Speaker 1: What's Her Story with Sam and Amy presents our author
Speaker 1: Snack series, where we share the story of one author
Speaker 1: and one book in less time than it takes to
Speaker 1: finish your snack. Megan Murphy is an editor in chief
Speaker 1: of Woman's Day magazine and the author of Your Fully
Speaker 1: Charged Life, a radically simple approach to having endless energy
Speaker 1: and filling every day with you. What made you write
Speaker 1: this book? It's like a culmination, probably of twenty five
Speaker 1: years of using myself as a guinea pig and road
Speaker 1: testing happiness strategies on myself to ultimately live in a
Speaker 1: way that's fully charged, but would actually lit the fire
Speaker 1: to put pen to paper and actually physically write the book.
Speaker 1: Was was my dad's pancreatic cancer dice. He was diagnosed
Speaker 1: with stagewar pancreatic cancer, wasn't looking good and I had
Speaker 1: gone to chemo with him one day um And in
Speaker 1: that moment I was like, Dad, I'm not giving up.
Speaker 1: I love you, but how do you want to remember
Speaker 1: be remembered? What do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker 1: And in asking him that, it also gave me pause
Speaker 1: to ask myself the same question. And when I did,
Speaker 1: I realized that I wanted to be remembered for a
Speaker 1: legacy of positive energy, because I'm somebody who started out
Speaker 1: nicknamed Neggie, had really tumultuous teen years, was hospitalized for
Speaker 1: needing disorder, my best friend committed suicide. I struggled, and
Speaker 1: I have trained very hard to live with optimism and
Speaker 1: joy and grit and grace. And I knew the tools
Speaker 1: that work for me would work for other people, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to share those things. Going back to earlier
Speaker 1: in your life, when you struggled with interexty, when you
Speaker 1: lost your best friend when you were a teenager, you've
Speaker 1: also said that you started life out as a ground. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm inherently negative. My negative tivity bias and all
Speaker 1: of our negative civity biases is strong. But I was
Speaker 1: programmed for negativity. I mean I was glass half empty.
Speaker 1: Now I realized the glasses refillable, but that took years,
Speaker 1: and it was just my disposition. I had a loving home,
Speaker 1: a loving middle class home, a really nice life, but
Speaker 1: everything was doom and gloom. It was just how I
Speaker 1: was wired. And it took work. It took a lot
Speaker 1: of work to actually retrain my brain and to learn
Speaker 1: to live differently. But I didn't have to work hard,
Speaker 1: and I don't have to work hard to be negative now, right.
Speaker 1: I mean it's easy to slip into those habits because
Speaker 1: I am privately programmed for negativity, as are most of us.
Speaker 1: Right now, we hear so much about toxic positivity. Is
Speaker 1: that something you've been accused of? How do you manage
Speaker 1: those kind of naysayers? I actually love the naysayers, right,
Speaker 1: I high five the haters. It's part of my m oh.
Speaker 1: But I do laugh about this because, like, if you
Speaker 1: want to ask my neighbor from Ascot Lane Haul of
Speaker 1: Crouse about little Megan beu Can, I used to sit
Speaker 1: on the corner and stick my tongue out at people
Speaker 1: like That's that was the pastime. I would sit on
Speaker 1: the corner and stick my tongue out at anybody who
Speaker 1: drove by. So Paula Krauss has delighted in my transformation.
Speaker 1: What is the first person to be like, Oh, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: she was a pain in the past. She was a negative,
Speaker 1: nasty little kid. And so I laugh about it. But
Speaker 1: I think the real distinction is, and it's so important
Speaker 1: for people to understand, is toxic positivity only looks on
Speaker 1: the bright side. It's those bs platitudes like don't worry,
Speaker 1: be happy, you know, good vibes only. The truth is
Speaker 1: it's good vibes mostly, and it's having a tool kit
Speaker 1: to be able to rise the stuff that sucks, because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that sucks. Absolutely recognize it,
Speaker 1: process it, but have fully charged toolkit to handle it
Speaker 1: and then move onward. That's the difference. There are mornings
Speaker 1: when I wake up and I don't want to get
Speaker 1: out of bed. I'm really struggling, right, there's so much
Speaker 1: negativity being blasted at me. The difference now is I
Speaker 1: understand there are things I can do to move the
Speaker 1: happiness needle, and I use those tools on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: I am absolutely not somebody who will ever like those
Speaker 1: platitudes kill me. Good vibes only is like the most
Speaker 1: disgusting phrase on the universe. Do not ignore those bad feelings,
Speaker 1: express them, share them, get them out. But the key
Speaker 1: is onward. What is the most important tool to you?
Speaker 1: So it's interesting and I love this because the tools
Speaker 1: I love when readers are like this work for me,
Speaker 1: that work for me, because it's always surprising what works
Speaker 1: for other people. And you never really know what your
Speaker 1: secret sauce is going to be. I think one of
Speaker 1: the most important tools in my tool kit is gratitude.
Speaker 1: I believe having an attitude of gratitude, making a gratitude
Speaker 1: adjustment is one of the keys to life. If you
Speaker 1: found a truly grateful person, that person would be happy.
Speaker 1: There's no such thing as a miserable grateful person because
Speaker 1: when you pause and appreciate the good in your life
Speaker 1: and the good in the world, you function differently. And
Speaker 1: so for me, it took me a while to actually
Speaker 1: adopt a gratitude practice because when I looked at those
Speaker 1: traditional methods of practicing gratitude, like I can't keep a
Speaker 1: gratitude journal, like that is homework. I have three kids,
Speaker 1: I with math, that's like carry the one. I do
Speaker 1: enough homework, right, Like, I don't want anything that feels homeworking.
Speaker 1: And so I couldn't do it. And so I had
Speaker 1: to trick myself into adopting a gratitude practice. And it
Speaker 1: was truly transformational for me. And it goes back to
Speaker 1: my dad's pancreatic cancer diagnosis. It was a very pivotal
Speaker 1: transitional moment in my life where again, I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get out of bed. I know
Speaker 1: from the work of Dr Martin Seligman and the Permit
Speaker 1: theory of wellness that gratitude is something that if I
Speaker 1: can harness it, it's gonna help me get out of
Speaker 1: bed and it's gonna help me move through these really
Speaker 1: crappy times with great and grace. And so I knew
Speaker 1: I had to adopt a gratitude practice, but I needed
Speaker 1: to hack it. I needed to fund filter it so
Speaker 1: that I would actually do it. And that's when I
Speaker 1: started something called Operation Good Grief, which was this active
Speaker 1: and conscious thing that every day I would look for
Speaker 1: something that didn't suck. And when I say didn't suck,
Speaker 1: because that's how it started, like I really didn't want
Speaker 1: to get out of bed, and I had three little kids,
Speaker 1: and I knew I had to learn how to function.
Speaker 1: So it would be this process of like, what doesn't
Speaker 1: suck today? And it would be daffodils, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: the daffodils at the end of my little walk finally bloomed,
Speaker 1: or it'd be a really killer workout tank that said
Speaker 1: you're stronger than you think you are, that powered me
Speaker 1: through the day. I would take a picture of it
Speaker 1: and capture it. I would share it on social media
Speaker 1: because guess what, sharing that those good things makes them
Speaker 1: even stickier. And I kept that up for two years
Speaker 1: even after my dad passed, and I began to more
Speaker 1: automatically see good things, not just things that didn't suck,
Speaker 1: but good things. And what I was really doing at
Speaker 1: my core was practicing gratitude and developing a gratitude practice.
Speaker 1: And when I moved through the darkest parts of my grief,
Speaker 1: I reframed it a bit. I started calling it finding
Speaker 1: the YA and I started creating a Y list every
Speaker 1: day and it was what makes me say yea today?
Speaker 1: And I would find five, ten, fifteen things because I
Speaker 1: was rewiring my brain for gratitude. And I adopted with
Speaker 1: my kids. So when we sit at dinner every night,
Speaker 1: what made you say ye today? Before I took them
Speaker 1: in got any more years? Like what were your yeused today?
Speaker 1: And it's a fun, filtered, easy way to adopt a
Speaker 1: gratitude practice. And the scientific benefits of practicing gratitude having
Speaker 1: a grateful art or undeniable I mean, it's everything from
Speaker 1: managing stress um to having better health outcomes, being more
Speaker 1: likely to exercise and eat right. I mean, gratitude is
Speaker 1: legitimately the secret sauce. And I feel like we only
Speaker 1: talked about it at Thanksgiving, right, But like, gratitude is important,
Speaker 1: and I think it's the greatest tool in my tool kit,
Speaker 1: and I'm very proud and grateful to practice it with
Speaker 1: so much ease. Right now? What is the trick? Obviously
Speaker 1: in your own home, Like, you have three kids, three
Speaker 1: different personalities. I imagine when you see glimpses of Megan's
Speaker 1: childhood personality in any of them, in terms of the
Speaker 1: negativity or the grumpiness, how do you manage that? It's
Speaker 1: interesting because I think my youngest son is totally a grump.
Speaker 1: So we do the Okay, you can tell me something bad,
Speaker 1: but you have to tell me two good things first.
Speaker 1: And so he's still actively looking for good things to
Speaker 1: share with me because he knows he can't complain and
Speaker 1: he can't share the hassles until he had he gives
Speaker 1: me two good things, and so he's he's learned. It's
Speaker 1: funny because I've seen this transformation. So he is still
Speaker 1: he's allowed to see the crap, but we're sandwiching it
Speaker 1: with the good stuff. And so he's actively finding that
Speaker 1: good stuff, you know, and listen, my daughter rolls her
Speaker 1: eyes at me, but this has been the way they've
Speaker 1: grown up. So as much as she rolls her eyes
Speaker 1: at me, when I get a glimpse of her doing
Speaker 1: something with her friends where she's she's like okay, well
Speaker 1: that makes me say yay, or she's she's doing parodying
Speaker 1: or echoing a little bit about what we do at home,
Speaker 1: I'm like, uh huh. I don't point it out, but
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, mom, when do you do this with
Speaker 1: your friends? You know? It's funny. My husband is like,
Speaker 1: there doesn't always have to be a life lesson. You
Speaker 1: don't always have to coach everybody. You don't always you know,
Speaker 1: like have to have these deep and meaningful interactions. But
Speaker 1: I can't always help it. And I think the funny
Speaker 1: thing is good energy is so contagious, and so I
Speaker 1: do approach life with so much optimism and joy that
Speaker 1: I bring that out of people naturally. It's not that
Speaker 1: we don't also have, you know, a cry session or
Speaker 1: a bitch fest, but but it always comes full circle
Speaker 1: where it's like, okay, but not everything sucks. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about your good hair day, right, and now a quick break.
Speaker 1: Did your husband know you before the transformation or only
Speaker 1: post transformation? Now, so, my husband is my brother's best friend.
Speaker 1: So we've known each other since second grade. But I'm
Speaker 1: four years older. So growing up it was like you,
Speaker 1: I'm in eighth grade and you're in fourth grade. Clearly
Speaker 1: we're not making out. You know, I'm a senior, you're
Speaker 1: a freshman in high school. Gross. We even went to
Speaker 1: the same college and my brother and him lived across
Speaker 1: the street. We didn't get together, and I had set
Speaker 1: him up, like I would be he's the best guy.
Speaker 1: I would try to like find him a date. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until we were both living in Hoboken years later
Speaker 1: and my brother would have us over for Sunday dinner
Speaker 1: that I was like, oh, we were reading the same book.
Speaker 1: He was reading a Little Million Little Pieces by James
Speaker 1: Fry and I was reading the same book. And I
Speaker 1: was like, he reads, he's like hot all kind and
Speaker 1: he reads. It was like I was like swooning, and
Speaker 1: I called my sister. I remember like leaving my brothers
Speaker 1: and like pet Murphy reads and it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: get it together, don't you dare that's Kevin's best friend.
Speaker 1: And then the next dinner, he also used a lot
Speaker 1: of salt, and I did never wanted to be judged
Speaker 1: for my salt intake and I have low blood pressure,
Speaker 1: so suck it. But he also used a lot of salt,
Speaker 1: and I realized I would never be judged for my
Speaker 1: salt intake. And I was smitten. I was absolutely smitt
Speaker 1: And ultimately we like, We're out to dinner with my
Speaker 1: brother and a bunch of their friends, and I put
Speaker 1: my hand on his thigh under the table and that
Speaker 1: was it. Oh my goodness, that is super gutsy. Well, Sam,
Speaker 1: I was a Cosmo editor for four years or you
Speaker 1: lest you forget Helen, Curtly, Brad and Kate White, they
Speaker 1: taught me, well, what did he do when you put
Speaker 1: your hand on his side? Green le Go. We were
Speaker 1: like making out in an a t M machine like
Speaker 1: an hour later, but then we secretly date it because
Speaker 1: we didn't want Basically, I was like, listen, I am
Speaker 1: a former Cosmo girl, Like marriage and babies is not
Speaker 1: really on my horizon, Like, let's just make sure we
Speaker 1: really like each other before Kevin, my brother, like loses
Speaker 1: his ship. So we secretly date it, which made it
Speaker 1: even hotter, right like we would rendezvous. It was like
Speaker 1: and it was like that early dating where you like
Speaker 1: stay up till three o'clock in the more Like it
Speaker 1: was I was done. I knew I was done. How
Speaker 1: did Kevin react? It was awful. I can remember somebody
Speaker 1: saw us making out because it was like twenty years
Speaker 1: of build up, right, I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I love this guy. And so my brother didn't find
Speaker 1: out from us, which made it worse. And my brother
Speaker 1: was like, there's no good outcome to this unless you
Speaker 1: get married and have three kids. Ultimately, he was the
Speaker 1: best man and his speech was hilarious because it's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened. How old were you at the time, nine
Speaker 1: and I had been through like maybe fifteen twenty boyfriends.
Speaker 1: I mean like, it was not it was not. I
Speaker 1: can just remember my my father's relief, Like when he proposed,
Speaker 1: my dad was like, okay, because my family loves Pat.
Speaker 1: I mean like he's been a part of our family
Speaker 1: since I was a little kid. So it was it
Speaker 1: was pretty magic when it all kind of worked out.
Speaker 1: I feel very lucky. So you're unusual for the authors
Speaker 1: We interview because you have a very full time day
Speaker 1: job as the editor in chief of Women's Day magazine.
Speaker 1: How do you manage that? And was there ever a
Speaker 1: conflict between Okay, this is my separate life as an
Speaker 1: author and here's my life as editor in chief. So
Speaker 1: that I guess the interesting part of all of it
Speaker 1: is like, so I took over. I was the see
Speaker 1: an executive editor of Good Housekeeping for six or seven years.
Speaker 1: I took over a Woman's Day in March March twelve lockdown.
Speaker 1: So I never did the job in person, like I've
Speaker 1: never been in an office with my team. I never
Speaker 1: did the job in person. My book was due April,
Speaker 1: so we go on lockdown. I am revamping, re energizing
Speaker 1: a magazine, finishing a book, and now home schooling three kids.
Speaker 1: It's one of those moments where I look back and think,
Speaker 1: pretty sure, I don't know how that happened, Like I
Speaker 1: actually don't know how I did it. It was insane.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm I'm good. I always say I'm I
Speaker 1: must just be good in crisis because it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's go time, no stealing, just doing, it's go time.
Speaker 1: Got it all done, and the magazine has been very
Speaker 1: successful under my watch. So I've never really said, like
Speaker 1: can I do both or how do you do both?
Speaker 1: I just do it. You talk a out about in
Speaker 1: person connection and the value of that. How have you
Speaker 1: managed to handle your team remotely this entire time and
Speaker 1: gain the respect necessary as the as the chief? You know?
Speaker 1: I think we we've been very effective virtually. I think
Speaker 1: it's going to almost be like strange to finally like
Speaker 1: be together all the time, you know, But when we
Speaker 1: did so, we we do go back on some Mondays
Speaker 1: and Tuesdays, and when we have been in person, like
Speaker 1: we've had a really fun lunch and a brainstorm and
Speaker 1: like come up with some pretty cookie ideas that we
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't have come up with otherwise. So I think
Speaker 1: I have the luxury of having been very established in
Speaker 1: my career at this point of lockdown. I feel for
Speaker 1: young people in their career, like, I don't need to network.
Speaker 1: I've been networking for twenty five years. I know everybody
Speaker 1: and I and I have wonderful connections. I feel for
Speaker 1: the young people, the young assistants, the young editors, because
Speaker 1: I don't know how you do what I've done for
Speaker 1: twenty five years completely virtually. How do you bring the
Speaker 1: tools from the book into the workplace. I think a
Speaker 1: big thing that I'm proud of is that I fun
Speaker 1: filter life, and I think I fun filter work for
Speaker 1: my team. By one of my art people said the
Speaker 1: most amazing thing to me the other day, and it
Speaker 1: was I've never had so much fun on the job.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my god, hard exploding because
Speaker 1: that's my goal. I feel very strongly that what we're
Speaker 1: doing doesn't actually matter right, Like, we can do it
Speaker 1: differently tomorrow. We can do it differently next week, we
Speaker 1: can do it differently next month. Let's do the best
Speaker 1: we can right here, right now and be proud of it.
Speaker 1: But let's not stress it. Let's not angst it, let's
Speaker 1: not overthink it. Let's just have fun. Because if we're
Speaker 1: having fun, the audience is going to have fun with us.
Speaker 1: How do you handle a negative coworker or colleague? Energy
Speaker 1: begets energy. Nobody brings that to my table, and I'm
Speaker 1: really proud of that. And the same thing like even
Speaker 1: people always say, oh, social media so this or so that,
Speaker 1: I don't find that nobody is bringing that negative energy
Speaker 1: to me because they know I want I will put
Speaker 1: up with it. I don't want it. I shut it down.
Speaker 1: I have like this force field and I don't want
Speaker 1: to deal with that. Now that's not to say we
Speaker 1: can't have conflict, and we can't have discussions, and we
Speaker 1: can't have disagreements, but you have to approach all of
Speaker 1: those disagreements and those discussions with a positive attitude, with
Speaker 1: optimism that we're going to find a solution that we're
Speaker 1: all really excited about. Should we go to our speed around? Now?
Speaker 1: Who leaves you starstruck? You know who? It would be? Like?
Speaker 1: It would probably be like the CEO of hearst right,
Speaker 1: it would probably be somebody in like a like a
Speaker 1: very big executive position versus like somebody who's on television
Speaker 1: or has like a movie. You have talked a lot
Speaker 1: about the importance of a morning routine. Let's hear yours.
Speaker 1: So I'm an early riser. Um, I am like the
Speaker 1: ultimate morning person. Like I like jump out of bed,
Speaker 1: I kind of bolt out of bed. I do a
Speaker 1: usually a very early morning workout, whether it's like a
Speaker 1: six am. It used to be like five. Now I
Speaker 1: can kind of do a six am or a six fifteen.
Speaker 1: I love dance cardio at a k T. And I
Speaker 1: love s LT, which is like plots on crack, like
Speaker 1: I love my morning workouts. I am a crazy person
Speaker 1: about bed making. I really find such peace out of
Speaker 1: having all the beds made, and I am that mom
Speaker 1: I make my kids beds. I can't help it because
Speaker 1: it just makes me feel like I've accomplished this one
Speaker 1: thing first thing in the morning, and it's going to
Speaker 1: set the tone for a really awesome day. So lots
Speaker 1: of bed making. And now that I'm not rushing into
Speaker 1: this city, it's then I can do. I buy myself
Speaker 1: flowers every month Monday morning and I'm flower arranging. I'm
Speaker 1: drinking coffee. I love putsaying around my house. Now it's like,
Speaker 1: I just love it. I love it's when kids leave
Speaker 1: and it's quiet. Oh my gosh, it's like a gift.
Speaker 1: What is the next buck? You'll right? My agent is
Speaker 1: really on me about getting the proposal done, but I
Speaker 1: am working on a fully charged life hack almanac. What
Speaker 1: book are you reading? I just finished? Okay, So my
Speaker 1: friend John Searles, who I um, who I worked with
Speaker 1: at Cosmo. He's a phenomenal writer. He's about New York
Speaker 1: Times bestselling author, but his new book is called Her
Speaker 1: Last Affair, and it's really good. His other those other
Speaker 1: books have been made into movies, etcetera. Like he's amazing,
Speaker 1: And it was one of those books, like I started
Speaker 1: it on vacation and I got through most of it,
Speaker 1: and then of course you come home and you come
Speaker 1: to real life. And on Mother's Day, all I wanted
Speaker 1: to do was be a left alone for an hour
Speaker 1: and a half to finish my book, and I did,
Speaker 1: and I was so happy. Amy did I ken a
Speaker 1: slight eye roll with the word yea, so you did.
Speaker 1: But I have to say something. There's such a positivity
Speaker 1: around the way that Megan described it that I have
Speaker 1: overcome my hesitation of the word ya and and like it's, well,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. It's a really simple thing to be,
Speaker 1: like what is your right? Like what are ya? Things
Speaker 1: that happened to you today? And it's something that you
Speaker 1: can use with your kids. Like it's just quick and
Speaker 1: it's good and it's easy, and I should stop being
Speaker 1: snobby about it. You know. What I love about Megan
Speaker 1: is like I share a very similar philosophy with her
Speaker 1: in the sense that like she's not pollyanni ish she's
Speaker 1: not saying there are no bad moments. She's not saying
Speaker 1: everything is going to always be great. She's very realistic
Speaker 1: about it, and it's like things will mostly be good,
Speaker 1: so like, let's focus on those things and let's have gratitude.
Speaker 1: So I really appreciate a lot of what she said.
Speaker 1: The way Megan and I first met was um when
Speaker 1: Good Housekeeping hosted my book party, which was six years ago.
Speaker 1: She was an editor there and she just stood out
Speaker 1: to me then. She just had a spark to her.
Speaker 1: And in reading her book, there's so much more depth
Speaker 1: to her than I even ever understood. I could never
Speaker 1: fathom Megan being a grumpy person. It's wild. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, it's reading about her teen years and what
Speaker 1: a struggle they were. It makes you realize that, like
Speaker 1: you know, everything is changeable. You can always change the
Speaker 1: course of your life or your mindset or your circumstances.
Speaker 1: And I really recommend reading the book. If you enjoy
Speaker 1: What's Her Story with Sam and Amy, please do leave
Speaker 1: a review wherever you get your podcasts, and do let
Speaker 1: us know what you think of the author snack series
Speaker 1: by commenting on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast