March 25, 2026 • 45 mins
Bestselling author Cheryl Strayed (Wild, Tiny Beautiful Things) has a new iHeart Women’s Sports podcast called Mind Over Mountain! Cheryl joins Sarah for a wide-ranging conversation about how high school track allowed her to express herself as a teenager, the mental and physical challenges of her now-famous hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, the ways she continues to be inspired by women doing hard things with their bodies, and the stories she hopes to tell on her new show. Plus, in honor of her advice-giving alter ego "Sugar," Cheryl shares some of the best and worst counsel she's ever offered, and talks about the power of horizontal advice.
-
Listen and subscribe to Cheryl Strayed’s new podcast, Mind Over Mountain, here
-
You can now WATCH Sarah’s interviews! Subscribe to @iHeartWomensSports on YouTube and check out the Good Game playlist here
-
Leave us a voicemail at 872-204-5070 or send us a note at goodgame@wondermedianetwork.com
-
Follow Sarah on social! Bluesky: @sarahspain.com Instagram: @Spain2323
-
Follow producer Alex Azzi! Bluesky: @byalexazzi.bsky.social Instagram: @AzziArtwork
-
Follow producer Bianca Hillier! Bluesky: @biancahillier.bsky.social
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're enjoying
a little lull between weekends of sports watching to give
the dent in our couch and break catch up on
some nonsports errands and life stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And what's that?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
There are five NWSL games tonight and the pwahel takeover
to her game in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
That's it, y'all breaks over.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's Wednesday, March twenty fifth, and on today's show, we're
skipping the need to know and getting straight to my
conversation with author, advice columnist and the host of the
new iheartwomen's sports podcast Mind Over Mountain.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Cheryl Strait.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yes, that Cheryl Strad, who's one thousand mile hike on
the Pacific Press Trail resulted in the international best selling
book Wild that was later adapted into the twenty fourteen
Academy Award nominated film of the same name. We had
a lovely, wide ranging conversation about everything from how her
experiences in high school track and cross country were what
allowed her to express herself as a teenager, to the
(00:53):
way she continues to be inspired by women doing hard
things with their bodies.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
To the story she hopes to tell on her new show.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We also talked about some of the best and worst
advice she's given under her alias Sugar.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
That interview is coming up right after this. Joining us now.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
She's an author, advice columnist, lecturer, essayist, wise woman with
two capital w's, and the host of the new iHeart
women's sports podcast Mind Over Mountain. She's written four books,
the novel Torch and nonfiction works Tiny Beautiful Things, Brave Enough,
and Wild From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,
which was an international bestseller later adapted into the twenty
fourteen Academy Award nominated film Wild starring Reese Witherspoon. Tiny
(01:38):
Beautiful Things inspired a play starring Nina Bardolas, a TV
show starring Katherine Hahn, two different podcasts for The New
York Times, and is a go to source for advice
given by Yours Truly using copy pasted quotes and screen
grabs texted to friends. There is a ten foot bronze
statue of her in New York State. It's Cheryl Strade Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Cheryl, Oh my gosh, okay. The only thing I'm going
equival with is wise and in capital letters? Can we
put them lower case? I? Mean, I'm a writer. I'm
so sorry I have to writing its revision.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So no, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
You will forever be a wise woman and you continue
to prove it daily, so until we remove that title
for you, which, as it turns out, some very popular
people have had their titles removed in the last few
years when they revealed themselves to be dumbasses and assholes,
so that might happen, But for now, I'm so sorry
you will.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Have to have two capital I just I want to
note the dispute, but I but I will, I'll try
to live up to it, just for this episode of
this parture. Sarah, I'm so thrilled to be with you
because you know, you are just a hero to me
and such a delight, and you have forged a pass
nice for so many of us in this in this
(02:43):
area of women's sports and in general. So thank you
for inviting me to be really nice.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Well, this is going to be a mutual admiration society then,
because I'm so excited to have you on the show.
I'm so excited to invite you to the IRT Women's
Sports family.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Welcome aboard.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I want to hear about mind over Mountain.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
A couple episodes in me about the stories that you
want to highlight with this show.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, Well, the reason that I wanted to do this
is that all my life I have been informed and
transformed and changed and inspired and emboldened and empowered by
women doing hard things with their bodies. And you know,
obviously in my book Wild, when I wrote about my
(03:22):
hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, it's very much a
story about a physically challenging thing. It's also a story
about an emotionally challenging thing, about grief and the inner
struggle that happens when you do something difficult like carry
a heavy pack or walk a trail. And I think
that I could do that, and I because I had
(03:43):
seen so many women athletes of all varieties modeling that
kind of endurance and persistence, and so I really wanted
to kind of bring those two things together in Mind
Over Mountain, this new podcast where I do have conversations
with women athletes about their sport and about the hard
things they do physically and how they train and what
(04:05):
it's like to step up to that bar or run
that race, or swim that mile or five hundred miles
or whatever it is. But then I also want to
know the inner journeys they've been on to get there,
the barriers they've faced in both sport and life. And
because I don't think those things are separate, you know,
I have a kind of ancient perspective. I think of
(04:27):
athleticism and sport and it is always it is always
both an interior and an exterior struggle.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, I'm fascinated to listen because I think, particularly if
you end up talking to a lot of those who
pursue individual feats, whether that's marathon running or distance running,
whether that's mountain climbing, whether you know it's weightlifting, like
your first guest, there is something very particular to those
things that I feel like is internal in a different
way than people who thrive in something like a team
(04:56):
sport of basketball. When I talk to my friend who
does the ultra marathons, like there's something in there that
you're trying to get to when you're out there.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
She just did one.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Hundred mile race or something, and that ran the first
eighty miles without even headphones or music or talking to anyone.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Right, I'm like, something's going on.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
In there that you're shaking out of you when you
do that, So I trust you to be the person
who dives in and finds out some of that stuff.
You're also going to do a little bit of Deer Sugar,
inviting guests to help you answer a letter.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
We'll get to Deer Sugar later because I'm such a huge.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Fan, but I want to ask in your life what
your relationship to sports has been. Were you ever an
athlete or were you always sort of admiring from afar?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I was always an athlete, and yet I was always
an athlete in that way that I think doesn't get
a lot of, you know, external credit. I was never
a competitive athlete who could say like and then I was,
you know, I run, I won the regionals, you know,
and then I went to State and then I you know,
went on scholarship to college, like you have that kind
of past. And but I think, like so many of us,
(05:51):
and this is also something I really want to speak
to on Mind of a Mountain, because I do think
that obviously, you know, there are the champions among us,
and I will them on the show, and I'm fascinated
by those people who who are are working at that
top level. But I think what most of us relate
to is you know, those struggles that we have. I
was a runner in high school. I was on the
(06:13):
track and cross country team, and I would say that
it it It's the one thing in my teen years
that actually sort of saved me. It was probably the
only way, the only arena in which I felt I
was truly expressing the truth of who I was inside. I,
like a lot of teenagers, you know, I was obsessed.
(06:34):
I was obsessed with being loved and accepted. And for
me and my generation, I mean, let's face it, probably
for all the generations of girls and women that meant
you know, being like, you know, affirmed, like being considered
pretty or skinny, or all of those things that I
all for my teen years really flirted with an eating disorder.
I wouldn't say I had an eating disorder. I had
(06:56):
a dysfunctional eating because I was, you know, I wanted
to be pretty. And with running, I think it really
saved me from it because I wanted to be a
good long distance runner and I needed to feed myself.
And that was really a time when I think I
kind of turned a corner psychologically where I was like, Okay,
(07:17):
what is more important to me being strong, or having
the body that whatever ridiculous society, you know, the society
we live in, the patriarchy, says I need to have.
And then all through my life, you know, in my
adult life, I've continued to run and of course hike
very central part of my life. And I also have
been a weight lifter off and on, but the last
(07:38):
couple of years in a more serious way, a more
dedicated way, and so yeah, I've always been doing something Sarah.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Well it's interesting too that I think there's certain advice
that we hear throughout life, and it becomes almost so
regular and vague ish that we don't listen to it.
And one of them is the actual health benefits of
moving your body in a way that isn't about losing
weight or even cardiovascular it's literally allowing your systems to
(08:07):
reset your stress regulation, your of course, like all those things,
and you went through a lot. We're going to get
to you later in your life, and I imagine maybe
you aren't even fully aware of how much healing it
was doing to move your body and to run. It
was resetting you every time you went out to move
from whatever was going on back home or whatever you
were struggling with and I wish we could do a
better job of telling young people about that benefit. I
(08:29):
think we sometimes hear exercise is good for you, and
it's like, okay, keep it moving, But there's so much
to it. I'm obsessed with the body keeps the score.
I think if everybody read it, it would just change the world.
There's so much in there about that.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, now I want to say this. I mean, I
think that exercise, you know, really needs a rebranding because
I feel like we completely have misunderstood what exercise is.
For one thing, you know, it's so tied it's so
linked to weight loss, and if you just go do
like a minute of research about this, you will find
is exercise is actually not a significant driver of weight loss.
(09:03):
I hate to break it to you, folks. It's an
important factor of a healthy life, and it's an important
factor in you know, metabolic health, don't get me wrong.
And it's incredibly important for our mental health as well.
You know, exercise is like the magic pill. If if
it could be prescribed as a pill, every doctor would
have all of us on it. And but you know,
(09:24):
we have tied it so much to this ridiculous weight
loss bullshit? Am I allowed to say that bullshit on
your show? That it's just you know, I think that
it's really been sort of misunderstood in a profound way.
And you're right. When I was a teenager, I didn't
know how much running was good for me, and just psychologically,
(09:46):
we know now that it decreases you know, it's a
great medication for depression and anxiety and anything that ails you.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I mean, I wonder if you considered yourself an athlete
when you first embarked on the hike that inspired why
you were by yourself over a thousand miles.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
On this trail.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Did you think, like, well, I'm an athlete, I can
do this, or was it so necessary to go somewhere
that you didn't even really think about whether you were capable.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
I definitely did not meet the profile I'm an athlete.
I mean, you know, in addition to just basically, you know,
being pretty out of shape. You know, at that moment
that I set out on the trail, the year or
two that preceded that were some of the most difficult
years of my life. My mother had died suddenly of cancer,
and I had gotten involved with drugs I had. I mean,
(10:36):
the last time I used heroin was a few days
before I set out on the Pacific Crest Trail, which
is a shocking and unfortunate fact, but it is a fact.
And I just knew to trust. I mean, I did
trust my body when I decided to hike the trail,
because I knew I was lost. I knew I was
in a dark place, and I knew that the thing
(10:58):
that the two things that made me feel whole where
the wilderness. You know, I'd grown up in the woods
of northern Minnesota. I knew that felt like a place
that restored me to myself and engaging with something physical
that was hard, and I didn't know how profound that
(11:18):
would be actually, because to be honest with you, really,
the body was kind of like the athleticism of the
hike was secondary to me. I was shocked when I
went out there by how hard it was, because I
was like, I can walk, no problem all, It's just
walking now, Yeah, no big deal. And then you know,
it's a different thing to be carrying an incredibly heavy
pack and to be in the wilderness, in that mountainous terrain,
(11:39):
and it was so much harder than I thought it
would be, And you know, I went out there thinking,
this is going to be an emotional processing journey. This
is going to be I'll be inside my mind, I'll
be crying, I'll be you know, all of that stuff.
And in fact, what I forgot about all those feelings,
didn't realize that's exactly what I needed, And it was
all about the body. It was how do I keep
(12:01):
going because this really hurts and I'm really tired, and
I don't think I'm strong enough to take another step
or lift this path. And I was wrong about that.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
It's interesting how for those who are in their heads,
it pulls you to the present of what am I
feeling in my body right now and feeling embodied in
that moment instead of wherever your mind is trying to
take you in the past or anxiety about the future.
You've inspired a lot of people to embark on similar journeys.
I don't have proof of a direct line between Cheryl
straight and wild to the hikes that have become sort
(12:33):
of particularly popular for self discovery on TikTok, like the
Camino de Santiago trail in Spain.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
There's a lot of tiktoks. I have a friend who's done.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
A couple of these where people really want to go
because they're told this is a place to have a
solitary journey and to move your body well while thinking
through what you want.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Out of your life.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Do you still hear from readers, even a dozen plus
years later, that have decided to turn themselves into explorers
because of you?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yeah, there is not a day. There is not a
day that passes that I don't hear from people all
over the world and all these different languages. Wild is
in forty some languages, and it is profound and beautiful,
and Sarah, I want to tell you you use that
word explorer, and I want to cast that net really
wide because some of the most moving emails and letters
(13:19):
I've received in messages are from people who didn't go
on some wilderness trail. They said things like, I was
always afraid to go for a walk by myself in
the town where I live, and because of you, I
started doing that and I first just went for like
fifteen minutes, and then now every day I walk five
(13:40):
miles by myself and it has restored me to myself
and I feel so much stronger and braver. And it's
because I read your book and I thought you were
crazy to go do that by yourself. And I thought
if you could do that, I could too. And you know,
that is to me the highest honor ever because I
think that is you know, people always like what's the
message of I'm like, there's no message, Like I wrote
(14:02):
the book and you take the message. But I do
think that that's like, I think that's the message for
me too, of like what I love about sports. You know,
I don't think that I am like you know, Serena
Williams or fill in the blank, all these champions, but
there's the essence of like what they are expressing and
(14:24):
the things they do in their athletic endeavors. Like I
do see some resonance with the ordinary people who say, like, Okay,
well it's really hard for me to run a mile
because I'm out of shape, but I'm going to do it.
And that is that is such a victory. I'm so
inspired by that.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
We're going to take a break more with Cheryl's trade
right after this. You know, I want to talk about
a week or so before Wilde was named to Oprah's
Book Club, and what did you dream of or imagine
for yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
How did your life change in the weeks that followed.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
And I'm particularly interested in this because I talked to
a lot of very successful women, and especially in their
fifties and sixties and even later. They all say, I
should have taken bigger swings. I should have dreamed bigger,
I should have thought of myself as being able to
do bigger things. It took me longer than it should
have because I was limiting myself. And so I try
to project that onto younger women. And I wonder for
(15:22):
you what you thought was possible before Oprah gave you
a call.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Well, listen, I always took big swings, that is, you
know I have been. I was born ambitious. I've been
a feminist since I learned the definition of the word
when I was like five. If you asked me when
I was five what I wanted to be when I
grew up, I would answer with an absolutely straight face.
I was going to be the first woman president of
the United States. Me too, I know, me too.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I thought, I don't really want to do it, but
it's necessary, Like if there hasn't been one, I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I'll take a.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Bullet for that. For the country Sarah, I listened to
your podcast, and I know this about you, and you
know you and I are are sisters in that way.
I have always been wildly ambitious and also condemned for it,
because you're not allowed to be that if you're a
girl or a woman, and certainly you weren't in my generation.
So as a young writer, I mean I grew up
in poverty. I grew up without you know, any sort
(16:15):
of anyone's talking to me about college or being like,
you know, you could be great things. Never once had
any lessons in my life, you know, all of my youth,
the only thing I could join were the sports at
my public school. But I was ambitious. I wanted to
be a great writer. And all through my twenties I
worked as a waitress, I worked all these different jobs,
(16:35):
and I wrote very seriously. And you know, by the
time Wild came out, Well was my second book, I
was actually a successful writer. Now, what successful writer means
in America is different than what most people not in
the literary world. That doesn't mean he was a famous
and rich writer. I was somebody who was known in
my literary orbit. I was somebody who had achieved, you know,
(16:55):
I had been published and published well, and you know,
my dreams had what I'm trying to say to you is,
by the time Wild came out, my dreams had come true.
So Wild comes out and the first week it's out,
now Oprah hasn't called yet. The first week it's out,
it's number seven on the New York Times bestseller list,
so amazing. Right there, I was like, nothing good ever
has to happen to be professionally again, I'm like set right,
(17:19):
I mean, I was just like really, and I'm not joking,
like I'm serious. That was like, wow, that is a lot.
That is enough. And then about three weeks Wild had
been out for three weeks it had fulfilled every dream
I'd ever had came true. And then myself on rang
and it was Oprah. Now that was like the book
(17:39):
got served like a triple shot of espressso and then
it went to number one. And you know, by then,
already before the book came out, Reese had optioned it
for film, and you know, just all the good things happened.
And I think that what was really so good for
me is that that I already had a really solid
(18:02):
sense of who I was. I already knew I had
taken every big swing, and I took the swings where
the swings counted, which wasn't in the Can I please
be rich and famous and get everyone to love me
and affirm me. It was in the work. It was
in the work, and Wild would be the same book
whether it became an international bestseller or not, and I
(18:22):
could be proud of the work I did. And that
is the only mark of excellence. And I think that's
true in sport, or in art, or in life.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah, as someone who wrote a book that was not
on the New York Times bestseller list, yet, I have
had to tell myself that it's about the work that
I did in the book that came out, and not
whether or not everybody in their mom read it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yet.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
You know you mentioned having gone through poverty and struggles
early in life. Honestly, it feels like you have lived
many lives, an outsized amount of pain and heartbreak and
unusually a large dose of struggle, going through sexual abuse,
drug use, the sudden death of your mom at such
a young age. All of these things sort of forged
(19:02):
a sort of strength and wisdom goes to that WW
capital W wise woman that.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I talked about.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
It was very hard earned, though, and you've spun a
lot of gold out of the tough things you've been handed.
And I one of your dear sugar pieces of advice
that I've shared a lot was you were writing back
to a man whose son was killed by a drunk driver,
and you setting, in part quote the strange and painful
truth is that I'm a better person because I lost
my mom young. You also said your son was your
greatest gift in his life, and he is your greatest
(19:30):
gift in his death too.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Receive it.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Let your dead boy be your most profound revelation, create
something of him, make it beautiful. And I wonder if
that's sort of always been your approach to dealing with
the pain of life, is find a way to make
it beautiful so it's not just painful.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Absolutely, I mean, I think that that is that is
our mission here, because you know, as you listed off
those bad luck things, and and there have been plenty
of them, and even some that you haven't that you
didn't list. The whole time, what I was thinking is,
and oh my goodness, I have had so many unbelievably
wonderful and good things happen to me. I have had
(20:08):
the great fortune of so much luck and love and
opportunity and kindness and generosity. And I think that the
greatest thing we can do in terms of evolving ourselves
emotionally is to see to see the whole picture, to
see the hard things and the suffering, and embrace them
to the extent that we can bear, to embrace them,
(20:29):
and and to never forget how lucky we are in
so many ways too, and that life, you know, life
is beauty and life is suffering, and life is love
and life is lost. And we all get that. And
some people get more of one or the other over
the long haul, but most of us get a bit
of both. And the decisions we make about how to,
(20:52):
you know, how to handle both of those things, you know,
basically define us. And you know, I really think about,
especially with grief, and what I was saying to that
man who lost his son, is the way we can
honor the people we love and who loved us the
most is to be the people who they loved into being.
You know, if I ruined my life because I lost
(21:15):
my mom, would that be an honor or a dishonor
to my mother? And you know I have gone about
it wildly, ambitiously, you know. And what's crazy to me now, Sarah,
is you know, wild people around the world know my
mother's name. They say my mother's name to me, they
say Bobby to me. It's also my daughter's name. And
(21:37):
you know, I can't bring her back, but I can
bring her into being through the light of my life
and the light of my work. And I've done that.
And I think that in as many ways as we
can do that with our losses, we can shine more
brightly than we would otherwise.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, I mean, I think part of your wisdom is
and I think it's a gift. I think it's very
natural for many of us to have a natural gratitude
and an attitude about how to be as obsessed with
the good things that have happened to us as we
are concerned with the bad things. But I think that's
part of your wisdom. My friend Glennan Doyle calls life brutiful.
It's brutal and it's beautiful, and you have to figure
(22:14):
out how to hold both. I think being wise is
sort of a funny thing. You and glennin fall into
the category of the capital w's. It's sort of something
I think you can know about yourself, but others need
to tell you that you're wise in order to make
it really.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So, Like I think it's like being funny.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I think it's fine if people say I'm really good
at math or I'm great at history. But as soon
as you're like, I'm very funny or I'm very wise,
people are sort of like, well, hold on.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's kind of like giving yourself a nickname, like that's
not allowed.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, And I wonder when you knew that you were
wise and when the world told.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
You that they agreed.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I think it's interesting because I was even as a
young woman, I was always people would say, you know,
you're mature for your age and not just like skaggy
guys who are trying to date me, which is what
they always But no, I mean.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
It meant you had big tips. I got it too.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
No, she seems older than you this and I'm like, no,
she looks nineteen to me. But but I you know,
people would friends would say that, just you know, in conversations.
And I think part of it is the writer in me.
You know, the writer's job is to to pay attention
and to understand the human condition. And I was always
(23:25):
the most curious about our emotional inner lives, the lives
that we don't necessarily say out loud or show, the
lives in fact that we try to conceal. And that
has been my lifelong study. And so I think that
that helps in the wisdom department. But I also want
to just say I agree with you, like I can
say to you genuinely, like I do not think I'm
(23:47):
I'm wiser than anyone else. I think that I have
spent a lot of time cultivating, listening to those deep, dark,
truest voices inside myself and in the things I see
and perceive in other people. And I mean, I would
say when Deer Sugar became it had this cult following
online before the Book of Tiny Beautiful Things was published,
(24:07):
and you know, people really were starting to come at
me like I was some kind of guru, and I
was like, absolutely not. There were so many opportunities that
I turned down because they tried to establish me as
some kind of like higher being or and you know,
like that I would tell people what to do because
I was, you know, wiser than them, and I reject
(24:28):
that entirely. And the whole magic for me of doing
my work as dear Sugar, is you know I call
it horizontal advice. I am down there with you, you
and I, Sarah. If we went on a long walk,
which I would love to do someday, you know, we
would talk and you would tell me all the stuff
things in your life, and I would tell you all
the things in my life, and we would help each
(24:51):
other through the wisdom and also the bewilderment of those situations.
And that's where I think real real power life in
terms of like figuring out like the next step for
each of us.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Right and wisdom is like as much about knowing what
you don't know as it is about what you do. Yeah,
because that also informs the most curious approach to giving
other people advice and understanding them is what do I
not know about what you're going through? And how can
that be a part of how I help you through it,
as opposed to I know best all the time.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Well, And it's about asking questions, it really is. And
one thing I always say is, Sugar, is you know
in my advice, I'm very often not telling you what
to do. I'm telling you what you told me you
wanted to do, But you're afraid to know that you
want it, so I'm listening. It's about listening and asking questions.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And you're often telling people ask yourself this. Yeah, you're
not telling them what the answer is going to be.
Just hey, what happens when you ask yourself this? And
how might that lead you into the answers you're looking for.
I'm wondering what the most common thing you're often asked
to offer advice about, like a topic that keeps coming back?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah, well, you know it is. That's a great question,
because I mean, honestly, there are only about six or
seven questions in the whole universe. We only we only
have a few problems. They could be, they can be
put into like buckets. And you know, one really common
one that I don't end up answering a lot because
it's just it's almost an impossible thing to answer, you know.
(26:13):
And it boils down to will I ever find love?
A lot of people who are saying, you know, my
heart is broken so and so, and they go on
these long tangents of telling me that all the ins
and outs of what happened, and they've been broken up
with and then now they're convinced that they'll never find
love and they're unlovable or they've been single for a
while and that hurts and they're lonely, and you know,
(26:33):
how do I how do I find love? How do
I recover from a broken heart? And you know, essentially
the answer is you just have to wait it out
and trust the process and you will be loved, you know.
And but that that's definitely a very common one. And
the other one, I think what it really boils down to,
And this one is one that I answer in a
(26:54):
variety of ways. You know, on surface level, they seem
like they're different subjects, but they're always at core. Can
I want what I want? Can I trust myself? Can
I can I decide to actually do what I want
rather than what my parents want or my spouse once
or I think society wants, or what would be the
(27:16):
you know, the expectations, expectations, And the answer is redded expectations.
The answer is always yes, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I always say I'm so grateful that my parents had
big expectations for me, and they were non specific. Yeah,
they were like, you're awesome, You're gonna do something great,
figure it out, what is it?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Go do it? Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
And I tell every parent that the worst thing you
can do is to have extremely limited idea of what
your child should be or want, because they will wrestle
with whether they're meeting that at every turn, even if
you don't know it. You might not even know that
you put that on them, and they might internalize it.
But you got to be so careful about the path
that you help them build and letting them find it
for themselves.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
What do you think is the worst advice you've ever given.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
That's a great question. Hmm. You know, I think that
back in the back in the days when I was
just writing the Dear Sugar column online on the Rumpus,
there were a couple of letters that maybe were from
people who like were parenting teens or young adults. And
at the time that I was writing those, my kids
(28:21):
were in the like young and and oh my god, Mom,
we just adore you and everything you do is the
best thing in the world phase, And so I was
maybe a little a little more on my high horse
than I would be now. Like it's hard, Like my
kids are now twenty and twenty one, and I'm I
have been humbled by the process of raising teenagers and
(28:43):
it's a little trickier than than maybe, you know, I
thought it would be. And yeah, I would have been
a little bit more like, oh, oh, dear heart, I
know this is hard. Let us let's try.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I'd be like, you just have to, you know, talk
openly and you know, communicate your failings. And I'm like, okay, yeah,
just zip them out the shide, you know. Yeah, if
you haven't parented a team, maybe maybe just sit in
the corner and and call a friend, you know, bake it.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Let me call a friend for this one.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, like deliver some cookies, you know, and uh yeah,
leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, is there something big You've changed your mind about
some big moment or opinion or topic that's controversial and
you realize looking back, like, wow, that's something I really
felt differently about earlier in life.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Gosh, you know, I do think I'm a very I've
always been a very curious person, and I'm I'm I'm
obsessed with like evidence based things. You know. I'm always like, well,
what's the science of that? Or what are the like
what is this? Actually? I guess what I'm I like facts, like,
you know, I do, and I seek them out. And
(29:50):
so if I make an assumption about something like I
will usually investigate it and really research it and and
I will change my mind. I can't think of anything
where I've really like taken a shift. I've certainly been informed,
but like there are a lot of things I didn't
know about that I know about now. But I will say,
you know, I have always been It's it's pretty interesting
(30:11):
to me when I think about who I was as
a young woman. As an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota,
I double majored in creative writing and women's studies. The
two things, the two descriptors I would use for myself today, writer, feminist,
you know. And so I have really been very much
a you know, on course, like I've stayed on that track.
(30:33):
I will say, politically, I'm still an activist and I
go out and hold signs in the street, and that
feels good to me. I think, I think I do
feel sadly like a little less idealistic, like, you know,
I'm like, I'm going to change the world, you know.
And and what I guess the thing I would say
(30:53):
that's changed the most is I feel like changing the
world looks maybe slightly differently than I thought it would.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
You know that.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
To me, I do feel like I've made an impact.
But where have I made the impact? In what arena?
Have I made the biggest impact? I would say through
my art and through my writing right, not through my activists.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Right in everyday lives, not systems change, which turns out
to be perhaps more unwieldy than we ever could have
imagined based on recent revelations. Yeah, you know, one thing
I will say I've changed my mind about that you
made me think of is I'm also very much into
facts and I come from a family of lawyers also,
so it's sort of like approve it, or like, let's
talk it through until we get to the logic of
it all. And the older I get, I get more
(31:32):
woo woo. I'm just a little bit more like, how
the hell do we know? Maybe maybe astrology is a thing,
Maybe there is an energy share. Yeah, maybe people are psychic,
Maybe there are aliens. Maybe like every turn, I'm like,
I don't know, let's talk about it, let's dive into it.
It could be fun, it could be interesting. So I'm
way more woo wo than I used to be. I
used to roll my eyes at that, but I think
also just women in general, we get older and more
(31:54):
feminist and more witchy. They always say everybody gets more
conservative as they get older, except for any women. We
just get more and more totally true, offended by the
idea of it all. You mentioned earlier you were a waitress.
You were also a youth advocate, a political organizer, in office,
temp and emergency medical technician. You've had a lot of jobs,
and I'm wondering what your advice to someone out there
(32:16):
who thinks that they're wise or talented or full of
art that they need to share, but they're stuck in
that temp job, or they're stuck behind a diner counter
and they're not sure how to get from one to
the other. What's your broadest advice to how to finally
take that step.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, that's such a great question, and I would say,
you know, first of all, change your mindset from this
idea that you're stuck. And I know that feeling because
I have had really sometimes shitty jobs or some of
those jobs you listed I loved and cared a lot about,
but I knew it wasn't like really my true calling,
which which is writing. And I think that you know,
(32:51):
what I always came back to is I am doing
what I need to do to support myself. Now that
that means both financially, you know, I took those jobs
because I had to pay the bills, but also what
I was doing is supporting this endeavor that did mean
something to me. So if I was waiting tables, but
my real work quote unquote was writing my first novel,
(33:12):
which was the case for many years, make damn sure
that I'm doing that real work too, so you know,
follow through on that commitment to yourself. So you're going
to feel a lot better on that job that you're
only working to pay the rent. If also you can
look back on the week before and say, and did
I say I was going to write six hours last week? Yes?
(33:32):
And did I write six hours last week? I did?
And that is the way you make your dreams come
true is you make good on your intentions period. End
of story. You don't necessarily write six hours brilliantly. You
don't write six hours that you feel like are going
to win the Pulitzer Prize. You write, or you do
the thing fill in the blank, whatever it is that
(33:54):
is feeding your soul or making you feel like you
are answering the call within you, or or maybe it's
not even that deep. It's like something else that gives
you life, and that's really important to do. And also
in retrospect, you know, I mentioned I grew up poor.
I worked. I've had a job since I was like
thirteen or fourteen. As a teenager, I worked at the
Dairy Queen and McGregor, Minnesota. I worked as a janitor's
(34:17):
assistant at the Little Podunk School where I went to school.
And when I went to college and met all these
people who had more economic privilege than me, and found out, oh,
they'd been going to summer camp and they'd you know,
go went to France and like private TUTA and they
had so many opportunities, saying, well, like studying abroad. I
couldn't study abroad as a college and like, they had
so many opportunities. And for a long time I had
(34:38):
a chip on my shoulder because I thought they were
better educated than me. And now what I know, maybe
this is an answer to your question, what I changed
my mind about how lucky I am because guess what,
I got an incredible education. I got an incredible education.
You work for Dairy Queen for four summers and trust
(34:59):
me to learn something about the human condition. Yeah, and
also soft serve ice cream. You know, I can make
one of those loopy dope things, you know. But yeah,
what I mean, I mean that in a really sincere
way to think about these jobs, these jobs that don't
feel like they're giving you something, you know much, they're
actually teaching you a lot, and it's about and it's about,
(35:20):
you know, learning the lessons that are offered to you
and making something out done in the end.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
I actually think a lot of kids would do really
well by having a gap year before they go to
college and trying to just get a job in the
real world, so that they applied themselves at college understanding
what they're going to be entering when they're done, instead
of sort of freedom of just going straight from high
school to college and never having to pay the bills
and figure it out. I also think what was the
name of your first guest on Mind over Mountain Remind
me Tomorrow Walcott power Lept.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, Tomorrow Walcott.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
She was talking about You asked her about the motivation
to go in and work every day toward her craft,
and she said, don't get it twisted. You call it motivation,
It's actually dedication and they're very different, and I was
thinking about the semantics of that, but I think what
you just said kind of ties into that, which is
you can tell yourself there's a different meaning between I
need to be motivated by wanting to do more or
win this or earn this versus I need to be
(36:09):
dedicated to this thing regardless of whether it serves me
and feeds me, because it's the thing that gets me
the other thing I want. Yeah, So being dedicated to
your job so that you can write afterwards, Being dedicated
to your work, whatever it is in the moment so
that you can get eventually to the place where you
can do another job you care more about. I think
reframing it as dedication instead of needing to feel a
(36:30):
motivation first might get you through some shit that I'm
not motivated to go to dairy queen. I am dedicated
to show up every day because I'm going to get
something else out of it, which I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
And I think too, you know, I absolutely agree with
that dedication and tension. You know, that kind of commitment
is everything. But also I think it's so important to
remember these these are, you know, one step at a
time deals, you know, again here we go back to
a while, like how do you walk along trail one
step at a time? How do you do anything that
when Tomorrow talked about going to the bar, it's like
(37:02):
going every day and some days you can lift the
bar to let that way, and sometimes the bar the
bar to live exactly and sometimes it's it's harder than others,
but those days accumulate. Same with like any kind of
artistic endeavor. If you write one page every day for
a year, that's not on that daily scale, that's not
much one page, but at the end of the year,
(37:23):
that's three hundred and sixty five pages. That's a book,
you know. So I think that trusting in the power
we have on the on the sort of like at
foot speed, if you will, on the micro level, and
those things add up, and so you know, you can
live a life where you look back and think I
should have done this, I should have done that, or
you can look back and say I'm so glad I
(37:45):
did these things because look where they got me. Now.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I always think if you're like, what do I want
to be in ten years, then you got to go, Okay,
what does that look like in five years? Okay, what
does that mean I have to do in three years?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Okay? What does that mean has to happen in the
next year? Okay?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
What can I start tomorrow instead of always so in
ten years I will for this? And what are you
doing every day to get to that? And you also
just mentioned regrets, which brings me to my last question.
One of the advice columns that I've sent a few
folks that you wrote was a response to a man
who was wondering if he and his wife should have children,
and in it you wrote quote you say that you
and your partner don't want to make the choice to
become parents simply because you're afraid you will regret.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Not having one later.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
But I encourage you to re examine that not regretting
it later is the reason I've done at least three
quarters of the best things in my life. So I'm
wondering now, looking back, if you can think of a
time that that approach failed you, like, oops, probably should
have thought about that differently, or if there's a regret
that you do have.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Ah, you know, it's interesting because that is true. I mean,
what I was writing about is that that choice to
have kids, you know, when I had when I got
pregnant with my first child. I wasn't like I deserately
am ready to have a baby take over my life.
I was like, oh, geez, I guess it's time. You know,
we better do that, bes TikTok. And I no regrets.
You know, I was thrilled to have my baby. But
(38:59):
I wou'd say where my mind went first when you
asked that question, is you know, like sort of on paper,
you could look at my life and say, well, you know,
you probably shouldn't have gotten married, like at the insanely
young age that you did. You know, I married my
first husband, Like I don't. I blush to even say it,
because I simply cannot believe that I got married a
month before my twentieth birthday. It's shocking to me, it's
(39:23):
shocking to met. But and yet it's you know, I
loved him, he loved me. Had we had a really
wonderful relationship. In retrospect, we should have just been boyfriend
and girlfriend, you know, each other's big serious first relationships
as adults, and we got married instead, which meant we
had to get divorced, and you know, that was painful,
and that brought on a lot of turmoil and pain
in my life. But you know, I also hesitate to
(39:45):
honestly say it as a regret because because obviously, you know,
I needed to make those choices at the time, and
they taught me something. Yeah, and I love this quote
that I heard Breezy Johnson say. I think just recently
at the Olympics, you either win or you learn, you know,
so even when something quote unquote fails, like you could
(40:06):
say that first marriage failed, but you know, I learned
a lot and that has served me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
I think that's back to the attitude thing too. If
you're able to see how all the things that either
went wrong or weren't quite right got you to where
you are now, and you're grateful for that, then you
don't want to change them. To quote another Olympia and
Alissa lu said, I wouldn't go back and tell my
younger self anything. She's going to figure it out and
she needs to go through that for me to get here.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
So that's right. Lies women with capital w's right there.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yeah, and she's only twenty and on marriage, she's got
it all figured out. Joe was so great to talk
to you. I'm so excited to hear more of mind
over Mountain. I'm so grateful that you're a part of
our new iheartwomen's sports family. And as our producer Alex
pointed out, it's not too late for either of us
to become the first female president. Unfortunately, so if we
want to take another big swing before we're gone, we're
(40:56):
way too young apparently to even think of about running
for president.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
But how about this, Sarah, And since we're both kind
of you know, we sort of change, you're sort of
reticent about this, Like we could have about co co presidents, like.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Perfect, the first ever co leadership.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Presidence since America, you know, hates women so much, and
we can't manage to elect one female president who's way
way into qualified. Maybe if we present two of us,
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, well, because our brains are so small, but if
we put two of our brains together, it'd.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Be like a man.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Well and also, technically we're both underqualified to actually be president.
I mean, we're qualified in a lot of other ways,
but like you know.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
That's actually not a thing anymore. I don't know if
you've noticed, but not a thing anymore.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Literally, Well that's what I'm saying. It might be the
winning ticket, you know, the two women on one here
like the people categories of people we hate women and yes,
categories of people we love, you know, vastly underqualified for
the job.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeah, perfect, all right, straight spain spain straight.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
It's a word about which one all the Cheryl all
the Cheryl spray spraids straights. It's strange. We can run
and strained strange.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Or yeah, the power.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
So I'm like, you know, I'm basically spade.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
I'm like, oh my gosh, and I didn't have kids,
so between.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
You we're literally worth. We're just like the old witch Crowns.
I call myself a prone. I'm like, once I hit menopause,
I was like, call me a crown capital C.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
There we go, two capital w's and one capital C. Cheryl,
thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
It's wonderful to talk to Sarah.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Thanks again to Cheryl for taking the time. We have
to take another break coming up, the folks, you shouldn't
listen to Welcome back slices. We love that you're listening,
but we want you to get in the game every
day too. So here's our good game play of the day.
(42:56):
Check out Cheryl's new podcast, Mind Over Mountain The newest
edition to our Iheartwomen's sports lineup of great shows will
link to the feed in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
We always love to hear from.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
You, so hit us up on email good game at
Wondermedia network dot com, or leave us a voicemail at
eight seven two two four fifty seventy, and don't forget
to subscribe, Rate and review. It's easy watch people who
confidently give unsolicited bad advice despite not having any experience
in the space or true knowledge of the topic. Rating
(43:27):
zero out of five stars. Nobody asked you review. Paul
Cheryl is over here thoughtfully writing advice based on her
own life experiences and even sometimes reflecting on the times
she maybe didn't have as.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Much experience as she needed.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
There are still far too many people, most of them
on Facebook and LinkedIn, but also in every barbershop, coffee shop, jim,
and corner office, confidently offering unsolicited advice on topics they
know nothing about. You know, the one they hear from
a friend who's in the final interviews for a new job.
Great time to mention and how cold calling the CEO
(44:01):
is the best way to get noticed. Or they're talking
to someone who just got some tough Health News, Well,
their uncle overcame a bad diagnosis by just praying the
cancer away. And of course this person is obviously still
in the comments on every WNBA post citing that Adam
silver ten million dollar loss per year figure from over
a decade ago, with zero interest in ever learning anything
(44:23):
new about the league. As my friend Matt Quinn of
Mount joy O pines in the song silver Lining, teach
only what you know you know, y'all. Sometimes the best
quote unquote advice is just listening. Now, it's your turn,
rate and review. Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good Game, Cheryl,
Good Game, Strayed Spain twenty twenty eight, You Unearned confidence.
(44:50):
Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network,
our producers are Alex Azzi and Bianca Hillier. Our executive
producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder.
Our editors are Emily Rutterer, Lucy Jones, Britney Martinez, and
(45:12):
Gianna Palmer, Production assistants from Avery LOFTUS and I'm Your
Host Sarah Spain.
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're enjoying
a little lull between weekends of sports watching to give
the dent in our couch and break catch up on
some nonsports errands and life stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And what's that?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
There are five NWSL games tonight and the pwahel takeover
to her game in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
That's it, y'all breaks over.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's Wednesday, March twenty fifth, and on today's show, we're
skipping the need to know and getting straight to my
conversation with author, advice columnist and the host of the
new iheartwomen's sports podcast Mind Over Mountain.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Cheryl Strait.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yes, that Cheryl Strad, who's one thousand mile hike on
the Pacific Press Trail resulted in the international best selling
book Wild that was later adapted into the twenty fourteen
Academy Award nominated film of the same name. We had
a lovely, wide ranging conversation about everything from how her
experiences in high school track and cross country were what
allowed her to express herself as a teenager, to the
(00:53):
way she continues to be inspired by women doing hard
things with their bodies.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
To the story she hopes to tell on her new show.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We also talked about some of the best and worst
advice she's given under her alias Sugar.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
That interview is coming up right after this. Joining us now.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
She's an author, advice columnist, lecturer, essayist, wise woman with
two capital w's, and the host of the new iHeart
women's sports podcast Mind Over Mountain. She's written four books,
the novel Torch and nonfiction works Tiny Beautiful Things, Brave Enough,
and Wild From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,
which was an international bestseller later adapted into the twenty
fourteen Academy Award nominated film Wild starring Reese Witherspoon. Tiny
(01:38):
Beautiful Things inspired a play starring Nina Bardolas, a TV
show starring Katherine Hahn, two different podcasts for The New
York Times, and is a go to source for advice
given by Yours Truly using copy pasted quotes and screen
grabs texted to friends. There is a ten foot bronze
statue of her in New York State. It's Cheryl Strade Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Cheryl, Oh my gosh, okay. The only thing I'm going
equival with is wise and in capital letters? Can we
put them lower case? I? Mean, I'm a writer. I'm
so sorry I have to writing its revision.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So no, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
You will forever be a wise woman and you continue
to prove it daily, so until we remove that title
for you, which, as it turns out, some very popular
people have had their titles removed in the last few
years when they revealed themselves to be dumbasses and assholes,
so that might happen, But for now, I'm so sorry
you will.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Have to have two capital I just I want to
note the dispute, but I but I will, I'll try
to live up to it, just for this episode of
this parture. Sarah, I'm so thrilled to be with you
because you know, you are just a hero to me
and such a delight, and you have forged a pass
nice for so many of us in this in this
(02:43):
area of women's sports and in general. So thank you
for inviting me to be really nice.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Well, this is going to be a mutual admiration society then,
because I'm so excited to have you on the show.
I'm so excited to invite you to the IRT Women's
Sports family.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Welcome aboard.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I want to hear about mind over Mountain.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
A couple episodes in me about the stories that you
want to highlight with this show.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, Well, the reason that I wanted to do this
is that all my life I have been informed and
transformed and changed and inspired and emboldened and empowered by
women doing hard things with their bodies. And you know,
obviously in my book Wild, when I wrote about my
(03:22):
hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, it's very much a
story about a physically challenging thing. It's also a story
about an emotionally challenging thing, about grief and the inner
struggle that happens when you do something difficult like carry
a heavy pack or walk a trail. And I think
that I could do that, and I because I had
(03:43):
seen so many women athletes of all varieties modeling that
kind of endurance and persistence, and so I really wanted
to kind of bring those two things together in Mind
Over Mountain, this new podcast where I do have conversations
with women athletes about their sport and about the hard
things they do physically and how they train and what
(04:05):
it's like to step up to that bar or run
that race, or swim that mile or five hundred miles
or whatever it is. But then I also want to
know the inner journeys they've been on to get there,
the barriers they've faced in both sport and life. And
because I don't think those things are separate, you know,
I have a kind of ancient perspective. I think of
(04:27):
athleticism and sport and it is always it is always
both an interior and an exterior struggle.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, I'm fascinated to listen because I think, particularly if
you end up talking to a lot of those who
pursue individual feats, whether that's marathon running or distance running,
whether that's mountain climbing, whether you know it's weightlifting, like
your first guest, there is something very particular to those
things that I feel like is internal in a different
way than people who thrive in something like a team
(04:56):
sport of basketball. When I talk to my friend who
does the ultra marathons, like there's something in there that
you're trying to get to when you're out there.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
She just did one.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Hundred mile race or something, and that ran the first
eighty miles without even headphones or music or talking to anyone.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Right, I'm like, something's going on.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
In there that you're shaking out of you when you
do that, So I trust you to be the person
who dives in and finds out some of that stuff.
You're also going to do a little bit of Deer Sugar,
inviting guests to help you answer a letter.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
We'll get to Deer Sugar later because I'm such a huge.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Fan, but I want to ask in your life what
your relationship to sports has been. Were you ever an
athlete or were you always sort of admiring from afar?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I was always an athlete, and yet I was always
an athlete in that way that I think doesn't get
a lot of, you know, external credit. I was never
a competitive athlete who could say like and then I was,
you know, I run, I won the regionals, you know,
and then I went to State and then I you know,
went on scholarship to college, like you have that kind
of past. And but I think, like so many of us,
(05:51):
and this is also something I really want to speak
to on Mind of a Mountain, because I do think
that obviously, you know, there are the champions among us,
and I will them on the show, and I'm fascinated
by those people who who are are working at that
top level. But I think what most of us relate
to is you know, those struggles that we have. I
was a runner in high school. I was on the
(06:13):
track and cross country team, and I would say that
it it It's the one thing in my teen years
that actually sort of saved me. It was probably the
only way, the only arena in which I felt I
was truly expressing the truth of who I was inside. I,
like a lot of teenagers, you know, I was obsessed.
(06:34):
I was obsessed with being loved and accepted. And for
me and my generation, I mean, let's face it, probably
for all the generations of girls and women that meant
you know, being like, you know, affirmed, like being considered
pretty or skinny, or all of those things that I
all for my teen years really flirted with an eating disorder.
I wouldn't say I had an eating disorder. I had
(06:56):
a dysfunctional eating because I was, you know, I wanted
to be pretty. And with running, I think it really
saved me from it because I wanted to be a
good long distance runner and I needed to feed myself.
And that was really a time when I think I
kind of turned a corner psychologically where I was like, Okay,
(07:17):
what is more important to me being strong, or having
the body that whatever ridiculous society, you know, the society
we live in, the patriarchy, says I need to have.
And then all through my life, you know, in my
adult life, I've continued to run and of course hike
very central part of my life. And I also have
been a weight lifter off and on, but the last
(07:38):
couple of years in a more serious way, a more
dedicated way, and so yeah, I've always been doing something Sarah.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Well it's interesting too that I think there's certain advice
that we hear throughout life, and it becomes almost so
regular and vague ish that we don't listen to it.
And one of them is the actual health benefits of
moving your body in a way that isn't about losing
weight or even cardiovascular it's literally allowing your systems to
(08:07):
reset your stress regulation, your of course, like all those things,
and you went through a lot. We're going to get
to you later in your life, and I imagine maybe
you aren't even fully aware of how much healing it
was doing to move your body and to run. It
was resetting you every time you went out to move
from whatever was going on back home or whatever you
were struggling with and I wish we could do a
better job of telling young people about that benefit. I
(08:29):
think we sometimes hear exercise is good for you, and
it's like, okay, keep it moving, But there's so much
to it. I'm obsessed with the body keeps the score.
I think if everybody read it, it would just change the world.
There's so much in there about that.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, now I want to say this. I mean, I
think that exercise, you know, really needs a rebranding because
I feel like we completely have misunderstood what exercise is.
For one thing, you know, it's so tied it's so
linked to weight loss, and if you just go do
like a minute of research about this, you will find
is exercise is actually not a significant driver of weight loss.
(09:03):
I hate to break it to you, folks. It's an
important factor of a healthy life, and it's an important
factor in you know, metabolic health, don't get me wrong.
And it's incredibly important for our mental health as well.
You know, exercise is like the magic pill. If if
it could be prescribed as a pill, every doctor would
have all of us on it. And but you know,
(09:24):
we have tied it so much to this ridiculous weight
loss bullshit? Am I allowed to say that bullshit on
your show? That it's just you know, I think that
it's really been sort of misunderstood in a profound way.
And you're right. When I was a teenager, I didn't
know how much running was good for me, and just psychologically,
(09:46):
we know now that it decreases you know, it's a
great medication for depression and anxiety and anything that ails you.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I mean, I wonder if you considered yourself an athlete
when you first embarked on the hike that inspired why
you were by yourself over a thousand miles.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
On this trail.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Did you think, like, well, I'm an athlete, I can
do this, or was it so necessary to go somewhere
that you didn't even really think about whether you were capable.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
I definitely did not meet the profile I'm an athlete.
I mean, you know, in addition to just basically, you know,
being pretty out of shape. You know, at that moment
that I set out on the trail, the year or
two that preceded that were some of the most difficult
years of my life. My mother had died suddenly of cancer,
and I had gotten involved with drugs I had. I mean,
(10:36):
the last time I used heroin was a few days
before I set out on the Pacific Crest Trail, which
is a shocking and unfortunate fact, but it is a fact.
And I just knew to trust. I mean, I did
trust my body when I decided to hike the trail,
because I knew I was lost. I knew I was
in a dark place, and I knew that the thing
(10:58):
that the two things that made me feel whole where
the wilderness. You know, I'd grown up in the woods
of northern Minnesota. I knew that felt like a place
that restored me to myself and engaging with something physical
that was hard, and I didn't know how profound that
(11:18):
would be actually, because to be honest with you, really,
the body was kind of like the athleticism of the
hike was secondary to me. I was shocked when I
went out there by how hard it was, because I
was like, I can walk, no problem all, It's just
walking now, Yeah, no big deal. And then you know,
it's a different thing to be carrying an incredibly heavy
pack and to be in the wilderness, in that mountainous terrain,
(11:39):
and it was so much harder than I thought it
would be, And you know, I went out there thinking,
this is going to be an emotional processing journey. This
is going to be I'll be inside my mind, I'll
be crying, I'll be you know, all of that stuff.
And in fact, what I forgot about all those feelings,
didn't realize that's exactly what I needed, And it was
all about the body. It was how do I keep
(12:01):
going because this really hurts and I'm really tired, and
I don't think I'm strong enough to take another step
or lift this path. And I was wrong about that.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
It's interesting how for those who are in their heads,
it pulls you to the present of what am I
feeling in my body right now and feeling embodied in
that moment instead of wherever your mind is trying to
take you in the past or anxiety about the future.
You've inspired a lot of people to embark on similar journeys.
I don't have proof of a direct line between Cheryl
straight and wild to the hikes that have become sort
(12:33):
of particularly popular for self discovery on TikTok, like the
Camino de Santiago trail in Spain.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
There's a lot of tiktoks. I have a friend who's done.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
A couple of these where people really want to go
because they're told this is a place to have a
solitary journey and to move your body well while thinking
through what you want.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Out of your life.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Do you still hear from readers, even a dozen plus
years later, that have decided to turn themselves into explorers
because of you?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yeah, there is not a day. There is not a
day that passes that I don't hear from people all
over the world and all these different languages. Wild is
in forty some languages, and it is profound and beautiful,
and Sarah, I want to tell you you use that
word explorer, and I want to cast that net really
wide because some of the most moving emails and letters
(13:19):
I've received in messages are from people who didn't go
on some wilderness trail. They said things like, I was
always afraid to go for a walk by myself in
the town where I live, and because of you, I
started doing that and I first just went for like
fifteen minutes, and then now every day I walk five
(13:40):
miles by myself and it has restored me to myself
and I feel so much stronger and braver. And it's
because I read your book and I thought you were
crazy to go do that by yourself. And I thought
if you could do that, I could too. And you know,
that is to me the highest honor ever because I
think that is you know, people always like what's the
message of I'm like, there's no message, Like I wrote
(14:02):
the book and you take the message. But I do
think that that's like, I think that's the message for
me too, of like what I love about sports. You know,
I don't think that I am like you know, Serena
Williams or fill in the blank, all these champions, but
there's the essence of like what they are expressing and
(14:24):
the things they do in their athletic endeavors. Like I
do see some resonance with the ordinary people who say, like, Okay,
well it's really hard for me to run a mile
because I'm out of shape, but I'm going to do it.
And that is that is such a victory. I'm so
inspired by that.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
We're going to take a break more with Cheryl's trade
right after this. You know, I want to talk about
a week or so before Wilde was named to Oprah's
Book Club, and what did you dream of or imagine
for yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
How did your life change in the weeks that followed.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
And I'm particularly interested in this because I talked to
a lot of very successful women, and especially in their
fifties and sixties and even later. They all say, I
should have taken bigger swings. I should have dreamed bigger,
I should have thought of myself as being able to
do bigger things. It took me longer than it should
have because I was limiting myself. And so I try
to project that onto younger women. And I wonder for
(15:22):
you what you thought was possible before Oprah gave you
a call.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Well, listen, I always took big swings, that is, you
know I have been. I was born ambitious. I've been
a feminist since I learned the definition of the word
when I was like five. If you asked me when
I was five what I wanted to be when I
grew up, I would answer with an absolutely straight face.
I was going to be the first woman president of
the United States. Me too, I know, me too.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I thought, I don't really want to do it, but
it's necessary, Like if there hasn't been one, I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I'll take a.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Bullet for that. For the country Sarah, I listened to
your podcast, and I know this about you, and you
know you and I are are sisters in that way.
I have always been wildly ambitious and also condemned for it,
because you're not allowed to be that if you're a
girl or a woman, and certainly you weren't in my generation.
So as a young writer, I mean I grew up
in poverty. I grew up without you know, any sort
(16:15):
of anyone's talking to me about college or being like,
you know, you could be great things. Never once had
any lessons in my life, you know, all of my youth,
the only thing I could join were the sports at
my public school. But I was ambitious. I wanted to
be a great writer. And all through my twenties I
worked as a waitress, I worked all these different jobs,
(16:35):
and I wrote very seriously. And you know, by the
time Wild came out, Well was my second book, I
was actually a successful writer. Now, what successful writer means
in America is different than what most people not in
the literary world. That doesn't mean he was a famous
and rich writer. I was somebody who was known in
my literary orbit. I was somebody who had achieved, you know,
(16:55):
I had been published and published well, and you know,
my dreams had what I'm trying to say to you is,
by the time Wild came out, my dreams had come true.
So Wild comes out and the first week it's out,
now Oprah hasn't called yet. The first week it's out,
it's number seven on the New York Times bestseller list,
so amazing. Right there, I was like, nothing good ever
has to happen to be professionally again, I'm like set right,
(17:19):
I mean, I was just like really, and I'm not joking,
like I'm serious. That was like, wow, that is a lot.
That is enough. And then about three weeks Wild had
been out for three weeks it had fulfilled every dream
I'd ever had came true. And then myself on rang
and it was Oprah. Now that was like the book
(17:39):
got served like a triple shot of espressso and then
it went to number one. And you know, by then,
already before the book came out, Reese had optioned it
for film, and you know, just all the good things happened.
And I think that what was really so good for
me is that that I already had a really solid
(18:02):
sense of who I was. I already knew I had
taken every big swing, and I took the swings where
the swings counted, which wasn't in the Can I please
be rich and famous and get everyone to love me
and affirm me. It was in the work. It was
in the work, and Wild would be the same book
whether it became an international bestseller or not, and I
(18:22):
could be proud of the work I did. And that
is the only mark of excellence. And I think that's
true in sport, or in art, or in life.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah, as someone who wrote a book that was not
on the New York Times bestseller list, yet, I have
had to tell myself that it's about the work that
I did in the book that came out, and not
whether or not everybody in their mom read it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yet.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
You know you mentioned having gone through poverty and struggles
early in life. Honestly, it feels like you have lived
many lives, an outsized amount of pain and heartbreak and
unusually a large dose of struggle, going through sexual abuse,
drug use, the sudden death of your mom at such
a young age. All of these things sort of forged
(19:02):
a sort of strength and wisdom goes to that WW
capital W wise woman that.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I talked about.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
It was very hard earned, though, and you've spun a
lot of gold out of the tough things you've been handed.
And I one of your dear sugar pieces of advice
that I've shared a lot was you were writing back
to a man whose son was killed by a drunk driver,
and you setting, in part quote the strange and painful
truth is that I'm a better person because I lost
my mom young. You also said your son was your
greatest gift in his life, and he is your greatest
(19:30):
gift in his death too.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Receive it.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Let your dead boy be your most profound revelation, create
something of him, make it beautiful. And I wonder if
that's sort of always been your approach to dealing with
the pain of life, is find a way to make
it beautiful so it's not just painful.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Absolutely, I mean, I think that that is that is
our mission here, because you know, as you listed off
those bad luck things, and and there have been plenty
of them, and even some that you haven't that you
didn't list. The whole time, what I was thinking is,
and oh my goodness, I have had so many unbelievably
wonderful and good things happen to me. I have had
(20:08):
the great fortune of so much luck and love and
opportunity and kindness and generosity. And I think that the
greatest thing we can do in terms of evolving ourselves
emotionally is to see to see the whole picture, to
see the hard things and the suffering, and embrace them
to the extent that we can bear, to embrace them,
(20:29):
and and to never forget how lucky we are in
so many ways too, and that life, you know, life
is beauty and life is suffering, and life is love
and life is lost. And we all get that. And
some people get more of one or the other over
the long haul, but most of us get a bit
of both. And the decisions we make about how to,
(20:52):
you know, how to handle both of those things, you know,
basically define us. And you know, I really think about,
especially with grief, and what I was saying to that
man who lost his son, is the way we can
honor the people we love and who loved us the
most is to be the people who they loved into being.
You know, if I ruined my life because I lost
(21:15):
my mom, would that be an honor or a dishonor
to my mother? And you know I have gone about
it wildly, ambitiously, you know. And what's crazy to me now, Sarah,
is you know, wild people around the world know my
mother's name. They say my mother's name to me, they
say Bobby to me. It's also my daughter's name. And
(21:37):
you know, I can't bring her back, but I can
bring her into being through the light of my life
and the light of my work. And I've done that.
And I think that in as many ways as we
can do that with our losses, we can shine more
brightly than we would otherwise.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, I mean, I think part of your wisdom is
and I think it's a gift. I think it's very
natural for many of us to have a natural gratitude
and an attitude about how to be as obsessed with
the good things that have happened to us as we
are concerned with the bad things. But I think that's
part of your wisdom. My friend Glennan Doyle calls life brutiful.
It's brutal and it's beautiful, and you have to figure
(22:14):
out how to hold both. I think being wise is
sort of a funny thing. You and glennin fall into
the category of the capital w's. It's sort of something
I think you can know about yourself, but others need
to tell you that you're wise in order to make
it really.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So, Like I think it's like being funny.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I think it's fine if people say I'm really good
at math or I'm great at history. But as soon
as you're like, I'm very funny or I'm very wise,
people are sort of like, well, hold on.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's kind of like giving yourself a nickname, like that's
not allowed.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, And I wonder when you knew that you were
wise and when the world told.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
You that they agreed.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I think it's interesting because I was even as a
young woman, I was always people would say, you know,
you're mature for your age and not just like skaggy
guys who are trying to date me, which is what
they always But no, I mean.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
It meant you had big tips. I got it too.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
No, she seems older than you this and I'm like, no,
she looks nineteen to me. But but I you know,
people would friends would say that, just you know, in conversations.
And I think part of it is the writer in me.
You know, the writer's job is to to pay attention
and to understand the human condition. And I was always
(23:25):
the most curious about our emotional inner lives, the lives
that we don't necessarily say out loud or show, the
lives in fact that we try to conceal. And that
has been my lifelong study. And so I think that
that helps in the wisdom department. But I also want
to just say I agree with you, like I can
say to you genuinely, like I do not think I'm
(23:47):
I'm wiser than anyone else. I think that I have
spent a lot of time cultivating, listening to those deep, dark,
truest voices inside myself and in the things I see
and perceive in other people. And I mean, I would
say when Deer Sugar became it had this cult following
online before the Book of Tiny Beautiful Things was published,
(24:07):
and you know, people really were starting to come at
me like I was some kind of guru, and I
was like, absolutely not. There were so many opportunities that
I turned down because they tried to establish me as
some kind of like higher being or and you know,
like that I would tell people what to do because
I was, you know, wiser than them, and I reject
(24:28):
that entirely. And the whole magic for me of doing
my work as dear Sugar, is you know I call
it horizontal advice. I am down there with you, you
and I, Sarah. If we went on a long walk,
which I would love to do someday, you know, we
would talk and you would tell me all the stuff
things in your life, and I would tell you all
the things in my life, and we would help each
(24:51):
other through the wisdom and also the bewilderment of those situations.
And that's where I think real real power life in
terms of like figuring out like the next step for
each of us.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Right and wisdom is like as much about knowing what
you don't know as it is about what you do. Yeah,
because that also informs the most curious approach to giving
other people advice and understanding them is what do I
not know about what you're going through? And how can
that be a part of how I help you through it,
as opposed to I know best all the time.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Well, And it's about asking questions, it really is. And
one thing I always say is, Sugar, is you know
in my advice, I'm very often not telling you what
to do. I'm telling you what you told me you
wanted to do, But you're afraid to know that you
want it, so I'm listening. It's about listening and asking questions.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And you're often telling people ask yourself this. Yeah, you're
not telling them what the answer is going to be.
Just hey, what happens when you ask yourself this? And
how might that lead you into the answers you're looking for.
I'm wondering what the most common thing you're often asked
to offer advice about, like a topic that keeps coming back?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah, well, you know it is. That's a great question,
because I mean, honestly, there are only about six or
seven questions in the whole universe. We only we only
have a few problems. They could be, they can be
put into like buckets. And you know, one really common
one that I don't end up answering a lot because
it's just it's almost an impossible thing to answer, you know.
(26:13):
And it boils down to will I ever find love?
A lot of people who are saying, you know, my
heart is broken so and so, and they go on
these long tangents of telling me that all the ins
and outs of what happened, and they've been broken up
with and then now they're convinced that they'll never find
love and they're unlovable or they've been single for a
while and that hurts and they're lonely, and you know,
(26:33):
how do I how do I find love? How do
I recover from a broken heart? And you know, essentially
the answer is you just have to wait it out
and trust the process and you will be loved, you know.
And but that that's definitely a very common one. And
the other one, I think what it really boils down to,
And this one is one that I answer in a
(26:54):
variety of ways. You know, on surface level, they seem
like they're different subjects, but they're always at core. Can
I want what I want? Can I trust myself? Can
I can I decide to actually do what I want
rather than what my parents want or my spouse once
or I think society wants, or what would be the
(27:16):
you know, the expectations, expectations, And the answer is redded expectations.
The answer is always yes, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I always say I'm so grateful that my parents had
big expectations for me, and they were non specific. Yeah,
they were like, you're awesome, You're gonna do something great,
figure it out, what is it?
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Go do it? Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
And I tell every parent that the worst thing you
can do is to have extremely limited idea of what
your child should be or want, because they will wrestle
with whether they're meeting that at every turn, even if
you don't know it. You might not even know that
you put that on them, and they might internalize it.
But you got to be so careful about the path
that you help them build and letting them find it
for themselves.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
What do you think is the worst advice you've ever given.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
That's a great question. Hmm. You know, I think that
back in the back in the days when I was
just writing the Dear Sugar column online on the Rumpus,
there were a couple of letters that maybe were from
people who like were parenting teens or young adults. And
at the time that I was writing those, my kids
(28:21):
were in the like young and and oh my god, Mom,
we just adore you and everything you do is the
best thing in the world phase, And so I was
maybe a little a little more on my high horse
than I would be now. Like it's hard, Like my
kids are now twenty and twenty one, and I'm I
have been humbled by the process of raising teenagers and
(28:43):
it's a little trickier than than maybe, you know, I
thought it would be. And yeah, I would have been
a little bit more like, oh, oh, dear heart, I
know this is hard. Let us let's try.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I'd be like, you just have to, you know, talk
openly and you know, communicate your failings. And I'm like, okay, yeah,
just zip them out the shide, you know. Yeah, if
you haven't parented a team, maybe maybe just sit in
the corner and and call a friend, you know, bake it.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Let me call a friend for this one.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, like deliver some cookies, you know, and uh yeah,
leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, is there something big You've changed your mind about
some big moment or opinion or topic that's controversial and
you realize looking back, like, wow, that's something I really
felt differently about earlier in life.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Gosh, you know, I do think I'm a very I've
always been a very curious person, and I'm I'm I'm
obsessed with like evidence based things. You know. I'm always like, well,
what's the science of that? Or what are the like
what is this? Actually? I guess what I'm I like facts, like,
you know, I do, and I seek them out. And
(29:50):
so if I make an assumption about something like I
will usually investigate it and really research it and and
I will change my mind. I can't think of anything
where I've really like taken a shift. I've certainly been informed,
but like there are a lot of things I didn't
know about that I know about now. But I will say,
you know, I have always been It's it's pretty interesting
(30:11):
to me when I think about who I was as
a young woman. As an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota,
I double majored in creative writing and women's studies. The
two things, the two descriptors I would use for myself today, writer, feminist,
you know. And so I have really been very much
a you know, on course, like I've stayed on that track.
(30:33):
I will say, politically, I'm still an activist and I
go out and hold signs in the street, and that
feels good to me. I think, I think I do
feel sadly like a little less idealistic, like, you know,
I'm like, I'm going to change the world, you know.
And and what I guess the thing I would say
(30:53):
that's changed the most is I feel like changing the
world looks maybe slightly differently than I thought it would.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
You know that.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
To me, I do feel like I've made an impact.
But where have I made the impact? In what arena?
Have I made the biggest impact? I would say through
my art and through my writing right, not through my activists.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Right in everyday lives, not systems change, which turns out
to be perhaps more unwieldy than we ever could have
imagined based on recent revelations. Yeah, you know, one thing
I will say I've changed my mind about that you
made me think of is I'm also very much into
facts and I come from a family of lawyers also,
so it's sort of like approve it, or like, let's
talk it through until we get to the logic of
it all. And the older I get, I get more
(31:32):
woo woo. I'm just a little bit more like, how
the hell do we know? Maybe maybe astrology is a thing,
Maybe there is an energy share. Yeah, maybe people are psychic,
Maybe there are aliens. Maybe like every turn, I'm like,
I don't know, let's talk about it, let's dive into it.
It could be fun, it could be interesting. So I'm
way more woo wo than I used to be. I
used to roll my eyes at that, but I think
also just women in general, we get older and more
(31:54):
feminist and more witchy. They always say everybody gets more
conservative as they get older, except for any women. We
just get more and more totally true, offended by the
idea of it all. You mentioned earlier you were a waitress.
You were also a youth advocate, a political organizer, in office,
temp and emergency medical technician. You've had a lot of jobs,
and I'm wondering what your advice to someone out there
(32:16):
who thinks that they're wise or talented or full of
art that they need to share, but they're stuck in
that temp job, or they're stuck behind a diner counter
and they're not sure how to get from one to
the other. What's your broadest advice to how to finally
take that step.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, that's such a great question, and I would say,
you know, first of all, change your mindset from this
idea that you're stuck. And I know that feeling because
I have had really sometimes shitty jobs or some of
those jobs you listed I loved and cared a lot about,
but I knew it wasn't like really my true calling,
which which is writing. And I think that you know,
(32:51):
what I always came back to is I am doing
what I need to do to support myself. Now that
that means both financially, you know, I took those jobs
because I had to pay the bills, but also what
I was doing is supporting this endeavor that did mean
something to me. So if I was waiting tables, but
my real work quote unquote was writing my first novel,
(33:12):
which was the case for many years, make damn sure
that I'm doing that real work too, so you know,
follow through on that commitment to yourself. So you're going
to feel a lot better on that job that you're
only working to pay the rent. If also you can
look back on the week before and say, and did
I say I was going to write six hours last week? Yes?
(33:32):
And did I write six hours last week? I did?
And that is the way you make your dreams come
true is you make good on your intentions period. End
of story. You don't necessarily write six hours brilliantly. You
don't write six hours that you feel like are going
to win the Pulitzer Prize. You write, or you do
the thing fill in the blank, whatever it is that
(33:54):
is feeding your soul or making you feel like you
are answering the call within you, or or maybe it's
not even that deep. It's like something else that gives
you life, and that's really important to do. And also
in retrospect, you know, I mentioned I grew up poor.
I worked. I've had a job since I was like
thirteen or fourteen. As a teenager, I worked at the
Dairy Queen and McGregor, Minnesota. I worked as a janitor's
(34:17):
assistant at the Little Podunk School where I went to school.
And when I went to college and met all these
people who had more economic privilege than me, and found out, oh,
they'd been going to summer camp and they'd you know,
go went to France and like private TUTA and they
had so many opportunities, saying, well, like studying abroad. I
couldn't study abroad as a college and like, they had
so many opportunities. And for a long time I had
(34:38):
a chip on my shoulder because I thought they were
better educated than me. And now what I know, maybe
this is an answer to your question, what I changed
my mind about how lucky I am because guess what,
I got an incredible education. I got an incredible education.
You work for Dairy Queen for four summers and trust
(34:59):
me to learn something about the human condition. Yeah, and
also soft serve ice cream. You know, I can make
one of those loopy dope things, you know. But yeah,
what I mean, I mean that in a really sincere
way to think about these jobs, these jobs that don't
feel like they're giving you something, you know much, they're
actually teaching you a lot, and it's about and it's about,
(35:20):
you know, learning the lessons that are offered to you
and making something out done in the end.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
I actually think a lot of kids would do really
well by having a gap year before they go to
college and trying to just get a job in the
real world, so that they applied themselves at college understanding
what they're going to be entering when they're done, instead
of sort of freedom of just going straight from high
school to college and never having to pay the bills
and figure it out. I also think what was the
name of your first guest on Mind over Mountain Remind
me Tomorrow Walcott power Lept.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, Tomorrow Walcott.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
She was talking about You asked her about the motivation
to go in and work every day toward her craft,
and she said, don't get it twisted. You call it motivation,
It's actually dedication and they're very different, and I was
thinking about the semantics of that, but I think what
you just said kind of ties into that, which is
you can tell yourself there's a different meaning between I
need to be motivated by wanting to do more or
win this or earn this versus I need to be
(36:09):
dedicated to this thing regardless of whether it serves me
and feeds me, because it's the thing that gets me
the other thing I want. Yeah, So being dedicated to
your job so that you can write afterwards, Being dedicated
to your work, whatever it is in the moment so
that you can get eventually to the place where you
can do another job you care more about. I think
reframing it as dedication instead of needing to feel a
(36:30):
motivation first might get you through some shit that I'm
not motivated to go to dairy queen. I am dedicated
to show up every day because I'm going to get
something else out of it, which I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
And I think too, you know, I absolutely agree with
that dedication and tension. You know, that kind of commitment
is everything. But also I think it's so important to
remember these these are, you know, one step at a
time deals, you know, again here we go back to
a while, like how do you walk along trail one
step at a time? How do you do anything that
when Tomorrow talked about going to the bar, it's like
(37:02):
going every day and some days you can lift the
bar to let that way, and sometimes the bar the
bar to live exactly and sometimes it's it's harder than others,
but those days accumulate. Same with like any kind of
artistic endeavor. If you write one page every day for
a year, that's not on that daily scale, that's not
much one page, but at the end of the year,
(37:23):
that's three hundred and sixty five pages. That's a book,
you know. So I think that trusting in the power
we have on the on the sort of like at
foot speed, if you will, on the micro level, and
those things add up, and so you know, you can
live a life where you look back and think I
should have done this, I should have done that, or
you can look back and say I'm so glad I
(37:45):
did these things because look where they got me. Now.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
I always think if you're like, what do I want
to be in ten years, then you got to go, Okay,
what does that look like in five years? Okay, what
does that mean I have to do in three years?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Okay? What does that mean has to happen in the
next year? Okay?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
What can I start tomorrow instead of always so in
ten years I will for this? And what are you
doing every day to get to that? And you also
just mentioned regrets, which brings me to my last question.
One of the advice columns that I've sent a few
folks that you wrote was a response to a man
who was wondering if he and his wife should have children,
and in it you wrote quote you say that you
and your partner don't want to make the choice to
become parents simply because you're afraid you will regret.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Not having one later.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
But I encourage you to re examine that not regretting
it later is the reason I've done at least three
quarters of the best things in my life. So I'm
wondering now, looking back, if you can think of a
time that that approach failed you, like, oops, probably should
have thought about that differently, or if there's a regret
that you do have.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Ah, you know, it's interesting because that is true. I mean,
what I was writing about is that that choice to
have kids, you know, when I had when I got
pregnant with my first child. I wasn't like I deserately
am ready to have a baby take over my life.
I was like, oh, geez, I guess it's time. You know,
we better do that, bes TikTok. And I no regrets.
You know, I was thrilled to have my baby. But
(38:59):
I wou'd say where my mind went first when you
asked that question, is you know, like sort of on paper,
you could look at my life and say, well, you know,
you probably shouldn't have gotten married, like at the insanely
young age that you did. You know, I married my
first husband, Like I don't. I blush to even say it,
because I simply cannot believe that I got married a
month before my twentieth birthday. It's shocking to me, it's
(39:23):
shocking to met. But and yet it's you know, I
loved him, he loved me. Had we had a really
wonderful relationship. In retrospect, we should have just been boyfriend
and girlfriend, you know, each other's big serious first relationships
as adults, and we got married instead, which meant we
had to get divorced, and you know, that was painful,
and that brought on a lot of turmoil and pain
in my life. But you know, I also hesitate to
(39:45):
honestly say it as a regret because because obviously, you know,
I needed to make those choices at the time, and
they taught me something. Yeah, and I love this quote
that I heard Breezy Johnson say. I think just recently
at the Olympics, you either win or you learn, you know,
so even when something quote unquote fails, like you could
(40:06):
say that first marriage failed, but you know, I learned
a lot and that has served me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
I think that's back to the attitude thing too. If
you're able to see how all the things that either
went wrong or weren't quite right got you to where
you are now, and you're grateful for that, then you
don't want to change them. To quote another Olympia and
Alissa lu said, I wouldn't go back and tell my
younger self anything. She's going to figure it out and
she needs to go through that for me to get here.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
So that's right. Lies women with capital w's right there.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yeah, and she's only twenty and on marriage, she's got
it all figured out. Joe was so great to talk
to you. I'm so excited to hear more of mind
over Mountain. I'm so grateful that you're a part of
our new iheartwomen's sports family. And as our producer Alex
pointed out, it's not too late for either of us
to become the first female president. Unfortunately, so if we
want to take another big swing before we're gone, we're
(40:56):
way too young apparently to even think of about running
for president.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
But how about this, Sarah, And since we're both kind
of you know, we sort of change, you're sort of
reticent about this, Like we could have about co co presidents, like.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Perfect, the first ever co leadership.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
Presidence since America, you know, hates women so much, and
we can't manage to elect one female president who's way
way into qualified. Maybe if we present two of us,
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, well, because our brains are so small, but if
we put two of our brains together, it'd.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Be like a man.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Well and also, technically we're both underqualified to actually be president.
I mean, we're qualified in a lot of other ways,
but like you know.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
That's actually not a thing anymore. I don't know if
you've noticed, but not a thing anymore.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Literally, Well that's what I'm saying. It might be the
winning ticket, you know, the two women on one here
like the people categories of people we hate women and yes,
categories of people we love, you know, vastly underqualified for
the job.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeah, perfect, all right, straight spain spain straight.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
It's a word about which one all the Cheryl all
the Cheryl spray spraids straights. It's strange. We can run
and strained strange.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Or yeah, the power.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
So I'm like, you know, I'm basically spade.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
I'm like, oh my gosh, and I didn't have kids,
so between.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
You we're literally worth. We're just like the old witch Crowns.
I call myself a prone. I'm like, once I hit menopause,
I was like, call me a crown capital C.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
There we go, two capital w's and one capital C. Cheryl,
thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
It's wonderful to talk to Sarah.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Thanks again to Cheryl for taking the time. We have
to take another break coming up, the folks, you shouldn't
listen to Welcome back slices. We love that you're listening,
but we want you to get in the game every
day too. So here's our good game play of the day.
(42:56):
Check out Cheryl's new podcast, Mind Over Mountain The newest
edition to our Iheartwomen's sports lineup of great shows will
link to the feed in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
We always love to hear from.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
You, so hit us up on email good game at
Wondermedia network dot com, or leave us a voicemail at
eight seven two two four fifty seventy, and don't forget
to subscribe, Rate and review. It's easy watch people who
confidently give unsolicited bad advice despite not having any experience
in the space or true knowledge of the topic. Rating
(43:27):
zero out of five stars. Nobody asked you review. Paul
Cheryl is over here thoughtfully writing advice based on her
own life experiences and even sometimes reflecting on the times
she maybe didn't have as.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Much experience as she needed.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
There are still far too many people, most of them
on Facebook and LinkedIn, but also in every barbershop, coffee shop, jim,
and corner office, confidently offering unsolicited advice on topics they
know nothing about. You know, the one they hear from
a friend who's in the final interviews for a new job.
Great time to mention and how cold calling the CEO
(44:01):
is the best way to get noticed. Or they're talking
to someone who just got some tough Health News, Well,
their uncle overcame a bad diagnosis by just praying the
cancer away. And of course this person is obviously still
in the comments on every WNBA post citing that Adam
silver ten million dollar loss per year figure from over
a decade ago, with zero interest in ever learning anything
(44:23):
new about the league. As my friend Matt Quinn of
Mount joy O pines in the song silver Lining, teach
only what you know you know, y'all. Sometimes the best
quote unquote advice is just listening. Now, it's your turn,
rate and review. Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow. Good Game, Cheryl,
Good Game, Strayed Spain twenty twenty eight, You Unearned confidence.
(44:50):
Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network,
our producers are Alex Azzi and Bianca Hillier. Our executive
producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan, and Emily Rudder.
Our editors are Emily Rutterer, Lucy Jones, Britney Martinez, and
(45:12):
Gianna Palmer, Production assistants from Avery LOFTUS and I'm Your
Host Sarah Spain.
Host
Sarah Spain
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Kingdom of Fraud
It’s the unlikeliest of criminal partnerships: a devout polygamist from an insular Utah sect joining forces with a shadowy Armenian tycoon from LA. The result - a billion dollar fraud conspiracy. In Kingdom of Fraud, investigative reporter Michele McPhee traces the origins of the extraordinary alliance between Jacob Kingston and Levon Termendzhyan. Together, the two men trigger the largest tax investigation in American history and weave around themselves a web of dirty cops, influential political relationships and transnational money laundering. All this is set against the backdrop of Jacob Kingston’s clan – The Order. A powerful and secretive polygamist organization in Salt Lake City. To whom Jacob is desperate to prove his worth. Kingdom of Fraud is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of Kingdom of Fraud completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!