Eliza Reid, THE FIRST LADY NEXT DOOR: A Memoir of Iceland, Identity, and Unexpected Adventure
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[0:45]Eliza Reed is the author of The First Lady Next Door, a memoir of Iceland, identity, and
[0:50]unexpected adventure.
[0:51]It was lovely getting a chance to interview her in my office in New York City.
[0:56]Eliza Reed is a best-selling writer, public speaker, gender equality advocate, and co-founder
[1:01]of The Acclaimed Iceland Writers Retreat.
[1:04]Her first book, Secrets of the Sprakar, was an international bestseller and a New York
[1:09]Times book review editor's choice.
[1:11]She was on this podcast to talk about it, so you can go back and listen to that if you
[1:15]would like.
[1:16]Her first novel, Death on the Island, was an instant USA Today Bestseller and option for
[1:19]television.
[1:20]From 2016 to 2024, Eliza served in the unofficial role of First Lady, while her husband
[1:27]was president of Iceland, during which time she was named a United Nations special ambassador
[1:31]for tourism and the sustainable development goals.
[1:35]Welcome, Eliza.
[1:36]Thank you.
[1:37]So much for coming on totally back to talk about The First Lady Next Door, memoir of Iceland,
[1:42]identity, and unexpected adventure.
[1:45]Thank you.
[1:46]Thanks so much for having me on.
[1:47]I'm going to see full little corners.
[1:48]That makes me happy.
[1:49]I did.
[1:50]I folded all these little corners.
[1:51]Should we see what I even folded?
[1:52]Yeah.
[1:53]I don't even know.
[1:55]I do the same thing with books.
[1:56]So I guess my first dog year, you said, actually, I can't really remember what I said,
[2:00]and even if I did, some things get to stay between a couple of the point is, is that
[2:05]I proposed to him.
[2:07]Mm-hmm.
[2:08]Let's start with that.
[2:09]Okay.
[2:10]Opposing to your husband.
[2:11]That's not where, I mean, let's just jump right in there.
[2:12]Yeah.
[2:13]Let's just, yeah.
[2:14]So might, well, tiny bit of background for people.
[2:15]Okay.
[2:16]Okay.
[2:17]Because you can hear my accent.
[2:18]So I grew up in Canada, in an on a farm countryside, I went to England for graduate school
[2:22]to Oxford, and that's where I met my husband, who is from Iceland.
[2:27]So people weren't very excited if you were from Canada and you were at Oxford, but everyone
[2:31]was excited that there was someone from Iceland, because that was like the only person
[2:34]that anybody had met from that country.
[2:36]Very long story short.
[2:37]We met a kind of cheated when a date with him.
[2:39]That's a whole other story, and then we became a couple.
[2:43]When he finished his PhD, and he was like older than you and had a daughter, so sure
[2:47]about the whole thing.
[2:48]Yeah.
[2:49]He was, so I was 22, which is like how old you are, right?
[2:52]And if you go straight to grad school, and I remember talking to him at a party once,
[2:56]and I thought he was one of the older graduate students, like 25, or something kind of
[3:00]my big realm of old, and we were chatting, and he was talking about how when the Berlin
[3:05]Wall came down, he was in undergrad University, and I was in the eighth grade or something,
[3:10]and I remember thinking, I said to him, how old are you?
[3:13]And he said, I am thirsty with this Icelandic accent.
[3:17]And I remember because we were at a party, and I remember thinking, can people, can people
[3:21]who are 30 go to parties, and did they stay awake?
[3:24]It was like a new world for me.
[3:27]But we had a day, we fell in love, and he has a daughter from his first marriage, so he
[3:31]was always going to go back to Iceland as soon as he was finished.
[3:35]And I remember thinking, right, well, if we want to be together, and I think we do,
[3:39]this is it.
[3:40]But I thought, I wouldn't say I'm massively a traditionalist, but I thought if I'm moving
[3:43]to this new country and I'm building a life there, it's because I've committed to this
[3:46]person, and so we should be married.
[3:49]And to me, it's the strange thing that if I've taken the mental leap that I wanted
[3:53]to marry him, I thought, well, why shouldn't I just ask him then?
[3:57]I'm not going to leave a ring catalog on the coffee table or something.
[4:01]I thought, if he got to it first, that was fair enough, but sometimes men can be slow
[4:05]movers, bless them.
[4:07]And yes, so I proposed to him, and he said yes, so that was okay.
[4:12]He didn't tell his mother for a long time, that was actually me who proposed that.
[4:18]No, that's not that long, but that's exclusive material for you that he called her and said
[4:26]he got engaged and she said, I hope he did it properly, and he said, yes, it was a little
[4:31]while later.
[4:32]That's funny.
[4:33]Oh, my gosh.
[4:34]Oh, mother-in-law, stories.
[4:36]Exactly.
[4:37]Pull out the podcast.
[4:38]Yeah.
[4:39]That's amazing.
[4:40]Okay, so you talk about your whole relationship and it's very unlikely or it seemed unlikely
[4:47]at the beginning that you would ever be in the situation.
[4:50]Right.
[4:51]And you even talk about how he went, your husband went on the news and talked about
[4:56]this big event that was happening in the media and spent hours of dissecting everything
[5:00]that was going on.
[5:01]PS, thank you for all the education about the system, the democrat, the system of how
[5:06]it all works.
[5:07]And I was like, at the risk of scaring away readers, I know, you were like, am I still, are
[5:10]you still awake?
[5:11]And I was like, yes, I'm still like, yeah, do you have to explain a little bit of
[5:14]Icelandic civics?
[5:15]And I feel the reader gets through that, then we're good to go.
[5:17]Yeah, although I have to say, I was talking to my daughter on the way to school because
[5:20]she is learning about the US politics of this and like article one and term limits and
[5:24]I was like, by the way, let me tell you about Iceland, quirky fact, quirky fact about
[5:28]Iceland.
[5:29]It was actually quite useful.
[5:31]You know, maybe it's a good party trick for people, that's a treat, but it's like, so we'll
[5:34]look at that as a bonus for readers rather than just a boring thing they've got to get
[5:38]through.
[5:39]Just a little thing.
[5:40]Yeah.
[5:41]But anyway, it explains how you ended up becoming first lady in Iceland.
[5:44]Yes.
[5:45]And your husband had random calls from strangers being like, hey, this guy should be
[5:49]done.
[5:50]And you're like, oh, okay.
[5:51]Thanks.
[5:52]Yeah.
[5:53]I mean, the salient, I guess the salient points of that are that he, you know, he's kind
[5:54]of this, I said sort of bookish cardigan wearing history professor expert on the presidents
[6:00]of Iceland, but had no intention of being in the spotlight serving in that role himself
[6:04]and was writing a book on the president of Iceland when you can't make this up.
[6:08]And then he was the expert because he was neutral to comment on this political crisis
[6:12]when our prime minister resigned and all that.
[6:14]And the outgoing president had announced he wasn't going to run again.
[6:18]And people saw this man on television.
[6:20]He was on for six hours one day two months before the scheduled election, I would like
[6:24]to add and said, he'd be really good running for president.
[6:28]And they literally started calling our house.
[6:31]Our kids were two, four, six and eight years old then.
[6:34]And I always remember too, once you kind of take this plunge, it was a seven week campaign.
[6:38]I can't believe it as I say it.
[6:40]We thought we'll do it.
[6:41]We need, of course, a really happy family brochure, you know, like smiling family together.
[6:45]You know what it's like with young kids, hurting cats, right?
[6:49]And a stylist called The House and said to me, can you describe your personal style?
[6:54]And I remember thinking, I'm still wearing my maternity pants.
[6:58]So I last went shopping five years ago and there was sort of silence on the other end.
[7:02]This is about my pay great, but he came over, we took us eight hours to get a family
[7:07]nice family photo, which is in the book.
[7:09]So it was, it was, it was thrown in the deep end for sure.
[7:12]Another civics lesson, there are campaign finance limits.
[7:16]Yes.
[7:17]So you didn't have to worry about that.
[7:18]Thank goodness.
[7:19]Yeah.
[7:20]So I mean, you know, that is you start thinking and people say, well, how did you decide
[7:22]to do this?
[7:23]And the two things are, you know, would we ruin our children?
[7:26]How did it affect the people most important to us?
[7:29]And we thought, I think if we can keep them grounded and normalized, it might give them some
[7:33]interesting exposure to things in life.
[7:35]And can we afford it?
[7:36]And as you said, there are these rules.
[7:37]We wouldn't have to re-market to the house.
[7:39]We wouldn't have to do that.
[7:41]And so then you just think, well, the stars of the line in such a way, I should add.
[7:45]I guess the third one is, does he want to do it?
[7:46]Well, you would do a good job.
[7:48]And then the stars line, you just think, let's just go for it.
[7:51]And if you try your best and it works, that's great.
[7:54]And if it doesn't work, you can say that you, you went for it and go back to our happy
[7:59]lives.
[8:00]Now a lot of spouses and candidates to be, would not say, let's just go for it.
[8:08]Like that is a big leap.
[8:09]That's not just like, why not?
[8:11]Yeah.
[8:12]Why don't we do it?
[8:13]It was so sudden, it was a really crazy surreal feeling where you think, you know, remember
[8:18]my husband saying at one point, you know, you're talking about if you win, you go to
[8:22]state dinners and you dine in palaces with kings and queens.
[8:25]And he says, I don't even know how to hold my knife and fork, perfect.
[8:28]And you're just having these crazy kind of mind bending dialogues in your head.
[8:35]To me, at least, or the way that I remember it, it was just the stars had just aligned
[8:39]or whatever you want to call that.
[8:41]It was just, we just had to try for it.
[8:44]And it did feel very much like a mutual family decision.
[8:47]I was really excited about it and stressed and nervous and all those healthy things, right?
[8:51]But I think that that also shows you that you're growing personally.
[8:55]Like I think if you were completely blase about it, it's not pushing your limits enough.
[9:01]And you don't want to be paralyzed by fear.
[9:04]But just have those enough of those butterflies that you know, okay, this is going to help
[9:08]me grow as a person.
[9:09]And I think a lot of people, I hope that's what a lot of people relate to in the book,
[9:13]is that very few people are married to a head of state, but everybody's had those moments,
[9:17]right?
[9:18]Everybody's had those changes or those decisions, even though they're positive, unexpected
[9:22]changes that make you think, what on earth is happening?
[9:26]How am I going to do this?
[9:27]Am I doing it right?
[9:29]How will I make the most of it?
[9:30]And how we kind of overcome those nerves or lean into that uncomfortable feeling to really
[9:36]make the most of it?
[9:37]Yeah.
[9:38]I love this just say yes.
[9:39]Kind of philosophy.
[9:40]Yeah.
[9:41]I mean, I don't know.
[9:42]I don't know.
[9:43]Like I can say that in retrospect.
[9:44]Well, I did just say yes once.
[9:45]Yeah.
[9:46]Yeah.
[9:47]Yeah.
[9:48]If you could talk to total chaotic stress me maybe 10 years ago, it would have been, it would
[9:51]have been different.
[9:52]So you had four small kids.
[9:53]Yeah.
[9:54]You couldn't even escape for your 40th birthday trip to Paris.
[9:56]No.
[9:57]Yeah, you wanting to go in.
[10:00]Are you getting this trip?
[10:01]And then next thing you know, you're in a motorcade
[10:04]and your friends are sending us like, wait,
[10:06]or are we paying for this?
[10:07]Like what do you love that life?
[10:09]Exactly, exactly.
[10:10]Yeah, and it was also, that was an unusual thing
[10:12]when after the election when we went to watch
[10:15]Iceland play England in the men's football
[10:17]or soccer championship.
[10:19]And he's president-elect, he wasn't the president then,
[10:22]but still in France, motorcade pulls up
[10:25]to the aircraft in our census.
[10:26]Do we pay for this?
[10:27]And again, when you drive up a motorcade
[10:30]to the three-star hotel, your friends booked on Hotwire,
[10:33]the management of the hotel,
[10:35]I also think it's an unusual experience.
[10:37]So it's like, it's sort of world's colliding.
[10:39]And there was a long time of that, you know?
[10:42]And it was sort of a balance, for me at least.
[10:45]It was a balance of serving in this role
[10:47]that has no rule book.
[10:48]And I love to follow rules.
[10:50]I love to know what I'm allowed to do
[10:51]and which lane I'm supposed to drive in.
[10:53]To thinking, well, if there is no rule book,
[10:56]then I can't be breaking any rules in a sense.
[10:59]But I didn't wake up to that right away.
[11:01]And you want to keep that balance
[11:03]of serving with dignity, serving with responsibility
[11:07]in an office that the people in Iceland
[11:09]have a tremendous respect for their head of state
[11:11]by and large and for the president, for that institution.
[11:14]And so you want to do that with dignity and honor
[11:18]and integrity, but you also want to stay true
[11:21]to who you are as a person, right?
[11:24]And so Eliza from the countryside,
[11:27]who you buy shoes every 10 years,
[11:29]like you have to sort of balance these two different things.
[11:32]And that was sometimes a challenge,
[11:33]but I hope that we did that well ultimately.
[11:36]You have this whole sort of through line of the book too
[11:38]of being the spouse and not having an official role
[11:43]and wanting to help your husband,
[11:45]but not wanting to lose yourself,
[11:47]which again is something that so many people
[11:49]are only doing this if your husband has a big job
[11:51]or whatever.
[11:52]And you're just like along for the ride.
[11:53]Yeah.
[11:54]You carved out this whole life and niche for yourself
[11:57]despite having the little kids at home,
[11:59]despite all of your commitments.
[12:01]Right.
[12:02]For a few years.
[12:02]Yeah.
[12:03]And I had a job.
[12:04]I was working full time as well then with the kids.
[12:07]And I want to say that I'm mom of the year
[12:10]or employer of the year or whatever I am, right?
[12:12]I think one of the reasons we can do lots of things
[12:14]is that you kind of do them all middlingly well,
[12:18]I don't know, and I drink a lot of coffee.
[12:20]But I think you're right that of course,
[12:22]in this moment, I was thrust onto the national stage
[12:24]as Goodney's wife.
[12:25]And I'm incredibly proud to be Goodney's wife.
[12:27]As, you know, I think again,
[12:29]many spouses especially women know this,
[12:31]they wouldn't say it's my defining characteristic
[12:33]as a human being.
[12:34]And I wanted to make sure that each is a good thing.
[12:36]For sure, for sure.
[12:38]I mean, our lives, I'm so grateful to have this marriage
[12:42]and relationship, but to me,
[12:43]that's just one facet of a feeling of life.
[12:45]It was also important to me, you know,
[12:47]when I moved to Iceland to build a life there,
[12:49]of course, I moved for him,
[12:50]but I wanted to stay for me.
[12:52]You know, I wanted my own job and hobbies and friends
[12:55]because I said that's one facet of a well-rounded life.
[12:59]And yeah, I just wanted to make sure
[13:02]that Eliza wasn't lost in the shuffle.
[13:05]But it was a strange, there's obviously a lot of self doubt
[13:08]and you're thinking, am I doing this right?
[13:10]Am I allowed to do this?
[13:11]You know, I have a platform, people want to listen to me,
[13:14]but it's really my husband who achieved the platform.
[13:16]He ran for office, his name was on the ballot.
[13:19]And so you start to think, can I really use this platform?
[13:22]Can I speak up about issues that are important to me
[13:24]and things that I think are important,
[13:26]or, you know, am I allowed to do it?
[13:29]And I don't know, sometimes you just have to sort of go for it,
[13:32]but I hope that I address a lot of that self doubt
[13:36]at the imposter syndrome with which we're all intimately
[13:39]familiar.
[13:40]I'm sure.
[13:41]Well, you started writing.
[13:42]And you started being incredibly vulnerable on the page,
[13:45]which is amazing.
[13:46]And then everybody started relating so well to that.
[13:50]And not that they hadn't already.
[13:51]Sure, sure.
[13:52]You know, like an open book and everything.
[13:54]But once you started, it sounds like writing,
[13:57]it's insuring your feelings and then that caught on.
[13:59]And that became its own thing that ultimately is culminated
[14:02]in this book to change your relationship to people.
[14:05]And you took that sort of narrative in a way.
[14:07]Well, so my husband jokes, instead of calling me a Liza,
[14:10]he calls me Analiza because I'm always overthinking,
[14:12]you know, what do I do?
[14:14]And I wrote, for example, a piece in The New York Times
[14:16]and off at about serving as First Lady and what that meant
[14:19]for feminism and women.
[14:20]And when I decided to write it, both as a writer, right?
[14:24]Because that's a big deal to it.
[14:25]It's probably from the York Times, thank you.
[14:28]I was really excited about that.
[14:29]But I didn't ask anybody's permission.
[14:31]You know, I didn't talk to the staff of the president's
[14:33]office because I thought if I mentioned this,
[14:35]someone is going to tell me not to do it.
[14:37]And I don't have a rule book.
[14:38]It's not an official rule.
[14:39]So I'm allowed to do whatever I want in theory.
[14:43]And of course, sorry, I wrote this.
[14:44]I knew it was going to go live at a certain time.
[14:46]And I just couldn't sleep in it before.
[14:48]I thought, what have I done?
[14:50]Nobody asked me to do this.
[14:52]People are going to yell at me.
[14:53]They're going to say that I'm, you know,
[14:54]because you're in a privileged position.
[14:56]And sometimes when you're in that position
[14:57]to call things out, seems so petty
[15:00]when there's so many huge crises in the world, right?
[15:03]To say this isn't working or whatever.
[15:05]The people would say I'm an attention seeker
[15:07]or that I'm whining.
[15:09]What if they said it was a bad writer?
[15:10]That would be the worst.
[15:12]That would have really hit home.
[15:14]That would really hit home.
[15:15]But then I also realized, and I was like,
[15:17]I thought, you know what?
[15:18]Let's say all of those things happen,
[15:20]which they didn't in fact, which is one lesson.
[15:22]But let's say they did.
[15:23]I still, you know, my husband supports me my family life.
[15:27]I'm not going to lose my job.
[15:28]I'm not going to fear for my safety.
[15:30]Like I'm also risking a lot less
[15:32]by speaking up about things.
[15:34]And therefore I felt even more obligation to do so.
[15:37]And I realized that in fact, you know,
[15:40]a large majority or everything that I heard
[15:42]I got so many positive comments from people saying,
[15:44]thank you for calling these things out,
[15:45]even though they're small, you know,
[15:46]even though there are little so many
[15:48]what I call paper cuts of things,
[15:50]they still have to be called out because we don't,
[15:52]we don't realize and then we don't change
[15:54]if we don't acknowledge that these things exist.
[15:57]Wait, let's go back to the New York Times.
[15:58]Okay. So you don't show anyone you're doing this.
[16:01]Do you just told my husband like op-ed at New York Times.com?
[16:04]How did you even do it?
[16:06]I basically, so I'd written a Facebook post
[16:08]that was about Instagram posts
[16:10]someone had done that I remember kind of being offended
[16:13]by to reduce these spouses of world leaders
[16:15]to sort of news as for their husband's genius.
[16:18]And I remember at first thinking, you know,
[16:20]it's too bad on First Lady because if it weren't,
[16:22]I post about this on Facebook.
[16:25]And then again, I thought like, oh, I don't have a rule book.
[16:27]I do have a rule check Facebook account.
[16:29]So I wrote a Facebook post which got really good feedback
[16:32]and I had a friend who I had worked with
[16:35]at an English language magazine.
[16:36]She said, you should try to pitch this to a newspaper.
[16:39]And I again, I thought, no, I'd love to write a newspaper,
[16:43]but I'm not allowed to, I'm First Lady.
[16:44]And then I thought, wait a minute, no rule book.
[16:47]So I knew one person who worked at the New York Times.
[16:50]So I wrote to her not in the op-ed section.
[16:53]And I said, who do I send a pitch to?
[16:55]And she gave me a name.
[16:56]And so basically I did pitch like everybody pitches.
[16:59]Oh my gosh.
[17:00]So I did as so many writers
[17:02]and people who wanna do crafted, you know, a pitch
[17:05]with my bio in the background in the hook.
[17:07]And they liked it and decided to publish it.
[17:10]So it's always worth a shot.
[17:12]If someone has a good idea, a timely, timely idea.
[17:15]That's awesome.
[17:15]And it, yeah, and it really helped me
[17:18]later on a lot of people saw that story.
[17:20]Someone even actually remember someone who worked at the,
[17:23]then at the White House in the press corps,
[17:26]retweeted the story and said she thought
[17:28]the First Lady of Finland was a badass.
[17:32]And I remember thinking, you're welcome Finland.
[17:34]What else can I do for you?
[17:37]Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[17:38]Oh my gosh.
[17:39]Well, then you have kind of a different experience
[17:41]with the media later on because your body image
[17:45]and like how you started dressing and looking
[17:47]and this your size, like all the things,
[17:49]all sorts of superficial things started changing.
[17:53]And that, yeah, and that was important for me
[17:54]to write actually in the book because, as you can see now,
[17:57]I mean, I've never been a supermodel,
[17:59]but I feel those people haven't.
[18:00]It's also true, also true.
[18:01]I feel very comfortable in my skin.
[18:03]And I always believe, and I still believe
[18:06]that 90% of looking good is feeling good about yourself.
[18:11]And then the rest can help or enhance,
[18:12]but that to me is the really fundamental.
[18:14]And I do feel good about myself.
[18:16]I do not feel good about how I choose clothing
[18:19]or how I accessorize.
[18:20]Like I don't have a lot of confidence
[18:22]in doing it the right way.
[18:24]And when I was First Lady, as I was saying,
[18:28]before kids never went to the gym,
[18:30]it just wasn't a priority for me.
[18:32]I wasn't thinking I should.
[18:33]You know, you've got for, you know,
[18:35]I don't go to gym.
[18:36]It's not like, you know what exactly?
[18:38]I'm like a glass of red wine up to dinner.
[18:40]Sure, yeah, sure, exactly.
[18:42]So when I was First Lady, I think I'll,
[18:44]maybe I'll try to carve out some time at the gym,
[18:46]you know, I'm in the public all the time.
[18:47]And just doing that without anything crazy,
[18:49]I lost a lot of weight.
[18:50]As, you know, it's funny how extra,
[18:52]so regular exercise will do that.
[18:54]No, no, no, but it's just priorities in life.
[18:57]And then everyone kept talking to me about this.
[18:59]You know, oh, you look so good.
[19:01]What's your secret?
[19:01]What are you doing?
[19:02]And it actually kind of drove me nuts
[19:04]because I was thinking it comes from a nice place, of course.
[19:08]But I would say like, it's just because I'd go to gym
[19:10]or if you went to the gym or two,
[19:12]you would also like, it's just how people prioritize
[19:14]their time.
[19:15]And I also do that I wouldn't always be like that
[19:17]because I won't always have time to go to the gym.
[19:19]And everyone went to write stories about it.
[19:21]And I thought, can you talk about the speech
[19:23]that I gave and not, you know, how I look?
[19:26]And so I never commented on it publicly at the time
[19:30]because I knew that that's all people would talk about.
[19:32]And I didn't want to do that.
[19:34]And I just think that perpetuates this idea of women
[19:37]and that's all we can talk about with women.
[19:39]But in the book, I thought, no, I, you know,
[19:41]I can address some of these issues there.
[19:43]And I hopefully in a way that reinforces it says,
[19:46]look, if this is how you wanna,
[19:48]if we all had a personal chef who cooked these things
[19:50]for us and at certain time and a personal trainer
[19:53]who did all this and carved out those moments,
[19:56]we would all look like supermodels.
[19:57]But we don't all have time to do that.
[19:59]And that is okay.
[20:00]And I'm just going to give it to ourselves.
[20:02]That is also not true.
[20:03]We would not all look.
[20:04]They're like 0.00.
[20:06]Yeah, they're also genetic.
[20:08]Right.
[20:09]And it would be a super model.
[20:10]By the way, then super models have all this trouble.
[20:12]Aging.
[20:13]Yes.
[20:14]They stake their whole lives on.
[20:16]I mean, they have their own set of issues.
[20:17]They really do.
[20:18]Grass is always greener.
[20:19]The grass, I like that.
[20:21]The grass is always greener.
[20:22]And so I think if there's one thing we can all do,
[20:25]it's we spend some, they say we,
[20:27]and I think maybe I mean women by that or not.
[20:29]So much of the mental load.
[20:31]When we're already taking on so many different tasks, right?
[20:34]Also thinking about all the things we're not taking on.
[20:37]And why aren't we doing this?
[20:38]And why aren't we doing this better or faster
[20:40]or easier priority?
[20:41]But we all have the 24 hours in a day that everybody else has.
[20:45]And so what I try not to do is spend a lot of that time.
[20:50]Because I have other things to do.
[20:51]Like if I'm going to say, look, I'm not going to go to the gym.
[20:54]That's because I'm busy writing a book or delivering speeches
[20:57]or doing something with the kids or with my husband.
[20:59]And that's how I choose to spend that time,
[21:02]but not also losing sleep over thinking.
[21:04]Why am I not up gym?
[21:05]Why am I out of the gym?
[21:06]Well speaking of all the other things you do.
[21:07]Talk about the Iceland writers retreat.
[21:09]Yeah, everything they do with that.
[21:11]Thank you.
[21:12]And that's the first time I heard of you really
[21:14]was at the beginning of the podcast.
[21:16]I feel like you were one of my first sponsors.
[21:17]Something happened so it was so long ago.
[21:20]But it was probably 10 years ago now, eh?
[21:22]Yeah, I think so.
[21:23]It was anyway.
[21:24]It was a long time ago.
[21:25]Well, time flies, that shows us.
[21:27]Yeah, the Iceland writers retreat is something
[21:28]that a friend of mine and I founded in 2014.
[21:30]And so it's for anybody who likes writing.
[21:32]And I think it's a little bit like,
[21:34]if you take a cooking class that you know in Italy,
[21:37]because you like to cook, you might be Michelin's chef,
[21:39]or you might like to tinker in the kitchen.
[21:41]And this is that for writing.
[21:42]So whether you are a published author,
[21:44]want to publish an author, don't want to publish a book,
[21:47]but just like to write, you can come to Iceland
[21:49]in the Capital Break of Equity, which is the University
[21:51]of Literature, and take writing classes
[21:54]from, we have just different writers
[21:56]who come every year, different faculty.
[21:58]But then we also introduce people to Iceland's literary heritage.
[22:01]So we'll have a, you know, a day tour in Iceland,
[22:04]but it's led by a writer.
[22:05]This year was my husband.
[22:06]He came chief.
[22:07]Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
[22:09]You know, led by a writer, we have readings there.
[22:11]So you get to do these sort of touristic things in Iceland
[22:14]that you can't do if you come on your own, otherwise,
[22:16]in the environment of a bunch of people
[22:18]who just enjoy writing and talking about the craft of writing.
[22:21]You know, it's not about getting an agent or publishing
[22:23]your book, it's just about telling your story.
[22:26]That's amazing.
[22:26]When's the next one?
[22:27]The next one is in mid-April, 2027.
[22:30]So we just finished one.
[22:31]There is lots of time.
[22:32]In fact, people who sign up before June 1st
[22:35]get a huge discount, our early bird discount.
[22:38]Oh, my goodness.
[22:38]Do you have your faculty lined up?
[22:40]We don't.
[22:40]So we haven't announced that yet.
[22:42]And actually, I'm sure, and I'm saying online,
[22:45]the people who signed out through the podcast,
[22:47]we can give us our friends and family discount
[22:49]to send you details on that.
[22:50]So special offer for you.
[22:53]Oh, my gosh.
[22:54]That would be wonderful.
[22:55]Thank you.
[22:55]That's because when you run it,
[22:57]you get to make these live executive decisions
[22:59]without consulting your team.
[23:01]Like, OK, I'm saying it now, make a decision.
[23:04]I was doing something that's when I was like,
[23:06]I did a giveaway online, and I was like, well,
[23:08]but I want to give everybody who entered something.
[23:10]How should I do that?
[23:11]And you're like, yeah, I could just go on our website,
[23:13]make a code, and I didn't tell anybody with it.
[23:14]But you're like, I'm in charge.
[23:16]Wait a minute, you get to do it.
[23:17]Kind of.
[23:18]I think it was good to check, but anyway, anyway, anyway.
[23:21]And then towards the end of the book,
[23:23]you also talk about what does identity look like after some
[23:27]of these major roles?
[23:28]Because a lot of people in life have a role that's like,
[23:31]all lit up for a certain whether it's an athlete or a teacher
[23:36]or something.
[23:37]And then when that ends, who are we?
[23:39]I know.
[23:40]Well, we have, you know, at these different points in lives,
[23:42]we're kind of assigned these labels,
[23:45]whether that is author, entrepreneur, mother, wife,
[23:47]or whatever it is.
[23:48]And you're kind of wondering, does that restrain me?
[23:52]Does that help me grow?
[23:54]And certainly, I was thinking about it
[23:56]when my husband's time as president ended,
[23:58]because I've been so much in the first lady label,
[24:01]which was an honor and a privilege, which I loved it.
[24:04]As you can see, I'm incredibly young still.
[24:06]You know, this is a big opportunity.
[24:07]I'm turning 50.
[24:08]I'm turning 50.
[24:09]Yeah, I know, it's a big year for us, right?
[24:11]Yeah, so actually, we're creating this.
[24:13]I'm turning 50 tomorrow.
[24:14]So it's like a big thing about it.
[24:18]It's a full circle moment, because my book is published 10 years
[24:22]the day after my husband announced,
[24:23]he was running a president on my 40th birthday.
[24:26]So it's just, you can notice what happens when I turn 60.
[24:28]But it shows you, all I'm saying is that I feel like I have
[24:32]a lot more to do, more adventures to have.
[24:34]And you do spend time thinking about that.
[24:36]But I think we don't, obviously, I don't know what
[24:40]those unexpected moments are going to be, right?
[24:42]What I hope that I've tried to learn,
[24:44]I hope that the experience, the contacts,
[24:46]the fun that I've had doing this, I can build on that.
[24:49]But I also hope that it's helped to reinforce for me
[24:52]that whenever the next exciting thing comes along,
[24:56]I'll feel confident enough to lean into that uncertainty
[25:00]and really make the most of it.
[25:01]You ever regret saying yes?
[25:03]No.
[25:04]Amazing.
[25:05]No.
[25:06]What's the most crazy thing you and your husband
[25:09]have talked about for the next decade?
[25:11]Oh, like looking forward.
[25:13]Oh my gosh.
[25:14]I don't know.
[25:15]I think we're both in the decompressed mode still.
[25:17]So less than thinking about new adventures.
[25:20]But also we recall, I mean, and I tell some of the stories
[25:23]like wardrobe malfunctions with royalty and all these strange
[25:27]moments going to the White House and President Biden calling
[25:30]my mom, so there's eating a goat's brain and old
[25:36]monitor, but the key thing, actually those
[25:40]remind me, those sound like these sort of glamorous surreal
[25:42]stories, and they are.
[25:44]But really what sticks with me are the, it sounds every day
[25:47]because they weren't, but that we got to meet just regular
[25:49]people the time.
[25:50]We got to meet the volunteers, the people who would be
[25:54]fundraising for health equipment somewhere who let
[25:57]acquire or who started a puppetry festival, all of these
[26:01]things.
[26:02]And it really remind you, most people are good people.
[26:05]And if you think of the people around you in your networks,
[26:08]they're not all going to change the world, but they're all
[26:10]doing that little bit every day.
[26:12]And I think we all need to be reminded of that now.
[26:15]We all need to know that most people want to do their
[26:19]part to nudge things in the right direction.
[26:21]And I hope that's what I did.
[26:22]And I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to meet so
[26:26]many people who are also doing that in their own way.
[26:29]Well, I feel like from the universe is perspective.
[26:32]It was like meant to be that you would take on this very
[26:34]ago.
[26:34]I hope so.
[26:35]I hope so.
[26:35]It was just, it was, it was such a tremendous honor, and
[26:38]I'm really grateful for it.
[26:39]Well, thank you for letting us all behind the scenes.
[26:42]Telling us everything, not telling, showing us everything
[26:45]that you are.
[26:46]And congrats that you're already best out on Canada.
[26:48]Yeah, thank you so much.
[26:49]And thanks for all that you're doing for book lovers and
[26:51]writing around the world too.
[26:52]You're so welcome.
[26:53]All right.
[26:54]Great.
[26:54]Happy early birthday.
[26:55]Oh, what course?
[26:58]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi,
[27:01]formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[27:03]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me
[27:07]on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and spread the word.
[27:11]Thanks so much.
[27:12]Go and buy the books.