Whatever the better part of a decade. My yesterday lethal was one of the driver forces behind the assumption of the cultural icon. That has become known as the moth and its accession, seen from a local underground scene to a global media phenomenon, with a huge presence not only on stages of all sizes, but in the world of podcasting and public radio. And the funny thing is that was never Lee s plan until it was why working with the team that would change the face of media storytelling. She was also living into her own, very hard, driving, sometimes destructive and massively overworked story before everything came to Heaven he found herself in a place where all of it her work, her ships, her health, her life, more or less came tumbling down

and she had to make some decisions how which he rebuild it in a way that would let her lived the life she wanted. That exploration eventually led her to really step out of the space for a window of time and then back into it to launch what became the popular podcast strangers, which won the two thousand and fifteen public radio march madness contest beating out some of the most iconic shows in the space along the way. She has also worked with everyone from postgrad fellows at harvard to inner city. Kids people in a homeless, shelter is in new york and allay two's celebrities like ethan hawk mark marin, Darrell dmz, miss Daniels market shows susan vega and even mega brands like Google nike intel sat in sochi tiffany through her company story, central really helping

to understand how to elicit and then become better tellers of their own stories, so excited to share this conversation with you on Jonathan fields, and this is good life project the So the ten percent happier podcast has one guiding philosophy. Happiness is a skill that you can learn, so why not embrace it and it's hosted by dan Harris a journalist who has?

a panic attack on national television and then send out on this journey of transformation and he's now on a quest to help others also achieve peace and happiness, and every week Dan talked you top scientists, meditation teachers. Even the odd celebrity in wide ranging conversations that explore topics like productivity, anxiety and lightness, psychedelic and relationships, the interviews cover every one from bernay brown to cerebral ass to SAM Harrison more. I love learning from his questions and experiences and incredible guess think of listening to ten percent happier as a work out. For your mind, fine ten percent happier where every listen to pot casts- How does a I even work where it is creativity come from? What's this where to living longer ted radio, our explores the biggest questions with some of the world's greatest thinkers. They will prize challenge and even change. You listen to npr ted radio, our whatever you get your past library.

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an expert analysis as soon as you sign up, if you're interested in subjects like this go to economist dot com, slash project for full access to the topics that matter too an original analysis as events unfold, that's economist, dot, com, slash project or just click. The link in the show notes to start your one month, free trial with the economists today, because the world won't wait growing up in denmark. I first jumped out to paris, I guess for a year or so and after getting out of school, what was going on that drew you to pears, I mean first and foremost, I think I really wanted to avatar denmark. I love the country I'm from, but it's a very small and at the time it was still a fairly homogenous place and I had been to paris many times and in love the city. The way many many people do and I had very romantic ideas pairs, but I also really was so drawn to the multiculturalism and

the diversity and the big metropolitan life, and I moved to paris- and I was like you know- this is the big big world and I'd love that and moved on from there to new york, because then I went to new york, for you know a few weeks summer and then I was like oh screw powers. This is where it's happening. Where has this been all my life new york? Is the we place on the planet that I want to live for a lot of those same reasons. and I guess you ended it- went when you came to me- and then you ended up in columbia. Was that sort of part of the intention come here? Study comp lit or be coming to work verse? I moved to new york because I really wanted to live in new york city. I had actually come with my french boyfriend and he and I had met in paris. We then moved to denmark and we he'd lived in new york before and we went to visit for a few weeks one summer and the moment we landed like that night. I was like I want to live in the city and he had gotten. I

back to denmark to my home country, he'd gotten a job they are actually at the faculty. Although I was quite young, I was still a student myself, but he was a little bit older and You know, so we had this very settled life. I was twenty three years old when, I moved to new york right and for a couple of years he and I had lived in denmark and like had a nice apartment and we would have his colleagues over for dinner and but that whole time I just was thinking how how I want to get back to new york, and I want to get back to a different kind of life, and so he and I broke up- and I thought if I don't Now I was still in the middle of my studies. I you know I was like I'm going to get another boyfriend, I'm going to get another apartment, I'm going to get another, or something and and all I want is to live in new york. So I just moved to new york and then I was like I'll figure out the rest. But then you know pretty quickly, and and so I really just moved- and my parents and everybody was horrified because I've been accepted to a very good graduate, ram and I was like no I'd rather go to your wages in new york city and nobody thought that was a terribly good.

The other adam. I did it and but then I realized you know if I want to stay here, I'm: gonna need a visa and some other things, and so am I probably should finish my studies and so to colombia was really just a way for me to finish. Studies and stay in new york I remember I lived in an apartment on the east village, which you know is not close to colombia exactly for those familiar with city, geography and I would take the train up. There four times a week, because I was really just a visiting scholar. I was not involved. I just sent my papers home to my graduate programme in denmark and ended up graduating from their while having a visa and the library card and could audit classes. I wanted to colombia, but it was very funny because I remember one morning I lived with a woman, compeers actually she's, quite a great film maker, and we were roommates at the time she made boys don't cry and she was making that when

early versions of that when we were living together. But we'd already lived together for a few months and we were both on the EL train going across town and then to go uptown to colombia, and I said where you going I said oh columbia, and I said oh me too, and we'd lived together for a few months and and she said you go to colombia, I was like uganda, colombia, but she had graduated if she was making the film, which was our feet thesis and I you know- I went there so rarely that we lived together for two months and neither one of us even knew that we went to colombia. So no, it was not. The university was the city that room that is too funny and so you're living on the the is then would that have been like a late nineties ish. Something like that. Ninety five is when I first yeah, came right, which is a really interesting place to be. I mean the east village in the nineties was not let yet it's it's amidst the east village is always cool, but each village in the nineties was.

It was basically music and drugs. I mean it was crazy scene, I loved it. I loved it. You know the the trip to new york that inspired me to eventually move there. A couple of years later we stayed in the west village with a friend, but we went out the first night and we went to see a little jazz band at the ST mark's bar on the corner of ST mark's and first avenue, and you know it's like these ancient guys they were hunched over you know and older than eighty. I think all three of them a trio, but they were just playing this amazing jazz and then we walked across the street to jaska cafe and it was like midnight. You know when I was still jet lag than we have like dinner, we have passed at the off a cafe at midnight. I was like I need to live, the city and I actually ended up being a waitress at the afa cafe on ST mark's place there for a couple of years, which was a crazy place back in the day, so yeah it was really fun. I loved it yeah I mean that's too funny or waitress at the office, which kind of a legendary place yeah. It is

it's gone now I hear, but it got twenty. A couple of years ago, someone to one of my old waiter colleagues told me that they finally tore down yeah yeah. I mean that whole part of the city was really is amazing. It was also a centre so much so much or america. To a certain extent, omelette, Jonathan Larsson and rent was sort of lake right around there like that area in low recital a that came out of that that time as well, one of my best friends actually leave them in illegal laughed on avenue, d and I know that part of the rent story was based on like they knew him well and part of the rent story with the boys boys based on like their building and yeah. So anyway, those were the exactly the days yeah. That's amazing, an incredible art scene that at the same time, that was certainly today,

an art seen whereas lake the later stages of keith herring and basque ya, say: Adams was down there, also yeah yeah. That was a moment in new york city and a neighborhood that would leave such a lasting impact in so many different ways, culturally throughout the city for for decades to come, yeah yeah, so you're hanging out there you're living done there you're effectively commuting up to colombia. For those who don't know new york city, this kind of almost no further place that you could be in the city get crosstown an uptown, you're right and at at some point your pursuing year degree. Also, you stumble upon this thing called the moss, me how you first stumble into their sir discover. I had a boyfriend who told the story of the moth and I just fell in love with it. You know at the time I was still study at columbia. You know come

up there taking classes when I showed up the other students would say: oh the scholar has visited because they thought it was such a joke that I was visiting scholar I mean all of that. So little younger, be visiting scholar and member that I knew the head of the copenhagen department of complaint and he was. Columbia as a visiting scholar, and I ran into him in the hallway and he was like wait. You're visiting scholar, I'm a visiting scholar like aren't you just just a student, but somehow they have granted me that, but I and I've been I've from a rather academic family, and so it almost for me at always seemed like you go to university as we call it in Europe. You go to university in order to work at university, like I sort of thought like that was the most natural path, but it really didn't suit me that well I I was fairly good at it, but did not. I was so sick of academia honestly by the time outside colombia and really just wanted to get. My dear

done so that nobody could say what you squandered this great opportunity to get a graduate degree, and am I started studying literature because I loved stories. Actually, I first started studying philosophy, history and ideas, because I thought you know what is this life all about? What does this existence all about? How do I get the closest to that? Surely, by studying philosophy by studying history of ideas, I will get the closest to that essence and after here. They are I hated. It was like. I have no interest in debating whether this chair exists, I'm sitting on it. It does not make me feel like I'm getting closer human experience for the particular way that I'm wired right. I love philosophers, but it's just wasn't for me. So then I switched to literature thinking. Well, maybe that is there is actually we can get closer to some essential truth of the human experience right. Am I loved realism at a time when it was really not at all to you know be into realism. Everybody was you know. Everything was about. Deconstruction

nothing could be taken literally and you couldn't be earnest about anything, and I was you know. I love realism and I loved stories and wrote my thesis on on Henry James actually- but you know- is still very much in an academic context and just was so hungry for two things and one was to do storytelling and a different kind of way in accomplices. Fifty percent. If not more theory, you spend a lot more time. Reading Dara Dara than you do. You know, reading actual novels, and it's almost all. She was at at least at the time seen us a little bit Well, if you studied literature, because you like to read books, you know that so I I want to work with stories in a different way and I wanted to be a part of new york city in a different way and after columbia, I was lucky to get an internship at the un in our communication department there. But you know it was really boring. job, and I really didn't like it and I was offered a position there. They said you know we can give you a contract for a year, which was what most in terms-

Rima than when I had thought I dream down, but you know when they did that I just went home to my boyfriend at the time. and I was like. I do not want to take this job. I remember it was thanksgiving and I was like I do not want to take this job it just everybody there seems so miserable they go home crying every day. The woman who interviewed me for the job and who was going to hire me and she was like look. You seem like a great young person at the very glad to have you in this job and that you close the door and she said, but I have to tell you that half the people here go home crying every day. It's a very hard place to work, and I think you should maybe get out and not do it. But you know part of it was that people didn't seem happy there, and that was a boring job, but the other part of it was that you know I really. I had moved to new york to be part of new york city and I'd lived in the east village and waitress there and loved it. But like commute

up to colombia, but I was so hungry, for you know that I didn't think I live in new york or the u s forever, and I wanted to squeeze the most out of new york city and get to know all these different layers of the city and all these different personalities. And you know what the u n. I could not be further from that because it was people from all around the world. It was diplomats, and I so I want to be part of new york city, and I and I was so hungry to work with stories- had loved I love to be elysium. I love people, but I didn't want to do it in that academic kind of way right, so I went to the moth and I was like wow. This is like all of the things I've been dreaming of. You know rolled into one, so I mean back then what was the moth, because it now in no small part, especially like through your efforts, it's grown into something much more substantial but but way back. Then, when you first discovered it, what was it actually back? Then? The moth was already fairly successful in terms of being kind of. You know at the the best kept c

of the people who who love dead, meaning that was a very devoted following right and there are a lot of people that didn't know the moth. I mean I still remember universe years later that one and we were on the subway me in a couple of other staffers and we were talking about something they were like you're from the market and I think the first time we have that experience that someone other subway knew what we were talking about, and you know that was still many years later. But there was a following in new york that was very dedicated and love did. I think we had a mailing list of about five thousand people. When I joined, and you know the show sold out very quickly- and you know that so there was an original founder and it was his idea and then he'd hired a friend of his to run it, and they have built up something in a crisis as for a few years, but still no kind of underground and only in new york- and you know not known certainly by a ton of people but that had him, very dedicated following and she

at me actually initially decide to community outreach programme. They ve gotten a grant to go and do storytelling for at risk. You and in homeless, shelters and other marginalized populations, who could really benefit may be from the opportunity to tell their story to be given a voice to be heard, and so on, and also by the way the luncheon phenomenal communiques? skills in the process that they could use as they were, trying to get their lives back on. back or whatever it may be, and so they were looking for someone to help with that I saw that and I was like this is the only thing I want to do, and so, oh so, with the things having when I was like. I don't want to take this job at the: u n, you know I went home my boyfriend, and I said what am I gonna do. I don't think I can turn this job down, because I dont have a green card and they're not gonna, be how many jobs that I can take and he said why don't we get married that'll settled that more or less so we decided to get

married. We went to city hall and genes and got my hurried of a couple months later and I didn't take the job I turned it down. I had the thanksgiving data think about it. You know and we decided to get married and I turned it down, and then you know it. A couple months, a few months for your work papers and staff to go through in and in the meantime, I saw that add from the moth that they will for someone to. I need the community outreach program and I thought this is everything I want to do, and so I applied, and I think the only reason I probably got it because I didn't have a ton of relevant experience at the time. Probably, being a waitress was more relevant experience than being a visiting scholar at columbia, but you know I I said you know you can't pay me for the first couple of months, because I'm not allowed to work at my work papers haven't gone through, so I'm going to have to work for free for two months. Then they were like done hired, and so it's all so I think I've been out the other candidates by being very affordable and am, and it was definitely annexed

arians. I mean I remember. The first place I went into was a homeless shelter on on the barry called project renewal while on third street, but ass, the barry I and that it was a substance, abuse treatment center for homeless men- and you know I had talked to them and they said about the guy who coordinated. It said why don't you come in and you know tell us a little bit: we have a group eating every friday at in the afternoon. You can come and talk about what it is that you do, and then you know we can you conceive any other guys want to sign up for your workshops, so I had also favours a part time jobs, so I was still doing the hustle of having to get other gigs too, and I came from just having interviewed with a documentary film maker who was looking for someone part time to help him with some language. Things ok. I could do that. So I was dressed for that interview. You know like a kind of like a short skirt and you know we're tight skirt, like you knows, blouse and a yellow make up and little heels, and all that am I

walked into this shelter and there were two hundred men in their who had lived there for eight months and haven't seen a woman. In that time. Basically, all male, and you know I remember the guy introduce me and I walked up the middle I've kind of been standing in the back, and you know that cheering at item bright red and you don't. I hooting and hollering, and I had no idea. You know I was like. Oh I'm from a place called the both and we do like storytelling, and I was so embarrassed and flustered. I dropped all my, papers. It was like a movie, cliche and, I ran you know over to my little sign up table that they have set up for me and just ran off stage and over there in the first guy who came up and you know, a little line formed of people who are interested in learning more about my workshop and the first guy who came up had the words pussy either tat. Viewed as is his face.

And I you know, took the above at to register that I didn't know if he had written it like to make me more embarrassed, because I was already so flustered and you know beet red in the face, and I was like: did you write that for my benefit, but he I ended up taking the workshop and I learnt that it was a permanent tattoo so yeah. I had some great times there I their that. That's an amazing, especially it is your first experience so where you actually Where was this? Where you're going out- and you were you within sir, like t- send storytelling and then have an event in that location or invite them into one of the local moth events? What was the golden-

the program itself would always culminate with the show. So we'd go into most of these places for about eight weeks at the time and work with people on their stories and then put on a show for the school or for the shelter, or you know the local community, but fairly quickly. We also started taking the best of the people from the outreach program and putting them in the big shows. You know as a great way to very fine storytellers for that, but that was not the primary purpose. The primary purpose was definitely too for the people to learn how to tell stories and to be given that voice in their own community yeah. I mean what and I'm so curious because you're pretty young, then and you're going into these places where people have, regardless of their age, they're places where short, almost by definition, they have lived life in a way. That is very often pretty intense and pretty hard and probably gone through a lot and part of what you're doing is listening. Their stores are teaching them

no actually illicit until their own stories, which I mean I'm, I would imagine a large part of that is not just whose had to tell your story but here's how to uncover yeah your story, which, especially when you're working in those populations, has gotta, be such an incredible experience to be a part of from your side. Also, absolutely amazing, I mean you know I used to write and grandpa cations that shaping the narratives of their stories also helped them shape the narrative of their lives, and I thought it sounded really clever and perhaps had helped us get a grant or two. But I also came to find the to be true that there is an enormous sense of empowerment that comes from telling your own story and from learning how to shape that story, and you begin to patterns of cause and effect, and you begin you, your own life ass, a narrative and as a narrative, tat. You are in control of as opposed to a narrative, that's just

if a runaway train and your hanging on for dear life and a lot of the people we worked with were in that situation right because their lives had been derailed in some way or and they were trying to find a way back, and so this whole idea of oh, it's a narrative, and I have some power over that narrative to shape it I have both when I'm telling my story, but also when I'm living my life, I think, was really empowering for people and it was incredibly moving and and wonderful and yeah. Maybe my favorite thing but I've ever done professionally yeah. I mean when, when you drop into that scenario, also how do you actually because you're the person who comes in and says, I guess I'm gonna help you understand how to do this whole thing, but you're pretty new, yourself, oh my god. Oh what were you drawing on that day, basely said well a walk in the room and have some sense of. I think I can tell you how to do this. Now I was crazy. I mean I, I really couldn't

Now, and in that characterize a lot of my here early years of the market, you know the people who hired me were amazing and empowering me in that way. I'm probably by the time I went to work at the moth was maybe twenty eight. I think when I first went to work there and I we just learned by do but I was terrified to be honest. I had you know, volunteers that I would train to go in with me and help get people's straw people stories out of them and help work with them to shape the stories and

You know the first times that I was trying to teach these volunteers how to do this thing that I barely knew what to do. Yeah, I mean cause it's sort of like there's the added pressure of well, I'm not just helping some random person. You'll learn how to tell a story about their lives, but it's almost like I'm I'm helping these people who've been through so much makes sense to a certain extent of what they've been through, and if I get that wrong- and it's not just about you know like well okay, so they won't be able to tell a good story like maybe they're not going to be able to create that sense of meaning or understanding about their own their own personal. And what I ve been doing, this suffering the struggle. I mean it's a whole different level of pressure. It's true, but at the same time you know think that tat very often in I'll just sitting down next to someone and saying I'm interested, I want to hear your story is important and empowering for them. You know so

Many people in these situations, dont really have a voice, aren't really heard right there just statistics. Nobody really wants to hear the story behind it and you know say we would pick stories for, for the big shows. Occasionally that was part of that was like. Oh we're doing. A big fancy show at the museum of natural three and the whale room. Well, let's bring up one of the guys from the shelters and have his story there, because you know that way: that whole community is also gonna, get exposed to these other existences in new york city right in that multi. city, so that was part of it, but I think the point of it was not to react group storytellers flower main stage shows the point of it really wants to empower these populations in the state. We are interested and we want to hear you, and I always, to the volunteers that I trained, you know, challenge them We only tell their stories well like yes, it's a first important step to just sit down and say I'm interested in your story, I'm interested in who you are I'm interested in what happened to you, but you know that said:

I would also say to the volunteers, really challenge them, because we're not here out of pity they give we're here. Out of pity it creates a bad islamic and there are so many other services that are like. Oh, let me go do that. Let me hold your hand don't be a friend to you, be a big brother, be other things, though other organization that service that we are a story telling organization we here, because we want to teach them something we want to expect something of them. We want something from them and there is that exchange and that I think very quickly got us between the sort of us and them. You know, because it was like we're not here at a pity, were here, because we are genuinely interested in your story, so we would challenge them to really tell the stories as well as they can, But you know when you say well, the stakes are high yeah, but at the same I you know so what, if somebody bombed right, maybe it was more important that he got a chance to do it, And everybody cheered because you know I mean I remember in the very first workshop, we had a guy who, on day one sat and just looked at his feet and the whole time you know, and there were only ten people, maybe who had signed up. I think

a limited to ten them and dumb. We could barely here he said when he said his name. You know we went around and all introduced ourselves and he just said his first name. We could barely hear what he said. He didn't say a word for the entire. glass and he ended up at the final show telling a great story right and for someone so shy to overcome. And stand in a room of two hundred people until his story, the empowerment of that in itself, even if it didn't have the perfect arc or the perfect shape This is the perfect story. You know it was incredible and the guy with who had pussy, either tattooed on his face, ended up telling a story about how you know his lifelong tree, of owning a flower shall end. So you know there were a lot of really surprising things, but the other thing I remember, I often said, was: don't you know necessary. We made the story about what they've been through or why they're homeless, of either in prison, or what has happened to get to this point. We are just interested in having them tell the best story that they can tell

whatever they want to talk about, because I don't want it to be this kind of thing. What cycle? Let's go talk to the homeless, guys, I'm here homeless stories right, so they would also tell stories about all kinds of things. One of them was a great natural storytellers, Ever he told a story about you know you're. Remember these early workshops right. Every story is printed in your brain because it was like first, one in the earth's thinks we're felt so, but I've never wanted told a story about stealing his grandfathers dentures when he was a kid because he at last a tooth he'd gotten a quarter from the tooth fairy and he was like wait. This is a great racket, like it can get my hands on some more teeth. I could make a kill em, so he's dollars, grandfathers, dentures, put them under his pillow and you know, was greatly disappointed the next

winning when there were no dollars under his pillow, so you know people told all kinds of stories, and that was also very important for me because I didn't want them to be pigeonholed as, like the poor, homeless people, you know yeah. I think that's such a great lesson also, I think just to learn for all of us is because I I have the sense that we're all looking you know to live and then be able to tell the great story of our lives rather than like what, if we actually just really became present and aware of all the little tiny moments that path you and how magical even the slightest little thing really is and that any one of those you know can become. The story is at woven together, yeah make this beautiful tapestry and elegant deeply story and fulfilling life totally yeah met yet Global private aviation leader is known for personalizing every detail of your travels because not yet standard is not just

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and financial director, so essentially you're running the whole thing I mean you're, all along with a couple of other people, but you go from being the outreach person to the person who is largely in charge of the young. The mainstay shows and slowly running a large part of the organization right, yeah, so well, yeah and yeah. I became the producer with a woman who was the director at the time, so I went from having a part time job with outreach to kind of having that plus being the the main stage producer and then, when I'd been there for about a year and a half, she aft, and so I found myself with the moth and like a lot of boxes, been working out of her apartment in brooklyn, which was you know, one of those york city. One bedrooms, that's really astute. Oh, you know there was no door between the two rooms, and that was our office and her and so she laughed and so suddenly you had no office. I mean we meaning I am just standing can or three days before

this with them off and boxes on there on the street so yeah I was, I had just time thirty, and am I ended up running the whole thing, but luckily was able hire someone else right right away, so it was me and one other person, and We that we had a board member who had an apartment. He was selling, but he said: oh you now and already moved into the new apartment. But he was like you guys. Can put the stuff here and sit here, the work. While I'm selling this place just don't make it look to message you notice realtors will be walking through. So while we were sitting there working in one corner of this giant laughed, you know with a little mass little pile of boxes it'll skyline of boxes and too little debt, You know he's the real toward walk through and show the apartment to prospective buyers. course absorbed in a few months and anyway. So it was those types of days

yeah and at that time also, sir, this is still emanates growing. The reputation is growing. A lot of people are coming and becoming aware of it, but it's still bound by essentially local events and its also no know this is non profit. So here it's scrappy it's in keeping any nonprofit you're. Like you said, writing grants are constantly looking for funding. This was not yet the way that most people got to know them all. So I get at some point, then the goes from this local thing, which is kind of legendary locally to a national and an international phenomenon, and that it seem like the real catalyst for that was a guest first radio, show and then shortly after that, the podcast, which is I'm curious, how those came to be. Actually that was the other way around. We really want to have a radio show. And down. The martyrs is very much

unity, organization and built up by a ton of amazing people- and I just want to knowledge that in the staff grew and we hired more and more incredible people to work with us many whom I still there today and you know we had a very active, boredom and different things. So it's certainly wasn't my effort, but I Remember when I first took over as executive. I think executive and artistic director was my title at first and you know the board said. Oh, we need you to write. You know, like your vision plan for the moth, and you know I was that had just I'm thirty and had no leadership. Experience has height my vision, but I remember I found it many years later and I and I was like, while all of those things actually did, come true, more or less on that order, but this was back when the woman left, who was there before and ended up taking over that was in late. Two thousand one right so is actually much later in two thousand eight that we started the podcast through that time,

we have been growing steadily in yes ways, but the other big national break through a kind of came from that, and so I thought that the market should be ready. show and so did many other people and I was interested in making at it we show there probably still is, but it's really hard to make something like them. Artwork for tv we found but the mass was bound by an interesting situation where it was at the time felt like a lot of the intimacy really depended on the story. Tellers. You know, speaking to a fairly intimate audience. We thought if we blow it up to three some people you know were going to lose some of that connection between the storyteller and the audience and have a lot of what makes them all feel special. You know we wanted to preserve the intimacy, but It was extraordinarily time consuming to produce. These shows, because we worked one on one with each storyteller, for the main stayed show is right in this do, and so it takes an enormous effort to make these shows that seem like no effort is gone and all and it's very off the cuff, and so to do all that

and then sell, maybe three hundred tickets, and even if it sold out overnight it just wasn't financially very good model, but we thought will ensue, of making it you know where we, where we saw three thousand tickets, if we could bottle that intimacy and then shared with a much larger, larger audience through something like radio. You know that would really be a better way. scale, the more than to just make the shows, bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and I think that was a really key inside we had at the time and the the ones that radio would be the optimal medium for something like the moth We also videotaped all the stories, but if you sat and wash the twelve or fourteen minute video of a person telling a story, you know if it compared to the place where used to in tv. It just was like. Who is this comedian, whose bombing you know because it it just we're not used to that until vision and- and there is also you know, you would think that in a

that television is more intimate than radio, because there is a lot that you can't get and radioactive somebody's holding up in here you know is the t shirt, but I wore that day or here's the trophy that I won that day or whatever it is. You can't see that you can't see the expressions on their faces, the whites in their eyes, we ve off their lips or whatever. It may be right. So you think that so much is lost, but actually is kind of the other way around. I think Audio is such an incredibly intimate medium and just like, when you're reading books, you sort of able to fill out the vis for yourself and almost distracting to have that camera. I found at least at the time that on video you know it police and billing person will make them off into a tv show one day of the people who are still there want it to be one. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but it wasn't an obvious thing, because actually there was something distant. about the camera where you felt like the way.

Watch the video? You were reminded that you weren't there in a room where something incredibly special and very connecting and very communal, had gone on and where you could hear a pin drop in the room. You know everybody was sort of breathing with, breath in. I remember one board. Member one time said you know it feels like everyone is holding hands under the table and in that feeling at the mouth was part of what made it special and of where's audio. You know took something away, also gave you that feeling that you were intimately connected with a storyteller, and so we have this vision that the way to really scale the mouth would be radio. We a problem which was that there was nobody really wanted. Our radio show I mean back. Then there was no podcasting right and the only way to get a radio show was to have some major gatekeeper at a major station, usually you'd get on your local station. I was very rare that you would go straight to national, but we knocked on it

the door we knocked on every local door, every national tour and nobody at the time thought that there should be a moth radio show where we're willing to bet gamble on it at the time. But we were quite clever in that we recorded the stories really well for all the fears, and so I remember in two thousand eight or I don't know one podcasting first came out: maybe two thousand six five or six damn Kennedy who crystal hosts the off frequently unto them he emailed neither press release when apple said you know we're starting something called podcasting and he was like. I think this would be brilliant for the moth, and my first reaction was well that's crazy. What would we give away the content for free? I mean here We've been working like beasts till eleven o'clock, every night sitting on the floor reading can't revenue because we're so poor. And so I stress and like the only thing we have,

any value as this. Our carbonate of incredible stories that we have built up over the years through all that hard work and so give that for free seemed insane. You know is sort of like the same reaction that the music business and everybody had at first to this new technology. I confess so it took a couple years, but then you know when the final door that I could find enoch on or we could find to knock on for the radio show had been sort of closed in our face. And then you know it's like well. What do we have to lose? Why not, just you know, do a podcast and so we started putting out the stories just individual stories, one by one. We did not know a lot about podcasting at all, but it just very quickly took off and then suddenly everybody was like. Wait, don't you want to do a radio show and we're like yeah? Actually, that was, and would be, a really good idea. That's so funny so podcasting, even the

it was so early in the game was really the proof that public radio needed to be able to us or like understand that this is something that's viable, so that's so fascinating that you sort of reverse engineered it. That way, I didn't realize that, while there were lots of people who thought it should be, a radio show right there, where there were lots of people that I knew who were radio producers have worked at radio stations who was who were like? Why is this? Not a radio show, you know we tried every avenue. Right, so one producer at the mouth who's still there. She, I can't remember a woman who moved to be I forgive us and kill and she was like put these cities and I will you please, and my boyfriend at the time was doing an interview with garrison cure for a book, and I gave him the cities and said you know, give give him these cities and we got to meet very briefly backs.

Each other show, and I was like to we're from the lot you know and we invited him to come home to our benefit and he saw that and he was like. Why is this not a radio show and he flew at me and another person to Minneapolis. You know to try to set that up, but that was right wheels were started a role and it ended up having a lot of offers, but there were people out there who thought it should be. A radio show, but back then it was like theirs. twenty four hours in the day, and every radio station already had, of course, a fool broadcasts late. They didn't have an hour of dead air right, so in order the slot you in they would have

and knock somebody else out, and that was just such a brutal system. So yeah I mean it's amazing, and so those two things happen and then, along with the the local, shows over the next handful of years, this thing started just explode in scale. Like you said, you know you could leverage. The stories are being told locally to grow in a national and eventually global audience around all these things, as this is all growing, though, and you're sort of you know, one of the people who's steering the ship. He, along with a team of people, it's getting bigger and bigger your there's other things I mean on a personal level. It sounds like it's also it's taking up. It's essentially devouring every waking hour of your life and taking a toll yeah I mean the first year I ran the moth. You know you asked

you know how to do this. I really didn't write. I was directing all the shows that first year and I have never directed before and I had never even sat in another, her soul, because you know we have had a very antiquated system before that when we were just so scrappy, indeed worked out of their former director studio apartment, as I mentioned, and you know, and and and so would be in the office till eleven p m. Taking icy peace, for the shows we didn't even have a tickets is the right when they were doing rehearsals. I've never sat in rehearsal. I was like and, and we actually had a tv contract them for with a small little tv network called trio at the time, so I had to produce like two shows in one night no because they wanted to maximize. You know what they got for the expensive, bringing out all these cameras and what not so to dvd, to show that one I've, never done it before you know

I was a terrifying and we had quite a bit of debt and I have never done any fund raising and we have to figure out how to get that paid off, and I mean I came home crying every night for the first year. I worked so late and I would just come home to my then husband and we from just fear and exhaustion, and it was really hide and and then you know we continued to work really hard, and I think a lot of that in hindsight was all of my own doing. You know I just when you leave a partner, a husband or wife or whatever it may be and you know, and then you enter a new relationship and you're like. Oh all, these things, it was this annoying person, it's fault and we only them because I'm perfect them. I don't make any mistakes. You know that need it. You get a new boyfriend I can't wait, he's complaining about the same things and I'm irritated about the same things with him or some other things with human and similarly, once I started strangers- and you know- which is my-

now show and was justice exhausted and was just as one out, and it was all me and I was making all the decisions, and you know that nobody else swing in the weapon. You know I realise that a lot of the tendency towards peace- too many logs on the fire and just letting my ambition kind of run away from me and being willing to sacrifice almost everything on that alter, like the only thing that mattered was success. I really in hindsight that I I created an atmosphere like that the mars, not just for me, but also for everyone else who work there and that it was pretty toxic him. You know so I dont want to put it. all I'm like yeah actually hard to build an organisation. It is at an end and to some degree your willingness to work incredibly hard, is also part of what creates the success rate and that's part of wide. That we'll is hard to step out of is because, to some degree it does pay off

wait. But do you know you have to learn to let go you have to learn to delegate, and you know not think that you personally are holding together the entire universe at all times of the day, and if you let go for five seconds, it's going to fall apart and- and I think I was very much in that mentality- so some aspects of what was hard about it, we're definitely of my own doing an end. I feel sorry also for the other people who had to endure. You know that that peace and that atmosphere, but you know there's also just a reality that is incredibly hard to build up an organization and the infrastructure that and the finances and after nine, eleven in new york and all non profit funding was down, and you know you I have to be willing to work hard for sure. I don't think you can do it without working hard, but there's like a sort of a punishing level. You know that that I think I I add it to

One of my favorite yoga teachers always says there are no extra points for suffering right and I haven't had looked at you. I thought they were extra points was offering their what happens, cause you're terrain their hard guiding help and who are the organization it's getting The big things aren't getting easier, though, and you mentioned strangers, which is the project that you split off to launch twenty thirteen first started. Is that right, twenty twelve, twenty, twelve okay, tell me how that transition unfolds? Really what happens when you finally exit the moth? Was that the type of thing where like gradual leading up to that and then it just made sense or did something happen where you're so traumatically out? And then it's time for you to to yellow

embrace something that you owned. Yeah the board fired me. So that's what happened- and I remember they said- is not performance. Its communication, like I, had done very well at raising the money and building up the organization, and you know, with their help, also obvious the help of others, but I was not an easy person to deal with them. I don't think that's not to you no place, all the blame on myself. Things are complicated. There are dynamic by it, you know and theirs often attention, I think in nonprofit organizations profit between which between the board and the people who worked day today, because the board doesn't what's their bite, so they they come in, and I think I never fundamentally accepted that premise that, like you, are people that only I only see every eight weeks and they're like. Oh, no, don't do it like this. Do it like that and I'd be like what like? Who are you like? No, you know, and so I was very young. I think I might have fired me too. I think nobody would dispute what I I did

the martin and I am grateful for that and I learned a lot and I'm proud of it, and it gave me a great platform to jump off and do something ellison. So I dont have very many regrets now, but at the time it was horrible because, I was engaged to be married, and I am I actually tell this story. You know on my show, but I was engaged to be married and I was paid men and when this all started to unfold right and and by the time it was over, I had been fired once. They have left me and I found myself with tiny infant and out job and single and hope pushing forward he and I've given ten years of my life to the moth, and it was my entire community? You know, and in new york I mean every friend I had every acquaint

whereas someone who came to the main stage or came to the slams or volunteered or was involved in some way hosted or whatever it might have been right. So it was like my whole world collapsed and my response to that at the time was not to go. Oh, let me pause and figure out. You know why that happened and just as I thought, oh them there's a huge head, I'm engaged to be married, I'm pregnant, you know, I'm whereby told my therapist like everything. I've ever wanted right, and I just I cried my way through five years- a therapy right, but that one week it just look like everything was perfect, and that was like the week you know later. I would learn that that same week, different things happened. That would ultimately lead over the course of the next year to my ouster, from both my relationship and my job, and so

I was very much living a story of what my life was then and it didn't fit with the storyline. So I didn't pause to kind of figure out wait. Why is this so radically different from this I have in my head about where everything is that I I just you know, decide let me just go show them all, I'm going to move to another coast and I'm going to start another show and I'm going to get another man and I'm going to da da Da Da, and so I just started at over. I was like ok buildable than you know down at the bottom the mountain, I'm a little tired, I'm a little worse for the where, but I also have experience, so let me just put on some gloves and start pushing back up the hill and that was incredibly incredibly hard to do. from such a place of you know. Let me damn an ego and defeat and a lotta hard things, so that caused me to to put my now show on high aid as a couple years ago, because I finally hit the wall. Yeah

you you end up sorting your own show strangers. He moved to ally and now you have. You have a lot of chop, so the show I she gets a lot of early traction. Hang you end up getting a line with her like a hot pot gas networks fairly soon, after that and it seems from the outside. Looking in that ok, so this was a hard stop, but this is that there is a whole new thing. You have ownership, you have total control in a new place. People are talking like rid there's a lot of buzz around this new thing that you're creating and from the outside looking in cycle. While this is like pretty amazing and then, like you said you get to, I guess two thousand seventeen- seventeen. I guess he towards the latter part of two thousand and thirteen all the sudden. This show just kind of stops

and it wasn't just at the show stopped. It was at everything kind of came to a head with you, yeah totally just everything that I have been running away from my whole life. You know I mean yeah, I just kind of fell apart. You know, I I tell the story just maoist as I'm coming back, I just released on matters. Recently, that kind of tells the story goes back ten years and kind of shows. This meant lady on this mindset, and I think the wall I really hit was that I was not in, had been long time since I did it for farms or for enjoyment. You know, and- and there were a lot of factors I mean some of them were deadline six, but you know that are imposed by the outside world right, but really I knew that the problem was me right because you know you look back you get to forty or forty eight as I am now, and you know you look back on ten or twenty years and you're like wait. Who is the constant right and

it me, but the way I told the story on the show is. I actually happened to go to this house with the same group of people for ten years and the first year I got engaged at the tip of the point on cape cod at this gorgeous house right to the man who I ended up breaking up with my son's five we're very good friends today and we ve actually been working on. do a story together, but that that has not always been the case, but You know I got engaged air and then things don't you know the next year I came there pregnant and alone and freshly heart broken in the year. After that, you know, I've just been fired, I was just like they did starting at this house was like when virus at the pinnacle, and then it was just one long kind of sliding down from there are that's how it felt and, like you said I don't take it looks that way to anybody else at that house or in the world, but in time lie me. I am not satisfied my own success criteria. You know, I have not process this,

mine was of losing my whole life, but I'd also not processed. You know the things that had made me as an intern. You know at nineteen or twenty three you know be the ass person in the office right. I was closing the office when I was an unpaid in turn and putting out the newsletter by myself. So you start to look at those things and you go wait. Maybe this pattern is also really. I could keep blaming everybody else and I could stay miserable. I could start going out how it is that I'm creating the situation where I'm so stressed out and not enjoying it so yeah. I thought I would be gone forever. for months, and I ended up being gone for over two years We all want long, lasting courage, but we also want a hair to look and feel soft unhealthy, enter, shreds cuff care

in color, delivering professional quality, long, lasting color, the leaves hair looked and renewed unhealthy would even results from birth to tipp and with their formula the results in up to eighty percent: less breakage versus entreated hair, you can feel confident in your hair. Let the world sea or strength discover a world of reach is striking color. We schwarzkopf carotene collar available at walmart. Yeah, I'm curious about that window cause. You know you hit. You hit a point where you make a decision that I need to just can't put the sun hate us to process and stuff and as it is

Ben's past this short window of time, because to a certain extent also that had become your identity had also become a source of money for you once you start to realize. Okay for me to go all in to really get through what I need to get through on a personal and emotional and psychological level. This may take a long time, you're sort of and and clearly you made that decision and then just a couple of months ago, all of a sudden, the feed on stranger, your show goes, live again, yeah what happens to make you say it's time, I'm ready, and how do I step back into this? Will you know, and I'd spend a year trying to that out, right and being like. Ok, so I should do all the things that you do. You know I should you know right to apple pod, cast and say: will you feature the show I'm coming back after a good long hiatus in they ve been kind to me in the past, and I should like to press on. I should get a little bottle. I will

and am, and then I was like now. I dont think I I want to start it that way. My plan was to to really just put the show on patriotic and they, like. I don't care. If you know if I could get to five thousand listen. on patriotic, and that could sustain me. Why do I need five hundred thousand? really like. All I want is to do my work and be able to make a living it that's decent. where my expenses are covered and I can live, and you know we can live my partner. Does too they can mixes the shell right. So you know there could be a little money for him and enough for me for that to be our livelihood, and so I thought I really don't want to deal with the commercial podcast market, because I've been so burned out by the way I felt like there was always does You know. Regularity and frequency are god You know I mean you must put out. As many shows as you possibly can at all times and with

unwavering regularity, so You can never take like a month off because you, need a vacation right. You have to put out episodes every two weeks and I hated that part of it. and I dont know that. That's the only way to do it. If sums also came along now and said, we'd like to work with you and be a season sponsor and I'm open to sponsorship right, but I thought they need episode six months in advance, I mean I really had a kind of breakdown right. If we take a step back two and a half years ago, I used that word and then I think. Well maybe it sounds too dramatic, because I didn't end up on medication nor in the hospital or you know, but I could not keep going. and I cried a lot and I Are you going to yoga every day and I was able to do very much work and I was not able to do anything public. So the choice in some ways was made. For me, I mean I think, when you hit that, while in your life, which most people are gonna

form or another is still not work. Holocaust like I was maybe they're, not gonna, hit it with worker hollis and maybe they're gonna hit with. I, elation because they are so shy that they never leave the house. I mean there are many forms that this can take, but whatever our tendency is right, there's going to come a moment in our lives in middle age, where we first of all, have that like wait, I look back on twenty years of working and who's the constant right, but also where we find, at the cost of continuing, the way we have been is getting to be greater than the benefit of whatever that was designed to protect us from, And so when we hit those walls are like? No, I'm not going to stop not gonna a pause, I'm not gonna. Listen, I'm not gonna, learn I'm not gonna bending them tied him strings and lean into my painful past and figure out what went wrong here. I'm just going to insist on keeping up the way. I always did you know you I think, end up having to twist yourself into a pretty ugly and miserable pretzel right, and so yet I hit

oh and maybe I could have kept going if I have decided to double down on the strategy, but I had, ready for a while been doing some self exploration, work and really feel like. I would like to find a way to behave. we are in this life, because a lot of what I had set out to do after them off had succeeded. I had a new man, we bought a beautiful house with a pool and palm trees, and we have three kids between us and we had no successful careers and self the outside a sort of look like I had succeeded. Oh I had one and I was like wait. This is second time that I am in a position where a lot of people would look at my life with envy and feel miserable right, and so I had when working on that for a while, and then you know, some things happened, just made me realize that sort of brought to highlight it. How how much I was living in

in denial and and how little I was able to be authentic, in my relationship and my work in my relationship to myself and to everybody around Me- and I just felt like that- was more important than anything else, and so I didn't even properly you know say: I'm gonna hate us. It's gonna be a while I'm taking a creative break. I hope you understand, I said I'll be back in two months and then I just never came back and I don't even want to go to the listeners and say he used to plan because I didn't have one. I didn't want to cry the term again, because I already had I didn't wanna You know so I thought I don't want to speak to them until I have something to say and I didn't care. I think I also needed to get to that place. I saw my my part apple podcast, like ratings. You know I had very. one star waiting, someone I just disappeared in. I just saw them grow and grow and grow, and I was like when I met the point: why don't even care? Or it's been a year since the last time I even checked my stats or who is

made it or reviewed the shell. Maybe then I'll be ready to come back and I totally got to that place. I needed to be totally separate from what anyone thought of me in order to focus My own healing and that's pretty much all I've done ammunition from doing some money work, you know I I teach. Corporations have to be better storytellers, for instance, sometimes and other things for money, but coming back I thought if I could just have five thousand listeners and live that way. Then that's all I need, and I wasn't going to release a publicly, maybe an episode here. There is kind of teachers, but then the whole pandemic happened, and I thought. people really need something and right you know one when it was first happening and everybody was freaking out and everybody was some people were gone crazy and I thought well. I have these stories that I've slowly been releasing over unpatriotic for a very small group. I have not announced it publicly yet just once like on facebook and a little bit but come in, but I'm not started promoting it, and I thought I could just start dropping them in the feed with no ads, no plan, no press,

No, nothing like. I haven't even ice. I put up one called the cape chapter one and I originally had a kept chapter two in chapter three, but for complicated reasons involving other people. I had to take them down, and I am working on another story. Now I don't even have a chapter to you and like that would be so against the rules of podcasting. Like you know, if you're coming back, you've got to drop like one every three days to really get the algorithms going in, like I dont mind, sharing things with people publicly and if enough people are willing to support me on Patreon, and I can live that way if people enjoy my stories and people are sad if they can afford to get them on patriarch, even though its only about a month. You know Then I dont mind putting them out publicly. All I dont want. Is that thing why? Unlike constantly looking at my ratings constantly looking at my views constantly having to so the agents and sponsors who want five interruptions of the sum heartfelt story. You know they want

breakin with five mid walls, and I just was so sick of negotiating that whole thing. That was just so counter to the way I was trying to live my life and come back in a healing way that I wasn't gonna released and publicly at all. But then, when the pandemic kit and and and I thought of people- could use some stories. I have some stories lying around. Let me just put them out there and then it's actually been quite rewarding, because it's helped build the patriarch in in in a nice way, and I've not pulled many of the levers. Still that I I could, if I, if I really want to blow the doors open but I don't think I'm quite ready for that. I'm kind. I really wanted to be a slow build so that I dont get my own ego or ambition. Don't run away with me right,

It's that whole thing. You know it's the repeated pattern and you did the thing where you said it's time to shut this down and step away and take a couple of years and really understand who I am and what I want from whatever it is that you know I call work and make my contribution and my art and now, as you step back into it, it's really interesting to see how you're sort of like you're thinking through okay. So how do I do the thing that I love to do how to put it out into the world? But how do I offer it? in a way that is in the wine and not with what my old self would do, and not not even in alignment with what I know I could do. If I really wanted to, let you have the resources, you had the relationships, you have the skill and the craft to go back in and do this hernia like thing that would make your popping get really big.

This will become are shown regimented. But it's interesting to see you making decisions that say: ok, my primary dr here is to step back into this world from a place that is so much better aligned with who I am and what I want from my life at this moment in time, and it's almost like the work for you is to resist. Pushing to heart is to resist, is almost eight you're saying no to the things you know you could do and very likely said. see that, because you know where that leads, you yeah. Well, you know, I think the big shift for me is that I feel it before the story. I did were always a means to an end. They, whenever the end in of themselves. In the end a means to was very much about what can I bring me in terms of downloads? Accolades clicks money, not so much money more the other stuff. But you know and that's a fund

really unsatisfying place to come from, especially if you want to be an artist and I've never hold myself an artist before like I would almost choked on the word because it sound it so I dont know conceded. I guess- and I was like norm- I'm just. I hope you know what I tell people stories, but I actually I'm practising now calling myself and others you can sell it. You can tell that I still have to offer a few caveats because I still worry that I sound a little conceded, but I want to come from at it from the place of being an artist, a thinking like an artist and doing the stories for that sake and not for what they can bring me for a lot of reasons, but starting with the fact that I think it's, it's really toxic, not ultimately unfulfilling. For me, when

Do it in the other way, I mean. The lesson I could have learned from the moth was that all that success didn't bring me a whole lot of joy. You're living in that very eager way, and I'm sorry if such an over used and cliche word, but it s also the easiest shorthand from a particular kind of way to live, that's not being very present or in yourself a very in touch with what real or what actually works for you right, but your driven by these ideas of what you oughta be, and I that's what I mean when I use that word or that's part of what I mean and what don't realises that you can never satisfy that. It's a black all right, though more and more and more success, but like ten years or the mars, we grew grew and grew and grew and have more and more success, and it better and better, and I you're, putting more logs on the fire and it never fulfilled me and yeah would have moments of you know. You got a little fix like sugar high I'm like wow. That was a great thing that just happen. Others we were hit or you know it didn't fundamentally. Fulfil me in any kind of way

and so then I got fired and then I started seeking out again and build that up to a level where there enough triumphs and moments. You know for me to know that if that was going to do it for me, it would have were the only option- was to find another way there. Now I love it. Is it so and shame? Is he how number one of happier back? Because you are a stunning storyteller and encourage or of stories and it's nice to see you really doing it choosing the stories you want doing in the way you on and also brings so much of yourself. You know to the centre what you're doing now end and idle

love how you're just sort of like making choices from a different place right now and and how that shows up. You know it's sort of like you're, putting the same level of intention and craft into the life you want to live, as you are to the work that you want to put onto the world and it's a really hard place for so many of us to land. I think that's so much of the work for so many of us yeah feels a good place for for us to come full circle in our conversation, as well so sitting here in the container of the good life project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up. I'm trying to think how do you answer that without stepping into a crochet? For me, it's really. being in my life at all, I feel, like I've, lived much My life like it was a story that I was shaping. You know so looking at it from the outside and they

not really good on paper, then that must mean that things were great and life is one way you are actually in touch with what real enough to be able to enjoy anything at all, really even live at all right, and so I practice that every day now. I do yoga meditation everyday, which are for me essential, because the pool is very strong. For me I am a storyteller rights the poor to kind of narrate my life and I am a recovering work, a hologram and its hide. Now that I'm back because there is a lot to do. I used to have a staff, but now I'm the one who's contacting spotify to find out why the new episode to not showing up there and why you know, there's have duplicated How do I not lose all my followers and by other things going to the wrong, and oh, my god, I'm doing all the technical or the admin, all the creative and it's a tonne

of work, and I you know every day need to do something to not get sucked into that mentality of o. Might you know if get this out today. Like I said I wear them all my patients are going to leave me. An african thing is going to end up badly and I you know I will have failed and you know fighting against that that inner voice for me, as is while not so much a fight as maybe a surrender to you, know letting go of that idea- that I first of all control at all in such a direct way, but also that everything is gonna fall apart. If I don't hold on so tight all the time.

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