Michael Schulder: Julie Lythcott-Haims, welcome for the third time in six years to Wavemaker Conversations. 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Thank you for having me back, Michael. I always look forward to your conversations, to our conversations because you're so thorough and so thoughtful. So thanks for having me back. I wish I could be there in person in Georgia. Here I am in California thanks to COVID but great to see your face. 

Michael Schulder: So the first question I want to ask you is, you have targeted this book at 18 to 34-year-olds, that's a pretty wide window. And so I want to know how you figured that out, and I know you have been transparent about struggling to figure out the voice that would allow you to speak to 18 to 34-year-olds, so how did you do it and what are you trying to communicate?

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Yeah, so to the age range, I think I'm trying to respond to the inadequacy that many millennials articulated about their own ability to “#adult.” Some years ago, the people who are now, you know, maybe in their late thirties even, [00:04:00] the older edge of the millennial generation began to say “I don't know how to adult. I don't want to adult, adulting is scary,” et cetera. And I found that curious, I was curious about it. I, I felt confused because as a “Gen X-er” adulthood was more of this “Weee, wide open landscape, like, let's do it. I'm in charge of myself. I'm no longer anybody's project. I can just go be. Even though it's terrifying to be, it's also exhilarating.” And, um, I've certainly felt my adulthood to walk that line of, of terror and exhilaration - terror of the unknown and “Oh, how do I deal with this?” And then you deal with it and you discover “I'm fine. Okay. I'm going to keep going.” And I think that's sort of a little encapsulation of what adulthood feels like. So that's why it's a broad age range. It's this- I'm trying to offer something to anybody whose toes are on the edge. You know, childhood is right there or maybe way back there, but they're still, you know, not quite sure of themselves in this terrain called adulthood, which frankly is, you [00:05:00] know, the span of decades, we hope, between childhood and death, you know? So, um, frankly people in their forties and fifties are saying they're getting stuff out of it, which I find very, very cool. Then how I found my voice: It wasn't so much that I wasn't comfortable speaking to 18 to 34-year-olds per se. My former students from my dean days are in fact 26 to 36 right now. So I have a lot of friends and acquaintances and connections in that age group and feel that I- I'm not a part of their generation, but I feel like I have some touchstones that are meaningful. It was more how do I write a book that is an authority on a stage of life all humans go through. How do I- by definition, I think when you write a book, you are purporting to know something about the subject. You are purporting perhaps to be an expert, and yet who among us is an expert on being an adult? We either all are, or none of us is, I think. And so, [00:06:00] I ultimately rejected the notion that I have to purport to be kind of the person who has all the answers and instead write a book that is part memoir, like “This is what I've been through and I've made some mistakes and I'm ashamed of some of the things that I did or that I chose or how I felt. But I'm going to put these things on the page, ‘cause I hope that you might see a piece of yourself and your struggle, in my story, feel less alone, feel supported and maybe there'll be some nuggets of wisdom based on the path I've tried and that you can pick up and use for yourself.” And then of course my ultimate rejection of my authority is accomplished by having brought the voices of over thirty other people into the book. Their stories are in these pages at length. These are people whose lived experiences in the aggregate are incredibly diverse and different. You know, so many different identities represented, so many different [00:07:00] walks of life. And that was my way of saying “I am the author of this thing, but this is a compilation of paths trodden by other humans that might illuminate your own path, dear reader.” 

Michael Schulder:  And I love- so, you know, I have, I have sampled a lot of the chapters. I'm not through the whole thing, but I do have to say, you know, it's like when a medical experiment is going on and you've got the control group and it's like, “Okay, I've read enough. I got to get this to my young adults. I've got to get it to my kids,” who are right in the sweet spot of the age group you're targeting. So I want them to read this. And you have an intentional way and, and a kind of a different approach to promoting diversity and inclusion embedded in the stories that you're telling, and I was really [00:08:00] struck by that. So give me your sort of philosophy, your motivating philosophy there. 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Absolutely, I welcome that. So Michael, as you know, um, because we know one another, I'm black and biracial. I've actually written a memoir on growing up black and biracial in mostly white spaces, dealing with microaggressions, dealing with the constant reminder that I'm an other, or people don't get what I am - a constant sense of unbelonging. So my life path and my work is really focused on how can I help create a sense of belonging for all. When I was a dean at Stanford, dean of freshmen, I, I cared about all of them. And I wanted to ensure that those who were most likely to feel they were on the margins because their families didn't have a history of being educated at places like Stanford or because they were queer or because they were poor or because they were brown or what have you, I wanted to ensure that [00:09:00] everybody felt not just admitted, but let in, brought in. And I've tried to achieve that on the page by constructing a narrative that explicitly contemplates all humans. So I try not to make gender assumptions on the page. I, um, I note people's racial identities on the page. Whiteness, for example, often lurks on pages unspoken, uh, because writers and editors assume we don't need to say race unless it's a non-white person and we assume every reader knows that. And as a reader and writer of color, I just find that really quite offensive that something is the norm and the rest of us are labeled because we are not the norm. 

Michael Schulder:  So by, by the way, given that assumption, you know, why state it explicitly as opposed to taking just a colorblind gender-blind approach? You state it explicitly on the page. 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Yeah. Um, there's a lot of folks who talk [00:10:00] about, “Oh, I'm color blind. I don't see color. I don't see race. I don't see differences.” And the way that my ears hear that is “You don't see me.” There are very meaningful differences that folks experience in this country on the basis of their identities and my book is compassionate toward all. And, um, I want you to know that that black man, who's now a health and wellness practitioner in his fifties was at a college campus in the Northeast at a frat party and there was a fight and the police were called and they came and decided to surround him with their guns drawn. You know, that doesn't happen very often to white boys in fraternity parties, but it does happen to black boys. And it's in there as a story, but it's just one of over thirty stories. And it's not really about that. It's about how he endured that, how he became a strong self-loving person who wasn't filled with rage based on how he'd been treated [00:11:00] repeatedly in society, but, um, he leads a life that is entirely self-loving. You know, there's a woman in the book who's, um, uh, originally from Puerto Rico, part indigenous, Taino and now a PhD candidate at Arizona State, and she had an eating disorder. She's in the chapter on, um, “take good care of yourself” and kind of knowing the things your body is going through, um, is a huge facet of, of thriving as an adult. And it turns out that her greatest healing as she got therapy and she opened up to people, she went and lived on her campus in a theme dorm that focused on native communities and found such a deep sense of connection to her ancestry and her history. And that was probably the greatest, um, variable when it came to her healing and thriving. So, um, you know, there's a white immigrant from the Ukraine, Elena who's, um, whose work is in the charter school space. And she talks about [00:12:00] being the daughter of immigrants, um, being raised in Oakland, California. They were insistent that she go toward a, you know, law or medicine. They were just, you know, um, sacrificing everything so this child could have the life they imagined. And they were horrified when after excelling at UC Berkeley and being at Deloitte as a consultant, she pivoted toward the non-profit world to help improve charter schools in underserved neighborhoods. They were horrified, but ultimately, so this, this story is about the immigrant dream, you know, immigrants from Eastern Europe and what they pin all their hopes on in having a child, you grow up in America. But ultimately it's about that child respecting her family and the ethos of hard work, and yet finding her own voice and saying “I am going to work hard at this, and I'm going to make you proud of the choices I ultimately feel I have the right to make.” So those are three very different examples of why I put identity on the page, so you can appreciate where these folks come from. [00:13:00] I think the stories are, are broadly applicable. I think there are lessons in each story regardless of your background, but that's, you know, representation on the page matters. Most of those folks are not used to seeing themselves written up in mainstream narratives. And I have attempted to achieve that in this book.

Michael Schulder:  And I have to say, as I was reading some of those anecdotes, I was reading them on two levels. Like, “Oh, I'm getting a window onto the experience of somebody who- whose experience I might not be familiar with,” and then I was also taking away the stuff that I was deeply connected to, and it's like, “Oh, I can relate to that.” And I have to say, you're big on this and you write about it this beginning from “offer up your vulnerability,” a little bit of your vulnerability because we all know as parents talking to fellow parents as human beings, talking to human beings, that vulnerability sort of opens the door to have a deeper connection and you do that so [00:14:00] beautifully. 

Julie Lythcott-Haims: My hope is that, in seeing all these stories, um, and in learning that these are people who may have walked a completely different life path than I have, and yet feeling solidarity or a connection, that ought to help us heal some of these seemingly, you know, cataclysmic divides that exist in our country on the basis of our identities. You know, I hope that every reader, when you're done with this long, big book will feel like, “Wow, I have a lot in common with these people that I may never have had a chance to meet so far in life in terms of the communities they come from.” We're not that different from one another at our core. So I'm- that's sort of a secret hope of this book is that it advances that ball. 

Michael Schulder: I come back to your book on growing up biracial in America and the micro aggressions. I had heard that term a million times – your book, Real American, immersed me and made me feel what it is [00:17:00] like to live when you don't even know when the next microaggression is going to hit you. And I'm thinking “Well, this is sort of like an antidote, your approach to diversity and inclusion. It's almost like micro infusions.” You're not doing something big. These are small gestures of inclusion that, if people start getting used to living that way, that could really add up and create a big wave.

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Yeah. I agree with that, and thank you for putting it that way. You know, there's a story in here of a conservative white male Christian guy who went into the military. And he's in the book because he developed bipolar disorder and had a manic episode on a highway in Washington, DC, was unceremoniously kicked out of the military and has had to make his way. And I want people who are of his demographic to feel seen in the book - [00:18:00] Christian, White, male, conservative, military. I hope they'll be delighted that one of their own is in the book. And he's like, you know, he's in there for that reason, but he's also in there ‘cause a whole lot of us have bipolar disorder. And I want folks who are dealing with bipolar to feel that there's a- there's a story on the page that treats this challenge, this mental health challenge, with respect and compassion. And, um, so that's, that's what these stories aim to do in the intersection 

Michael Schulder:  What are you noticing among the people you're speaking to, both your former students who have now moved into this new demographic during COVID during the pandemic. You know, we can't have a discussion today and ignore the pandemic. So in terms of how to be an adult for the past year during the pandemic and not quite knowing when we're going to see the light at the end of the tunnel. do you have any insights on that?

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  I can remember back in March and April of 2020, when we all thought that this would be a matter of weeks or months. None of us, I think, unless we were in the field of public health and we could see what was not happening, none of us, the rest of us, realized that it would last this long, I [00:33:00] think. And so we are in a new era. We are in an era in our world where there is a pandemic circling the globe. There's a virus. It's a very scary thing for many of us. And it's not a temporary thing. We have to adapt and forge ahead. So, um, there are young adults who, in this moment, I- I'm seeing three, three types. One are the set who are returning home and retreating from their adult consciousness. They have been in the workplace, they've been at college, and they've retreated home and in the home environment, they're kind of still being treated like they're 15 or 16. And I think that will impede their forward progress. That's my prediction. There are those who have decided “You know what? I'm going to take some kind of gap year approach to this strange set of times. I was in the workplace, but I'm going to step out. I was in college, but I'm going to step out. I'm [00:34:00] going to do that one thing that I couldn't really give myself permission to do when I was on track, but this whole thing has really blown up the idea of being on track, so let me deliberately be off track, do that passion project.” Those folks I'm excited for. And there's, there may be a lot of privilege embedded in the choices made there. But I, I don't think this is uniquely available to people with money. The third group is the group that isn't taking, uh, you know, isn't- is back at home, and is participating at home as an adult. So in the book I talk about the markers of adulthood used to be finish school, get a job, leave home, marry, and have children. And those five markers aren't super relevant for the millennial and gen Z generations. Leave home is really hard to do if you grew up in an expensive area that you can't afford to live in your own town, you gotta stay with your folks. The question is, how do you show up in that home and behave like an adult? And so we parents during the pandemic could have either sort of infantilized our 20 somethings and treated them as if they were 15 and they're back in their childhood bedroom and we're just sort of taking care of them, or we could have said, “Hey. [00:36:00] All right. We're all adults here. Let's talk about the various tasks associated with this strange life, the groceries, housecleaning, you know, taking care of business. How are we going to share these tasks so that we're all responsible for a piece, and we all have the downtime that we need.” This gets to mental health issues. In order to be unstuck in a mental health sense in order to get out of our depression and in order to work through our anxieties, if we are one of the millions of people who struggles with either one of those things, being given real work to do, real work that contributes to the running of the household- not make work, not just sort of, “Oh, would you, you know, stack these envelopes for me,” but, you know, real work helps a human in the most deeply biological sense feel connected to their own body, to their hands, to their mind. We need to be achieving and accomplishing things and sharing in the running of the [00:37:00] household by doing real tasks, matters and kids, young people, who've had those opportunities in the pandemic I think will find they have a skillset, you know, they've sort of had a booster of skills and maybe of confidence. You know, I- I'm thinking about my son who's 21, who has anxiety – I write about that in my book with his permission. And my husband decided “You know what? We have solar panels on our roof,” and he was like, “we need to get up there and clean off the solar panels. There's been a lot of storms, a lot of debris.” And my son was like, “I'm on it.” You know, with safety precautions in place, he's climbing on a ladder up to the second story of this house and is dealing with the debris on our roof. And I watched my son afterwards. He had this energy flowing through him. It was like he had achieved something really, really satisfying, and that satisfaction helps contribute to better mental health. So it all comes back to- it depends, this pandemic can, can either help or harm. It kind of depends on what you choose to [00:38:00] do within context of this strange time. We still have a lot of agency to decide, I guess is my point. 

Michael Schulder:  That's that keyword, agency. And I see a direct line from that insight all the way back to your, How to Raise an Adult. ‘Cause when we spoke in 2015, you had through your research, found that chores are one of the most important factors leading to a sense of independence and wherewithal – incredible. We're still- it's that same core fund- and by the way, this clearly, probably is applicable to 40 something and 50 something and 60 somethings because we all have to chip in in the house, we all have to carry our weight and that doesn't stop with young adulthood. 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Yeah, that's right. I was delighted in the- to be able to talk with Lori Gottlieb as I was pulling this book together. She's a psychotherapist in LA she's the author of Maybe You [00:39:00] Should Talk to Someone, this wildly successful book set in her practice as a therapist, it's sort of her therapy practice, but then she has a therapist. Anyway, she's what I call the resident guru of chapter six, which is the chapter called get unstuck, “Get Out of Neutral: The Tragedy of Unused Potions.” And I'm bringing this up because she confirmed my hunch that there are patterns in childhood, lovingly intended patterns laid out, laid down constructed by parents that can lead to a stuckedness in young adults. For example, if we parents have always dropped everything to serve our kids’ every need - bring the forgotten stuff, handle the snafu with a, with a friend, talk to the teacher, you know, when we've handled and fixed, which feels loving, we're undermining agency. We know that. And that leads to anxiety and depression. We know that. What Lori added was [00:40:00] these young people who've been over-managed and held and handled so tenderly can end up as young adults in their twenties and thirties, not knowing how to work out problems between themselves and appear in a relationship in the workplace if their parent or a grownup had always handled stuff, so they were good. They now think that's what love looks like. They think love looks like: the other person drops everything to meet my needs, okay? We didn't intend that, did we, Michael, by helping? I'm not saying you did this, but I did some of this. I was just trying to help my babies, turns out that overhelp undermines. And so in this book, it's not about the parenting piece, it's sort of “Okay, if in your childhood you had all the adults kind of handle and fix stuff, you may be having a hard time handling and fixing stuff in relationship, in conflicts more broadly in your adult life.” And that needs to be addressed, you need to be taught those skills to get [00:41:00] unstuck so you can move forward in relationship and in the workplace. 

Michael Schulder:  This has been an organic evolution for you. I don't want to read too much into your life, but it's really been an organic evolution from, you know, finding your own path, leaving the traditional law path, being the dean. I mean maybe at some point you're just America's dean. That's, that's your- right? But, but you said here for- in the, in the introduction to your book “For three years, I kept failing to write the book you're now reading.” And I have to say that gave me a little inspiration and energy because I was stuck on a piece I was writing the other [00:43:00] day and I just remember, “Well, it took Dean Julie three years.” This is a shorter piece, but still I have- get strength from that. So at what point during those three years, ‘cause you really, nothing guaranteed that you were going to succeed, or did it because you had faith in yourself and your process? What tipped the balance? At what point did you say “I'm no longer failing to write the book you're reading, I'm succeeding”?

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  I, um, I kept turning in outlines. We had agreed that I would write a sequel to How to Raise an Adult, but that it would be for young adults. That's all we had agreed to. So my editor and I were coming from really different places and every time I turned in an outline of what the book would entail, she really had a lot of concerns about it. And I was trying to front load all of these other people's stories. And she said, “No, no, no, your readers are familiar with your voice. They want your voice.” And I said, “Who am I to be an authority? I'm not an authority.” So, um, I ultimately found my way in with what is now [00:44:00] chapter five, which is called “Stop Pleasing Others, They Have No Idea Who You Are.” And this is me summoning the voice that I had as a college dean around “You have the right and the obligation to figure out what you want to do for work and who you want to be in community and in love with.” And these are, you know, you could write an entire book about each one of these topics. I crammed them into one chapter because ultimately it's about listening for that inner voice that tells you who you are. And, uh, and I wrote that chapter summoning the dean voice. I think, in some respects, you may be right that, that, when you very kindly called me, you know, maybe I'm America's dean or maybe this is, you know, the voice of a dean for, for all. I was a compassionate, older person who would listen well and root for these young people to just figure that self out and carve away the expectations everyone else has always had about what you should do with your life and who you're allowed to fall in love [00:45:00] with. And, um, that was the chapter that ultimately made my editor go, “Whatever you did, you've done it. This is great. Like, go.” So I think it was reverting back to, “No, I can- I- Let me try to summon the old me that had a job of caring deeply for others. And let me see if I can figure out how to write that.” ‘Cause normally it would be a conversation with a student, I had to try to put a conversation on a page. And once I found that voice, then it began to flow.

Michael Schulder:  It's just fascinating to me that it would take- so at what point did you nail that chapter five, that voice, at what point in your process? 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  I think it was the summer of 2019. 

Michael Schulder:  Which was how long after you sort of said “I'm going to take a stab at this”? 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Three years after I signed the contract. 

Michael Schulder:  So really it's, you know, you could have, for whatever reason, you couldn't just get there right off the bat. And it's just a reminder, it’s like, we have to embrace the struggle. 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Absolutely. And I'm trying to put my struggles on the [00:46:00] page so that my reader knows it's okay to struggle. This person that's written a bunch of books and has some accolades on her resume is flawed. I've struggled. I continue to struggle. I will continue to struggle. I opened the book, as you know, saying I've, I've been scared, scared, ashamed, bewildered, like, I'm not better than you. I am simply another human farther down the path of life than you. And I'm trying to shine a big light to illuminate your options and illuminate possibilities. Yeah.

Michael Schulder:  Okay, so now two more questions before we get off, I'm going to actually text my young producer who just received- he's your target audience. And I'm going to say “get on the line,” uh, [types] “get on now.” So he's going to come on. Zahin!

Zahin Das:  Hi!

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Hi Zahin, nice to meet you. I'm Julie. 

Zahin Das:  Nice to meet you! 

Michael Schulder:  So Zahin, Julie’s got just a few more minutes. I'm just curious, you've read some of her book, what struck you? Do you have any questions? So Zahin, for your background, just recently graduated Columbia University, a degree in Political Economy. He is a deep reader. He is a jazz pianist. He's looking to [00:49:00] carve his own path, but he's with me for this year, which is great. And he comes from a family of educators going way, way back to the ancestry in India. But anyway, Zahin, go ahead. 

Zahin Das:  Yes. Well, first of all, thank you so much for the book, I really enjoyed reading. It really felt like it was for me when I was reading it and, you know, people around me. And so that was a really, um, incredible experience. So I think one of the themes that's been on my mind a lot, just talking to people in my social circle, who are just in this phase of having graduated a few months ago into this, you know, crazy world as it is right now, and feeling in limbo in a lot of ways. And one of the words that I feel like a lot of people have spoken to me about is this idea of purpose and thinking about how, you know, for the last few years, the educational systems they’ve been in have sort of defined purpose for them and that “I'm going to do this to get GPA. I'm going to do this to get, you know, club positions,” and stuff like that. And it feels like that has just been taken out from under people [00:50:00] and, you know, “What do I do now?” And I, I guess sort of the way that you framed this was an idea of finding your voice, in a way. But I think, yeah, a lot of people seem to be struggling with that. And I don't know, I was just curious on whether you think that, for a lot of people, you know, the problem is not finding the right purpose or maybe in focusing too much on finding a purpose to everything they're doing. Um, and so I was curious your thoughts on that. 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Yeah. Zahin what state did you grow up in?

Zahin Das:  Massachusetts. 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Okay. And I'm here in California. Um, um, just wanted to say right at the outset that so many young people have come up, uh, through an educational system, K-12, that focused on “You need to be this in order to achieve that, to please them,” you know, “the college admissions deans will want you to have done all of this. So find your purpose, find your passion, to please them.” And that was always an [00:51:00] inadequate definition of purpose. We should never be finding our purpose to please somebody else. But it has become commodified in our independent schools and in well-heeled public schools, that your purpose as a young person is ultimately to be impressive to a college. So what I love about what's happening during the pandemic and my own kids are 19 and 21. One is in her sophomore year right now at a university is I'm hearing her and others around her interrogate all of these, um, definitions of success that were, and per you know, the point of life, the GPA, the research track that I'm listening to them interrogate this and recognize that, in some ways, this is a construct that was serving some people's purposes, but it's not really leading to a rewarding, fulfilling life. I think there's something about this disruption that's making- in some ways, they're peering behind the veil, like in the Wizard of Oz and saying like, “Oh my Gosh, it's just a guy here,” right? Because the universities, [00:52:00] um, you know, you know, they're adapt- the way they've adapted to online learning and like, what is offered by way of this education has been, in some ways, quite disappointing. And it's made people say, “Well, what, what am I doing here? And what do I really want to be doing?” So, um, the inner voice is this incredibly beautiful thing. It is this, it is the soul or the spirit or the self, the mind, whatever you, whatever works for your worldview. It is that voice inside that is- that can easily answer the question “If it was just up to me, this is what I would do with my life.” Okay? Mo- you know, or not necessarily fill in the blank with a profession or a job, but “If it was just up to me, this is how my life would- these are the things that I enjoy doing, making, thinking about, solving, resolving… That's that inner voice and that- interrogating that voice more and more, giving it permission instead of poo-pooing it, or, “Oh, that's not practical, or all my friends would laugh,” you know, just say, [00:53:00] “Yeah, what if? What if I went and pursued that?” Maybe, maybe it's only for 18 months or two years, or what have you, but “what if I just gave that a try?” Giving that permission to the self is so such a beautiful thing and often results in that person saying, “Yeah, this is actually what I do want to be doing. And I'm now on my way to doing it. And everyone else still doesn't understand it, but I don't care because it's not about pleasing them. I have figured out who I am and why I'm here and nothing's going to stop me from doing those things.” 

Zahin Das:  Great. Um, if you have time, I'll just ask one more thing maybe, but-

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Yeah.

Zahin Das:  So one of the things I felt I’ve also noticed about people moving into this transitional phase is like, until now, maybe until college grad, a lot of people's behavior was wanting to be an adult and act like an adult and feel like an adult. And all of a sudden it seems to flip and people are like “Wait a second, I kind of want to be a kid again,” like, you know, whether they want to feel things like they did when they were a kid or they get back into old music and [00:54:00] stuff, or they used to listen to in high school, and I feel like that urge exists really strongly in a lot of us when we get to this transitional phase. And you know, one of the first things you point out is that, like, you have to decide to be an adult and, like, make this mental maturation into taking responsibilities and fending and things like that. So I was just curious how you felt about that, you know, urge to return to childhood that even some people have like artistically, like, you know, Picasso says paint like a child, like, whether you think it can be productive at times, or does it hinder us, or how do we kind of reconcile those things? 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  So these definitions of adult and child, uh, have, have a number of components to them. So I am 100% in favor of retaining a childlike wonder, of retaining a childlike awe, of retaining a childlike permission to just try and create and construct and deconstruct, you know, without worrying about “What does this mean? Who's going to judge me?” All of that innocence and unbridled newness of childhood, we must take [00:55:00] that into adulthood, for sure. I mean, a rich, wonderful life is led when we do. The part of childhood we've got to leave behind is someone else's responsible for caring for taking care of my basic needs, okay? Someone else is going to be responsible for feeding me. Someone else is going to be responsible for providing my shelter. Someone else is going to take care of the difficult, challenging, scary things. That’s the part of an adulthood we need to inhabit, like, “Okay. Uh, where are the adults? Crap, I'm the adult,” you know? And it's- of course we want to be taken care of. And yet, as I say in the book, when I had the fire in my moving van, when I was 25 or 26, I wanted someone else to handle it, and then yet I didn't. I wanted to be like “This is some shit. And it's my shit,” you know? Like, I'm going to take care of it. Because ultimately there is satisfaction in conquering things and resolving problems and dealing with the disaster and feeling like I came out of that and I'm okay. That gives us a psychological boost. So it's that piece of [00:56:00] childhood that I'm cautioning us to, you know, come on out of the cocoon, out of the “someone else is handling it all.” Come into this place that yes, is terrifying. But on the other side of the terror is the exhilaration of “I did it. And now I can hang out with my people and listen to whatever music I want, including the music from childhood.” You know, we can, we can relax and revel in the fact that we are in charge of us and we get to do whatever we want. 

Zahin Das:  Awesome. Thanks. 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  This was so great. I'm so glad you brought your young producer into this conversation Michael!

Michael Schulder:  I am so glad 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Me too.

Michael Schulder:  That's that was a, that was, that was our, our episode of fending with Julie Lythcott-Haims. Right? Fending is that key word? 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Absolutely. 

Michael Schulder:  Well, thank you, Zahin. Thank you for framing that so well. Julie, um, first of all, let me just say thank you for joining me, uh, for a third time on Wavemaker Conversations, 

Julie Lythcott-Haims:  Always a pleasure and a joy. I really appreciate you, Michael and Zahin, thank you. I love that you're [00:57:00] helping me, um, help listeners understand what this book offers. I think we've had a great conversation.