[4:18]I think the beauty of unicorn space is that it's really a question.
[4:22]Right.
[4:23]It's this idea of what kind of life do you want.
[4:26]And it's urgent question in a burned out world, especially what's been going on with the global state of affairs.
[4:33]You know, the past couple of years.
[4:35]This is an urgent question to say, you know, do you want to be in a life where you feel alive and engaged.
[4:44]And at the intersection of what we'll talk about in the science shows the best intersection you can be at is the intersection of meaning and happiness.
[4:52]Or do you want to be what so many people now and my biggest longitudinal study.
[4:57]And I think it's an important idea of unpaid labor.
[5:00]I have in over 20,000 people in a CRM database that I've interviewed about dividing up domestic responsibilities in that data.
[5:09]I also asked what makes you you and how do you share with the world.
[5:12]And not only did I get blank stares, but I got a combination of data combinations.
[5:17]Zippy that none of us want to be.
[5:19]And that was a combination of being overwhelmed and bored.
[5:22]Yeah.
[5:23]So if you don't think this is important, if you think it's optional.
[5:29]Then you haven't yet discovered the mental and physical aspects that this is actually life saving.
[5:37]It is life saving, especially what we're going through now in a burned out world.
[5:41]And, you know, the last last thing I'll say about this in the intro is that, you know, I wish I really wish Zippy that I could tell you that we're in a state where a walk around the block.
[5:52]Can bring you back to yourself or, you know, dinner with a friend.
[5:57]But we're, we're really in, in a state as my friend Greg McEwen calls it as we're just two sets types of people.
[6:04]We are the ones who are burnt out and then there ones who know we're burnt out.
[6:08]And in that state, the antidote is not a walk around the block or dinner with a friend.
[6:12]It's really this idea of being interested in your own life.
[6:16]And while I can't tell you how to do that, I can teach you how to find it.
[6:20]And that's really what the goal of this book is about.
[6:23]I've had so many people say to me, like, oh, I wish I had a thing.
[6:26]Like, I wish I knew what it was.
[6:28]Like, I'm like, well, what, you know, and what you said here too is like what what you said we should ask.
[6:33]We should each ask ourselves, why did I stop doing what I love.
[6:37]Like, maybe you must have loved something at some point in your life.
[6:41]Like, what brings you to joy.
[6:42]I was talking to my, well, anyway, woman, I'm very close to.
[6:46]And you know, she's like, I don't have my thing.
[6:48]I was like, what are you talking about?
[6:49]You spend hours, calligraphing things.
[6:52]And like, you're, you put so much attention into a gift and like entertaining.
[6:56]And like, that is your thing.
[6:57]And she's like, oh, no, that's just something that's fun.
[6:59]And I'm like, no, that's like your superpower.
[7:01]You're so good at that.
[7:02]It's amazing.
[7:03]And I just love.
[7:04]Yes.
[7:05]Yes.
[7:06]Yes.
[7:07]Time to know you.
[7:08]I'll just say.
[7:09]Right.
[7:10]Yeah.
[7:11]I feel like, you know, you say in the book a creative life is not a nice to have, but a must have.
[7:14]And I, I just, I wanted to like shout this from the rooftops because it doesn't even have to be that hard to achieve.
[7:22]It's just, so you just like, I don't know, but it's just so important.
[7:26]So, and you have all this like time toxicity talk.
[7:29]Maybe tell a little bit about that and how it's so easy to come up with excuses not to do this.
[7:34]Absolutely.
[7:35]And also, you know, my books are triggering for a lot of people because they're not just plans.
[7:40]You know, I wish I could be sort of a pale and male writer where I could just launch into the plan because there's this assumption that you're already going to have time for your creative life.
[7:50]So, my books are often triggering where you have to get through the first part to get to the plan.
[7:57]Because if it was so easy to distribute domestic labor, I could have just made fair play a card game.
[8:05]So, I'm going to be a book because of the overwhelm in the societal messages, especially for women that our time is not valuable.
[8:15]That it's infinite.
[8:16]It's like sand.
[8:17]We should give it away.
[8:18]It's our most valuable currency.
[8:19]Women are taught to give it away to others.
[8:22]Literally from the, from the day we are born, we say things to women like breastfeeding is free.
[8:28]It's really an 1800 hour, a year job.
[8:31]So, we gaslight women into believing their time is infinite.
[8:35]But then what happens is that it's a hourglass, right.
[8:39]We only have 24 hours in the day.
[8:41]And so it goes to things that ultimately are not at that intersection of meaning and happiness.
[8:47]And so to get to the plan, which I want, I will get there.
[8:51]I do think about, you know, reflecting on, you know, what happened to me.
[8:56]I mean, I, at 21 Zibi, you know, I was going to be president and the senator because there's nothing in the constitution that says you can't be both.
[9:05]And, you know, but I'm not going to give up my dream of being a nicked city dancer because like going to Madison Square Garden is my dream.
[9:12]And so, but of course it's like not that hard because I could just fly Air Force one in, you know, in Saturdays.
[9:18]And I, you know, MSG has a lot of 1230 games.
[9:20]So I could like dance and the weekend and fly Air Force one back home, right.
[9:24]So, to the White House, it was this, it is this fire.
[9:30]I was on fire.
[9:32]And then 10 years later, you're metaphor that I put in this book around being charcoal briquettes, you know, just smoldering.
[9:41]Having that fire put out, you use that beautiful metaphor.
[9:44]What happened there.
[9:46]And I realized that a lot of this is about naming because I think when you call it a hobby of vanity project as your friend with calligraphy did that that's just for fun or that's not really important.
[9:58]It's not women to devalue.
[10:00]you the time we spend on ourselves and I don't mean commodified wellness like getting your hair
[10:05]died or taking a walk with your friend like you should be able to do those things. I'm talking about
[10:10]the active pursuits, not reading a book, writing a book. I'm talking about not big, not eating
[10:16]a pie, which is my self-care, but baking a pie, not listening to a podcast, which is great. Again,
[10:21]that should be the baseline, but starting a podcast. And that takes more, a lot more unpacking,
[10:28]and that's what this book does. It really unpacks these permissions. Why is it that it's so hard
[10:32]for women to find that permission to be unavailable? And I'll argue that it's really associated,
[10:38]at least in my mind, with this idea that I remember when Zach was given to me,
[10:43]my first baby who was given to me, the nurse, she handed him to me and said, you know,
[10:47]here, mom, and that same week someone gave me a necklace and I put it on and said, mom,
[10:52]and then I got to preschool and I sat in a circle of all these women. And the preschool
[10:57]teacher said, these women are going to be your best friends in the whole world. You're going to
[11:02]be at their weddings. They're, you know, bar mitzvahs, because you're going to be with them till
[11:05]sixth grade. And I looked out on my name tags, it'd be and it said, Zach's mom. I kept thinking,
[11:11]these women are going to be my best friends. They don't even know my name. They don't even know
[11:17]my name. And so what happens when we are just defined as our roles? Wait, what happened with the
[11:24]preschool moms? Well, that's what they still are my best friends. But, but I kept thinking the irony,
[11:31]the irony that this woman thought these people would be my best friends. But again, I didn't
[11:38]have a name tag that even had my name on it. I was like, hi, Anna's mom, you know, hi, my mother,
[11:44]like you will be a close friend of mine. But yet I don't know who you are or your name other than
[11:48]being defined as the mother of this child. So I think, I think very deeply about the power of a name.
[11:55]And that's for me, unicorn space is really important because it felt important to rename
[12:02]what we're talking about here that this idea of taking up space for women is already provocative.
[12:07]But it doesn't exist like a mythical act wine. It doesn't fucking exist unless we reclaim it,
[12:14]we claim it. And that's why the idea of a unicorn space that it's magical. It is the
[12:21]antidote to burnout. It is a necessary must have, but it actually won't exist until we claim it.
[12:26]Is there such thing as too much of a good thing? Yeah, yeah, to be honest.
[12:31]Like, I feel like so exhausted. So there is a happiness trio. I talk about that in
[12:37]a fair play. And I talked about that in a unicorn space that the happiness trio really is
[12:41]friendships, self care, and unicorn space. I think we'll talk a little bit, I want to use
[12:47]Zibi as an example. So what happens when you actually start to live in your unicorn space
[12:52]exponentially, if it becomes your, as Zach said to me, your avocation has become your
[12:57]vocation? And I was like, wow, good, good vocabulary use there, Zach. What happens is that you
[13:03]you forget the self care and the friendships because it really can be all encompassing that flow
[13:10]it is addictive in a beautiful way. If you know how to balance it with making sure that you carve
[13:17]in, you know, that haircut that Kyle gave you or, you know, just just taking a walk with your dogs
[13:24]that reflection time, because the beauty of having some of that downtime, that self care
[13:29]is that it actually informs your unicorn space. Because the idea of diffuse thinking is proven
[13:34]in science, we need diffuse thinking to come up with our next ideas, our new dreams,
[13:40]and that's often in the shower on walks with our dogs when we have some quiet. And so yes,
[13:45]there can be it is about having some balance, but I want to talk a little bit about you because I
[13:49]think you do such a beautiful job of illustrating what I found in the data. So the data,
[13:57]there's 12 expert disciplines in this book from behavioral economist to positive psychology,
[14:02]to living in a happiness lab, UCLA, to speaking to many different people and how they define well-being
[14:11]and what what the through line and then of course, you know, thousands of people that were already
[14:17]in my fair play research and that database, as I said, keeps growing and growing. And again,
[14:22]this is not about privilege because I talked to people who mirror the U.S. Census and we'll talk about
[14:27]how this works. You do not need economic privilege before you find your creativity. In fact,
[14:33]it's often the opposite. The more our milestones get bigger, Zibi, we get smaller to fix them
[14:39]and to fit into them. And that's why ironically, privilege and unicorn space didn't correlate
[14:46]because extrinsic milestones of what success looks like, the bigger house, the bigger car,
[14:52]the more kids, as you get more economic privilege, the more you're taking off a track,
[14:58]you're taking off track from your intrinsic motivation. That's what I found. So what Zibi does
[15:05]is the three C's. So I'll just, I'm going to put words in your mouth, but this is, it's a good way
[15:10]to illustrate. So when you get through the triggering part of the permission to be unavailable from
[15:16]your roles and the permission to burn guilt and shame and the permission to use your voice
[15:21]and how to do that, you get to the program itself. And the program itself is three C's because I
[15:27]love my alliterations and that is curiosity. Curiosity plus connection plus completion.
[15:36]That's the three C's. The most important one is curiosity because when I would tell people
[15:42]find your passion or what's your passion, people would look at me and like they want to stab
[15:46]me with a pen. You know, I don't know what my passion is. That's just a terrible question and it's
[15:50]too overwhelming. But everybody has something that they're curious about. Not what my friend Stacey
[15:58]said. Well, I'm curious about scrolling other people's Venmo transactions. I'm not curious about
[16:03]that, but I'll give an example. So Zibi's curious about how can I start creating more space for
[16:11]moms to have time to read? I thought you were going to say I'm curious about authors and like,
[16:18]well, well, I think it's to me it was an intersection. Yes, you're curious about authors, of course.
[16:23]But also it was a perspective to me or at least as I see from an outside perspective to understand
[16:29]that there was something missing in a lack where like you said, when I can add to it instead of
[16:35]telling women, you don't have time. So I will take things off your place. You added, you said,
[16:41]okay, so we're going to start with added and it's become bigger, of course. But this additive nature
[16:46]of what would happen if I introduced. Yes, ideas, ideas, you get curious about ideas, you read books
[16:53]about ideas, you start connecting with authors. And then you do something which is the hardest
[17:01]which is completion. You started with one completion, which is I'd love to hear about that first
[17:06]episode. Who was the first person you interviewed for your podcast? She was a girlfriend of mine
[17:12]from business school named Lee Carpenter, who at the time had written one novel 11 days in
[17:16]his since written another novel and screenplay and all sorts of good stuff. But yes, it was our
[17:22]and was that did you release that episode alone or did you do a full series before you release that
[17:29]episode? Actually, to be honest, the first episode I released was me reading an essay I had written
[17:34]called a mother's right to sanity, which I had which had gone slightly viral on half posts like
[17:40]I don't know, 65,000 views or something overnight, where I said like I just can't deal with all of
[17:44]this stuff. All these expectations on moms. It's not realistic and I don't want to do it anymore.
[17:49]And like we don't deserve this. And I just like wanted to shout it from the rooftops. So anyway,
[17:54]that was my first episode. I released that and then I started interviewing authors and she was my first
[17:58]author and that was my whole episode. And I was like, oh, that was fun. I guess I'll try doing this
[18:03]once a week. So that's how it started. And but can we talk a little bit about the the power to
[18:10]share that essay with the world in that first recorded podcast? How did it feel to put it out there?
[18:18]It felt good, but I just didn't I didn't think anybody was ever going to listen. I was like,
[18:23]I'm like saying this into outer space. Like I was literally like sitting on the side of my bed.
[18:27]I don't even think I was standing or sitting. I was just like perched like talking into my phone
[18:32]at for my first day. Like I wonder when he was ever going to hear this.
[18:36]And that but you did it, right? Regardless of what you thought it would become, you had the courage
[18:44]to upload it somewhere. Yes, where people could listen. And I think that's that's the through line.
[18:52]This idea that, you know, we don't deserve as my friend Amanda says to live in a graveyard
[18:58]of unfulfilled dreams. So Tara, she calls go daddy, her graveyard of unfulfilled dreams.
[19:02]I write about that in the book where every year when her go daddy renewals come, she's like,
[19:07]damn, another unfulfilled dreams. I have so many URLs. You have no idea. It is so stupid.
[19:14]I mean, oh my gosh. And so she talks about one of the things it's called like grief biscuit.
[19:20]It was a, you know, card card company for grief and all these beautiful things. And eventually
[19:26]she may do them. But I think the, the, the problem is there does become a passion gap where
[19:34]if you don't attune to this, it's like any preventative medicine, right? If you don't attune to
[19:40]your body, it's going to be harder to recover and to get back to health if you neglect yourself
[19:45]for 10 years. This is what happens to women who are parents, partners and or professionals.
[19:53]Those are the three Ps that we prioritize. And then what happens over time is the fourth
[19:58]P, the passion.
[20:00]And it goes, it wanes.
[20:02]We become the charcoal briquettes.
[20:04]We become shells of ourselves.
[20:07]We become, I became invisible in my own life as Zach's mom
[20:11]when, as I said, I started off as a president
[20:15]plus a senator, plus a professional dancer, you know.
[20:18]Let's go back to you.
[20:19]When are you running for offices?
[20:20]I mean, well, you know, it's funny you said that
[20:23]because I actually think their play is its own political campaign.
[20:27]I actually just started the Fair Play Policy Institute,
[20:30]which I'm really excited about.
[20:32]So that is gonna be an operating foundation that I fund
[20:36]that is really working on the air that we breathe.
[20:40]So, you know, you fair play in unicorn space
[20:42]are about women taking agency and their own lives.
[20:45]But recognizing that that's just part of the puzzle, right?
[20:49]We can't stop breathing just because there's polluted air,
[20:52]as if you, right?
[20:53]I mean, just because we don't have paid leave
[20:55]in this country and childcare,
[20:56]doesn't mean you can't have your partner playing more fair.
[21:01]Just because we don't have the supports for you
[21:04]in our country other than being a parent, partner in a professional,
[21:07]we don't allow women to have uninterrupted attention
[21:10]for things they love, doesn't mean you shouldn't push back
[21:12]and do those things.
[21:13]But it could be easier.
[21:15]And that's what the Fair Play Policy Institute is about.
[21:17]It's looking at those systemic issues around valuing care
[21:21]so that eventually in our holding a child's hand
[21:25]and the pediatrician's office is viewed just as much value
[21:29]as an hour in the boardroom.
[21:30]And when we have a society like that,
[21:32]then we bring our whole selves to the table.
[21:35]So the idea of unicorn space is not so subversive.
[21:38]This idea that what makes you you
[21:41]and how do you share it with the world
[21:42]is not a question where when I ask people that,
[21:45]they give me like dear in the headlights,
[21:47]like what the hell are you talking about?
[21:51]Well, that's really impressive.
[21:53]I love that.
[21:54]I still think you should run at some point,
[21:55]but maybe you're working on that in the background.
[21:58]No, no, I'm not.
[21:59]Yes, I will work behind you support female candidates.
[22:03]I love to support women in power,
[22:06]women's economic security is what I've devoted my life to
[22:10]and many different ways.
[22:11]But to me, why this book had to come next
[22:14]was because this idea of finding more time,
[22:19]the time to do and to be and to ideate and to dream,
[22:23]even if you got that more time,
[22:25]what was really alarming me was how many women were saying to me,
[22:29]I would not know how to fill it.
[22:32]Yes.
[22:33]And that's a crisis in my mind.
[22:35]That's a crisis of creativity.
[22:36]That's a crisis of idea loss that we,
[22:39]I will, it's not okay, I will not.
[22:42]I will do my best not to allow that to happen
[22:44]to other women as the ghost of Christmas future
[22:47]where it happened to me.
[22:49]I do not ever want to happen to you.
[22:52]The thing about your book, that's so great.
[22:54]And I feel like this has happened.
[22:56]It doesn't happen that often where I read a book
[22:58]and I'm like, oh, okay, it's so simple.
[23:01]Like the secret to having this is so simple.
[23:04]And here it is.
[23:05]And I felt like that a little bit of a joyful.
[23:06]I don't know if you've read that with angry people.
[23:08]I don't think so.
[23:09]I'm like, I just have to change my wallpaper.
[23:11]Like, oh my gosh, like this is, I need some balls
[23:15]or I don't know what you're, you know,
[23:16]different shapes in my life and I can change my car
[23:19]and I'll be happy.
[23:20]And then your book is like, okay,
[23:22]you have to find what you're passionate about.
[23:24]And then you have to put aside all the guilt and shame.
[23:26]And honestly, you've seen where you burned guilt and shame
[23:31]on a piece of paper, burned.
[23:32]And then Seth called you when you were like traveling
[23:36]and was like, you know, the kids are really missing you.
[23:38]And you were like, no, no, no, I burned those things.
[23:40]You cannot try this on me.
[23:42]I was like, this is, this is amazing.
[23:44]So you just have to stick to it.
[23:46]I mean, it's like, it seems that it's not rocket science,
[23:49]except for that we live in a culture that doesn't want it
[23:51]for us, but that's the beauty of what you're doing.
[23:54]I don't mean to diminish.
[23:55]I didn't mean to say, no, no, no, no, not at all.
[23:58]It's the opposite.
[23:59]It's the same thing as fair play.
[24:01]It's not rocket science to own a task
[24:03]from start to finish.
[24:04]We do it everywhere else.
[24:06]My Aunt Maryn's Majang group has clearly defined expectations
[24:10]more clearly defined expectations in the home, right?
[24:12]You don't, you don't bring stacked twice
[24:14]you're out of the group.
[24:15]So I do bring in clearly defined expectations
[24:18]of the home should not be rocket science.
[24:20]And I feel the same way with this as well.
[24:23]The idea that you have time to spend on the active pursuits
[24:29]that make you you is actually not hard.
[24:32]But what I wanna say to people is that I think
[24:35]what the misnomer is, why I kept talking to you
[24:37]about the power of naming, of reclaiming my initial,
[24:40]I started to put Eve back on and talk to my kids
[24:43]about the power of wearing an E, and do you know my name?
[24:46]Do you ask my friends what their names are?
[24:48]Or do you just call them, you know, Jack's mom?
[24:52]And so my kids start to ask women,
[24:53]like what is your first name?
[24:55]Do you mind me asking?
[24:56]And it was just a really beautiful awakening for us
[24:59]is that there was science that showed
[25:03]what unicorn space is.
[25:04]It is the intersection of meaning and happiness.
[25:09]So why I think that's an important distinction
[25:10]that I make in the book is because there is,
[25:13]this is spoiler alert.
[25:15]But if you live in happiness labs,
[25:16]and even the happiness experts will tell you
[25:18]that we misunderstand happiness,
[25:20]because if you go out and say, I'm pursuing happiness,
[25:24]it actually makes you more sad.
[25:26]Ha ha ha, happiness has a place in our life.
[25:29]But like you said, it's simple, it's as a clue.
[25:33]It's a clue, just like other feelings,
[25:35]like jealousy or anger or resentment.
[25:38]If you're feeling resentment all the time
[25:40]when you're with one person, what is that clue telling me?
[25:43]If you're feeling, if you're heart's pounding
[25:46]when you're with that person, what is that clue telling me?
[25:49]If you're in a flow state where you did your podcast
[25:53]with your friend, and wow, that I was perched on the bed
[25:58]in a squat, and even though I don't have,
[26:01]I would not do that because my quads are not that strong.
[26:04]Wow, that hour went really fast, right?
[26:06]Understanding, oh, I felt happy doing that.
[26:08]And so I think what you did Zibi, which is important
[26:12]to recognize the completions behind you
[26:15]is you kept on iterating and building on those clues.
[26:20]And I think there's seasons for things.
[26:23]You talk about that.
[26:24]You had a terrible COVID, but it didn't mean you say,
[26:27]I will abandon what I love to do.
[26:29]No, you say like, that's my fucking umbrella.
[26:33]Life, you know, I'm not an inspirational coast person,
[26:35]but I do love that Vivian Green quote, you know,
[26:38]that life is not waiting for the storm to pass.
[26:41]It's learning to dance in the rain.
[26:43]I don't want to drown in the rain.
[26:45]I need a fucking umbrella.
[26:47]And unicorn space is an umbrella.
[26:49]It is something that they can't take away from you.
[26:51]They can't take away that episode from you,
[26:53]even when the shit is literally hitting the fan,
[26:56]which for so many of us in the past few years it has.
[27:00]It is our way back to ourselves.
[27:01]It's our, it's our remembrance of who we are.
[27:04]It's our sanity.
[27:05]It's our fire.
[27:07]And we can't let that burn out.
[27:08]So back to the meaning and happiness.
[27:10]So if you understand that, that it's essential
[27:13]as we just said, that it's your umbrella,
[27:15]then you can recognize that there is happiness
[27:17]without meaning.
[27:19]That is scrolling Instagram.
[27:21]How to break up from your phone is a great book, Catherine Price.
[27:23]Yes, that was all right.
[27:25]And, you know, it's the, as my friend said,
[27:28]the scrolling the Venmo people's Venmo transactions.
[27:31]It is binge watching Netflix.
[27:33]There's places, there's drinking wine.
[27:35]There's places for hedonic happiness,
[27:37]but those don't create meaning.
[27:39]And then there's things that have meaning
[27:41]without happiness, which in my life is parenting.
[27:44]I'm not happy and they, most people are not in the data.
[27:48]Like when I got donkey kicked in the face with Anna,
[27:50]the other day, I was like, there's meaning and raising you,
[27:52]but I am not happy right now.
[27:54]So the idea of being able to find those places
[27:57]at the intersection of meaning and happiness,
[27:59]they almost always correlate with these active pursuits
[28:04]that are based on your values based curiosity,
[28:09]plus connection, plus completion.
[28:11]That's the intersection of meaning and happiness.
[28:13]And like you said, it's not rocket science.
[28:15]We can get there.
[28:16]It's just about clearing the freaking path
[28:20]because we know we have that permission to do it.
[28:23]This is like such a perfect, you know,
[28:26]sort of ending, not ending, but it's like,
[28:28]so it's a coming full circle what your book is relative
[28:32]to like what I've been trying to create
[28:34]because what I always say at the end
[28:36]when people are asking me about it is like,
[28:37]well, if we don't make time for these things,
[28:40]if we don't make time for all this stuff,
[28:42]what is life?
[28:43]Like what are we living?
[28:44]What are we getting out of all of it?
[28:45]So it's like tongue in cheek.
[28:47]And that's what you're saying.
[28:48]Like you just, we have to.
[28:51]We have to.
[28:52]Anyway, I love that so much and I will say that, you know,
[28:56]in my day job is, you know, I work for families
[29:00]that look like the HBO show Succession, as you know,
[29:02]and I work on their family business
[29:05]and their family foundation Succession.
[29:07]And even, you know, when I talk to the major arts
[29:10]and patriarchs about legacy,
[29:12]and we're talking about really hard things,
[29:14]sometimes I'll hear in their quiet voices to be,
[29:17]you know, is this all there is?
[29:19]Now, I have the 50 cars and the 20 homes
[29:23]and is this all there is?
[29:24]And it makes me so sad where, you know,
[29:28]I do feel like, you know, extrinsic milestones
[29:31]have sold us a bill of goods for what makes us happy.
[29:35]And it's not saying that those aren't important pursuits,
[29:39]but I think when we get stuck, conflating the two.
[29:43]Yes, that's the biggest problem.
[29:45]Well, have your clients call me
[29:48]and I will tell them how to start a podcast
[29:50]and we'll see what happens.
[29:52]Again, thank you, thank you, though,
[29:54]for being, having the courage to find a curiosity.
[30:00]the, to share it with the world and to complete, complete anthologies to have other people
[30:05]help them complete to completing your podcast, which is, you know, it's one of, it's
[30:12]one of the best, most nutritious leisure time I have is my self care, because like I said,
[30:18]doing a podcast is different listening, but as my self care, your podcast is my self
[30:22]care, because what it allows me to do is my, one of my values, my favorite values is
[30:27]education and knowledge. And so it allows me to feel like I can still consume all of
[30:32]these authors. When I don't have the time to read all of their books, but hear their ideas
[30:38]is been really, really impactful for me. Oh, awesome. Well, well, if so funny, we started
[30:45]with me like copy editing or whatever, like a little passage of your book years ago and like
[30:49]whatever. Now this is like, I'll blown up. Anyway, thank you. Can I just say that to that
[30:54]Zibi is acknowledged in fair play, because when in 2017, no editor would listen to me and
[31:03]I was having a hard time getting any traction, because people were like, why would anybody
[31:06]ever want a book about housework and childcare? That sounds so terrible and boring to be
[31:13]you took a chance on me as an editor or a spiritual friend. And you gave me the courage
[31:18]to say, okay, this is, these are fun. And here's my edits and I really appreciate that
[31:23]you did that for me. Wow. I mean, it's great. It's just so fun to watch it. So amazing.
[31:29]Eve, thank you. And I'm sure I'll see you soon. Yes. Happy holidays. Happy holidays.
[31:35]Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[31:42]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[31:47]Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book
[31:51]club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan
[31:56]at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for
[32:00]providing this fantastic intro and outro music.