''Chicken Soup for the Soul'' with guest Diana Wentworth

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The following is a paid podcast.iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neither an
endorsement of the products offered or theideas expressed. Welcome to Becoming the Journey.
This show will be a series ofconversations that will inspire listeners along their
life's journey. This show's mission isto cultivate a community of mentorship by sharing

(00:21):
our experiences in our life's journey.Nobody's journey is a straight line, so
no matter where you are in yours, this show is for you. Meet
Grace Lovray. Hi listeners, Ihate to be repetitive, but thanks for
tuning in to Becoming the Journey onWRNEN iHeartRadio. Today's show is about beauty,

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and we're not talking about what yousee in the mirror. You'll find
that out later. My guest todayis Diana Wentworth. She's a New York
Times bestselling and award winning author often books. She hosted a long running
TV series, The New wag OrMay and Diana was the first co author

(01:07):
of the amazing book series Chicken Soupfor the Soul, Close to My Passion.
She is the founder of the InsideEdge Foundation for Education. Welcome Diana
it is such a pleasure Dianna forme. As Diana, you are such

(01:30):
an upbeat personality. You speak ofhow blessed you were both romantically and in
your career. I wouldn't do youjustice if I didn't ask you to talk
a little bit about that journey,especially how you went from cooking to what
we're going to talk about your newmission. So I know you love going

(01:57):
to restaurants. When did you knowcook was your passion? And you have
six cookbooks, by the way,When did you know that that was your
passion? Well, it all beganwith my grandmother. She was an amazing
cook and quite the entrepreneur because shehad a husband who didn't work, and

(02:17):
she opened a boarding house. Soshe would fix these amazing fried chicken dinners
and go out and a yard andgrab a chicken and then pluck at it
and we would have a feast.And there was something about gathering people around
the table that just always fascinated me. She and my mother both took such

(02:38):
pleasure in making boys and berry jamand all sorts of treats for us.
So I used to My first writingwas little recipe cards where I would just
make up recipes in my head anddream of having my own kitchen someday that
I could invite people to I getthat, But I like you a little
story about sitting down in restaurant andthinking you would want to be a waitress

(03:04):
or a movie star. I knowpeople used to think. People used to
ask me what I wanted to bewhen I grew up, and I would
say that I wanted to be eithera waitress or a movie star, because
both of them had equal prestige inmy mind. You know, I didn't
figure out for a long time thatmy father paid for the food, so

(03:25):
I thought that waitresses were like angelswho would bring us anything we want.
So the funny thing about that isthat having a television series on cooking for
years, I turned into a moviestar waitress. So so shows that we,
you know, we can bring intoour life what we love. Right.

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Did you write those cookbooks and didyou have the TV series while you
were married or did you start thatbefore you were married? Oh? Yes,
I'm married. My first late husbandwas a wonderful artist, and when
I had a baby, I wasbeset with postpartum depression, but we didn't

(04:11):
have words for that in those days, and I was finding myself sort of
overwhelmed with responsibility and no longer ableto go out and socialize. So my
husband built me. He brought insome little chairs for my kitchen, and
I started inviting people. And thefunny thing was, it was when Julia
Child was on the air, andmy class is just the word spread and

(04:35):
I had Linda Evans and Meredith McCrayand all these movie people started coming to
my classes and I would teach menusfor entertaining. That was my passion,
really gathering people around the table.So my husband was very instrumental. And
then when we went through a timewhen my trust fund was taken away through

(04:59):
a loss that my father had,we were suddenly faced with having to make
a living and we were but myhusband, being an artist, could present
food beautifully. He would make allsorts of gorgeous garnishes and so on,
and we just began teaching together andthat led to, as you said,
six cookbooks before the Chicken Soup forthe Soul Cookbook, and that led to

(05:23):
us having a school on Sunset Boulevardwhere Wolf grown Puck and all the great
chefs of Los Angeles used to teach, and having our own TV series and
teaching in department stores all over thecountry where we would travel with all of
our food and so on. Itwasn't an easy way to make a living
because you know, things were perishableand sometimes our clothing ended up smelling like

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Mildred Parsley. But it was quitethe adventure and it just really turned into
a whole career until until it didn'twork anymore. Is is that how you
overcame that postpartum? And to mylisteners at you know, at no journey

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is perfect. I just want themto know that everyone has always had some
downfall in their life and and thankyou for sharing that with us. But
is that what helped you to overcomethat postpartum? Was that you know,
I know your husband was intrumental withthat, that feeling of camaraderie, and

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that the fact that you had togo out there and earn a living and
actually became your own person. Itdid you know? It was so wonderful
because suddenly people were all coming toour house and I had been so lonely
as a child. I'd been throwninto boarding school at the age of eight

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and wandered the grounds alone and wouldwalk through the playground all by myself and
think, oh, I just sowandered people around. There was something so
nervesuring about having all these men andwomen in my kitchen who not only loved
learning about food and tasting everything Imade, but they loved just the camaraderie

(07:12):
of it. As you said,just be gathering, just the being together
and sharing all sorts of antidotes witheach other. And I would invite people
to bring their favorite holiday dishes andhave a whole I would do a whole
turkey, and we would all havea big Thanksgiving in advance and taste everybody's

(07:32):
family recipes, and then I wouldprint those up and share them. So
it was just an absolute joy.You know. They say to choose for
a living something that you would dofor free, and that definitely was true
for me. So now we kindof get to co authoring chicken soup for

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the soul. Now, I knowpeople talk about comfort food. Chicken soup
is Jewish penicillin. So I'm tooold, and I've referred to that sometimes
with my kids, like, youknow, we got to have chicken soup.
I'll make chicken soup. How didyou equate the two? Where?

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And I know a big part ofchicken Soup for the Soul is storytelling,
and I am a huge believer instorytelling. I think we learned from our
elders. We learn those stories andthey become meaningful to us going forward.
They are all comfort food, actuallythe stories. But how did you come
to think that cooking and stories andwould become that chicken soup for the soul.

(08:46):
Oh? Well, I was reallyexciting because Paul and I left our
third career when women went into theworkforce in nineteen eighty five and a very
big way, and they no longerwanted to spend days in the kitchen preparing
a meal that we're disappear in acouple of hours. So we were invited
to go into the Soviet Union atthe height of the Cold War with a

(09:07):
lot of thought leaders of the daylike Dennis Weaver and Mike Farrell from Mash
and Barbara Mark's Hubbard who was afuturist, and doctor Patch Adams, the
real doctor Patch Adams. And ourjob at the height of the Cold War
was to go get lost in thecity and go home with strangers and become

(09:28):
sort of citizen diplomats in a way, hoping that there wouldn't be an end
of the world through nuclear war,and it was part of a documentary.
And what we began to notice thatwas really exciting was that these people sitting
around the tables at the end ofthe day would share their stories and share

(09:50):
resources with each other. So PaononI had the bright idea of creating a
very early morning breakfast club. Itwas a time when power breakfasts were just
starting in York City and it wasfor networking, but we thought, why
not do networking for a higher purpose, And so we had no idea how
big this was going to become.We started it at the Beverly Hills Hotel

(10:13):
and people just showed up. Sosome of the people that showed up were
Jack Canfield, who had never yetwritten a book, and Mike and Mark,
Victor Hanson and doctor Barbara DeAngelis andLouise Hay walked in with just a
little tiny book. And Paul andI had the idea of hosting parties where

(10:35):
people had to show up as whothey were going to be in five years.
And this is a party theme thatwas adapted by many thought leaders of
our day. I believe it's usedby doctor Joseph Spenzen. Jeff Canfield says
he's used it as the closing forevery training he's done in the thirty eight
years since that time. So Iwould invite people to show up, and

(10:58):
I remember doctor sus and Jeffers showingup. She'd never written a book yet,
and she said that she had justreturned from her third New York Times
bestseller tour, and she actually pulledthat off. She wrote three New York
Times bestsellers, starting with Field ofFear and Do It Anyway. So this
was a real transformational time. Andduring that time, Jack Canfield and Mark

(11:22):
Victor Hanson decided to write a bookcalled Chicken Suit for the Soul, and
we were all so enthusiastic about itand super excited when the first one became
a New York Times bestseller almost rightaway, and then it was followed by
a second version. The funny thingwas that everybody thought it was a cookbook

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because of the title, and sotheir publisher was saying, well, we
need a cookbook. And I gota phone call the day before Thanksgiving and
it was from Jack and Mark andthey said, what are you doing right
now? I said, well,I'm beginning to stuff this Turkey. They
said, no, no, bringyour six cookbooks up here. We're meeting
with the publisher. You're going towrite the chicken sup for the Soul Cookbook.

(12:05):
And so they were just a fewminutes away. So I was thinking,
oh my gosh, sewe hundred andone chicken soup recipes. And then
I began to think, well,you know, so much connection happens around
the table. Even when we're traveling, we meet new people. I can
find one hundred and one stories thatwe can put recipes with. And they

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didn't tell me that they already hadan advanced order from the Shopping Network for
nine hundred thousand copies of the chickensoup for the Soul Cookbook. And this
was probably the funniest day of mylife because they said, well, Diana,
can you get this done in threemonths? And I said three months?
Why do we have to get itdone in three months? They didn't

(12:48):
tell me they had these advanced thisadvanced order, and they said, well,
what do you need to get started? And I said, well,
I need an advance, you know, because I've always had an advance.
And the publisher said, I'm sorry, we don't give advances, but we
aren't going to give you a thirdof the book, and I thought,
oh, this is amazing. SoI got that book done in three months.

(13:11):
It was really really fun. I'venever been on so on fire with
a project in my life. Andmy first royalty check was two hundred and
forty thousand dollars, so that wasa huge boon. And that brought me
back into the food world in abig way, so that I oh,
and I ended up lecturing on cruiseships all over the world and we got

(13:35):
to write more books after that,so you know, of all kinds.
And I even wrote a book calledSend Me Someone, which was so great
it was bought by the Lifetime Networksas a film. Because shortly before Paul
passed away, he said I don'twant you to be alone, and I
said, send me someone, andhe said I will. So that's a

(13:58):
whole story. I could go onfor her, but that book, this
book is sort of a memoir ofyour of your life with Paul. I
do believe that, and we willtouch and we will touch on that,
because that's that's an amazing, amazingstory. But when you were when you
were deciding, okay, and thisis not about food as much as it's

(14:20):
going to be about soul searching.But when you were deciding what recipes to
equate to a story in your mind, how did you Was it what a
story you remember while your mother orgrandmother was cooking a specific meal, or

(14:41):
was it a feeling inside you thatthis be a great meal for this kind
of story. What do you know? It just seemed to be organic.
Really. We invited all sorts ofpeople to submit stories that had great meaning
for them, that took place aroundthe table. And the opening story even

(15:05):
was really important to me. Itwas Thanksgiving and I was with my mother
and she said, Diana, youhave to make me a promise. And
she pulled me by my hand intoher pantry and she says, promise me
that you will never ever feel guiltyabout me. I spent my whole life

(15:26):
feeling guilty about my mother, andyou've been a wonderful daughter, So make
me that promise. And I calledthat story Mimi's Kitchen, and I included
her recipe for her fudge that shemade throughout the holidays, and the other
stories you had to do with peoplethat they met while they were in Afghanistan,
for instance, and sat down toa very exotic meal and had a

(15:50):
very emotional moment of connection. Soit just seemed to happen organically. People
have lots and lots of stories relatedto the food in their lives, you
know it. It's first of all, my grandchildren call me Mimi. Uh
so that's a little bit endearing tome. Yes, they do. And

(16:11):
and I constantly remember meals with mygrandparents and my and my parents, I
mean years ago, we actually haddinner time at a certain time. We
sat down at the table and wedid we talked about the day and the
good the bad. And every Sundaywe would go to my grandmother's. It

(16:33):
would be my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, and I would help
my grandmother make uh what's called todayareciete and I helped to roll the dough
and spoon the little ear and itwas some of the greatest moments in my
life. So I totally agree withyou. And and the stories, you

(16:59):
know, my grandparents would tell usstories about, you know, while we
were in the kitchen with them,and tell us stories about you know,
they came over on the ship fromItaly and how they made a living and
you know, they struggled and itwas it was just great and wine.
My grandfather made wine in his basement, and so it was not just food,

(17:22):
you know, and it was justit was It was so fascinating,
and so I am a huge believerin storytelling. So was it after co
authoring the book that you realized,and I quote you, that your deep
seated calling was never towards the fooditself. Explain that, because that's going

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to kind of lead into the secondhalf where we talk about beauty. But
tell me a little bit about that. Yes, I always love the food
and the taste, and I reallysome people have many more taste buds than
others. I have tremendous taste buds. But I began to realize that what
really warmed my heart was people sharingstories with each other around the table and

(18:17):
connecting and meeting new people, andwatching in the Soviet Union as people really
lit up in sharing their experiences.So that became the most important thing to
me, and I realized it wasa blessing that I didn't have to cook
all that food anymore. We couldhave our meetings throughout southern California and three

(18:37):
different locations in ballrooms and restaurants,and that part would be taken care of.
But I also began to find allsorts of ways to suggest topics of
conversation at the different tables that peoplecould share with each other, and then
we would invite. We had fifteenhundred speakers over the thirty eight years of

(19:03):
the Inside Edge. Probably every thoughtleader you've ever heard of was one of
our speakers at one time. Andso I got much more interested in in
focusing on in spotlighting life enhancing informationfor people, and the people loved that.
So it was never about me,and it was never about the food.
Really, it was about the deepauthenticity of heart connection. So I'm

(19:30):
going to throw a little curve heretoday. A lot of families I did.
It's okay, a lot of familiesdo not sit at the table.
They do not. It's the kidscome home from school, it's pizza and
in sports, or do your homeworkand get on the computer or whatever it

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is. Are they missing out?Are we not doing our young people justice
today? And I know that tostop. But just someone who is so
into storytelling and raised on storytelling,you know, what do you think about

(20:11):
that today? I know bothers mea lot, but I mean, yeah,
not knowing our kids justice. Weare not doing our kids justice because
it's shortening their attention spans so much. They have so much instant gratification.
They can look up anything, andthey're not present at the table. I
am appalled at restaurants from all thesix people sitting there, all looking at

(20:33):
their phones and they're not appreciating eachother's deep sharings or watching for different reactions.
And I think our greatest responsibility inthis world is to create a beautiful
life and to spark joy and otherpeople. And we can't do that just

(20:56):
by sending a text. You know, it's to be i'd eye heart to
heart. So I could go ona long time about that. And I
imagine your listeners are noticing this,And I think we just need to ask
ourselves questions. How can we changethat? How can we bring greater heart

(21:18):
connection and communication with each other intothe world, and just listen for answers,
and you know, anytime we seean opportunity, need to do that
to kind of see if we canset that up. And and by the
way, listeners were not suggesting thatyou go to chat GPT to find out

(21:40):
to ask the question. That wouldbe a little ridiculous. But which is
another topic of conversation I don't wantto get into. But but yeah,
but doesn't that start at the parentlevel. I mean, how do we
reach the parent to start to sayand look, during COVID, they had

(22:03):
to all be confined in one space. And did they did they come to
the revelation that, yes, thisis a good thing. The kids are
sitting at the table, and Idon't know if that happened. I don't
know if it was still the samewhere you know, the kids went in
the refrigerator and grabbed something and theparent was in her office, you know,

(22:23):
or his office working, and youknow, I don't know if we
learned anything from that. But it'sit's really a sore subject with me that
you know. I know, Ihave great memories of doing that with my
parents and my grandparents, and youknow, I tried to do that with
my grandchildren. I don't know ifpeople care about that today. It's just

(22:48):
so I don't know. Again,the greatest, the greatest gift of COVID
for me, even though my secondhusband passed during that time, was the
fact that I was still hosting meetingson Zoom for the Inside Edge and I
still work with coaching clients, andI spoke this morning to a group of

(23:11):
thirty on the subject of beauty,and I love that we can ask each
other questions and see each other spaces. It's almost like we're sitting across the
table from each other. I thinkit was a great, great gift that
we can utilize to stay in touch. I you know, I lived alone

(23:32):
now for two and a half years, and I really count on being able
to see the faces of people thatI cherish, and connect with groups and
love invitations to speak and host meetingswhere we can talk about important things.
But I think you and I bothare of a generation that that's how we

(23:53):
lived all lives. I don't thinkthe young people today care much about that
community, that camaraderie. Like yousaid, they sit at a table and
they're texting each other. They don'tpick up a phone and have a conversation.
I don't even know if they gettogether anymore. I think, you
know, it's all it's not byzoom, but you know, it's it's

(24:15):
just Facebook and face time, andand it's just I don't know how to
get back to that. I justdon't know how to get back to where
we should be. I met agentleman. I'm working with him. He's
from Denmark and what he's been doingis going into indigenous communities in the Arctic,

(24:41):
in Greenland and Canada and documentary documentaringstories from the elders. And he's
he's also written ten books. Yes, he's written ten books. He has
an amazing following, and I'm workingwith him to kind of put that glow
believed, to get that out there, because again, storytelling, whether it's

(25:04):
related to food or experience, whateverit is, is just important, especially
in climate and environmental You know,Indigenous lived off the earth and so and
a lot of times I don't knowyour your ancestors. I mean they didn't
have organic and and all that stuff, and they managed. So you know,

(25:32):
it's just it's important, and it'sit's an area where I just don't
know how to correct it. Letme go back to the words the party,
concept and community. This was thepremise of the Inside Edge Foundation for
Education. You called it the HumanPotential movement. How did that come about?

(25:56):
How did that come about? It'sjust you know, my first publisher
was Jeremy Charcher. Jeremy Charcher wasone of the leaders in that of Publishing,
Querying, Conspiracy, and some ofthe other books that brought that term
of the human potential movement into being. And that is what I've always loved.

(26:21):
Even since I was very young.I started reading books about self growth
and so on, and I justso love sharing all of the things that
I was learning, and the InsideEdge became a place to do that.
So people came there with the ideaof business networking and meeting other people,

(26:44):
and I would just take their businesscards away because I wanted them to connect
on a much much deeper level andhave conversations that made a difference. And
I think the greatest gift that wecan give to anybody is to listen deeply
and have the other person feel fullyreceived. So that is our challenge,

(27:07):
Grace, you and I to createways that people can be fully received with
each other and then they begin toblossom and bloom into their highest potential,
their human potential. So luckily,I've always ridden a wave. I've been
an enter entrepreneur all my life.So Julia Child went on the air,

(27:30):
and there I was starting to teachcooking in my kitchen. So that wave
went for fifteen years and then allof a sudden when it didn't work any
war and we were trying to figureout what to do. The rising wave
that we caught was this wave ofhuman potential and people's interest in that.
So we had Norman Cousins, weI mean, we just had everybody in

(27:53):
their early careers standing up on thestage and talking about what where they were
passionate about. And it was contagiousall of that interest in ways that we
could bring out the very highest partsof ourselves. And that that is what
my life's been about. Yeah,I'm talking with my guest, Diana Wentworth

(28:19):
on my favorite radio station, WOor seven ten Human Potential movement. You
know, we're living in a societyright now that's nothing but protesting contest and
I don't know if we know howto talk to each other anymore, how

(28:41):
to have a discussion, which issomething that you presented through that foundation was
it was we were we were opento receiving other people's thoughts, whether they
were conspiracy theories or they were logicfact whatever. When I don't think we

(29:02):
can do that today, it's notthat we can't, I just don't think
we do that today. Everyone isjust stuck in their own mindset and how
do we how do we change that? And people like you, people like
me maybe, but you know it'sa journey, but a journey, how

(29:25):
do we get there? I havea very strong commitment and a very strong
opinion about how we get there.Mary Oliver, who used to walk in
the woods in Cape cod one ofthe greatest poets of all time. Really,

(29:45):
she says, she asked the question, have you finally figured out what
beauty is for? And has itchanged your life? So I find that
people, no matter what opinions theyhave and or how vehement they are about
it, if you ask them whatbeauty is to them, you will find
the most fascinating answers. And allof these answers are true, and they're

(30:10):
so beautiful. RUMI had a sayingout beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing,
there is a field. I'll meetyou there. And that feel,
to me, is the discussion aboutbeauty, because even though we have completely
neglected being good stewards of the beautyand the resources of the earth, we

(30:37):
still find beauty in the every day. And that is not just I'm not
talking about just physical beauty or visualbeauty or self adornment I'm talking about sparking
joy and art and listening to musicand how it we just transcend through music

(30:59):
into a place of absolute divinity andpoetry and kneels together and gathering. And
I was just asking a young womanthat I've known for years. Well she's
not so young anymore. Actually she'sprobably sixty now, but still that's twenty
years younger than I am. AndI asked her what beauty is to her,
and she said that she finds itin volunteering because she works with teams

(31:23):
of other people to go out andtake care and pick up sections of the
National Forest. And she says thatshe looks around at the group and there's
motorcycle guys, and there's families,and everybody's working together and just pitching in
to beautify that section of the forest. And so I suggest that we use

(31:45):
beauty as the catalyst as a conversationstarter to get people to open up and
communicate, because our values are theirgrace. Our values have fallen apart because
we're taking sides and we're allowing somuch ugliness into our world. John O'Donohue

(32:10):
wrote a book called Beauty The InvisibleEmbrace, and he talks about the tolerance
that we have for ugliness right nowand the meanness and just all of the
hatred that is being spewed. Buttruly that can be circumvented if we get

(32:30):
on the subject of what is beautifuland how do we want to preserve beauty
in our lives. How can weindividually find out what our heart wants?
You know, I'm going to bethe opening speaker in San Miguel de Ende
coming up three days before the Dayof the Dead, so that's October twenty

(32:51):
eight for a festival there that's reallyall about beauty and it's called the One
Heart Festival. And the person geton and asked me to speak about what
the heart wants. So I thinkwhat we want to we want to be
together, we want to celebrate together. We want to connect and listen so
deeply to others and just find thejoy in that connection. So that's my

(33:19):
purpose. Now I'm dedicating the restof my life to opening and having this
conversation. Happened everywhere. That wasgoing to be my segue, and you
caught me off guard here, butI will do it anyway. So I've
had on my show Hilary Dissar,who talks about relaunching and doctor Eric Amilla

(33:44):
who at Diana you would love her. She's ninety and she says she's always
reinventing herself. And you refer toit as these are your encore years.
And yes, I'm assuming going outthere and speaking on beaut in a beauty

(34:04):
is what that means to you.So let's talk about that mission today,
do we? And yes, there'sa lot of ugliness going on. And
I am a huge proponent and extremelypassionate about children's education, and I think
that's who we have to reach withall of this. There's tons of self

(34:29):
help books, tons of coaches,tons of people telling you how you should
be, what you should look for, and look, you can't read them
all and not all size one sizefits all. What is the what is
the one thing that you think inyou coaching and counseling, whatever you do,

(34:53):
and Hillary and and ben A Brownand all of them, what is
the one thing that the one theorythat all of you have that we can
just bring home? Oh? Thankyou? I love that word at home.
I think beauty is homecoming. Ithink that when we encounter beauty,

(35:20):
we are startled awake, we arestarted startled back into our true self.
And I even created an acronym forart, which is attention and reverence and
transcendence. So let me give youmy greatest tool really for beginning a day,
because what happens when we wake upin the morning is that our mind

(35:44):
usually goes to what worries us,or what we're concerned about, or what
we feel that we have to beresponsible for that day, and it comes
with a feeling of dread. Sowhat I encourage people to do is first
thing when they wake up, tosmile, because that smile, just the
act of smiling releases all sorts ofendorphins into our system. And then let's

(36:12):
begin a day with a really profoundquestion. I call these questions quantum questions.
I think Mary Oliver asked a question, tell me what are you going
to do with your one precious magicallife? And so I asked myself a

(36:34):
question every morning. It used tobe where can the most joy be found
today? And that worked for mefor years. But now I ask myself,
where is a way that I canbeautify this world today? And I
use an app that is my greatesttool. It's called Newcome in U s

(36:57):
A LM. This is the onlypatented brain science so that you can use
headphones and you can listen to differenttracks on this app and it will take
you into stress relief and it's usedby the military all over the world,
or it can take you into somekind of excitement. They have Tony Robbins

(37:21):
on there, who's a free spokespersonfor it, and he gets you all
fired up with gratitude and other things. But I listened to one that's called
Rescue, and I just begin askingthese questions and it's almost like I get
a free download of my deepest thinkingthat comes through to me, and I

(37:43):
begin dictating into my own telephone,and I just I'm so filled with inspiration.
I can actually write three or fourthousand words before I even get out
of bed in the morning, justby dictating. And the value of doing
this, of living in these kindsof questions is that you know, they

(38:07):
used to call it our subconscious mind, but there's a part of us that
loves to seek out answers, andit's better that we're not using the chat
thing. I asked it to writean article the other day. I want
to write six articles for AARP magazineon my deepest inspiration about how beauty might

(38:27):
save the world. And I askedit to write an article, and believe
me, that article wasn't even worthreading. It didn't have any depth or
any real, any real life changinginformation. So I just suggest that we
ask ourselves, how can we effectivelycreate beauty in the world. How can

(38:47):
we have in children inspired to havereal, deep conversations. How can we
spark joy in somebody that we meetin the market. How can we become
ignited and all fired up about thethings that really matter in the world.
Because I think that's our job,isn't it. I mean, we're here

(39:10):
to do something. I'm playing that'sright. A job is to have an
impactful legacy. Yeah, that's theway I look at my job. That
whatever I do going forward, Iknow that I'm trying to secure a better

(39:30):
place for my grandchildren to live inand then their children their children after that.
And I often quote on the showsomething I've said over and over and
over, and that is knowledge isknowing the answers. Wisdom is knowing what
they mean. I don't think it'senough just to have the answer. I

(39:52):
think we have to dig more deepand know what those answers mean because sometimes
the answers we get if we elaboratea little bit more on well, okay,
what are the options? What doesit mean? We get a different
perspective. I don't know. Doyou agree with that? Oh? I

(40:14):
completely agree. And on my website, Diana Wentworth dot com, they'll see
that I offer these wonderful wisdom circleswhere people can gather and commit to spending
time together and choose what they're goingto do as an Encore. I'm so
glad you brought that up, Grace, because I love what you do.

(40:35):
I love how you support beautiful thingsemerging in this world through your work,
and I believe that we all havean opportunity. I'm eighty two years old.
I'm just beginning my Encore years.I'm beginning to give away everything I
am getting rid of. I'm sellingmy condom, I'm selling all my art.

(40:58):
I'm moving into a much simpler lifestyle. I'm changing where I live.
I'm going to find a small sacredspace. It's a little larger than Thorough's
cabin on Walden Pond. But Iwant to travel and I want to be
speaking at spas and teaching my heartyoga that I developed that is a form

(41:21):
of restorative yoga. And I wantto really have deep discussions with people about
everything that we can do to upliftthe world. And that's that's going to
be my legacy, the conversation thatcontinues long after I'm gone. Yeah,
do you still participate in the InsideEdge foundation for it? Does it still

(41:42):
exist? I mean it's sort oflike the Group of G seven, but
it does it still exist? Itexisted for thirty eight years. In just
this past month we stopped. Weclosed it because it's very cumbersome to run
a five O one C three.You need a board, a board and
a committee to run it, andit's expensive. And people now can access

(42:07):
all of the great leaders of ourtime online, the people that they want
to follow. There's so much content. But it continues because you can go
to inside edge dot org and youcan see many of our past speakers.
Our last speaker there was Gary Zukov, who originally wrote The Seat of the

(42:30):
Soul, and he said that hislatest book about universal it's a universal something.
He talks about how the most importantthing we can do is align our
personality and our soul. And Icall that from ego to essence. I

(42:51):
think that's my job now as alegacy, is to encourage people to drop
the ego, move into what they'resoul truly loves and share that with each
other and with the world. Itotally agree. The only issue I have
with following somebody are listening to someis I we don't have that interaction because

(43:16):
if you want to ask the questionsand if you need to have that bantering
back and forth, because that's whatpresents the picture, it's a discussion,
and I don't think we do enoughof that. I don't think I don't
think we know how to discuss quitefrankly, years ago. You know,

(43:37):
when I was in high school,I was on a debate team, and
it was fun, it was fascinating, and it was just I loved every
minute of it. I don't thinkwe do that. We can't debate,
we just because it becomes like thisargument, it's not debate anymore, it's
argument. And I think if weopen ourselves up to what you said before

(43:59):
receiving other people's thoughts and opinions andthen pulling them apart and talking about them,
it's so much more rewarding. SoI think the inside Edge foundation,
back and forth, having someone liveon stage and being able to ask a
question. I think, I thinkwe need to get back to that.

(44:21):
And I know it's expensive, butmaybe we can do it briefly. I
mean, it's sort of like aTed talk. You know. Well,
yes, you know. I stillparticipate in something that's been going for twenty
five years. It's called the MasteryCircle of Los Angeles, and it's accessible.
It meets every Tuesday morning from sevenam to nine am Pacific, and

(44:45):
we have a deep spiritual sharing amongthe people who are there for the first
hour and it's very lively and verypoignant, and then we have a speaker
from eight until nine and we allget a chance to share our opinions.
So we can create these forums.Grace and I really want people to start

(45:08):
forums and keep them going because wecan do that, we can still have
these really deep discussions, and it'sI agree with you that that's the most
important thing. Well, why don'tyou and I collaborate on something like that?
You know I'm in New York.I would I would love to do

(45:29):
that. I speak on panels,but I would I would love to get
that thought conversation going among people thatactually are willing to do it. I
promised you I would go back beforewe end the show, which I don't

(45:50):
want to end it, but itwill end. I would go back to
the book your you know, yourmemo more. Just do you want to
just tell us a little bit aboutthat? I do. I do.
I am so proud of that book. It took me ten years to write

(46:14):
it because I didn't I'd only writtencookbooks up until then, and I wanted
it to read like a novel,you know. I wanted it to become
a film, and so it neededto have flashbacks, and it needed to
have cliffhangers and all of that.So it took me ten years and it

(46:36):
was bought by the Lifetime Network,but they never in time made made the
film. So I'm still looking forthe right producer for that and the flop
Copy says in the movie Ghost,the passionate moment from Patrick Swayze is able
to reach out to to me.Moore from the other side touched people in
a way that few movies do.Kind of departed loved One really changed the

(46:58):
course of our lives. Diana vunWell, it's what work knows with all
her heart that love does transcend death. It happened to her. So what
happened was that my husband, ashe was dying, I said, I
don't want you to be alone.I said, send me someone. He
said, I will, and thenall sorts of really magical things begin to

(47:21):
happen. I know that many peoplehave had experience as of they're departed loved
ones, and it really happened amazinglyfor me, and more recently with my
second late husband, who came intomy life two months after my first husband
passed, and I began to seeall sorts of unexplainable lights and orbs,

(47:45):
and I took pictures and all sortsof messages came through mediums and friends.
So that's something I believe, isthat we're never really left, we never
really leave this universe. That werepart of something that transcends death. And
so that book, it's very dramaticand has lots of hilarious stories about things

(48:10):
that happened and how my life progressedand how I met my new husband and
how romantic that was. So itwas my great joy to have that published,
and thank you for allowing me totell people about it. No,
no, no, just just acurious question, though, Was it the

(48:30):
confirmation from your your late husband thatyou would find somebody would if he never
said that to you, would wouldthat book be different. I don't think
so, because all sorts of oddthings happened. I was just beginning to

(48:51):
date my first husband, my secondhusband to be, and he began throwing
coins on the ground and I said, what are you doing and he said,
I don't know. I've never doneit before, but it's something that
Paul used to do. I methim in Hong Kong in a hotel lobby
very magically. I just was standingthere at six in the morning, not

(49:12):
knowing what I was doing there,and the elevator door opened and out walked
Paul Vanwellinette, and he walked upto me, asked me where I was
from, and we were engaged threedays later. So you know a lot
more about my life than we've talkedabout. How I predict how I said
that I was going to date ElvisPresley and met him two months later and
ended up having a long friendship withhim. So my life is absolutely full

(49:37):
of magic, and I expect magic. That's the name of another book that
I've been working on for years.And then even just fourteen years ago,
I had a heart attack suddenly andwent to the hospital four stants put in

(49:58):
ended up on a cruise ship thatI was left ring on two weeks later,
and ended up writing a book calledLove Your Heart. And you can
download that book for free on theopen on the homepage of my my website.
So there's so much magic in mylife that I haven't even had time
to share with you. But Imust say that I think we're going to
be talking for a long time,Grace. I think, I hope.

(50:22):
And I'm going to repeat something becauseI would be remiss if I didn't throw
it in. There is that littlefun fact about you. Yes, she
briefly dated Elvis, and I willleave it at that. Diana, what
would you Unless you're willing to talkabout it, but I'd rather ask you
this question. What would you tellLet me find an age a fifteen year

(50:47):
old today? What would be ifyou were standing in front of a classroom
of fifteen year olds? What wouldyou tell them today? I know you
speak to an audience of adults.What would you tell younger people today?
I would tell them to follow theirheart. I think that is our home.

(51:13):
I think that is where our innerknowing exists. I think that they
can ask questions about what's meaningful,what really matters in the world, and
listen to their unique wisdom that cancome through when they invite that. So

(51:36):
ask questions of yourself and of thedivine, however you define that. I
mean, you know, it canbe a religion, it can be God,
it can be the universe, Itcan be the quantum physics that the
scientists are telling us about that havejust the most amazing mirror neurons and things

(51:59):
that will never be able to explainhow all of this works, but we
can know that it works, andthat it can work for them individually to
really explore their own inner knowing andtheir natural inclinations and what they're drawn to
the most important question anyone ever askedme was, Diana, are you driven

(52:22):
or are you drawn? And I'dsay, be drawn absolutely. I like
to think of it as getting intouch with the landscape in your mind.
And I agree with you, Ireally do, Diana. This has been
an absolute pleasure. Maybe you comeback. Maybe you come back and we

(52:45):
talk a little bit about fun thingsand fun stories and find out after you
selling everything and by the way,don't sell all that art because I love
art and art is just heartwarming.And think out that because to look at
our to hear music is just partof just again bringing us home. Thanks

(53:09):
everyone for listening to this episode ofBecoming the Journey. I hope you just
all keep tuning in. I hopewe're getting better and better at this.
If you want to follow us,you can follow us on Instagram at Becoming
the Journey. And you know,if you want to give us a review,
please do. I'd appreciate it.Diana again, thank you so much.

(53:32):
It's been beautiful. It's my pleasure. Thank you Grace so much for
what you do. Okay, bye, bye bye. You have been listening
to Becoming the Journey hosted by GraceLavray. Tune in weekly to hear more
conversations that will inspire listeners along theirlife's journey. The proceeding was a paid
podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcastconstitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered

(53:57):
or the ideas expressed