Speaker 1: Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
Speaker 1: activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
Speaker 1: And I'm Doctor add In the Rucar, a physician and
Speaker 1: medical correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience,
Speaker 1: mental health, and burnout. We're here to peel back to
Speaker 1: layers around why it's so easy for society to guard
Speaker 1: men's time as if it's diamonds and to treat women's
Speaker 1: time as if it's infinite like sands. And whether you
Speaker 1: are partnered with or without children, or in a career
Speaker 1: where you want more boundaries, this is the place for
Speaker 1: you for all family structures. We're here to take a
Speaker 1: time out to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim
Speaker 1: our time. High d D Hi, Eve, I'm feeling a
Speaker 1: little nostalgic today because this is the end of our
Speaker 1: first season and this has been such a fun and
Speaker 1: a really interesting ride with who we've been able to
Speaker 1: talk with. So as I was thinking about the end
Speaker 1: of the season, I really wanted us to address this
Speaker 1: idea of legacy, what we're remembered for because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, you know, it's not always the
Speaker 1: things that we spend our time on. That's why we're
Speaker 1: here in the Time Out podcast right to scrutinize and
Speaker 1: encourage people to make active decisions about how they spend
Speaker 1: their time. So the story I wanted to tell you
Speaker 1: today has to do with my day job, which I
Speaker 1: don't talk about that often on this podcast, but for
Speaker 1: over ten years, as you know, I've been a philanthropic advisor.
Speaker 1: I work with families on their legal matters and their
Speaker 1: governance related to family businesses, family foundations, families that look
Speaker 1: like the HBO show Succession. As we've laughed and said,
Speaker 1: and as we said to our listeners, you should feel
Speaker 1: bad for me. But one story that really stood out
Speaker 1: to me was right before the pandemic, one of my
Speaker 1: clients in the Pacific Northwest called me and said, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about you today. I was at a funeral
Speaker 1: and so I said to my client, well, thanks, it's
Speaker 1: really nice of you to think of me when you're
Speaker 1: at a funeral. What made you think of me? And
Speaker 1: he said, well, I'm at a funeral of a colleague
Speaker 1: and my client is a tighten of business in the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest. This was another tighten of business in the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest. He had passed away. There was a packed church,
Speaker 1: and my client was there to pay his respects. In
Speaker 1: the church, something happens where all three of his daughters,
Speaker 1: the man who passed away, all start to approach the
Speaker 1: podium where they were going to speak, and they say
Speaker 1: things that are silly, childlike poems. So the first daughter
Speaker 1: goes up, she recites a poem that's like a Shelf
Speaker 1: Silverstein poem, rhyming and beautiful and funny, and the audience,
Speaker 1: the mourners start laughing. And then the next daughter comes
Speaker 1: up and she does the same thing. It's a different poem.
Speaker 1: And then the third daughter comes up and also reads
Speaker 1: a really funny, silly, beautiful, rhyming poem that again sounds
Speaker 1: like it was published by someone. And then everyone in
Speaker 1: the audience is very confused. My client tells me, and
Speaker 1: then all three daughters lean into the microphone and say,
Speaker 1: those were poems our father wrote for us as the
Speaker 1: tooth fairy. Wow, he was our tooth fairy. And what
Speaker 1: my client was reflecting on after leaving the church was
Speaker 1: that nobody talked about his business career. What people were
Speaker 1: remembering from that day were his poems, the fact that
Speaker 1: it was probably strange back then for any man to
Speaker 1: be the tooth fairy. Even now in my data, that
Speaker 1: usually is done by women and heterosist gender partnerships. But
Speaker 1: on top of it, what my client said to me was,
Speaker 1: I had no idea, working with this man for years
Speaker 1: and years that he was a poet, such a beautiful,
Speaker 1: skilled poet. And it got me thinking about how we're remembered,
Speaker 1: what do we spend our time on and why, And
Speaker 1: so I would love to hear your thoughts, because we're
Speaker 1: going to get to hear from our amazing guests, Nor McNerney,
Speaker 1: who really speaks so deeply about issues of legacy, grief, existence,
Speaker 1: existential meaning. But I'd love to hear from you about
Speaker 1: this idea of an act of legacy. I read about
Speaker 1: it and find your unicorn space, this idea that we
Speaker 1: can't control how we're remembered, whether it's this titan of
Speaker 1: business who will be remembered in that room for his
Speaker 1: poems and other things. But I do know that we
Speaker 1: can start to think about our values and how we
Speaker 1: live our daily lives that will shape how people remember us,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to know what are things that you
Speaker 1: think about in terms of what we can focus on now,
Speaker 1: what our priorities can be now as we think about
Speaker 1: how we will be remembered in the future. So first,
Speaker 1: before we talk about this idea of an active legacy,
Speaker 1: they think back to this Harvard study it's called the
Speaker 1: Harvard Happiness Study. And more than money or titles or
Speaker 1: positions of power or all of the things, you know,
Speaker 1: many of these men were titans of business, as you say,
Speaker 1: and yet when it came down to the end of
Speaker 1: their life and they reflected back on their life, the
Speaker 1: greatest marker for happy enus was the quality of relationships
Speaker 1: that these people had over seventy five years. So when
Speaker 1: we think about leaving an active legacy, it's less about
Speaker 1: the doing and more about the being. There is another
Speaker 1: really beautiful book that speaks to this, written by a
Speaker 1: woman named Brawny, where the Top five Regrets of the
Speaker 1: Dying And she was a palliative care nurse and spent
Speaker 1: years sitting at the bedside of people as they took
Speaker 1: their last breath in hospice care. And she asked these
Speaker 1: people as they were dying, what do you wish for,
Speaker 1: what do you regret? And everyone said their most common
Speaker 1: regret was in quotes, I wish I'd had the courage
Speaker 1: to live a life true to myself, not the life
Speaker 1: others expected of me. It's about living a life with
Speaker 1: no regrets. So when you get to the end of
Speaker 1: your life, as we all will, hopefully for any of us,
Speaker 1: we won't have that sense of regret. Shout out to Ben,
Speaker 1: my ten year old son, who knew we were going
Speaker 1: to be talking about an active legacy and what makes
Speaker 1: a successful life and I was sort of joining on
Speaker 1: and on about it, and he says to me, well,
Speaker 1: it's just really one sentence, mom if you want to
Speaker 1: think about what an active legacy is or what a
Speaker 1: successful life is. And I was like, okay, well tell
Speaker 1: me and he said, well, an act of legacy, living
Speaker 1: a successful life really is living a life you would repeat. Wow,
Speaker 1: it happens in the small moments. It happens when you're
Speaker 1: sitting at desk at night and start scribbling that poem
Speaker 1: for your child that ends up going under their pillow.
Speaker 1: The beauty of these hard questions is that it's really
Speaker 1: just about making these small moments matter that add up
Speaker 1: to a life you would repeat. We're so excited to
Speaker 1: talk about all of this with our guests, Nora mcannerney,
Speaker 1: author of It's Okay to Laugh and No Happy Endings
Speaker 1: and also the creator of Terrible. Thanks for asking the podcast.
Speaker 1: We'll be speaking to her after the break. For so
Speaker 1: thrilled to have Norah McInnerny here with us. Norah is
Speaker 1: the author of the amazing memoirs It's Okay to Laugh
Speaker 1: and No Happy Endings and hosts of Terrible. Thanks for
Speaker 1: asking the podcast. We were hoping you would start by
Speaker 1: just telling listeners how you got into the work, um
Speaker 1: of what you do now, who you are, and about
Speaker 1: your background. Hi Eve, Hello d D. I am an
Speaker 1: author of several funny books about sad things, and I
Speaker 1: am a remarried widow raising a blended family here in Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 1: And before all of that, I was just a regular
Speaker 1: Midwestern gal whose life had unfolded more or less the
Speaker 1: way that it was supposed to. I had had a
Speaker 1: semi traumatic experience in fourth grade where I got a
Speaker 1: bowl cut. Other than that, my life was blessedly boring.
Speaker 1: I did all the right things at the right time.
Speaker 1: I went to college, and then I got a job
Speaker 1: and I fell in love when I was twenty seven,
Speaker 1: which in the Midwest was pushing it. I fell in
Speaker 1: love with this guy and he was thirty one older, man,
Speaker 1: felt very sophisticated, and it was so perfect. It was
Speaker 1: so annoying, like every love story is, which is you know,
Speaker 1: didn't expect it, And there he was. And a year
Speaker 1: into our relationship, he had a seizure at work and
Speaker 1: I met him at the hospital. We really didn't think
Speaker 1: it was serious. Even when the doctors told us he
Speaker 1: had a brain tumor. We just thought, well, it can't
Speaker 1: be cancer. Those are the things that happened to other people.
Speaker 1: We will be the people who have a nice, little,
Speaker 1: benign brain tumor. And this is a story that we
Speaker 1: we tell and we laugh about someday, and we do.
Speaker 1: We did laugh about that story, but only because it
Speaker 1: was a very bad brain tumor. He had stage four
Speaker 1: glioblastoma and we were married a month after it was
Speaker 1: removed from his head, and his funeral was on our
Speaker 1: third wedding anniversary. So Aaron and I were together for
Speaker 1: four years. We were married for almost three. We had
Speaker 1: a son together, Ralph, who is now nine years old,
Speaker 1: and who is a part of this version of my life.
Speaker 1: And I have this whole different life, this whole different
Speaker 1: career that I never could have imagined, because I had
Speaker 1: no imagination, and I could not have perceived of a
Speaker 1: life other than the one that I hoped for and
Speaker 1: had anticipated having, which is that you do the right
Speaker 1: things and then the right things happened to you, and
Speaker 1: instead I have a very different, very beautiful life that
Speaker 1: I love, and I have a very different career that
Speaker 1: I love that I never ever would have chosen. Imagination
Speaker 1: is an interesting word to me, Nora, because it ties
Speaker 1: to this idea of a legacy, an active legacy, right,
Speaker 1: this idea that instead of just looking behind saying the
Speaker 1: best days are behind us, I would say that I
Speaker 1: would challenge us all to have imagination, to say what
Speaker 1: does it actually mean to live an active legacy? And
Speaker 1: so the question I wanted to ask you, Nora, is
Speaker 1: why does it sometimes take and extraordinarily terrible experience for
Speaker 1: people to wake up, whether it's the pandemic, whether it's
Speaker 1: the death of a spouse, a d D. You've said
Speaker 1: that it's been a cancer diagnosis for many of your patients,
Speaker 1: why do we have to wait for something terrible to
Speaker 1: happen to us, for us to wake up to say,
Speaker 1: we are living on a treadmill that has been decided
Speaker 1: by somebody else, not us, and I want to live
Speaker 1: my life by what is important to me. I am
Speaker 1: so interested a d d. In your take on this,
Speaker 1: because we talk a lot about mindfulness as a practice,
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna turn on this app and be mindful
Speaker 1: for ten minutes, you know, I'm gonna And I did it.
Speaker 1: I did my mindfulness, and I've certainly treated it like that.
Speaker 1: But I think one of the reasons why the time
Speaker 1: that I had with Aaron, and most of the time
Speaker 1: that I had with him, he was very sick and
Speaker 1: life was very hard, but that those hardest days of
Speaker 1: my life were to date still some of my happiest days,
Speaker 1: because we were so present, and because looking too far
Speaker 1: into the future meant imagining a future where he might
Speaker 1: not be there would most likely not be there, and
Speaker 1: looking too hard at the past was useless because what
Speaker 1: was even there? Like what was there? We we knew
Speaker 1: that there was nothing we could do to have, you know,
Speaker 1: change the outcome. I couldn't have gone back in time
Speaker 1: and rearrange the cells and his brain. So we're so
Speaker 1: so present with each other. And I do think that
Speaker 1: when the bottom falls out, what remains is so so valuable,
Speaker 1: even if what remains is not that great, if you
Speaker 1: could choose it, you know, the fact is like we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't get to choose it. And I wish so
Speaker 1: badly that I could live all of my life, even
Speaker 1: those previous decades before Aaron was sick, with that same awareness.
Speaker 1: And I wish I knew how honestly, I wish I
Speaker 1: wish I knew how. While your story is so powerful,
Speaker 1: what's so interesting in hearing you and Eve talked about
Speaker 1: this is this idea that anxiety is a future focused emotion. Right,
Speaker 1: that was the first thing I thought about. How you
Speaker 1: talked about being mindful and that like truth of the
Speaker 1: universe is just to be president in the moment. What
Speaker 1: is mindfulness? And that's what it is. But when we're
Speaker 1: thinking about the past, there's a lot of regret, maybe
Speaker 1: feelings of depression and going back, and then we often
Speaker 1: say that anxiety is a future focused emotion, what if,
Speaker 1: what if? What if? What if? Rather than being in
Speaker 1: the now. For many of my patients. When something traumatic happens,
Speaker 1: it is a great reckoning. And to Eve's question, that
Speaker 1: original question of why does it take something like that
Speaker 1: to happen, I often think it's because we are so
Speaker 1: set in our complacency and it's the only thing that
Speaker 1: shakes us out of our complacency. And then suddenly there's
Speaker 1: that reckoning. And I loved when you talked about that
Speaker 1: like essence. Right, you didn't use that word essence, but
Speaker 1: that kernel of when everything falls apart, what's left, and
Speaker 1: that feeling of what's left and pairing things down is
Speaker 1: what we've really experience during the pandemic. You kind of
Speaker 1: recognize that your time here isn't necessarily guaranteed. That is
Speaker 1: what keeps us too when we when I talked about
Speaker 1: imagination before, you can feel bad for anybody, right, And
Speaker 1: I had a lot of pity. Right. I could drive
Speaker 1: around the Minneapolis where I lived at the time and
Speaker 1: be like, Oh, I feel bad for that. That makes
Speaker 1: me feel bad. But that's different. That's not compassion, and
Speaker 1: that's not imagination, right, It's just it's projection. And the
Speaker 1: reality of compassion and of having a good imagination, a
Speaker 1: good sense of awareness is that awareness that what you
Speaker 1: think sets you part is actually what makes you a
Speaker 1: part of the world, of this universe, of your community.
Speaker 1: I want to just focus on what you just said
Speaker 1: about what sets you apart, makes you apart, because I wonder, um,
Speaker 1: if we could talk a little bit about that, this
Speaker 1: idea that I've never seen in this in my research
Speaker 1: for my second book around creativity and constraints, I've never
Speaker 1: seen somebody say when I had, you know, a hard
Speaker 1: thing happened to me. I have never heard somebody say
Speaker 1: that it made them not feel less a part of
Speaker 1: the bigger world, which I thought was so interesting to me.
Speaker 1: You would think that it would it would lead to
Speaker 1: retreat and anger and wanting to never face the world again.
Speaker 1: But that really wasn't. At least my data is so.
Speaker 1: And I wonder again if you see this in your communities,
Speaker 1: where this idea of what sets is apart all of
Speaker 1: a sudden makes us apart of something, whether it's your
Speaker 1: text chain of widows, whether it's the community for women
Speaker 1: with postpartum anxiety, whether it's so many of my friends
Speaker 1: who have had cancer diagnosis these part of new different communities,
Speaker 1: whether it's full of creativity, sharing imagination, like you said, empathy,
Speaker 1: even some surprise. So it makes me hopeful that maybe
Speaker 1: if we look at this pandemic and all the individual
Speaker 1: things that happened to us, could be come out living
Speaker 1: an active legacy that is connected to that apart a part,
Speaker 1: not a part, a part of something bigger. And I
Speaker 1: wonder if you see that in your community. Do you
Speaker 1: hear stories like that, Nora, from the people that share
Speaker 1: with you after you were sharing with them. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I lived it too, which is not to say that
Speaker 1: I didn't also go through just like intense depression and isolation,
Speaker 1: and also when I would look back at those moments
Speaker 1: where I felt like I am totally alone, there's nobody
Speaker 1: else here and everything is the worst. I also had
Speaker 1: so much community in so many ways. Aaron and I
Speaker 1: wrote his obituary together. We put it in the local paper.
Speaker 1: I didn't think they would publish it, but this is
Speaker 1: a fact for everybody who's listening. They will publish anything.
Speaker 1: You pay for it. It's an ad for your death.
Speaker 1: You can so live it up. And we revealed his
Speaker 1: identity as Spider Man and it went viral, which was
Speaker 1: a different, simpler time. Okay, it was a simpler time,
Speaker 1: and I got so many messages. This is how I
Speaker 1: started terrible. Thanks for asking. Most of our episodes are
Speaker 1: stories that came to me where people are reaching out
Speaker 1: and sharing something with me. These were complete strangers from
Speaker 1: around the world who did not know me, who did
Speaker 1: not know erin, who were like, I'm here with you.
Speaker 1: I know loss, and i know how disorienting it is,
Speaker 1: and they were offering me something, and they would share
Speaker 1: their own loss with me with detail that they may
Speaker 1: never have given their friends or family members. In part
Speaker 1: because there is that recognition you might be a safe
Speaker 1: place for me to put this. You just might be.
Speaker 1: And I've tried so hard to make sure that I
Speaker 1: am that safe place for other people. And David Kessler.
Speaker 1: He worked with Elizabeth Coogler Ross on the five Stages
Speaker 1: of grief. He wrote a recent book called Finding Meaning,
Speaker 1: which is the sixth stage of grief. I have seen
Speaker 1: this in almost every story that I've encountered as I
Speaker 1: meet people too, which is that once you go through something,
Speaker 1: you want to somehow like use it for some good
Speaker 1: right that you are not the only one. I see
Speaker 1: that all the time. I think it is the most
Speaker 1: human reaction that we can have to say I want
Speaker 1: to ease somebody else's suffering in a way that mine
Speaker 1: was or was not. That it's like that idea their
Speaker 1: cracks and everything. That's how the light gets in, right.
Speaker 1: And there's this concept of a therapeutic presence, meaning it's
Speaker 1: when you're with someone and their presence feels healing. That
Speaker 1: idea of a therapeutic presence is very important. It also
Speaker 1: has been shown recently in new emerging studies that it
Speaker 1: has an actual role to play in healing. And even
Speaker 1: I in the past have talked a lot about the
Speaker 1: difference between healing and cure and how someone may never
Speaker 1: be cured because it might be an incurable disease, but
Speaker 1: they can be healed. The thing about this group effect,
Speaker 1: which is so fascinating, Nora, it's what you're saying, this
Speaker 1: idea that when we have a lived experience, a tragedy,
Speaker 1: something that really defines and shapes us and shapes our
Speaker 1: story forever. It's like there's that clear delineation before and after,
Speaker 1: right like that one incident. As human beings, we are
Speaker 1: meaning seeking, purpose driven creatures. We need to make meaning
Speaker 1: and send out of difficult experiences. It's just an evolutionary
Speaker 1: trait that we have, and so that when we go
Speaker 1: through something difficult, and like you said, Nor at the start,
Speaker 1: you felt alone and isolated, and then you put out
Speaker 1: that obituary and all of these people started reaching out
Speaker 1: to you. It helped to normalize and validate the experience,
Speaker 1: which somehow helped you feel less alone, more connected, and
Speaker 1: a greater sense of therapeutic presence all around you. You
Speaker 1: were also able to give that therapeutic presence to others,
Speaker 1: and that's that group effect. It is a true scientific
Speaker 1: and measurable effect. And you've all done something different as
Speaker 1: a result of this event. That's also important to say.
Speaker 1: You found meeting and purpose and created a whole career
Speaker 1: as someone who offers their therapeutic presence to others. Thank you.
Speaker 1: And all I wanted to do was to make sure
Speaker 1: that people knew that they were not the only one
Speaker 1: and to validate the fact that life is hard for
Speaker 1: everybody in different ways. And that is all we want
Speaker 1: as people is you feel seen and heard, and if
Speaker 1: you don't, try to make somebody else feel that way,
Speaker 1: and it will, and it will, it will hopefully at
Speaker 1: some point, like reflect back to you, will come back
Speaker 1: to you. When you talk about leaving and a living
Speaker 1: an active legacy, Eve, It's like what you do is
Speaker 1: you reflect back to people the things that you didn't
Speaker 1: have right in the moment, and you are also showing
Speaker 1: people what is possible. I was reading something yesterday about,
Speaker 1: you know, the privilege of vulnerability, right, this idea that
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's hard to be vulnerable if
Speaker 1: you aren't in a place of privilege where you may
Speaker 1: not feel like you have that supportive community or even
Speaker 1: a supportive job. So there is a privilege in vulnerability.
Speaker 1: But you know, when you use those redemptive experiences of vulnerability,
Speaker 1: I wonder by doing something with it if we're if
Speaker 1: that's part of an act of legacy. Other people don't
Speaker 1: may not have that ability to use their voice for
Speaker 1: that type of vulnerability. And how can I create that
Speaker 1: community or a world where everybody is entitled to that
Speaker 1: type of imagination, surprise, compassion. You know, we we this
Speaker 1: This first season has been about understanding that time is
Speaker 1: not infinite, that time is diamonds, that we get one life.
Speaker 1: It may be interrupted abruptly, or as you said, if
Speaker 1: we're lucky, we get more time on this earth. But
Speaker 1: it's just one life, and this episode we wanted to
Speaker 1: end the season on it because we believe this idea
Speaker 1: of an act of legacy is living on this earth
Speaker 1: with intention, which is the exact opposite of what you
Speaker 1: said when we started, which was this idea of living
Speaker 1: life without really thinking about the decisions were necessarily making,
Speaker 1: living on a treadmill, auto pilot, not paying attention. So
Speaker 1: for us to understand time, we thought you could help
Speaker 1: us wrap up the season by this recognition that maybe
Speaker 1: all of us won't have a wake up moment, a
Speaker 1: light bulb moment. So what can you say to those
Speaker 1: people out there who didn't have, you know, an experience
Speaker 1: like you had obviously, but do you want to learn
Speaker 1: from what you did? What can they do and put
Speaker 1: into practice? To live a life where time has really
Speaker 1: looked at the way it should be is our most
Speaker 1: valuable currency. I do think sometimes that that realization or
Speaker 1: that acknowledgement to live constantly with the sense of a
Speaker 1: ticking clock is also not healthy. Right If every a
Speaker 1: you wake up and think this could be it like
Speaker 1: that is that is no way to live. There is
Speaker 1: no way to live. But there's this Mason Jennings song
Speaker 1: that I listened to you over and over when Aaron
Speaker 1: was first diagnosed, called be here Now, And those are
Speaker 1: basically the lyrics, right like be here now, no other
Speaker 1: place will do. And I got the word now tattooed
Speaker 1: on the inside of my wrist to remind me of
Speaker 1: the value of the present moments. And that does not
Speaker 1: mean that we have to love every moment. It does
Speaker 1: not mean that you have to go yolo. Our time
Speaker 1: does not need to be spent in big, splashy ways constantly.
Speaker 1: The biggest moments are typically going to be the smallest moments.
Speaker 1: When I am eighty five years old, I want to
Speaker 1: remember the feeling of my youngest child sitting in the
Speaker 1: mom chair, which is what he calls, my body on
Speaker 1: the couch, and he holds my arm and he puts
Speaker 1: my hand across his heart and it covers almost his
Speaker 1: whole chest. Like that is that is everything, And that
Speaker 1: is such a small, small thing. We have so little
Speaker 1: control over our legacy, active or not. We do not
Speaker 1: know how our interactions ow our investments in time or
Speaker 1: money will pay off. We don't know those those those
Speaker 1: seeds will be sown long after we are gone. In
Speaker 1: so many ways. And what I remember about Aaron is
Speaker 1: I don't want to remember just that he died, or
Speaker 1: the fact that he died. Like what I remember is
Speaker 1: that he spent an entire year memorizing all of his
Speaker 1: friends middle names and birthdays, because he said, to be
Speaker 1: a good friend, you had to know somebody's middle name
Speaker 1: and their birthday. That is living in active legacy is
Speaker 1: being so present, as present as possible with the people
Speaker 1: you love, with the things that are important to you.
Speaker 1: And I know that we don't always have control over that,
Speaker 1: but if you do, even for a minute, that's worthwhile too.
Speaker 1: In mindfulness circles, we talk a lot about that idea
Speaker 1: of the timelessness of the present moment, and a mindfulness
Speaker 1: teacher once said to me, and look around all of
Speaker 1: these intense stories that people are sharing. Recognize that every
Speaker 1: single person that you meet on the street lives with
Speaker 1: that same intensity in their lives that you do. Very
Speaker 1: simple statement. It rocked me, shocked me had never thought
Speaker 1: about that. We all go through life thinking we're leading
Speaker 1: this intense experience, which we are, but so is everyone else.
Speaker 1: And your story of this traumatic event which ultimately lead
Speaker 1: to a beautiful unfolding of you as you're really recognizing
Speaker 1: your true self seems to me. But you had to
Speaker 1: go through that really intense experience, and because you went
Speaker 1: through that intensity, you are able to connect with others
Speaker 1: who have been through that same intensity, and so you
Speaker 1: exude empathy to me. And I can't thank you enough
Speaker 1: for your vulnerability and your sharing and your perspective. Thank you, guys, Hi,
Speaker 1: it's me Eve. I wrote find your Unicorn Space as
Speaker 1: a permission slip for you to reconnect and discover that
Speaker 1: thing that makes you come alive without the guilt, without
Speaker 1: the excuses. Especially in our all too busy world, making
Speaker 1: time for ourselves is essential work. It improves our health,
Speaker 1: our relationships, and it just might be the antidote to burnout.
Speaker 1: Join me on a journey to find your Unicorn Space.
Speaker 1: Visit unicorn space dot com. Did I can't believe that
Speaker 1: we're at our last episode of the season. Unbelievable. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty reflective just given how much knowledge I feel
Speaker 1: like we got to glean from our really amazing variety
Speaker 1: of guests. It's definitely been a journey. So part of
Speaker 1: that journey, I think, is really this idea of how
Speaker 1: do we want to commit to continuing this journey, this
Speaker 1: active legacy. What sets you apart makes you apart. So
Speaker 1: as we think about what sets you apart and what
Speaker 1: makes you apart, it's great to have a map and
Speaker 1: and we like to call that the creativity commitment. It's
Speaker 1: a way forward. It's definitely focuses on what sets you apart,
Speaker 1: but it also ends on what makes you apart. And
Speaker 1: so A d D I thought, if you would please
Speaker 1: model this creativity commitment, we can check in on you
Speaker 1: in season two, but also our listeners can follow along
Speaker 1: with us at page two O nine and find your
Speaker 1: unicorn space. So here it is. My name is at
Speaker 1: Dating a root car. My motivating values include joy, helpfulness,
Speaker 1: and inspiration. I love it today and moving forward. I
Speaker 1: give myself permission to live by my values. I allow
Speaker 1: my values to inform my day to day curiosities, some
Speaker 1: of which are public health, mental health, stress, resilience, bettering
Speaker 1: the world through my knowledge, wanting to connect with other people.
Speaker 1: I am committed to explore deeper and pursue activities and
Speaker 1: interests that are in alignment with my values. What you
Speaker 1: just said, I planned to take my open pursuit as
Speaker 1: far as this one is, think a big, hairy, audacious,
Speaker 1: authentic goal. You know, at the start of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: I was a doctor seeing patients talking about stress management.
Speaker 1: It was a stressful time because modern life is stressful.
Speaker 1: The pandemic happened and it turned everything on its head.
Speaker 1: Prior to seeing patients and being a doctor, I worked
Speaker 1: in global public health in Geneva with the w h
Speaker 1: O Collaborating Center on refugee health, HIV and AIDS. I
Speaker 1: never thought that infectious disease and that whole world would
Speaker 1: ever align or combine with my work and stress management.
Speaker 1: And here we are the pandemic. So in thinking about
Speaker 1: how I want to serve the world and be bigger
Speaker 1: and have a bigger impact, but also more aligned with
Speaker 1: my values, it would be when you ask me that question,
Speaker 1: I would say, I want to go all the way,
Speaker 1: whatever that may be in terms of helping with health, communication,
Speaker 1: for public health, COVID, mental health, refugee health, stress, resilience,
Speaker 1: all of it, because we are living in a unprecedented time.
Speaker 1: And like you have always said, I love when you
Speaker 1: say that you met the moment with fair play, and
Speaker 1: I am ready to meet the moment with my expertise. Now, wow,
Speaker 1: I love that so much because when anybody thinks about stress, resilience,
Speaker 1: burnout and it's implication on the physical body or the brain,
Speaker 1: I want them to thank dr Adity neuro car. So
Speaker 1: that's our big, hairy, audacious, authentic goal for you. My
Speaker 1: first actionable, small step forward toward leveling up and reaching
Speaker 1: my goal is committing to fostering my communication practice every
Speaker 1: single day, whether that means writing a few pages in
Speaker 1: my upcoming book or doing a TV interview, something every
Speaker 1: day that moves the needle for me. I love that
Speaker 1: so much. A communication practice. I mean, you're a woman
Speaker 1: after my own heart. As you know my date for
Speaker 1: completing Well, you just said the date is every day,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna let you get off on that one.
Speaker 1: My type of share that most resonates with me is
Speaker 1: and what I mean by that is why when you
Speaker 1: think about why you share yourself with the world, what
Speaker 1: are some of the motivations for why you want to
Speaker 1: share yourself with the world. I've never been motivated by
Speaker 1: money or fame. What I have always been motivated by
Speaker 1: is connection. I went into medicine for the power of
Speaker 1: the human story. I love that moment in clinic when
Speaker 1: you explain something complex to a patient and they have
Speaker 1: that lightbulb aha moment. I love that same thing when
Speaker 1: people respond, whether through email or d M s, saying
Speaker 1: you explain something or you had some insight on mental
Speaker 1: health or public health. It's those ah ha moments that
Speaker 1: I live for. I love them because it tells me
Speaker 1: that people are thinking differently, and that is so meaningful. Connection.
Speaker 1: You're sharing to connect and to pass on what you
Speaker 1: know in very complicated ways and the community I intend
Speaker 1: to connect with. Speaking of connection along my journey is
Speaker 1: and what I mean by that is who who are
Speaker 1: your spiritual friends? Who keeps you going towards this big
Speaker 1: vision of a doctor a DD neural car Media World
Speaker 1: Domination LLC becomes I think women like you Eve and
Speaker 1: other women like so many of the guests that we've
Speaker 1: had this season, people who are standing in their power,
Speaker 1: living their truth and owning their authentic selves. What's been
Speaker 1: fascinating about this conversation with Nora Eve is that she
Speaker 1: has committed to this creative pursuit, a life of impact.
Speaker 1: She didn't go to some mountaintop or some fancy spa
Speaker 1: and a retreat and then have these aha moments. Life
Speaker 1: handed her a deck of cards and she played them
Speaker 1: the best that she could. And I think for all
Speaker 1: of us, whether we've had a traumatic experience like Nora
Speaker 1: or otherwise, we have the hand that life dealt us
Speaker 1: and we have to play it to the best of
Speaker 1: our ability. To me, is a true commitment that we
Speaker 1: all should actively pursue as our active legacy. I love
Speaker 1: that so much, Adity, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: this commitment to live creatively does not mean that you're
Speaker 1: going to be living in a studio with no rain
Speaker 1: on you and perfect birds chirping outside and the most
Speaker 1: beautiful canvas in front of you. That's just not the
Speaker 1: way life works. But creativity is taking those values, it's
Speaker 1: taking your experiences, and what you say to yourself is
Speaker 1: that I'm going to live that active legacy by living
Speaker 1: those values, by moving forward in those values and really
Speaker 1: big ways possibly, but also by taking really really small steps.
Speaker 1: And everybody out there, you know this is not an
Speaker 1: easy exercise. We build to it over two hundred pages
Speaker 1: and find your unicorn space, but it's an important on
Speaker 1: because this is a vision board, this is a commitment.
Speaker 1: This is a way forward in a journey. This is
Speaker 1: how we can think about what sets us apart but
Speaker 1: also what makes us apart, and being intentional in this
Speaker 1: part of our lives is an investment that we can't
Speaker 1: afford not to make at this stage, after the biggest
Speaker 1: disruption of our global lives. We have to commit to
Speaker 1: making these changes and being apart to become apart. So
Speaker 1: in our last time out of the season, what we
Speaker 1: want you to do is make a creativity commitment. You
Speaker 1: can find it on page two O nine to find
Speaker 1: your Unicorn space or at fair play life dot com.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next season to dive into more topics
Speaker 1: like this and especially unicorn space, finding it, showcasing it,
Speaker 1: celebrating it, dancing in the rain together. Thank you all
Speaker 1: for listening to this first season. Please share the show
Speaker 1: with your friends, tell us what you liked, what you learned,
Speaker 1: what you want to hear next, who you'd like for
Speaker 1: us to feature as a guest, and we'll be back soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Time Out, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heeart Podcasts and Hello Sunshine. I'm Eve Rodsky, author
Speaker 1: of the New York Times bestseller fair Play and find
Speaker 1: your Unicorn Space. Follow me on social media at ev
Speaker 1: rodsky and learn more about our work at fair Play Life.
Speaker 1: And I'm dr Addi Nearucar, a Harvard physician with a
Speaker 1: specialty and stress resilience, burnout, and mental health. Follow me
Speaker 1: on social media at dr add ne Rucar and find
Speaker 1: out more about my work at dr dd dot com.
Speaker 1: That's d r A d I t I dot com.
Speaker 1: Our Hello Sunshine team is Amanda Farrend, Aaron Stover, and
Speaker 1: Jennifer Yonker. Our I Heart Media team is Allie Perry,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Bassett, and Jessica Crnschi. We hope you all love
Speaker 1: taking a much needed time out with us today. Listen
Speaker 1: and subscribe to Time Out on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.