Kendra Adachi, THE LAZY GENIUS WAY
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[0:53]The sponsor for this whole Labor Day Book last week is FirstBook.org. Obviously, the pandemic is crippling education for millions of students, especially those in low-income communities.
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[1:49]Visit FirstBook.org to help Kendra Adachi is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Lazy Genius Way.
[1:57]Embrace what matters, ditch what doesn't, and get stuff done. She's also the host of the Lazy Genius podcast and has a blog.
[2:04]In fact, all of this together, she calls the Lazy Genius Collective, which I think I might have to steal.
[2:09]That's, like, so genius. Anyway, Kendra lives with her husband and children somewhere.
[2:15]Welcome, Kendra. Thanks so much for coming on Mom's. Don't have time to read books.
[2:19]Thanks for having me. I'm so excited about this.
[2:21]Oh, I am, too. Oh, my gosh. I feel like your book was like,
[2:26]here's how to live your life a little bit better than you're doing.
[2:29]Here are all my tips, and I just took all those, and I'm like, I'm running with these now. Thank you very much.
[2:34]So glad. I'm so glad. And who knew? Who knew that we would also have a pandemic that we would
[2:39]need to sort of manage? So the timing is not great, but also really great. So I'm so glad. I'm so glad.
[2:45]Well, I'm sure the timing for you is not great with the launch, but as a reader, the timing is pretty
[2:50]great for the content. So, you know, on balance, maybe it works out. Totally. I'll take that.
[2:55]Okay. The Lazy Genius Way embrace what matters, ditch what doesn't, and get stuff done.
[3:02]So tell listeners, please, what your book is about and what inspired you to write this book?
[3:07]Well, what inspired me to write the book was hearing myself and a lot of women that I was
[3:13]doing life with and writing on the internet for just so tired all the time. Like, we're always
[3:18]just so tired. And I was like, well, I mean, we were told to sort of pair back our to-do list,
[3:23]and we need to say no more and simplify our lives. And, but I saw a lot of people doing that,
[3:27]and they were still really tired, and just tried to kind of pay attention to what was going on.
[3:32]And realize that I think that what we are doing is trying hard at too many things,
[3:38]and then often trying hard at the wrong things, or things that don't really matter to us,
[3:43]and everybody gets to decide what that is. And so as I started to kind of unpack that idea,
[3:48]I was like, oh my gosh, I think we might have cracked a code here. I think we might have found something
[3:52]really great. And so the book, The Lazy Genius Way, is it's not about doing more or less.
[3:59]It's about doing what matters to you. And if you actually spend your energy on what matters,
[4:03]and sort of let go of the things that don't, and then also begin to accept and engage with
[4:10]people in your life who prioritize different things than you, you know, that we have permission
[4:16]to care and to care about different things. Like, what a world man. So the Lazy Genius Way is basically
[4:23]like a kind of a self-help personal growth book for people who are just really tired of reading them,
[4:27]and like highlighting a few things and cobbling together like a way to live a meaningful life.
[4:33]It's a guidebook of principles to kind of help you live a meaningful life by your own definition.
[4:37]Love it. So how did you, let's like backtrack, how did you become the Lazy Genius? Like,
[4:43]why you? How did you fall into this? How did you come up with this? When did the whole thing start?
[4:48]Did it start with the blog or the pot? Like, tell me the order of everything. Yeah. So I have been,
[4:53]I've been writing on the internet for 10 years, over 10 years. And it's been very different stuff.
[4:57]Like, I wrote about food. I was like a cooking instructor for a while. And then I had like a blog
[5:04]sort of that was celebrities and desserts, like paired together. Because those are two things
[5:11]that I really love. So like, I made, I made things like comfort cookies, which were like
[5:15]cookies inspired by Benedict Cumberbatch. Like, it was all very niche. Like, it was a very specific
[5:21]but it was so much fun. But I've been sort of, I've been writing on the internet for
[5:24]yeah, for a long time. But I think I've been sort of the through line of my life is perfectionism
[5:30]and sort of like, I've always had the genius part down. And I don't mean that in a like a back patty.
[5:35]Like, I'm so good at things way. I just mean like, really, really focusing on trying so hard.
[5:41]at being good or the best at everything. And then just kind of being worn down. So like,
[5:47]that was sort of my own personal journey. And I had kids and, you know, you learn a lot about
[5:51]yourself when you have kids. About the time the third kid rolled around, I was like, okay, wait a minute,
[5:56]I do not have energy for the things that I used to think I did. How do we do this? And so it was like,
[6:02]living my own life, I sort of have a systems brain. And then I'm a writer. And so it's just sort of like,
[6:08]all of these things kind of came together into this conflation of the lazy genius. And then my
[6:14]my best friend, who's a writer, Emily P. Freeman, she wrote about called the next right thing.
[6:17]And she's like, really, really good at giving names to things. It's like a superpower of hers. It's
[6:21]really weird. And she was like, you're kind of like, a lazy genius. And I went, oh, and then the just
[6:26]the floor opened up. And it was it was beautiful. Her forward was so nice, by the way. I was like,
[6:31]if I ever write a book, I need to like grab my best friend to write my forward as well. Because
[6:35]she was just so nice about you coming to her aid and packing up her house and just jumping in and
[6:41]doing what needed to be done. And it says a lot. Sometimes you can tell more from what a friend says
[6:45]about you than what you could possibly say in your own introduction. So I thought that was pretty genius.
[6:50]And I was like, I cried a lot when I read it for sure. I was really sweet. And it's a pretty
[6:56]special thing. Like you said, like, what a special thing that my best friend got to write my forward
[7:01]and that she's a writer. And so that got to be a thing. Like it was really, it was really special for
[7:05]so nice. And then when did you start your podcast?
[7:08]My podcast started in, well, I started the blog in August of 2015 because my daughter was born in
[7:16]April of 2016 because I always start a business when I have a kid. Like every blog is like matched to
[7:22]what are my kids being born. It's kind of weird. And then the podcast was like June or July
[7:28]after that. So it's been what is that? What's math? Four years, I guess the podcast has been,
[7:33]but at first it was just me. It was not just me. It was me interviewing people. And I think
[7:37]I realized that I was doing that. And this is not true of everyone. But I was doing that because I
[7:43]was afraid of being the only one that no one would listen to me because like, who am I to have
[7:50]something to say? And so it was an interesting transition because I did 10 episodes of interviews and
[7:55]then I took a break and kind of reevaluated. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to do this,
[8:00]because this matters. And I feel like these are important things to talk about. And yeah, so that was
[8:05]that was about four years ago. And it's been yeah, we're on 170 something episodes. And it's great.
[8:10]It's a lot of fun. I love the show. Wow. And I learned from your show some things about you that you
[8:16]shared in your latest episode about how you had never had a devil stuff Oreo. How is this possible?
[8:23]Where did you grow up? Like anyone in America has must have, not to shame people who haven't had it
[8:31]and good for them for not succumbing to the devil stuff. But I don't know. I was surprised.
[8:36]It was surprising to me too. I think that like, so I grew up really poor. And so whenever we
[8:42]did get like real neighbor and treats, it wasn't very often. And you don't splurge for like the
[8:48]extras. I don't even think there were double stuff when I was growing up. I was just like, you just
[8:51]just get Oreos. And I'm kind of like like a brand traditionalist. Like I don't really veer off
[8:57]like extra toasty cheese. And you know, I'm just like original like the box says original,
[9:02]I'll go for that. And then I had yeah, I had this like friend of mine who brought me a pack of
[9:06]double stuff like literally like within the last month. And I was like, I've never had this
[9:12]birthday. I guess it'll be fine. And it was like where have I been? Like I was so upset at all the
[9:18]people in my life who had let me live this long without eating double stuff. I just don't. And now
[9:22]we're a double stuff family exclusively. I will never buy a retollary again. Like ever. I don't,
[9:27]I'm so sad. I'm 38 and I've gotten this long without having them. Yeah, it's a problem. It's a problem.
[9:34]Oh my gosh. You're so funny. So let's talk about some of the advice in your book because you give
[9:40]such great advice. And one of the themes that you come back to over and over again is starting small.
[9:44]And how sometimes you just try to do one downward dog a day and like, that's okay. And like,
[9:49]I feel like in every chapter, whatever it was related to, again, it was start start small,
[9:54]start small with the laundry, start small with everything, every project, every, everything. So tell me
[9:59]about that.
[10:00]at overarching principle.
[10:02]Yeah, we start so big all the time,
[10:05]like just the longest lists, so many checklists,
[10:08]tracking every single thing.
[10:10]And I think there's something,
[10:13]maybe for a lot of us, is it about control?
[10:15]Maybe, you know, if things feel out of control,
[10:18]that we have to like cloak the entire situation
[10:21]and some grand scheme to make us feel okay.
[10:24]Starting small just doesn't feel like it does anything,
[10:26]that we don't, we're not moving,
[10:28]that there's not momentum,
[10:29]that it's not making a difference.
[10:30]Like if I, yeah, if I do one down dog a day,
[10:33]like does that even count?
[10:35]Just like you didn't think it all out.
[10:38]It seems so stupid.
[10:39]But guess what?
[10:41]I have been doing at least one down dog a day.
[10:43]It's going on four years now, I think.
[10:46]And that's like a practice.
[10:47]Now some days it still is that,
[10:49]in some days it's 10 minutes, some days it's 30,
[10:51]it's usually closer to 10, 30 is very rare,
[10:54]but I'm doing it.
[10:55]And it's part of my day and part of my rhythm.
[10:59]And if I had not started small,
[11:01]that like embarrassingly small choice,
[11:04]I would still be like whining to myself
[11:07]and shaming myself for not being good at yoga
[11:09]or whatever it is, whatever the thing,
[11:10]like fill in the blank or whatever yoga is.
[11:12]So I think that small choices,
[11:16]as long as they're small enough that you're like,
[11:17]oh no, I can do that.
[11:19]Like I can do whatever it is.
[11:21]I can put my shoes by the door.
[11:22]I can cook one meal at home a week instead of seven.
[11:25]Like if you're like, I'm gonna become a cook
[11:27]and I'm gonna cook for my family.
[11:29]But you don't cook.
[11:30]If you're always doing takeout
[11:31]and you try seven days, are you getting me?
[11:33]You will not make it a week.
[11:35]So like start with one breakfast.
[11:36]Like just start small because small choices,
[11:40]it's easier to keep making them.
[11:42]And then you keep making them
[11:43]and then you have that momentum
[11:45]and then you don't stop and then they become habits.
[11:47]And it's just, it's way to the seduction
[11:50]of like the big machine will get us every time.
[11:54]I mean, it just gets us every time.
[11:55]And that's why we're also tired
[11:56]because we're trying to maintain
[11:57]all these stupid big machines that we built.
[12:00]Rather than like just doing one tiny thing,
[12:02]just do the one tiny thing.
[12:03]Do one small step and see what happens.
[12:05]Cause what is the worst that can happen?
[12:07]You won't move.
[12:09]Well, you're not moving now anyway.
[12:11]And you're just feeling bad about it.
[12:12]So why not not feel bad about it
[12:14]and see if you actually wanna move in that direction
[12:16]in the first place.
[12:17]So I just think starting small does it get such a bad rap
[12:19]because again, it's not very grand.
[12:21]It's not very sexy, but it really works.
[12:23]So true.
[12:24]I feel like what you said at the beginning too
[12:26]about whether or not it counts
[12:27]cause I'm always thinking about that too.
[12:29]Like does it even count that I'm taking a walk
[12:30]for like 10 minutes?
[12:32]And then I just have to be like, well,
[12:33]who is the one counting?
[12:34]It's not me and my own body.
[12:37]And like, isn't it better to walk 10 minutes
[12:39]than what I would be doing
[12:40]which is sitting at my desk for 10 minutes?
[12:41]So like, why talk myself out of it?
[12:43]It's at least it's something.
[12:44]So I feel like that's like my down dog.
[12:46]Although I have no habit of it.
[12:47]So you're on step ahead of me.
[12:50]Well, and it's also like thinking about the walk.
[12:53]There's something really important
[12:55]about naming what matters about even that small choice.
[12:57]And so if you're thinking about, you know,
[12:59]I'm gonna walk around the block
[13:01]cause that's not a minute thing.
[13:02]Like if you live in a place where there's blocks,
[13:04]not everybody does.
[13:06]But like if you're gonna walk around the block
[13:08]and ask yourself why am I wanting to do this?
[13:10]And I think sometimes if we are truly honest with ourselves,
[13:13]it comes down to something that doesn't actually matter.
[13:16]So I know for me for the longest time,
[13:18]this is not true of everyone.
[13:20]Nothing is true of everyone.
[13:21]But for the longest time,
[13:22]my pushing myself to exercise
[13:26]was to make my body smaller.
[13:28]And now I'm like, I don't care.
[13:30]Like I'm actually like, I feel good.
[13:33]I feel good in my skin.
[13:35]I have like the energy that it's fine.
[13:37]Like I'm actually doing myself more of a disservice
[13:40]by beating myself up for not being thinner
[13:43]than I am for being in a bigger body
[13:44]and being comfortable in it.
[13:46]And then I just walk or run or do
[13:48]that my daily down dog or whatever it is,
[13:50]when my body goes,
[13:51]hey, can we move?
[13:51]I would really like to move right now.
[13:53]Like just paying attention.
[13:54]And so naming that, naming what actually matters
[13:57]about the walk or the run or the whatever.
[14:00]And exercise is just one example.
[14:03]When we really name what matters about it,
[14:06]then we're able to actually have like a deeper motivation
[14:08]to do it or a greater conviction to let it go.
[14:13]Love it.
[14:13]All right, I'm gonna try to distill the essence
[14:15]of my walk whenever I get a chance.
[14:18]You can do it on a walk.
[14:19]I'm gonna do it on a walk.
[14:21]I figure out why I'm here.
[14:22]I go on walks to debate why I go on them.
[14:25]And that's just enough for me.
[14:26]You also, in your book talk a lot about your house rules,
[14:31]which I thought were so genius
[14:32]and I should really institute more than I have right now.
[14:35]And one of the ones I found most interesting
[14:37]was that you vowed to start a new book
[14:40]within 24 hours of finishing an old one,
[14:42]otherwise you lose momentum and don't start books.
[14:45]So let's talk about that.
[14:46]Oh man.
[14:47]Okay, so I always get this confused.
[14:48]Have you heard the whole supply and demand reader thing?
[14:52]Like some people are supply side readers
[14:54]and some people are demand side readers.
[14:55]I haven't heard this.
[14:56]No, tell me.
[14:57]I wish I knew who came up with this.
[14:59]It's such a bummer.
[15:00]But it's basically like, and I get a mixed up,
[15:02]but one kind of reader will read anything
[15:05]that's in front of them.
[15:06]Serial box magazine, it doesn't matter.
[15:08]So it's good to like put good things in front of them
[15:11]to read because they're gonna read anyway.
[15:13]And then there's another kind of reader
[15:15]that will easily choose other things
[15:18]if there is not something good to read.
[15:20]So like you lose momentum a lot easier
[15:22]and I am that kind of reader.
[15:24]Like I love to read, but I also love to watch TV.
[15:28]And I also love to like play cards with my husband
[15:31]or either like there are different things that I can do
[15:33]in those pockets of time that they're not reading.
[15:36]And so I have just found if I lose that momentum,
[15:39]it's like really hard to get it back.
[15:41]And I genuinely love reading.
[15:43]So that house rule has been something
[15:45]that's been really helpful for me
[15:46]as when I finish a book,
[15:48]I need to start another one within 24 hours
[15:50]or I probably won't really start.
[15:52]And then it's harder to get kind of back on the horse.
[15:54]So it's like a, it's a really, really small thing.
[15:57]And that's what I love about the principle of house rules
[16:00]is it's just one small thing that sort of keeps like
[16:03]like when you line up a bunch of dominoes
[16:05]and one tips over the rest.
[16:07]You're just basically like if the rest
[16:09]are sort of negative things,
[16:10]like oh no, everything's burning,
[16:11]like everything's falling apart.
[16:13]Even in something like your reading life,
[16:15]it's sort of a house rule kind of keeps that first domino
[16:17]from falling.
[16:18]And that is it for me.
[16:19]It's like, let's just read something
[16:21]within a day of finishing the last book.
[16:23]And that means like if I know
[16:25]that I'm coming to the end of a book,
[16:26]now at this point I have like a ridiculous
[16:29]in my house library where I could always reach for something
[16:31]because I've been building up and listening to
[16:34]like paying attention to what kind of books I like
[16:35]and trying to buy those at book sales and all that.
[16:38]But now like before when I would get to the end of a book,
[16:41]I'm like, oh, I'm almost to the end of this.
[16:43]I want to still enjoy the end,
[16:44]but I also want to think ahead.
[16:45]Like when am I going to read next
[16:47]so that I don't lose them?
[16:48]I'm so it's very, very small.
[16:49]Again, it's a very small thing,
[16:51]but dog on it if it really helps me keep going.
[16:53]I'm not sure anyone's ever said dog on it
[16:55]on my podcast before.
[16:56]Is it came out of my mouth?
[16:57]I was like, nope.
[16:58]I like that.
[16:59]This is a unique situation.
[17:01]No, it called for a dog on it
[17:03]and you gave it the dog on it and I love it.
[17:06]It's amazing. Thank you for that.
[17:08]So what time it looks do you like to read?
[17:11]Oh, okay.
[17:12]So I'm trying to, I'm still in a place
[17:16]where I don't want to feel sort of like guilty
[17:18]for answering that question of the way
[17:19]that I'm going to answer it because I don't love
[17:22]to, my default desire to read is not to learn something.
[17:27]Now, I do read to learn things and I balance it out,
[17:29]but like seriously, my sweet spot is like space, magic,
[17:34]circuses, like a poor teenage girl sticking it to the man.
[17:37]She hates the patriarchy, but she falls in love
[17:39]with somebody who's like part of the patriarchy.
[17:42]Like I am such a sucker for that stuff.
[17:45]It just arose me in, even if the writing's not great,
[17:48]like I will see like a good interesting story
[17:51]that's world-building.
[17:53]I will see it through, even if the character's like fine
[17:55]or the writing's like, okay.
[17:57]I just, I, seriously, if there's a circus, I'm done.
[18:01]So happy.
[18:03]Wow. Or like, creeped out fairy tales.
[18:06]Like sort of, yeah, like reinterpreted sort of dark fairy tales.
[18:10]Yeah, anything that sort of like fantasy
[18:12]I like science fiction, but again,
[18:15]the patriarchy part is always fun as well.
[18:16]So.
[18:17]Got a real niche, circus, circus plus,
[18:21]I'll be on the lookout for you, I will.
[18:23]And with any book pitch that comes in from now on,
[18:25]I am thinking, would Kendra like,
[18:27]does this have the circus patriarchy elements?
[18:30]I will take it to watch out, yeah.
[18:31]I have mentioned it before because I do.
[18:33]I have a few episodes about reading
[18:35]and I talk about all my blocks sometimes.
[18:36]And so I'll, like the people who have been following me
[18:38]for a while, they sort of know,
[18:40]like this is the kind of stuff Kendra likes.
[18:41]And it is really fun when I have like DMs
[18:44]and they're like, hey, I just read this book.
[18:45]And I see the word circus,
[18:46]like everybody's looking for circuses.
[18:48]Send me all the circus books.
[18:50]I'll take every single one.
[18:51]Ironically, terrified of actually going to a circus.
[18:54]So I don't know what that says, but here we are.
[18:56]Here we are.
[18:56]Well, sorry, I wish I had been following you before.
[18:58]I didn't, I hadn't heard of you before.
[19:00]And now I'm like, I'm one of the people in the world
[19:02]who somehow has had not.
[19:04]So I'm so glad I did now.
[19:06]And that the people who I know now
[19:07]are going to know about you and all of that.
[19:11]Well, tell me a little more.
[19:12]And this is kind of like a big pivot.
[19:13]But in fourth grade, your parents got divorced.
[19:15]And you went through like this tough time in your life.
[19:18]And you referenced your childhood a little bit.
[19:19]Just tell me a little more about what it was like
[19:22]for you growing up.
[19:22]And then what about it?
[19:24]Do you think sort of made you find your way in the world
[19:27]and how to be similar to this?
[19:30]That's a good layered question.
[19:33]Yeah, so my parents split up.
[19:34]And I was, they divorced for real in fourth grade.
[19:36]They'd split up a couple of times before then.
[19:38]My dad had just kind of left.
[19:40]Like he just left a couple of times before.
[19:42]And I have a little sister who is heaven years younger
[19:46]than, yes, seven years younger than I am.
[19:48]And so for a lot of the childhood,
[19:49]I wasn't only child for those early years.
[19:53]And like looking back, you know, when you're a kid,
[19:58]you don't really know.
[20:00]that you're looking at.
[20:00]You don't always know what you're experiencing,
[20:02]but you might feel it a little bit,
[20:04]like the way that you sort of process your life.
[20:07]Yeah, it's more attuned to what's really happening.
[20:09]And so looking back as part of me is like,
[20:12]how did I not know that my dad was abusive to my mom
[20:16]and to my sister and to me,
[20:17]but all in very different ways.
[20:19]And so yeah, it was like a really hard,
[20:21]it was a really hard thing.
[20:21]And I mean, obviously that's a stupid thing
[20:23]to say, it was a really hard thing, but it was.
[20:25]And I honestly think that one of the things
[20:26]that has been the most galvanizing for me,
[20:30]maybe from that time,
[20:32]is I carried the,
[20:36]this is quite a pivot from the circus conversation.
[20:39]But I sort of carried the weight
[20:42]and responsibility of the abuse
[20:46]that the rest of my family was victim to as my responsibility.
[20:51]Like if I had seen it, I could have stopped it.
[20:55]It was my fault.
[20:56]And I really think that that was a huge thing
[20:59]for the first two thirds of my life really,
[21:03]in feeling like I had to be the best
[21:07]that I had to be so dependable,
[21:09]that I had to be the greatest friend
[21:10]that anyone would ever want.
[21:11]Like I don't know that it was like trying to make up
[21:14]for failing my family.
[21:16]I don't know that I would really put it into those words,
[21:18]but I do think that there's a connection there
[21:20]of like feeling this,
[21:21]there's always been a deep responsibility in me
[21:24]to make sure everything else is going, okay?
[21:27]At the expense of myself,
[21:28]but not, and that expense sort of looks like,
[21:32]I don't do things unless I can be the best at them.
[21:36]And so it was just a very like thin way to live.
[21:40]It's just a very hollow,
[21:43]like there wasn't a lot of substance to it.
[21:45]I just feel like if anybody blew too hard at me,
[21:47]I would break.
[21:48]Like I was working really hard to kind of look put together
[21:51]and feel together, but I was just a, you know,
[21:54]yeah, anything could have knocked everything
[21:57]off its very shaky foundation.
[21:59]And so when I started, you know,
[22:01]therapies are real big,
[22:02]a real big help and a big advocate of therapy.
[22:05]But when I started going to therapy
[22:07]and I'd realized that responsibility I was carrying,
[22:09]that I think the root of it was my sister and mom,
[22:13]but it also was like a tree,
[22:15]just lots of branches and responsibility branches
[22:18]going in lots of different directions.
[22:20]And when I realized that, it made so much sense
[22:22]about how I sort of look at the world,
[22:24]which is to fix it.
[22:25]It was always like to fix it.
[22:26]I got to make it better.
[22:27]But now that I've kind of removed
[22:29]that negative responsibility off the table,
[22:32]that poorly rooted responsibility that's not mine to hold.
[22:36]Now that I've taken that off the table,
[22:38]it's sort of, it's left the essence of my desire
[22:44]to make things better, but for you,
[22:47]not for my own protection,
[22:49]not for my own survival,
[22:51]it's just like, I do have, you know,
[22:53]feel strange,
[22:54]like I do think I have a gift for helping people see
[22:57]differently to help people see how their lives,
[23:00]their lives, by their definition and their standards
[23:04]can be better, not like copy my life, my life's great.
[23:07]Like that would be dumb.
[23:08]We'd none of us need to live that way.
[23:10]That's so ridiculous.
[23:11]And so I think that once I sort of worked through
[23:15]that responsibility that I'd carried,
[23:17]yeah, it just left that real essence of who I am of like,
[23:22]I really want to like,
[23:24]I really do want to make the world a better place.
[23:26]I kind of joke that I am Pollyanna,
[23:29]but with a clipboard.
[23:31]So I'm like, guys, sunshine, hold hands, let's do this.
[23:36]And then here's a list of how it's a very specific vibe.
[23:40]But I don't know that I would have ever been able
[23:41]to really access that without having sort of processed
[23:47]where my desire to make things better came from.
[23:50]And that's why, I mean, that's why I love therapy,
[23:52]but it's also why I love suffering.
[23:55]What a fun thing to say, I love suffering.
[23:58]That's the lesson that we can learn from hard, difficult things.
[24:02]There's always, there's a principle in the book
[24:04]called live in your season.
[24:05]And it's not that we are supposed to like,
[24:08]push through our season and ignore that things are hard.
[24:10]I know that things are really hard for you right now.
[24:12]I've been watching your Instagram and I,
[24:15]it's not that we're just like, ignore it.
[24:16]It's hard, who cares, power through.
[24:18]That's not helpful for anyone,
[24:20]but also to sit there and just like drown
[24:24]in the emotional weight of everything
[24:26]and not tell yourself the truth or open
[24:29]have eyes of gratitude sometimes.
[24:32]And I don't mean that in a placating way.
[24:33]Like, the tree is are beautiful.
[24:35]It's fine that my mother-in-law's sick.
[24:36]Like, that's not what this is.
[24:37]It's being honest about how you're feeling
[24:41]and also giving yourself permission to feel what you need
[24:44]to feel, but not let it be in charge
[24:46]and to tell yourself the truth.
[24:48]And so all that to say, I think that that is
[24:50]one of the gifts of difficult seasons
[24:53]is that they always have something to teach us.
[24:55]Always, always.
[24:57]And my parents' divorce took, yeah,
[25:00]like a solid 20 years to teach me something
[25:03]that I could put words to, but it did.
[25:05]And I'm so grateful.
[25:06]Wow.
[25:07]Well, I'm really glad I asked you about that because now
[25:11]in turn you've given me some therapy for the day.
[25:13]So thank you for that.
[25:15]I appreciate it.
[25:16]Wow, I'm going to just keep calling you every so often
[25:18]and get my daily dose.
[25:20]The transitive property from whatever your therapist taught you
[25:23]or something.
[25:23]So thank you.
[25:26]So, Kendra, you are doing so many things.
[25:29]You're a mom.
[25:30]You're doing your podcast, your blog.
[25:33]This book just came out.
[25:34]I hate to even say there could be more that you could do.
[25:37]But what's your big, do you have a big vision
[25:40]of where you're headed or what you want to accomplish
[25:43]or how you're going to help everybody in the world
[25:45]or tell me?
[25:46]Man, so I hope that this gives some permission
[25:50]to people listening because I did.
[25:53]And I think it's not that anymore.
[25:56]So my dream for the longest time was I
[25:59]wanted to own a bakery.
[26:00]That's really what it was, is I wanted to have a local place.
[26:03]I love feeding people and everybody likes cake.
[26:06]So, you know, for the most part, and I make a cake.
[26:09]So that was my dream.
[26:10]And I'm not sure if it still is.
[26:12]Like, I'm in this place where I'm in the dream land.
[26:14]But everything just like went from clear to fuzzy.
[26:17]It's like a reverse Wizard of Oz, you know?
[26:19]It was like, it's so colorful and it was technicolor.
[26:22]And then I'm back and black and white.
[26:23]And I'm like, wait, where are we?
[26:24]I don't know.
[26:25]So, you know, I think that that's just the nature of life,
[26:28]again, funny sentence to say.
[26:30]But we think that something is going to be really valuable.
[26:34]And it doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't
[26:37]when it was, but things change and we change.
[26:40]And so, yeah, for a long time, it was to have a bakery.
[26:44]But I think now it's just sort of broadened.
[26:47]And I don't know how it's really going to manifest.
[26:50]I just want a physical place to gather people.
[26:53]And part of me is like, well, why would anyone come?
[26:59]Why would, how can I support my family and my staff
[27:04]by trying to get people to come and stay
[27:06]at this property that I have or this building
[27:10]or do I teach class at like, what do I even do?
[27:12]Like, it just, it can feel, it does feel overwhelming
[27:15]to think about that sometimes because I don't know what it is.
[27:18]And I don't like when I don't know what something is.
[27:20]Which is when I pull out different principles in the book,
[27:24]one that's coming to mind right now about the dream specifically,
[27:26]there's a principles called go in the right order.
[27:30]And you can go in the right order and clean your bathroom,
[27:32]like you can go in the right order with anything.
[27:33]But really, the right order comes down to three steps.
[27:36]The first one is to name what matters.
[27:38]Everything starts with naming what matters.
[27:40]The second thing is to calm the crazy
[27:42]because usually when we're like, what is happening?
[27:45]Like something feels crazy.
[27:46]So we need to calm it down.
[27:47]And then the third thing is to trust yourself
[27:49]with whatever comes next.
[27:50]And I think for this, my order is naming what matters
[27:54]is that I am present in the work that I'm doing now.
[27:57]And also, I don't push down the dream.
[28:01]So I can be present and sort of let the dream hang out
[28:04]in the room and then I, hey, dream, you're lowercase D right now.
[28:07]I don't know what you look like, but it's cool.
[28:09]Like you can stay.
[28:10]And if you decide to like get brighter or stronger or sharper
[28:15]and you can tell me something that affects my work right now,
[28:17]that's fantastic, but otherwise,
[28:19]I'm just gonna let you hang out in the room and it's cool.
[28:21]And then the second step is, so that's what matters.
[28:24]And then the second part of calming the crazy
[28:25]is when I feel the like, I don't have a dream.
[28:28]I don't like starting to spin out,
[28:30]which I do often, the calm, the crazy of that
[28:34]is to usually call someone who knows my heart,
[28:37]to call Emily, to call my best friend,
[28:39]to talk to my husband, to call my sister
[28:41]and just to be like, hey, I'm feeling really sad
[28:43]about not having the dream about the bakery.
[28:46]What can you, can you like tell me some truth?
[28:49]You tell me some good things.
[28:50]And that kind of like subtle stuff my brain.
[28:52]And then usually trust the third step,
[28:55]trust yourself of whatever comes in acts.
[28:57]Usually it's just like to keep going.
[28:58]You know, there's not necessarily a third thing.
[29:00]It's just like, yeah, you can live in this time
[29:03]where you don't know what your five year plan is,
[29:05]where you don't know what your big dream is.
[29:07]You might not, this might be what it is.
[29:09]And that's okay, you know?
[29:10]So it's just sort of being okay with being where I am.
[29:14]So that was a roundabout way to answer.
[29:16]I don't know, I don't know what's next.
[29:19]But that's okay, that's okay.
[29:21]Honestly, in my like, disheveled set of notes here
[29:24]called the crazy, it was in all caps, underlined.
[29:28]I need to like post it on my computer.
[29:31]Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[29:34]Oh, oh man.
[29:38]All right, so there's so much good advice out there.
[29:41]Things like write every day, write even when no one's reading,
[29:44]you know, like all of that.
[29:46]I think that my start small advice, honestly,
[29:49]because a lot of advice feels sort of in the clouds sometimes
[29:54]or like the everyday part often feels overwhelming.
[29:59]And so honestly,
[30:00]My favorite, I would say read a book on writing that you feel excited to read.
[30:04]And my favorite one is the memoir project by Marion, oh, what's her name?
[30:11]Marion Smith, Marion Roach Smith, Marion Roach Smith.
[30:14]I think that's right.
[30:15]I should look it up.
[30:16]It is like a really beautiful, even if you don't write memoir, there was something
[30:19]in reading that book that just made me go like, oh, and to stop doing writing exercises,
[30:25]she was like, no more writing exercises.
[30:27]No more things to sort of just like, doggy paddle around the idea.
[30:31]It was sort of the good mentality perspective to get you compelled to write every day,
[30:38]to let other people into your writing, to hit your magazines,
[30:42]for, you know, to get your foot in the door and that kind of thing.
[30:44]It was like this really lovely permission giver that book was, even though I'm not a
[30:48]memoir writer.
[30:49]Like she just writes about writing in such a way that was, and so skinny.
[30:52]It says tiny, tiny little book, like you can finish it in like an hour or two,
[30:55]but so rich.
[30:57]So that would be my advice is to read that book because that feels like something people can do
[31:02]rather than like write every day.
[31:04]And I'm like, but what?
[31:06]Look, that's part of the problem.
[31:07]Little, little, I write.
[31:09]So maybe maybe reading Marion Roach Smith is a good place to start.
[31:13]Starting small.
[31:14]I love it.
[31:14]Yep.
[31:16]Thank you so much.
[31:17]I am so happy that I met you today through Skype and through this podcast and got to be
[31:24]entertained by your personality.
[31:25]And I feel like part of our brains are very similar.
[31:27]And hearing you say all that stuff really helped me.
[31:30]So thank you.
[31:31]I'm really, really happy we talked.
[31:33]Oh, me too.
[31:34]This has been a delight.
[31:35]Thanks, Libby.
[31:36]And problem.
[31:36]Thank you.
[31:37]Have a great day.
[31:39]Thanks so much to firstbook.org for sponsoring this Labor Day book blast.
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[31:50]children in need.
[31:51]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[31:55]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at ziby Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[31:59]Books.
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[32:05]of authors on Zoom every other week.
[32:07]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[32:11]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now
[32:14]trim music.