Speaker 1: This constant fear of like what other people think. There's
Speaker 1: no audience, Like who do you think is watching?
Speaker 2: If you really want to oversimplified, it's like we're not
Speaker 2: hearing that long for real. Therese like just let's roll
Speaker 2: even when it gets hard and bad. I agree with you,
Speaker 2: and it's like, hey, listen, this is hard and bad.
Speaker 2: And by the way, that's okay too, Like that's part.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent and it's going to pass like everything else,
Speaker 1: like including our lives.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hello, I'm mini driver.
Speaker 1: I've always loved Proust's questionnaire. It was originally in nineteenth
Speaker 1: century parlor game where players would ask each other thirty
Speaker 1: five questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature.
Speaker 1: In asking different people the same set of questions, you
Speaker 1: can make observations about which truths appear to be universal.
Speaker 3: And it made me wonder, what if these questions were
Speaker 3: just a jumping off point, what greater depths would be
Speaker 3: revealed if I asked these questions as conversation starters. So
Speaker 3: I adapted Pru's questionnai and I wrote my own seven
Speaker 3: questions that I personally think are pertinent to a person's story.
Speaker 3: They are when and where were you happiest? What is
Speaker 3: the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real
Speaker 3: or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you
Speaker 3: most like answered, What person, place, or experience has shaped
Speaker 3: you the most? What would be your last meal? And
Speaker 3: can you tell me something in your life that's grown
Speaker 3: out of a personal disaster?
Speaker 1: And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones
Speaker 1: that I am honored and humbled to have had the
Speaker 1: chance to engage with.
Speaker 3: You may not hear their answers to all seven of
Speaker 3: these questions. We've whittled it down to which questions felt
Speaker 3: closest to their experience, or the most surprising, or created
Speaker 3: the most fertile ground to connect. My guest today is
Speaker 3: the athlete, podcaster, and wellness oracle Gabrielle Reese. Gabby is
Speaker 3: an Olympian, which tells you right away a lot of
Speaker 3: what she is made of. We live in the same
Speaker 3: small beach community in California where she has these legendary
Speaker 3: workout sessions that leave people stronger, fitter, having physically achieved
Speaker 3: things they never.
Speaker 1: Thought they could. I've never run into her and been
Speaker 1: met with anything less than her wonderfully direct gaze, her
Speaker 1: warmth and her presence. There aren't many people who I
Speaker 1: really believe one hundred percent about health, wellness and fitness,
Speaker 1: because there always seems to be some kind of Hollywood
Speaker 1: snake oil attached to it. But Gabby Reese and her
Speaker 1: husband Led Hamilton are the real deal. Gabby's been living
Speaker 1: what she talks about on her podcast, The Gabby Reese
Speaker 1: Show since she was a kid training for the Olympics.
Speaker 1: This was such a great conversation where someone I'm deeply
Speaker 1: inspired by and admire so greatly. So my first question
Speaker 1: is where and when were you happiest?
Speaker 2: Where and when was I happiest? I think for me,
Speaker 2: you know, I always joke about in a way there's
Speaker 2: a part of me, a lot of me that's very
Speaker 2: very simple, and this has happened multiple times when I'm
Speaker 2: in bed and sort of the immediate circle everybody's okay.
Speaker 2: I know that feeling right before I go to bed
Speaker 2: of sort of feeling really good. You know, no girls
Speaker 2: in an urgency, they're healthy, I sort of, they're tucked in.
Speaker 2: Larry and I were in a dance like we're not
Speaker 2: stepping on each other's toes. So I think for me,
Speaker 2: that feeling of happiness that you talk about has really
Speaker 2: shown up for me in that moment right before I
Speaker 2: go to bed. And I would say, I'm a person
Speaker 2: who doesn't really look at the past too much, so
Speaker 2: I don't think it occurs to me. Oh, I was
Speaker 2: really happy when I was playing volleyball, or of course
Speaker 2: I enjoyed when my kids were babies. But I think
Speaker 2: it's this idea of I also kind of look forward often.
Speaker 1: It's a function of also being like, quite literally and figuratively,
Speaker 1: you guys lead an action packed life, and then there
Speaker 1: is a huge amount of movement, both kind of where
Speaker 1: you are geographically and like the things that make up
Speaker 1: yours and lad's life, and I'm assuming you're girls too, Like,
Speaker 1: do you think that that the notion of action is
Speaker 1: kind of the stasis and then that piece calm, everybody's quiet,
Speaker 1: everybody's tucked in, that the space for that is where
Speaker 1: you can really sort of rest and feel centered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that really supports that mentality. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, Lared heard a quote many years ago, never
Speaker 2: let your accomplishments be greater than your dreams. And I
Speaker 2: think both of us are sort of hardwired to go like, hey,
Speaker 2: what's around the corner and listen. It's it's great. You
Speaker 2: know this from your own experience to have had some
Speaker 2: semblance of hey, good job, well done. I could figure
Speaker 2: it out. I don't know how to I'm, you know,
Speaker 2: approaching something I don't know how to do. I have
Speaker 2: a body of evidence that I could probably try to
Speaker 2: figure something out. Those things are nice that give you
Speaker 2: that kind of confidence, but the hardwiring of that's not
Speaker 2: in my control. I can't spend a lot of time there,
Speaker 2: So why not create new experiences or fun or challenges
Speaker 2: or things that will bring me satisfaction and purpose. I
Speaker 2: feel like that's something that is hardwired in lair Night individually.
Speaker 2: And then the fact that we're in this coupleton makes
Speaker 2: it maybe a little easier.
Speaker 1: How long have you guys been together?
Speaker 2: We have been together for almost twenty nine years. We've
Speaker 2: been married for almost twenty seven years. Wow, I know
Speaker 2: I am way too young, way.
Speaker 1: Too young to have been lit.
Speaker 2: I just kid, you know, listen, And having said that,
Speaker 2: that sounds like a grand number. I always joke laired
Speaker 2: and I really almost got divorced to different times. You know,
Speaker 2: it's been a really good last fifteen years layered you know,
Speaker 2: stop drinking alcohol sixteen years ago. That really was really
Speaker 2: good for the relationships. So I never want to sell
Speaker 2: a bill of goods and like, yeah, it's just easy street.
Speaker 2: But I also think in some ways we are we
Speaker 2: have some things that make it easier to be together.
Speaker 1: So interesting. I think when your happiness is wrapped up
Speaker 1: with another human of how the parameters of that change
Speaker 1: and the stuff that becomes non negotiable about Yes, we
Speaker 1: always go I have to look to myself to kind
Speaker 1: of change to evolve in a relationship, but there are
Speaker 1: certain hard and fast things that you go, this is
Speaker 1: no longer working, and it's kind of like evolve or die.
Speaker 1: And I think it's amazing to be able to stay
Speaker 1: in that version of happiness with someone that accommodates sort
Speaker 1: of radical evolution and radical self knowledge to support kind
Speaker 1: of the organism of a family. Like it's it's a
Speaker 1: proper commitment.
Speaker 2: It is. And maybe one thing I do buy into
Speaker 2: coming from sports is there is good hard and I
Speaker 2: don't believe in making myself my life unnecessarily hard. I
Speaker 2: don't like to do that. I like to actually make
Speaker 2: things easy, but I do seek out good, hard, hard
Speaker 2: that I know goes to another level and not shying
Speaker 2: away from it. But at the end end of the day,
Speaker 2: it is still on each of us as individuals, like
Speaker 2: there's just no way around it. Like I could have
Speaker 2: the greatest partner who pushes me, you know, maybe I
Speaker 2: get some courage from laired to be kind of certain
Speaker 2: parts of my personality that I wouldn't, you know, even
Speaker 2: for my children. It's like it's on me to figure
Speaker 2: out what's going to make me feel good. And Byron
Speaker 2: Katie said to me once something one time years ago.
Speaker 2: She said, you know, if you want to change your environment,
Speaker 2: change yourself, And I thought, yeah, it's such a such
Speaker 2: a constant truth. And it's so hard because.
Speaker 1: You think I can visit them, I know, because it's
Speaker 1: so much that I need to see somebody else's shit
Speaker 1: than it is to see you or to offer up
Speaker 1: advice on how for them to fix it. The exo
Speaker 1: stuff is so much easier than the internal journey. And
Speaker 1: yet that's why we've got to do it. What is
Speaker 1: the quality you like least about yourself?
Speaker 2: Jeez, I think I'm not looking for fun and that
Speaker 2: sort of that's not great. I know, Lair looks at
Speaker 2: me on the side of his head so many days
Speaker 2: because he really is looking for fun, like the real fun.
Speaker 2: They'll like out in nature, you know, be in the moment,
Speaker 2: have the wind blowing, just like the good fun. And
Speaker 2: I'm sort of like, yeah, I'm looking for work and order,
Speaker 2: and maybe that's my version of trying to have some
Speaker 2: kind of control. I get a deep sense of fulfillment
Speaker 2: from Oh, okay, goal task completion. I love all that. Like,
Speaker 2: if you want to visit with me and talk, I
Speaker 2: can be funny and fun, but I'm not personally looking
Speaker 2: for like big fun, and I think that's a really
Speaker 2: important part of being human being.
Speaker 1: I really like that observation. No one's ever answered that,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of I think it makes for quite
Speaker 1: a good compliment with someone like Lad who is essentially
Speaker 1: Puck in the Shakespearean sense of just the mischief maker,
Speaker 1: the seeker of the fun and the naughtiness and the
Speaker 1: loves to get in trouble just to see how he
Speaker 1: can get out of it, Like Puck kind of needs
Speaker 1: to be with Eel. Yeah, someone who's taking it a
Speaker 1: little bit more seriously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's funny because obviously at my age, I
Speaker 2: have really learned like it's hard to get me to react.
Speaker 2: I don't get aggravated. But as far as like, you know,
Speaker 2: do you want to go get you know, in trouble,
Speaker 2: I'm sort of like, yeah, I'll be ready at like seven,
Speaker 2: you guys when to get back. And maybe I intuitively
Speaker 2: chose Lair because I enjoy it through him. I know
Speaker 2: it's important, so I have a splash of it in
Speaker 2: my life, even if it's not all coming through me.
Speaker 2: I'll give you an example. I went to this gentleman
Speaker 2: named Peter Evans, and he said, you know you don't
Speaker 2: have wonder, and you know you have to get back
Speaker 2: to your bliss right, And I thought, I don't even
Speaker 2: know what the hell you're talking about. Like when he
Speaker 2: said that word bliss, when I see people that are
Speaker 2: like freely floating and like in my bliss, I thought,
Speaker 2: I don't know that I've ever experienced that. And I
Speaker 2: am very open minded. But when you talked about wonder,
Speaker 2: when you see a small child and everything is in wonder,
Speaker 2: I'm assessing, who's that, what's this? What does that mean?
Speaker 2: Versus wonder? And so that would be another kind of
Speaker 2: bolt on adjunct to this fun component that I really
Speaker 2: think I could do better.
Speaker 1: Have you ever actively gone and created your version of
Speaker 1: wonder and fun and what does that look like?
Speaker 2: No, because I don't think it's something you can fake, right,
Speaker 2: It's the way that the world hits you. So my
Speaker 2: version of that is I'm just gonna see, I'm gonna look,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to think, I know, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: take it in. And so that has been the practice
Speaker 2: for me that has come out of that.
Speaker 1: That sounds incredibly fun to be actively present. What question
Speaker 1: would you most like answered?
Speaker 2: I guess it's not unique. You know, you go through
Speaker 2: this life, and especially during this time when it's really
Speaker 2: wild and contentious, it's like when you see the lopsidedness
Speaker 2: of all the beauty and the injustice, I guess I
Speaker 2: would like to understand why that has to coexist. And
Speaker 2: I know bright light dark shadow, and you can't have
Speaker 2: light without dark, but I guess sometimes when you see
Speaker 2: such extreme I would love to understand is that the
Speaker 2: only way is that the only way that the one
Speaker 2: beauty and the magic can exist is with the sort
Speaker 2: of other side. I always look at that and think, man,
Speaker 2: that's a lot of suffering for some of this other stuff.
Speaker 1: I often wonder if it is I mean, I use
Speaker 1: the word God just some other force. Is that God made,
Speaker 1: force made? Or is that man made? Like I think
Speaker 1: about that often, Like you sort of see it in nature.
Speaker 1: You see the ostensible rawness, but there doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be a rage behind it. You see that it's balanced
Speaker 1: the light and dark in nature, which is what makes
Speaker 1: me feel that we have a hand and just test savage.
Speaker 2: But is that our lesson? Right? Is that we have
Speaker 2: to go through that to tame the beast within ourselves?
Speaker 2: I don't It's so complex, right, you go, man, what
Speaker 2: is the real lesson? What is the real purpose of that? Because,
Speaker 2: like you said, in nature, it feels very straightforward. It
Speaker 2: doesn't feel personal, and it's freaking brutal at the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe that's it. It doesn't feel personal. It feels
Speaker 1: like it's part of a rhythm that has always existed,
Speaker 1: whereas ours feels a lot more manufactured. And you're right,
Speaker 1: it's like, could we ever evolve from that? I wonder, like,
Speaker 1: is it possible for us to evolve beyond the savagery?
Speaker 1: I suppose of the way in which we whether it's
Speaker 1: treat each other or treat ourselves. I don't know. That's
Speaker 1: a good one. That's actually a really good one. I
Speaker 1: think about AI as well, and going is that part
Speaker 1: of the lure of that is this idea that you
Speaker 1: could fashion and create a program that doesn't have the
Speaker 1: kind of awfulness that is part of being human.
Speaker 2: I asked this gentleman who runs the Harvard study once
Speaker 2: it's a happiness study, right, and it's gone on for
Speaker 2: I think seventy five years, And I said, you know, listen,
Speaker 2: we've written books about it, and there's poems and movies
Speaker 2: and songs, like we know the answers. What is it
Speaker 2: about us that we just can't figure it out? And
Speaker 2: he looked at me and he was like, oh, Gabby,
Speaker 2: that's how we gained wisdom. And I thought, fair enough.
Speaker 2: And so the AI think will be interesting because some
Speaker 2: of the lessons that's what's so great about experience. You
Speaker 2: can't hack it, you can't shortcut it. Right, It is
Speaker 2: yours to possess, to own.
Speaker 1: It's certainly going to speed stuff up.
Speaker 2: Oh hell yes, it is.
Speaker 1: Thinking about what the gentleman at Harvard said of the
Speaker 1: idea of getting wiser Is it just that we can't
Speaker 1: see our evolution because for us, it's it's generational, Like
Speaker 1: if you could look at it in a thousand years,
Speaker 1: would you be able to see this bell curve that
Speaker 1: we don't know that we're part of because we can't
Speaker 1: see it yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the transitions are really really uncomfortable, and we
Speaker 2: obviously clearly in a wild transition because you know, is
Speaker 2: it a transition away from a biological into a hybrid.
Speaker 2: It's so funny, I said the laird. Today. I vacillate
Speaker 2: between I want to check out and just go live,
Speaker 2: you know. But we're of the age that we're supposed
Speaker 2: to be here and we're supposed to help, and we're
Speaker 2: supposed to usher in the next group. We're supposed to
Speaker 2: act like the adults. But then it's like, is the
Speaker 2: information or wisdom we have almost useless because is it
Speaker 2: moving away from biology towards a mashup with technology? So
Speaker 2: that is sort of an interesting question. I still think,
Speaker 2: because we're in our biology at this moment, that it's
Speaker 2: really nice to consider it because I feel like when
Speaker 2: we have a relationship with it, you feel better.
Speaker 1: I agree. I do think a lot about our carbon
Speaker 1: based NICs becoming potentially obsolete, or as you said, a hybrids.
Speaker 1: It just goes back to be what you said about
Speaker 1: just be present. It's forward moving. It is always forward moving,
Speaker 1: so we might as well be that way as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what person, place, or experience most altered your life.
Speaker 2: I've had a few. I lived with a couple from
Speaker 2: the age of two to seven. They recently, I actually
Speaker 2: both passed away. They were a couple from Long Island,
Speaker 2: New York, and they took care of me. And my
Speaker 2: mother was a young mother in her early twenties. She
Speaker 2: had sort of a far out. She was training dolphins
Speaker 2: at a circus in Mexico and she met my father,
Speaker 2: who's from Trinidad. I did not live with my parents,
Speaker 2: so they were really pivotal, and I grew up in
Speaker 2: the Caribbean. After that, I had some families that would
Speaker 2: take me in even though I was living with my
Speaker 2: mother at the time. I had a coach in college
Speaker 2: that was really really instrumental and sort of talking about
Speaker 2: personal accountability and help me. So I'd say I sort
Speaker 2: of had these outside people, And what I learned from
Speaker 2: all that was we think our parents, like, oh my
Speaker 2: mom did or didn't do this, my dad did or
Speaker 2: didn't do that. But sometimes we have people that didn't
Speaker 2: have to step in and they do, and so we
Speaker 2: got bonus even though we felt like we got chinched
Speaker 2: on this one side. And so I think when I
Speaker 2: got a little older, I was like, man, I had
Speaker 2: some pretty stellar people who stepped in and really helped
Speaker 2: me navigate and create a really wonderful life.
Speaker 1: Do you think that by being able to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: these people were incredibly generous and wonderful to step into
Speaker 1: your life when perhaps they didn't necessarily have to in
Speaker 1: the way that we think parents should, did that help
Speaker 1: you let go of the hard things? So it became
Speaker 1: a bonus. It became something that was actually light filled
Speaker 1: as opposed to something that was dark and sad. And
Speaker 1: the idea of living with someone other than your parents
Speaker 1: at two to seven might like when you say that
Speaker 1: to me, it sounds sad. But did you just manage
Speaker 1: to reframe that later because there was a lot of
Speaker 1: light in it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it's also maybe surrendering to maybe it was
Speaker 2: better for me. Maybe my life has turned out better
Speaker 2: even though there was a great deal of unknown and
Speaker 2: my hypervigilance comes from not living with my parents. My
Speaker 2: lack of fun, my lack of wonder comes from really
Speaker 2: being bounced from the nest very early. But what I
Speaker 2: came to a relationship with is Listen, I was out
Speaker 2: of my house at seventeen and totally independent at eighteen.
Speaker 2: I'm going to adult a lot longer than I was
Speaker 2: a kid. So let's take a few hard, shitty years
Speaker 2: for the opportunity to go like, oh wait, I have
Speaker 2: tools that I can build a life. I don't like stuff,
Speaker 2: I know how to change it. I have discipline, I
Speaker 2: can plan, I can navigate, and that came from that childhood.
Speaker 2: So it certainly took time. And I would also say
Speaker 2: today I have the best relationship with my mother. I
Speaker 2: completely accept and love and have no problem with her.
Speaker 2: But I only seek out the relationship with her that
Speaker 2: works for me. So I also have a brutality with
Speaker 2: that being able to reframe. So I can reframe it
Speaker 2: and I honor myself, and sometimes that's brutal.
Speaker 1: Well, you have extraordinary clarity around the tenets of your story,
Speaker 1: which perhaps is part of like again, what makes us
Speaker 1: the most human is our ability to really examine what
Speaker 1: our narratives are and to not ignore them or just
Speaker 1: seek out the bits that we like and ignore the other,
Speaker 1: but rather see the whole and then holistically move forward.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to do. I think it requires a
Speaker 1: kind of brutality, not brutal in the way that what
Speaker 1: I see in the world right now, but I mean
Speaker 1: clarified rather than brutal.
Speaker 2: Well, because with that you can't blame anyone. You're not
Speaker 2: a victim of your own story. And really, the more
Speaker 2: people you meet, everybody's had a thing like I am
Speaker 2: not a victim. But having said that, but I also
Speaker 2: know how to ask for and put myself in situations
Speaker 2: that work and make me feel good, and so those
Speaker 2: can go part and parcel well.
Speaker 1: I mean also because you've clearly became an advocate for yourself,
Speaker 1: really yeah, or maybe we're encouraged you as well by
Speaker 1: your coach, like nobody can advocate for you better than you.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think a lot of people want
Speaker 1: to be told what to do, and I mean that
Speaker 1: in the nicest way. Like I set up an art
Speaker 1: thing with a boyfriend when I was like nineteen, and
Speaker 1: the art piece was just the folding table in Portobello
Speaker 1: Market in London, and we just had a tent card
Speaker 1: that said advice. We just put up a chair and
Speaker 1: then we sat on two chairs and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm nineteen. I barely know how to tie my shoelaces.
Speaker 1: I was like, how am I going to answer any questions?
Speaker 1: And he was like, you just do the best you can,
Speaker 1: because really most people want you to listen and offer
Speaker 1: a little bit of advice. And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Like we answer questions on infidelity and the people's mortgage rates,
Speaker 1: whether or not they should move in with someone. It
Speaker 1: was crazy. People really want someone else to tell them
Speaker 1: what to do. So I think those moments of being
Speaker 1: able to believe that you are your own advocate and
Speaker 1: that you actually can give yourself good advice, I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty rare, gabby to be able to do that,
Speaker 1: and kind of amazing to have cultivated that.
Speaker 2: But you have to question yourself also at every moment. Again,
Speaker 2: there lies another duality, which is if you're going to
Speaker 2: be a good steward of your story, you better pay
Speaker 2: attention and not think you're right. So it's this weird
Speaker 2: fine line of leaning into this is the way to
Speaker 2: go and keep paying attention keep questioning yourself, where is
Speaker 2: this decision coming from? So I think it's also staying
Speaker 2: awake the whole time. So you are steering the ship
Speaker 2: at least hopefully more times than not, towards the light
Speaker 2: or the right direction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to be aware of what it is to be
Speaker 1: the captain of your ship. Yeah, what relationship, real or fictionalized,
Speaker 1: defines love for you?
Speaker 2: That's an interesting question. I know this is probably not great.
Speaker 2: I like to be surprised, but I don't want to
Speaker 2: be surprised, so like I'm great with oh I didn't
Speaker 2: see that coming, but I always sort of feel like
Speaker 2: with love for me, and I really hope to be
Speaker 2: this for somebody. Is I'm not really gonna surprise you.
Speaker 2: It's not going to be like oh I thought she
Speaker 2: was this, but.
Speaker 1: Wow, she's that un steadiness yes, but not fixed right
Speaker 1: and with allowance and movements.
Speaker 2: So it's sort of like this big bubble that kind
Speaker 2: of bounces around and it won't break, but it can
Speaker 2: kind of motion bend, But the inside of it is
Speaker 2: there's something sort of like there's sort of a volume
Speaker 2: that you understand and know. It's not a lot more
Speaker 2: or less. So I try to be that and really
Speaker 2: I don't need for it to be great or perfect
Speaker 2: and I'm not looking for someone to save me. And
Speaker 2: you're not gonna tell me anything where I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: like ooh, that's bad. Just be congruent and I'm cool
Speaker 2: with it. And I really want to be that and no, no,
Speaker 2: tit for tat and one for one. If I do it,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do it because I want you and
Speaker 2: you owe me nothing. And if you do that for
Speaker 2: me too, I would hope that that's the same.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's very stoic. I really like that. It speaks
Speaker 1: to like proper ancient stoicism, that notion of I will
Speaker 1: do what I say. I will say what I do,
Speaker 1: and that's what you can expect from me, and that
Speaker 1: is what I would most appreciate from you. Would you
Speaker 1: say that's probably having very clear boundaries around what it
Speaker 1: is that you your expectation of a person or the
Speaker 1: expectation of yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I'm much harder on myself than I
Speaker 2: am on others. I think that I have learned, especially
Speaker 2: through parenting and being in a long relationship. I can
Speaker 2: barely control myself. But that's going to be the person
Speaker 2: I'm the hardest on and I'm not going to be
Speaker 2: that hard on you. That's on you, but just show
Speaker 2: me the truth. Tell me the truth. And also I'm
Speaker 2: going to keep moving. So the hope would be if
Speaker 2: we're going to be in this relationship, whatever relationship that is,
Speaker 2: with the exception of my children, you want to have
Speaker 2: forward motion in your own version, and then we will
Speaker 2: know each other. I'm not going to hang back because
Speaker 2: I can't. Right, So, even if you're a movement side
Speaker 2: to side or up and down, it's cool. That is
Speaker 2: sort of like maybe we'll meet kind of thing. I
Speaker 2: always tell my girlfriends it's perfectly healthy to ask yourself,
Speaker 2: what do I get from this relationship, even if it's Hey,
Speaker 2: Minnie is really bright and I like the way she
Speaker 2: lives her life and with Laird, obviously, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: to show up in service, but you can bet I
Speaker 2: do some inventory being like, also when am I getting
Speaker 2: because otherwise I don't know that that's honest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, I do. I agree in that inventory particularly,
Speaker 1: and I think that that does really help to find
Speaker 1: love for me as well, is that everybody is sort
Speaker 1: of taking responsibility for their own personal inventory within a relationship.
Speaker 2: My kids are the only ones. Like I always say,
Speaker 2: there's only one group that I never go like, what
Speaker 2: am I getting out of this? It's like, I'm your mom,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be your mom. I'm going to be here.
Speaker 1: In your life. Can you tell me about something that
Speaker 1: has grown out of a personal disaster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of my daughters went through something when she
Speaker 2: was thirteen. It's like the stuff you hope never occurs,
Speaker 2: and you think, I'm going to have a peaceful house,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be there, and sometimes you realize your
Speaker 2: kids have a journey. And I really got flipped upside
Speaker 2: down on it. You think, are we going to get
Speaker 2: through this? Is she going to get through this? And
Speaker 2: what came out of that was a real opportunity not
Speaker 2: only for her and I to grow closer together, but
Speaker 2: for me to change as a person, which was so
Speaker 2: wildly uncomfortable. I mean, I wasn't that young. I was
Speaker 2: in my forties. Anything could happen to me, and it
Speaker 2: was not great. Even as a young kid. For me,
Speaker 2: the hardest would be when something happens to one of
Speaker 2: your kids. And so I could say that that certainly
Speaker 2: was not only a wake up call, but I have
Speaker 2: the opportunity to be a better or different person from
Speaker 2: something that was excrucinatingly painful for her and for me.
Speaker 1: And were you conscious of taking those things that you
Speaker 1: learned with you on and did she also do you
Speaker 1: feel like take those lessons on with her?
Speaker 2: She absolutely did what I have learned as a parent,
Speaker 2: and I know you can. Really you're not really telling
Speaker 2: them anything, you're modeling. Nobody really tells you. We go
Speaker 2: like this, oh okay, and we do exactly what we think.
Speaker 2: That's what we do. And my girls are strong willed, imagine.
Speaker 2: So I thought, I'm uncomfortable and I resent the fact
Speaker 2: that I'm having to make a change because the tendency
Speaker 2: is to be like, hey, I'm going to drop my
Speaker 2: kid off, fix them, and I'll pick them back up
Speaker 2: when they're fixed. And it's like yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: the whole group gets to make a change. I think
Speaker 2: your kids really appreciate that you go, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I'm fumbling through, but I'm going to try. That is
Speaker 2: powerful for them. Not that you weren't.
Speaker 1: Perfect, absolutely, not that you weren't perfect exactly, and amazing
Speaker 1: to see that behavior like that will always be with
Speaker 1: not only her, but I think probably with everyone else
Speaker 1: in your family of going we went through this thing
Speaker 1: and now we are on the other side of that,
Speaker 1: and this is how it shaped us. And I think
Speaker 1: it's amazing to be able to look back positively on
Speaker 1: things that were extraordinarily hard.
Speaker 2: I remember clear as day going up into the bathroom
Speaker 2: in my bedroom and I literally stood six inches from
Speaker 2: the mirror and looked into one of my eyeballs and
Speaker 2: I was like, you're gonna have to keep your shit
Speaker 2: together right now, because the impulse was to go, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, like I'm gonna follow apart and it was like, oh, yeah, no.
Speaker 2: And I had a friend say to me, and I
Speaker 2: know people can relate to this. We all get our
Speaker 2: turn and our time in the chamber, and sometimes we're
Speaker 2: gonna have to be there longer than when we want cool.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh shit, And that's the thing.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we can't just fix it and solve it right you.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have to go all the way through it
Speaker 2: and we think we're out of it and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden you get pulled back in. So just
Speaker 2: if anyone is going through anything like that, just keep
Speaker 2: asking for the answers, and remember this, whatever we're going through,
Speaker 2: if everyone's here, like you know, Layedi says, if there's
Speaker 2: air going in and out of the nose in the face,
Speaker 2: we can work it all out. Whatever it is, we
Speaker 2: can work it out.
Speaker 1: And on that brilliant note, I just l's philosophy is
Speaker 1: their going in and out of the pace. It's not over.
Speaker 1: It's true.
Speaker 2: My oldest daughter, who is almost twenty nine, was like
Speaker 2: going through something at nineteen and he's like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: just make it to twenty five. And I thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's amazing, it's really amazing. Is she ready twenty nine?
Speaker 2: I don't think you know that one. You know the
Speaker 2: middle who's twenty and.
Speaker 1: Okay, I didn't know you had an older daughter.
Speaker 2: Laird came with a He came with a four month old.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: So I became a step parent at twenty five. But see,
Speaker 2: my experience with living with my aunt Or and uncle
Speaker 2: Joe when I was little reminded me that love is love,
Speaker 2: and so I didn't have to be her mom to
Speaker 2: be another source of love, so that I had that
Speaker 2: lesson early.
Speaker 1: That's exactly how it is for my son and my partner.
Speaker 1: His name's Addison, and he we call him Daddison. They
Speaker 1: have their own separate relationship that is amazing and a
Speaker 1: source of great joy. It's funny that the notion of
Speaker 1: convention can keep us shackled to things having to look
Speaker 1: a certain way. And I think clearly empirically, so in
Speaker 1: your own life, things didn't look the way that the
Speaker 1: in quote should have looked. But you grew and you
Speaker 1: got some incredible thing from those people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you don't get on each other's genetic nerves.
Speaker 2: Imagine that. Yeah, my daughter is so much like me.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god. So there's so many bonuses.
Speaker 1: Oh, Gaby, thank you so much with all my heart.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Mini Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Speaker 1: Executive produced by me and Aaron Kaufman, with production support
Speaker 1: from Jennifer Bassett, Zoey Denkler, and Ali Perry. That theme
Speaker 1: music is also by Me and additional music by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Addison, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella,
Speaker 1: Anick Oppenheim, a, Nick Muller, and Annette Wolfe, a w kPr,
Speaker 1: Will Pearson, Nikki Ittor Morgan Lavoy and mangesh A ticke
Speaker 1: Adore