Speaker 1: Hello Bessie's Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright Side, we're talking to writer and
Speaker 2: professor sc Pirot. She set out on a mission to
Speaker 2: rediscover joy after a painful chapter in her life. Her
Speaker 2: journey back to happiness was sparked by an unexpected source,
Speaker 2: none other than pop icon Harry Styles. Tune in for
Speaker 2: a story of healing, music and the power of joy.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, March third. I'm Simone Boyce.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robey, and this is the bright Side from
Speaker 2: Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 1: On my Mind. Monday is brought to you by Laurel Paris. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what time it is, Yes, ma'am. What's on
Speaker 1: your mind today? Simone? Okay? Well, I got to give
Speaker 1: a shout out to my man, Happy King, Arthur C. Brooks.
Speaker 1: You know we love him. On the bright Side, so
Speaker 1: he recently wrote a piece for The Atlantic called The
Speaker 1: Benefit of Doing Things You're Bad at And as you
Speaker 1: can imagine, it's all about embracing phil here.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm so bad at this?
Speaker 1: Why why are you? Why do you say that?
Speaker 2: I am such I don't even like to use the
Speaker 2: word perfectionist, but I am. I hate doing things I'm
Speaker 2: bad at I love being good at things, and I
Speaker 2: just find it so difficult to do things you're bad at,
Speaker 2: especially if you don't love them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so I know this is hard for you
Speaker 1: because you are good at a lot of things. I'm not, actually,
Speaker 1: and I know you like to be good at a
Speaker 1: lot of things. But when is the last time that
Speaker 1: you felt like you did something that you were bad at?
Speaker 1: Really out of my depth? Yeah, a few things.
Speaker 2: One I feel really out of my depth in the kitchen,
Speaker 2: and I feel embarrassed that I'm out of my depth
Speaker 2: there because I feel like I should.
Speaker 1: Be good at it.
Speaker 2: And also anything that has to do with drawing. When
Speaker 2: the last time you felt out of your depth?
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny you should ask, because I recently started
Speaker 1: taking singing lessons and I'm doing it with my friend Liz,
Speaker 1: and it is so much fun to do it together.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you, we are so bad. Our
Speaker 1: first duet to use a word that I know you'll appreciate, Danielle,
Speaker 1: was cacoffiness. Okay, it was surprisingly know that word. You
Speaker 1: know this word? Yes, true sacking, But I love this
Speaker 1: for you. What sparks this? Liz and I have always
Speaker 1: been like, we don't want to work together because we
Speaker 1: don't want to ruin our friendship because we've seen so
Speaker 1: many friendships do that, right, like where you like go
Speaker 1: you start working with someone and then you know, you
Speaker 1: start fighting, things get messy, YadA YadA. But we love
Speaker 1: like trying new things together, and so this year we
Speaker 1: kind of made this commitment where we're just like, we're
Speaker 1: we're just going to follow the fun, right, Like there's
Speaker 1: no stakes here, there's no we're not doing this for
Speaker 1: any reason or for a job or anything. We're just
Speaker 1: doing it for fun. And after our first class, we
Speaker 1: both walked out feeling so empowered. There were so many
Speaker 1: benefits to it, Like first of all, all that great
Speaker 1: breath work that you get during singing, true it makes
Speaker 1: you feel so grounded in your body afterwards. And then
Speaker 1: there's also just something incredibly freeing about just letting yourself
Speaker 1: be awful at something and having a great time doing it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think this is so fun and I'm so
Speaker 2: glad you shared this because I think it's inspiring. Yeah,
Speaker 2: how so, I think it's a domino effect, Like to
Speaker 2: do things as an adult that you did as a
Speaker 2: kid is really really sol fulfilling if you can carve
Speaker 2: out the time for it. I remember after the Olympics
Speaker 2: this last summer, there was a spike in adult gymnastics
Speaker 2: sign ups, like for classes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I almost did it.
Speaker 2: I love gymnastics as a kid, and it's like, I
Speaker 2: just didn't carve out the time. So the fact that
Speaker 2: you did carve out the time and you're doing it
Speaker 2: with a friend, I think is so cool.
Speaker 1: Well, honestly, all of this kind of ties right into
Speaker 1: what Arthur Brooks was saying in that article. I mean,
Speaker 1: his whole point is that doing something you're bad at
Speaker 1: can actually make you better at things you're good at.
Speaker 1: That's the part that I wasn't expecting. So what does
Speaker 1: he mean. Well, if you're trying to be great at
Speaker 1: a certain skill, he suggests you should flunk on something else. Like,
Speaker 1: for example, a recent study of baseball players, they looked
Speaker 1: at skilled pitchers, people who are typically poor hitters. They
Speaker 1: were given batting practice, so they were, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of placed out of their comfort zone and placed into
Speaker 1: this new area where they where they felt this pressure
Speaker 1: to excel, and then when they underperformed, scholars found that
Speaker 1: the frustration that came from that inferior performance actually led
Speaker 1: them to be more driven to improve their pitching. So
Speaker 1: it's almost it's almost counterintuitive, but it's like it's circular.
Speaker 2: I wonder what that is though, right, Yeah, that is
Speaker 2: so strange. I do say, I think I can relate
Speaker 2: on a surface level. I don't quite understand that study
Speaker 2: because I'm like, what is being in the outfield have
Speaker 2: to do with hitting? But if the King Arthur Brooks
Speaker 2: says it, I believe him. But I do think that
Speaker 2: if I feel writer's block or a creative block at all,
Speaker 2: it's the only thing that gets my creative juice is going.
Speaker 2: Is if I get out of that mode, I have
Speaker 2: to go for a run or do something totally different,
Speaker 2: go to the ocean, have a fun day, everything that
Speaker 2: you think you're not supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Here's my theory. My theory is that failing in one
Speaker 1: area where there's no stakes for you, there's less pressure
Speaker 1: that sort of releases that pressure valve around the fear
Speaker 1: of failure. And then I think releasing that pressure valve
Speaker 1: and releasing yourself from the fear of failure actually facilitates
Speaker 1: success in the area that you already excel in does
Speaker 1: that make sense? That makes total sense?
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: Well, I gotta tell you, these singing lessons have brought
Speaker 1: me so much joy. It's got me thinking about how
Speaker 1: do I infuse my life with more joy? And when
Speaker 1: I think about people who know how to do that, well,
Speaker 1: I think about my friend sc Pro, who is today's
Speaker 1: guest ess and I met at group therapy camp, which
Speaker 1: I have spoken about a lot on this show, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring her here on the show and
Speaker 1: introduce her to you. Guys are besties because she has
Speaker 1: this wild story about how she found joy after this
Speaker 1: truly crushing, devastating period of grief. So in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: sc went through this horrible divorce and no matter what
Speaker 1: kind of coping mechanisms she tried, she just couldn't pull
Speaker 1: herself out of that darkness.
Speaker 2: And that's where her story takes an unexpected turn. All
Speaker 2: I'm going to say is that Harry Styles is at
Speaker 2: the center of it all.
Speaker 1: You're onto something there, Danielle. Her new book, Styles of Joy,
Speaker 1: lays out this framework that we can all use to
Speaker 1: find joy. And this is the same path that she
Speaker 1: used to discover joy after going to seventeen Harry Styles
Speaker 1: Concerts seventeen. We're going to break this all down for
Speaker 1: you in the interview. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I don't know that all of us have the means
Speaker 1: or the time to pack up our lives and go
Speaker 1: on tour with an artist and go to seventeen concerts.
Speaker 1: But it's all about just leaning into the unexpected, all right, Chelle.
Speaker 1: After the break our conversation with Scproro.
Speaker 2: Thanks to our partners at Loriel Paris, because you're worth it.
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Speaker 2: perfect beauty routine at loriel PARISUSA dot com.
Speaker 1: Okay, welcome to the bright Side, sc Proro, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me, Essie. This has been a
Speaker 1: long time coming. I was so profoundly moved by this book,
Speaker 1: and I was just so inspired by your journey to joy.
Speaker 1: So that's what we're going to get into today. Your
Speaker 1: new book, Styles of Joy, chronicles this unexpected path to
Speaker 1: discovering joy after overcoming insurmountable grief. You actually mentioned joy
Speaker 1: over six hundred and fifty times in this book. Isn't
Speaker 1: that wild.
Speaker 3: I love that fact.
Speaker 1: But before we get into how you rediscovered joy, we
Speaker 1: really have to start with how you lost track of it.
Speaker 1: So will you take us back to twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: You described that as the time when your life truly
Speaker 1: fell apart.
Speaker 4: So I was navigating all of a sudden, so many
Speaker 4: life changes at once. I think everyone can relate to
Speaker 4: how disruptive the pandemic was for all of us. And
Speaker 4: we all were navigating that grief process. And I also
Speaker 4: stopped practicing big law, and I got out of the
Speaker 4: wrong marriage, kind of all back to back. And I
Speaker 4: say to people all the time, anyone that thinks divorce
Speaker 4: is solely about two people is completely mistaken. You know,
Speaker 4: I lost an entire family, a whole group of friends,
Speaker 4: my house, my dog, let alone, my partner.
Speaker 1: The way that you wrote about divorce in your book
Speaker 1: really illuminated this experience for me because I've never been
Speaker 1: through it before. But the way that you retell your
Speaker 1: experience helped me really understand what other people are going through.
Speaker 1: You write that divorce is inherently lonely. Quote. My therapist
Speaker 1: told me that even if I spent the rest of
Speaker 1: my life recounting every single detail, going over every exchange
Speaker 1: word she still could never and would never fully understand
Speaker 1: because she hadn't lived it.
Speaker 3: I think it's lonely for so many reasons.
Speaker 4: You know. It's that line that you just said that
Speaker 4: even if you spind and spin your wheels and try
Speaker 4: to explain how you got there and how you're feeling now,
Speaker 4: no one's walking it we you. And I think the
Speaker 4: especially lonely element of that is that the closest person
Speaker 4: to this heartbreak is now the furthest person away. The
Speaker 4: one person that might be able to relate to what
Speaker 4: you're feeling is offline because of the nature of the situation,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, all these people that I
Speaker 4: had so unabashedly woven into my life, you know, I
Speaker 4: lost a bonus mom, a bonus dad, a bonus sister,
Speaker 4: a bonus brother. I lost my nieces. I was grappling
Speaker 4: with whether I was still an aunt, you know, and
Speaker 4: it was so heartbreaking in.
Speaker 3: So many ways.
Speaker 4: And I write in the book that all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: all these people in my life were on this kind
Speaker 4: of like mental subcategory of people I cared about called
Speaker 4: send good vibes, not text messages, you know, suddenly all
Speaker 4: these people I loved were offline, and that was really
Speaker 4: difficult to wrap my head around. And you can't move
Speaker 4: forward unless you know where you are to go, and
Speaker 4: that's a really lonely road too, And especially because I
Speaker 4: was navigating a career pivot at the same time. I mean,
Speaker 4: it was okay, where what are we building? Back brick
Speaker 4: by brick in This New Life.
Speaker 2: In the book, you talk about some of the things
Speaker 2: that you did to try to cope. You rite that
Speaker 2: they weren't really helping. At what point did you realize
Speaker 2: you needed to make a major shift.
Speaker 3: There were days I tried everything I knew to do.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I was journaling, doing yoga, walking, talking to my lawyers,
Speaker 4: crying of friends and family, browsing in the self help section.
Speaker 3: I mean, like you name it, I was. I was
Speaker 3: throwing it all at the wall.
Speaker 4: I was processing everything I was going through by going
Speaker 4: on these long walks around the Town Lake Trail in
Speaker 4: downtown Austin, Texas, which is where I was living at
Speaker 4: the time. And I remember vividly typing good Energy in
Speaker 4: on Spotify one day on these long walks because it
Speaker 4: was like a cry for help to the algorithm. I'm like,
Speaker 4: can we get some good energy up in here? It
Speaker 4: is pretty grim, and I tell people all the time,
Speaker 4: I'm like, and that's the saddest part of the story.
Speaker 3: We are on our way up.
Speaker 1: So everybody listening get ready to go on an adventure,
Speaker 1: because this is where it really gets fun. You got
Speaker 1: some help from this unexpected source, a world famous pop
Speaker 1: star Harry Styles and his latest album, Harry's House.
Speaker 4: Spotify fed me a playlist called Good Energy, and I
Speaker 4: was like, oh, click, that's exactly what I want. And
Speaker 4: Harry styles third album, Harry's House, came out two days
Speaker 4: after I told my ex husband I wanted a divorce.
Speaker 4: So the new music was sprinkled throughout this Good Energy
Speaker 4: playlist and that's where the story begins.
Speaker 1: So what was it about that album, that music that
Speaker 1: really clicked within you? Like, what was it that caused
Speaker 1: that shift?
Speaker 3: I would like to get a wholehearted shout out to
Speaker 3: a particular song music for a sushi restaurant.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's got one in particular.
Speaker 4: I heard that song and I was on one of
Speaker 4: my long walks and I was like, wait a second,
Speaker 4: this is this is a tear dryer. This song is
Speaker 4: a banger, and I all of a sudden, was seeking
Speaker 4: that song out specifically. Now, music for a Sushi Restaurant
Speaker 4: is perfectly situated as track one to start the entire
Speaker 4: Harry's House album. So that's really how this started is
Speaker 4: I was queueing up that good Vibe one song, and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, I was like, Harry Styles. I've
Speaker 4: never really listened to Harry Styles. You know, I joke
Speaker 4: I was a little too old for the one direction days.
Speaker 4: I'm an in sync Backstreet Boys girly and I'm like,
Speaker 4: Harry Styles, Okay, what else?
Speaker 3: What else does this guy got?
Speaker 4: Then I'm listening to just Harry's House, and I think
Speaker 4: it's worth mentioning that it might be helpful for anyone
Speaker 4: going through a breakup or a divorce or anything to
Speaker 4: find something new. You know, this album, I had no
Speaker 4: memories attached to it. It was just this fresh kind
Speaker 4: of new energy in addition to being good energy. And
Speaker 4: so I'm listening to that album and then I'm like,
Speaker 4: wait a second, they're two more. It was like an
Speaker 4: unwrapped Christmas present to find an artist that you loved
Speaker 4: that I had never paid attention to. And you know,
Speaker 4: fast forward I I'm really jumping ahead, but I saw
Speaker 4: his show seventeen times in five countries and travel with
Speaker 4: strangers I met along the way and had an entire
Speaker 4: Harry Styles eat Prey love adventure, and that's what inspired
Speaker 4: the book.
Speaker 1: So I love you and your story so much because
Speaker 1: on the one hand, you're this You're this like serious person.
Speaker 1: You're like a serious lawyer and a serious professor at Vanderbilt,
Speaker 1: and you went through some serious stuff. You got a
Speaker 1: divorce during the pandemic, and you moved cities, like that's
Speaker 1: all serious life transition stuff. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: this book is deeply unserious. If I'm allowed to say that,
Speaker 1: you know, like, we're talking about fangirling over a pop star.
Speaker 1: So where are you at with wrapping your head around
Speaker 1: that irony?
Speaker 4: I think it's really so exciting to just unabashedly reconcile
Speaker 4: the two. Where did this narrative come from? That serious
Speaker 4: lawyers also can't be super fans? Yes, why can't people
Speaker 4: in academia also love something wholeheartedly? I'm so passionate about
Speaker 4: exploring this dynamic of the stigma around being a fangirl
Speaker 4: in general, because I do think it's so gender. You
Speaker 4: know what's interesting is in the middle of the night
Speaker 4: one night, I was like, I wonder how many games
Speaker 4: any NFL team plays per season? Because I was thinking, like,
Speaker 4: what if someone healed post of Wars, a man healed
Speaker 4: post divorce by going to every single game of their
Speaker 4: favorite NFL team. You know what the number is? Seventeen.
Speaker 4: I started laughing so hard. I was like, it is
Speaker 4: the exact number of shows I went to. And I
Speaker 4: was like, that's so wild. But there's such an interesting,
Speaker 4: I think gender element there. When this book was going
Speaker 4: under legal review, I got to call one of my
Speaker 4: former bosses and she's this total powerhouse partner at this
Speaker 4: big firm and she's just the coolest and she got
Speaker 4: on the phone with me. I had no idea. She
Speaker 4: was like the ultimate Madonna superfan. She's like, I've seen
Speaker 4: her thirty five times. I took two weeks off work
Speaker 4: to be a showrunner for her Super Bowl halftime performance
Speaker 4: years ago, and she said, this is the manifesto for
Speaker 4: people like us who have a passion and get so
Speaker 4: much flak for it, particularly in a male dominated workplace. Oh,
Speaker 4: she's going to another Madonna show and she's like, you know,
Speaker 4: what yeah, I am because I work super hard and
Speaker 4: this brings me more joy than anything in the world.
Speaker 3: And I'm not sorry.
Speaker 1: You're so right, Like I so relate to this because
Speaker 1: when I worked in news, I often felt like I
Speaker 1: had to present a certain way, like I had to
Speaker 1: be maintain this like straight laced news anchor persona, and
Speaker 1: if I didn't, then my authority would be in question.
Speaker 1: But it's such like a false binary that we've created,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't serve us. When I saw Gail King
Speaker 1: on the cover of Sports Illustrated, you know, at her
Speaker 1: ripe age wearing this bikini in Mexico, looking super hot
Speaker 1: and sexy, I was like, you know what, hell yeah,
Speaker 1: hell yeah, she can do that, and she can go
Speaker 1: on the news and she can tell us what's happening
Speaker 1: in our world.
Speaker 2: Es see, I want to hear more about that joy
Speaker 2: that you're talking about. So you walk into this first
Speaker 2: Harry Styles show and what happens, Like, what about that
Speaker 2: experience sparked so much in you?
Speaker 4: Interestingly, the first show was not that great. I think
Speaker 4: people might expect. Oh, I saw one show. The rest
Speaker 4: is history, Joy rediscovered, I gallivanted, and I was healed
Speaker 4: That's really not how it went at all. I had
Speaker 4: been listening to Harry Styles all day, every day, for which,
Speaker 4: for the record, I don't even know how much I
Speaker 4: was aware of that fact. You know, I was in
Speaker 4: such intense grief that I kind of kept hitting play
Speaker 4: on what I knew was working. But by the time
Speaker 4: I got to this show, you know, I was there
Speaker 4: with an acquaintance who invited me, and I kind of
Speaker 4: was like, you know what, I will step outside of
Speaker 4: my comfort zone. I had never previously been a fan
Speaker 4: of big crowds. I would have told you I liked
Speaker 4: live music, but the previous time I had traveled in
Speaker 4: quotes for a show was forty minutes. Forty five minutes.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was not the fangirl, you know, archetype,
Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, I'm in this ocean of
Speaker 4: inside jokes, Like people are doing choreography that is fan created.
Speaker 4: People are, you know, holding up signs that make no
Speaker 4: sense to a newcomer. You know, this is some deep subculture,
Speaker 4: hardcore fandom at work. Everyone seemed to have a handbook
Speaker 4: for this experience. And I'm thinking, I listened to a
Speaker 4: lot of Harry's music. How do I not know what's
Speaker 4: going on, and it made me so curious. So I
Speaker 4: did these deep dives on TikTok and Instagram, and all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, I already had an invite to a
Speaker 4: second show to sit in the nosebleeds with all my
Speaker 4: best girlfriends. And by the time I was at the
Speaker 4: second show, I was like, Okay, so that's his drummer
Speaker 4: down there, and she's married to the guitar player and
Speaker 4: they met through the band.
Speaker 3: Isn't that cute.
Speaker 4: It was like, the more I learned, the more I liked,
Speaker 4: and I realized that Harry Styles is the ted Lasso
Speaker 4: of the music industry. I mean, it's all kindness. It
Speaker 4: is the sweetest culture.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: You come for Harry and you stay for the fans.
Speaker 4: I think is a great way to put it.
Speaker 1: I love the way that you who approached each one
Speaker 1: of these concerts and your conversations with the fans that
Speaker 1: you met there. You actually almost treated it like an investigation,
Speaker 1: not just an investigation into the fandom, but also introspectively,
Speaker 1: like turning the questions in the lens on yourself. You
Speaker 1: were asking yourself these hard hitting questions about joy, like
Speaker 1: what is joy? Who has it? Who doesn't? Is it big?
Speaker 1: Is it small? Is it permanent? Is it fleeting? What
Speaker 1: did you learn from other fans through your investigation?
Speaker 4: It was so inspiring to me because I was new
Speaker 4: to this world and I'm meeting people who have they've
Speaker 4: been They've been in the Harry Styles orbit for thirteen years,
Speaker 4: and I was wondering, you know, what does this mean
Speaker 4: to you? I can tell you what this means to me,
Speaker 4: but it's hard to pick a favorite.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I met a mother daughter duo outside of the Kia Forum.
Speaker 4: I offered to take their photo. They offered to take
Speaker 4: mine in front of this Harry Styles backdrop. I've talked
Speaker 4: to them almost every single day since January of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three, like we are super close friends. They're driving
Speaker 4: several hours to see me on book tour. We've gone
Speaker 4: to other concerts together. One of my greatest takeaways about
Speaker 4: joy is the relationship between joy and judgment.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: That was a huge takeaway from me. And the opposite
Speaker 4: of joyful is not joyless. It's judgmental, you know. I
Speaker 4: write that so often we judge the what when we
Speaker 4: don't know the why.
Speaker 3: I was getting mean.
Speaker 4: Dms have you lost your mind, what the hell are
Speaker 4: you doing? And on and on, and I just was
Speaker 4: so grateful for these experiences and what they were doing
Speaker 4: for me that it made me look around those concerts
Speaker 4: and wonder, what does this mean to other people in
Speaker 4: this room? And that really inspired this curiosity that you
Speaker 4: alluded to.
Speaker 2: Was there a turning point for you? When did you
Speaker 2: discover you were coming out of your grief.
Speaker 4: Harry has a song called Sign of the Times, and
Speaker 4: the lyrics are stop your crying baby, It'll be all right.
Speaker 4: And I had heard that song several times, but that
Speaker 4: lyric just didn't land yet because I just I was like, no,
Speaker 4: I'm in the thick of it, you know, I'm not
Speaker 4: feeling like it's time to kind of stop this grief,
Speaker 4: which is what that lyric kind of sounded like to me.
Speaker 4: But all of a sudden, we're at the final show.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm with someone I met in a bathroom line
Speaker 4: who had extra tickets, and I'm hearing Harry Styles saying,
Speaker 4: stop your crying baby, It'll be all right, at the
Speaker 4: biggest show of his career, at the end of this adventure,
Speaker 4: and the sky's opened up and it started pouring rain,
Speaker 4: at the same time, the fireworks are all going off.
Speaker 3: It was not in the forecast.
Speaker 4: It was this total freak thing, and I mean everyone
Speaker 4: is losing it. It was the most cinematic moment of
Speaker 4: my entire life. And as people are splashing and screaming
Speaker 4: and pulling out their phones and dancing and like in
Speaker 4: total shock, you know, I'm standing there as still as
Speaker 4: a statue, and all of a sudden, I had this
Speaker 4: of Oh, I did it, and I ran this race.
Speaker 4: And that was about thirteen months post separation, and it
Speaker 4: really felt like my life can be bifurcated into you know,
Speaker 4: pre Wimbley in the rain and post Wimbley in the rain.
Speaker 4: And it was such a turning point for me, the
Speaker 4: biggest show, the biggest crescendo. I was leaving the next
Speaker 4: day to go back to the States after this unexpected
Speaker 4: thirty days with hardly anything with me and traveling with
Speaker 4: strangers and kind of rolling with it and having this
Speaker 4: unexpected journey. And it's called the finale in the book
Speaker 4: for multiple reasons.
Speaker 1: So you said that you can't explain why it was
Speaker 1: that that moment was so transformative, But I just want
Speaker 1: to probe a little bit further, like, why do you think,
Speaker 1: why was it that moment that changed everything?
Speaker 4: I think it's because I was in this season of
Speaker 4: such identity stripping. I was no longer a lawyer, I
Speaker 4: was no longer a wife, I was no longer a
Speaker 4: daughter in law, sister in law, and you know, I
Speaker 4: was no longer So and So's neighbor. You know, so
Speaker 4: many identities in my life were changing or getting stripped away.
Speaker 4: I think one of those transformative elements of going to
Speaker 4: these concerts is that the vast majority of them, I
Speaker 4: was an anonymous stranger in a crowd, and it's like
Speaker 4: I had the interest to go even further in the
Speaker 4: context of identity stripping. So if all these things that
Speaker 4: I that were billed as mattering so much, career and
Speaker 4: being married and all these things, if all that's gone,
Speaker 4: but now no one knows or cares where I'm from,
Speaker 4: what I do or used to do, where I went
Speaker 4: to school or didn't, what I have or don't have,
Speaker 4: or know, or who I don't know, None of it matters,
Speaker 4: and everything fades away. It made me ask myself, who
Speaker 4: am I in every single room I walk into? And
Speaker 4: I think I was beginning to really reap the benefit
Speaker 4: of that level of introspection. I had begun to be really,
Speaker 4: really thoughtful and reflective about just the value of these
Speaker 4: experiences and how they bullied my spirits and really what
Speaker 4: I learned again about kindness and identity and joy and grief.
Speaker 4: And so it was the most cinematic curtain call of
Speaker 4: this story when he's singing, stop your crying, baby, It'll
Speaker 4: be all right. And I'm with these strangers that I
Speaker 4: met in a bathroom, you know, like with dancing with
Speaker 4: women from all over the world, as these fireworks are
Speaker 4: going off in Wimbley, the most iconic venue in his
Speaker 4: home country, and it was just this wash.
Speaker 3: Of deep peace.
Speaker 4: And I write in the book that there's no such
Speaker 4: thing as a grief guillotine.
Speaker 3: It doesn't just end.
Speaker 4: It's not like you turn a light back on in
Speaker 4: life when you're ready to live in color again and
Speaker 4: no longer in black and white. But it's like it's
Speaker 4: on a patient dimmer where slowly the lights are coming
Speaker 4: back on, and it marks the pivot from saying I
Speaker 4: know I'm going to be okay, or I'm going to
Speaker 4: be okay, and it's such a slight shift into actually
Speaker 4: I am okay, Yeah, And for me, that moment was
Speaker 4: that shift.
Speaker 2: It's time for another short break, but we'll be right
Speaker 2: back to our conversation with sc Proroh, and we're back
Speaker 2: with sc PROO.
Speaker 1: As I think about the identity stripping that you mentioned
Speaker 1: and I look back on my own life, I think
Speaker 1: the greatest blessing of aging has been the realization that
Speaker 1: becoming the process of becoming is not about adding. It's
Speaker 1: about subtracting, and it's about liberating yourself from the judgment
Speaker 1: from your own doubts. That's so powerful. It feels like
Speaker 1: in that moment you fully allowed yourself to like reset
Speaker 1: and accept where you were.
Speaker 4: In that moment absolutely, and there was going back to
Speaker 4: this theme of judgment. There was such a point of
Speaker 4: pride for me that I was trusting my instincts. I mean,
Speaker 4: former me would be like, sorry, what are.
Speaker 1: We doing right?
Speaker 3: And I'm like you, no, we're rolling with it.
Speaker 4: And again it's it's made me so passionate about joy
Speaker 4: in whatever form it shows up in our lives, because
Speaker 4: so often it doesn't. I am now like a fangirl
Speaker 4: for fans, Like if you're a big fan of something,
Speaker 4: I'm like I will ride or die for that thing.
Speaker 3: You say, Renaissance fairs.
Speaker 4: I'm like, pass me a turkey, like baby, let's roll
Speaker 4: like I let's go oh, Star Wars, online forums, these
Speaker 4: things are important, and I'll be I'll be honest. I
Speaker 4: used to judge Disney adults. I didn't get it. I'm like,
Speaker 4: where are you going to Disney without kids? I don't
Speaker 4: get it? And I asked a friend of mine. I said,
Speaker 4: all right, can you explain this Disney adult thing to me?
Speaker 4: And she said, you know, a couple of years ago,
Speaker 4: I lost my dad to cancer, and Disney is where
Speaker 4: we have all of our best family memories. And I
Speaker 4: go back to Disney to feel closest to my dad.
Speaker 4: And I'm thinking, so often we judge the what when
Speaker 4: we don't know the why. And we never know what
Speaker 4: difficult walks someone is walking, you know, we never know
Speaker 4: the role that music, or a sports team, or a
Speaker 4: certain hobby or passion. We don't know what function that's
Speaker 4: playing in their life. And I just invite a listener
Speaker 4: to think about being not only gentler with other people
Speaker 4: about passions and hobbies and interests, but also learning how
Speaker 4: to give yourself grace is such an amazing practice as well.
Speaker 4: I so easily could have been like, all right, sc
Speaker 4: you've lost your damn mind because you have a cardboard
Speaker 4: cutout of a pop star in your house.
Speaker 3: You've lost it.
Speaker 4: But you know what, that cardboard cutout of Harry Styles
Speaker 4: made me laugh harder for the six months that I
Speaker 4: owned it with my friends. It gave me more joy
Speaker 4: because it was so ridiculous. And if something is not
Speaker 4: harming you or anyone else, I say, let's go.
Speaker 1: I like the idea.
Speaker 2: I am curious where you're at with it now in hindsight, Like,
Speaker 2: will you be going to more Harry Styles concerts in
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 3: Yes, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: There is nothing in life I am looking forward to
Speaker 4: more than Harry's Next to her, I truly cannot wait.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 3: Asked about what.
Speaker 1: Was it was?
Speaker 4: It came for Harry, stayed for the fans, and you know,
Speaker 4: I want to give Harry's Styles a lot of credit
Speaker 4: for so. I teach in the human and organizational development
Speaker 4: at Vanderbilt University, and if you ask me, what's the
Speaker 4: overlap between what you learned at these Hairy Styles concerts
Speaker 4: and what you teach your students. Is a concept that
Speaker 4: I would call psychological safety. When people feel safe to
Speaker 4: be themselves. Data shows that the most beautiful things result.
Speaker 4: There's openness, kindness, confidence, and all these things. And it's
Speaker 4: something we talk about as a department, is how can
Speaker 4: we make students feel comfortable to share in class, knowing
Speaker 4: their opinions are valuable and so forth. And when I
Speaker 4: heard that phrase when I started teaching at the university,
Speaker 4: I thought, Oh, that's the secret sauce at a hairy
Speaker 4: concert is people feel safe to be creative and zany
Speaker 4: and funny and emotional. People feel free to cry at
Speaker 4: the barricade to their favorite song that has moved them
Speaker 4: for who knows what reason. And I think that's really
Speaker 4: really powerful and worth mentioning. Harry Styles says, at every concert,
Speaker 4: I hope you feel you can be in this room
Speaker 4: who you've always wanted to be. What a beautiful invitation
Speaker 4: that you can show up and be yourself.
Speaker 1: Well, after all that you experienced, does see all the
Speaker 1: changes you made to your life, all the concerts, all
Speaker 1: the bathroom conversations, you created this framework for finding joy.
Speaker 1: And the framework is cultivate, adopt, protect, spread. With the
Speaker 1: time that we have left in this conversation, I want
Speaker 1: to focus on adopting. What I love about the way
Speaker 1: that you laid out this framework is that you punctuate
Speaker 1: each phase with this series of truly magical questions. And
Speaker 1: there's a question that really stuck out to me in
Speaker 1: the adopt section, and you said, are you internalizing other victories, joys,
Speaker 1: and wins and allowing them to bring you joy to
Speaker 1: are you making others joy your own in a time
Speaker 1: where some people are finding it hard to cultivate joy.
Speaker 1: Can you give us a roadmap as to how we
Speaker 1: can adopt the joy of others as our own.
Speaker 4: In a season of such significant loss, My spirits were
Speaker 4: so buoyed by watching other people succeed and have fun
Speaker 4: and so forth. And I introduced this idea of joy
Speaker 4: in the wild and looking for joy in the wild, because,
Speaker 4: like you said, sometimes cultivating joy in your own life
Speaker 4: can feel like a challenge. You know, maybe grief is
Speaker 4: your barrier to that, or whatever hardship it may be
Speaker 4: for me. I started looking very closely at the world
Speaker 4: around me in this season of rebuilding, and I found
Speaker 4: that the more keenly observant I was, especially out in public,
Speaker 4: the happier I was so. For example, at these Harry
Speaker 4: Styles concerts, I'm looking at strangers offering to take each
Speaker 4: other's photos. And my favorite example is girls were tying
Speaker 4: together feather boas to make one giant feather boa and
Speaker 4: they were using it to jump rope with strangers to
Speaker 4: kill time before a concert started. And I was sitting
Speaker 4: there and I was like, there, it is joy in
Speaker 4: the wild.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: The other day I was in Trader Joe's and I
Speaker 4: could tell it was two best friends grocery shopping together,
Speaker 4: and they went aisle by aisle with their carts side
Speaker 4: by side, and they were commentating, have you tried those crackers?
Speaker 3: Have you tried that?
Speaker 1: Wait?
Speaker 4: This hummus is the best, And didn't. I wasn't trying
Speaker 4: to eavesdrop, but I could tell that, like that's what
Speaker 4: they were doing. And they were laughing, and they were
Speaker 4: like product recommending and they were having the best time.
Speaker 4: They We were kind of on the same schedule, I guess,
Speaker 4: because I saw them in the parking lot.
Speaker 3: Their cars were parked side by side. They gave each
Speaker 3: other the biggest bear hugs after they loaded their cars
Speaker 3: with their respective groceries. And I was sitting there and
Speaker 3: I was like, I was having the worst day, and
Speaker 3: I thought to myself, there it is joy in the
Speaker 3: wild A friendship date to Trader Joe's. So again, when
Speaker 3: cultivating joy in.
Speaker 4: Your own life feels like a bit of a stretch,
Speaker 4: you know that, And that's something I can relate to.
Speaker 4: That really was so life giving, and after I've trained
Speaker 4: my eye to look for it, it's such a contagious
Speaker 4: way to live.
Speaker 1: And that speaks to the power of finding joy in
Speaker 1: the mundane too. Joy doesn't have to look like, you know,
Speaker 1: an extravagant trip to Europe to go see a concert
Speaker 1: for people who don't have the means, let's say, but
Speaker 1: it's all around us if we train our to look,
Speaker 1: which is what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Absolutely in the spirit of sharing joy, You've created Joy Hotline,
Speaker 2: which is a place for people to call in and
Speaker 2: share their moments of joy. What are some of the
Speaker 2: great things that people have called in to share?
Speaker 4: I am so glad you asked. I started the Joy
Speaker 4: Hotline this past summer. I was teaching a class for
Speaker 4: Vanderbilt and New York City and I had this idea
Speaker 4: as I was thinking about the big question, what brings
Speaker 4: you joy?
Speaker 3: Why is that simple question so challenging for people to answer.
Speaker 4: I'm so surprised by how often people say, I don't
Speaker 4: know what brings me joy, and I don't know what
Speaker 4: I like anymore. So I thought, you know what, let's
Speaker 4: pull the people. So I made thousands of stickers and
Speaker 4: put them all over New York with the Joy Hotline
Speaker 4: phone number, and it says what brings you joy? And
Speaker 4: I was shocked by how many voicemails I got. I
Speaker 4: thought people would just text it. And one of my favorites,
Speaker 4: this girl, called in and she said, Hey, I just
Speaker 4: found your sticker in Madison Square Park. And what brings
Speaker 4: me joy is Brazilian music and when my mom's really happy.
Speaker 4: I also love that feeling when you're at a party
Speaker 4: and you look around and no one's on their phone
Speaker 4: because people are deeply present. And I also love catching
Speaker 4: up with old friends. And anyway, thank you so much
Speaker 4: for giving me a reason to reflect on joy. Thanks
Speaker 4: Joy Hotline.
Speaker 3: I mean it just melted me.
Speaker 4: And one of my other favorites someone said this week,
Speaker 4: I trained my dog to smile in this really goofy
Speaker 4: picture of their dog with the cheesiest smile. And one
Speaker 4: of my other favorite voicemails. It was two Vanderbilt girls,
Speaker 4: because the stickers are all over Vanderbilt too, And this
Speaker 4: girl goes, Hey, Joy hotline. What brings me joy is
Speaker 4: walking to Dunkin Donuts with my roommate because I love
Speaker 4: my roommate. And the second girl, the roommate, is also
Speaker 4: on the voicemail and she goes, oh my god.
Speaker 3: That is so nice. I love you too. You bring
Speaker 3: me so much joy.
Speaker 4: And they proceed to have a conversation about their friendship
Speaker 4: on the Joy hotline and I'm just it brings me
Speaker 4: crazy joy when people hit up the Joy hotline.
Speaker 1: Well, I am certainly feeling less judgmental and a lot
Speaker 1: more joyful. All thanks to USSI, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us on the bright side today.
Speaker 3: This was the most fun. Thank you both.
Speaker 2: Thanks for your dose of joy.
Speaker 1: Scproro is a professor at Vanderbilt University and the author
Speaker 1: of Styles of Joy, a feel good framework for rediscovering
Speaker 1: joy with a twist.
Speaker 2: That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, Kat Kantas is with us.
Speaker 2: She's the co founder of the tequila brand twenty one Seeds,
Speaker 2: and she's going to share some of her incredible entrepreneurial insight.
Speaker 1: Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
Speaker 1: with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram
Speaker 1: and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and
Speaker 1: feel free to tag us at Simone Boyce and at
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2: Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.