Latest / Why Not Today? with Leslie Kane / The Why Not Today? Podcast - Season 2 - Episode 23 with Laura Carney, "My Father's List"

Transcript

The Why Not Today? Podcast - Season 2 - Episode 23 with Laura Carney, "My Father's List" · Why Not Today? with Leslie Kane

• 0:00
  Hello, my name is Leslie Cain.
• 0:03
  I am the host of the Why Not Today podcast.
• 0:05
  This is a podcast to celebrate people who have been courageous and said, Why Not Today?
• 0:10
  I started this podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Cain, who often said, Why Not Today?
• 0:14
  I'm based in Reston, Virginia, a planned community right outside of Washington, D.C., and thanks
• 0:18
  for joining us today.
• 0:20
  So my guests today, and I always say I'm excited about my guests, but I am really excited about
• 0:23
  this guest, is Laura Carney, because I did not know her at all.
• 0:28
  And I always talk about how we connected, how we met people.
• 0:30
  And I happened to be in Asheville, North Carolina, on Father's Day for a good friend's birthday
• 0:36
  party.
• 0:37
  And CBS This Morning came on.
• 0:39
  My friend had the TV on.
• 0:40
  I don't ever watch CBS This Morning.
• 0:42
  And it had a story about Laura and her book, which I've got right here.
• 0:46
  It's called My Father's List.
• 0:48
  And I'm going to let her talk all about it.
• 0:50
  But basically, her father died unexpectedly, very young.
• 0:55
  And she found his bucket list and started doing it.
• 0:59
  And it just spoke to me.
• 1:00
  I read it from cover to cover.
• 1:02
  So many coincidences and connections.
• 1:04
  Like the first chapter was Swim Across the River.
• 1:08
  And she swam across the French Broad River, which I was in Asheville reading the book.
• 1:13
  And just in our conversation just now, we already came up with a gazillion other connections,
• 1:18
  but just so many different connections.
• 1:20
  And so I read the book this summer.
• 1:23
  And then I reached out to her, I connected with you, Laura, on social media and was kind
• 1:28
  of stalking you, watching you.
• 1:29
  And just one night out of a whim, I'm like, would you be a guest of my podcast?
• 1:33
  And you said, yes.
• 1:34
  I'm like, yeah, I'm so excited to hear about you, your book, your courage.
• 1:39
  I have, I mentioned, been reading the book again and kind of in different eyes because
• 1:44
  I lost a close friend this summer, very unexpectedly, kind of like your dad.
• 1:48
  And so reading it a different way.
• 1:50
  And it just talks.
• 1:51
  I pulled it out last night, some of my highlights.
• 1:53
  And it talks a lot about bravery and courage and doing the things and living your life.
• 1:59
  And that's really what the Why Not Today podcast is about and the theme is, we got to live
• 2:03
  our life and say why not today and do the little things.
• 2:05
  And I think you did that a lot with the bucket list.
• 2:08
  So I'm really excited to have you on.
• 2:09
  So Laura, why don't you quickly introduce yourself, a little background of you and a
• 2:14
  fun fact about you.
• 2:15
  And then we'll talk about courage in the book.
• 2:17
  That is quite an introduction.
• 2:19
  I don't know if I know how to follow that.
• 2:22
  Thank you so much.
• 2:23
  I love hearing those stories about somebody, you know, being somewhere on Father's Day
• 2:27
  and watching that, that interview and just thinking about what, just the connections
• 2:34
  that were happening all over the place, you know, all over the world.
• 2:37
  And Father's Day, I lost my father 10 years, would be 11 years in March.
• 2:41
  And Father's Day is probably the hardest holiday because, you know, Christmas, you've got all
• 2:48
  these other things going on, but Father's Day is all about your dad.
• 2:52
  You know, everybody's dad and their cellar and I purposely hope the day goes by quickly
• 2:56
  and stay off social media because I don't want to see all the pictures of everybody's
• 3:01
  dads and doing it.
• 3:02
  It's a hard day.
• 3:03
  So having you on TV and talking about the book and things, it was just so, made it a happy
• 3:10
  day.
• 3:11
  Oh, good.
• 3:12
  I'm so glad.
• 3:13
  Yeah.
• 3:14
  I know that that's true for a lot of people.
• 3:15
  And that even, you know, it's funny that that interview wasn't even originally supposed
• 3:20
  to air on Father's Day.
• 3:21
  It was supposed to be the week before and then Tina Turner passed away.
• 3:25
  And so it got pushed.
• 3:26
  And everyone was like, oh, why was this, why wasn't this scheduled for Father's Day?
• 3:30
  Like that's perfect.
• 3:31
  Yeah.
• 3:32
  I mean, that's just that, that was the nature of my project, I think too, that, you know,
• 3:38
  I set out to do this bucket list that had 54 unchecked items on it.
• 3:43
  My dad had written down 60 of them and he wrote it when he was 29.
• 3:47
  I'm told soon after I was born, but I don't know quite when.
• 3:51
  I think he probably added new things throughout the year of 1978.
• 3:56
  And my mom knew about it, but nobody else knew about it.
• 4:01
  And I've since learned, since my book came out, I was actually at my book launch.
• 4:07
  The man who interviewed me on CBS Sunday morning, Jim Axelrod, he lives right here in my town
• 4:11
  in Montclair.
• 4:12
  And he was the person who helped me, who helped interview me in the bookstore from my book
• 4:17
  launch.
• 4:18
  And he asked me where the list was that whole time.
• 4:21
  And other than in a box in my brother's house, I really didn't know.
• 4:26
  And my mom told me later that night, oh, didn't you know they found it on your father when
• 4:30
  he died?
• 4:31
  Oh, wow.
• 4:32
  So that made me think, oh my gosh, he probably carried this in his wallet.
• 4:37
  He probably had it with him.
• 4:39
  Every time I was with him, you know.
• 4:42
  For the 25 years, I knew him.
• 4:45
  So that's-
• 4:46
  All right, so we're going too far forward.
• 4:47
  We should start with-
• 4:48
  Oh, yeah, that's okay.
• 4:49
  We're going to- this is going to be a fun interview.
• 4:52
  But let's talk about this.
• 4:53
  Tell us who you are.
• 4:54
  Oh, sure.
• 4:55
  Well, I'm a journalist.
• 4:56
  I've got the book and who you are.
• 4:57
  Yeah, I'm a journalist.
• 4:58
  Fun fact.
• 4:59
  I'm just outside New York.
• 5:01
  I'm a copy editor.
• 5:03
  So that means most of my work, when I'm not writing, most of my work involves, you know,
• 5:07
  fixing spelling, grammatical mistakes, punctuation.
• 5:10
  I fix other people's writing.
• 5:12
  A fun fact about me.
• 5:14
  Oh my gosh.
• 5:18
  I'm double-jointed.
• 5:19
  Okay.
• 5:20
  That's a cool fact.
• 5:21
  You know, all my fingers can- and I can do it twice.
• 5:25
  It's really weird.
• 5:26
  Oh, wow.
• 5:27
  That is cool.
• 5:28
  My youngest sister has Down syndrome and her fingers go back, like totally-
• 5:32
  Oh, okay.
• 5:33
  When she was a little kid, we'd always bend them back.
• 5:36
  I bet she loved that.
• 5:38
  Yeah.
• 5:39
  I fix one of the kids.
• 5:42
  So okay.
• 5:43
  So before we talk about the book and all the things you did with the bucket list and how
• 5:46
  it came about, what does courage mean to you, Laura?
• 5:50
  I read this quote a few years ago from Renee Brown.
• 5:54
  And she said that- Right, wow.
• 5:55
  Courage is a heart word.
• 5:57
  And I thought that was really fascinating because of course, you know, I'm a big logo
• 6:01
  file, big word lover being a copy editor.
• 6:04
  And that really struck me that the root of courage is COUR, which means heart in Latin.
• 6:11
  And you know, to me, having courage means you're choosing to listen to what your heart
• 6:17
  wants you to do instead of your head.
• 6:20
  Love that.
• 6:21
  That's probably one of my favorite.
• 6:22
  I love Renee Brown as well.
• 6:23
  Follow her and another coincidence connection is I'm definitely a word girl.
• 6:28
  I've got them all over my house, even on my-
• 6:30
  All right.
• 6:31
  So let's get to the book.
• 6:34
  So your dad had a bucket list.
• 6:35
  So how'd you find it?
• 6:38
  And he passed away, was he 54?
• 6:40
  Yeah, he was 54.
• 6:42
  It was because of a distracted driver.
• 6:44
  I was a teenager who was lost and made a phone call at a red light.
• 6:50
  And then, you know, back then nobody really knew yet, even though the research existed,
• 6:56
  it wasn't out anywhere yet.
• 6:58
  And I tried to cover this in the book as broadly as I could, which, you know, I didn't know
• 7:04
  either.
• 7:05
  But, you know, it turns out there are certain things you can do while you're driving that
• 7:08
  are really just, they refer to it as too much of a load.
• 7:12
  You know, it's too much of a cognitive load.
• 7:14
  And, you know, when phones became ubiquitous, it just became a thing most people started
• 7:19
  doing.
• 7:20
  We didn't really know.
• 7:21
  We couldn't just plop right in the driver's seat and just continue having our conversation.
• 7:24
  I've been watching the Gilmore Girls for the first time and I can't believe how many people
• 7:29
  like just hop into a car and are holding onto their phone.
• 7:32
  And it looks so strange now because most people use Bluetooth or hands-free these days.
• 7:37
  But the thing that really surprised me when I was in, I started being invited to these
• 7:43
  seminars on safe driving and becoming an activist in that around the time I was about to get
• 7:49
  married.
• 7:50
  And that too was a coincidence.
• 7:52
  It just was because of an article about it that came across my desk one day at Good Housekeeping
• 7:56
  where I was working because I didn't know what distracted driving was.
• 7:59
  But the thing that really surprised me was that it's really not about where your hand
• 8:04
  is.
• 8:05
  It's just that like having a conversation with someone who isn't there, it just is too
• 8:09
  much for your brain to also function like at full capacity.
• 8:15
  So it makes it so basically as you're driving, like let's say you're pulling up to a stop
• 8:19
  sign and something's sort of coming out, coming at you, like your response time is going to
• 8:24
  be slower.
• 8:26
  And it's purely because you're having a conversation with someone who isn't there.
• 8:29
  Like it's just that part of your brain can't do both things at once.
• 8:34
  And a lot of people don't know that and it creates a lot of problems in people's lives
• 8:38
  because they don't know it.
• 8:40
  And sometimes those problems are fatal.
• 8:43
  And I was meeting a lot of families who had mostly children who had died in these kinds
• 8:49
  of incidents.
• 8:52
  And one of the things they talked about a lot when I would go to these seminars was
• 8:56
  how do you tell your story?
• 8:58
  And I would sit there feeling like a dork because like that's what I do for a living.
• 9:03
  You know, I already knew how to tell a story.
• 9:06
  And I would almost be like silencing myself because I didn't want to sound, you know,
• 9:11
  like, oh, well, really, it should be like this.
• 9:13
  You know, like they had their way of teaching it.
• 9:15
  And then it sort of hit me one day.
• 9:18
  And this was, I think, pretty shortly before my wedding.
• 9:21
  And I was in Chicago at that seminar.
• 9:24
  It hit me that, oh, maybe there's a reason.
• 9:27
  You know, maybe this wasn't just random and meaningless that my dad died this way.
• 9:32
  You know, maybe there's a reason I was so, you know, I was so dead set on becoming a
• 9:38
  journalist after he died.
• 9:39
  Like I had just moved to New York for a college internship and I wouldn't give up on it.
• 9:45
  And maybe this, this type of thing was supposed to happen to a family where someone is a journalist
• 9:51
  and someone's a writer because I didn't know anybody else who was.
• 9:54
  And I thought sometimes it's like, I think you encounter a problem in your life.
• 9:59
  And it's like, if not me, who, you know, and you recognize you're the only person who
• 10:05
  actually has a chance.
• 10:06
  You know, like I felt like I had a 5% chance of writing a book about this.
• 10:11
  Yeah.
• 10:12
  And it's interesting how, you know, we think we're going, our life is going this way.
• 10:15
  And then it has the diversions and my dad has a perfect example of his life.
• 10:21
  And when he passed away, my brother's eulogy was talking about, he always had a plan A,
• 10:25
  B and C. He, the logo, the podcast is an eye patch and handlebar mustache.
• 10:32
  Because that's, that's, that was his logo because he had an eye patch and a handlebar
• 10:36
  mustache.
• 10:37
  And he got into a major car accident.
• 10:40
  He grew up in LA and he got in a car accident at the night of high, the graduation from
• 10:44
  high school.
• 10:45
  They were drinking too much and got in a major car accident and almost died.
• 10:50
  He was in the hospital, I think for six months or a long time, lost sight of his eye.
• 10:56
  And he was supposed to play football for USC.
• 10:58
  I'm pretty sure.
• 11:00
  And he couldn't because of the car accident.
• 11:02
  So this is a long time ago.
• 11:04
  Hey, he had a grandfather in Cleveland and his dad's like, why don't you go to Notre
• 11:09
  Dame?
• 11:10
  So they sent him on a train and he went by himself on a train to Notre Dame.
• 11:15
  And that's where he went to college.
• 11:16
  And my mom grew up in South Bend, which is where Notre Dame is.
• 11:19
  So, you know, just, you just never know where that path of life is going to take you or
• 11:24
  something so terrible turned out like here if it wasn't because of that.
• 11:29
  Yeah, if he had never gotten into that accident.
• 11:32
  Yeah, you know, and it's, you know, with losing fathers or losing, you know, your dad, the
• 11:37
  way you did my friend, the way it's like, okay, what can we do to honor their life?
• 11:40
  And I think you did a great job with that and make something really bad and something
• 11:44
  sad.
• 11:46
  Find something good out of it.
• 11:47
  Yeah, I don't think I even really knew how badly I needed to do that.
• 11:52
  When we first discovered the list that happened because my brother had just moved into his
• 11:56
  first house.
• 11:57
  I was kind of jealous of that honestly, because it's like, oh, he's, he's my younger brother
• 12:02
  and he's growing up faster than me, you know, because we were still in an apartment.
• 12:06
  And I thought, you know, I really need to be supportive and celebrate this.
• 12:10
  That's what my dad would do.
• 12:12
  And I went up there and my husband and I were celebrating that he had moved into his first
• 12:15
  condo that he had bought.
• 12:18
  And because it was with his fiance, who was really good at sort of like, you know, I call
• 12:23
  her like the anti-horter because she's really good at knowing like what should stay and
• 12:27
  what should go.
• 12:28
  Right.
• 12:29
  And she had found, she had found the list because my brother had in a box that whole
• 12:32
  time for 13 years and he had to open the box and she's like, what is this?
• 12:36
  So he knew that he needed to show it to me so we could figure out what to do with it.
• 12:41
  And when I first saw it, you know, I, like I said, I had been gotten, I had been getting
• 12:45
  involved in activism.
• 12:47
  So I thought, oh, this is great.
• 12:49
  Like this is a person's life, their dreams, you know, this is, of course my dad wanted
• 12:55
  to ride a horse fast or swim the width of a river and he was so poetic and he would,
• 12:59
  he would have written things that way.
• 13:01
  So as endearing it was, as it was for us to remember that about him, I thought, oh, this
• 13:07
  is the kind of story they keep trying to teach us.
• 13:10
  Like they're supposed to tell, like tell the person's story.
• 13:12
  And then that is how you change hearts, you know, because when you change hearts, that
• 13:17
  has an impact on how you change minds, I think.
• 13:20
  So that was my initial instinct that I knew I needed to at least try to do this because
• 13:24
  it would be activism.
• 13:26
  But it wasn't until I really got into the throes of pursuing this thing that it hit me
• 13:31
  what a big commitment this was, how challenging a lot of the items were going to be, and that
• 13:38
  this was something that really was just going to like, you know, turn me inside out, reach
• 13:43
  into my heart and heal all of the places that were still wounded from my dad's, my dad's
• 13:50
  death from the trauma of it, you know, from how shocking it was.
• 13:55
  And how many years ago?
• 13:57
  Did you guys?
• 13:58
  Well, it was 20 now, but when we found it had been 13.
• 14:03
  But that kind of traumas can stay with you.
• 14:05
  Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 14:06
  And I think because it was such a formative age with me being 25, that it just sort of
• 14:13
  made me bitter about life.
• 14:15
  I mean, I was a New Yorker, so maybe that was part of it.
• 14:18
  I don't know.
• 14:19
  But it was like this rude awakening of, oh, this is how life is, okay, you know, because
• 14:24
  most people are in their 20s and if they move to a place like New York, it's so exciting.
• 14:29
  And you sort of feel like you're on top of the world, you know, even though you might
• 14:34
  be broke and have no real real real like career prospects.
• 14:39
  And really, you're just having a pretty good time.
• 14:43
  But you know, I was unlike a lot of my peers in that I wasn't there just to have a good
• 14:47
  time.
• 14:48
  And it felt like I needed to make something of myself.
• 14:51
  And I got really focused on that for a while.
• 14:54
  Luckily, I met my husband that same summer, three months before my dad died, he did get
• 14:59
  to meet him once, and then he died a week later.
• 15:02
  So that was lucky.
• 15:05
  And you know, my husband was a very self made man.
• 15:08
  He had gone to art school for a year and then he just sort of started traveling.
• 15:12
  He went to Seattle.
• 15:14
  I think he lived in Richmond, Virginia at one point.
• 15:16
  He lived in Wilmington, North Carolina, wherever a friend was going, he was going to go with
• 15:22
  that friend basically and just take a chance.
• 15:25
  And he was very, you know, self educated.
• 15:30
  And he kind of taught me about what it means to be a lifelong student.
• 15:36
  You know, being someone who I find that people who don't have a traditional college education
• 15:42
  are like that a lot, you know, like they they kind of learned to fashion their education
• 15:46
  themselves.
• 15:47
  So they're always, you know, they're always thirsting for knowledge.
• 15:51
  They're always finding things to learn about what they're doing.
• 15:53
  And he's definitely that way.
• 15:55
  So that was great for me because it was helping me to think outside the box a little bit at
• 16:00
  a very young age.
• 16:02
  And I think probably if I hadn't met him when I did, you know, it's probably true that I
• 16:08
  wouldn't have said yes to a project like doing the list because it was so unusual.
• 16:12
  It was so nontraditional and one of the things, you know, that you know that I talk about
• 16:17
  a lot in the book is how I was so almost stifled by this, by these ideas I had about what my
• 16:24
  life was supposed to be, you know, I was really resisting it when I was starting to do these
• 16:29
  list items.
• 16:30
  Yeah, we, yeah, the think we're supposed to think we're in this box of life.
• 16:37
  And then it throws us that curveball and we get to do the different things.
• 16:42
  And you know, you just never know where it's going to turn out.
• 16:45
  Yeah, I mean, when you say why not today, it's like, I really did have to start thinking
• 16:50
  like that.
• 16:51
  I set up a deadline for myself with the list.
• 16:54
  I thought, okay, well, the first item says he wanted to live until the year 2020.
• 16:59
  So that's the year he's going to live until or at least that's the year that's when how
• 17:03
  far his dreams will live.
• 17:04
  So I thought that makes sense to me that I have four years to get all these items done.
• 17:09
  Of course, then that turned out to not happen either, because like I said, with the list,
• 17:14
  it's like up is down and down is up.
• 17:16
  So what you think it's going to be is always not quite what it's going to be.
• 17:20
  And then COVID happened.
• 17:21
  So then I had to add an extra two years to the project.
• 17:24
  Right.
• 17:25
  But, you know, I feel like 54 items in six years is still pretty good.
• 17:29
  That's pretty amazing.
• 17:30
  So what was your favorite?
• 17:31
  Is there a favorite?
• 17:32
  Oh, I have so many favorites for so many reasons.
• 17:37
  I like to say that, you know, there's one that I feel like is ongoing, which is make
• 17:43
  my husband feel happy, healthy, handsome and young every day of his life, which of course
• 17:48
  my dad had written for my mom.
• 17:50
  Right.
• 17:51
  You know, even just yesterday, I was thinking to myself, huh, is he feeling all those things
• 17:55
  right now?
• 17:56
  I don't know.
• 17:57
  Like am I slacking?
• 18:00
  And I think that's a really interesting idea because, you know, in my experience, people
• 18:06
  get married and they sort of start to forget how when they first met that person who they
• 18:13
  fell in love with, they just, oh, they really cared about was, oh, I just love making this
• 18:17
  person happy.
• 18:18
  You know, like I love seeing them smile and how you would just devote yourself selflessly
• 18:23
  to doing that.
• 18:25
  And then it's like you're with someone for a while and then it becomes a relationship
• 18:29
  and then it becomes just your life in a lot of ways.
• 18:32
  And then they're your family.
• 18:33
  And it's like, oh, well, this is my other half.
• 18:35
  But, you know, am I still, am I still working on that?
• 18:38
  Am I still trying to make them feel that way?
• 18:41
  And I think that's how you really keep the love alive and something.
• 18:44
  So that's that.
• 18:46
  That listening is a great gift for me.
• 18:48
  That's awesome.
• 18:49
  You know, and then what else?
• 18:53
  I've kind of the opposite of that one, but I guess not really because I think it shows
• 18:57
  the strength of my marriage.
• 18:58
  I was able to even do this, but is visit Vienna because I ended up doing that by myself for
• 19:04
  two weeks.
• 19:05
  And, you know, we just couldn't afford for both of us to do it.
• 19:09
  And my husband was super jealous, but he also was very supportive.
• 19:13
  And it felt like he was there because I was calling him every day and every night, you
• 19:17
  know, but that was just, I sometimes feel like the whole list.
• 19:24
  And I hope this comes across in the book too.
• 19:27
  The whole thing was leading to that, you know, the whole adventure, all of these different
• 19:33
  diverse items I'm doing, they're all preparing me for those two weeks.
• 19:39
  Because if I had tried to do it in year one, I couldn't have done it.
• 19:42
  You know, like I even now think when I was trying to check off, own a $200 suit, which,
• 19:49
  you know, in my, in my, you know, hair brain schemes can end up becoming a triathlon suit
• 19:55
  because that's an easy $200 suit.
• 19:59
  You know, just learn how to be a triathlete.
• 20:01
  No problem.
• 20:02
  And now I feel like, well, maybe all of that time that I spent out there in the cold, you
• 20:09
  know, cycling 20 miles at that one night or, you know, running down to the YMCA and then
• 20:14
  swimming, you know, for an hour and then running back home.
• 20:18
  Like that's really, you know, you have to do that several times a week if you're training
• 20:21
  for these half Ironman races like I was.
• 20:25
  And I did it during the pandemic because I sort of had more time and I was trying to
• 20:29
  fill it.
• 20:30
  So now I feel like what I was actually doing when I was out there training for those races
• 20:36
  was getting really good at being by myself, getting to a point where my brain became accustomed
• 20:42
  to it.
• 20:43
  And then that way when I went to Vienna, it was just like, Oh, this is not, this is not
• 20:48
  a big deal.
• 20:49
  You know, like being alone is, I think I referred to myself as my own best friend in the book.
• 20:54
  And that was something, you know, for someone like me who was diagnosed with depression
• 20:58
  at a young age and was taught, you know, like don't be, I mean, no one came out and said
• 21:02
  this, but this was the impression I had, like don't be alone too much because you can't
• 21:07
  trust your own thoughts and you'll get really lonely and down.
• 21:11
  Like I really felt that way as a very young person.
• 21:14
  So to now be someone at 44, I'm 45 now, but I was 44 then, you know, who's, who's choosing
• 21:21
  to be alone and embraces it and loves it.
• 21:24
  It's like, that was a revelation for me.
• 21:26
  Yeah, that's awesome.
• 21:28
  Yeah.
• 21:29
  And when I was talking to a friend about that this morning, we were talking about depression
• 21:32
  and addiction and the loneliness and how it's, you know, people that are depressed, they
• 21:38
  go in and spend time alone and, you know, we need to,
• 21:41
  Yeah, but not in a good way.
• 21:42
  No, not in a good way.
• 21:44
  Exactly.
• 21:45
  No, true.
• 21:46
  And so yeah, the loneliness and so I'm single and never been married and traveled corporate
• 21:52
  America for years and did lots of things, lived by myself.
• 21:55
  And I remember the first time I was supposed to go to the beach with a friend and she backed
• 21:58
  out and I'm like, you know what, I can go by myself.
• 22:01
  Like I live by myself.
• 22:03
  I travel by myself for business.
• 22:04
  Why can't I go?
• 22:06
  And I had the best time.
• 22:07
  Like I had ice cream for dinner and read a book on a gazebo and I had nobody else's agenda.
• 22:12
  So it is kind of a fun adventure to do things on that.
• 22:15
  I mean, if you can't enjoy your company, who else is going to enjoy it?
• 22:18
  Exactly.
• 22:19
  And the other thing, and now I think that it did, that it did for me once I got really
• 22:22
  good.
• 22:23
  I remember being a person who when I was a teenager, the only thing I ever did alone
• 22:26
  was go to the mall.
• 22:27
  I remember even doing that in Delaware and thinking, oh God, why don't I have any friends
• 22:32
  who can go to the mall with me today?
• 22:33
  Because, you know, I was very popular in high school.
• 22:37
  But you know, now I think because I pursue things in my life like these triathlons and
• 22:46
  travel and things like that alone sometimes, and I actually really enjoy it, it has become
• 22:52
  a defense against my depression, which is a lifelong condition.
• 22:55
  You know, I take medication for it, I see a therapist, but it's something I'm always
• 22:59
  going to have.
• 23:01
  And I think now if I get into, if something's triggered for me or if I'm getting into an
• 23:07
  episode of it, I come out of it a lot faster.
• 23:11
  And the reason for that is I've gotten really good at talking to myself in my head.
• 23:15
  You know, I've gotten good at, you know, say, like just stopping the thoughts and saying
• 23:19
  to myself, okay, you know, what's going on here, Laura?
• 23:23
  Like, what are you really thinking?
• 23:24
  What's, let's put this into words.
• 23:26
  What's really bothering you.
• 23:28
  And that's what that comes from.
• 23:29
  It comes from being in Vienna, walking down the street and sometimes just saying something
• 23:34
  out loud that I was thinking if I saw something completely awe-inspiring and realizing, well,
• 23:39
  this is weird, this crazy lady's walking down the street and said something to herself.
• 23:43
  But then I thought, well, I'm speaking English and most people here don't even speak that
• 23:46
  so it's okay.
• 23:47
  And half the time people have earbuds in and they're talking to somebody, but yeah, I
• 23:52
  think getting into the practice of talking to yourself preferably in your inside head,
• 23:58
  not outside, is really healthy.
• 24:01
  It's really good because you're the one who has to take care of you, you know.
• 24:05
  Saying the good things to yourself though.
• 24:09
  So in writing the book and doing the bucket list, because you said you do suffer from
• 24:13
  depression, has it helped with that part of your life?
• 24:17
  Has it helped you be more creative?
• 24:18
  How has it changed you?
• 24:21
  It changed the way I looked at myself almost completely.
• 24:25
  And you know, my mom hates this part because I have such an incredible mother, you know,
• 24:31
  and she did, she was a guidance counselor for God's sake.
• 24:35
  She did such a great job at helping me to be emotionally intelligent and express myself
• 24:41
  and be my real self, you know.
• 24:44
  But when you have depression, it just, it distorts your thoughts.
• 24:50
  It changes the way and especially if you're being treated for it as a kid, I think, because
• 24:54
  I was seeing all these therapists at a very young age.
• 24:58
  And you're old enough that that was not, I mean, luckily it's more accepted now, but
• 25:05
  then absolutely not.
• 25:06
  Yeah, it was not common.
• 25:08
  And, you know, I felt like I felt very othered because of it.
• 25:13
  I remember having to like quit certain activities in school like basketball or AP English marching
• 25:20
  band because these doctors were telling me, you know, this is too much stress for you.
• 25:25
  And you really like you're going to have a life where you can't do much, like you can't
• 25:29
  stress yourself out too much, you know, you can't, like you need to be aware of your limits
• 25:33
  here because you're not like other people.
• 25:36
  And you have a, I remember one time someone saying, you have a disease, you know, like
• 25:40
  just so, so, so dramatic.
• 25:43
  And to tell a 23 year old that is just like, oh God, you know, like I'm doomed.
• 25:50
  And, you know, I can laugh about it now, but it really wasn't very funny for me at the time.
• 25:55
  And I was on a lot of different medications and we really were just, we're trying to find
• 26:00
  the answer for why it was that I just couldn't get out of bed sometimes.
• 26:03
  And, you know, I had formed ideas about who I was just based on how I grew up.
• 26:12
  And you know, I had a bit of a sheltered existence in the suburbs in Delaware, which, you know,
• 26:16
  a lot of suburban kids had.
• 26:19
  And I had a really lovely childhood, you know, it was really nice.
• 26:24
  Really I got to keep my innocence, I think in a lot of ways that some kids don't get
• 26:28
  to.
• 26:29
  And my mom and dad orchestrated that very, very carefully.
• 26:32
  So I know how fortunate I am.
• 26:35
  But I think there was just something for me about being sort of an intellectual and then
• 26:44
  also becoming a woman that didn't pair very well.
• 26:47
  And that's why the way I described it in the book was it was when I was reading Betty
• 26:52
  for Dan's The Feminine Mystique That My Brain Broke, basically, because it was like, what?
• 26:58
  Wait, as women, like we got the vote and then we were sent back to our homes, like what
• 27:03
  is this history, you know, like this doesn't make any sense to me.
• 27:08
  And I just couldn't, I couldn't piece it together.
• 27:13
  Like what kind of life am I going to live if, if, you know, the greatest accomplishments
• 27:19
  I'll ever have are being married and having kids, you know, if that's really what American
• 27:24
  society sort of expects from me.
• 27:27
  And it just, I think something in the core of my being, it just didn't match very well
• 27:33
  with what I was supposed to do.
• 27:37
  And I think that was what it was.
• 27:38
  At some point I really got into like an existential depression that took me many years to navigate.
• 27:45
  But you know, like you were saying, everything happens for a reason.
• 27:48
  And if I hadn't had that experience of navigating depression and seeing all these doctors and,
• 27:55
  you know, getting to a point where I actually had to go to a hospital after my college graduation,
• 28:00
  because I'd been put on way too many of those antidepressants, I would never have moved
• 28:05
  to New York.
• 28:06
  I would never have really taken the plunge with magazines.
• 28:09
  I wouldn't have met my husband who lived across the country.
• 28:13
  I met him online.
• 28:14
  You know, I wouldn't have been prepared for when my dad died suddenly and I had to make
• 28:20
  a choice.
• 28:21
  Do I go back home to Delaware or do I keep sticking this out?
• 28:24
  I don't think I would have had the courage to stick it out if I hadn't been in that hospital
• 28:29
  the year before.
• 28:30
  Because what that taught me was, well, you know, I think in general people have this
• 28:36
  fear of they don't want to lose control.
• 28:40
  You know, like they don't want to be the person who has just had a nervous breakdown and now
• 28:45
  they're being carted off to a hospital or something.
• 28:48
  You know, like it's a real, what's the right word for it?
• 28:53
  Even pride, you know, it's like you don't want to be seen that way by other people.
• 28:58
  So there's a real effort, I think, that people make in their lives of just let's keep it
• 29:02
  all together, you know, like let's keep my emotions in check.
• 29:07
  And the thing is, like that's not really being alive.
• 29:09
  No.
• 29:10
  Like if you're always trying to maintain something and hide something, what's the point?
• 29:16
  Are you even enjoying your life?
• 29:18
  And I got to have this incredible blessing, which I feel like it would surprise my mom
• 29:23
  to hear me describe it this way because it's still a, it's a painful thing for her that
• 29:27
  this happened.
• 29:28
  But I got to have this incredible blessing of being in that hospital in Johns Hopkins
• 29:32
  for a week and seeing, oh, okay, now I've done this thing that everybody's afraid will
• 29:38
  happen to them.
• 29:39
  So there's nothing left.
• 29:40
  There's nothing left for me to be afraid of.
• 29:42
  And like the world is my oyster now.
• 29:44
  That's awesome.
• 29:45
  And it is those things that happen to us and how we react to them, you know, and, you know,
• 29:52
  you could have hidden from it and that could have been your identity.
• 29:55
  Well, and I did, I did hide it for 13 years.
• 29:59
  I mean, that's the thing, you know, part of why I wrote about my dad's secret life in
• 30:04
  the book is because I realized how much I identified with that.
• 30:09
  And here I was 35 years old or 38 years old, finding this bucket list, starting to embark
• 30:15
  on his dreams that he didn't get to and recognizing, oh my God, I've become him.
• 30:21
  Like here I've, here I've made all these efforts to be, you know, responsible and steady and
• 30:27
  not be this like adventurous dreamer the way that he was, or at least like to limit
• 30:31
  it, you know, to have a creative life, but also feel kind of successful with it.
• 30:37
  I'd really made these efforts to do that.
• 30:39
  And I think sometimes when we resist becoming our parents, we still become them anyway.
• 30:43
  And I had become him in the fact that I had these secrets, you know, I had the hospital
• 30:48
  I had even my dad's death by then had become like a secret to me because really I was at
• 30:54
  a point where anything that felt vulnerable to me or, or othering or different, I would
• 30:59
  just hide from people because all I wanted was to be accepted and like celebrated for,
• 31:05
  you know, not my accomplishments, but seen as someone who mattered.
• 31:09
  I think most people feel that way.
• 31:10
  Oh, absolutely.
• 31:11
  I, I, the weirdest part is now I'm living this life where people treat me like things
• 31:16
  I'm doing matter.
• 31:18
  And after being on CBS Sunday morning and having this book out and whatever else, and
• 31:22
  that stuff had started happening for me when I stopped caring about it, you know, like
• 31:28
  I was too busy doing my thing.
• 31:30
  Like I don't care if people think of me anymore.
• 31:32
  So you're passionate about your self about what you're doing and you're living in alignment
• 31:37
  with your values.
• 31:38
  Somebody said that to me the other day.
• 31:39
  Oh yeah.
• 31:40
  And that's really important.
• 31:41
  And that, that resonates with people.
• 31:46
  There's an energy to it that I think that people give off when they're a person who's
• 31:49
  doing that.
• 31:50
  Yeah.
• 31:51
  And like you said, you've never looked for a job.
• 31:52
  It all came to you.
• 31:53
  And since I've never looked for a job in my life.
• 31:58
  And, you know, it all just kind of got handed to me.
• 32:02
  And you know, it's who you knew, the connections and just it's being open to what's there.
• 32:08
  And so many people just have their life closed off and I've talked about this loss with the
• 32:12
  podcast.
• 32:13
  It's there's a author Daniel Pink.
• 32:15
  I don't know if you're aware of that.
• 32:16
  Oh yeah.
• 32:17
  Yeah.
• 32:18
  I've heard of him.
• 32:19
  He actually lives close to this.
• 32:20
  He's my, he's my big scary person interview.
• 32:23
  One day he will be on this podcast.
• 32:25
  Oh, do it.
• 32:26
  I've asked once, but he didn't respond.
• 32:28
  I want to keep asking.
• 32:30
  But he wrote a book about regrets, right?
• 32:32
  About when I started this podcast and he said, we never regret the things that we do.
• 32:37
  We often regret the things.
• 32:39
  No, yeah, we never regret the things we do.
• 32:43
  And so like we got to do those things.
• 32:45
  And that's kind of the message here is step out of your comfort zone.
• 32:49
  Do those things.
• 32:50
  Don't stay in that box.
• 32:51
  And I think that's where my dad's legacy is, is he was definitely a big thinker and crazy
• 32:57
  thinker and way ahead of his time thinker.
• 33:01
  He had had a major stroke in 2000 and pretty much was comatose for months.
• 33:07
  People's like, oh, he'll never walk.
• 33:08
  And he actually lived 13 years after he had the stroke before he passed away.
• 33:14
  But they were bringing a Metro and from DC to Northern Virginia.
• 33:19
  And that was in the works for years and years.
• 33:20
  And my dad's like, there's going to be intellectual property going over the toll road and all
• 33:25
  this stuff happening.
• 33:26
  And he would be talking about this in the hospital and like, oh, he's still not together.
• 33:30
  Well, things are coming to fruition.
• 33:33
  You know, crazy things.
• 33:34
  He thought outside the box.
• 33:36
  He was, and he made you think he made, he asked questions.
• 33:40
  I had several friends say that they had more conversations with my father than their own
• 33:45
  father their entire life.
• 33:48
  And you know, people would come to visit, you know, friends would come to go out or
• 33:52
  do something.
• 33:53
  And he would be like, hey, Laura, grab that bag of mulch and spread it or pick up those
• 33:57
  leaves and they do it.
• 33:58
  I'm like, what are you doing?
• 34:00
  But he just had that positive attitude and, you know, good things were coming.
• 34:07
  And I just feel, yeah, there's so many connections between you and your dad.
• 34:13
  Yeah, just the positive attitude.
• 34:16
  And I think you mentioned earlier, just having your dad with you.
• 34:19
  And so I told you, my dad had the logo.
• 34:22
  So we all got tattoos with his logo.
• 34:26
  I love that.
• 34:28
  Like before he passed away, we got him.
• 34:32
  But my siblings have him, my nieces, some of my nieces and nephews.
• 34:36
  But you know, I just feel like if I have a hard thing or a question, he's right here.
• 34:40
  And I can, you know, you've got them in your book in the bucket list, which I just love
• 34:44
  the whole premise of that.
• 34:46
  So many cool things.
• 34:47
  Yeah, I mean, and the thing too about my dad is, you know, he wasn't perfect.
• 34:54
  Nobody's perfect.
• 34:55
  Absolutely not.
• 34:56
  And it was important to me that I described every person who's in that book.
• 35:00
  It was important to me that I described them as a human being, even if they're like my
• 35:04
  mom and like, you know, the most saintly human being I know, you know, that is just not reality
• 35:10
  that every single interaction with someone is going to be like, oh, they're a saint every
• 35:14
  time is just that's just not life.
• 35:17
  And I felt like if I was going to share all of my flaws or not flaws, but challenges that
• 35:22
  I was overcoming.
• 35:25
  It was important to me that I showed the reality of people in my life and my dad in particular,
• 35:32
  because for a long time, I think I let my fears about certain things about him, whether
• 35:37
  he was, you know, because he kind of went from job to job.
• 35:41
  And my mom was the one who was really sort of providing for us financially, even though
• 35:45
  he would take us out twice a week, you know, I found out eventually she was going to be
• 35:48
  paying for college.
• 35:50
  And as a young person, I was resentful of that and I didn't understand it.
• 35:55
  And you know, I think it was important that I wrote about those parts of his life too,
• 36:00
  which, you know, I think troubled him a great deal.
• 36:03
  I think he felt a lot of shame about it.
• 36:06
  And I think he probably felt like he didn't get to do everything that he thought he was
• 36:10
  going to do because he was such a talented person.
• 36:14
  So I needed to come to terms with that, I think, because the only way I was going to
• 36:20
  get to a point in my life where I could let myself thrive and be brave enough to take
• 36:26
  things on that I care about, that I have a chance of being good at and have a chance
• 36:30
  of helping people because I'm good at it.
• 36:33
  The only way I could get there was if I could accept that I have these difficulties too,
• 36:38
  you know, that I have things specific to me or things I might have inherited from my parents
• 36:44
  and, you know, just get on with it.
• 36:48
  Let it be.
• 36:49
  And I think sometimes it's difficult for people to be brave enough to say why not today, to
• 36:56
  actually live in the moment and do what they want to do because they've just sort of become,
• 37:03
  I guess the right word is encumbered by these things that become like a load they're carrying
• 37:10
  of.
• 37:11
  And the haphood and the should-bees.
• 37:13
  Yeah.
• 37:14
  It's like, I think the focus can become more am I keeping up with the Joneses and not am
• 37:21
  I just being me?
• 37:22
  Am I being the person I was built to be?
• 37:24
  Because I think even our challenges that we have in life, like these unique things that
• 37:30
  seem like they're only difficult for us, even those are actually gifts because they're things
• 37:35
  that we're supposed to work through and then take that, you know, who was it?
• 37:39
  Joseph Campbell used to always say your wound is where your treasure lies.
• 37:43
  So you're not supposed to avoid that pain.
• 37:45
  You're not supposed to just not ever look at it and not let anybody else see it.
• 37:49
  What you're actually supposed to do is just go into that cave and find it and spend some
• 37:53
  time with it and become friends with it.
• 37:55
  So that's really, you know, ironically, that's what going after my dad's dreams forced me
• 38:01
  to do.
• 38:02
  I had to look at my own nightmares and hold hands with them.
• 38:06
  And say, why not today a lot?
• 38:08
  Yeah.
• 38:09
  Well, that's the other part, right?
• 38:11
  I think it becomes a practice.
• 38:13
  It absolutely is.
• 38:14
  I think it's going to be a person who's, sorry, what'd you say?
• 38:17
  I said it absolutely is a practice.
• 38:19
  You've got to keep doing it and keep doing those brave things.
• 38:23
  And, you know, I talk about here often, some people, and luckily that's not the way I'm
• 38:29
  wired is getting up in the morning.
• 38:32
  Some people, like you said, it was hard to get out of bed.
• 38:34
  Yeah, well, depression will do that to you.
• 38:36
  Yeah.
• 38:37
  And so I can say, gratefully, I've not experienced that.
• 38:42
  I'm usually bouncing out of bed.
• 38:44
  But yeah, it's all the things just having the courage to do and, you know, live out,
• 38:49
  live your life that you want to.
• 38:51
  I mean, I left corporate America 24 years ago to pursue a side hustle and was able to
• 38:59
  walk away and everybody's like, you're crazy.
• 39:01
  What are you going to do for insurance?
• 39:02
  And why are you doing this and helping?
• 39:04
  I'm like, you know, if it doesn't work, I'll get another job.
• 39:07
  And that was 24 years ago and I have not gotten another job yet.
• 39:11
  And, you know, it's being able to be true to who you are.
• 39:14
  And I think that was what I was modeled with my dad.
• 39:17
  He always owned his own business.
• 39:18
  And it wasn't perfect.
• 39:20
  And it was ups and downs.
• 39:21
  And it seemed like everything was good.
• 39:23
  My mom's told me since that it wasn't always good and seemed to be always around a birthday
• 39:26
  that they were short on cash and how is it going to work?
• 39:29
  And, you know, it always worked out.
• 39:33
  And it's something you and I talked about before we even came on is, you know, do the
• 39:37
  things and the money will follow when you're true to yourself.
• 39:41
  Well, encourage is a faith journey, I think.
• 39:44
  I was thinking about yesterday how funny it is to me that if you look at my book, the
• 39:49
  end papers, and this wasn't a decision I made, although I had the final call on it, of course,
• 39:55
  the end papers are watermelons.
• 39:57
  I was wondering about that.
• 39:59
  Yeah, it's kind of whimsical.
• 40:01
  And when I first saw it, I was like, oh, this looks like like a scrapbook or something,
• 40:05
  you know, or like an elementary school.
• 40:08
  What's the story behind the watermelons?
• 40:10
  Well, the watermelon, it was a list item, grow a watermelon.
• 40:14
  And it's actually, it's really at the very heart of the book.
• 40:17
  It's chapter eight, it's just about dead center in the story, which I sort of love that that
• 40:22
  happened that way.
• 40:23
  One of my favorite books of all time is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
• 40:28
  And she does this amazing thing or did this amazing thing where the way she wrote that
• 40:32
  book was very layered.
• 40:34
  So it's sort of like there are five different narrators of Frankenstein.
• 40:39
  And it starts with the creature's experience, which is kind of dead center of the book.
• 40:44
  And then outside of that is Dr. Frankenstein's experience.
• 40:47
  And then outside of that is someone he meets on a boat, you know, and outside of that is
• 40:52
  the aunt who's receiving letters from the guy on the boat, you know, it's like layer
• 40:56
  upon layer of narration.
• 40:59
  And I always thought that was such a cool way to tell a story.
• 41:02
  And I think it probably impacted the way this story is told because, you know, that watermelon
• 41:08
  seems like it should be one of the least significant items on the list, but it's actually the most
• 41:14
  important one.
• 41:16
  Even though it was the size of a golf ball, you know, when we grew it.
• 41:19
  And I think the picture is of me holding it in my hands like in the hands were just sort
• 41:24
  of forming the shape of a heart, which at one point the watermelon did become slightly heart
• 41:29
  shaped, which I thought was really cool.
• 41:31
  But it was really important to me because I think it really represents that idea we
• 41:39
  were just talking about, which is that courage is a practice.
• 41:42
  And the things that are going to require courage for people in their lives, it's going to be
• 41:46
  different depending on the person.
• 41:49
  So while growing a watermelon might seem like nothing to someone who has a farm or is a
• 41:54
  gardener and they do things like that all the time, or someone like me living in the
• 41:58
  city who was rarely home and was, you know, copy editing in an office until late at night
• 42:04
  and was maybe home on weekends, like that was a big shift for me to have this little
• 42:10
  thing I had to take care of every day that my husband would water in the morning because
• 42:14
  he's a morning person and I would water at night and watermelons require a lot of water.
• 42:18
  Like it's like more watering than you're ever going to give a plant.
• 42:23
  In the title, watermelon.
• 42:25
  You know, and I remember thinking it seemed synchronistic to me that I was checking off
• 42:32
  this list item at the same time as beginning to write my book because the book to me felt
• 42:38
  like I was planting seeds and something and almost like, I mean, I don't have children
• 42:43
  myself, but I imagined this was sort of what that would feel like to if you had a child
• 42:48
  and you were, you had just become pregnant and it's like you have a seed that's growing
• 42:52
  and you have to wait.
• 42:54
  And I remember thinking like I wish I had a pot that was made out of glass because then
• 42:59
  I could see what was happening, you know, and I could because I couldn't see it.
• 43:04
  And I just had to believe I had to have faith.
• 43:08
  I had to wait.
• 43:09
  And, and, you know, that's what I meant when I said that courage is a faith journey because
• 43:14
  if you're doing something new that you think that you could fail at, I mean, I really did
• 43:18
  think that that was going to be the one that was going to do me in, because I just thought
• 43:21
  I had to lack them or something.
• 43:23
  And to have it actually work, it really was just, okay, well, you know, you just have
• 43:29
  to trust that life is going to do what it needs to do to help you.
• 43:33
  And, and, you know, and the Jimmy Carter sermon I experienced that really helped with that,
• 43:37
  thinking too, but I really had never thought that way before.
• 43:40
  I never had this concept that I'm not in the world alone, that there's something so much
• 43:46
  bigger than all of us that really is guiding all of our lives.
• 43:50
  And if we can just get aligned with it and be like, okay, I agree, I'm cooperating.
• 43:55
  Let's go.
• 43:56
  It really helps you with that courage.
• 43:58
  I love that.
• 44:00
  And you know, I do these interviews and often think when I'm talking to people, it's like,
• 44:05
  okay, God, you put Laura in my path.
• 44:07
  For a reason for the things you just said that I needed to hear.
• 44:11
  And oh, really?
• 44:12
  Oh, absolutely.
• 44:13
  Like just trusting the process, the whole podcast and where it's going and what I want
• 44:18
  to do with it.
• 44:19
  It's just, yeah, the seeds and growing them and somebody said, those are the scariest
• 44:24
  things in life.
• 44:25
  I think somebody said the other day, you know, talking about growing a watermelon like that
• 44:29
  seems scary for you and you never done it.
• 44:31
  Now, I've never grown a watermelon, but I do have lots of plants and they grow like
• 44:36
  weeds and like, they don't die.
• 44:38
  But you know, those things that seem really easy to us, the people go, oh my gosh, how
• 44:43
  did you do that?
• 44:44
  I'm like, what do you mean?
• 44:45
  It's so simple.
• 44:48
  And so those are the places of our genius and those are the places we need to spend time.
• 44:53
  The things that you know, you writing and copywriting that scares me a lot, but that's
• 44:58
  not going to be.
• 44:59
  But you never know when the book might come from this.
• 45:01
  But you know, stay in those places that just feed us and give us life and give us energy.
• 45:07
  And I think we can.
• 45:08
  Okay.
• 45:09
  There you go.
• 45:10
  I think we can talk forever, but yeah, all I was going to say is what I have discovered
• 45:16
  is that if there's a yearning that's inside of you, even if it's super scary that yearning
• 45:21
  is there for a reason.
• 45:23
  Yeah.
• 45:24
  And you know, this whole podcast and how this came about, I don't know if I shared
• 45:29
  this with you, but I thought about doing a podcast.
• 45:32
  It was just kind of one of those, maybe I should do a podcast.
• 45:35
  No idea.
• 45:36
  A friend of mine did one.
• 45:37
  I'd been interviewed on a couple.
• 45:39
  No idea what I want to do.
• 45:41
  And I remember it like it's yesterday.
• 45:43
  I was at a friend's house and there's a social media site that had a story and I don't ever
• 45:48
  look at it and it just popped up in my feed and it was some man that lived locally and
• 45:53
  he had an eye patch on because he had some surgery done.
• 45:56
  And he said every morning he got up and looked in the mirror and thought of his old friend
• 45:59
  Pat Cain and he talked about my dad and things he did.
• 46:02
  And he said, and we both always said, why not today?
• 46:05
  And that just stuck to me.
• 46:08
  And it's actually, it's interesting.
• 46:11
  It was September 13th.
• 46:12
  My dad died in 13.
• 46:14
  You had a 13 reference.
• 46:16
  Just that was how many years ago your dad passed away?
• 46:21
  When I found the list, it had been 13 years.
• 46:24
  13 years.
• 46:25
  Okay.
• 46:26
  13, 13, 13, 13, 13.
• 46:27
  But yeah.
• 46:28
  Yeah, that was a big number for him too.
• 46:29
  Yeah.
• 46:30
  And it was just one of those things that I'm just like, okay, there's something here.
• 46:33
  And so I talked to my friend that I talked about the podcast and told her that story.
• 46:37
  She goes, well that's the name of your podcast and just do it.
• 46:40
  And I've just done it.
• 46:42
  I just feel like there's something bigger and better.
• 46:45
  And your book just so spoke to me.
• 46:48
  And you're my rock star interview.
• 46:51
  Like my favorite thing.
• 46:52
  You are.
• 46:53
  The fact that you said yes, I've told everybody I was so excited.
• 46:57
  Oh, that's so, wow.
• 46:58
  That's so nice.
• 46:59
  I don't know what to do with it.
• 47:01
  I feel like I have a new best friend too.
• 47:03
  Well, we started doing sponsors for the podcast and I'm going to, we're going to end in a
• 47:08
  second, but I do want to share our sponsor.
• 47:11
  So as this is going to launch right at the end of 2023.
• 47:15
  And as we start January, it's going to be the why not today be intentional month.
• 47:19
  And so I do a one word and I know Laura and I, you talked about this too, that you do
• 47:23
  your one word.
• 47:25
  And the last couple episodes are centered around that.
• 47:27
  But our sponsor this week is Pino's Palates.
• 47:29
  It says, why not unleash your creativity and have a little fun at Pino's Palates in
• 47:33
  Herndon, Virginia.
• 47:34
  Paint and sip while socializing with loved ones and friends and discover your inner artists.
• 47:39
  No artist ability required.
• 47:41
  Entertaining artists will guide you step by step from blank canvas to a masterpiece.
• 47:45
  Why not paint and sip today?
• 47:46
  So thank you Pino's Palates for being our sponsor.
• 47:49
  So as we wrap up Ms. Laura, how would you encourage somebody else to say why not today?
• 47:57
  It's funny.
• 47:58
  I was just thinking about that what we talked about my little known fact about me that I
• 48:03
  was double-jointed.
• 48:04
  And it just occurred to me like maybe that is the secret is being flexible.
• 48:11
  You know, I think because I was diagnosed with depression and ADD at a really young
• 48:16
  age, one of the things I learned was how important it was to be flexible.
• 48:22
  Knowing that I might be late to something sometimes or I might take an extra hour to
• 48:29
  finish something that I thought was going to take this amount of time.
• 48:32
  Or I might, I don't know, get caught up in a conversation for a really long time because
• 48:38
  I'm hyper-focusing.
• 48:39
  Like that's just how I function and that's okay.
• 48:42
  And when you're that way, you learn to go with it just to flow with whatever's happening
• 48:48
  in your environment.
• 48:49
  And I think now that that is a big key to success for people when they're going after
• 48:55
  something that scares them because the truth is taking that first step and saying why not
• 49:01
  today, that's just the beginning.
• 49:03
  I mean, you're really way ahead of everybody else if you can take that first step.
• 49:07
  But if you actually want to succeed at something that you're afraid of, that you're doing,
• 49:11
  you're going to have to remember that the universe is going to send you curveballs.
• 49:16
  And usually that's not a bad thing.
• 49:18
  Like that's, it's actually a detour and it's where you're supposed to be headed.
• 49:23
  But if you try to stay in this fixed mindset of no, no, no, it's not supposed to be like
• 49:28
  this, then you're not really helping yourself.
• 49:31
  So it's really just having this very malleable mindset and a willingness to cooperate with
• 49:37
  like the forces that be that are trying to guide you.
• 49:40
  And I think you just covered that pretty well when you said you see all these signs and
• 49:45
  things pointing you in a certain direction.
• 49:47
  And I think people who really succeed at something are able to cooperate in that way.
• 49:52
  Yeah.
• 49:53
  And so true.
• 49:54
  And I think we've talked about it circled around that subject many times with my dad,
• 49:57
  you know, his life went this way when it was supposed to go this way.
• 50:00
  Yeah, he's guiding you.
• 50:02
  And he, oh yeah.
• 50:03
  And he was on several, he flew, traveled a lot for business and he was on, missed several
• 50:09
  flights that had major accidents or something happened.
• 50:13
  Like he escaped death so many times.
• 50:18
  And just, you know, when it was his time and it was time and he actually the day he passed
• 50:22
  away was his birthday.
• 50:24
  And he'd gone to the dentist.
• 50:26
  He talked to several people.
• 50:27
  He was totally fine.
• 50:28
  He had lung cancer, but we don't know what killed him.
• 50:31
  But that night my mom was getting ready for bed and his arm was sore.
• 50:35
  So she gave him some Advil turned around the water down and he was gone.
• 50:39
  And I think he was like, I mean, I've been thinking about Mark Twain this whole conversation
• 50:44
  because that's like Mark Twain.
• 50:45
  He was born and died with Haley's Comet.
• 50:47
  I really he predicted it.
• 50:50
  He's like, yeah, I was born with Haley's Comet and I'll die when Haley's Comet comes
• 50:53
  back and that is exactly what happened.
• 50:56
  And he was the person who said that quote that you said earlier.
• 51:00
  It wasn't just Daniel Pink.
• 51:01
  It was Mark Twain.
• 51:03
  Wow.
• 51:04
  I would do what, don't regret anything essentially, I'm paraphrasing, but do the thing that you
• 51:11
  want to do.
• 51:12
  Yeah.
• 51:13
  And he's one of my big role models.
• 51:14
  He was one of my dads.
• 51:15
  And I mean, talk about someone who accomplished things that were really scary in his life.
• 51:20
  I know some of his stuff.
• 51:21
  Well, and I know in your book, before we close, I did in your, the very first, it says, strange
• 51:34
  isn't it?
• 51:35
  Each man's life touches so many others lives when he isn't around.
• 51:38
  He learns an awful, he leaves an awful hole doesn't he?
• 51:41
  And it's a wonderful life.
• 51:43
  And I have on and I wear a starfish necklace a lot because of the story of the starfish.
• 51:47
  I don't know if you're aware of that.
• 51:49
  No, what's that story?
• 51:50
  But a, and it just talks about how many lives you can touch.
• 51:54
  You just never know who that one person is.
• 51:56
  But this guy was walking down the beach and picking up starfish and throwing them in
• 51:59
  the ocean.
• 52:00
  And this man came up and he's like, what are you doing?
• 52:02
  It's like, I'm saving the starfish.
• 52:04
  He goes, there are thousands out here.
• 52:05
  How can you make a difference?
• 52:06
  And he picked one up and he threw it in the ocean and goes, I made a difference with that
• 52:09
  one.
• 52:10
  And I just feel like I live, try to live my life that way that, you know, you don't know
• 52:14
  what one person you're going to influence by just smiling at or just saying their name
• 52:19
  or doing that one thing and being aware of who God's in your surrounding.
• 52:23
  And I really think with this podcast.
• 52:24
  And as you said, you know, my dad's here for me, like your dad is, and that just paying
• 52:30
  attention to watching people on social media, like I've interviewed several people that
• 52:35
  I was watching.
• 52:36
  I'm like, okay, there's a story behind what she's posting.
• 52:40
  And just with you, like I remember it like it was yesterday sitting on my couch and on
• 52:44
  Instagram just scrolling and seeing you.
• 52:46
  And I'm just like, I'm going to ask the worst thing she can say is no, which is what my
• 52:49
  dad always taught me is always asked because she never know.
• 52:53
  And I'm so blessed and grateful that you said yes.
• 52:55
  I feel that way too.
• 52:58
  So fun.
• 52:59
  So, so I always try to circle back to my dad and I would say, you know, what's the connection
• 53:03
  my dad and people are like, I didn't know your dad.
• 53:05
  And oh my gosh, so many things that connect.
• 53:08
  First of all, the connection with your father's list and my father and they sound like they're
• 53:12
  probably up in heaven hanging out and having a totally crazy time.
• 53:17
  Watch my interview for sure.
• 53:19
  Exactly.
• 53:20
  So my dad was a sailor.
• 53:21
  He swam.
• 53:22
  He, what else I said, teacher story, he always taught with stories.
• 53:29
  He definitely thought outside the box.
• 53:32
  Pope Francis, who I know you were able to communicate with, which I'm Catholic and my
• 53:39
  dad right after he died is when Pope Francis was, I don't say put in office, but and he
• 53:48
  was born, I think the same year my dad was in my dad's middle name is Francis.
• 53:53
  So my mom's like, that is such a sign.
• 53:56
  You know, things you said about your husband just so much like my dad to adventure is take
• 54:02
  a chance.
• 54:04
  You know, he just he traveled, he did things and I think I do too.
• 54:08
  It's like, you know what, I'm just going to do the things because you just never know.
• 54:11
  We are not promised tomorrow and we need to live our life and be happy with it.
• 54:16
  So what do you think?
• 54:18
  I mean, I just, I would say the biggest shift from doing this project and writing this book
• 54:22
  for me and what I'm still carrying through my life every day now is that life is a gift.
• 54:29
  I used to be really afraid of life in some ways because of how my dad died.
• 54:34
  And also what I had been told at a very young age about my own limitations and things that
• 54:39
  were stressors for me.
• 54:41
  So it was like, you know, just try to stay in control, just try to not do too much and
• 54:47
  try to avoid getting killed by someone on their phone, you know, like which I was seeing around
• 54:51
  me all the time.
• 54:53
  So it was a very fearful way to be living.
• 54:55
  And really my focus was try to accomplish things so people think you were important.
• 55:00
  That's really what I wanted to do because I thought my dad died and he hadn't finished
• 55:03
  anything.
• 55:04
  But doing this list forced me to really like live day to day instead of in that sense of,
• 55:11
  okay, how will I remembered 50 years from now.
• 55:14
  So when you start choosing to live day to day because you're so engrossed in what you're
• 55:18
  doing, everything starts to change because you're actually instead of planning for how
• 55:24
  you're going to be alive someday when you actually get to a point where you're happy,
• 55:29
  you're choosing to be alive right now.
• 55:32
  Because you're just going to take whatever you have within you and use it for what you
• 55:35
  have to do.
• 55:37
  And that's what I had to start doing if I was going to accomplish this mission.
• 55:41
  And now it's become like just habit for me where every day I get to have a chance to
• 55:46
  feel alive and I get to do something that matters.
• 55:49
  And that I think is just the greatest gift of it because it's like I'm always thinking
• 55:53
  about what would my dad feel about getting to be alive.
• 55:57
  How would he feel about that today?
• 55:59
  As opposed to like I don't ever think anymore about, oh, how sad that he died so young or
• 56:05
  how sad that this happened to my family.
• 56:07
  But I look at it as how lucky I was to have him for the amount of time I did.
• 56:12
  And that's the greatest tribute, I think.
• 56:14
  Yeah, and you hear people who've lost children are very young and they're like, you know
• 56:18
  what, I was grateful I had him that period.
• 56:20
  And that was supposed to be the time.
• 56:22
  And I always said, because he had this major stroke and he had several health issues after
• 56:27
  a stroke.
• 56:29
  And he was like, I'm not done in this world.
• 56:32
  I've got grandchildren I need to teach.
• 56:33
  God's got bigger plans for me.
• 56:35
  And as I said, he lived his life until the minute he died.
• 56:39
  And even he was diagnosed in October with cancer.
• 56:42
  And we're like, do you really want to go through chemo?
• 56:44
  He's like, heck yeah, like whatever I can do, even though his quality of life wasn't great.
• 56:49
  He was still going to do the things to be here.
• 56:52
  And people would ask, how are you?
• 56:53
  Because I'm on this side of the grass today.
• 56:56
  Oh, I love that.
• 56:57
  Yeah.
• 56:58
  I mean, I feel like it's a little different with kids because I mean, I'm not a parent
• 57:01
  myself, so I can't imagine how difficult that is when a child dies.
• 57:07
  And it's so unnatural seeming.
• 57:09
  And it's like, because you don't feel like there's ever supposed to go before you do.
• 57:12
  So I try to never speak to that because it's like I just, I can't fathom it.
• 57:18
  But I do know that the families that I've met who have had a child die because of a
• 57:24
  distracted driver are just some of the most special people I've ever known.
• 57:29
  And really, it's been a blessing for me to get to learn about their kids because I think
• 57:36
  of my life sometimes as a tribute to those kids.
• 57:40
  The daughter, they didn't get to walk down the aisle.
• 57:43
  The kid who was in journalism school and never got to actually work for a newspaper.
• 57:47
  It's like my life is a tribute to them too.
• 57:50
  Yeah.
• 57:51
  We just never know.
• 57:53
  We need to live our life and live it the best we can.
• 57:58
  And just like you're doing and I'm doing, be able to have somebody's life that was cut
• 58:04
  short or somebody not even touched on them and my dad, yeah, it was short, but it was
• 58:10
  77, I think.
• 58:11
  But still, to be able to give the tribute and to make a difference because of them.
• 58:18
  And I love one of the things you have as a nonprofit.
• 58:20
  Yeah, that's nuts.
• 58:21
  And that's something I'm very passionate about is being able to give back and make a difference.
• 58:27
  And yeah.
• 58:28
  Yeah.
• 58:29
  I mean, my dad helped me write this book and there are some passages in that book where
• 58:34
  I would write it and I would feel like, oh, I didn't know I could write that.
• 58:39
  Like something had come through me and I really think it was him because he was a writer too.
• 58:42
  So half of the royalties are going to go to a foundation in his name and then I will donate
• 58:49
  to every person who helped me with the list to their personal causes because they helped
• 58:55
  me with mine.
• 58:56
  And yeah, I think, you know, I think that it's important to do that.
• 59:03
  It's important to live for something that's bigger than you and to feel like, you know,
• 59:07
  those are the happiest people, I think, the ones who are doing something that's way bigger
• 59:11
  than themselves.
• 59:12
  Yeah, that's kind of where I feel like I am.
• 59:14
  So, so grateful for you and we will share how to find you in the show notes.
• 59:18
  I'm assuming you can find the book anywhere books are sold.
• 59:21
  Yeah.
• 59:22
  It's my father's list.
• 59:23
  I got mine in Amazon and the next day and super excited to have you on here.
• 59:29
  It's so much fun to get to know you and I'm going to connect you with a couple people
• 59:34
  and hopefully get you down here sometime to do a book reading or something around.
• 59:39
  Yeah, yeah, I love to do that.
• 59:41
  So I'll share all Laura's contact information, the show notes.
• 59:46
  Is there a favorite way for people to get in touch with you?
• 59:49
  Oh, you can find me.
• 59:52
  I'm my father's list on Instagram and Facebook pretty much everywhere or, you know, my website's
• 59:58
  good by lauracarni.com.
• 1:00:00
  You can get the book there.
• 1:00:01
  You can also email me through there.
• 1:00:03
  So, perfect.
• 1:00:05
  And then you can always find the podcast at why not today podcast.com.
• 1:00:09
  And we do have why not today swag like ups and shirts.
• 1:00:14
  And as you start to hear, like, encourage yourself daily to remind yourself to say why not today.
• 1:00:20
  So thanks again, Laura.
• 1:00:22
  And let's start 2024 strong as you listen to this episode.
• 1:00:26
  Yeah, do you have your word?
• 1:00:28
  Did you pick your word?
• 1:00:29
  I've got a few.
• 1:00:30
  It hasn't resonated.
• 1:00:32
  Do you have yours yet?
• 1:00:33
  Yeah, 2024 is going to be a scary year, I think, because my word is truth.
• 1:00:38
  Oh, I love that.
• 1:00:39
  Yeah.
• 1:00:40
  Okay, well, we'll leave on that note.
• 1:00:41
  So thanks again.
• 1:00:42
  Yeah, thank you for having me.
• 1:00:44
  This was really cool.
• 1:00:45
  It was, they think and remember say why not today?
• 1:00:49
  Why not today?