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113. Holding Your Life Up to the Light- with Steve Leder
90 Plays3 years ago
Steve Leder is the senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles. After receiving his degree in writing and graduating cum laude from Northwestern University, and spending time studying at Trinity College, Oxford University, Leder received a master’s degree in Hebrew letters in 1986 and rabbinical ordination in 1987 from Hebrew Union College. He is the author of five books: The Extraordinary Nature of Ordinary Things, More Money Than God: Living a Rich Life Without Losing Your Soul, and the bestsellers More Beautiful Than Before: How Suffering Transforms Us, and The Beauty of What Remains.
Synopsis:
Writing an ethical will, a document that includes stories and reflections about your past, is an ancient tradition. It can include joy and regrets, and ultimately becomes both a way to remember a loved one who is gone and a primer on how to live a better, happier life. Beloved Rabbi Steve Leder has helped thousands of people to write their own ethical wills, and in this intimate book helps us write our own.
Because our culture privileges the material over the spiritual, we sometimes forget that our words carry greater value than any physical thing we can bequeath to our loved ones. Rabbi Leder provides all the right questions and prompts, including: What was your most painful regret and how can your loved ones avoid repeating it? When was a time you led with your heart instead of your head? What did you learn from your biggest failure?
Including examples of ethical wills from a broad range of voices—old and young, with and without children, famous and unknown—For You When I Am Gone inspires readers to examine their own lives and turn them into something beautiful and meaningful for generations to come.
Book link: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/695821/for-you-when-i-am-gone-by-steve-leder/
Steve’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/steve_leder
Steve’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RabbiSteveLeder
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest on the podcast: https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/
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Transcript
Creating a Legacy Beyond Material
00:00:01
Speaker
A thousand years ago, some people figured this out, and they created this idea of a second document in addition to a will or a state plan, which is a written document that bequeathes what your loved ones will really crave and really want and really need when you're gone.
00:00:26
Speaker
which is your life story, your life lessons, your values, your hopes, your guidance, your dreams for them. That's what we want to hold on to, not the paperweights.
Exploring Grief and Connection
00:00:44
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast.
00:00:52
Speaker
This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:01:08
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Rabbi Steve Leader's Reflections
00:01:29
Speaker
I'm so excited to have you on Rabbi Steve Leader back on the podcast. And this time, as I was saying, I was going to pronounce the last name correctly. Uh, first time I had you on was over a year ago when you launched the other book.
00:01:48
Speaker
the beauty of what remains. And now we're here about to talk about your other books. Oh, sorry. Happy to have you. Welcome. Thank you. I'm really, really happy to be talking with you again. And, you know, I appreciate the opportunity.
00:02:05
Speaker
Well, I was so, so grateful that I was contacted again to be able to help them promote this next book and have this conversation with you. So the next book is titled For You When I'm Gone.
00:02:19
Speaker
give you when I'm gone. So let's tell the listeners a little bit about you first, and then we'll talk about the development of this new book. Everybody got busy these last two years with the pandemic writing. Two books during the pandemic. Rabbi, that's a lot. Yeah, I know. I know when I look back on it, I think, who did that? It feels like some other person had that kind of energy, because now I think,
00:02:50
Speaker
most of us as we're emerging from it feel so exhausted and wrung out, you know? But somehow, I don't know, I did it. And it's like, I think, you know, obviously raising children is a much bigger commitment, but it's kind of like now when I'm at the airport and I see a young family with, you know, two little kids and the strollers and the bottles and the bags and I just look and I say to myself,
00:03:20
Speaker
I know we did that, but I don't know how. And you have two yourself, right? You have two as well? Yes. Tell us, what are the ages of your kids? My kids are now almost 33 and almost 30. Okay. So yeah, you're way long past that. Yet it seems like yesterday too. Like we don't remember how we did something, yet we did it.
00:03:46
Speaker
And yet we think back to those terms and it does seem sometimes like yesterday, but then it also seems really far away too. That's true of so many things. My mother always says the days are long and the years are short. And there's a lot of truth to that. There is a relativity to time. Einstein was right about that. But in any case, what can I tell you?
Personal Insights on Grief and Alzheimer's
00:04:13
Speaker
Many of your listeners may know that
00:04:16
Speaker
I wrote this book that came out in January of 2021, and it launched the day before the insurrection at the Capitol. So it had kind of a difficult media environment to begin with, but it has really sort of exceeded everyone's expectations. And that book was called The Beauty of What Remains. And that book was essentially about
00:04:44
Speaker
everything I thought I knew about loss and grief and letting go from all of my vicarious experience as a rabbi who had literally officiated at more than a thousand funerals at the point I wrote the book versus the deeper truths I discovered when I wasn't the rabbi but the son, a grieving son whose father
00:05:12
Speaker
died twice because he had Alzheimer's and people with that disease died twice. They die once when their brain is no longer the brain of the person who they were. And then their body dies years later. And they're both really painful and difficult. And so that book was really about the dualities, the tensions between what I thought I knew
00:05:38
Speaker
as a perfect, and what a real truth of it was as someone who was in it himself.
The Concept of Ethical Wills
00:05:46
Speaker
And when that book came out, to my surprise, almost every single podcast host, morning talk show host, journalist, radio, everyone wanted to talk about something that I thought was a relatively
00:06:07
Speaker
small percentage of what people would get from the book. Well, this idea of what I call an ethical will.
00:06:17
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Cause you mentioned it in this letter and it's really common in the Jewish faith. Yet it's not as, and I've noticed that from my interviews with other people of Jewish background, but it's not as common in other, in other things. Yeah. Jews have been authoring what we call ethical wills since the 11th century in Italy and France. And the oldest one still existing that we can actually put our hands on is over a thousand years old.
00:06:49
Speaker
And what this is, is a parallel document to your estate plan. So listen, at a certain age, we all have estate plans. We all sit down with lawyers and we figure out what's going to happen to our stuff.
00:07:07
Speaker
our money and our material, you know, our property, the paperweight collection, the fountain pen collection, the whatever, you know, the purses, the shoes, the jewelry, you know, whatever. That's stuff we don't take. That's the stuff we don't take. Right. Unless we were like an older tradition, like, you know, I'm from South America, right? And like, indigenous were buried with all their belongings, you know, that would have saved a lot of headaches.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah, because the truth is, as I say in the beauty of what remains, there's a whole chapter called, Nobody Wants Your Crab. And they don't, right? We spent so much of our lives working to make money, to buy things, to leave to people, and they didn't want it. Nobody wants your crab. Oh my gosh, that's so
The Power of Self-Reflective Questions
00:08:02
Speaker
true. So a thousand years ago,
00:08:07
Speaker
some people figured this out. And they created this idea of a second document in addition to a will or a state plan, which is a written document that bequeaths what your loved ones will really crave and really want and really need when you're gone.
00:08:30
Speaker
which is your life story, your life lessons, your values, your hopes, your guidance, your dreams for them. That's what we want to hold on to, not the paperweights. And these documents are so powerful. So what I did was,
00:08:57
Speaker
I wrote this book, again called For You When I'm Gone, but it's actually not only for the recipients, right? I created 12 questions and we'll talk about the 12 questions in a second. So the subtitle is 12 Essential Questions to Tell a Life Story. You know, an obituary tells you the facts of a person's life.
00:09:26
Speaker
How many kids? What did they do? What did they study? A eulogy tells you the truths of a person's life. And they're not the same thing. The fact that I was born on June 3rd in 1960 in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and I went to college here and I went to graduate school there, it really doesn't tell you anything about the truth of my life. So these 12 questions, which I ask and answer in the book,
00:09:55
Speaker
and then invited other people to answer, and then invite the reader to answer. Are the questions that will really reveal your life story, your truths?
00:10:07
Speaker
And the editor asked me, how did you come up with these 12 questions in this order? It really unfolds in such a powerful way. And my answer to her was 35 years and 15 minutes. Because these are the questions that I have been asking families for 35 years at what clergy call an intake meeting. The time you sit down with a family to talk about their loved one who has died.
00:10:36
Speaker
to try to understand the truths of this person's life. And these conversations, and I honestly have done over a thousand of them, are always incredible. Everyone's life is amazing. If you ask the right- The right question. Okay.
Living Authentically and Urgently
00:10:59
Speaker
So now,
00:11:03
Speaker
Why do I say that this book is not just for your loved ones when you're gone? It's also for you, the author, because it's an opportunity. And I think the whole country right now, if not the world, is going through this, what I call the great reevaluation. We've come out of COVID, we have come out of this experience that held our collective vulnerability up to the light.
00:11:36
Speaker
that forced us all to reckon with this truth we speak about, but rarely absorb, which is you really never know. And ask ourselves, am I living my truth? So when you answer these questions in this book, you're not only bequeathing
00:12:01
Speaker
the truth of your life to your loved ones when you're gone, you're also taking the opportunity to ask yourself, well, I say that these are the things that are important. I say that this is what matters. Am I actually living that way? Or is my life just kabuki? You know, and- Kabuki, that's a good, yeah, kabuki theater, right? The whole mask, yeah. That's a mask. And look, all of us are acting all the time to some degree.
00:12:31
Speaker
Shakespeare was right. All the world is a stage. It's true. But when the dissonance, when the distance between your professed values and your lived values is wide, is really out of alignment, that's a very painful way to live because you're a phony. And this is an opportunity, if you go through this book, to really
00:13:00
Speaker
hold your life up to the light and say, is this really who I am? Is this really who I want to be? Is this really the legacy I want to leave? And that's a very important and powerful exercise for all of us. So the book is both for the author, the ethical will is both for the author and the reader. When you write your ethical will, which I hope you will, Kendra,
00:13:27
Speaker
No, I'm nervous now. When I was reading these, yeah, I was getting nervous even reading it because I'm like, wow. Because then thinking, I'm like, what have I done? Like, it really does make you question. You know, they say, you know, we are going to be called to
00:13:47
Speaker
answer our lives as we pass. For those of us that believe in an afterlife, believe in God, this is one of those times in which we are, like you said, looking at it
00:14:00
Speaker
while we're living and have that chance to redirect, like you said, reevaluate and see, am I living in alignment? And that is one of my biggest things, the alignment with who we are, or are we putting on a show? And, and we are really, we're really the only ones ourselves in God would be the only ones that truly know. That's right. That's exactly right. And, you know,
00:14:27
Speaker
Someone asked me one of those sort of typical interviewer questions. If you had to summarize this book in two words, what would it be? And it came to me like that. And the answer is, don't wait. Don't wait. Don't wait to live your truth. Don't wait to articulate that for the people you love. Don't wait. You know, I didn't know
00:14:58
Speaker
that my last conversation with my father was my last conversation with my father. One visit, he could speak. And the next visit, he couldn't and never did again. So you really never know. And this issue of holding your own values up to the light and alignment
00:15:25
Speaker
There too, I would say, hopefully COVID has taught us all not to wait. And you know from our conversation about the previous book, death is ultimately the greatest teacher about life.
Death's Reminder to Live Fully
00:15:39
Speaker
Death isn't really about death. It's so true. Dead or dead? Yes, yes, yes. Right? Death is really about our life. And this is a book about your life.
00:15:55
Speaker
your truth and your legacy and don't wait to share it. It's so and it's so much more important than like you said the writing of the stuff like who's gonna this is this is
00:16:12
Speaker
This is important, like you said, because as we're writing this, we get to reroute our lives. We get to reevaluate, okay, how do I want to continue living? This is what I've lived up to now. How do I want to continue living my life so that on my deathbed I'm not thinking I wish I could have, would have, should have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have, would have,
00:16:40
Speaker
That's the first question. Yes. What did you notice? Yeah. What did you notice? What's really interesting is, you know, let's just say first of all that I, so I write an essay about each of these questions and then I invited about 40 other people to contribute and people, I mean, across the entire spectrum, um,
00:17:06
Speaker
people of all genders all preferences all ethnicities all not all but most religions um age ages uh i had teenagers and people in their 90s uh famous people completely unknown you know people people who are famous for something great people who are famous for something terrible everyone
00:17:35
Speaker
So there's a lot of variety in the responses. However, there are also some very important common denominators. And for the regret question, the most interesting and surprising common denominator that I discovered was that most people's most terrible regret is not something they did.
00:18:01
Speaker
Because we tend to find a way over time to forgive ourselves and be forgiven and forgive others for mistakes that we regret. What most people's most difficult regrets are, are the things they didn't do. They're the omissions, not the omissions. There are sins of
00:18:27
Speaker
co-mission of the things we do, and then there are sins of omission, the things we could have done and should have done, but chose not to, and chose not to. Not that we couldn't, we didn't.
00:18:41
Speaker
Do you think that that one of the reasons we don't is because we have this This kind of idea as if we will have time, you know, you're saying here don't work, but do you think it's that? 100% and I'll I'll share with you at least for me a very beautiful way that that realization has changed my life and I don't know if this is true for you or not, but
00:19:11
Speaker
during the pandemic and continuing even now, I found myself and find myself saying, I love you so much more frequently and to so many more people. And I always felt it, but I didn't always say it.
00:19:36
Speaker
now. And then, you know, I was in the end of every zoom, every cup of coffee, every meeting, I'd say, you know, I love you. I really love you. I love you, too. I love you. I love you. And it's not that I was a withholding person before. But I think deep down, I had this sense that, well, I don't have to say it, they know it, and I'm gonna see you next week. And, you know, I don't want to be vulnerable, and they're gonna, they're gonna be here forever. And I'm gonna be here forever.
00:20:08
Speaker
There's something about the omnipresence of loss that really does make you count your blessings, including the people in your life. And I'm saying, I love you. I'm signing my letters. You know, I run a very large congregation. It's 10,000. Yeah, it's Wilshire. Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles. And it's 10,000 people, literally. And I say, I love you to thousands of them, and I mean it. I mean, I've known this community for 35 years, but I sign my letters now. Love, Steve.
00:20:38
Speaker
I didn't used to do that and I really mean it. So it is again this idea that finitude, you know Kafka said the meaning of life is that it ends. It's so simple and so true, right? So yeah, most people end up regretting the things they didn't do either and why don't we?
COVID-19's Impact on Mortality Awareness
00:21:01
Speaker
We don't because
00:21:03
Speaker
We think we have more time or we think we will have another opportunity. And you know what? We might, but I would say, again, don't wait, do it anyway. Go to Paris twice. Come on. And for you also, the fact, like you said, that you did have a parent, you had your father who had Alzheimer's who, even though he still had life, he didn't have life. So how do we? He lost his agency.
00:21:30
Speaker
Right, to be able to do these kind of things and say and have these conversations. And actually talking about your dad, and we will go into some of these other questions, did your dad get a chance to write an ethical letter or not because of his illness? No, he never did. And most people, it's interesting, we're talking about people thinking they have more time. And we generally do, but most people don't take the time to do it because they feel like, oh, I'll do it later.
00:22:00
Speaker
I'll do it later. And you know, this is true also on the other side of planning, when we're talking about, for example, medical directives. Like my, so many times we're watching a story on the news or something, and my wife Betsy, she'll look at me on the couch and she'll say, if that ever happens to me, just shoot me. We've all said. So you already know the medical directive. Here's the problem. If that ever happens to me, just shoot me is not a plan.
00:22:29
Speaker
You can't. You're going to jail. You're going to jail. So we all think we have, we don't need to think about these things, but we do. But again, this process is not even really about primarily for when
Present Appreciation vs. Future Burden
00:22:51
Speaker
we're gone. It's for the beauty of what we have left.
00:22:57
Speaker
And how are we going to make the most of that?
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah, look at that. Tying in both books here and into this. Yeah, the beautiful remains and that is so important. It is so true. There's so much beauty in the now and that we do not. And there's the beauty of the not knowing too, even though it can be uncertain. It's like, what if we did know? What if we did know that tomorrow was the last day? How would we live our life differently today? Would we? Would we actually live our life differently or not?
00:23:30
Speaker
Most people wouldn't believe it was tomorrow and they wouldn't change. True. It's true. We kind of walk around in denial because even though death is the most certain thing there is, even though we don't know the when, we still walk around in denial as if it's not going to happen sometimes. By the way, to some degree, you're significantly younger than I
00:23:52
Speaker
I bet I'm not much. It's significant. I think that there is an appropriate time in life to live mostly in the denial of death. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to have the ambition
00:24:15
Speaker
required to live your life and achieve your dreams and raise your kids and do all of that because that requires tremendous ambition and risks and sometimes too that yeah and by the way energy yes true right physical energy there's a reason young people have babies okay um so
Aging, Ambition, and Energy
00:24:40
Speaker
There is a time in life to kind of push the reality of death down into the basement. But there's also a time to recognize when that reality starts pounding on the basement ceiling with a broomstick and saying in your psyche and your soul and your body, pay attention to me. Reckon with me. Face me.
00:25:11
Speaker
Let me out so that you can hear me and learn from me. And I think this is true of many things that we push down into the basement. I did it with anxiety for most of my life. I had an underlying anxiety disorder and I just kept it locked in the basement with a brutal work ethic. I just worked all the time.
00:25:40
Speaker
Wow. And how did you handle anxiety being a public speaker in a congregation? Wow. I just, I kept it locked in the, in the basement by just being busy all the time. Uh, and, and you know, you can only stay on that high wire for so long. And at some point these things come up, some things open that door.
00:26:06
Speaker
As they say, they hit you with a two by four at one point of it so you don't listen.
Importance of Communicating Love
00:26:11
Speaker
And then in terms of this book, for you when I am gone, you don't want it to hit you when you can't do anything about it. Then oh my God, I never said this to my kids. I never said that to my wife. I never said this to my husband. I never said this to my brother and my sister. I never said this to my business partner or my life partner, my grandchildren, whatever.
00:26:34
Speaker
You know, oh my God, that recipe is gonna die with me. That would be terrible. You know, whatever it is. I have one friend who put her brisket recipe in her ethical will.
00:26:45
Speaker
It's beautiful. It's beautiful, right? It's so perfect. Yeah, that's true. It's like, here it is. Here's the top secret recipe everybody wanted to know. Exactly. Because it says so much. That is so nice. That is awesome. Now, okay, let's go over some of these. And I'm curious too, as to which one was the hardest one for yourself to answer and also for the people. So the first one then is, what do you regret? Right. Second one, if I can read my writing was, um,
00:27:15
Speaker
What was a time you led with your heart? Yes. So yeah. Tell me about that one. Did you find that, and you're saying these order, this order of the questions was really deliberate. So you regret something, then you go back into something else. Like, okay, when did you leave? Your regrets are generally because you overthought something. You were two in your head.
00:27:42
Speaker
So then you look at the other side of that is when did you get out of your head and just lead with your heart? And you will almost always discover that these were the transformative moments in a person's life. I, for example, I fell in love with my wife. The minute she walked in the room, the barometric pressure changed.
00:28:09
Speaker
in the world. The weather all over the world changed. She walked through. I'm so lucky. I love that. It's really true. And we got engaged on our second date, which was completely heart-driven. It was the craziest thing. We were 24 years old.
00:28:31
Speaker
called my parents, they freaked out. When my kids were 24, they called me, dad, I'm getting married to who? To this woman I met last week. Yesterday, yeah. Yeah. Yesterday. I love how you said that your, what was it? Was it your dad or your mom that said, no, no, you're not getting, you're just becoming, what is it? You just decided to get engaged. Yeah, you're thinking, yeah. That they didn't believe you were actually. What did I say? One of the only two times in my life, I backed my father down because he was a pretty frightening guy.
00:29:02
Speaker
I was so in the heart and not in my head that when he said, Steven, you're not getting married. You're thinking about getting engaged. I said, dad, don't fuck this up. I'm getting married. And my mother's, there was this long pause and my mother said, we're looking forward to meeting her.
00:29:26
Speaker
like score one for month. Yes, balancing it out there. So you will find when you when you ask people when when did you just lead with your heart? It generally results in the most transformative, powerful, beautiful moments of their life. So that that wasn't so much a surprise as it was an affirmation.
00:29:55
Speaker
And this is also true if you think about what you received in return, for example, the kindest thing you ever did in your life for another person. What did that do for you? And that's not why you engaged in the act of kindness, but I don't know why this is coming to my mind, but it might be instructive.
Acts of Love and Connection
00:30:28
Speaker
The most intimate thing I ever did for my wife was to empty her drains after her mastectomy. I never felt closer and more in love. And it was difficult and ugly.
00:30:58
Speaker
It was all heart. I didn't know that aspect of Betsy. I didn't know that she had gone through that. How long ago did she go through that? The surgery was about three years ago. That's the second cancer she survived. She's had a lot of health issues.
00:31:18
Speaker
She doesn't like me to talk about it, but she'll probably never hear this podcast. So, okay. So, okay. We'll, we'll keep it in the loop. She knows this because I've written it before. So I wouldn't say it if she really told me not to, but, um,
00:31:46
Speaker
When we lead with the heart, it's not always about this magical fairy dust moment. Sometimes we lead with our heart in the most difficult of circumstances. Wounded soldiers will tell you, I was wounded pulling my buddy out of the burning tank and things. It's not always fairy dust, but it is always transformative. Yes.
00:32:09
Speaker
right when you lead from the heart, when you sit with your heart. And most of these times too, it's not times like this, but like you said, it was a very intimate moment. It was you and Betsy, something that no one would have seen. Somebody else could think that it was some other grand gesture and that act of kindness right there and selflessness could be
00:32:30
Speaker
marked as like your biggest thing in the eyes of our creator, you know, because it was a simple, it was simple, quote unquote, not really, but act in which only two people were involved and no one else witnessed it, but the two of you. And it can be sometimes one of those things that, that we really realized that we're doing it truly for the act of service and not for that recognition. It's from the heart. Yes. From the heart.
00:33:00
Speaker
Yes. So that's why that's the second question. It is sort of the first cousin to what do you regret? And it's you didn't do the times you didn't privilege your heart over your brain. Yes. No, it's wonderful. Now we go on. Do you want us to go over? I don't want people to think that because you're listening. Well, I don't I want them to make sure to like go through the book because then in the book you'll be able to go. Of course, it takes some time to go in and
00:33:26
Speaker
each one analyze and then write which by the way my question actually before we continue what would be the best way of someone sitting down and doing this would you say writing on a notebook writing in a word document what are some of the ways you're the people that have done this have done it
00:33:48
Speaker
I think the best way really is for it to be a Word doc or Google doc so that you can keep, so it can be a kind of ongoing art project. And edit it as you need it, yeah. And you know, in January, there'll be a workbook coming out that will literally hold your hand as you go through the process to help you.
00:34:08
Speaker
So next year, so right now, June 7th is the launch of the book and January of 2023, the workbook. Okay. That's right. Okay. So we'll be alongside this. Okay. So let's go then with the, what makes you happy? Like we're, we're, and what, and what, what's surprised, I'm just curious, what surprised you the most of some of these answers that people would tell you? What surprised me about what makes you happy?
00:34:36
Speaker
And of course, surprised, it's so obvious when you actually stop to think about it, but we don't stop to think about it. The book is stop and think about it. You know, there's a saying that they teach you in the military and in emergency room medicine, which is don't just do something, stand there.
00:34:56
Speaker
Right? Observe. Don't just do something, Stan. It's so funny because it's like, wait, they'll just, isn't it the other way around? Don't just stand there, do something. Right. I hear it the other way around. Exactly. Don't just do something, stand there. And this book is like, just think about these things for a minute, okay? It'll change your life. Anyway, for what makes you happy. And now I wish I had asked the question, what brings you joy? Because they're not the same.
00:35:26
Speaker
The things that really make people happy as they define it are not the transitory things like ice cream. Nobody said ice cream makes me happy or, you know, I don't know, going to a baseball game. What you find is that what really brings people happiness and joy are things that involve two distinct ingredients.
00:35:53
Speaker
One, sacrifice. You know, we tend to think of sacrifice as a net loss. You know, she made so many difficult sacrifices. He made the ultimate sacrifice, right? We tend to think of sacrifice as a net loss. But, and here's where the rabbi in me was instructive, the Hebrew word for sacrifice, korban,
00:36:19
Speaker
comes from the same word as the verb to draw near or be close. That's how our ancestors got close to God, they made sacrifices. It's the same root for the Hebrew word for relatives, your family. It's the same root for the word to gather together. So one of the key ingredients in joy
00:36:43
Speaker
is sacrifice. Joy, real joy is the fruit of a very slow growing tree. Why are you, let's let me ask you this, okay, let's do it for you. Okay. So imagine yourself at the wedding of a friend's child. How do you feel?
00:37:05
Speaker
Oh, gosh, I always cry. I'm a crier. I'm emotional. I, I always go into feeling the emotions that everybody else is feeling because it's nice. Yeah, it's like that. Yeah, it's nice. Yeah. And then like around 10 o'clock, when your feet hurt, and the food's not great. What are you thinking? It's like, when do we leave? Right? Okay.
00:37:33
Speaker
I got it. I want to go home. It's cold. Whatever it is. The music's too loud, you know? Now, imagine yourself at your daughter's wedding. Does it feel the same as imagining yourself at the daughter of your friend? No. Why? It's a different level of joy because you have made the sacrifices of parenthood.
00:38:03
Speaker
The worry, the anxiety, the physical exhaustion, the fun, the tantrums, the car accidents, the smoking weed in high school, whatever we get these kids through. It's because of the sacrifices you have made. You are going to experience real joy. Let's do this another way. What are the two most important things to you in your whole life?
00:38:33
Speaker
my family and for myself and my relationship, for myself, my relationship with my creation, with myself, when yeah, that would be for me. What are the two things you have sacrificed the most for in your life?
00:38:50
Speaker
Yeah, well, my kids and my, yeah, and my family. And those are the things that matter the most. So sacrifice is actually a gain, not a net loss. That's the first thing I found about joy when people answered. It was almost always the fruit of this very slow growing tree we call sacrifice. The second ingredient is it's not something people experienced alone. Real joy is communal.
00:39:22
Speaker
You can be sort of happy on your own. Like I like to hike. I'm happy hiking, you know, because it's not being bothered. But real joy is a shared experience. It's, you know.
00:39:39
Speaker
interesting yeah i would have not thought that because sometimes like when i'm like walking the dogs or i see a sunset or something like that i feel this sense of joy you're content but yeah you're at peace but it's not the same as dancing at your daughter's wedding okay it's not the same as looking around the table at your family
00:40:03
Speaker
It's not the same as being in a stadium with 50,000 people when they win the championship. It's not the same. So there's a level of joy that cannot be had alone. So those are the two things that were most interesting to me about joy.
00:40:25
Speaker
and happiness. Sacrifice and that it's communal. That is communal. Yeah. Well, I just learned something big there with those two. I would have not thought both of those. And now I think of it differently. Now then it's like, then you counterbalance then from there with biggest failure. So it's all this dance here of these questions. It's like, here, let's give you something to be joyful about. Okay. Now let's think about regret. Let's think about failure.
00:40:54
Speaker
So that was the next one. Let's balance it out. So then it's failure. And then from there it goes into the greatest challenge. What got you through the biggest challenge, which also got, that goes well right after failure. Yeah. Of course. Right. So you're seeing the, the sort of deeper structure to it, which is.
00:41:17
Speaker
What I would hope for, you know, like sandwich it, let's sandwich it together. And isn't life a layered experience? Right.
Failures as Teachers
00:41:27
Speaker
So, you know, your greatest failure, one of the things that I think we all realize when we think about it is that success doesn't teach us anything. You don't learn anything from success except to just keep doing the same thing over and over again. Failure is the great teacher. Yes.
00:41:46
Speaker
So in a way, actually someone who participated in this book, who was at the time the mayor of a major American city, he said, I don't think there is such a thing as failure because a failure, as most people define it, is actually your most important lesson in insight. Feedback. It's not a failure if you make something of it, if you redirect, right?
00:42:17
Speaker
And I like to say, you know, to people all the time who've come to me and they can't get over some failure, I say to them, I personally have given up all hope of a better past. I have given up all hope of a better past. Right? So let's take this failure and let's talk about the future. And I think in terms of leaving a legacy
00:42:44
Speaker
Like when you write this for your children, you should share with them, look, this was my biggest failure in life. And here's what I learned from it. And this is my gift to you.
00:43:00
Speaker
Yes. And it's such a, you know, with the failure, I saw that Sarah Blakely, the, one of the founders of, she, that she said her dad would always say, what did you fail in today? You know, she's one of the biggest entrepreneurs, you know, lately, young entrepreneurs. And that was exactly her dad would celebrate the failures. And as a parent, I think that that is something huge too. It's like, let's celebrate these things because that means we actually tried. Right. And who are the real leaders in the world?
00:43:30
Speaker
In every field, they're the people who were not afraid to fail. They played to win. They didn't play not to lose. Yes. I find the most frustrating people in my life from a leadership standpoint are the people who play not to lose. They don't play to win.
00:43:52
Speaker
Cause that's playing it safe. Yeah. It's safe. You kind of don't really give it your all. I have no interest in that. You have to be willing to fail. Yes. Big, big fail. Yes. And, and, and what a gift to your children. And it's something about which many parents are not honest. You know, how often does a parent
00:44:19
Speaker
really share with a child my biggest failure was my divorce. I failed in my marriage and here's why and here's what I learned from it and here's what I hope you learned from my failed marriage. Those are really powerful insights for our life.
00:44:36
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. And again, like you said, again, a real reevaluation for ourselves too, as we're thinking of that now. And then we can sell and then we could celebrate too, with what we were able to achieve the fact that we have something that we failed that we're still here. Oh my goodness. That was my biggest failure. And I'm doing it again. Oh, what am I doing? Yes.
00:45:05
Speaker
Why am I repeating? Why am I repeating something? I'm back at the bar. I'm back cheating. What am I doing? Because some of the people that you interviewed were addicts too, right? Some of the ones that shared their failures, their challenges were addictions. Yes. Yeah.
00:45:30
Speaker
And for many people their biggest regret, and this is under that umbrella of things they didn't do, is that they didn't get help sooner. What do you think makes us as human beings of not seeking for help? Is it our pride? What is it that we as human beings feel that we don't
00:45:56
Speaker
I think that we all go through a process of fooling ourselves while fooling others. You know, we tend to believe our own act. And I also, you know, one of my favorite sayings is by the Canadian philosopher, Marshall McLoone, who said, I don't know who discovered water, but it wasn't the fish. Exactly.
Lessons from Disruption and Dysfunction
00:46:25
Speaker
You know, ironically, a fish born in water lives in water and dies in water, and therefore, the fish doesn't even know it's in water. Well, that's us, right? That's us, all of us, in some way. When does a fish discover water? When it doesn't have it. Right, right, right, right. When it's ripped out of the water,
00:46:50
Speaker
wriggling at the end of a hook and gasping for air. That's when a fish discovers water. So it's that gray spot on the MRI. That rips us out of the water. It's disruptive. Pain is disruptive. Death is disruptive. Loss is disruptive. Failure is disruptive. Embarrassment is disruptive. And it's then
00:47:20
Speaker
when we can realize how misaligned our behavior is with our real truth. And it takes something disruptive. So I think that the short answer to your question is we're good at fooling ourselves. We're good at fooling others. And we need to be jerked out of the water sometimes for us to really look at ourselves.
00:47:49
Speaker
yes no it's uh it's yeah those aha kind of moments as i say and big uh learning experiences is when we've gone through something so hard they're teach back again to like a lot of these things are just teachers right they're just teachers in life pain as a teacher that is a teacher the only teachers yes uh the teachers yeah we don't learn when everything's just nice and dandy by the way grow again for your listeners who are um religiously inclined
00:48:20
Speaker
Every family in the Bible is dysfunctional. Cain kills Abel. Eve deceives Adam. Abraham has to sacrifice one kid, throws the other kid out into the desert with the maid. And Jacob deceives his father and rips his brother off. Joseph's brothers throw him into a pit and leave him for dead.
00:48:50
Speaker
You know, why? Why? Clearly, we could have been given perfect families and perfect characters, but you know why we didn't? We didn't receive that? Because there's nothing to learn from perfect. Nothing.
00:49:07
Speaker
It's the dysfunction. That's why half of these questions are about the dysfunction because that's, that's where the life lessons are for ourselves and for our loved ones when we're gone. That's where they are. Wow. Yeah. It's in the, it's in the, in that, in that struggle. Um, okay. So then from there, we move on to the greatest challenge. And then after that, this one, this one is, uh, this one, I caught me, I've got the, what is a good person?
00:49:33
Speaker
Oh yes. That one was like, wow. Yeah, like what is, cause it's not like who is somebody that you know that's good or, but it's the definition of what is a good person. So. How do we.
00:49:47
Speaker
how do we really live that value? Because if you ask people, what's your goal in life that almost everyone says, I just want to be a good person. I want to be a good person. And by the way, there is no single definition. It's kind of like,
00:50:07
Speaker
I mean, this is sort of a weird negative example, but it will make sense. When Justice Potter Stewart was asked by the Supreme Court to define obscenity in a pornography case, he said, I can't define it, but I know when I see it. And I think this is also true of what it means to be a good person. We can't define it, but we know when we see it, we know when we evidence it, we know when we experience it, we know when we feel it.
00:50:36
Speaker
And it's not the same for all of us. So it's also helpful to kind of think about what is not a good person.
00:50:48
Speaker
A good person is not a gossip. A good person is not unsacrificing. A good person is not unkind. A good person has nothing to do with net worth. A judge can be a jerk and a janitor can be a saint.
00:51:08
Speaker
So, it's also in this chapter, you start to see, well, you can define something in some ways by what it is not. Almost like a beautiful marble sculpture is created by taking away, and then it reveals the beauty that was always in there. So, we need- It's like light and darkness. It's like sometimes that, yeah, one is defined by the absence of the other. It's a negative film. What is a negative? Really, it's showing you what isn't there, the negative space, and therefore revealing what is.
00:51:37
Speaker
You can't talk to kids about this, by the way, because none of them have ever seen a piece of film. They're like, what is a negative? They don't know. They literally don't know. You put it like this, you can put it in a little thing like this, look through it. They have no idea. So the statue, this older metaphor is actually much better because they've all seen a statue and they know it started as just a big block of marble. So being a good person is as much about what you don't do as what you do.
00:52:07
Speaker
You know, there are again, you know, for people who are religious, there are positive commandments and negative commandments, thou shalt and thou shalt not. I mean, they're both important to being good, to being a good person. And so everyone, everyone answers this in their own way.
00:52:26
Speaker
The important thing is for you to answer it for you and then ask yourself, am I actually behaving like a good person? Am I being a good person? Am I telling my children to be nice to each other? And I haven't spoken to my sister in three years. Am I telling my children a good person is honest, but I sneak them into the movie for the 12 and under price when they're 14?
00:52:50
Speaker
Right? Am I telling my children, you know, respect your bodies and I'm vaping and and, you know, putting vodka in my water bottle? You know, what? Am I just talking about being a good person? Am I evidencing that? Am I, you know, so this is really an internal conversation that the book invites you to have with yourself. Hmm.
00:53:16
Speaker
and then that is that is big one now i'm gonna i'm gonna jump as you were talking about that there was um the other one that came up what have you um oh my there was one that when you said about the good person okay well then it's afterwards is what is love yeah but um and right after the good person did you think that
00:53:41
Speaker
Love, what, okay, what is love? What is love to you? It's again one of those things like you can't, but I'll tell you what it is to me. To me, love, real love, is privileging another person's joy and wellbeing above your own. It's again related to sacrifice. What you did for Betsy was love.
00:54:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. And you know, a way to think about it is let's talk about in the context of a marriage, for example, if you give 60 40, if both parties give 60% and expect 40% back, if both do that,
00:54:36
Speaker
If both, going in, expect to give more than they receive, both parties, that's love. That's love. And there's a lot, it is related. These are layers. You're very astute about the kind of dynamic
00:55:00
Speaker
It is layered you start talking about thinking with your heart not your head you start talking about what you know what does it mean to be good what makes us happy well other people and and and and commitment and sacrifice and what is love and it all starts to fit together into
00:55:21
Speaker
how to live a beautiful life. So you've read, I mean, you know the answers. Most people love involves a degree of selflessness. Because what happens when we're selfless? The first law of biology is self-preservation. The first law of the spirit,
00:55:50
Speaker
is generosity. And when you privilege generosity over self-preservation, what does that really mean? What that really means is that you are getting outside of yourself in realizing that that other human being and I, we are one. We are one.
00:56:20
Speaker
And to me, that's love. I love it. And that right there, that back again to how you signed with love. And it's true. It is realizing I can truly, once we understand that we are one, saying to another being, I love you.
00:56:44
Speaker
Really is genuine. It's not just hearsay. It's because we can't we really comprehend the Reality of our lives and of our oneness and our one and that is really what what makes it be so that's a least spiritual idea and It is the antithesis of evil the root of all evil is the objectification of the other You are you are other you are not
00:57:15
Speaker
Well, that's the cause right now of all the problems right now is thinking of ourselves as otherness. In my opinion, the othering of people, the objectification of other human beings is the root of all human, all human evil. And so love is the antidote. Yes, absolutely. I get chills. I get chills and emotional, especially all the things that happen and that I would just wish we all just had more of that
00:57:43
Speaker
realization so that would be that would be the true paradise on earth right and what can we do you know i'm asked this often like okay that's great but what am i what can i do about the war in ukraine and the objectification and i always revert to this buddhist saying that i love which is tend the part of the garden you can reach
Focusing on Immediate Change
00:58:07
Speaker
raise, raise decent, loving, humane in your control. Sometimes we get paralyzed by this idea of like when we, when we see this and I tell this to my dad when like watching the news, I'm like, okay, yes, you can watch the news. But when you become submerged in it, and then that stops us from doing action in action within our circles, within our family life, within our units, that's
00:58:33
Speaker
That's where we have to focus our energy. What is in my control? What can I change? We have to use our unique gifts. We all have them. Look, it's very difficult to write a book. There's nothing fun about writing a book. There's not one fun thing about writing a book. It's fun to sell it. It's fun to promote it. But there is not a single fun thing about writing a book. But I can do it.
00:59:00
Speaker
and that's a part of the garden I contend and therefore I do. Yes, it's your responsibility. That's the part of the not having regrets. I think regrets is when we've known we've had these gifts and we have not used them. That for me is my biggest regret. It's like if I were to have known that these were my potentials and I did not live to that potential. That's the omission.
00:59:29
Speaker
Right? It's this sin of omission. Yeah. That for me is like the big... So that's love is really living the oneness.
00:59:42
Speaker
as opposed to the biological imperative of self-preservation. Yes. But then, as you were saying there, in the self-preservation of the biological part, if we do acknowledge the oneness, then that duality is there. Because again, you want to make sure that the other person survives and perseveres. Yes, but there is a tension in all of us. True. Why do I sometimes
01:00:12
Speaker
Give the homeless woman who wants to wash my windshield at the gas station $20. And other times I look away because I'm at war within myself. You know, good and evil is not an us and them. It's an us and us. It's me and me, I and I.
01:00:42
Speaker
Good and evil is a line that runs down the middle of each of us. And every day in thousands of tiny ways, we have to decide which side of that line we're on. And no human being can always be on the side of the good. It's just a fact, okay? There's a tension within us. But the more we can resolve that tension, the more we can
01:01:09
Speaker
use that urge for self-preservation and selfishness and withholding, the more we can use that as the mirror to remind us that we can rise above that, then it's a very powerful and positive engine in life.
01:01:29
Speaker
Yes, no, it is. It is. It's a, it's the fuel. Yeah, it's a fuel. That's the fuel that keeps the engine going when we have that. Okay. So as we're going through, I'm going to skip through some of these because I want people, but this part I had to learn, had to look up at the definition and the pronunciation of.
Epitaphs vs. Eulogies
01:01:50
Speaker
epitaph epitaph epitaph so tell us the difference between epitaph and epitaph and eulogy and and eulogy eulogy is really the telling of the the story and the truths of a person's life an epitaph is is a short summation okay of a person's life so the way to think about it is what do you what will your headstone say now
01:02:19
Speaker
Here's a very instructive exercise, okay? And I think COVID has helped all of us with this. COVID has stripped away a lot of bullshit from our lives, a lot, in a good way. I don't go out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with people I don't wanna be with anymore. I don't wear uncomfortable clothes anymore. I don't pretend this isn't my house you're looking at right now. I think COVID stripped away a lot of bullshit in a good way.
01:02:48
Speaker
By the way, was it worth a million deaths in this country? No, no. I'd rather have the nonsense back and have those people alive. But we don't get to choose that. So an epitaph, when I walk through a cemetery, I'm always amazed by something. And I spend a lot of time in cemeteries. We're all unique individuals. We all lead unique lives. But when you walk through a cemetery,
01:03:17
Speaker
almost complete unanimity of inscriptions of epitaphs on headstones. They almost all say the same thing. What do they say? Loving wife, mother, grandmother, sister, friend. I mean, there are some that are funny and outliers, but almost all of them say the same thing.
01:03:41
Speaker
They almost all, because when you have 15 characters per line and four lines total, you have to strip out all the bullshit, right? What is not there? What is not there? Your net worth's not there. Your zip code's not there.
01:03:58
Speaker
Your kid's GPA isn't there, where your grandchildren went to college isn't there, right? Your weight isn't there, right? It's despite the fact that you spent your whole life trying to be under whatever. You know, none of it is there. Your paperweight collection, as per our earlier conversation in the podcast, it isn't there either.
01:04:21
Speaker
It all comes down to a tiny handful, and none of us have more than a tiny handful of human relationships. That's it. Now, when you ask yourself this question, what do I want my headstone to say? What do I want my epitaph to be? You are also simultaneously asking yourself, is it going to be the truth? Am I living that way? If what I want my headstone to say
01:04:51
Speaker
is that I was a loving husband, father, grandfather, and friend, then I get to ask myself, is that how I'm living? If I want my headstone to say, he helped and comforted many, is that how I'm living?
01:05:15
Speaker
So again, these are the kinds of questions that hold our lives up to the light. It's a beautiful gift because that we're giving ourselves. Can you hear an echo on your end of me? Okay, okay. I'm hearing an echo. So let me ask you. What will mine say? Not what will it say necessarily. What do you want it to say, Kendra? What do you want on your headstone?
01:05:41
Speaker
For me, I would want it to be that I made people smile or felt people be seen. I want from my, for me connecting with others is my thing. And for someone to be seen, I would like people to feel she felt she helped. Yeah. Yeah. She saw.
01:06:05
Speaker
or made people be seen. Yeah, she saw. She saw. She saw. Yeah, that would be. That's what you would say. Yes, that's what I want. I want people to know they were seen, they were felt, they were heard. We mattered. Yes, I want people to feel they mattered. Yours might say, your message might be, you matter.
01:06:34
Speaker
And you know, the last question of the book is what would you like your final blessing to be? If you could get up at your own funeral and say something. That would be the same thing for me. Exactly. You would stand up there and you would look at your, at your family, your husband, your children, their spouses, your grandchildren, and your friends and family there. And you would get up there and you would look out at them and you would say, I want you to know you matter. You matter to me.
01:07:05
Speaker
and you matter still. Yes. Perfect. We already wrote the last two for me. Let's look at what happened when I first asked you, what would you like yours to say? You freaked out. But when you took no more than 15 seconds to actually think about it, something beautiful emerged.
01:07:35
Speaker
And this has been my experience with ethical wills. People freak out about these questions, but then when they really focus for even just a few seconds, they know the answers. And just go here. We just got to go to our heart. And then the answer comes. When we're in our head, then it does get hard. And when we're also trying to say the right thing, it also gets messy. Because that's part of the kabuki.
01:08:02
Speaker
Uh-huh. There you go. That's the part of the theatrics of it. Let, let me ask you this and then we'll start wrapping up the, what was, do you think the hardest as you were interviewing people and asking them these questions, what was the one that you thought people struggled with answering the most or even for yourself when you were writing it, which one was one that they struggled with the most?
Navigating Toxic Relationships
01:08:33
Speaker
The one that asks, did you ever have to cut someone out of your life because your relationship with them was toxic? This was very difficult to make for people. And frankly, some people wouldn't even answer it. It had the fewest responses and not because it isn't a common denominator to life.
01:08:59
Speaker
It's because people don't want to talk about it. But there is so much to learn in standing up for yourself. You know, we were talking about oneness being privileged over self preservation, but there are points in life where self preservation is so essential.
01:09:21
Speaker
and where you are in a relationship with someone. By the way, it's not necessarily an intimate relationship. It could be a business partner. It can be a coach. It can be, you know, a friend. And the relationship is so toxic, so malignant that you'll literally lose yourself and your self-respect and dignity
01:09:49
Speaker
if you don't put an end to it. And this question came out of a reaction to the previous book, The Beauty of What Remains, where I wrote one little paragraph that I thought would help a handful of readers. And it turned out to help, I mean, I got literally thousands of people reaching out to me about this. So what was this little paragraph?
01:10:14
Speaker
I said in this little paragraph that people often come to me and say things like, Steve, I haven't talked to my mother in 10 years. I text her on her birthday every year, but she's so narcissistic. She's so withholding. She's so cold. Every time my whole life I was ever with her, I felt bad about myself. And 10 years ago, I just decided I can't have anything to do with her because she just makes me feel horrible about myself.
01:10:40
Speaker
But she's been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and she's got three to six months and I'm thinking about going back to see her in New Jersey because when she dies, I don't want to feel guilty. To which I say to people, you won't, you'll be relieved. And they look at me like,
01:11:07
Speaker
That's true, but I feel so ashamed of that. Doesn't that make me a bad person? I said, no, it makes you a human being. You'll be relieved when she's dead. And by the way, if you go try, it's not gonna work because dying doesn't give anyone a new personality. Yeah, that part I remember from your book of that. It's a lot of times people try to mend that relationship right before and it's like, what has changed? What has changed? Yeah, what has changed in that individual
01:11:37
Speaker
to make it be different now. Right. People, people die the way they live. Yes. I mean, people will be on their best behavior for an hour at a funeral, but that's it. And and so. This, you know, question of toxicity in a relationship and ending a relationship is a powerful lesson for your loved ones when you're gone about standing up for themselves and not being a doormat.
01:12:05
Speaker
And I think, by the way, particularly important for mothers and daughters. Who's going to do that if not your mother? You know, I say this sometimes to women who come to see me about getting divorced, and they're afraid of how it will affect their children, but they know that marriage is toxic. I say, well, how are you ever going to talk to your daughter about integrity in a marriage if you stay in this?
01:12:34
Speaker
She'll know you're lying. I always say that with that, when I'm talking to friends that are in those kinds of situations, it's like, well, would you want your daughter to be living in that type of a relationship when they're older? And if the answer is no.
01:12:51
Speaker
then you have to walk out of there because that's not what you want to teach. No, these are just so profound. And the fact is that, I mean, you've wrote a book about it just from you analyzing your own life and writing this and then answering these questions. This exercise is that, is the possibility of somebody really even writing their own life story and book
01:13:17
Speaker
So thank you, because you not only gave us the script for what we're going to leave to our loved ones. You gave us the best personal growth and development questions as well. And you gave us this possibility of writing a book with these questions. You can write your story, the truth of your story.
01:13:39
Speaker
So beautiful so now how are people gonna be able to find this book again June 7th? It launches on June 7th You can pre-order it on Amazon and get it the day it launches or you can obviously order at any time on or after June 7th It's on Amazon. It'll be in your local bookstore and The audiobook will be out. I just recorded the audiobook two weeks ago and
01:14:07
Speaker
Also, you can follow me on Instagram at Steve underscore leader. I'm a, I'm a big Instagram fan. I love Instagram. I didn't really understand it until I got on it, you know, as the other book. Yeah. I love it. It's like, you know, you're good. And you're good at sharing stories. And I love when you share, you know, when you've been on the today show or you've had the conversation with somebody else, you know, all these different conversations that you've had.
01:14:35
Speaker
Instagram is just amazing to me. I'm like the last person to a party, but it's great. I'm glad I'm there. You're the last one to leave then. You may be the last one. Exactly. Exactly. You know, there's this joke. There's this joke that says the French leave and don't say goodbye and Jews say goodbye and they don't leave.
01:14:57
Speaker
Yeah, we like to stay. There we go. So you're staying at that party. Instagram may be like yesterday. I'll be the last man standing on Instagram. That's right.
01:15:08
Speaker
That's awesome. And then again, The Beauty of What Remains was your first book and now this one. So it's a great marriage together. Yeah, they follow along. Perfect. Because The Beauty of What Remains is a beautiful book and so much heart. I still recommend that to so many. And I do have friends with parents with Alzheimer's and I say this is a great book to read for someone that's going through that as well. So thank you so much. You're welcome. Let me thank you because
01:15:39
Speaker
This was a very real and important conversation and they don't always turn out that way. You're very skilled and you leap from your heart. So I really mean that. I do a lot of these and this was special, so thank you.
01:15:52
Speaker
Oh, it's always special to have you and I can't wait for your third book, the handout, the workbook. It's January, the workbook of January. Stay tuned. I will love to have you again. Thank you so much for taking the time to sharing and for all the lessons and the questions you asked me, making me think already of these, of these big life questions. So thank you once again. Bye bye. Thank you. Rabbi Steve Leader here with us. Thank you again. Bye bye.
01:16:27
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone,
01:16:52
Speaker
who may need to hear this, please do so. Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.