Anna Musky-Goldwyn

Anna Musky-Goldwyn is a writer, social and political activist, and also happens to be the daughter of former WIP guest, actor Tony Goldwyn. Anna joins Sophia on the podcast today to talk about growing up in the entertainment industry, what inspired her to get involved in politics, and her mission with Political Playlist. 

Executive Producers: Sophia Bush & Rabbit Grin Productions

Associate Producers: Samantha Skelton & Mica Sangiacomo

Editor: Josh Windisch

Artwork by the Hoodzpah Sisters

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome back to Work in Progress.
Today's guest is a legacy, seriously. Her father was on
the show only a few episodes back and shared his

(00:21):
passions for TV, film, criminal justice, reform, cancer research, and more.
But we also learned a little bit about today's guest
and her activist roots as part of that conversation. I
am delighted to have Anna Muskie Goldwyn on the show
today to dive deeper into her life, her work with
the Political Playlist, her writing career, and so much more.

(00:45):
As we know from our episode with Tony Goldwyn, Anna
comes from a long line of entertainment industry success stories
and is no stranger to working in that world herself.
But she's also continued her family tradition of social and
political act is um and has recognition from the Webby
Awards to prove it. I have got a lot of
questions about how Anna got to where she is today

(01:07):
and what drew her into politics and how she manages
to be such a powerhouse in both the world of
nonpartisan politics and entertainment writing. Let's get to it, enjoy,

(01:31):
and it's so nice to have you here today. Thank
you so much. For coming on the show. I'm so
excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Yeah,
it was such a fun time to talk to your
dad and you know, kind of trade stories about acting
and storytelling and all the nerdy reasons we love it,
and to listen to him just you know, proud dad

(01:54):
brag about you and the work that you're doing. And
I think that you are the first um parent child
team we've had on the show, and I just have it. Yeah,
I mean, my dad is I feel like he was
a lifetime of therapy growing up. He's a very very
easy person to talk to about pretty much everything, and

(02:16):
I kind of I sensed that in your Guys conversation. Yeah,
I love that he's so um that's funny that you
say that that it's almost like you had a therapist
in your dad. He really does feel like a person
you can go to with questions. He's a really good listener. Yeah. Yeah,
it makes sense where he played the president, I was
like I get this. I like I got it watching scandal,

(02:37):
but then talking to him like this for two hours,
I was like, oh, I would a hundred percent vote
for you for anything, right, just minus the sex scandal.
Well yeah, hopefully you know, that's TV, like there has
to be some trauma. We were shooting the pilot for
my new show and there was a moment where one
of my co workers said, Okay, but what this moment

(02:59):
And I looked at him and was like one hour
drama and he goes, right, right, right, we need we
need a catalyst for something. You kind of have to
remember that, you know, the outlandish helps you get to
the good stuff. Oh of course, that's how you bury
the lessons, right, Yeah, And I know that obviously. You
have so much experience, you know, as as a writer

(03:20):
also in TV, and I want to get into that
in your whole story. But you know, before we we
go into where we find ourselves today, I love to
go back and hear about guests early lives. And I
think you know, anyone who listened to your dad and
for our listeners at home, and his dad is Tony Goldman.
So yes, we're talking about scandal and all of the

(03:42):
things we discussed on his episode. I'm I'm so curious,
you know, having heard about his life, you know, his
upbringing in l a and then getting into theater in
New York, all of his experiences. Then one one generation
down the line, What was your experience like growing up?
What what was your childhood like? Where were you when

(04:03):
you were you know, nine, and what were you into? Yeah,
I mean my life group was very different than my dad's.
You know, he grew up in the heart of l
a who were telling stories the other night that he
would like hitchhike down Sunset Boulevard and all this crazy stuff,
and that was very much not my experience. I grew

(04:27):
up in Connecticut, um in a suburb called New Canaan,
which is about forty five minutes outside New York City.
So everyone in my life, my friends, their parents, it
was very revolved around Wall Street and this kind of
suburban upbringing. And for me specifically, you know, even though
I had parents and a family who were artists and

(04:51):
had a legacy in the film industry, I was not.
I admittedly like didn't really lean into that until I
was an adult. Until I was in college, My life
growing up completely revolved around sports. I was hyper competitive
from a very early age. I started playing basketball when

(05:12):
I was eight, and I think my team lost every game.
But I was always super tall. You can't see me sitting,
but I'm a tall person. And I would say to
my dad afterwards, I would say, no one was working
as hard as me, and I would be so mad
that but I felt like I was carrying my my
third grade basketball team. But what that evolved into is

(05:32):
that when I was in high school, I actually started
rowing because my mom was a rower in college and
she had sort of encouraged me to try and I
very quickly discovered that I was good at it, and
that was the beginning of my athletic career that eventually,
you know, I wrote in college at U c l A.
And I was pretty much solely focused on that. You know,

(05:55):
it gave me everything that I ever needed to learn
about motivation and hard work. And I'm still an athlete.
I compete in amateur ways now. But but I think
that I always have this insecurity. I feel like a
lot of artists, you grow up, you know you're performing
or you're writing stories from a young age, and I
kind of have always harbored this little bit of insecurity

(06:16):
that I wasn't like that. But when i've I look back,
I see being a jock teaches you a lot too,
So it's helped me out in the long run. I mean,
they're really just two sides of the same coin. Because
whether you're doing theater or you're you're on the crew team,
you're on a team, you're in a collaborative environment where

(06:36):
everyone has to show up and give it there all
for the thing, the sport, or the play to succeed.
And so I think it makes a lot of sense
that you you do see um kind of lateral movement
between sports and athletics, especially in school, but even as
people get older, you know, so many entertainers are on

(06:57):
weekend soccer leagues, and so many slates are amazing performers
and public speakers, and it makes sense. Yeah, totally. I
think that we we're all sort of trying to perform
in some way or another. You know, like as a writer,
the performing is quietly done, but you know, when you're
in a TV writer's room, you've got to perform or

(07:18):
people won't listen to your ideas. Oh my gosh, So
how old were you when when you started rowing? I
was fourteen my freshman year high school. Yeah, I didn't
play a fall sport. I played basketball, and I was
really into lcross, like you know, perfect sort of preppy
New England upbringing. But my mom like I said, she

(07:40):
was a rower at BU when she was in college,
and she was a rower in the early seventies to
mid seventies, Title nine had just been passed. She was
a female athlete in this like insane time to be
a female athlete, where they only had one boat house,
one locker room, so the women had to get up
at like four o'clock in the morning so they could

(08:00):
practice before the men because there weren't enough facilities. And
and this was also the era where the Yale Women's
crew team like marched in naked to their athletic director's
office because they were like practicing in such bad conditions.
And that was her experience of being an athlete. And
so when I was a freshman in high school, I

(08:22):
didn't have a false sport and she said just try
try rowing, and I I didn't know what was going on.
I grew up around it because of her. We will
go to this big race every year called Head of
the Charles in Boston on the Charles River, So I
knew what it was, but doing it was very it
was a very different experience. And I had this one

(08:43):
moment maybe maybe two or three months into learning, where
I participated in an indoor rowing competition. So you've seen
like the rowing machines at the gym, you know that
everyone goes on. There's these indoor competitions that are so weird,
and they line all of the machines up and you
sit down and you rode to a two tho race

(09:04):
on the machine. And I had never done it before,
but I sat down and I just pulled my heart
out for you know, two thousand meters and I ended
up getting a very good time unbeknownst to me. And
I had this crazy Russian coach and he came up
to me and and he was the coach for my
high school team, and he said, Anna, you may not

(09:27):
play any other sports. And that was kind of it.
It was sort of this moment. It's really cool thing
that I think a lot of us we have had
in our lives at one point or another. And I'm
sure you've had this in performing and other things, where
you it clicks for you that you are talented at something,

(09:48):
or it clicks for you that you have this capability
that maybe went undiscovered. And that was a real important
moment for me, not in like a selfish or egotistical way,
but in a way of recognizing that it's good to
be exceptional at something, and I think we all are
just often goes undiscovered for a long time. That's so interesting.

(10:13):
I think especially I feel very conscious of the fact
that there is so often pressure in terms of that
being exceptionalism. You know, quote unquote living up to something
that happens to a famous people's kids, whether you know

(10:35):
your parent is a politician or a performer. And having
spoken with your dad about his life, looking at the
generation that came before him and their legacy, and then
learning about your family from him and his experiences to
find his way as an actor, and uh, you know,
even your mom's painting, and then you talking about her

(10:55):
her growing history. The image is getting richer and more
colorful for me. And then I think about just you
having said that, about what it means to find what
you're exceptional at, and I wonder was there a pressure
for you as a kid, or was there simply an
awareness of what was going on in the family and

(11:17):
what he did. Where did you kind of find yourself
on the spectrum of the experience of having a publicly
known family. I luckily growing up in a Connecticut suburb,
you don't feel it as much as I think I
probably would have if I grew up in l A
or even in New York City, because I think people

(11:38):
just didn't really care as much. That wasn't something that
was being talked about, you know. And my friends that
I grew up with and in high school, there's still
my closest friends, and it's like sharing this bond that
it's not about status or what your parents did. It's
just about this you know, communal experience that we shared

(11:59):
as kids. And so for my sister's my experience and
our family. You know, I was aware that my dad
was an actor. I thought that was really cool. I
was eight years old when Tarzan came out, and I
was on top of the world that my dad was
in a Disney movie and we got to go to
the premiere where they were like and wild animals everywhere,

(12:19):
and um, so you know, that was cool and I
and I was conscious of the fact that I had
a family legacy in the business, but I didn't really
know what the business meant. You know. I knew it
as any other kid does, as they think about movies
or television. But what I do think I gathered from

(12:42):
my parents, probably because of their success and their dedication
to what they did. Was this real idea of following
your passion. And I think it's something that I was
fortunate enough when I compared myself to some other people
I whose parents sort of worked in more corporate jobs

(13:03):
and maybe didn't feel that same passion about what they did.
And that's not to say that people don't feel passionate
about corporate jobs. I know I have a lot of
friends who are very happy with the work that they do.
But I think that when you have parents who have
had success in a creative career, you know, seeing the
example of passion paying off, that was something that I

(13:27):
felt like I could connect to. So even if I
wasn't saying, oh, I'm going to be an actor or
I'm going to be a director or whatever, at age ten,
I pretty easily could understand the idea of if something
makes you happy or something is intriguing to you. And
this was definitely true with athletics. You know, it wasn't
easy and I definitely wasn't happy all the time. Growing

(13:49):
is a really hard sport. But the sort of passionate
reward that I got from doing that, I knew to
follow it and to to lean into it as a
pose to being a little bit afraid of it or
feeling like when things get hard, take a step back
or quit. You know, I think that that was more
the lesson that our parents instilled in us, and I

(14:12):
think for my dad's part, it very much came from,
you know, him being able to be in his family
but also prove himself as an individual through his own
passion and his own art. And I've obviously grown a
greater understanding of that as an adult, but I think
even as a kid, I could sense that feeling at least.

(14:34):
I love that, and I think it's interesting to consider
the the heritage, if you will, of the work, but
also that there's such a legacy of activism in your family,
because interestingly, you you straddle that line, you know, similarly
to the way that it seems your family members do,

(14:56):
and in a way that I've certainly had to learn
to navigate too, And so I get really excited from
other people are doing both. Did you have an awareness
of service and activism and sort of community engagement as
a kid too, Yeah, I think that, you know, I
will admittedly say that I wasn't one of those kids.

(15:16):
Was you know, volunteering every weekend or anything like that.
But I was aware that my parents and my family
were supportive of certain causes, and we certainly had a
lot of conversations, especially when I was like in middle
school or as a teenager, just about things that were

(15:36):
happening in the world and what we could do to help.
And I've been thinking about this a lot recently, which
is that I think that if you live in a
privileged existence, where your your day to day life is
relatively comfortable, you owe it to the people around you
to think about the future a little bit more. You know,

(15:57):
there are people who who, for whatever situation they find
themselves in, they're worrying about, you know, what the food
to put on the table that night, or how to
get their kids to school, or whatever those things may be.
But if if you have the possibility to take a
step back and feel, you know, feel like your day

(16:20):
is gonna go okay no matter what for the most part,
then there's so many things that you can be concerning
yourselves with that not only will help you and your family,
but also help other people. And that that was something
that I definitely felt as a kid, and especially as
a teenager, and then especially in college and after college
when I really started to get into politics and activism

(16:42):
and and seeing those you know, seeing those actions go
to work. Yeah. Do you remember when you really first
became interested in politics as an individual? Yeah, I mean
the first moment. And I don't know if this, if
this was necessarily the thing that began the journey, but
the first moment that I remember is in two thousand eight,

(17:07):
my dad took me to the Democratic National Convention and
it was obviously the year that Obama was nominated, and
it was crazy. You know, have you been I assume
you've been to a convention before. I mean, it's yeah.
I actually have a photo of a bunch of us,
including me and your dad. We were like, oh my god,

(17:28):
we're like Ellen at the Oscars. We have this who
you know, I love the world. Yeah, it's such a
crazy experience. And and that year specifically was really crazy.
I was eighteen and was about to vote in my
first first election. I don't know, I feel spoiled to

(17:48):
have had someone like Obama as the first person that
I could ever vote for. And equally, so, I mean,
you think about John McCain running against him, Like what
you know, look at these two people that that we
could choose between, who both you know, had young and
also very old legacies of their own. And I felt
in that moment, I was like, whoa, this is something

(18:10):
that matters, not just because of Obama and how inspiring
he was, but also because I started to see like
the world of politics and I could see, you know,
the other people who were speaking, and the sort of
fanfare around all of it, and you know, all of
the states with the delegates in the middle with their

(18:31):
signs with the name of the stage. Just the process
of it was really interesting to me. So that was
when I was heading into college, and after that I
was engaged. You know, I was aware. I definitely stayed
up to date, I feel like more probably than your
average college student at the time at least, But it

(18:51):
wasn't really until like, um, I had just graduated from
grad school and was going to be the mid term
elections that year, and that's when I started to get
a little bit more engaged in terms of, Okay, what
issues do I really care about, What policies are happening,

(19:12):
Who are the major players other than the president and
the vice president and the governor, What are what are
the more detailed things about this world? And that's when
I started to find it really fascinating. And then obviously
that was followed up by election, which was just this
wild ride um that you know, my dad was very

(19:33):
active in, and I felt very fortunate to sort of
ride his coat tails a little bit and we I
went with him when he campaigned in Iowa and got
to sort of see that process in a state that
was so different than places that I had lived. So
that was really the beginning of me being like hyper engaged.
But I do remember that first moment at the convention
just thinking to myself, like, whoa, this is, this is

(19:55):
what what our government? You know, this is symbolic of
our government. This is how big it is and how
much of an impact it can have. I felt that
definitely early on. I think the coolest thing about the
convention space, as you're talking about it is, is exactly
that realizing the size and scope and realizing that it

(20:18):
exists to represent all of us, the delegates and the attendees,
and the thousands and thousands and thousands of people each
whose voices matter represent thousands and hundreds of thousands of
other people, and it's it's such a beautiful thing. It
my first time at a convention also really reminded me

(20:41):
that it's for all of us, and it's supposed to
be by all of us, and I don't take it lightly.
And it's really fun to hear someone else talk about
the impact of it because it reminds me of how
impact well it's felt to me. And yeah, I think
the places I've been able to go in campaign, and

(21:03):
I love sitting with people, whether it's in small towns
in Texas or moving across Iowa, or in Illinois, or Arizona, Nevada,
home in California, out in North Carolina. I mean, I've
I've traveled to so many states and to sit with people.
My favorite moment is when we all realize how much
more I like we are than we might have thought.

(21:26):
And everyone really wants similar things, you know, a healthy
life and future for their family and their community, and
and you know the opportunity to pursue goals and happiness.
And I'm always really heartened by that. You know, so
much of the discourse we see in the media and

(21:48):
online feels so tense and ugly, and then when you
really look at the breakdowns you realize most people pretty
much agree on everything, and it's just the folks of
the fringes who seem are you making the most noise?
And I wonder, I ask myself sometimes if I'm so
passionate about it, because I'm passionate about people's stories as

(22:11):
an actor and as a writer and as as a
host of a show like this, And for you, do
you think that your career as a writer also makes
you want to lean into people's stories out in the world,
out in the political landscape, out in the sort of
um cross section of the citizen ry. D Do you

(22:31):
think those things are connected? Yeah, And I think that,
you know, I would just say that I feel like
the reason we as storytellers respond to politics is because
the best politicians are great storytellers. You know, like the
policy of it is important, and if they can communicate

(22:52):
that effectively, that really matters. But you know, think about
the people that you admire most in political office. It's
probably a little bit because of their policies, but I
think it's more about how they tell their story and
how they allow you to relate to their story, whether
you know you relate in a one to one manner

(23:13):
or not. There's a piece of them that that we
feel connected to. And so I think that for me personally,
it's become this really interesting two way street where I
feel like I was very much focused on writing and
storytelling when I really got into working in politics, and

(23:35):
so I thought, Okay, how can I kind of identify
where the stories are and what I'm responding to? And
then as I've gone down the path more in both
sides of my life, I've actually started to find the
political stuff and the issue based things and the issues
that that I care about as a person in politics

(23:57):
have now kind of permeated the cree of pursuits that
I have, where I've gained a lot more understanding of, Okay,
what kind of stories do I want to tell? What
sort of messages do I want to be putting out there?
And I think that's why a lot of people in
entertainment respond to politics, and why a lot of people
in politics feel connected to the storytelling of entertainment, because

(24:19):
it is just about messaging and about kind of layering
in the lesson or the policy or whatever into the story.
Um and the best in both worlds do it really well. Yeah,
And I think I think there's another connection, another sort
of through line that I've discovered is that part of

(24:43):
the reason so many politicians travel around is so they
can hear people's stories so that they can have, or
at least they should have, empathetically informed policy. You're meant
to make policy to better people's lives. And I really
respect politicians who travel and care to meet with people,

(25:04):
not who just you know, travel and yell at people
from stages, um, but who actually sit with people and
listen to them and and listen to their stories. I
I was so touched after that horrible building collapse in
Florida when President Biden went to meet with the families,

(25:24):
someone from the pool was discussing how they had blocked
out a certain amount of time. I can't remember if
it was an hour and a half or two hours
for him to meet with all of these people who
had lost their loved ones. And he stayed for over
three hours and just listened to everyone's stories and looked
at photos of their families. And he's out there fighting
for this infrastructure bill, and people in the White House

(25:45):
who I speak to have talked about how that made
him really want to double down, because he said, are
crumbling infrastructure is literally killing people. People are losing their
families because infrastructure is quite literally crumbling. And when we
look at you know that six point four trillion dollars

(26:08):
we just spent in a twenty year war that didn't
benefit anyone. And you hear people like Joe Manchin talking
about how we can't possibly spend three trillion dollars on
American infrastructure. I just think, yes, we can, and we
have to. And your priorities are clearly misplaced. When was
the last time you sat with the families like those

(26:29):
families in Florida? And it's that kind of energy where
I see us being the same. Because while obviously that's
an extreme example and the president has an extreme amount
of power to change the world for the better, I
think about what it means for someone like you when

(26:51):
you're writing someone's story, or someone like me when I'm
playing a person, to sit with the people who lived
it so that we do it right, so that we
actually honor them, so that we represent their stories, whether
it's their successes or their losses, or their or their
greatest family moments or tragedies properly. And I think there

(27:15):
is a real through line of a deep empathetic connection
to people and their experiences in both of those examples.
And that's the thing that as I have developed as
an artist and honestly traveled so much as a political advocate,
it has really changed the kinds of stories I want

(27:39):
to tell because I realized the power of performance, the
power of representing someone, and I don't I don't take
it lightly. Yeah, And I don't think that any of
us ever should take that lightly. And I also think
that you don't have to be someone who's kind of

(27:59):
taking that story and putting it into some other version
in order to feel a responsibility to people's stories. And
I think that that is what makes a great politician,
is that they're not turning someone's story into a movie.
They're turning someone's story, like you said, into policy, or
into a speech, or into some sort of messaging that

(28:21):
is intended hopefully to make things better for other people
and not just for them. And and I think when
you talk about infrastructure, the thing that I've been feeling
so much is that I can't help but feel like
if we weren't in the political climate that we're in
right now in terms of partisanship and division, I just

(28:43):
think that This would be so much easier because it
is a bipartisan issue that has you know, we've seen
it has a ton of support from both sides. And
what I see, at least from the work that I've done,
is is everyone is so beholden into their message and
their campaign slogan and there and their stump speech that

(29:06):
to give a little bit, and look, I get it,
like if you give a little bit, you might lose,
and that's they want to keep going. And so what
is frustrating, especially around an issue like infrastructure, is that
we can do it, like we we have the capability,
and we have the interest, and we have obviously the

(29:27):
need like you spoke to, but we're just like in
this world right now that that it's so impossible for
anyone to see those commonalities, which is really unfortunate because
like you said, they're they're way more commonalities than there
are differences. And I think that that that's something that

(29:48):
gets me down. Yeah, everyone's just so aggressively in their corner,
growling at each other, and I'm like, guys, just everyone
come closer and let's have a conversation. It feels so important.
And I every once in a while I try to
even drop the reminder, you know, because I'll talk about
that and then someone will say, well, you keep calling

(30:09):
out Republicans on your social and I'm like, yeah, Republican
elected officials, not necessarily you. You know, person out there
who identifies in the way that you do, Let's have
a chat. You and I are probably neighbors. It's not you,
it's it's systems that are harming you and me together
because of their hyperpartisan bickering. That is just to feel

(30:31):
so silly to me. And I don't know. I think
about all of this passion for making it better, and
I wonder, have you ever wanted to run for office?
I feel like there's a like glimmer inside of me
that that wants to do it, mainly because I'm so
frustrated with the people who are doing it at the

(30:52):
moment um. But but what I've discovered is that, and
I think this is the big lesson that I started
to learn in the last couple of years, is like,
I think that we feel often like we have to
do all the things, we have to tackle all the
issues and solve all the problems, and the reality is

(31:13):
that we can't. And for that reason, I respect politicians
because I think that when they're elected, people do expect
them to solve all the problems. And that's just it's
just not possible for one person to to do that.
But if you pick one thing, or you pick one mission,
or you decide a really specific, a niche path for

(31:38):
yourself to try to make those things better, Um, that's
I think when we can actually start to make some progress.
And that's kind of what I've become bolden too. And
I don't know, maybe one day when I'm when I'm
a proper grown up, because um no, but I'm really
I've I've been very motivated by what I've been learning

(32:00):
and and sort of the tasks that I've decided to
commit to because I feel like I can do them.
I feel like I've got a handle on what I
want to do right now. Um And and I just
hope that that many more people can find that because
it's possible, it's not it doesn't have to be so overwhelming. Yeah,
well that feels like a perfect segue. Can you talk

(32:22):
to us about political playlist? Where did the idea come from?
And for our listeners at home who might not be
familiar with political playlist, can you tell them what it is. Yeah, So,
Political Playlists is a nonpartisan platform that educates people about
the youngest members of Congress. We have a newsletter that
you can sign up for on our website that is

(32:43):
customized to the issues that you care about. And then
we also have a podcast called Political Playlist Happy. Our
our website is Political playlist dot com. So through these
two mechanisms, we really are working to inform people and
lean on education as opposed to ideology and sort of

(33:05):
this like outrage like you've been talking about, Because I
really believe that no matter what side of an issue
you fall on or where on the spectrum you are,
it's so imperative that we have information. And we've obviously
been seeing so much disinformation across the spectrum in the
last several years, and what our mission is is to

(33:28):
disseminate that information in a way that feels fun and
digestible and not really overwhelming, so that you can go
to a dinner party or talk to your family and
have be armed with information as opposed to just these
sort of opinions that you find circulating around you. So
the idea it came up very naturally. So my co founder,

(33:52):
Anthony Barquette and I we both came from pretty political families, um,
and we were having lunch one day sort of around
the mid terms, and we just started to talk about, like,
you know, what can we do that might be a
one step above going and knocking on doors or sending
some money to a candidate. And what we started to

(34:15):
talk about was how both of us were the people
in our friend groups that people would come to and say, Okay,
who should I vote for? Or I'm sure you get
this all the time. Who should I vote for? What
issue should I be caring about? What do you think
about this? And we've literally said I think Anthony said,
he's like, oh, it would be great if you could
have like a playlist that you would just share with

(34:35):
your friends and they could go off and and use it.
And so that's where the name came from. That it's
sort of we wanted to lean into this, you know,
kind of younger demographic of we share playlists of music
and and movies and things like that. And then we
started to boil down of Okay, this is what I
knew and us saying what's your niche? It's like, okay, well,

(34:56):
let's we're young people. Let's focus on young people. And
then we looked up what the stats were and at
that time there was onlycent of Congress was under the
age of forty five, which is what we consider sort
of young in politics, and and I was like, that's
really low, especially when you look at how many voters

(35:18):
there are now from MI millennial generation, and now of
course from Gen Z we well outnumber Baby Boomers UM
and Gen X, and you know, this silent generation above
the boomers, and so that just felt really disproportionate to us.
We were like, well, no one knows about these young
people who are in office for the most part, you know,

(35:38):
after twout eighteen we had AOC, we had Matt Gates.
You know, you have a couple of young politicians who
have broken through in the media. But for the most part,
we didn't know who these people were. And so we
started to look up who they were and what they
were about, and what kind of policies they were running on.
And they were also interesting and had worries that I

(36:01):
felt like I could relate to. You know, the people
in our generation who are in office who fought in
the Middle East, they fought there because of nine eleven.
It wasn't about the Vietnam War anymore or the Gulf
War nine eleven. Was this seminal moment of our upbringings.
And so that's just an example, but but it was

(36:22):
all these things that suddenly I was like, oh, I
relate to these people and I and then we started
to feel like if only more young people knew about
these people, maybe young people would feel more um engaged
and feel like they had a reason to care. And
so that was where it where it evolved from, was

(36:42):
just wanting people to feel like they had to say,
and like beyond that that their say was actually important
and mattered to the future. Yeah, I think some of
that information, it's not that it's hidden, but it feels
somehow not obvious to so many people. You know, we

(37:07):
hear things like we have the most diverse Congress ever,
but you know the statistic you're mentioning, I think we're
only up one percent now, right were Congress is under
on the back And I think that understanding that can
also help all of us make sense of why so

(37:29):
much of the country can agree and and yet Congress
and the Senate can be deadlocked. And I think understanding
who is there and also how to communicate with them
can help us break through some of that. I'm I'm
curious about what you guys are finding with Political Playlist,

(37:50):
about your own numbers. You know, who's your audience. What
are you hoping they're getting from you? What what kinds
of feedback do they have for you? Guys? Well, proudly
as the the woman on the team, so that by
two partners are both wonderful men. Most of our users
are women, were about women, and most of our users

(38:12):
are between the ages of forty five, so pretty solidly
in that kind of millennial gap. Although you know, as
we've started to grow and expand, we have a lot
of high school students reach out to us UM, which
is amazing because I think about, like when I was
in high school, that I would have never sought out

(38:34):
a political platform to to educate myself with. And so
I think our hope really By the way, all that
isn't to say that, you know, we have users who
are in their sixties and seventies who get as much
out of it, because I also think, you know, my
dad said this really interesting thing to me. He said,
I asked him, what do you get out of Political

(38:55):
Playlist and he said, I enjoy hearing the perspective of
of the younger generation about politics that isn't available elsewhere
unless you're looking at sort of you know, like you said,
the kind of loudest voices in the extreme that you

(39:15):
know that's those are important, but they don't necessarily provide
the most information. It's a lot more feeling and emotion.
So so I think that, you know, whatever your age,
we're here for you. But I do think that the
main goal, and I think this is why we see
a lot of users in our age demographic of people
in their twenties and thirties and early forties, is is

(39:38):
people being very overwhelmed by what's going on. I think
that when you're a person in your thirties, for example,
and you sort of begin to feel this responsibility to
the world and you begin to come become more aware
of what's going on, it feels like, well, I just

(39:59):
I can't get engaged. It's too stressful, you know, I
have other stuff to focus on. And I think what
we're doing, hopefully effectively, is telling people that you don't
have to do it all. Like I was saying before,
just read the newsletter we send to you. Listen to
the podcast. You know, look at the resources that we're providing.

(40:22):
It's not going and reading a bunch of textbooks. It's
not needing to read the New York Times front to
back every single day. It's just these little bits of
information that offer a different perspective, because if you watch
CNN or Fox News all day or whatever, you're getting
the same information over and over again. What we're hoping

(40:42):
to do is say, hey, here are these seventy people
in Congress, most of whom you have no idea who
they are, and here's what they're working on. Here are
the issues that they're fighting for, and here's a little
bit about the areas of the country that they come from.
And those little bits of information I think actually give
a much better perspective of what is happening in our

(41:04):
government than the sort of news headline that takes up
you know, five days of news chirons on on NBC
or whatever, especially because we have to remember so much
of what goes on Chiron's on any network is designed
to boost their business, not necessarily to boost our understanding.
And I think I think when I when I hear

(41:29):
you say that high school students are starting to reach out.
I think about the difference between kids in high school
now and when you and I were in high school,
there was so much less transparency then. We we existed
in a world where we all went, well, the grown
ups are in charge, and now we realize we need
to be more in charge, that we deserve to have

(41:51):
a say in the forward motion of our nation, which
we will inherit from said grown ups. And I think
it's really I know it's been in inspiring for me,
and I think it's really inspiring for younger millennials and
Gen Z. They want to be involved in the political
world so that they can have a say in their future,
and that really makes me feel excited. The amount of

(42:14):
information we're able to share, I think has created this,
and I would say is probably why there is so
much money behind disinformation campaigns, because they're scared that we're
going to figure it out, so we certainly have to
create ways to battle that nonsense. That's the side that

(42:34):
makes me nervous. The side that inspires me is more
and more young people coming to the table and using
their voices. And I wonder about you know this cent
under forty who in the political landscape, maybe even under
the age of forty. Who's a politician under forty who's
really inspiring you right now? So there's a couple on

(42:57):
the Democratic side. There's a woman named Lauren Underwood. I'm
sure you've come across the campaign nice so she So
she represents a suburb out Chicago. UM, I don't know
she's under forty. She might be like forty one. But
what I think is so great about the news that
we have on her is Lauren was a nurse and

(43:18):
then she was she worked in healthcare policy, and I
think that one of the narratives, in my opinion at least,
that got really lost during COVID was the health care
of it all, was the idea that our health care
system is not functioning. And many people who have dealt
with healthcare problems before I knew this, but anyone who

(43:41):
maybe hadn't suddenly became very aware of how fragile our
system is. And what is great about Lauren is that
healthcare is not only like her number one priority, but
she also is putting the pedals the metal when it
comes to introducing stuff. So I think that's really inspiring

(44:02):
because I think it's an issue that got so much
attention under Obama because of Obamacare, but that has sort
of faded a little bit in our current rhetoric. And
it's something that, you know, it's literally the basis of
the health of the people in our country. So so
she's one and then another one that I would say

(44:24):
is actually on the Republican side, and he's a guy
named Peter Meyer who was elected just this past cycle.
He's a Republican from Michigan, and he is an Afghanistan veteran.
And in the last few weeks, I mean, he has
been very critical of the withdrawal of Afghanistan, but beyond that,
in the last couple of weeks, he's been sort of

(44:46):
at the forefront of leading these bills to really allow
more Afghan refugees into the country. Um, and I think
that also beyond that, he he was one of the
Republicans that voted to impeach Trump earlier this year. And
there was a really great episode of The Daily The

(45:06):
New York Times podcast that he was on where he
talked about his experience of having just been you know,
elected to office and going through what he did on
January six and tying that to his military experience, and
and I think that someone like him has made me
really understand the value of having veterans in office, which

(45:27):
I hope we as a country are understanding even more
now with what's happening with Afghanistan. But those are two
people that that I find myself every time that we
go and we look up the news that's happening around
them and the bills that they're introducing, I find myself feeling,
you know, not just inspired, but also like confident, confident

(45:50):
that that there is this swell of people who are young,
who might have different beliefs, but I think are all
coming from the right place. Um, and like you said,
have more in common than than dissimilar. So then there's
many there's many more. Yeah, that makes me feel excited.

(46:10):
I'm wondering if hearing all of this is lighting that
little fire in some of our listeners who might be
thinking about running for office themselves. And and given all
of the work you guys are doing at Political Playlists
and through the Political Playlist Happy Hour podcast, I'm wondering
if there is any advice that you might offer to

(46:32):
anyone who is considering running for office. Yeah, I mean,
I'll actually steal a piece of advice two pieces of advice,
one which is actually from my dad that he says
to me all the time, which is, you just do
the work. You just decide the thing that you're going
to pursue, you pick that thing that you feel passionate about,

(46:56):
and you just do the work and you keep going
and every day. I mean, I think this is very
applicable to creative pursuit. I think if someone sees a
wrong in the world that they feel like they can right,
just do it. Just do the work to to try
to fix it. And if that means running for office,
you just do it. You do the work to get there.
The other piece of advice that I would give was

(47:18):
actually from Congressman Sarah Jacobs, who is on our platform.
She is in her thirties, she represents she's the Democrat
who represents a district in San Diego, and she was
talking to us about perseverance and the first time that
she ran for Congress, she actually lost. And she said

(47:40):
this thing where she said, it's not about this goal
or that goal, or what each step represents. It's about
the thing that you're serving, the thing that is at
the top of your pyramid. Everything that you do should
just always be having that in mind, and so a
loss here, or an obstacle there, or bad press here,

(48:04):
or you know, a break up there, or whatever the
things are that are getting in the way or you
feel like are getting in the way, just keep going
with that ultimate thing in mind. And I think that
that is applicable to people who might want to run
because the process of it can feel so overwhelming. And

(48:26):
we have this inherent cynicism now about government that I
think makes people very reserved about getting involved in it.
But don't worry about the government, you know, think about
the reason that you your reason for being, think about
the goal that you have that's at the end of
that tunnel um and just go for it. Do the

(48:46):
work to get there. And if you I think that
if you keep that in mind, you know it might
it might be bumpy, but that's life. Life's not worth
it if it's not bumpy. I love that. I think
it's also I love the visual of that. Think about
what's at the top of the pyramid, because when you're
in the thick of something, it can feel like it's

(49:08):
your whole world. And to remember that it's a moment
and that you're looking ahead is such good grounding advice,
and I imagine I have to remind myself all the time.
I mean, yeah, i'd imagine that that there's people who
are listening to this podcast thinking, Okay, I've got to

(49:28):
start listening to the Political Playlist podcast. What episode would
you suggest as a jumping off point for a new listener?
So I would say I would suggest two of them.
On our podcast, we both do kind of an in
depth rundown of our newsletter where we talk about the
newsletter and our favorite and most interesting pieces of news

(49:49):
from politicians, and then we also interview people, so we're
kind of a hybrid. So I would say that for
an interview, the goal of the interviews for us is
very much to say, Okay, how can we get someone
engaged in politics that doesn't see a need for it,
that doesn't see how politics could relate to their life,

(50:10):
and given what we're dealing with now in our current affairs.
I interviewed this really incredible guy named John Lebecky who
was a veteran of the war in Middle East and
he is now an advocate for psychedelic medicine to treat PTSD,
and so he went through the therapy and it completely
cured his PTSD. He was a five time suicide survivor,

(50:32):
and now he worked with a group called MAPS that
is UM working. Yeah, so he's one of their sort
of veteran advocates. So that conversation I felt was not
only really inspiring to just hear his story, but also
a really great example of how politics can be injected

(50:54):
into your everyday life in ways that you might not
think and how you know for him, his journey of
being a veteran and coming back and being really lost
and having really bad PTSD, it wasn't solved by the government,
but now he's learning how to work with the government
and finding advocates on both sides of the aisle for

(51:14):
treatment that he's living example of can work in some cases.
So that's a really great interview. And then um the
the other episode that I would recommend is about the
abortion debate in America and the perspective that we come
to that I firmly believe in is that abortion is

(51:36):
still really partisan issue and I think it will continue
to be, but there are more women serving in office
than there ever have been before. And what I think
that does to the debate is it offers a perspective
that has never been heard, which you might a pro

(52:00):
life woman, you might be a pro choice woman, but
your experience as a woman is very important to that conversation.
And so we talk a lot about that, given, you know,
sort of the a lot of the rhetoric that was
coming out after the bill passed in Texas, and and
instead of trying to just play into one ideology or

(52:21):
the other, related to why does where we're at in
our political moment matter? Specifically for that debate, which is
going to continue to be a debate, right, Like, we're
not saying that it's going to be solved. But there's
a young woman who is a representative from Florida who
is a Republican, pretty far right Republican named cat camac

(52:44):
and she's in her third she was the youngest Republican
woman ever elected to Congress. And she talked about how
her mom was told to have an abortion by doctors
and didn't and if her mom had an abortion, she
wouldn't have she wouldn't be alive. And you know, you
might not agree with her stands, but to hear it

(53:04):
from a personal perspective is a different experience. So that episode,
which is called to whom it may concern. I would
love for people to check it out and listen to it. Yeah,
that sounds amazing. I think it's so interesting to me
when these issues get debated. I just think about none

(53:28):
of us are inside of anyone else's families, and the
choice should be left to the people with the most details,
you know. And and I also realized I say this
as a person who's never had to make that choice,
you know, I feel incredibly fortunate. I just had a
very interesting conversation which I feel like might be a

(53:49):
a couple that you guys should talk to some friends,
some very good friends of my very good friends, who
are you know, very devout and all the things that
fit a more on paper, you know, conservative perspective. And
they spent over half a decade going through IVF to

(54:11):
try to get pregnant and just discovered that there's a
and this is pretty you know, late stage, and there
is a really horrific genetic anomaly in this baby that
they finally thought they were going to have. And they're
really in the debate of sitting with do we continue

(54:32):
so that we can hold this baby in our arms
in the hospital while it dies, or do we compassionately
stop here because we know this baby is going to die.
And we a group of us sat around talking about
this and everyone was just sobbing. Obviously, it's devastating when,
especially when people have been waiting for so long, and

(54:53):
all of us who know them well and who know
them a little or like you did it, and I
it's a really wild thing to hold space for. And
I wonder if more women having experiences like this are
in office, if there will finally be a clicking for

(55:17):
people who say, oh, that woman knows better than any
of us could know for her. And I wonder if
it's that impending realization as more and more women are
getting elected to office that is making so many old
boomer men try to force laws like this, you know,
try to cut our rights off at the knees. I

(55:38):
wonder if they're aware of that kind of pain that
they could put families in and maybe if it watters,
I don't really know, you know, but totally. And I
think that also, like what I take from that story
you just told, which is just I'm sure you know,
it's a story that's common amongst amongst women and couples.

(56:02):
And I think that the key to all that is,
you as a woman, are able to understand that on
a different level than even the most well intentioned man
ever could, just because of your experiences in your physical body.
And I think that the thing that gives me hope

(56:25):
and look like I will say that we approach political
playlists just from a perspective of hope, because I think
if we lose hope, like we're screwed. Um, if we
stay cynical, it's just gonna get worse. So what gives
me hope though, is that as we have a more
diverse government, as we have a more both on race

(56:47):
and gender and age, that you know, the shared experience
amongst young people is very specific, the shared experience among
minorities is very specific. Amongst women is very specific. Whatever
side of the aisle you're on or whatever sort of
issues you might disagree about, those experiences overlap in some

(57:08):
way or another. And and in terms of the debate
about abortion, I just feel like women can have a
conversation about it. I feel like women, even if they
end up staying in there in their beliefs, they can
talk about it on a level that comes from like

(57:28):
feeling and comes from an inherent instinct about it and
as opposed to, like you said, the boomer men, right,
the people who come from this like ideological perspective and
sort of logical perspective or illogical perspective. That we have

(57:51):
an opportunity to now create different conversations than the ones
that have been happening for literally hundreds of years. And
that is both just to go back to what we're
talking about much earlier, both in what we're doing at
Political Playlist and also I think in the content that
is being created through movies and television and podcasts and

(58:14):
books and all of this now is the conversation is
starting to change, and people are paying attention in a
different way, and audiences are getting educated in a different way,
whether it's through something like Political Playlist or whether it's
through watching like Big Little Lies, you know what, whatever
is out there is, there's more weight to it, I

(58:37):
think than there's been in a really long time, at
least I feel that being sort of at the beginning
point of my career in both aspects. So that's what
keeps me going. I would say, it's interesting, do you
think that because the hope is growing, As you said,
we have the most diverse Congress in the country's history.

(58:58):
We're making progress us on so many social issues, and
then we're seeing these very violent and reactionary and historically
regressive right wing protests and deeply regressive laws like the
one we're referring to with abortion legislation in Texas. Do
you think that regression is a sort of reaction to

(59:22):
the progress I'm almost envisioning like a pendulum swing. We're
moving so far forward that there there is a fear,
a fear that's trying to hold us back, that wants
to almost almost revert as far backwards as we're pushing forwards.
Do do you think that that's some sort of of

(59:43):
of a reality of the moment we find ourselves in. Yeah,
I do. I think that. The other thing that I
try to remember is that, like, progress means something different
for everybody. You know, Like, if you find yourself to
be a more moderate person, agress might look very different
than if you find yourself to be someone who's very
very progressive. If you are someone who's an ardent Trump supporter,

(01:00:07):
progress looks very different than if you are someone like
this guy Peter Meyer, I said, who's a more moderate Republican.
If you live in the middle of the country, your
idea of progress is different than if you live in
New York City, and so I think that that My perspective,
I guess, is that we've come to this place where
we have so little understanding of each other and of

(01:00:29):
ourselves as sort of humans who can relate, that we're
not paying attention to what actual progresses. We're just paying
attention to like our selfish definition of of progress. And
then if someone reacts against that, Yeah, I totally agree

(01:00:49):
with you. I think that the reactions are trying to
pull that back. And so whoever gets a win. I mean,
you see this in the way that we flip flop
in who controls our congress us Right, Like, whenever there's
a president in the last twenty years, they've also won
Congress the year that they're elected, but then in the
midterms the other party wins. It's like, we just can't

(01:01:13):
get steady, we can't decide, Okay, we're just gonna go
on this train for a little bit and see how
things play out. It's all reactionaries. So that visual of
the pendulum swinging, I think couldn't be more poignant, and
I think it's really dangerous because if we are just
worried about one person getting a win or making progress

(01:01:36):
in their way and then we pull it back to ours,
they're just going to pull back in the other direction.
And look, people don't have to change their opinions, but
if we don't gain some sort of like connection, and
then I just think it's it's not going to go well.
And what you're saying before about finding things that we

(01:01:59):
can relate aid on. It isn't about politicians. It's about
us as individuals. And if we can as citizens do
the work to find that relatability and find those commonalities,
eventually it will reflect in the people that we elect
to office. But if we don't do that work, if

(01:02:19):
we don't say, hey, I'm going to talk to someone
I disagree with, or hey I'm going to help someone
out that maybe I wouldn't have considered helping out, then
like the politicians are just going to continue to do
the same thing because a lot of them don't even
believe that stuff. They say it because it's what's of
the moment, and that's where I think that we could

(01:02:43):
be in trouble. But I think that we as a
I mean, look, there's way more of us than there
are politicians. So think of it in the power of numbers.
I guess that's such an important thing to remember. And
when you think about that, you know how we can
stop being so reactionary, how we can stop being so
based in a notion of identity politics. And rather, perhaps

(01:03:08):
the way I think about it is, we've got to
get away from the identity and we've got to come
back to community. And I'm curious, where do you feel
like we go from here? How do you think we
do that? I think it starts with talking to people.
Like you said, it starts with hearing people's stories. And

(01:03:28):
it might be sitting through a conversation that makes you
uncomfortable or that makes you mad, or that you don't
agree with. And it doesn't have to be to the extreme.
You don't have to if you're you know, a AOC support,
you don't have to go sit in a swamp of
Trump supporters or vice versa. But like you know people

(01:03:48):
in your life. It's not Republican or Democrat. You know
people in your life who have different experiences than you
do and therefore probably some different opinions than you do.
Just start talking about it, get into it. I think
that that's one of the great things that we've discovered
on Political Playlist is that me, Michael and Anthony, you know,

(01:04:09):
we we agree on stuff, we disagree on stuff, and
we've created this space where we can just like talk
about it. And that's what we want to do for
other people is give them information so they can start
a conversation with somebody. So that's where I think we
go from here, like keeping politics sort of out of

(01:04:30):
it is get informed, take that information and allow it
to propel you into a conversation, and then pay it forward.
If someone comes to you with something, then you bring
it to somebody else. Um, it's like those uh, you
know telephone chains they have parents do and there's like

(01:04:52):
an emergency at school. It's like that. It's like you
just go talk to your neighbor about something and then
maybe they'll pick up something from what you said and
go talk to their family and etcetera. So I don't know,
I think that if we just stop worrying so much
about who's winning and who's losing, and how extreme one
person is or how moderate another person is or whatever,

(01:05:13):
and just talk about what you believe and don't be
mad if someone disagrees with you. You know, if you
think they're wrong, try to educate them, try to inform them.
But getting mad at people it's not gonna work. Yeah,
I've been thinking about it a lot in terms of community,
and a lot in terms of finding more tenderness to

(01:05:39):
kind of parallel path with the sacred rage that makes
us want to save the world. You know, if you
only have one or the other, you're a little out
of whack, and so finding a balance feels that feels
like a big top of the pyramid for me right now. Yeah,
And that's hard, right, It's a hard it's a hard
path to go on. But I think you're totally right.

(01:06:00):
And I think that sort of the synthesis of those
two things you mentioned before, just talking about empathy. I
do feel like empathy there is a component of anger
in it because you're sort of angry on behalf of
somebody else, But there is a real tenderness in it,
you know, that's kind of the definition of empathy. So
I think that we had an episode. I actually did

(01:06:23):
an Instagram conversation. People can go to our Instagram and
follow us with a guy named Eric Bailey, who is
a communication expert and we talked about the lack of
empathy in politics and how if people could just deal
with their crap and learn to be more empathetic and

(01:06:44):
kind of do that mental exercise in our government, that
we could be at a really different place. That sounds
great to me. I hope we're to get out it's
a pie in the sky. Well, you know, it's a
good goal, that's a good collect the top of the pyramid,
I think for us to try to set. I agree,
we're talking about a lot of capital p progress, and

(01:07:08):
I'm collective ideas and potential, I suppose you could say,
and I'm curious if if we if we bring it
a little bit back in. I'm really fascinated by what
feels like progress for you. And the thing I love
to ask everyone who comes on this show is what

(01:07:29):
what is your work in progress right now? For me,
it's very much about letting my passion guide where I'm going.
You know, I've disseminated that advice, knowing wholeheartedly that it's
something that I have to work on every day. I
think that this is also kind of like a plague

(01:07:50):
of our generation. Is this idea of craving like instant
success or sort of instant answers, And that's something that
has been really hard for me to remember. I think
a lot of it comes from being an athlete, where
you get you know, it's about the process, but it's
about a result. It's about winning the race or lifting

(01:08:11):
the weight or whatever. And I'm in this like evolution,
both in writing and definitely in political playlists, and also
just personally of of thinking about how can I pay
attention to the process and be driven by what I
find interesting and inspiring as opposed to being driven by

(01:08:33):
like a material ending that frankly probably doesn't exist. Um,
So that's personally, I think what I really am trying
to work on, and I think that it's a really
common sentiment among a lot of people that if we

(01:08:54):
can recognize that maybe we can collectively work together. I
like that plan, and yes, I know that I I
certainly agree that that that feels like a sentiment in
my life as well, and I'm sure lots of people
listening due to It's hard. It's really hard. It's hard
to not get consumed by by the desire for instantaneous feedback,

(01:09:20):
especially in a world where you can do this. You
can just scroll down with your thumb on your phone
and get all new stuff. We we think. I almost
wonder if we think our lives are supposed to refresh
as fast as Instagram and Twitter do totally, because I
think we go on social media and we every day
it feels like, well it is every day a new

(01:09:42):
thing is happening, and we're so aware of how quickly
things are changing and evolving. We forget that that whatever
happened in that person's life didn't change overnight. It was
many years in progress or whatever, but we hear about
it in an instant, so it seems like it happened
really quickly. Takes ten year to become an overnight success, right, Yeah,
we've forgotten that. I just feel like we we have

(01:10:06):
become so consumed by the need to feel like every
moment has to be meaningful and driving us forward when
it's it's just not true, and it's really easy to forget.
Speaking for myself, yeah, I'm really trying to find more

(01:10:28):
slow moments. Yeah. Are you someone who like really feeds
on the on fast pace and being busy. I've just
I've gotten so accustomed to it from my job. Yeah,
that for me, it feels strange not to have every
moment crammed with activity and things and research and reading

(01:10:48):
and zooms and calls and podcasts and meetings and articles
and and it's like I gotta stop. Yeah, So I'm
trying to find a little slowness. I'm also trying to
give myself, you know, more room to respond to things
when I feel ready rather than when the world expects

(01:11:09):
me to. I'm really trying to take my time in
my space and let that be okay. Because the notion
that our personal spaces, even our you know, our our
one channel for our own opinions, rather than our work
or our collective schedules as a production or a team

(01:11:30):
or whatever. Your social media is supposed to be your space.
And this notion that your space somehow belongs to other
people's expectations is wild. So I'm yeah, I'm really sitting
in versions of that, both in my life at home,
in these four walls, the way I schedule, the way
I experience, and also in the amount of space and

(01:11:51):
patience I'm willing to give myself in the spaces that
belonged to me but that feel public. I'm reminding myself,
I can go at my own pace. Yeah, but yeah,
and I reminded me when you were just talking. I
I just read um this great book called on Writing

(01:12:13):
by Stephen King, and it's his he wrote it in
the late nineties and it's his account of how he became,
how he sort of came to writing, and literally like
tips on what he thinks a good writer is. And
he had this part in it where he said that
boredom is a gift to being a writer. And I

(01:12:33):
think it's a gift to everyone that we have forgotten
about because when you are you know, quote unquote board,
when you are taking that quiet time like you said,
and going at your own pace, that's when good ideas come.
That's when an idea for a political platform and starting
a company that you never thought you would do, because

(01:12:55):
it's those being a little bit bored and being a
little bit quieter in your life. It's something that I'm
not great at. But when I read that in his book,
I thought, oh, yeah, that that is really important and
I should strive for it a little bit more. Yeah,
it seems to me to be a lesson we're all

(01:13:16):
digesting and learning from in our own ways in this moment. Yeah,
and COVID propelled it a lot. I think we had to,
we had to be bored, we had no choice. Well,
I'm really grateful to you for all the work that
you're doing and the and the places that you're giving
people to go and and answer some of these questions

(01:13:37):
and and learn at their own pace and not have
to feel so reactionary, but but instead feel more informed
and perhaps more curious and empathetic of other people's opinions.
I think it's deeply invaluable work. And I'm really excited
for anyone who listens to this show who's just learning
about the platform now that it's a thing they'll have

(01:14:00):
access to. And I'm sure there's also plenty of people,
uh who listen to this show who are big fans
of yours already. So thank you, thank you so much.
I really appreciate it, and I loved having this conversation
and cathartic, truly