Chapter 80: Kristin Neff on allowing, accepting, and applying anger artfully

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Are you ready for a brain workout?

Are you ready for a mind expanding conversation with the incredible Dr. Kristin Neff?

Kristin received her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in moral development and followed it up with a post doc at the University of Denver studying self concept development and now she’s working as an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

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During Kristin’s last year of graduate school she became interested in Buddhism and has been practicing meditation in the Insight Meditation tradition ever since. While doing her post-doctoral work, she decided to conduct research on self-compassion – a central construct in Buddhist psychology and one that had not yet been examined empirically.

Kristin is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, creating a scale to measure the construct almost 20 years ago. She is the author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, and the brand new book Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive.

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Together with Dr. Chris Germer she developed a training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide. They co-authored The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook as well as Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program: A Guide for Professionals. She is also co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Mindful Self-Compassion.

In addition to her books and training program, Kristin has written over fifty academic journal articles and chapters on the topic of Self-Compassion over the past twenty years. And this is not egghead up in the ivory tower stuff. Her work has been cited over 35,000 times!

I also recommend you check out self-compassion.org to find a ton of other work like resources, instruments, practices, and of course guided meditations.

My wife Leslie joined me in the basement for this conversation because it’s through her that I first discovered Kristin’s work.

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We sit down and discuss how you can embrace your tender and fierce sides, regrets, how to wield anger as a tool, the phrase “is this being used in the sense of harm or preventing harm?”, owning singledom, the difference between spinsters and bachelors, gender norms, and of course Dr. Kristin Neff’s 3 most formative books.

Join me as we flip the page into Chapter 80 …

What You'll Learn:

  • How can meditation help us navigate mistakes?

  • What is tender versus fierce self compassion and how do they alleviate suffering?

  • What do #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and self-compassion have in common?

  • How we can channel our anger constructively?

  • Why is female anger perceived differently than male anger?

  • Who is the Goddess Kali?

  • How can anger and love co-exist?

  • How can we teach our kids to be angry in a constructive way?

  • How can we separate ego and anger?

  • What are the benefits of anger?

  • How are women socialized to view their worth through relationships?

  • Why are social systems still so sexist?

  • What does Buddhism teach us about love?

  • Why is there no male word for spinster?

  • What should men do to embrace their tender side?

  • How is self-compassion contagious?

  • How do we embrace our imperfections?

  • How should we build self esteem?

  • What are the three critical components of self-compassion?

  • What is a self-compassion break?

Notable quotes from Dr. Kristin neff:

“Unfortunately, I think for a lot of reasons, we are much more comfortable giving compassion to others than we are to ourselves.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Sometimes we need to get angry when that anger is harnessed to alleviate suffering.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Women are so socialized not to get angry. Men, it’s fine to get angry. People respect you. They think you're powerful. They’re convinced by you. Women, they think you're crazy. They think you're mean. They don't like you. They aren't convinced by you." Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Anger wasn't a problem. It was my superpower.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

The energy of anger is a force of love. This desire to fight injustice, for instance. If you aren't angry at what's going on in the world, you are asleep!” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

"Anger without love is hate. But love without anger is hollow and sugarcoated.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“I'm not going to live my life trying to have other people like me; I’m going to like myself." Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Anger is a face of love.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Men are socialized to be fierce and not tender. Women are socialized to be tender and not fierce. It harms both.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Self-compassion is contagious if we model it out loud.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Strength comes from accepting your imperfection just as much as it comes from success.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

It's not okay in our society to be average, which is logically impossible because by definition, most of us are average.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Self-esteem is a fair-weather friend. Self-compassion is a constant friend.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 79: Yuyi Morales on Mexican massacres and the magic of Márquez

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“The Ys sounds like Js,” Yuyi Morales tells me when I ask for the correct way to pronounce her name. It’s embarrassing to ask but my detective work online resulted in a half dozen different options.

Yuyi is a Mexican-American children’s book author and illustrator. She was born in Mexico and raised amongst giant grandmothers, mossy house walls, and rampaging feral gardens, fostering a strong bond with magical stories that ran in her family as a child.

Today she is known for her incredible children’s books which combine powerful spare language and sumptuous complex imagery.

She has written books like, Dreamers, Niño Wrestles the World, Just a Minute, Viva Frida, Little Night, Just In Case and her brand new book coming out in September called, Bright Star (I suggest you pre-order it!). It tells the story of a fawn making her way through a border landscape, teeming with flora and fauna native to the region. A gentle empowering voice encourages her to face her fears when she comes across an obstacle in the form of an insurmountable barrier.

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A lot of her work has these themes running through it — immigration, pilgrimage, journeying, discovery. It’s no wonder she is one of the most decorated children’s books author in the world. At last count she’s won twenty-nine awards including the Pura Belpré Medal, the Americas Award for Children and Young Adult Literature, the California Book Award, the Tomas Riviera Award and the Caldecott Honor. For those of you who know the children’s books world well, the Caldecott is the top prize! She is the first Latina to ever be a Caldecott recipient.

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Let’s strap in to talk about the burdens of colonialism, Mexican artistry, introducing books to book deprived communities, magic realism, community feminism, teen prostitution, dirty cops, living in books, making the world a better place, and, of course, the wonderful Yuyi Morales’s three most formative books.

Let’s head down to Veracruz, Mexico. Feel that sun on your face, picture yourself on a beach, grab a drink, lay out a towel, and stare into the sea and the surf with me.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 79 …

What You'll Learn:

  • What is Xalapa like?

  • What is the state of Mexico today?

  • What are the burdens of colonialism?

  • What is community feminism? 

  • How much are books in Mexico?

  • What is magic realism?

  • What motivated the student uprisings of 1968 in Mexico City?

  • What was La Noche de Tlatelolco?

  • Why do Mexican students feel criminalized?

  • What must we change in our culture to allow children to thrive?

  • Why must we change our paternalistic views on immigration?

  • What can we learn from children?

  • How can we organize books by our emotional state?

  • What is storytelling?

Notable quotes from yuyi morales:

“We still carry an identity that has to do with the superiority of certain people and the inferiority of others.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“I’m living an idyllic life. I live in books. I am all day thinking of stories.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“Having a book is not something that usually happens in our lives, especially not for children because children's books in Mexico are really expensive compared to what a family might earn working.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“As any child I was full of wisdom and knowledge.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“That thing that I thought I wasn’t, that book showed me I was wrong, that book showed me that in fact I love books.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“I really want to be part of something that allows us to break and unlearn all this culture of servitude where children have to respect elders and have to be part of these dynamics and where they just are vulnerable, vulnerable, vulnerable until we kill their spirit and then we make them be more like us.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“I really want to see what children have to teach us. I really want to see what's the world that they are going to build.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“One of the things that is very important to me is about how we create our own story, but it's also about how we respect people as we are already, as we are right now.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“I want so much to separate from this view that sees immigrants as people who need help and charity because that is not the real picture, because that's just a little very narrow way of seeing immigrants.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“We cannot keep seeing  immigrants or children or teenagers as people who need to be repaired. They are not deficient.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“We don't need children to change and become something better. They are already the perfection that we can aspire to.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“What I know now is that we are all brimming with stories and we need to pull those stories out, even if they don't get published. Publishing is just one thing that can happen. But for the stories and for books to exist, we only need that we create them, that we tell them.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 78: Louis Sacher on sideways stories from Salinger to Steinbeck

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I was a tiny and skinny kid with thick glasses at my public school in the suburbs of Toronto in the early 80s. I was pretty lonely and definitely hadn’t found my way. One day my librarian Ms. Ferrell handed me a book called Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar.

The book single-handedly turned me into a reader.

I had never read a book that was funny, absurd, choppy that just kept me flipping, flipping, flipping. I loved the book. I fell into the book. I read it again and again and again and still have multiple copies on my bookshelf today. (A small count towards the nine million copies sold.) In 2010 when The Book of Awesome came out I wrote in the Acknowledgements: “To Louis Sachar, for writing Sideways Stories from Wayside School and teaching a nerdy kid to to fall in love with reading.”

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Louis Sacher was born in East Meadow, New York in 1954 and moved to California when he was 9. He liked school but was not much of a reader until he fell into the works of J.D.Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut. He started studying at Ohio University but left to go move back with his mom after his father sadly passed away in his first semester. Later on he enrolled at Berkeley majoring in Economics.

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One day, on campus, he caught sight of a young girl passing out flyers. The flyers read: “Help - Teachers Aides Wanted at Hillside Elementary - Earn 3 course credits.” It struck him as a sweet deal. No homework, no term papers, no tests. He signed up.

He soon found himself both in the classroom and on the school playground, known to the kids as “Louis the Yard Teacher”. He loved it. And it ended up changing his life.

His time at the local public school inspired him to write Sideway Stories from Wayside School. He even named the kids in the book after real kids he taught. It published in 1978 though did not make a loud splash. No fanfare. So Louis went on to Law School and practiced law for 10 years — all the while writing children’s books on the side.

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His writing finally took off in 1989. He quit law to write full time and is now one of the best known children’s authors in the world. (Although I’m a Sideways junkie he’s probably sold even more copies of Holes which won him both the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and the Newbery Medal and — no biggie — was made into a giant blockbuster film, too.)

I was delighted to sit down with a childhood idol. He called us up from the suburbs of Austin, Texas and we talked about absurdity, wooing readers, drinking urine, literary heroes, celebrity culture, writing structure, The Shawshank Redemption, wrestling with doubt, and how to live a quiet life.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 78 now…

What You'll Learn:

  • What kind of reader do writers think about as they write?

  • Are writers still heroes today?

  • What made the 1960s such a special time of upheaval?

  • How do we live a quiet life in today’s world?

  • How can writers maintain humility?

  • How does one separate commercial success from what you do next? 

  • How do authors use their craft to skip time smartly in their work?

  • How do you make a good movie from a book?

  • How do some authors cultivate friendship with their readers?

Notable quotes from Louis sachar:

“When I first started writing children's books, I remember thinking that my goal was to bring the same love to reading that I get out of the authors I love.” Louis Sachar #3bookspodcast

“I’m not trying to write something super successful, I am just trying to return to my roots and do what I do as a writer and hopefully it will reach a lot of people.” Louis Sachar #3bookspodcast

“I still have doubts when I'm writing. I still struggle with each book. And, you know, I'm still trying to get that reader to turn the page.” Louis Sachar #3bookspodcast

“One of the hardest things as an author is getting to the good parts of the story.” Louis Sachar #3bookspodcast

“The reader doesn't want to read the boring stuff any more than I want to write it.” Louis Sachar #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 77: Jonny Sun on absurd algorithms altering the authenticity of art

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Happy Pink Moon, everybody!

Way back in 2017, I came across a feature article in The New York Times Magazine called “A Whimsical Wordsmith Charts a Course Beyond Twitter.” The article was about MIT PhD student Jonny Sun’s online personality — as a sentimental alien — attracting a huge following online.  

I was like “Okay, this is about the latest viral Instagram influencer and their particular brand of attention seeking behavior.” But as I read the piece, and went deeper into the bio of Jonny Sun, I found myself fascinated. Jonny Sun is a PhD student at MIT looking to understand, in more objective ways, how social media fosters community. His research focuses on how social media content influences the broader world. How meaning is made. How it spreads. How it changes news and culture. As one comedian put it, “He’s like Jane Goodall and we’re the apes.”

Later that year he put out a bestselling book called everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too and then followed it up by illustrating Lin Manuel Miranda’s book Gmorning Gnight!

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I found myself falling deeper and deeper into the Jonny Sun rabbit hole. There’s a lot there! Jonny is an architect, designer, engineer, artist, playwright, and comedy writer who has written for BoJack Horseman. In fact, we recorded this chapter with him in L.A. currently writing another screen play.

Jonny’s work is across multiple disciplines which broadly addresses the narrative of human experience. His plays have been performed at the Yale School of Drama, Hart House Theatre in Toronto, the Toronto Theatre Lab First Sight Festival and the University of Toronto Drama Festival. His art has been exhibited at Yale University and the University of Toronto.

And, he is the author of a brand new and highly anticipated book called Goodbye, Again: Essays, Reflections & Illustrations. It is a truly wonderful book. Looks simple on the surface but then roller coasters up and down and sideways with obsessive mental insights like Jenny Lawson or David Foster Wallace.

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Jonny’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeneys, NPR, The New York Times and he’s been on Late Night with Seth Myers. He’s also been named by Times as one of the 25 most influential people on the internet, Forbes has named him one of their 30 under 30 and his TED Talk has nearly four million views.

Are you ready to talk about the culture of productivity, about being on all the time, about therapy and anxiety, about the provocative nature of humor, about succulents and aloe plants, about Dadaism, about competition, about algorithms, and of course about the wonderful Jonny Sun’s 3 most formative books? 

Let’s turn the page into Chapter 77 now…

What You'll Learn:

  • What is a toxic culture of productivity?

  • How do you juggle competing pursuits?

  • What are the additional pressures marginalized people face?

  • How do drama and humor interplay in comedy?

  • How do we stand out in today’s mass media dominated world?

  • What are the tensions between professional and personal ambition?

  • How do social media algorithms work?

  • What is instructional art?

  • What is behavioural simulation?

  • How do you convey deep thought and emotion in short form?

Notable quotes from jonny sun:

“I think of it as a toxic culture of productivity because it is asking us to always be on and asking us to always be producing and any free moment you have is a wasted moment unless you are converting it into some sort of product.” Jonny Sun #3bookspodcast

“I can’t let whatever I’m going to school for kind of erase the wholeness of myself and the fullness of who I am as an individual.” Jonny Sun #3bookspodcast

“You need to be in a box so that other people know how to employ you, or know how to use you or know how you can be useful to them.” Jonny Sun #3bookspodcast

“Marginalized people in general do not get the chance to fail at what they do.” Jonny Sun #3bookspodcast

“There is a sort of professional or productivity based ambition for your work and then there is a personal ambition and I feel like those don’t speak to each other.” Jonny Sun #3bookspodcast

“We are constantly driven socially to not have time for deep reading” Jonny Sun #3bookspodcast

“It’s easy to scoff at something that feels light, but the joy I get from writing the stuff that I do is that it is like a trick trojan horse. You think it is light but I thought deeply on it and hopefully it kind of elicits deeper thought within you.” Jonny Sun #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 76: Jenny Lawson on dark dollhouses delivering a door from depression

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Do you suffer from anxiety disorder? Depression? Intrusive thoughts? Obsessive compulsive disorder? Voluntary hair pulling? Avoidant personality disorder? Any of the above?

Well, Jenny Lawson suffers from all of the above. Tuberculosis too, according to her wonderful new book. It’s an overwhelming way to live and only partly cured by being a global community leader for mental health through her wonderful blog (thebloggess.com), her millions of followers, and her indie bookshop Nowhere Bookshop down in San Antonio, Texas.

Does Jenny Lawson do podcasts? Interviews? No, not really. She tells us at the beginning of the chat that she loves 3 Books so much that she wanted to come — lucky us, as 3 Bookers have been asking for this interview for years! — and she made herself cozy by calling me up from under her desk, in cozy clothes, post-beta-blockers, and with Hunter S. Tomcat providing animal therapy throughout.

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Jenny is funny, crass, smart, and openhearted. She’s struck a deep chord with her books Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Furiously Happy, You Are Here, and Broken. (All, I should mention, with the wonderful Amy Einhorn who’s edited four of my books, too!)

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Jenny and I talk about what a good editor does, reading in the freezer, stealing Stephen King, dollhouse therapy, mental health toolkits, LSD, what your kids will actually remember about you as a parent, and of course, Jenny’s 3 most formative books.

Jenny is gracious and disarmingly truthful and she doesn’t want her pain to go to waste. She is a beaming voice the world needs more of and today I am just so privileged to help her do just that.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 76 …

What You'll Learn:

  • What does an editor do?

  • How do you read horror books when you have anxiety?

  • How do you open a bookshop?

  • What is reading guilt?

  • How can ketamine treat depression?

  • How can we cultivate self care and self awareness if we have anxiety?

  • What are intrusive thoughts?

  • How does depression lie?

  • What is a mental health toolkit?

  • What is dollhouse therapy?

  • How can we talk to our kids about mental illness?

Notable quotes from jenny lawson:

“Booksellers and librarians are like wizards delivering spells that are going to change your mind.” Jenny Lawson #3bookspodcast

“I have been saved over and over again by this community of people who are saying it is ok to be flawed and broken.” Jenny Lawson #3bookspodcast

“I work really well with things where I can let my hands do one thing and my brain can go off in another direction.” Jenny Lawson #3bookspodcast

“Having small things that you have complete control over is really helpful.” Jenny Lawson #3bookspodcast

“Don’t let your pain go to waste.” Jenny Lawson #3bookspodcast

“Read things you are uncomfortable with because that’s how you grow.” Jenny Lawson #3bookspodcast

“There is no such thing as a book which is not worthwhile as long as you find joy in it.” Jenny Lawson #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 75: George Saunders offers lessons on living a luminous life

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“An astoundingly tuned voice, telling just the kind of stories we need to get us through these times.” Thomas Pynchon

“Not since Mark Twain has America produced a satirist this funny.” Zadie Smith

“George Saunders makes you feel as if you are reading fiction for the first time.” Khaled Hosseini

I could keep going and going with other literary all-stars lining up to praise George Saunders but my favorite quote about George’s writing comes from Ben Marcus in The Believer back in 2004:

“The Suits call his writing ‘stories,’ but they are really soft bodies to wear for a larger experience of life, hollowcore person-shapes that one can slip on in order to attain amazement. Saunders writes bodies, and his readers wear them.”

Yes! That’s how I feel, too. Which is what made it such an immense pleasure to sit down with the humble genius that is George Saunders. Don’t take the genius label from me! He’s won a MacArthur Genius Grant, Guggenheim Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Prize and been named to Time’s 100 Most Influential People.

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He won the Man Booker for the mesmerizing otherworldly masterpiece Lincoln in the Bardo, and every time I read his short story collections Pastoralia and Tenth of December they just crack my heart wide open. And, just to extend the literary resume here, his most recent book A Swim in the Pond in the Rain is simply the best book on writing I have ever read. I highly recommend it to all writers.

George Saunders has also been a Professor in Creative Writing at Syracuse University since 1997. Cheryl Strayed, our guest in Chapter 69, is one of hundreds who had George as a teacher and calls him a mentor today.

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Please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation discussing the computer we are all trapped inside, reading as a life project, how we process reality, practicing Buddhism, the world as a corrective force, delivering payoff, staying grounded, cultivating a love of literature in children, harnessing our shadow selves, quieting mental rumination, aiming our spigots, and much, much more … .

The wisdom of George Saunders offers a true masterclass on writing, on living, on life.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 75 …

What You'll Learn:

  • How does our brain process reality?

  • How do writers justify the non-normative and guarantee pay off?

  • How does death amplify life?

  • What is efficiency in writing?

  • How should we stay grounded despite success?

  • How should we think about kindness?

  • What can we learn from Buddhism?

  • How can parents cultivate a love of literature in their kids?

  • How can we channel our different mental states to be creative?

  • How does exploring one’s dark side or subconscious impact one’s writing?

  • How can we learn to live more freely?

Notable quotes from George saunders:

“When I read a good story, I always just feel a little more awake to things, a little more involved, a little more enthusiastic about the whole project of being alive.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

“Part of the challenge of being a full person is to be aware of the computer you’re trapped inside of.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

“A good story isn’t flawless, it doesn't fail to offend or discomfort the reader; it offends, discomforts, thrills and then capitalizes on that.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

“The reading project is a life project.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

“At the best level, being an artist has something to do with cultivating one’s ability to stay attentive.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

“The way your parents make you feel as a kid is the way that you then assume the universe must be.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

“You’re inside a temporary phenomenon that has tendencies.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

“The world is corrective.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

“When you are writing a story, you’re not actually proving how amazing you are, or how dark, you’re just proving that you can make a coherent text that draws people in and isn’t irrelevant to the business of being alive.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

“If you can nurture in yourself a lot of discernment, taste about what you like to see in your prose and then let that come out through revision, that’s kind of this amazing superpower because you never are held captive by the first draft.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

“You never really fail until you quit.” George Saunders #3bookspodcast

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Bookmark: Terrible, Thanks for Asking

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I love you, 3 Bookers.

The deepening connection and trust in this community constantly blows me away. It picks me up when I’m down, it’s a barrel of nerdy laughs, it helps me scratch a lot of itches in my brain. And it’s been truly great friendship through the pandemic.

I mean, End of the Podcast Club, Cover to Cover Club, and Secret Club? Where you have to find a hidden password? And then send cash in the mail to a secret address? I didn’t think anyone would join these ridiculous things! You leave so many voicemails at 1-833-READ-A-LOT, you mail letters we read on the show, and you leave the hundreds of reviews that I try really, really hard not to care about and yet still shamefully, biologically kind of do. We get the joyful pleasure of going on an adventure and of braiding together our invisible reading lives.

I have so many ideas for deepening this connection over the years and I want to introduce one today. For the last ten years of 3 Books, I plan to release a special Bookmark on the exact minute of every single solstice and equinox. That's today! The sun is right over the equator and day and night are just about equal lengths. We will play the theme song backwards and explore a different side-trail on our shared path. It might be a speech, a reflection, or some alternate type of ... other. The first Bookmark drops today. And it’s a conversation between me and my friend Nora McInerny on her wonderful, wonderful podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking. (Subscribe on Apple or Spotify).

I hope you’ll check it out and let me know what you think. Would love your feedback and thoughts!

Neil

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Chapter 74: Kanmani Guruswami the Midwife on countering colonialism with compassionate care

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Leslie and I welcomed a baby boy into the world just a few weeks ago.   

Like our other three sons, he was sheparded into the world by Kanmani Guruswami and her incredible team of midwives at Kensington Midwives in downtown Toronto. Kanmani has become a guide for Leslie and me — supporting us physically, emotionally, and spiritually on our parenthood journey. Not only is she a veteran midwife, heading up the Kensington Midwives clinic, but she’s also a passionate activist who tirelessly focuses her energies towards making the world a kinder, more inclusive, and more empathetic place. 

What do I mean?

You’ll hear it in seconds.

Born in Calgary to her Tamil-speaking engineer father from Tamil Nadu, India and her mathematician mother from Switzerland, Kanmani is the product of their hard work ethic and their struggles navigating many degrees of colonization and assimilation. Kanmani chose midwifery as a career path while assisting with home births in Vancouver and now for the past twenty years, her midwife clinic has assisted indigenous and settler Canadians. 

I confess I knew nothing about midwifery a few years ago. Less than nothing! Less than less than nothing! But as I’ve been exposed to the work they do, I’ve come to believe it is truly critical and transformational to both families and broader society. I believe the work of midwives needs to be discussed, debated, and celebrated.

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So Kanmani and I hung out on my couch in full PPE and masks right as she was finishing up an appointment with Leslie and my two-week-old son. We discuss things like: delivering versus catching, people of the global majority, what exactly midwives do, who exactly is a settler, the invisible effects of colonization, racism in health care, the magic of childbirth, and, of course, Jughead Jones.

Kanmani Guruswami is a local hero whose voice, stories, wisdom, and humanity should be amplified. So let’s amplify it! I hope her love and wisdom ripples deeply into your heart as it does to mine. 

And now let’s flip the page into Chapter 74 …

What You'll Learn:

  • What is a midwife?

  • What are the trends around midwifery versus physician care?

  • What are the values underpinning midwife care?

  • What is assimilation?

  • What is the significance of the phrase: people of the global majority?

  • What is the Truth and Reconciliation movement?

  • What is cultural competence training?

  • What are some of the less discussed effects of colonization?

  • What does it mean to be ‘a Jughead’?

  • What is The Farm?

  • What is an ambivalent baby?

  • What holistic approaches do midwives bring to the magic of birthing a child?

Notable quotes from Kanmani Guruswami the Midwife:

“A midwife is your guide, your navigator, through the experience of transitioning from not having children to having children.” - Kanmani the Midwife #3bookspodcast

“We need to do our own education on racism. Black people should not have to tell me what happened to them.” - Kanmani the Midwife #3bookspodcast

“An animal doesn’t give birth unless they feel safe and cared for.” - Kanmani the Midwife #3bookspodcast

“If it was all based on this child feeling held and received by their community and their family, what difference would that make in the whole society that we live in?” - Kanmani the Midwife #3bookspodcast

“We set ourselves up for difficult parenting situations and difficult family dynamics the way we do birth in a hospital with interventions being so prevalent.” - Kanmani the Midwife #3bookspodcast

Connect with Kanmani:

  • Website

  • Email - kmw@kensingtonmidwives.ca (Note: She is not “all over social media” so she’s given us permission to share this email address with you. Drop her a line with your feedback on our chat!)

Word of the chapter: 

Resources Mentioned:

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Chapter 73: Humble The Poet cries crusade but cautions courting controversy

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Do you miss coffee shops?

The clatter, the din, the pshh-pshh of the espresso machine. The cacophony of music and typing and magnetic sense of connection with strangers. I miss the belonging. I miss the community.

One of my favourite coffee shops is inside the Centre for Social Innovation in downtown Toronto where 3 Bookers will remember I vowed to record a future chapter while cruising by in David Sedaris’ limo back in Chapter 18. Well, the podcast gods worked their magic and I was lucky to find myself there months later in the company of the wonderful Humble the Poet. 

Truth be told, I’ve kept this chapter on ice for a while since it was recorded pre-masks, pre-lockdown. I kept thinking normalcy would return and then the pandemic dragged on and on and on and I grudgingly switched to virtual recordings. But now I need that coffee shop! So here is the last live and in-person recording of 3 Books I’ve got for you for a while. (Insert tear emoji here)

The Centre for Social Innovation Toronto

The Centre for Social Innovation Toronto

Do you know Humble the Poet?

He’s an electric and creative polymath, rapper, poet, spoken word artist, best selling author of Unlearn and Things No One Else Can Teach Us, Lollapalooza performer, former elementary school teacher, and a wildly popular blogger at humblethepoet.com with over 100,000 readers. Oh, and did I mention more than a million people follow him across social media @humblethepoet.

Perceptive, inquisitive, and putting out a vibe that captures hearts and minds, Humble defies easy stereotypes. I might even say he shatters them.

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We dive deep into his activism and how he develops courage to brave the wilderness and be so unafraid to challenge mainstream consensus by shedding light on Indian farmers or the Colin Kaepernicks of the world far before doing so becomes en vogue. We discuss how mainstream media preys on our biology and why controversy hooks our attention. We chat about the counterintuitive value of obscurity and how to stand out in a global village of sameness. And, of course, we discuss Humble the Poet’s 3 most formative books. 

I am grateful to share this conversation with this incredible human being while getting an aural dose of coffee shop community at the same time. Wherever you are right now, whatever you’re doing right now, I encourage you to flop down on the green couch beside the radiator. I’ll be in your left ear, Humble will be in your right ear, and let’s hang out.

Can I get you a cappuccino?

What You'll Learn:

  • Why should we explore and push the boundaries on unpopular stances?

  • How do we find the courage to stand up for injustice?

  • How should we pick causes to defend?

  • What are the tensions between science and religion?

  • How do we figure out what to trust?

  • Why is controversy not sustainable?

  • Why should there be no shame in liking short books?

  • What is the balance between authenticity and curation on social media?

  • What are the dangers of geolocation?

  • How do we stand out in a world of sameness?

  • How do we navigate the pull of followers on social media?

  • Why should we always ask before we post?

Notable quotes from HUMBLE THE POET:

“Are you contributing if you’re just regurgitating what everyone else is saying?” - Humble The Poet #3bookspodcast

“For me it was never about having the balls to say things — it was just like I learned some things and I can’t operate the same way I used to operate now that I know these things.” - Humble The Poet #3bookspodcast

"If the news ain’t boring, then it ain’t news.” - Humble The Poet #3bookspodcast

“Controversy and drama have always existed and it’s potato chips. It’s addictive. You have one you want more, but it’s not sustainable.” - Humble The Poet #3bookspodcast

“The only sustainable way to do anything, (whether you’re a writer, painter, dancer, CEO or banker), is to focus on how you are adding value to other people’s lives.” - Humble The Poet #3bookspodcast

“Secretly, underneath the surface, we’re chasing validation, we’re chasing significance, we’re chasing attention and we’ll make decisions accordingly.” - Humble The Poet #3bookspodcast

“The only way to really add value to the world is by sharing your unique self and not fitting in.” - Humble The Poet #3bookspodcast

“Focus on providing value to yourself and do it because you love doing it.” - Humble The Poet #3bookspodcast

“Value your obscurity.” - Humble The Poet #3bookspodcast

“It doesn’t get harder when things don’t work out, it gets harder when things exceed expectations.” - Humble The Poet #3bookspodcast

Connect with Humble the poet:

Word of the chapter: 

Resources Mentioned:

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Chapter 72: Adam Grant frowns on feeble feminism from fearmongering fellows

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Picture this: You’re a brand new professor two years into a teaching career at an illustrious university and feedback on you as a professor is … terrible. Sorry! But you’re told you suck. By lots of students. Again and again.

How would you process that? Cry? Crawl into a hole somewhere and curl up in the fetal position while sucking your thumb? That’s what I would do! That’s actually what I did do, frankly, in my first job ever at Procter & Gamble. They told me I sucked so I quit and ran away before I got fired.

But Adam Grant? No. He leaned into the feedback. He designed new surveys to get richer feedback. He asked other professors if he could take on more teaching classes. He basically triangulated and solved for the question: what makes a good professor?

Impressive right? Well, he’s been voted the most popular professor for seven straight years so I’d say so.

I had heard this story about Adam before I interviewed him and it made me even more curious about what makes this guy tick.

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He seemingly does everything.

He has a popular podcast with TED called WorkLife which is wonderful if you’re a student of organizational psychology, organizational behavior, or becoming a better leader. 

Oh, and how about his books? Every time Adam Grant pens a new book it shoots straight to the top of The New York Times bestseller list and sort of just roosts there for months. Give and Take, Originals, Option B (with Sheryl Sandberg), and now Think Again which I’ve loved reading.

In Think Again Adam says we must redefine intelligence, not just as the ability to think and learn, but rather embrace rethinking and unlearning. Rejecting the comfort of conviction for the discomfort of doubt allows us to widen our definition of what real intelligence is and widen the aperture of our minds. 

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Adam was good enough to dial me up from Philadelphia where he lives with his wife Allison and his three children. Since I did the interview literally hours after Leslie welcomed our new son into the world, I was a bit brain-jumbled. But we end up having a wonderful chat about parenting and balancing ambition versus contentment, along all the less visible sides of life. We also talk about feminism, humility, work life balance, and of course, Adam’s 3 most formative books.

So 3 Bookers! Stuff the earbuds in and fill up the sudsy sink, grab the leash for a long early-morning walk, or come hang out with Adam and me on a late night driveway chat…

Are you ready to turn the page to Chapter 72?

Let’s go!

What You'll Learn:

  • What are some elements of parenting intentionally?

  • How can busy couples think about sharing work?

  • What is Adam’s view on the state of feminism?

  • What is some low-hanging structural / systemic fruit when it comes to fighting misogyny?

  • What is The Daughter Effect?

  • What are some specific tools Adam uses to help practice humility?

  • What is ‘the curiosity gap’?

  • What does healthy ambition look like?

  • What is the meaning of life? (Yes, really)

Notable quotes from Adam Grant:

“I don’t think we should be sharing our responsibilities equally, I think we should be sharing them equitably.” - Adam Grant #3bookspodcast

“There is something about having a daughter if you’re a man that leads you to worry much more about how the world is going to treat her and what her place is going to be. But I also just got fed up with that effect. You couldn’t care about your wife, or your mom, or your sister, or any other woman you ever met!” - Adam Grant #3bookspodcast

“When we are considering people for jobs and promotions we often just start by evaluating the candidates and it’s too easy to find a reason to not bet on someone who doesn’t look like, or remind you of, someone who has been in that role before.” - Adam Grant #3bookspodcast

“I think humility is a perception that exists in the eye of the beholder.” - Adam Grant #3bookspodcast

“We shouldn’t see confidence and humility at opposite ends of the seesaw, they’re actually most powerful in combination.” - Adam Grant #3bookspodcast

Connect with Adam:

Word of the chapter: 

Resources Mentioned:

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