Joanne Lee Molinaro

bestselling author The Korean Vegan. Why the name, Well, I think the Korean Vegan was actually given to me by my then boyfriend, now has been I think we were like getting up in the morning, and this was before I was fully one thousand percent committed to being vegan, and I think he was trying to encourage me, and so was like, man, that risotto you made yesterday was so good. You should start a YouTube channel. You can call yourself the Korean Vegan. And that was like I

was like, actually, that's that's that's not bad idea. And I started a YouTube channel that night called The Korean Vegan and it just stuck, So Joanne, at that time, you were a practicing, full time attorney, and what with that journey like to go from being an attorney to then suddenly saying, Okay, I'm gonna start a YouTube channel. When I started the Korean Vegan in two thousand and sixteen, I was, let's say, I had just made partner, actually, um when I decided to adopt a plant based diet.

And I was just talking about this to my husband the other day, And I'm sure both of you can relate, because I know you have had incredible milestones in your own life. But one of the nice things about being a lawyer and going to law school was all of the finish lines are set for you. They're they're all there.

You know, really need to set them for yourselves. You don't need to create any of your own goals because oh, graduate from law school, past the bar, example, get into a big law firm you know, makes it your counsel, make partner. It's all there for you. But when I made partner, all of a sudden, I was like, I have no goals. I've made all of the goals, I've checked all of the boxes on this list, and now I have to come up with my own. It was

incredibly intimidating. It was a little frightening, and for a couple of years I felt very lost. And I'm really glad that I had something like the Korean Vegan, which was sort of my side hobby. I don't even call it a hustle because it didn't make any money. I lost lots and lots and lots of money with this hustle, if you will, But it was something nice to have that made me feel a little grounded. But it also made me feel very human, like I was like, all right,

I'm not just this robot inside of this machine. I have a human hobby and I really like doing it. How soon after that did you set goals are around the hobby. I had no goals around the hobby for many years. Again, a goal was delivered to me in two thousand eighteen. Somebody saw my Instagram accounts put me in touch with a lit agent, who then put me in touch with a big time publisher and they're like, okay, we would like for you to write a cookbook. You

have this many months to do it. So again, you know, the goal was placed in front of me. It wasn't one that I created on my own, and part of that was because I didn't need the pressure. I just was like, hey, I'm a partner, I'm a new partner, and that's a lot of work in and of itself. I want to develop a practice, I want to have my own book of clients. I want to be successful

at what I'm doing in this career. I don't need more pressure to create more goals in a side hobby to the extent that one was created for me with the book deal. How exciting was that it was really really fun and exciting, But again I had very little ambition with regard to the book. I was like, I will be happy to see it in print, and if you know, seven people buy it, that will make me very happy. At what point did this not become a hobby and there become goals an ambition shifted over to

this the current life that I have, this reality. It was not something that I dreamed like. I could not have even imagined this when I signed my book deal in two thousand eighteen. I think that this shift occurred probably in when I started posting on TikTok. I started posting on TikTok for the same reason that everybody else

either joined TikTok or started posting themselves. It was because of the pandemic, quarantine, everything that was happening in the world with George Floyd, it was just like too overwhelming, and so I went on to TikTok because I needed a little bit of distraction and something to take my mind off of an immense amount of anxiety surrounding everything that was happening in the world and in my own

life personally and professionally. And then, you know, it's hard not to be inspired by the you know jen z z z z z that you call them. They're very inspiring. And I was like, you know what, I do have a cookbook coming out and you know, less than a year. I'll bet my editor and publisher would really appreciate it. If I, you know, built out this TikTok, you know, maybe I could have like another ten thousand followers to add to my Instagram, which had seventy thousand followers at

the time. And so that's what I did, and before I knew it, I had viral videos like a lot of them, um and I had probably close to a million followers in just a few months. And it was then that I decided, all right, like I actually could do something with this, not just like you know, at the time, I wasn't thinking career, but at the very least I was hoping that it would help with book sales. And I think fast forward probably about six months after the end of was when I decided, all right, I'm

gonna go for the New York Times bestseller list. It was only then, like a few months before my book came out, that we made it a real priority. And what did that look like? Well, I think that it looked ugly. I'll be very honest with you, Seam. I mean, because and Sam, you you have experience with you know, getting on best seller lists and stuff like that. So much of it is you know, not transparent, and you know,

really really competitive. You've got to know what other books are coming out at that time, you know, in your category, and you know, there's no real formula to it. There's some some formula like okay, make sure you sell a lot of books, obviously, but honestly, from an internal and personal perspective, it was ugly because I approached this goal the same way I approached everything else that I had

in my legal career. Was like I've got to knock it out of the park, and I've got to do it, like, you know, months before it's due that that's my personality. If somebody sets a goal for me, I want to make sure that by the time the deadline arise, I'm like, well passed, you know, whatever is expected of me, because

I hate being short on anything. But as you know, there's no way to gauge whether you're going to make it before the deadline, if you will, and so a lot of it was just intense anxiety, um, doing everything I possibly can to sell as many pre orders as I could, you know, getting frustrated by the numbers I was getting from my sales team like that's not enough. We need to be double that right now, and things

like that. Um. But at the end, you know, when my publisher they set up this like surprise zoom meeting with my husband while I was in the middle of like podcasts and things like that, and you know, they broke the news to me and it was just it was amazing. I mean I started bawling on the spot. What his role as your husband played. It sounds like he's been quite an inspiration for your career since since he had the title boyfriend. My husband is an artist.

He's a concert pianist. So he has never had a job, I think, other than a brief stint as a valet for a hotel or something like that where he's worked for Yeah, Like, he's never worked at anything other than his craft and his passion, which is music. And so his mindset is so different from mine. He's not opposed to taking some pretty serious risks in his career. He hates the idea of working for anyone other than himself. And the other thing that I admire so much about

him is he doesn't need a bajillion dollars. He doesn't need to be rich and famous. He just wants to live a comfortable life that allows him to travel, eat the food that he likes to eat, be with the people he loves, while doing the kind of work that

makes him happy and fulfilled. And that mindset was so different from the classic child of immigrants mindset that I had, which is like, no, you like scarcity mentality, You must, you know, hoard all the money's and like, you know, do all the hard work and you know all that stuff, and this idea of well why not just you know, live comfortably and like not, you know, kill yourself and

do what you love. It was just really nice to be with somebody who not only encouraged that in me, but displayed that demonstrated that every single day of his own life. And I think that more than any conversation that we had or any you know, piece of advice that he would give, just watching how he lived his life so fulfilled every day was the biggest motivator for me to finally take that risk and make the jump from being a full time lawyer to being a full

time content creator and writer. Your first marriage wasn't like this, It definitely was not like that. If you had stayed in that marriage, would you have become the Korean vegan? There's so many reasons why, I mean, the most obvious of which is I don't think that I would have ever gone vegan um or if I had, it would have been much later in my life, and I'm not sure if I would have had the energy at that

point to do aside hustle um. So definitely not. I also, financially speaking, wouldn't have had the ability to fund a hobby like the one that I had. I was like the total breadwinner in in my original relationship, and so it wasn't a situation where I would have had any latitude or flexibility. I would have been incredibly focused on continuing to maintain financial stability in our situation. And also I wouldn't have had the emotional bandwidth to do it.

I just wouldn't. I couldn't even watch sad movies like that was the thing. That's when I knew, like, something is very strange in this relationship. I can't even watch emotional movies because they were so draining and so exhausting for me. I had like zero emotional bandwidth to to do anything other than hold my marriage together, and that was so taxing to me. I would never have had anything left to share with anyone else. How did you leave?

I think sometimes the hardest part about leaving is knowing that you have to do it. That was the hardest part for me. I was like, I love my husband, I love him, Why the heck would I leave him? Like you don't leave somebody that you love, and I really loved him. And it wasn't until I think that I felt there was a line that was crossed in my own head where I was like, all right, now, like, I really can't deny that the situation is not healthy for either of us, and I wish that that line

had been much closer. But it took a lot for me to say, all right, like I can't, I can't pretend anymore like this is this is really wrong for both of us, but particularly for me. And once that line was crossed in some ways, it became a little bit easier for me to just say, all right, I have to now start taking steps to exit this relationship. It wasn't overnight. I wish that I could say that

it was. But even after that line was crossed, I was like, no, maybe we can make it work, like with counseling and things like that, and I think seeing a therapist. I did start seeing a marriage therapist by myself. She was the one who was like, I will tell you right now that this relationship is irretrievably broken. There's nothing you can do to fix it. You just need

to start taking steps to leave. I came up with an Excel spreadsheet that had multiple tabs and timelines and goals and like within yes was within three months, you will do this. Within six months, you will have done this, and you know so like that was really helpful to me to like put it down on paper. It became very real once I saw that. And then once it became real, the goal, the goal oriented Joanne, you know,

kicked into overdrive. I was like, well, if this is for three months and I'm going to do it in two months, If this is scheduled for six months, I'm gonna do it in four months. And I gave myself a year to exit the relationship, but I think I ultimately did it in like six to seven months. And what did your parents think? So I remember, this is

like a painful but also powerful memory. The day that the night actually was like three in the morning that things sort of crossed into a point of no return. I remember I picked up my dog, my Daisy Girl at the time, and I ran out of my house. I was barefoot, I was in my pajamas, and I was horrified by everything that had happened. And you know, my my intent was just to get to my parents house, who luckily lived in the same town house complexes I did.

And I was so nervous, even in my own heart, to show up at their doorstep at three in the morning with you know, no shoes, on and just my dog, because I didn't want them to be frightened or nervous for me. But I also knew that I couldn't stay in my house under the circumstances. So I ran there and I show up and you know, of course my parents were sleeping. But my mom opens the door. And

this is not a new thing for my mom. I had done it so many times, so immediately she knew what was going on, and so she said, come on in. And I was crying and hysterical and and I kept saying I need to get a divorce. I need to get a divorce. I can't do this. And she asked me what happened, and I told her and and she said, yeah, you need to get a divorce. And I remember this so clearly because my mother she doesn't get angry at him. She often gets angry at me for staying and always

going back. But I remember what she said that time. And she said in Korean later on that night, if he shows his face in front of me, I'm going to beat the ship out of him. And that was very telling for me because it showed me that my mom was in a lot of pain over what was happening, but she was also very much in my side. She really took my side, and that was so important because Asian parents, they don't always take your side. If you're talking about divorce, that is not a thing that they're

really cool with. And I was very lucky that my mom and even my dad were very supportive of me leaving that marriage and starting a new life. You're really open in your videos. Have you always been this open? I think my personality is definitely more open than not. I like talking to people a one on one. I'm not good in crowds, as I'm sure you saw Amy, I'm not good in crowds. I'm not good in large groups.

I'm very intensely shy in those settings. But when you sit me down with one person, I love listening to people. I like hearing them tell their stories. I like hearing them tell me about, well, what did you do today, what do you think is interesting? What is the struggle

of your heart right now? And I think the best way to elicit that kind of information from a person is sharing your own story, disarming them by disarming yourself, saying hey, you can be vulnerable with me, and I'll show you how I'll be vulnerable with you first, So that is sort of my personality only because I think that I really enjoy connecting on a deep level with people.

That said, I have also learned, particularly over the past year, how taxing it can be on me emotionally and mentally to always lay myself bare and also make myself susceptible to criticism and gaslightinging and people who are just like, oh, she's open, let's go attack her. I get that a lot as well, So I think right now it's sort of a lesson in trying to balance my vulnerability with my own kind of mental health. And now a quick break, What was your childhood? Like? Well, my childhood is really

safe and wonderful. I was just thinking about that today, like how lucky I am um to have my parents be such lovely and wonderful people. I know not all parents are that, you know, like that I just lucked out and had really wonderful, loving, safe environment. I was just thinking today how much I missed my mom and dad because I'm in California and they live in Chicago.

I was just there a couple of days ago for an event and just sitting in my mother's sunlit dining room and eating peeping pop with my mom and my dad is just such an incredibly safe space for me. And I was like, the only reason it's safe for me today is because they made it safe for me back when I was three, four or five, six, eight years old, So it's a very safe environment. I had both my grandmother's, my maternal and paternal grandmother in my

life very much. My paternal grandmother basically raised me between the age of three and fourteen years old, and just having her there and constantly guarding and protecting me was really beautiful. But I think, like many immigrant children, because my parents, you know, didn't speak English as well as I did. My grandmother didn't speak any English at all.

Because of the adults in my life were not as equipped to operate on the level that I saw on television that I saw with my friends parents, I did feel at times a little bit burdened to be an adult, even when I was only eight or nine years old.

I had to do the things that other you know kids parents did, like you know, read out loud the permission slip and translated for them, or type up letters from my father, or you know, get on the phone with customer service and and handle things that I don't know that many eight or nine year olds were doing, um other than if their parents couldn't speak the language

as well. So there was a little bit of that, and you know, but honestly, in retrospect, especially given what children have to go through today, I had a wonderfully safe and beautiful childhood. You have a video that kind of talks a little bit about what you're talking about right now and really goes into what's happening in the A A p I community in America right now, where we're seeing instances of hate crimes and violence, which I'm

sure we've always seen. You've become a voice in this community. Did you do that intentionally? I think that I have always been passionate about the eradication of racism. That's something that has always been important to me. And somebody was asking me, like, how do you find your passion? And I'm like, well, for some of us, you just find what makes really really mad and the opposite is your passion. And that's how I, you know, that's how I became

passionate about abdicating on behalf of you know, UM, anti racism. Basically, I just I just wish that there was no racism in the world. That is my heart's desire, and so on that side. It was just very natural for me to tell stories with that in mind. I mean, that's why I tell the stories about immigrant families. To the extent that there are people out there who don't know too much about what it's like being an immigrant family in the United States, or may have less experience with it.

All I wanted to do was open them up to thinking about, oh, well, things might be a little bit different. Let me maybe explain to you how what I didn't do on purpose and what I didn't expect was sort of this avalanche of members of that community, um, you know, children of immigrants or immigrants themselves reaching out to me and saying, oh my god, I find only feel like somebody's telling my story. I finally feel like somebody sees me, and I'm so grateful for that. I didn't expect that.

That was not why I started doing what I did. It's not why I started speaking out. It was very new to me, and that was really important because they think it helped me to focus a little bit more about what my messaging needs to be. It helped me to be more sensitive and careful about that new responsibility, which is I want to make sure that everyone feels included and safe in this space. And part of that

means that these people feel seen and heard. And so it's not something that I did intentionally or by design, but it's something that I take very very seriously. Now, how is your life organized? I think that a lot of our listeners who hear this, who might be in more traditional careers, can't even fathom when it's like to wake up every day without someone else creating that agenda. And you have been on both sides, So how do

you organize your day, your week? I'm, you know, still relatively new to this rather structuralist world, and it can be daunting. Like at first, it's like, wow, this is so great, I got to wake up and you know, just do you do videos all day? How nice is that? You know? But like when you don't have a strategy and when you don't have a goal in mind, it becomes a little bit um anxiety inducing, at least for me, because I was like, well, what is the purpose of

these things that I'm doing? Is it just to get a million views? Like that can't be right, Like that that's not the goal here, right, so we think that earlier in the year, what I did is I sat down and I put together a very rudimentary business plan with a lot of milestones in it, like, hey, I want to grow my YouTube account to this much, I

want to start a product line here. I want to really work on you know, you know, videos in Korean for the South Korean um, you know, folks, I want to do a podcast like these are things that I kind of wrote down and then, you know, just like with the spreadsheet for divorcing my ex husband, it was pretty similar, Like I had multiple tabs and timelines and miniature sub goals and things like that. Every day waking up in the beginning, like I said, was a little

direction list. But now what I do is I sit down every week and it's a calendar appointment in my calendar on Wednesday afternoon, and I map out the rest of the week. What am I doing tomorrow, what am I doing the day after, What are the videos that I want to get posted, um, what are the times that I'm doing interviews or pr and things like that. I think that really helps me and putting them in my calendar, not just like putting them on some you know,

notebooks somewhere. I need it in my calendar so that when I'm scheduling sort of one off things like a podcast or an interview or a trip, I know that I have to build around some of these other things that I'm doing. Otherwise like they won't get done and it'll throw me off, and then once again I'm stuck sitting there being like I feel totally directionless and unproductive. Take us back, you decide to launch a TikTok channel.

I think for many of us it sounds like so idealistic, right, You start a TikTok channel and then it goes viral and you have millions of people watching you very quickly. How did that happen? I mean, did you study the algorithm or was it truly just fortune? In some way? It was totally luck. I really wish that, I like, because I know, like the you know, we all want to reverse engineer these types of situations because that helps to reduce some of the anxiety that attends trying something new.

But honestly, I had no intention of going viral. In fact, my first viral video I deleted it because it scared me so much. I deleted it because I was so frightened I would can fire um. So like it was like totally accidental. I mean, I had no idea how to use TikTok. I was just like, all right, I'll just throw my phone up on the wall and I'll just do this and see what happens. And so there

isn't any rhyme or reason to it. I actually was talking to somebody who hosts a really popular food podcast, and he just invited all these viral TikTok ers to give him pointers on creating a viral TikTok, and I was like, there's just no formula for it. Like if you try too hard, actually that will probably mean that you're not going to go viral. Because these kids, they're so smart they can tell when you're trying too hard. And I feel like there's a little bit of that

to what's happening here. So it's it's by accident most of the time. I will say, some people believe that TikTok tries to reel you into creating content, so they might reward you with an early viral video like your first you know, ten videos or something like that to make you addicted to posting because then you're like, oh, I need to get another one, and I don't know if that's true. It was true in my situation. I had only been posting for like a week before I

had my first viral video. How is the production value changed from that first video to now? It's completely different, And you can go and look at some of my earlier videos. Obviously I was just using my phone, which wasn't even like a really good phone at that time, and I was, you know, not really capitalizing on any of the nice little tools that you have on TikTok to make it really pretty and sound nice. Now you know, I have a studio, I have three cameras going on

at the same time. I use Final Cut for my editing. I use this really nice microphone for my voiceovers. I spend quite a bit of time writing the stories that go along with my videos. So it can be a process. It can take anywhere from I would say, like six to twelve hours to create one sixty second video. And how many times a week do you post? So right now I'm trying to get back into the groove of

posting about three to five times a week. For a while, it was like I was lucky if I was posting once a week, and that was because I you know, it was relocating from Chicago to California and it was a little bit hard to get everything like where it needed to be. But right now I'm hopeful to get back into that groove and you know, create predictability with my community there so they know that they can count on, you know, steady stream of content from the Korean beacon.

When you say three to five videos a week, is it YouTube or TikTok or what are we talking about? How does that divide itself? Well, I I post on all of the platform so I'm pretty active on I would say four social media platforms TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. I do customize my content it for each of those platforms, Like I don't post a lot of video content on Twitter mostly it's just like my personal thoughts are thinking. You know how, Twitter is a little different from the

other three. The other three, though, are all very conducive to short content, you know, short digital content which is anything less than sixty seconds. So I'll often post on TikTok first, and then I'll go to YouTube, and then I'll go to Instagram, Instagram is its own little thing. I feel like Instagram is my middle child. I always liken these two my children, but I feel like Instagram is very much like middle child. They need a little bit more attention from me, and they're used to it

because I've been on that platform the longest. And you get the caption where you can write pretty significantly, and you get the Instagram stories. So it takes a little bit more work on Instagram. But basically, I make one sixty second video and I repurpose it for all those three platforms, sometimes also Twitter and now a quick break. What will your career look like in ten years? I

don't know. It could go one of two ways, I would say, And and in this I'm being totally honest and completely candid, Like there's like a part of me that's like I want to be the CEO and mogul of like a digital multimedia enterprise, you know, And I feel like there's a part of me that could do that. Um. You know, certainly we're growing our YouTube and our other digital platforms, and that's certainly part of that strategy. On the other hand, I go back to what I said

about my husband. One of the things that I found so attractive about him is that he was like, Hey, I just want to do something that I love. I want to do it well every single day. I want to challenge myself to be the best at it as I possibly can. But that doesn't mean that I need to be making a million dollars or becoming famous. I'm okay if I make just enough money to go to Rome every summer and eat the best pasta. And there's

something to that that's very alluring. I would not mind if in ten years you found me in a small, beautiful home in Sardinia, you know, eating chick peas and fresh greens every day, running in the morning, and writing my next book. I think that's also kind of lovely. And do you want to go to the speed round now, Joanne? Who leaves you star struck? Oh? God, Padma Lakshmi, for sure? What are you reading right now? I literally just finished We Were Dreamers, which is the memoir by cemu You,

which I enjoyed so thoroughly. I haven't picked up my next book though. What is your morning routine? My morning routine right now is I get out of bed, I carry my dog downstairs because we sleep on the second floor, and he's very arthritic and he can't go down the stairs anymore. Take him outside, UM, give him his medication, beg him to take his medication more like hey, um. And then my husband and I go to our favorite

local restaurant here and we share breakfast. Usually we just share a bagel sandwich together and then come home and we start the day. I haven't been working out the past month. I've got marathon this fall and training starts in July, so I've been like taking it super easy before I start training. What are you and your husband eating for dinner tonight? Okay, So I made this amazing

cast role yesterday. I love cast roles. I think that is directly a product of the fact that we ate Korean food all the time growing up, and I always was so fascinated by the American cast role. I love cast role, and I made this cast role yesterday with my vegan version of cream of mushroom with pasta and potatoes and um bread crumbs, and it is just so delicious. I added some artichokes to it too. It's so amazing. It came out perfectly. So we're going to eat that.

I have some leftover green beans that I haven't cooked up yet, so we'll just do a quick saute with a little bit of vegan butter and extra vision olive oil and some garlic. It's what we had for dinner yesterday and it was so good it it deserves an encore. So lu Burns has been listening to the interview and

he joins us with the male perspective. And I don't want to call his final question a singer, but sometimes it is to hear that you deleted your first viral, Like I would go nuts if it was me, Like I got something that everybody likes you, but you were you were afraid to lose your job and that like, wow, that was a lot. Huh. It was really scary. Yeah, why so? So, contrary to what many people probably think, my first viral video didn't have anything to do with food.

It was not a food video. It was me being a lawyer. I had posted sort of a you know, fun day in the life video of a lawyer in Chicago under quarantine, and it really was taking people through the day, just like you guys were asking about like what is your day, like you know, first part lawyer, second part content creator. And that's really what I wanted to show people that you could do both, and a woman lawyer commented, it looks like you don't work very hard,

and it was so enraging. She was just very I don't know why they had to say that to me, and it was so disheartening to find out that she was a fellow female lawyer. And I was like, you know, like all the kids, I was like, I'm going to clap back at this, and so that's what I did. I clapped back, if you will, at this comment, and that went viral. I basically said, here's you know, seventy reasons why I think you're wrong. And oh, by the way, like,

why are you promoting this sort of toxic productivity? Like do I need to be like killing myself like in order to meet your approval? Is that what it takes to be a successful woman at a large law firm is to basically work myself out of existence and not be happy and not have any side hustles, not have any hobbies, just focus on work. Is that what I'm supposed to do? I wanted to provide a balanced video on my life, and I worked very hard. At the time.

I was working super hard. I was actually I think I had just come off a trial or was preparing for trial, so you know, like it was insane. And so I put all of this in the video and it went viral and the next day I got a call from my UM CEO and he was like, what is this TikTok that you're doing? You know, he was like, I don't know what it is. And you know, I just think that maybe it's a little condescending your tone and blah blah blah. And I was like, all right,

you know what I'm I'm deleting it. Don't worry. I will never do this again. Um. It really frightened me. I remember I got on the phone with my mentor. You know, everyone has a mentor. Even as a partner, I still think of her as a mentor. And I was like, Ellen, oh my god, I have thirty five thousand followers on TikTok and and this. You know, there was like all these news articles about the lawyer who

clapped back on TikTok and stuff like that. I was like, I can't do this, and you know, CEO called me and blah blah blah, and I was like, I'm gonna lose my job and I almost started to cry. But you know, lou, my husband was so mad that I deleted it. He was like, why would you do this? You should be so happy, like they should be happy. You know, you're bringing so much attention and this is a totally backwards way for you to deal with this. And I was like, no, no, babe. I can't even

go to sleep at night. I don't really eat it. But you know, like obviously, like you know, we all got over it. My firm got over it, my firm's management got over it. I got on the phone with a firm PR team and we got to an understanding. I create quite a bit of political content that sometimes has nothing to do with food, and they're okay with it as long as I'm very clear that this is my opinion and mine alone. Joanne's story is so interesting

on so many different levels. Amy, I love her. She's awesome. I'm really so into her. But here's the thing, Okay, this is what stood out to me most about her story. I don't know why. It's going to make me cry again just talking about it. It made me because you know, you're the one he usually cries in the interview. In real life, I cry more than you, but under interviews you cry more than I do. And for some reason

this is making me cry. Good. Look, I think the part where she talked about how her now husband was a role model because he chose something he loved to do and the way he lives his life is so beautiful to me, the way he lives his life to eat the food he wants, to spend time with the people he wants, and live in a place that's comfortable for him, Like that should be the goal for everyone, right, So how many people would be able to pick up and just pursue their passion if they had that freedom,

And it seems like he was like a role model for freedom more than even what he said, just the way he lived his life lives. I mean, I agree with you. I have the child not crying, but it did give me the chills because it was this. Sometimes we see what's with such simple clarity, what it is meant to be, because it can get it life, all of it can get so lost in the hustle. And I need this, I need that. I want this right when it can and should be so close to the

heart of what what do you need? And what do you really need? And what makes you happy because you joy? And I think that, like do I reoriented her life around that idea, and I think it's so interesting that like another person can open up your entire world to how you view things. I mean, it's really beautiful what she has found in her husband and their story together and how he encourages her. When we think of a spouse encouraging you, you don't typically think of encouraging you

because they represent freedom, right you. We think of it as like someone who's your biggest cheerleader, or someone who is financially sporting you, or someone who's you know, doing some of the work at home so you can go try vel or whatever it is. But this is almost a new definition of a supportive spouse. Thanks for listening to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy. We would appreciate it if you leave a review wherever you get your podcasts, and of course, connect with us on social

media at What's Her Story podcast. What's Her Story with Sam and Amy is powered by my company, The Riveter at The Riveter dot c O and Sam's company, park Place Payments at park place payments dot com. Thanks to our producer Stacy Parra and our male perspective, blue burns,