Amy Newmark, CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL: MAKING "ME TIME"
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens and you're listening to the award-winning podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:53]Hi, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I have an anthology coming out called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology.
[1:01]And it comes out on February 16th and has essays by 60 plus of the authors who have been on this podcast.
[1:09]So first of all, please pre-order this book. I think you will love it. I'm so excited about all the authors who are represented.
[1:16]Just to give you a few, Chris Bajillion, Jewel Parker Rhodes, Ashley Prentice Norton, Gretchen Rubin, Rima Zaman, Eileen Zimmerman, and that is just from the first page of the multi-page table of contents.
[1:30]So please pick up this book. Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology.
[1:34]It's available anywhere you buy books, Amazon, bookshop.org, and your local independent bookstore.
[1:39]So please pick up a copy. And also, I want to invite you listeners to my fundraiser slash launch party.
[1:49]The night it comes out on February 16th, the Tuesday at 7 p.m.
[1:53]Bookhampton and the Children's Museum of the East End are co-hosting it for me.
[1:58]And 50 of the authors who wrote essays in this book, as well as many of the amazing authors who
[2:05]blurbed this book, who wrote little praise worthy quotes at the front, will be there.
[2:10]And you can be there too. So if you go to my website zibbyowens.com and just click on Anthology
[2:17]and go to book tour, you will see a whole fundraiser section. And for $50, you can attend.
[2:25]You'll get a copy of the book. And you'll get to schmooze on zoom with all of these amazing
[2:32]authors. This is like going to be the literary happening of February. So please come.
[2:37]I would love to see you all in person on zoom, I guess. But even see some of your faces.
[2:42]I know so many of you are really loyal listeners and that makes me really happy.
[2:47]All proceeds of the book and the fundraiser are going to the Susan Felice Owens program for
[2:53]COVID-19 vaccine research at Mount Sinai Health System. And it is named after my husband's mother
[3:00]who passed away from COVID over the summer, which many of you followed along on Instagram as I
[3:06]recounted that horrific experience. So all the proceeds are going there. The cost includes the price
[3:12]of a book. So thank you for supporting this effort. And for supporting my book, I can't wait to
[3:18]see you there. Thank you so much to today's sponsor three righteous mamas. Are you looking for a new
[3:23]podcast? I mean, keep listening to mind, but you can add one to the mix. We recommend you check
[3:29]out three righteous mamas where three all American moms who are Latina, Muslim, and queer talk about
[3:35]the issues of the day with some of the biggest change makers and thought leaders in our world.
[3:39]These three mamas are on a mission to transform our country and celebrate the power and hope
[3:44]of pissed off mamas who are building a better future for all of our children. There's no podcast
[3:49]quite like it. So check it out on whatever platform you get your podcast on. Amy Newmark is the editor
[3:56]of the chicken soup for the soul anthology, making me time 101 stories about self care and balance.
[4:02]Amy is the best selling author editor and chief of publisher of the entire chicken soup for
[4:07]the soul book series. Since 2008, she has published 174 new books. That's 174 new books. Most
[4:15]of them national best sellers in the US and Canada more than doubling the number of chicken soup
[4:19]for the soul titles in print today. She's also the author of Simply Happy, the crash course
[4:23]in chicken soup for the soul advice and wisdom that's filled with easy to implement practical tips.
[4:28]She's really credited with revitalizing the entire chicken soup for the soul brand, which has been
[4:33]a publishing industry phenomenon since the first book came out in 1993. Amy graduated
[4:38]magna cum laude from Harvard University, where she majored in Portuguese and minored in French.
[4:42]She then embarked on a three-decade career as a Wall Street analyst, a hedge fund manager,
[4:46]and a corporate executive in the technology field. She's also a chartered financial analyst.
[4:51]Her return to literary pursuits was inevitable. As her honor thesis in college involved
[4:56]traveling through Brazil's impoverished northeast region, collecting stories from regular people,
[5:00]when Amy and her husband built the CEO of chicken soup for the soul are not working,
[5:04]they are visiting their four grown children and their grandchildren. Welcome, Amy. Thank you so much
[5:09]for coming on mom's turn of time to read books. Hey, I'm thrilled to be here. I've heard about
[5:13]you for years and I was so excited to finally get the opportunity to meet you. Oh, well, this is so great
[5:19]because we have these anthologies coming out at the exact same time and your book, which as you know,
[5:24]I read a couple months ago and I read it on one of these days where I can't remember why,
[5:28]but I was like walking around my house like the whole time reading it and all I read
[5:33]was like looping around and reading essay after essay and thinking I was just going to read one
[5:38]and then I couldn't stop. It was so good. And now, of course, I've forgotten most of them,
[5:41]but they were amazing. They're like potato chips. They are, right? Yeah, stop. I sometimes read
[5:46]our old books again and I'll say I'm just going to read one story and then I'll just sit there
[5:50]and read five stories because I can't stop. They're great. So this whole chicken soup for the soul
[5:56]enterprise you have going. This particular book is the latest one called Making Me Time,
[6:00]101 Stories About Self-Care and Balance. And I do want to talk about this book because it has
[6:04]so many great essays from all sorts of different writers. But I want to just start and get some
[6:09]background on how you got to where you are right now. How did this whole enterprise get revamped and
[6:17]launched and how do you keep launching books with 101 essays like all the time?
[6:23]I don't know. It's kind of like a hamster on a treadmill, right? It just never stops. Sometimes
[6:28]I say it's like labor pants. You know, like one comes and then you have a little break and then
[6:33]there's another one and you can't stop, but they're always going to come. And I feel that way with
[6:36]books. I get one to the printer, but I have to immediately turn to the next one. There's just no
[6:41]downtime. But I do love doing it. So that's the good part. I complain about it all the time about how
[6:47]busy I am. And then I really find that I love it anyway because I mean it's storytelling. How
[6:54]great is it to have a job where I get to just share wonderful storytelling with people.
[7:00]And it was funny. We bought the company in 2008 from its founders, Jack Kent,
[7:05]Beald and Mark Victor Hanson. And they were motivational speakers and they were writing a lot
[7:09]of other books besides chicken soup and soul books. And they just decided it was time
[7:13]to pass chicken soup for the soul onto people who could take it to the next level. So I had not
[7:19]had a resume in years because I had always just gone by reputation. I was a Wall Street person and a
[7:25]technology person. I was an analyst covering telecom and technology stocks. And then I ran a hedge
[7:31]fund. And then I was hired by one of the companies I invested in and became part of a telecommunications
[7:37]startup. And then I left there because I married the CEO. And that was the time when you couldn't
[7:43]be married. You couldn't be one of the top executives and be married to the CEO at a public company.
[7:47]Maybe now you can. You couldn't then. That was 25 years ago. So then I started going on the boards of
[7:54]various publicly traded technology companies. So my whole life was bad until I turned 50. And the last
[8:01]kid went off to college. So we were officially empty nesters. And that's when we decided to do this
[8:05]crazy thing. And by a publishing company right at the beginning of a huge recession, you know,
[8:10]with bookstores closing and borders going bankrupt, it was a terrible time to buy anything,
[8:15]especially a publishing company. But we survived. But anyway, I was putting together a resume then.
[8:21]And the funniest thing happened. I sat down and thought about what had done in my life and
[8:27]realized that I had just made a complete 30 year circle because when I was 20 and doing
[8:35]research for my honors thesis for undergrad, I went off to Brazil for several months and was
[8:43]collecting stories from regular people in Brazil. There was a form of popular literature that,
[8:49]you know, anybody could just make these crudely printed pamphlets and share stories with each other.
[8:55]And I was in Brazil for months, traveling to all these poverty stricken regions and talking to people
[9:02]collecting their stories. And then I realized, oh my gosh, I did this when I was 20 and now I'm
[9:07]starting to do this again in my new career at age 50. Wow. So what was it about that time in your
[9:13]life that you decided to do that? I mean, why not just say, okay, now we're going to travel or
[9:18]now we're going to like sit around and play chess all day or something like why double down,
[9:22]why get into a new industry? I mean, it's so ironic. You have like this whole career in tech. And yet
[9:26]you buy a company that's as like anti-tech as as possible. It's like the whole this form of information
[9:33]transmission on the planet, you know, aside from key walls, you know, so how did that even like what
[9:38]appealed to you so much? Well, you know what, it's funny. So when I was 50, that was the second time
[9:43]I retired. Yeah, because I had already retired once when I had my children and then I went back to
[9:49]work and then retired again when I was an empty nester. And then my husband was looking for something
[9:54]new to do. And some of the companies he looked at, I wasn't interested in. But this one, I
[10:00]somehow plunged in because I was always a book person.
[10:02]And you know, I was looking through old photos the other day.
[10:05]And I found this old photo and a photo album I got from my mother.
[10:11]And it showed this crudely painted sign I hit put on my door
[10:15]when I was a little kid, you know, made like on the easel.
[10:19]I mean, I am such a grammar geek, the stupid sign I had
[10:23]put on my door when I was probably, you know, eight years old.
[10:27]It said, good English, please.
[10:31]I remember I used to write stories for fun in first grade.
[10:34]Like as soon as I discovered there were words and you could use them
[10:37]and you could make things with words.
[10:38]I started doing that.
[10:40]You know, and they say you should do what you loved when you were a kid.
[10:43]So here I am fact doing words again.
[10:45]But even when I was in technology and all those boards and everything,
[10:49]I always wrote, like I was the board member who helped them with the press releases
[10:54]and the annual report.
[10:55]And even when I ran my hedge fund, I would still write these big long research reports
[11:00]about my positions to, you know, influence other hedge fund managers
[11:05]to buy or sell the things that I was buying or selling.
[11:07]So I've always been into writing and using writing as a way to persuade people.
[11:13]But the difference is that when I used to write on Wall Street,
[11:17]you know how they say Wall Street has two emotions, fear and greed.
[11:20]So I was really, you know, like dealing with people's fear and appealing
[11:24]to their greed to get them to do what I wanted them to do in terms of buying the right
[11:27]stock or selling stocks that I thought were going to go down.
[11:30]And now I just get to deal with all the human emotions.
[11:33]But what happened was I never had read chicken soup for the soul books.
[11:37]I was your typical like elitist, Ivy League graduate, you know, who honestly didn't enjoy reading
[11:44]Shakespeare.
[11:44]But but anyway, I sat down and read 100 of the old chicken soup for the soul books over a three
[11:52]month period in 2007, you know, doing the due diligence for this LBO where we were going to do
[11:59]in 2008.
[12:01]And I just loved them.
[12:03]I mean, I was crying.
[12:04]I was laughing.
[12:06]I had to change my contact lenses every week instead of every two weeks because I kept
[12:10]wrecking them with salt, you know, from my tears of laughter or my tears of, you know, heartbreak
[12:16]or shared happiness, you know, all the reasons you cry when you're reading something.
[12:21]So then I thought, wow, I actually know what I would do with this publishing line and how I want
[12:26]to bring it, you know, into more modern times, make it very relevant.
[12:29]And so I changed it a lot.
[12:31]And now we really just do a lot of different topics that I think are really interesting and
[12:38]relevant like this new book that has just come out making me time because everybody's talking
[12:45]about self care now, self care is a huge topic of interest.
[12:49]And me time is the classic way to give yourself that self care.
[12:53]And in fact, I saw this survey in January that Zoolie did.
[12:59]And so they were really serving their customer base, which is mostly busy women, mostly moms.
[13:06]And they asked them, what did they want the most for Valentine's Day?
[13:09]They're number one pick for a gift for Valentine's Day.
[13:12]And they didn't say, you know, chocolate or wine or jewelry that they said they said time alone.
[13:18]Is that what they said?
[13:19]They said they said they said they wanted me time.
[13:21]And I thought, oh, they want me time on February 14 for Valentine's Day.
[13:28]Well, guess what I have for February 16.
[13:33]And actually, so do you, right?
[13:34]So you also came out with a book that was really about self care and me time for February 16.
[13:40]So we are, the two of us are so on target with the most important thing that people are looking for these days.
[13:48]Awesome.
[13:49]Oh, I'm so glad we did that.
[13:51]I hope we're helping out with people.
[13:53]We're just so amazed.
[13:54]We are, we're so plugged in.
[13:56]Finally, we were like, we predicted this before you even came.
[14:00]But you know what it is, you and I are so busy that like the two of us, the thing we probably
[14:04]crave the most is me time, right?
[14:07]That's what we want.
[14:08]I mean, God, I'm so excited if I get an hour to read at night to read something that I have not
[14:15]edited, like it is so great to have that one hour.
[14:19]I just live for that all day.
[14:22]See, I've turned that into like what I do all day is having to read.
[14:25]And so now I have to do it.
[14:27]So now I do it.
[14:28]It's great.
[14:30]Now I just, that is even better reading books that you didn't have to edit
[14:34]that you have to read.
[14:35]And then you get to talk about them and you get to meet the authors.
[14:37]But what is better than that?
[14:38]Like I saw your book club appearance by Elizabeth Berg talking about her latest book.
[14:44]And of course, I had heard of her, but I don't think I had read any of her books.
[14:48]So I immediately that day got, I think it was called Home Safe.
[14:52]And I read that one.
[14:54]And now I'm reading another one of her books.
[14:56]Oh, good.
[14:56]You know, in my one hour at night.
[14:58]Oh, that's great.
[14:59]Yeah.
[15:00]Yeah.
[15:00]So thank you for that.
[15:01]Thank you for turning me on to an author who I should have been reading
[15:04]all along.
[15:04]No, no, I'm glad you came to that book club.
[15:06]I mean, I think that's the thing also that your book is doing.
[15:09]I mean, you have so many authors in here and writers
[15:13]that I had not heard of that are fantastic.
[15:15]These essays are well written and thoughtful and bring a whole range of perspectives
[15:22]and are emotional and inspiring.
[15:25]Like where do you find all the authors?
[15:26]How does it work?
[15:28]So people love being published by chicken soup for the soul.
[15:32]I bet and we will have stories just appear in our, you know, database of submitted stories.
[15:39]They'll appear from, you know, New York Times best-selling novelists.
[15:43]And their stories will pop up.
[15:45]And I'll say, oh my gosh, I am sure I know this name because everybody has
[15:49]stories that don't fit into their normal published works.
[15:52]Like I remember years ago, we published a great story by Brad Meltzer
[15:56]about his mom because a wonderful moving story about his mom is not going to fit
[16:01]into one of his suspense novels, right?
[16:04]So we get stories from everybody, but what we love is publishing stories by people who
[16:11]have never been published before.
[16:12]Like amazingly, in our Making Me Time book, 48 of the authors we have never published before
[16:20]in a chicken soup for the soul book.
[16:22]And there's a pretty good chance they've never been published anywhere before.
[16:25]Because for so many people, their first time being published is with us.
[16:30]But you'd be amazed how many people we publish and it starts them thinking, oh my gosh,
[16:35]I really am an author.
[16:37]And then even though we don't recommend it, they quit their day jobs.
[16:40]But a lot of them become hugely successful authors.
[16:44]There's a guy named Andrew Kaufman who we published maybe 10 years ago.
[16:49]He wrote about having cancer in our cancer book.
[16:51]We published that.
[16:52]He had been a television news producer.
[16:54]So writing of a different kind and being published by us helped him to say,
[16:59]you know, I've always wanted to write instead of being a TV news producer.
[17:03]And so he quit.
[17:04]He is now such a successful novelist and he's given us other stories also.
[17:10]But we have so many people who went on to publish whole books after they got their start
[17:14]publishing one little story and a chicken soup for the soul book.
[17:18]That's amazing.
[17:19]So how do you keep that community going?
[17:21]Do you introduce all those writers to each other?
[17:23]Like do you have a big Facebook group for chicken soup contributors or something?
[17:28]We don't have a Facebook group because we would have to monitor it.
[17:30]And that would be more than a full-time job for one person.
[17:34]But we do have a lot of activities for contributors.
[17:38]And so I used to travel around the country having lunches and dinners with contributors
[17:43]and introducing them to each other in their particular area.
[17:46]Now we're going to start doing that on Zoom.
[17:48]We also do a Twitter launch party for every book.
[17:52]Every book there's like a Twitter party and they all
[17:54]introduce each other and they show each other photos that go with their stories.
[17:59]And so so many of our contributors have become great friends.
[18:03]And some of them live 2,000 miles apart and they've become best friends because technology
[18:08]lets them and then they'll actually travel to meet each other.
[18:11]It really is a family.
[18:13]We have an email list of about I'd say 7,000 people who we communicate with regularly and we
[18:19]send them a newsletter.
[18:21]And the way people find out about us is they'll either get one of our email
[18:26]story callouts to find out what we're doing.
[18:28]Although just go to our website, which is chicken soup.com.
[18:31]And if you go to our website, you can click on submit your story and then we show you
[18:35]all the topics that we're collecting for.
[18:38]And we have story guidelines and we really walk people through the process.
[18:42]So it's very easy to submit and every single submission gets read.
[18:46]And so it's really thrilling when we can say like half the people in a new book like
[18:53]this making me timebook are new to us.
[18:55]So we're constantly widening our net.
[18:58]We're spreading our net to get more and more contributors and huge amounts of diversity.
[19:04]We make a really big point of saying we absolutely want stories from every ethnicity,
[19:10]every religion, every not religion.
[19:14]Every belief system, every place that you could possibly live.
[19:17]Every ethnicity, belief, every sexual identity, the whole LGBTQ community.
[19:23]I mean, we've always been like that though.
[19:25]That's not a new thing for chicken soup for the soul.
[19:27]Since chicken soup for the soul started 27 years ago, chicken soup for the soul has always
[19:32]reflected everybody in the pages of our books, which is cool.
[19:36]Because then you get to meet people in the books who you wouldn't ordinarily meet.
[19:40]You know, so that's kind of makes you a more well-rounded person when you're reading 100
[19:44]months stories from people spread all over the US and Canada and even some other countries as well.
[19:50]It's so neat.
[19:51]It's great.
[19:51]And you have that new one coming out.
[19:53]You're just telling me about the book coming out in June.
[19:55]Tell me more about that one.
[19:56]Yeah, so people have been asking us could you make a book for the Black
[20:00]community and I was trying to figure out how to do it.
[20:02]And then I finally figured out,
[20:04]I really wanted to make the book for black women.
[20:07]So we have this really cool book coming out.
[20:09]We actually just finished making it.
[20:11]We made it early so that we could get it out for reviews.
[20:15]I'm working with a wonderful black female novelist
[20:19]named Rina Clark, who, oh my gosh,
[20:22]she was an overnight success.
[20:24]Oh gosh, a couple of decades ago,
[20:27]she was working as an assistant at a media company
[20:29]and on the side, she was writing.
[20:31]This is amazing, great American novel, basically.
[20:35]And it was her first novel,
[20:37]and it was picked for the Oprah book club.
[20:39]And it went wild.
[20:41]She sold more than 700,000 copies.
[20:44]And she's had two really fabulous novels since then.
[20:47]And I know she has another one coming out sometime
[20:50]in the next couple of years, which I heard
[20:53]a reading of a little part of it the other day,
[20:55]and it was so good.
[20:56]So she's been working with me.
[20:58]And she and I together worked on choosing all of the stories.
[21:03]And there were so many great stories
[21:05]that it really broke my heart
[21:07]that I couldn't put all of them in our book.
[21:09]And I actually, I actually already kind of cheated
[21:12]because we're supposed to have 101,
[21:13]but I took all the ones that were poems.
[21:16]And I said, I'm not gonna count the poems.
[21:17]I'll just put those in separately.
[21:19]I'll sprinkle those throughout the book.
[21:20]So I've had a hundred and one stories
[21:22]that then another dozen poems on top of that,
[21:25]because I just, and then I took so many of the stories
[21:28]that were great that we just didn't have room for
[21:30]and I moved them to other chicken soup
[21:32]and the soul books coming out in the second half of 2021.
[21:36]So I'm trying to publish as many of them as possible,
[21:38]but that's been really, really exciting also,
[21:42]providing this safe space for black women
[21:45]to talk about what really matters to them
[21:48]and to share about just what happens.
[21:51]I mean, one woman, this will,
[21:52]you'll get this being a mom of teenagers.
[21:55]Her son wanted to go and protest.
[21:58]He wanted to go and walk in a protest about George Floyd.
[22:01]And so he said, mom, I need a t-shirt.
[22:04]And she couldn't get him a George Floyd t-shirt quickly enough
[22:07]because he needed it in like two days
[22:10]because he's a teenage boy.
[22:11]So he needed it immediately.
[22:13]He didn't ask her on time.
[22:15]And then she found a t-shirt that said,
[22:18]I can't breathe on it,
[22:20]that was from an Eric Garner protest.
[22:23]And it just broke her heart.
[22:24]She's like, here I have the perfect t-shirt for you.
[22:28]But she was thinking,
[22:29]how do I have the perfect t-shirt again?
[22:32]Eric Garner was six years ago.
[22:34]And now I'm giving this to my son for George Floyd.
[22:37]You know, and it was so moving
[22:40]and just something that would appeal to every mom
[22:43]that this is what I'm dealing with.
[22:45]And my poor son has to now go
[22:47]and wear the t-shirt from Eric Garner
[22:50]because it applies still to George Floyd.
[22:52]So there are stories like that in the book,
[22:55]which I think,
[22:56]I mean, I think everybody will read this book
[22:59]because everybody needs to understand
[23:02]what's really happening
[23:03]and what it's really like to be in this,
[23:06]in the black community
[23:07]and have these things going on in society today
[23:10]that make you feel so unsafe at all times.
[23:13]You know?
[23:13]So anyway, Breonna Clark, though,
[23:15]is the one who I've been relying on for all of that
[23:18]because I wouldn't be presumptuous enough to say
[23:20]that I should choose the story.
[23:22]So she chose the stories and I'm putting them together
[23:24]and publishing this book.
[23:26]So that's that book.
[23:27]That's amazing.
[23:28]But anyway, yeah, that's been my form of me time, though.
[23:31]I think that has been such an amazing experience
[23:33]that work has felt more like self care and me time
[23:37]because when you're really passionate about doing something,
[23:40]it doesn't feel like work anymore.
[23:42]Totally.
[23:43]Wow.
[23:44]I mean, that book sounds amazing.
[23:46]This book already was amazing
[23:47]and now it's just coming out
[23:48]and I'm sure will be a place of refuge
[23:52]just to lose yourself in these pages is, you know,
[23:54]it's like the book itself is the me time.
[23:57]You know, you don't have to then go take a bath or anything.
[24:00]You know, it accomplished.
[24:01]Yeah, already.
[24:03]So did you notice when you were reading,
[24:05]making me time?
[24:06]How many people talked about getting outside in nature?
[24:09]Yes.
[24:10]In fact, right?
[24:11]Yes.
[24:12]In fact, the day I read it,
[24:13]I remember I made a point to go into the park
[24:16]because I was like, you know what,
[24:18]I totally don't do this enough.
[24:20]Like I should, I mean, I do it with my dog,
[24:21]but like I have to make it a part of my life.
[24:24]I have to do all of these things
[24:26]seem so simple going into nature,
[24:29]reading, spending time in the library.
[24:30]I love this self care found in a library basement line
[24:33]and just all these things are achievable.
[24:37]And yet they get put on the back burner
[24:39]until something happens and you just can't avoid
[24:42]taking care of yourself
[24:43]because something bad happens or something, right?
[24:45]Yes.
[24:46]Well, people have to put that,
[24:47]you have to put self care on your to-do list.
[24:50]And a lot of people are like, oh yeah,
[24:52]I'm gonna do the me time after I finish my to-do list.
[24:55]Like no, no, no, no, put your me time on your to-do list
[24:58]and don't vacuum the house.
[25:00]Like your me time is more important.
[25:02]But it was interesting how people found
[25:05]that the thing they were doing often
[25:07]when they were procrastinating and saying,
[25:09]oh, I haven't done my me time.
[25:11]Was actually their me time, like going and taking a walk.
[25:14]Like one woman went outside and she sat by the pool
[25:17]and she was saying, okay,
[25:18]I know I have to come up with some me time.
[25:20]But I really just want to sit here
[25:21]and look at the birds and listen to them chirping
[25:24]and look at the leaves rustling.
[25:26]And she did that for half an hour.
[25:28]And then she said, oh, that was my me time.
[25:30]I'm such an idiot.
[25:31]And then the woman who said,
[25:33]yeah, the woman who was at the library sale.
[25:35]So the book sale, once a year when you can buy books
[25:37]for you know, a dollar at the library.
[25:39]And they said, oh, we're not gonna have the event anymore
[25:41]because nobody's volunteered to do it,
[25:43]going forward.
[25:44]And she said, well, I would do it,
[25:46]but I don't have time.
[25:47]And I still, she's thinking,
[25:48]I still have to get my me time organized.
[25:50]Like I know, I was supposed to engage in self care.
[25:52]So I can't possibly do this.
[25:53]And then her husband volunteered her anyway.
[25:56]And then she went and she did it.
[25:57]And she realized, oh my gosh, that's my me time.
[25:59]I love books volunteering at the library
[26:02]and organizing the books for the sale each year.
[26:05]That is the best me time I could possibly have.
[26:07]And so that was one of the points of the book is that
[26:10]you have 101 points of view about
[26:12]what kind of self care work for 101 people.
[26:15]And it gives you ideas for what will work for yourself, right?
[26:19]Like, I don't think anybody was knitting,
[26:21]but maybe knitting is your form of self care.
[26:23]And somebody else was hiking and jumping off cliffs
[26:25]well, that might not be your form of self care,
[26:28]but that was hers.
[26:29]And so you realize there's a whole pan of things
[26:31]you can do for your me time.
[26:33]It's really up to you to discover what works for you.
[26:36]And then put it on your to-do list.
[26:38]And then you're good.
[26:40]And now you are gonna be a much less stressed,
[26:42]happier person going forward.
[26:43]So what is on your personal me time list
[26:47]aside from reading at night for an hour?
[26:50]Or exercising?
[26:51]So I guess I'm not unusual, right?
[26:53]Exercising.
[26:54]So I mean, the best, okay, I can't meditate.
[26:58]I think I tried that for one week
[27:00]and I just kept wanting to multitask.
[27:02]Like, I can't do that.
[27:03]I can't do that.
[27:04]So I can't either.
[27:05]No, and I was asking people like,
[27:08]well, can I ride the exercise bike?
[27:10]But not read while I'm doing it.
[27:12]So then that will be like meditating plus exercise bike.
[27:14]Like, no, you're not allowed to do that.
[27:16]You cannot multitask.
[27:17]So forget that.
[27:18]So I like to go on walks and listen to audio books
[27:21]since I don't have as much time to read.
[27:24]I read by listening to audio books.
[27:26]And then, so that's the reading.
[27:28]And then that's the exercising,
[27:29]which she combines reading again, doesn't it?
[27:32]Because the audio books did that.
[27:34]Okay, so I found two ways to read
[27:36]for my me time, isn't that interesting?
[27:39]What do you think it is about stories?
[27:41]Because you're obviously like a story addict
[27:44]the way I am, right?
[27:45]I just love it.
[27:46]I love hearing them and I don't get tired ever
[27:49]of hearing stories, right?
[27:50]I'm like, I even just like pour over the obituaries
[27:53]because I'm like, wow, well, that's an interesting story.
[27:55]I wonder about her life and like,
[27:57]let me fill in these details and their stories everywhere.
[28:00]And I just can't get enough.
[28:02]And you in particular have dedicated your life
[28:05]to like getting more stories out there.
[28:07]So I don't know.
[28:08]What do you think it is about storytelling
[28:10]and hearing stories and having stories
[28:13]be a part of the fabric of our everyday lives?
[28:15]It's so interesting, isn't it?
[28:17]I mean, stories are so entertaining.
[28:18]And then for some reason, stories are always enlightening.
[28:22]Even though we particularly pick stories for our books
[28:26]because they're gonna be particularly enlightening
[28:28]as they entertain you and they're gonna let you think
[28:30]and they're gonna help you improve yourself
[28:32]in a really painless way, right?
[28:33]You're not like writing essays or doing bullet lists
[28:37]or you know, doing homework from some self-care book.
[28:41]You know, you're actually just being entertained
[28:43]while it painlessly gets into your head.
[28:46]I don't know why I love stories so much,
[28:48]but I always have.
[28:49]I mean, I wasn't allowed to watch television as a kid.
[28:51]So I read a lot, but really television
[28:53]was storytelling also.
[28:55]Who doesn't like stories, right?
[28:57]I know, I know, I just, I don't know.
[28:59]Well, it is how mankind has passed on wisdom
[29:01]and culture and advice forever, right?
[29:04]Before we had written language,
[29:05]we had storytelling around the campfire, right?
[29:09]Like that is the most effective way.
[29:11]Like if you want your kids to pick up certain values
[29:15]or cautionary tales about not going out with a drunk driver
[29:19]or whatever you're trying to get into your kids' brains,
[29:23]stories are always more effective than just telling them.
[29:27]But even as an adult and somebody who's supposed
[29:30]to just tell herself stuff,
[29:32]I find I get so much from reading other people's stories.
[29:34]And you know what people tell me?
[29:37]And I don't know if I should take this as an insult,
[29:39]but my friends will be, okay, so my friends,
[29:42]who've known me forever.
[29:44]So they knew me pre-chicken soup for the soul
[29:47]when I was the law-spake person.
[29:49]It was trading and swearing with the other traders
[29:52]and doing all that stuff that hard person.
[29:55]So now they say, you're so nice now.
[29:58]Like, oh, really?
[29:59]What was that?
[30:00]like before, but also I just find that when you read all these stories, you just become so much less
[30:05]judgmental because you're so exposed to the fact that stuff happens and what can happen in anybody's
[30:10]life and how anybody can make a mistake and have everybody's basically good underneath those mistakes
[30:16]and you just become more grateful also for what you have. So I really feel like I've become way
[30:22]more forgiving and less judgmental and more grateful and more aware every single day of what's good
[30:29]in my life and also you learn not to take things personally, you know, like you're at a store
[30:35]like, well, like we're going to stores now, but let's pretend you're still going into stores
[30:40]and there was a crabby cashier. Will you learn from reading all these stories? Okay, something
[30:44]else is going on in her life. It has nothing to do with me. She doesn't even really know who I am
[30:49]or what I look like. If she closed the drive, she couldn't tell you who she was just crabby at,
[30:53]you know, and so that allows you to just go through life like untouched by it, you know,
[30:58]you'll be become tough lot. So for me, stories have dramatically improved my disposition, apparently.
[31:05]What do people say? Well, you're such an inspiration to me because so much of what I would like
[31:12]to do, you have successfully done already on such a big scale, like the community and the stories
[31:18]and it's just amazing. So you're like a total role model. I just like, I'm watching what you're doing
[31:24]trying to learn and, you know, so it's great. Do you have any parting advice for aspiring authors?
[31:31]I think that you should write stories that come from your heart. I know that sounds so
[31:35]sappy, but if you're really passionate about something, you will write better. And so to me,
[31:41]the best thing to do is to sit down and write about something that happened to you in your real life.
[31:47]And even people who write novels draw from their own lives, from the lives of people they know well,
[31:52]but you're going to be a better writer when you write about something that where you really feel
[31:56]the emotions. And then the other thing I tell people is you have to be unselfish and you're sharing
[32:02]and really reveal everything. You know, that's what you did in your book about moms don't have
[32:09]time to. I mean, I noticed that in your stories, you really shared your innermost thoughts. And
[32:16]that is so helpful to other people. And that makes the best writing. So that would be my advice.
[32:23]It's just share unselfishly. And if you're writing for chickens for the soul, and you're really
[32:29]over sharing about a particular family member, we will let you use a pen name. Good to know.
[32:36]I have actually, yeah, name in the best because I've always wanted to get in trouble.
[32:41]So useful to all not. Well, Amy, thank you. And I know we're going to have all these other
[32:45]opportunities. And we're doing all these Instagram lives and Facebook lives and all the rest. And
[32:50]I'm so excited. So yeah, I'm thrilled that we've connected because of these books. And thank you so
[32:55]much for coming on. Thanks for having me on. And I know I'll be seeing you again soon. Okay.
[33:00]Bye. Thank you, Amy. Thanks so much to three righteous mamas for sponsoring today's podcast.
[33:07]And just a reminder again, please pre-order a copy of my book. Moms don't have time to
[33:12]a quarantine anthology. And go to my website under the anthology tab for the fundraiser. And I hope
[33:19]you'll buy a ticket and join me for, and I should have mentioned, um, I'll proceed to COVID-19 research.
[33:26]So please join me for the fundraiser. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to this episode of
[33:31]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and
[33:36]at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign
[33:41]up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week. Thanks so much to
[33:45]Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[33:50]for providing this fantastic intro and outram music.