Susan Cain, BITTERSWEET: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
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[0:58]Susan Cain is the best-selling author of bittersweet how sorrow and longing make us home,
[1:03]which debuted in the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list. She is the author
[1:07]of Quiet Journal, Quiet Power, the secret strength of introverts, and quiet. The power of introverts
[1:13]in a world can't stop talking, which spent eight years on the New York Times bestseller list
[1:18]and has been translated into 40 languages. Susan's TED Talk has been viewed over 40 million times
[1:23]and was named by Bill Gates as one of his all-time favorite talks.
[1:26]Linked in, named her the top sixth influencer in the world just behind Richard Branson and
[1:32]Melinda Gates, Susan Partners with Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Dan Pink to curate
[1:37]the next big idea of book club. They donate all their proceeds to children's literacy programs.
[1:42]By the way, after my podcast with Susan, where I talk about how many times I get goosebumps today,
[1:47]I've noticed that I get goosebumps at least four to five times a day. So anyway,
[1:51]do with that what you will. Welcome, Susan. Thank you so much for coming on mom.
[1:55]Don't have time to read books to discuss bittersweet how sorrow and longing make us whole.
[2:00]Thank you so much for having me. Oh my gosh. I actually, if I was to talk about the podcast I
[2:06]knew today, I was interviewing a two-day this Peloton instructor who wrote a book called Speak
[2:11]about it had so much loss loss of any way. I was on her podcast and I was like, you know,
[2:15]you need to read bittersweet. Because yeah, and it's so funny too because you talk so much about
[2:21]or not so much, but one of the things in your quiz is about old souls. And I've always identified
[2:26]as an old soul and I've been like talking and saying like, we should do like old souls,
[2:31]Facebook groups, and old hashtag, old souls. I don't know if that exists, but anyway, I
[2:36]oh my gosh, that's actually such a good question. I wonder if that does exist.
[2:39]Right. I know. I know. That is a brilliant idea. Yeah.
[2:44]Old souls face. I'll start it with you if you want. Yeah, let's do it because it is a particular
[2:50]sensibility. And I feel also that old souls tend to recognize each other on some level. Very
[2:57]clear. Absolutely. There's a kind of instant recognition. Right. Yes. So sorry to have just did
[3:02]with all that. Maybe I should burn up. What could you tell listeners? What is your book of that?
[3:08]Oh gosh. So my book is about it's about the state of bitter sweetness, which is not something
[3:15]that we talk about that much in our culture to the extent that we talk about it. We kind of
[3:19]of relegated to, you know, a specific moment like, oh, I was feeling bittersweet, you know,
[3:25]like last Friday for five minutes. But it's actually a much deeper and more profound state
[3:30]than that. And it's about the, it's a state in which we're very aware that joy and sorrow
[3:37]always go together, light and dark, always go together, that everything is impermanent, you know,
[3:42]including everything and everyone who we love most. But that somehow mixed up in that awareness is
[3:50]was also an awareness of how incredibly beautiful everything is and that you kind of don't get
[3:55]one without the other, you know, that the awareness of the impermanence and the awareness of the
[4:00]beauty, I'll go together. And you were talking about, well, old souls recognize each other and
[4:05]like that. And one of the things that I found is that some people really are more prone to this
[4:12]state of bitter sweetness than I'm describing, but it seems as if there are different ways to get
[4:16]there. Like some people are sort of born that way, which is what you are leading to. And then
[4:20]some people I think get there based on just having experienced enough of life, you know, it's trials
[4:25]and it's triumphs. And and so somehow you start to appreciate what what to me life really is.
[4:32]Well, I do think that enough loss and trauma sort of fast tracks you there. If you don't,
[4:39]if you're not aware of it, not for everyone, but I do think there is that. So I want to take issue
[4:45]with some of the stuff in your quiz, because I don't get as high a score as I would have liked.
[4:51]And I like doing really well on quizzes. And I assume that the best I could have done was 10,
[4:55]but I only got a 7.6, which I know that still makes me a true connoisseur of the place for light
[5:00]and dark meat and all. But some of these questions in the quiz, do you prefer poetry to sports?
[5:08]But I like sports. I like doing sports more than I like writing poetry, but I don't feel like
[5:14]that makes me less. Oh, yeah, but then I said, you didn't read the parenthetical
[5:19]because you find the poetry in sports. Yeah, because you have to know I wrote this coming from
[5:24]an incredibly sports obsessed household. Like my husband and my two boys, it's like all sports
[5:30]all the time all day long. Yeah, and it was actually my husband who said to me, you know, like that
[5:34]that moment where where your team wins the game, especially if you didn't expect them to you,
[5:39]and there's just this like, you know, collective joy in the crowd. He's like, that's
[5:43]exactly what you're talking about. It's just a different manifestation. Okay, so maybe you should
[5:48]take the quiz and maybe that changed my question. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's why I wanted
[5:52]to talk about it. Are you moved to goosebumps several times a day? But I am not moved several
[5:58]times a day, but I would say regularly. I would say almost daily several times a week,
[6:03]but so I had got a low score on that too. Okay, well, you know, anyway, that's still,
[6:09]that's still a lot of goosebumps. It's still a lot of goosebumps. And also, I do want to say,
[6:13]I like, I know you're joking and everything, but it's so the quiz is designed so that you get
[6:18]a higher low score, but it's not like, if you get a high score, it means you, you were especially
[6:23]prone to these bittersweet states of being, but my point is not that it's better to be a bittersweet
[6:29]type than to not be. It's more like this is one type of power. And then there's many other
[6:34]types. This is the one I happen to be talking about. I know you're joking, but I just want to,
[6:38]I just want to make it clear for now. I know you weren't suggesting that everybody tries to get
[6:42]a good score on this. This is just my own neurosis at work. I totally get it. And I will tell you,
[6:48]I did an event one day with my friend Angela Duckworth, you know, the psychologist who talks
[6:54]about grit. And she's like, you know, I just did the quiz and I got a zero. So, so I think she literally
[7:00]answered zero to every single question on the quiz. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so, you know, human variety is just
[7:09]so endless, which I love. I love that too. There was so much great information in the book,
[7:15]but what I particularly loved and found myself like, you know, with my flashlights or scanning
[7:22]through the pages, you know, like highlighting in my brain was all the stuff about you.
[7:28]Love that. You, your family, like your father's horrific and your mother's, but the holocaust
[7:36]losses that they suffered and how your mother had to sort of witness her father's devastation.
[7:42]And your fractured relationship with your mom. And, you know, all the things that came after,
[7:49]even watching your mom sort of lose her mind and then come back to you in this very bitter
[7:54]sweet moment. I mean, that's like a classic example. And just sort of how you personally have
[7:59]navigated through life. I found like, you know, I just found it's so fascinating and so powerful
[8:06]that you shared all your, your stories to really get the messages to all sink in. Because there's
[8:11]been a lot like you've had a lot go on as many people, but you know, you really have. It's like
[8:16]really, really powerful story. Oh, wow. I mean, thank you. It's funny because my friend, my very
[8:22]dear old college friend, Judith, read the book. And it was like, next time you have to promise me that
[8:27]you're just writing a straight-up memoir that she felt the same way that that you did.
[8:32]I have to say this wasn't great. It was so great. I just was like, I want more of that. Like,
[8:37]maybe your next project or something. Well, I know that it's so hard for me to do it because,
[8:42]you know, I am, you know, my last book was quiet. I, I nature a private person. So I don't really
[8:49]write all those things lightly. Yeah. And I think that whatever stress I had before this book came out
[8:55]so much of it had to do with those personal revelations. And just, but I also felt like the only way
[9:01]to really like tell the truth that I was trying to express in this book was to also make it
[9:07]personal as well, you know. Quiet, by the way, was required reading for my whole, my kid's school,
[9:13]all the families at the school. You're kidding. Really. That's, that's amazing to know. Wow.
[9:19]Thank you. Like that. Yeah, I do. Although you're probably not surprised. There were a few things
[9:26]that I literally wrote. So you had this whole section on wounded healers. And I just love that.
[9:33]Tell me more about that and how the people sometimes who get the most, you know,
[9:39]affected by things are sometimes the most willing to help other people through it.
[9:44]Yeah, you know, we're actually seeing it now with a pandemic, which is kind of interesting.
[9:49]So like, I mean, I wrote in the book about how after 9-11 there was suddenly this huge
[9:54]rush of people signing up for Teach for America and applying for jobs as teachers and firefighters.
[10:00]and like that. And now we're seeing the same thing now with the pandemic where more people are
[10:04]replying to medical school, nursing school, or just reevaluating their careers, looking for more
[10:09]meaning. And this does seem to be something that happens to us when we go through anything that's
[10:16]difficult, whether collectively the way 9-11 or the pandemic was or personally, there's kind of
[10:22]a response to sort of dive deeper into meaning and to take the pain and turn it into something
[10:29]generative and something productive. So I just became really fascinated by the different ways
[10:36]in which people have done that. You know, and like you could be like the person who started
[10:42]mothers against drunk driving and lost a child to a drunk driver and then you know it turns that
[10:47]pain into this organization or like in the book I tell the story about Maya Angelou who had
[10:54]this really horrific childhood in so many different ways. And it had been so horrific that she
[11:00]actually when she was a girl stopped speaking for five years to anyone but her brother, like she literally
[11:06]didn't say a word until she was I think about 13 and a woman in her neighborhood kind of took her
[11:13]under her wing and knew how much she loved to read and she started handing her books and saying you
[11:19]you have to read them out loud and little by little that kind of opened her up. But you know,
[11:24]then she becomes this person who transforms from not having been able to speak a word to speaking
[11:32]volumes through memoirs and poetry and plays and like that idea to me is so transformative.
[11:42]If I were there's so much that I put into this book but if I were boiling it down to one message,
[11:46]I would say you know take whatever pain you can't get rid of and make that your creative offering
[11:53]or your healing offering or whatever it is. I love that. I went through a period of time like
[11:58]as a kid where I couldn't even I could not talk I couldn't I had like one major things that
[12:03]is socially anxiety and I just and told some a programmer I spent like the last two weeks I could not
[12:07]say word and all I did was like analyze conversation patterns and think like how are they doing this?
[12:13]How are these words coming out so easily? And I spent all this time and you know my daughter
[12:18]is going to a dance tonight and I was just like oh my gosh this dance is where I like couldn't
[12:23]say a word not a word and now she's going into she's the opposite it's not going to be an issue
[12:27]but all the words that you don't say though like you still think them so intensely right and that
[12:33]I think there's something to that whooshing out right like all the stuff like your brain is still
[12:39]I don't know because now I feel like I can't stop talking about like it's just going to say
[12:44]I mean it doesn't seem to me like an accident that you're now doing fight like you just told me
[12:50]you're doing five podcast interviews today which I get isn't maybe your typical day but like to go
[12:55]from what you just described to doing five podcast interviews day that's not an accident I think
[13:01]yeah I just talk all I mean I have conversations all the time I mean I love to listen I'm talking
[13:05]too much about myself right now but um no not at all in service to your your overall messages
[13:11]for your your last I can and even this I don't know no but I think it is I think it is very much
[13:16]this book too it's like it it seems to me that you're taking that past pain and yeah it's a
[13:22]response and turning it on its head it's a response to it yeah wow I'd be so good you might
[13:26]memoir it's I write all that okay I really want to read all about that but you also talked about
[13:32]Renee Denfeld who's amazing and who I love her books and she was on this podcast too and
[13:38]and even just rereading about her suffering and then how she became what like the district
[13:44]attorney I'm not going to say right but like a prosecutor for whatever for you know sexual abuse
[13:50]and crimes like the ones she had suffered herself and and you she had taken in foster children and
[13:55]you know that she had two suicides in her family I mean and yet here she is this best-selling author
[14:00]it's amazing like how people respond to the same crises like she didn't how she responded yet
[14:07]her mother and brother to the same environment literally couldn't survive it yeah yeah exactly and
[14:14]I and I do think that we have two different choices when we're faced with with any kind of pain you
[14:20]know and and one choice is to to not really grapple with it and then what can happen is that you
[14:27]end up taking it out on yourself or on other people or to grapple with it and and try to turn it
[14:33]into something else and even as I'm saying that like I don't mean that in any kind of judgmental way
[14:39]like what Renee Denfeld's family went through what her mother went through what her brother went through
[14:43]were so horrific like I think anybody might have made the choice to to end their lives after that
[14:50]kind of pain but then to know that there are these sort of miraculous outcomes like hers
[14:55]yeah and to me like the fact that she has created this foster family that she's written about
[15:01]so movingly like how how difficult it was at the beginning with these children who she took in
[15:06]and how she just kind of kept loving them so steadfastly and kind of turn them by will into a
[15:11]family is I have goosebumps as we're saying about this is I'm gonna track actually maybe I do
[15:19]have twice day I don't know maybe I understand myself there's another author Stephanie Thornton
[15:23]Flymail who literally like grew up homeless her mom was mentally ill and she was one of five siblings
[15:30]I think five and they literally had to eat seaweed off the beach for food and yet she and some of
[15:37]her siblings did not make it and she has totally made it she's an author she runs a interior
[15:43]design college thing like it's just a me but she talks a lot about the different effects on all
[15:49]of this trauma and how everybody goes in different ways but anyway I'm getting off topic from
[15:54]your book a little I mean maybe not but you know it's all uh you know this whole notion of
[16:00]getting over grief I also love this whole when you said what are you longing for and how that should
[16:05]guide you as well that's such a good you know it's such a simple it's such a good question
[16:10]and then you have this whole thing you even quote Nora McInerney I also love
[16:14]yes you know you can move forward maybe it's not today when you're gonna move forward but
[16:20]you're gonna move forward at some point and that's that's okay you know yeah you know what we were
[16:26]just talking about the memoir part of the book should I tell one of the stories please of what happened
[16:31]to me with longing and yes please please yes okay okay so well I went through this whole major
[16:40]transition when I was in my 30s I had been a corporate lawyer well no really I have to start the
[16:45]story by saying I had wanted to be a writer since I was four years old but I had just kind of gone
[16:50]in the direction of practicality and wanting to be able to support myself and all that and so I
[16:54]became a corporate lawyer um which I kind of enjoyed in a lot of ways and also felt like I was in
[17:00]a foreign land also the whole time and when I was like in my seventh year as a seventh year
[17:06]this senior partner came into my office and told me that I actually wasn't going to be making
[17:10]partner and I had it at the time this sensation of the whole world collapsing around me because
[17:17]I had been working like a maniac you know like 16 hours a day seven days a week for all these years
[17:23]in the service of this goal and it was suddenly gone and but at the same time there was this sense
[17:30]of like a door opening up and so I literally left the firm that afternoon like I was gone two
[17:36]hours later and then a few weeks after that ended a seven year relationship I had been in that
[17:42]had always felt wrong and moved out of that apartment that we'd been living in and so I was now like
[17:47]in my early 30s and sort of like floating around with no career no love and no apartment and
[17:55]I fell immediately into a relationship that became one of those obsessive relationships
[18:02]the kind that you just cannot extricate yourself from no matter what you do and the object of my
[18:09]obsession was this guy he was very lit up kind of person he was a musician he was a lyricist
[18:16]and I couldn't get out and I would regale my poor friend Naomi with all the stories about him over
[18:21]and over and over and then one day Naomi said to me if you're this obsessed it's because he
[18:30]represents something that you're longing for so she said what are you longing for and this really
[18:38]was one of those like cinematic epiphany moments because I was like oh my gosh of course he represents
[18:45]the world of books and writing and art that I have always wanted to be part of my whole life
[18:52]it was on this major detour that's who he is to me and as soon as I understood that it was like
[19:00]the obsession was gone it had melted away I still thought he was great but I was no longer you're
[19:06]like I was free it was mentally free and that's when I really started writing you know for real
[19:11]in a very deep way and so and your husband your husband's note to you by the way
[19:16]was I got goosebumps from that when he was like writing oh my gosh like oh it was so cool that's
[19:23]amazing I want to like give that guy a hug yeah I have I'm like looking behind me because I have
[19:29]that note you know like framed up in my office it's right over there yeah no one he's still
[19:36]like that you know well I wish tell people what we mean but yes sorry no no no yeah so a few years
[19:44]later I met my husband to be and showed him some of at the time I was working on this memoir and
[19:50]saw it form and I showed him some of my poems and he sent me an email later that night
[19:57]that basically said something like I don't know if you
[20:00]I got it. He said, holy, okay, I'm going to curse. He wrote, he wrote you back. And
[20:05]later that night, he said, holy shit, holy shit, keep writing, drop everything right. And
[20:11]then it all caps, right, woman, right. Oh, I got this was again. I want to read, right?
[20:18]See you've had them several times a day already. Okay. Yeah, he's still like that. He's
[20:24]still like that. Like, you know, in this book, like when it hit the bestseller list, he's
[20:29]like jumping up and down more than I am. I love that. Yeah. Amazing. But yeah, but like
[20:37]so what I say to people is, you know, what are you longing for? And like, very often the thing
[20:42]you think you're longing for is a symbol of what you're really longing for. So like, if you're
[20:47]longing for the perfect real estate, as many of us do, it's a great real estate is great. But it's
[20:55]also often symbolic of deeper longings for home and what is home mean. And so to ask ourselves
[21:02]those questions. And I have a whole list of questions in the book that people can ask themselves
[21:08]as prompts. Maybe I should stop going to open houses so often. I don't know what that says about me,
[21:15]but I'm still longing for, I don't know. Oh my God, we all do it though. Right. It's so fun.
[21:20]Did you end up by the way getting like moving to Greenwich Village? And you're,
[21:24]I know you were like longing for that. It's important in the book. Yeah. I did actually,
[21:30]but not what I had been longing for in the book was like a, you know, a red brick,
[21:34]Greenwich Village, townhouse. I did end up moving to Greenwich Village, but in the West Village,
[21:40]I lived there for some years, but not like in the big townhouse I dreamed of. I just had like a
[21:45]little apartment and I was so thrilled that was all I needed. What has it been like to sort of
[21:55]leave something so predictable and that had such a track pursue what you love and that now you
[22:02]see it sort of repaying you in spades, right? Like what is it like? What's it like now to have
[22:07]another best-selling book? Like what does that feel like? Oh gosh, I feel like the luckiest
[22:13]person in the world. I really, really do. You know, the best thing is I get these letters every
[22:19]day. I've been getting them ever since quiet came and now I'm getting really similar ones with
[22:23]bittersweet of like people saying, I feel like I've permissioned to be myself. I feel understood.
[22:29]I feel seen realizing there's so many other people like me out in the world or like giving
[22:35]voice to what people express or giving expression to what people feel. Yeah, I just feeling
[22:41]incredibly, incredibly lucky to do that. Because to me, the whole reason I ever loved reading
[22:47]in the first place, I don't know if you feel this way with your room full of books that like
[22:52]the moment where a writer expresses something that you've experienced yourself, but here they are
[23:00]expressing it for you and hopefully they're doing it in a beautiful way too. To me, those are like
[23:06]some of the most sublime moments of my life when that happens. So the reason I became a writer was
[23:13]just to try to kind of enter into that kind of contract isn't like the right word, but that
[23:19]relationship between the reader and the writer. So when I get those letters and I know it's happened,
[23:24]that to me is that's like what I mean it for. It's amazing. So I do feel really lucky,
[23:31]but I will say, I mean when I first started writing, when I left law, I never, ever in a million
[23:38]years thought that I could truly make a career out of it. I thought I could make a hobby out of it.
[23:44]So, you know, I promised myself that I would try to get something published by the age of 75.
[23:50]If I do that, then I'm good. Then I've met the goal. Oh, it's nice to give yourself some time.
[23:57]Yeah, well that took the pressure off, you know. That's true. Yeah, but I didn't want this
[24:04]thing that I love to be so pressure-filled. I'm interviewing a woman today who wrote a memoir who's 80
[24:09]and in the book she was like, well, I'm running out of time. Like if I'm ever going to tell my story,
[24:13]it's going to be now. So here it is. Wow. Yeah. That's so great. I mean, during the years that I
[24:20]was first starting to write, I used to collect stories like that of people whose first book was
[24:25]when they were in their 60s or 70s or 80s. I found that so comforting. Yes. It is, it's nice
[24:32]that it's not like, you know, women enacting or something where you know, your stock seems to
[24:37]plummet the older you get or their fear of your roles, right? Yeah. I like to be the writers. It's
[24:43]sort of an endless terrain. I feel like the sweet spot is 40s, 50s, even six, like honestly,
[24:50]I feel like most writers I'm talking to around in those 40s, 50s, even 60s. I don't know.
[24:55]Oh, that's so interesting. Do you think that's because you happen to be drawn to or do you
[25:00]think that really is when most women writers are? Well, I mean, those are when I think the books
[25:04]are the best. And I don't mean to say anything negative about younger writers and, you know,
[25:09]and maybe it is that I'm not reading YA right now, right? You know, like younger people,
[25:13]sometimes write for younger people. Right. Right. I don't know. I feel like there's some sort of
[25:20]of wisdom or something that kicks in a little bit older. I feel used to tell me this when I
[25:25]would try to write novels at 25 and like, what do you know? And like, what do you mean? I've been
[25:29]through so much. I don't know. There's some perspective or something. Yeah. Yeah. That makes
[25:34]this seasoning. Right. Something. It just makes it a little better. Not that it can't be good before,
[25:39]but I don't know. But maybe it is that I'm drawn to people who are writing about things that
[25:44]I relate to at the stage. Who knows? I don't know. Well, I mean, you know, I had that experience. I
[25:48]wrote about it in bittersweet. I've like, I had this really difficult relationship with my
[25:53]mother. And when I was in college, I tried to write about it in fiction form in this creative
[25:58]writing class that I was taking. And the teacher told me, like, she read it and she was like,
[26:04]you should put this in a drawer and not take it out again for 30 years because you're just too
[26:10]close to the material. So, so I did now write it like 30 years later. Amazing.
[26:17]Never too late. Never too late. Yeah. Yeah. Last question before we go. What are you working on
[26:22]another book now? Are you taking time just to promote this book or revel in this? Let's hear
[26:28]let's hear next or what's coming up. Yeah. Well, I mean, I am spending a lot of time
[26:34]like talking about bittersweet for now. But I am developing a podcast right now. So that'll probably
[26:40]start sometime in the fall, I would say. And I'm also developing courses around bittersweet
[26:47]and around quiet. And these are courses that are delivered to people's bones like you get
[26:51]a text every morning with either voice or like a written text from me. So it's a really new way
[26:58]to to kind of consume education. Yeah. So if people are interested in that, the information will
[27:03]be on my website, which is susancane.net. And then I do have an idea for my next book. But I feel like
[27:09]I need a break before I start writing the next one. So that'll be a while. Awesome. Well, Susan,
[27:16]it was so nice getting to know you through your book. And then in for in Zoom person in sort of
[27:21]person. So you two have our paths continue to cross. I really enjoyed connecting with you. So
[27:27]I would really love that. And I want to read your memoir. Okay. Did you say it's coming out this summer?
[27:32]Well, I first. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Congratulations. That's exciting. All right. Have a great day.
[27:39]Thank you so much. Thank you. Take care. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[27:45]to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebioens and at Moms Don't Have Time
[27:50]to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[27:56]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures
[28:01]Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this
[28:05]fantastic intro and now trim music.