Chapter 17: Emily McDowell on family fallouts, finding phrases, and forging false fairytales

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I flew into sunny Del Mar to hang out with Emily.

I flew into sunny Del Mar to hang out with Emily.

Have you ever looked through a bunch of greeting cards and felt like nothing reflected the way you feel?

The greeting card industry is 150 years old, and yet they haven’t quite mastered this skill yet…

But Emily McDowell has. Emily has an uncanny ability to characterize the relationships we have, not the relationships we want to have.

My lovely hotel and our podcast set!

My lovely hotel and our podcast set!

Emily runs Emily McDowell & Friends, an online hub of greeting cards, tote bags, and other gifts that articulate things in an emotional way that we often can’t express ourselves. Emily finds the right words to say … when we can’t. For our Valentines when we haven’t quite defined our relationships yet. For our loved ones who were just diagnosed with cancer.

Emily is also the New York Times bestselling author of There Is No Good Card For This, which acts as a guidebook on how to navigate our relationships so we can understand our pain, work through our challenges, and develop resilience and empathy.

Selfie of me and Emily.

Selfie of me and Emily.

I think she has really put her finger on something that we desperately need in the world right now: how to create more empathy.

We discuss some really interesting themes including how our pasts affect us, how to raise creative children, and how to use lessons from advertising to make things people want… not make people want things.

I hope you enjoy Chapter 17.

Listen to Chapter 17:

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What You'll Learn:

  • How can we identify universal truths to better relate to others?

  • How can we turn pain into humor?

  • How do you raise children out of your own shadow?

notable quotes from emily mcdowell:

“It’s a lot more fun making things people want rather than making people want things.” @emilymcdowell_ #3bookspodcast

“Sometimes when you hold onto an old story it’s because it’s easy, not because it’s actually serving you.” @emilymcdowell_ #3bookspodcast

“You can’t make art from the perspective of ‘trying to make everyone like you.’ Because that’s never going to happen.” @emilymcdowell_ #3bookspodcast

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