Lisa Niver, BRAVE-ISH: One Breakup, Six Continents, and Feeling Fearless After Fifty
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[1:03]Lisa Naver is the author of Braveish, One Breakup, Six Continents, and Feeling Fearless
[1:08]after 50.
[1:09]Lisa is an award-winning travel expert who explored 102 countries on six continents.
[1:14]This University of Pennsylvania graduate sailed across the seas for seven years with Princess
[1:19]Cruises Royal Caribbean and Renaissance Cruises and spent three years backpacking across
[1:23]Asia.
[1:24]You can discover her articles and publications from AARP, the magazine, and AAA Explorer
[1:29]to Wired and Wharton Magazine, as well as her site, We Said Go Travel.
[1:34]On her award-nominated global podcast Make Your Own Map, she has interviewed Deepak Chopra,
[1:39]Olympic medalists, and numerous best-selling authors, including me, by the way, not that
[1:43]I'm a best-selling author, but I'm an author.
[1:45]And as a journalist has been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations for
[1:49]a print and digital stories, as well as her television segments, she has been awarded
[1:53]three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism
[1:57]Awards.
[1:58]She's been a finalist 20 times.
[2:00]Named at number three Travel in the Fluensor for 2023, she talks travel on broadcast
[2:04]television at KTLA, TV, Los Angeles, her YouTube channel with over 2 million views, and
[2:10]in her memoir.
[2:12]Carrie Maher is the author of All You Have to Do Is Call.
[2:15]Carrie is the USA Today Best-selling author of the Paris Bookseller The Girl in White Gloves,
[2:19]The Kennedy Deputy Taunt, and under the name Carrie Majors, this is not a writing manual,
[2:24]notes for the young writer in the real world.
[2:26]She holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives with her daughter and talk in a leafy
[2:31]suburb west of Boston, Massachusetts.
[2:33]Welcome, Lisa.
[2:34]Thank you so much for coming on Momstone.
[2:36]Have time to read books, to discuss brave-ish, one breakup, six continents, and feeling fearless
[2:41]after 50.
[2:42]Yeah, congratulations.
[2:44]Thank you so much, Zibi.
[2:47]It is such an honor to be here with you.
[2:49]Thank you.
[2:50]Well, you too.
[2:52]Thank you for sharing and really pouring your heart out on the page here.
[2:56]It was so interesting, moving.
[2:58]I love books that make me feel, and I really felt like I was in your shoes and so much
[3:03]of this from the travel to the pain of the relationship to trying to figure out who you
[3:08]were and all of it.
[3:09]It's all just so relatable and honest and makes for a good read to boot.
[3:16]So there you go.
[3:19]I'm really, I'm so touched and I really appreciate it.
[3:22]And when I was writing the book and I was working on the book, you get to the point,
[3:27]you know this.
[3:28]You've written a memoir, you get to the point and you're like, is anybody going to relate
[3:32]to this?
[3:33]Is this helpful?
[3:35]Am I just pouring this out on the page and people are going to think I'm such a stupid
[3:40]person?
[3:41]No, no, no, no.
[3:43]You also really paint a picture of what happens in an abusive relationship, which can
[3:48]start as verbal abuse, can get physical, but it's so insidious and the harm that it does
[3:56]over time.
[3:57]You had this one passage.
[3:59]Can I read this?
[4:00]Wait, wait, let me back up.
[4:01]Why don't you tell listeners what your book is about?
[4:02]Then I want to talk to you about this passage and address.
[4:05]Thank you.
[4:06]Okay, so for the thumbnail, I say about my book is that I did 50 challenges before I
[4:13]turned 50 after my divorce to reinvent myself.
[4:15]And I had been a lifelong traveler and I was fortunate to work on the cruise ships and sail
[4:22]around the world.
[4:23]And I've been a teacher, a traveler and fortunate also to work as a journalist.
[4:28]So during COVID, I wrote about the demise of my relationship and feeling like I lived
[4:34]in crazy town and trying to figure out how to make a life.
[4:38]You talked about getting from what do you say crazy town to Sextville or like, is really
[4:42]funny though.
[4:43]You wrote about that.
[4:44]Oh my gosh.
[4:45]Well, you start the book with a very dramatic scene where you're in Thailand and your
[4:51]husband pushes you on the street so much that you fall and then he storms away and you're
[4:56]left crying in a hotel and calling your friends Thailand or Thailand, right?
[5:01]You were in Thailand.
[5:02]And what do you, all right, because your friends in China wanted you to come there and just
[5:06]trying to make heads or tails of what to do, both the immediacy of being in foreign country
[5:11]and having a major crisis relationship issue.
[5:14]And then after math of that, once you're back home, you then tell the reader a little more
[5:19]about your relationship.
[5:20]And this is the part that really, you know, struck me so much was how you described your
[5:26]relationship with your husband Fred or your ex-husband or ever, if I could just read this
[5:30]one little section.
[5:32]And he said, this was not the first time Fred had been physical with me over the course
[5:36]of our relationship, particularly in the years since we'd gotten married, Fred was frequently
[5:40]upset about my behavior, my appearance, even my being noisy.
[5:44]He complained about the lunches I packed him and that I ate my apples too loudly, had
[5:49]someone have an issue with that as well, by the way, and held my sandwich with too many
[5:53]fingers.
[5:54]He hated when I talked on the phone to friends inside our house.
[5:57]So I'd taken a calling everyone I knew on my walk home from work earlier on our trip
[6:01]to hit stopped walking with me on beaches, because my footsteps in the sand were too
[6:05]loud and would distract him.
[6:07]It upset him that I read too quickly on my Kindle and said that even when I switched pages
[6:11]noiselessly on the electronic device, it disturbed him on a 24 hour bus trip through India.
[6:17]He complained that I went to the bathroom too often.
[6:19]You could only go to the bathroom when the bus stopped and sometimes it only stopped every
[6:22]six hours.
[6:23]Fred would not go every time we stopped, but I would.
[6:26]More and more, he used physical tactics to express his frustration.
[6:30]Sometimes he pinched me when he got aggravated, which really hurt and left a bruise.
[6:33]The trip was not making things better.
[6:35]In fact, the longer we were away and the farther we traveled, the angrier he got, oh my goodness.
[6:42]First of all, I'm so sorry that you were in that situation to begin with and I'm happy
[6:47]you were able to extricate yourself.
[6:50]Thank you.
[6:51]But how did you feel going back and writing about this and sort of reexamining the progression
[6:56]of the negative things?
[6:58]Because you go back and you kind of analyze the whole thing.
[7:02]Just tell me about it and how you feel about it now and what it was like writing about
[7:05]it and where you are.
[7:08]Well, thank you.
[7:09]Yes, it was deeply disturbing to write about it in some ways more than to live it because
[7:16]it didn't quite add up for me as I was living it and that was a strand in the book
[7:22]about trying to figure out my issues with pattern recognition and working on my eyes.
[7:28]So in some ways writing it was more traumatic and I used to write until I was pretty sure
[7:35]I was going to throw up and then I would lie on the floor and it was really hard.
[7:41]I quit a lot of times.
[7:43]I wasn't sure that it was worth it and I made the decision in the process of writing
[7:49]it that it was very cathartic for me and so every time I quit I did start again and
[7:58]I did have a lot of therapy that was helpful.
[8:01]I had a small group of people that knew what was going on and were checking in with me and
[8:07]I had one friend that I called and she said, listen, I will argue whichever side you want.
[8:12]I've known you.
[8:13]Actually at our 40 year reunion of our 150 of us went to Israel for the summer in 1983
[8:19]for nine weeks.
[8:20]So we just had a reunion.
[8:21]So it was one of those people and she said to me, I'll argue whatever side do you want?
[8:25]You want me to argue, you should quit this project.
[8:27]Do you want me to argue?
[8:28]You should finish the book.
[8:30]Do you want to just go out for the day?
[8:32]You need a lot of support in all stages of your life.
[8:35]So it was very fortunate to have that and it was a hard process.
[8:40]I'm very happy to be on this side of it and I hope that anyone that's in a difficult
[8:45]situation if it's an angry boss or a partner that's not appropriate that people find the
[8:50]way to tell someone and get the help that they need.
[8:53]Well, do you feel like if you could go back knowing now, like when would you have done
[9:01]something different if you would have like would you like because it's hard being in it
[9:06]and we see you sort of tracing the path and sometimes, you know, it's like what they
[9:12]say about like a frog and boiling water, you know, is there a moment looking back where
[9:18]you wish anything had changed or no, I actually think a lot about the frog and boiling
[9:26]water.
[9:27]It's very hard.
[9:28]It's very appealing to think about what changes would you have made differently.
[9:33]I think a lot about that movie sliding doors.
[9:35]Me too.
[9:36]I love that movie.
[9:37]Oh my gosh.
[9:38]I think a lot about that.
[9:39]Like what if I had never written him in the online dating world or what if after the time
[9:44]at the dance class when he threw himself out of his own house, I was like, that's it.
[9:49]And I spent a lot of time in therapy wishing that I had a magic wand and wishing, you
[9:54]know, what if I never met him and what if this and there were a lot of what ifs and
[9:59]one of the things that helped.
[10:00]me the most was really thinking a lot and learning about forgiveness and that forgiveness
[10:05]doesn't mean that the behavior was acceptable. And there's a great book called Super
[10:10]Survivors. And in Super Survivors, they talk about the, that we talk a lot in the United
[10:15]States about post traumatic stress disorder. But this book was the first time I heard
[10:18]about post traumatic growth. And one of the things they say in the book is I'm in Los
[10:25]Angeles and we talk a lot about driving here. So one of the things they say in the book
[10:29]book is that it is very challenging if not impossible to drive your car only looking
[10:33]in the rearview mirror. Very true. And so I read a lot in that book about forgiveness
[10:40]and what does it mean to focus on forgiving yourself? I wasted a lot of time and therapy
[10:45]complaining that I didn't have a magic wand. I'd like to be a superhero. I've wonder
[10:50]woman car seats. And you know, I'd like to imagine I could have done it differently. So
[10:55]the best thing for me was to keep moving forward. But I spent a lot of time processing
[10:59]it. And I learned what I could from it. And I hope that in the future in similar situations
[11:04]I'd make other choices. I feel fairly confident I would. But yeah, I wish I don't have
[11:09]a great answer to what I would one thing I would change. No, it's a hard question because
[11:14]you know, it's our life. And I don't, I, you know, I don't think you should be living
[11:18]in the rearview mirror either. And I'm sorry to dredge this all back up. I just, I get
[11:22]all I appreciate your careful read. So interested in all of it. I mean, it's just always
[11:29]hard to know when to do what when you're in the middle of it. And anyway, I just found
[11:33]a very, very powerful. And as you recovered and went back to Bel Air and your parents
[11:38]house and sort of regrouped and what do you want to do? And you know, I was kind of wondering
[11:43]I was like being armchair psychologist. I was like, I wonder if there was, he had maybe
[11:49]there was something undiagnosed about him, you know, that maybe I don't know. But anyway,
[11:53]it doesn't matter. It does come up. As you know, you interview a lot of people. I, I found
[11:59]for myself and the people I spoke to that getting divorced, you know, a lot of women and
[12:04]men to feel like a failure, you know, we have this idea, everything's going to work out
[12:07]even though the numbers don't speak that all marriages work out. And so for me was a lot
[12:12]about thinking about what, what was a success for me and what was a failure for me. And
[12:16]one of my friends said to me, it was not a failure to get divorced. It would have been
[12:20]a failure to stay in that relationship. Yeah. Well, also, you weave in, of course, your
[12:26]love of travel, which is sort of the heart of this whole book is how much you love travel.
[12:31]And after reading, I went and watched your video about, you know, we said, go travel.
[12:37]And how traveling is not just about looking at a new place, it's finding a new piece of
[12:41]yourself when you get there, which I found so profound because sometimes it does take that
[12:47]change of environment to give you a new view of yourself and life in general. You've had this
[12:52]sort of wanderlust forever and the cruise ship when the love boat thing was hilarious as well.
[12:57]Tell me a little more about travel and how you grew your business and the twists and turns it's
[13:04]taken and everything that happened since. I've been, I've been so fortunate to have an incredible
[13:12]community working on the cruise ship was amazing. I describe working on the cruise ship that it's
[13:18]like you live in a college dorm, but no one has any homework. So every morning you wake up,
[13:24]you're in a new country. And, you know, there are people, always people to do something with,
[13:28]I got to go scuba diving all around the world. And then with the blog revolution, I started,
[13:33]we said go travel. And I also started the YouTube. I'm very close now to 2 million views on YouTube.
[13:40]Thank you. Thank you. And it's so, you know, it's funny as, as different things have come in,
[13:45]you know, I had we said go travel since 2010. So at some point, they started Twitter, which is
[13:49]always the evolved to X. And Facebook has evolved into, you know, Instagram and threads. There's been
[13:54]so many changes, but for TikTok, I interviewed my friend's daughter. And I was like, I don't
[14:01]really know what to do. And she said, Oh, Lisa, let the robots edit for you. They're much smarter
[14:05]than you are. Okay. So I've been trying out different social medias, but I've had some great trips
[14:12]recently. I was in Puerto Rico on World Environment Day. And I got to interview Dr. Richard Murphy
[14:18]on my podcast. He's been with the Cousteau Society for 50 years. And I was fortunate to interview
[14:24]you on my podcast. Thank you so kindly. And it's been amazing. I spent a couple weeks in
[14:31]Ireland. And then when I was back, I got to interview the ambassador of Ireland. So the travels and
[14:36]the website and the videos and the podcast have all supported each other. And in fact, next week,
[14:41]I'm coming to New York to be at the Clinton conference. And I'm so honored to be able to write about
[14:47]them from his magazine and the Jewish journal. Like, it's been amazing. All these threads in the
[14:51]beginning didn't seem like they would ever weave together. It seemed like people were like,
[14:56]why are you doing social media? And the videos and this and this and this. But now at this point,
[15:00]everyone's like, oh, that was a good idea. Yes, well, make sense later. Good motto to hash.
[15:08]That was another thing that I thought was great and so helpful to so many people who were trying
[15:14]to figure out what to do with their lives and which direction and is it okay to make a U-turn?
[15:20]Your whole thing with med school and being in med school and dropping out or you know, not
[15:26]drop shouldn't call it dropping out. But switching gears and pursuing what you loved after
[15:31]and getting into the best med school and all that preparation and you know, doing that and then
[15:36]getting going into education and just really following your heart with where it took you literally
[15:42]physically and having, you know, that's one of those brave moments in brave-ish, right, leaving
[15:48]the path that is set out before you and going off course. What do you think it takes to listen to
[15:56]those voices in you and make those hard decisions? I think it takes it's a really good question
[16:02]and I like how you call it switching gears because sometimes I felt like a derailed train but switching
[16:07]gears seems much more positive. But I do encourage people to listen to the little voice in your
[16:13]head. I know sometimes people think you're crazy or paranoid and definitely when you when you take a
[16:18]leave of absence to work at Planned Parenthood in preschool from medical school, people do think you're
[16:22]pretty nuts. But it was the right choice for me to reinvestigate and it was hard because people
[16:30]really thought it was a bad idea that the school, the head of school and the school therapist didn't
[16:36]think it was a bad idea. So I had some support. I guess the common I would make about switching
[16:40]gears is if people don't support you but you really think it's the right choice, you might need
[16:46]a bigger circle. There are people that will support you and you might bring on your own circle.
[16:52]I think about when Ruth Bader Ginsburg says how many women will be enough on the Supreme Court.
[16:57]She's the nine. But when there was the first one, the first person who is Jewish, the first person
[17:03]who was a woman, it is hard in the beginning to shift gears. I guess the point is you don't know,
[17:10]you have to be willing to take the leap. What's the quote about take the leap and build your
[17:15]wings on the way down? Sometimes people won't think you're making the right choice but you have to
[17:21]know it went on a lot of walks and I talked to a lot of people and I just kept coming back around
[17:27]to the same thing and it was really willing to be wrong. I didn't drop out at first. I went on
[17:32]leave and I was like, is this the right choice? When I left ships after September 11th and I
[17:38]come to New England bankrupt, I did try to stay a little bit longer and it just wasn't right.
[17:42]So I think the most important thing is to check in with yourself. Is this this feel right for me?
[17:47]Interesting. So tell me more about the writing of even the second half of the whole thing in all
[17:55]adventures. I go tell listeners more about all of that and what life is like now and I'll give
[18:01]us some tidbits and all that. So the book is of 50 things that I did and growing up I had a lot
[18:09]of accidents and I thought that I was clumsy and it turns out that wasn't to accurate. I was not
[18:14]properly diagnosed and my eye doctor, Dr. Alan Broadney, really helped encourage me to try new
[18:20]things and I know you're very good at tennis but that was one of the things that he recommended
[18:25]and you could imagine without a lot of hand-eye coordination that trying to learn tennis as an adult
[18:30]was shall we say pro-streating? But that led me to try a lot of other things and I so I took a
[18:37]a lot of things back that you know I never thought I could be a bike rider and one of my challenges
[18:42]was I I did have two instructors so I don't recommend trying new things on your own like make sure
[18:48]you take the steps and wear the pads and get instruction but I did go mountain biking at Lake Tahoe
[18:55]in North Star and it was amazing in fact there was crying a lot of my challenges did have crying
[19:00]but one thing that I realized I was on this incredible trip in Italy and we went on a
[19:08]gondola ride as you do in Venice and we'd the best time and we got off the ride and someone else
[19:16]someone was crying and so we went and we took her out for drinks and we talked about what was going on
[19:21]and she was separated trying to decide if she was going to get divorced and we had a lovely chat
[19:27]and she has a completely different life now but when I went back to my room I was like wait a second
[19:35]someone was crying and it wasn't me I'm doing better you know you got to take the winds where they
[19:45]are but I've had incredible experiences I got to scuba die with sharks in Mexico bull sharks I got to
[19:52]go to Cuba for the first time I went to this I've been a lot of places because I worked on the
[19:58]cruise ship so part of my 50
[20:00]or 50, I was working to get to my 100th country.
[20:02]And because I spent so much time at sea,
[20:06]I had to figure out which were the countries I was missing.
[20:08]So I had done a search for landlocked countries.
[20:11]So I went to San Marino in Italy.
[20:13]That was one of my places, so amazing.
[20:16]Well, and you're not just doing things like scuba diving,
[20:19]like you couldn't even swim before.
[20:21]You didn't take swim lessons till you were grown up.
[20:24]And the I, the missed diagnosis,
[20:26]there were several doctors said,
[20:28]okay, you're just not going to be 2020.
[20:29]And then it turns out that you essentially had like a lazy eye
[20:32]and could remediate that with EMDR, right?
[20:34]Is that, that's basically what happened?
[20:36]That's like a life shift, a huge life shift.
[20:40]A huge, huge life shift.
[20:42]You know, when I was teaching,
[20:44]I would often have a student that would get an IEP
[20:47]or diagnosed and they were dyslexic.
[20:49]And they would come to me and say,
[20:50]you know, I always thought I was stupid, but an adults
[20:54]that get diagnosed.
[20:55]So one of the things that happens with eye disorders
[20:57]and children is it's not like as an adult
[21:00]if all of a sudden you're a double vision.
[21:02]You go to the doctor and say,
[21:03]I used to see this way and now I don't.
[21:05]And I've done a lot of reading about this
[21:07]and high achieving girls tend not to complain.
[21:11]And so I was doing well in school.
[21:14]I had a lot of accommodations that happened on their own.
[21:17]I sat in the front.
[21:18]A lot of the things the doctor would have given me.
[21:20]I did on my own to try to make it.
[21:24]And that was honestly one of the things
[21:25]that medical school was the first place
[21:27]I couldn't out accommodate on my own.
[21:30]I had issues with gross anatomy and histology.
[21:33]And I pretty much ran up against the edge
[21:36]of my intelligence and my ability to accommodate my issues
[21:40]without help.
[21:41]But it really helped me.
[21:43]I remember Dr. Broadney telling me,
[21:45]for sure if you do vision therapy with me,
[21:48]you know, you're gonna have to do a lot of work
[21:49]on your own every day.
[21:50]But I promise you, you'll be better at sports,
[21:52]which I am.
[21:54]So we didn't know I didn't know that it would lead
[21:57]to so much understanding of where I was misaligned
[22:01]in relationship.
[22:03]So interesting.
[22:05]You also write about and show us online
[22:09]and all of that your experience with your own body
[22:12]and eating and weight and weight loss
[22:14]and all of that.
[22:15]Tell us about the 50 pound weight loss.
[22:17]Tell us about how you feel about things now
[22:21]and just wear, I don't know,
[22:23]with that whole journey has also taught you.
[22:26]Yes, well, growing up in California and Los Angeles
[22:29]definitely issues of weight have always been
[22:32]at the forefront.
[22:33]And you know, when I went to college,
[22:35]I gained a freshman 15.
[22:37]And at one point, I had gained quite a lot of weight.
[22:41]As you mentioned, I, you and I share a love
[22:43]of Hoggandaw's ice cream, I was.
[22:46]That was so good.
[22:49]We love Hoggandaw's just moderation people.
[22:52]And it's been interesting to figure out,
[22:57]you know, how to feel comfortable in my body.
[23:00]And one of the funniest things is I travel with a hula hoop
[23:04]and the Bloomberg didn't interview with me
[23:07]and it's in the title about how I travel with a hula hoop.
[23:11]So you could read a little bit more about my adventures
[23:14]but I, of course, being in Los Angeles,
[23:16]there's a class for everything here
[23:17]and that's how I got started to hula hooping for adults.
[23:21]And I travel with my hula hoop.
[23:23]I've been, I hula hooped with the Messiah warriors in Kenya.
[23:26]I hula hooped in jail in the Philippines.
[23:28]So there's videos of all that.
[23:30]My funniest recent adventure.
[23:31]I love Loretto in Baja, Mexico.
[23:35]And I was with a bunch of scuba divers
[23:37]and I said, you know, maybe you could help me
[23:41]and I hula hoop while flying a kite.
[23:43]I mean, talk about coordination.
[23:46]I mean, seriously, that's crazy.
[23:48]Yeah, it's a funny video.
[23:50]It's hard to do both of those little at the same time.
[23:53]Crazy, my gosh.
[23:55]Okay, so the book itself,
[23:58]tell me about that.
[23:59]Tell me about the publishing process,
[24:02]how like what's, what that's looked like,
[24:04]how you feel with it coming out, all of that.
[24:07]So my book, Braveish, One Breakup Six Continence
[24:10]and Feeling Fearless After 50 is published by Post Health Press
[24:15]and it's distribution with Simon and Schuster.
[24:17]And during COVID, I was working on this book
[24:20]and I was able to query agents
[24:23]and I signed with Chip McGregor
[24:25]and he's been an incredible champion for my book.
[24:29]And he was the one that found Debbie at Post Health Press
[24:33]and literally from the very first moment that we spoke.
[24:37]I could tell that she was such a champion.
[24:39]She loved my book.
[24:41]She's always been an incredible supporter
[24:43]even when my book came in really long
[24:46]and there was a lot of edits.
[24:47]That's, you understand from being a publisher yourself
[24:51]and an author.
[24:53]But they've been an amazing team.
[24:55]Chip and Debbie have really helped me navigate
[24:59]all of the issues of publication, promotion.
[25:03]And I'm just so excited that people actually get
[25:07]to read the book.
[25:09]Congratulations.
[25:10]Was there anything unexpected that happened along the way
[25:13]or something great that came out
[25:15]or hard or challenging in new ways
[25:18]or anything with the journey of the publishing process?
[25:21]I think the hardest thing about writing a book
[25:24]as a journalist is I'm not used to writing something
[25:28]at this link and wondering like does this hold together?
[25:35]And then I guess the other thing
[25:36]that was really challenging for me
[25:38]through the different rounds of edits.
[25:41]There were times I didn't really want to read
[25:43]the tough parts of my story again.
[25:46]I was like, friends, this is not fun for me.
[25:51]And so was a challenge to figure out,
[25:54]could you lose this piece?
[25:56]Did it still tie together?
[25:58]I remember reading one version and thinking,
[26:02]this story doesn't make sense anymore
[26:04]because we didn't save this other part.
[26:06]Like this is funny because and so trying to figure out
[26:10]which things tie together and how many threads can you have.
[26:14]Like I love being Jewish and I love my temple
[26:17]and my eyes were terrible and I couldn't swim.
[26:20]Like could you these pieces, they're all parts of me
[26:24]but it's like how much can go in one book?
[26:27]To your point on the temple,
[26:28]I was really struck when you were in that moment
[26:31]trying to decide what to do with your life
[26:33]and your marriage and you reached out to the rabbi
[26:35]and you had said the till death to you part
[26:38]and he pointed out that you don't say till death
[26:40]do you part and also you wouldn't push a stranger
[26:44]on the street, right?
[26:45]Why is it okay for a married spouse to do that
[26:49]to another spouse?
[26:50]When, anyway, I just thought that was so good.
[26:53]My, I'm actually speaking at the temple
[26:56]and I've been working on what I'm going to say
[26:59]and I've been very fortunate to have a close relationship
[27:02]with a lot of the clergy at my temple
[27:05]and they've really made a difference for me
[27:07]and I know earlier we're saying, you know,
[27:09]if you're not sure what you want to do
[27:11]with your relationship or your life
[27:13]or your college student, you're like,
[27:14]I don't know what my major is.
[27:15]I very much for me, faith has been a huge part
[27:18]of being able to make good choices
[27:21]and having someone who can be a sounding board
[27:24]that feels like family but isn't family
[27:26]and for me, my college group, everybody went to services
[27:31]but we all went to a different place on campus.
[27:33]We didn't all have the same religion
[27:35]but we shared that belief that, you know,
[27:38]we should try to be better people
[27:40]and we should be kind to other people
[27:41]and I think that's a very, very much a commonality for me
[27:45]but the temple, I do believe is one of the things
[27:48]that helped save my life, that I wanted to go back
[27:50]and that I had people that were there for me.
[27:52]That's wonderful.
[27:54]What's something now that you're trying to drum up
[27:57]some braveness or bravery rather to do?
[28:00]What scares you a little bit
[28:02]and you're working on getting there?
[28:04]That's such a good question.
[28:05]I'm working really hard on saying yes to things
[28:08]and new challenges.
[28:09]I know for myself, during COVID being home
[28:12]and not being as social,
[28:15]that I have to convince yourself to do stuff again
[28:19]that I used to go to a lot of networking events
[28:21]in LA because we had them
[28:23]and then we're starting to have them again
[28:24]and the other night I really didn't want to go
[28:27]and I still went and I was like,
[28:29]if I go and I talked to one person, I could leave
[28:32]and then I got there and I talked to one person.
[28:33]And I was like, oh yeah, I love this.
[28:35]This is so much fun.
[28:35]And I ended up speaking with someone
[28:37]that has a company where they make websites
[28:41]and people have been approaching me,
[28:44]how can I be author?
[28:45]What can I do to have a book?
[28:46]And one of the things I recommend people is have a website.
[28:48]So he and I are gonna do a workshop together
[28:51]and talk about how do you get started
[28:53]and how do you get publicity
[28:55]and how do you build your brand?
[28:56]So I think you probably remember the musical avenue queue.
[29:01]Yeah, the puppet.
[29:02]So I love when they have that whole scene
[29:04]where like the world is happening outside your house.
[29:07]Yes, you have to leave your house.
[29:09]Yes.
[29:10]So leave your house, do something.
[29:12]That's where I'm still working on always.
[29:15]I, you could have taken that out of my,
[29:17]I really have a hard time leaving the house at times.
[29:20]And I'm like, just, you know,
[29:23]I have a rule like always go to parties in the rain
[29:26]because then I feel like I never want to go to parties,
[29:28]especially if it's raining.
[29:29]And I'm like, those are always the best events.
[29:31]So even my kids know, they're like,
[29:33]okay, it's raining, you have this thing to do,
[29:35]you gotta go, like you gotta go.
[29:36]Always go to parties at the rain.
[29:38]Oh my gosh, you need that as a t-shirt.
[29:40]You need to sell that as a baby's book shop.
[29:42]Okay, yeah, maybe I'll make it a t-shirt.
[29:44]Yeah, I know.
[29:45]Also never turned down a glass of champagne.
[29:47]Those are my two things I live by.
[29:51]I love this.
[29:53]I love this.
[29:54]I have, oh, you have a saying, what are your, what are yours?
[29:56]I say celebrate early and often.
[29:59]That's a good one too.
[30:00]Yeah, it's never too early to celebrate your birthday.
[30:03]Yeah, never too much advice to aspiring authors.
[30:06]What do you have?
[30:07]My advice to aspiring authors is never give up.
[30:11]Oh, my new thing actually is rest not quit because during the process for myself,
[30:17]I kept quitting and then I read this phrase that said rest not quit.
[30:21]Mm-hmm.
[30:22]And the other really important one is how do you know,
[30:26]you maybe you know the answer.
[30:27]How do you eat an elephant?
[30:30]No.
[30:31]One bite at a time.
[30:33]So any gigantic projects?
[30:36]Where are we eating elephants?
[30:37]Okay, we're not supposed to eat elephants.
[30:39]It's a kid's joke.
[30:40]It's not that funny.
[30:41]Okay. Forget about the elephant.
[30:43]Do not eat elephants.
[30:45]Zibi and I are not promoting elephant eating.
[30:47]No, no, no.
[30:48]But it's about the big project.
[30:50]So when I used to teach school,
[30:52]one of the projects we did was science fair and kids get overwhelmed by science fair,
[30:57]just like adults get overwhelmed by the idea they can write an entire book.
[31:01]But you break things down.
[31:03]And one of the ways that I've been able to do this book project is I basically give myself little assignments
[31:08]like for science fair, for science fair, first you pick the topic and then you do some research.
[31:13]And then you follow the instructions from the teacher.
[31:15]This is do this week.
[31:16]This is do next week.
[31:18]And so for aspiring writers, I tell people the way to write is read a lot and just get started.
[31:25]So I tell people think of when is your birthday?
[31:27]My birthday is on the 18th.
[31:28]So every month on the 18th published one story could be a long Facebook post.
[31:35]You could have your own website.
[31:36]But at the end of the year, you'll have 12 and maybe you'll like writing and maybe you won't.
[31:42]People say to me, I'm going to buy hosting in a website and a logo.
[31:46]I'm like, do not do that.
[31:47]Start small and start for free.
[31:50]You know, go on weebly or wicks or real nice make your own website for free or do Instagram with really long captions and see how do you like writing once a week or once a month.
[32:04]But the people that tell me they're going to do something every day.
[32:07]I'm like this in.
[32:08]No one's that interesting.
[32:11]Start small.
[32:12]That's great advice.
[32:13]I like tying it to your birthday because of course, you remember that day each month.
[32:17]That's great.
[32:18]Lisa, thank you.
[32:19]Thank you for coming on mom's time to read books.
[32:21]Congratulations on brave it.
[32:23]I wish you all the best and thanks for really being so brave as to share your soul with the rest of us.
[32:30]Thank you so much.
[32:31]I'm so excited to have an event as if he's bookshop in Santa Monica.
[32:34]Yeah.
[32:35]And thank you for having me on your show.
[32:37]I just think that what you've done for the publishing industry and the way that you support authors and women and memoir and books and your retreats and classes and magazine.
[32:48]It's incredible what you've done.
[32:50]So thank you.
[32:51]Thank you.
[32:52]I appreciate that.
[32:53]All right.
[32:54]Have a great day.
[32:55]Thanks for listening to this episode of mom's don't have time to read books.
[32:58]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at mom's don't have time to read books.
[33:03]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week.
[33:10]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[33:12]Texture sound for the sound editing.
[33:14]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.