Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#164 - Yasmin El-Rouby
387 Plays1 year ago
Certified eye doctor turned children's author, Yasmin El-Rouby joins us this week to talk about the Misty Mole series, her children's picture books that focus on helping educate and identify ocular complications from an early age.
💖 Join the Patreon 🙏
Support the show and get access to the extended cuts early and ad-free!
📚 The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes 🥳
Jamie, Melissa and Noami talk about all things writing, tropes and publishing!
✍️ WriteMentor 🧑🏫
Get a whole month with WriteMentor's Hub for free using the coupon code 'Write&Wrong'.
🎙️ Zencastr 🎬
Click on this referral link to get 30% off your first three months with Zencastr.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Ad-Free Listening on Patreon
00:00:00
Speaker
To listen without ads, head over to patreon.com slash rightandwrong.
00:00:04
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question.
00:00:06
Speaker
I love it.
00:00:07
Speaker
Because the writing is sort of everything, right?
00:00:09
Speaker
You can fix plot holes, but if the writer... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this.
00:00:15
Speaker
So it's kind of a gamble.
Meet Yasmin El-Ruby: Eye Doctor and Children's Book Author
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello, and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
00:00:21
Speaker
On today's episode, I am joined by a board certified eye doctor who has combined her expertise with a love of literature to write engaging and educational children's books to raise awareness about vision disorders.
00:00:34
Speaker
It's Yasmin El-Ruby.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello.
00:00:37
Speaker
Hi, Jamie.
00:00:38
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me on your show.
00:00:40
Speaker
I'm so excited to be here.
00:00:42
Speaker
Thanks for coming on.
00:00:43
Speaker
All the way from Abu Dhabi.
00:00:45
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:00:46
Speaker
I work in Abu Dhabi at Cleveland Clinic and I've been living here for the last 18 years.
00:00:54
Speaker
So happy to be on the show.
00:00:56
Speaker
Let's talk about the books, the children's series, the Misty Mole books, of which there are currently three.
00:01:04
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about it.
Career Inspiration: Bridging Eye Health with Children's Literature
00:01:08
Speaker
So, you know, I've been working as an eye doctor for almost 20 years, and I also have a background in public health.
00:01:14
Speaker
And I've always been passionate about raising awareness about common vision disorders of the eye, especially those that are treated early on and that can prevent vision impairment or even blindness.
00:01:28
Speaker
And, you know,
00:01:29
Speaker
Typically, we see a lot of public health campaigns about mental health, chronic diseases, cardiovascular health, but really not that many about eye health.
00:01:37
Speaker
And so...
00:01:40
Speaker
My goal through these books is to raise awareness about the importance of early vision screenings and very common vision disorders.
00:01:50
Speaker
And I'm hoping that that message rings loud and clear when you read the books.
00:01:58
Speaker
That's obviously what inspired the kind of crux and the message within these books.
The Impact of Early Vision Screenings
00:02:03
Speaker
What was it that made you want to do like children's books with a cute little mole and animals?
00:02:09
Speaker
So I do see a lot of kids in my clinic and there was one particular patient.
00:02:14
Speaker
So basically, it's my patients that have inspired this book series.
00:02:19
Speaker
But there was one particular boy that came in, a six-year-old boy, who came in for a regular eye exam.
00:02:26
Speaker
And he was diagnosed with having developmental disabilities.
00:02:30
Speaker
And he was really difficult to examine, couldn't sit still, was noncompliant.
00:02:35
Speaker
And surprisingly, it was actually his first eye test, not flagged at school by the nurse or any type of eye screening.
00:02:43
Speaker
And it was actually a huge shock to find out that he had a large uncorrected refractive error that was easily treated with a pair of glasses.
00:02:51
Speaker
So when he came back to see me a few months later, he was a completely different child.
00:02:56
Speaker
He was focused, verbal, more verbal.
00:02:59
Speaker
And his mom was really amazed at how the glasses had changed his school performance and his social interactions.
00:03:05
Speaker
And we actually were so emotional.
00:03:07
Speaker
We were both crying and
00:03:08
Speaker
It was like it was a different kid sitting on the chair, honestly.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:12
Speaker
And I just thought at that moment, I was like, more moms need to know about this, but how to get the message out in a fun and relatable way.
Educating Through Storytelling: Books for Children and Parents
00:03:21
Speaker
You know, people are bored of seeing.
00:03:24
Speaker
you know, scientific literature.
00:03:26
Speaker
And I was thinking if I wrote a children's book, it would be a really nice talking point so that the parents are reading it to the children and then they can have a discussion about it afterwards.
00:03:37
Speaker
So both of them are learning and interacting while reading the books.
00:03:43
Speaker
And I thought, you know, if I can make fun, cool, cute characters, then that way everybody would, you know, benefit from the message as well.
00:03:53
Speaker
So you're sort of writing two layers within these books.
00:03:56
Speaker
You're writing the one layer, which is just a kind of fun story to engage children.
00:04:01
Speaker
And then you're writing this other layer, which is sort of, I guess, more towards the parents who are reading it with their child to kind of give them the messaging and say, look out for these signs, do this, that, the other.
00:04:14
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:04:15
Speaker
Because there are a lot of early warning signs that parents don't necessarily know.
00:04:20
Speaker
They don't necessarily know what to look for.
00:04:23
Speaker
And children don't necessarily complain because it's the vision they've always known.
Misty Mole Gets New Glasses: A Tale of Vision Discovery
00:04:28
Speaker
So if they've never seen clearly, they don't know what clear vision looks like.
00:04:31
Speaker
And I actually, that was one of the points I tried to drive home in my first book,
00:04:39
Speaker
which is called Misty Mole Gets New Glasses.
00:04:42
Speaker
I wanted to show the journey of having blurry vision and how that impacted every aspect of her life.
00:04:48
Speaker
So she was, you know, a little bit clumsy.
00:04:51
Speaker
She wasn't self-assured.
00:04:53
Speaker
She was shy.
00:04:54
Speaker
And, you know, after getting that first pair of glasses, she becomes her alter ego, super mole.
00:05:01
Speaker
So now she can run fast, duck low and see far and,
00:05:05
Speaker
she realizes that her whole world has changed with just a simple pair of glasses.
00:05:09
Speaker
But I also shed light on the fact that her mom in the book had no clue.
00:05:15
Speaker
You know, there were certain warning signs, but she wasn't sure that it was really a vision impairment that was causing all of these other issues in Misty Mole's life.
00:05:26
Speaker
So I wanted to shed light on that, but I also wanted to let everybody know that
00:05:34
Speaker
early eye screenings are so important because that's really the only way to catch certain vision
The Importance of Early Vision Screenings
00:05:41
Speaker
disorders.
00:05:41
Speaker
Certain vision disorders, they really go undetected, such as amblyopia, where you have one good eye and the other eye is slightly weaker.
00:05:51
Speaker
And then the good eye takes over and the weaker eye continues to weaken until
00:05:56
Speaker
it's too late to correct.
00:05:57
Speaker
So there are certain vision disorders that really have to be caught early on.
00:06:02
Speaker
And the only way to do that is through a vision screening.
00:06:05
Speaker
And unfortunately, vision screenings at the moment, they're recommended, but they're not always mandatory.
00:06:12
Speaker
So it can vary based on the country you're from or the state or the province or the county.
00:06:18
Speaker
And there's no strict nationwide policy about that.
00:06:20
Speaker
So I really wanted people to understand how important it is
00:06:25
Speaker
to get their vision checked and hopefully for policymakers to understand the importance of vision screenings in schools.
00:06:32
Speaker
Right.
00:06:33
Speaker
That's so interesting.
00:06:34
Speaker
There's such a great way of kind of tackling that and kind of getting the message out without, as you say, kind of just writing textbooks and kind of very scientific blogs and things like that, which aren't always as engaging to not just the children, but the adults as well.
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:50
Speaker
It can be very boring and very heavy.
00:06:52
Speaker
And actually that was one of my challenges writing these books is how do you get these, these, these big heavy topics condensed into fun and short sentences that kids find entertaining and not boring, you know?
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:09
Speaker
So had you written many stories before this, or was this your kind of first go at this kind of thing?
00:07:16
Speaker
Well, I've always had a love for writing, but I just never had the guts to sit down and write a children's book, even though it's something that was on my mind for a really, really long time.
00:07:27
Speaker
And I've, you know, I've always loved reading.
00:07:30
Speaker
Like since I was young, I was always nose in the books and an avid reader for sure.
00:07:36
Speaker
But it was really this idea that came to fruition when I was driving home from work one day and I was listening to this podcast and
00:07:44
Speaker
It was Oprah's Super Soul Sundays that she was interviewing actually this author called Steven Pressfield.
00:07:56
Speaker
And he wrote The Legend of Beggar Vance.
00:08:00
Speaker
And he was discussing how long it took for him to finally have a breakthrough novel.
00:08:05
Speaker
And basically the premise of his book, he then wrote another book called The War of Art, where he says that everybody has a creative genius, but it's how do you unlock that?
00:08:16
Speaker
And that our biggest obstacle is this internal force called resistance, which I call procrastination, which prevents us from daring greatly or doing what our life calling
Overcoming Self-Doubt in Writing
00:08:30
Speaker
is, you know.
00:08:30
Speaker
And it was really on that day I decided, I was like, you know what, I'm just going to get out of my comfort zone and I'm just going to try it because you never know unless you try and you have nothing to lose.
00:08:41
Speaker
So I sat down and I started doing a very, very,
00:08:45
Speaker
bare skeleton of the books and the characters and the message that I actually, I started out only with one book.
00:08:52
Speaker
It was only after I spoke to my publisher that we came out with the idea of having more books, but it was that bare skeleton that came out that day.
00:09:01
Speaker
And it was a labor of love.
00:09:04
Speaker
And I'm really proud of the fact that I was able to overcome that negative self-talk that was telling me you can't do this.
00:09:13
Speaker
You're just an eye doctor.
00:09:14
Speaker
You don't have any right to write books because that's not your thing.
00:09:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:19
Speaker
So I recommend for anybody who's an aspiring author to just put pen to paper and just write, keep writing until you unlock that creative genius that he talks about.
Passion for Eye Health and Myopia Prevention
00:09:33
Speaker
I think it's, yeah, it's very common amongst writers.
00:09:35
Speaker
That is the amount of pressure we put on ourselves to be like, no, I'm not ready.
00:09:39
Speaker
It's not a good enough story.
00:09:40
Speaker
I haven't thought about enough.
00:09:41
Speaker
It's like, in the end, you just have to write something, you know what I mean?
00:09:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:46
Speaker
Especially if you have an important message that you want to get out there.
00:09:50
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:09:51
Speaker
So it sounds like with these books, you're very much the kind of the jumping off point is your career, your medical career, and the kind of you wanting to enlighten and kind of share the knowledge of things to look out for within, especially in children, um, that, that are easily preventable and stuff like that.
00:10:11
Speaker
Um, when it comes to writing stories, you mentioned, you really love writing stories.
00:10:18
Speaker
Do you think you would have written something even if it wasn't about eyes and kind of your medical experience?
00:10:26
Speaker
That's a really good question, Jamie.
00:10:30
Speaker
You're going to get me to go back after this.
00:10:32
Speaker
I'm going to start writing other stories.
00:10:34
Speaker
Actually, I think when you write something, it should be something that you're passionate about.
00:10:41
Speaker
So whatever that is.
00:10:43
Speaker
And because I'm so passionate about eye health, I think that the only thing for now that I'm able to write is about that.
00:10:51
Speaker
But I think in the future that may change, you know, because our lives take different directions and we have many different interests in life.
00:11:00
Speaker
But at the moment right now where I'm at in my life, I think that the most important message that I want to get out there is about what I know and what I'm passionate about and what I've researched for the last 20 years.
The Rise of Myopia and Screen Time Effects
00:11:14
Speaker
And, you know, it really it's amazing because
00:11:19
Speaker
All the steps in my life have really led to this because I first worked in eye care and then I did a master's in public health.
00:11:26
Speaker
And then I was the head of the myopia clinic at Cleveland Clinic where I'm working a lot with children who have myopia, which is nearsightedness.
00:11:35
Speaker
I then even became more passionate about the topic of myopia, which is why I dedicated a whole book.
00:11:42
Speaker
So that's my second book, by the way, a whole book to myopia, the myopia epidemic, actually, and why screens are bad for our eyes.
00:11:54
Speaker
And of course, everything in moderation, because I'm on my screen too, all the time.
00:11:58
Speaker
But for children, especially, you know, we saw this huge shift during the COVID pandemic.
00:12:05
Speaker
where kids were forced to be on screens all day long.
00:12:11
Speaker
And, you know, in, in, in concordance with that, we saw a huge spike in myopia cases.
00:12:18
Speaker
So myopia, just to give you a little bit of a, I don't want to bore you with medical stuff, but it's just being nearsighted.
00:12:24
Speaker
So it means you can see near, but you can't see far.
00:12:28
Speaker
And the more you're on screens, the more you're,
00:12:32
Speaker
you know, tucked away in a dark room and not going outside and getting natural light and looking at things far away, the more the myopia will progress.
00:12:41
Speaker
And so the more myopia progresses, the more the retina gets stretched out.
00:12:44
Speaker
And then you have a much higher risk of developing ocular complications.
00:12:50
Speaker
And people don't really realize that they're like, Oh, it's just a pair of glasses and I'll just change them every six months or every year.
00:12:56
Speaker
And then when I'm 18, I'll just get LASIK done and I'll get rid of my glasses.
00:13:00
Speaker
Right.
00:13:01
Speaker
Well, you know, my answer to that is no, if your prescription is too high, you can't get LASIK, first of all.
00:13:07
Speaker
But more importantly, you're compromising your eye health.
00:13:11
Speaker
So rather than to get to that point where it's irreversible, let's look at ways to prevent it.
00:13:16
Speaker
So the main focus of my books is really prevention and awareness.
00:13:22
Speaker
Oh, that's really interesting.
00:13:24
Speaker
And presumably that kind of damage of sitting next to a screen for long periods of time, that I assume is amplified in children because they are very much developing.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yes.
00:13:37
Speaker
Yes, Jamie.
00:13:38
Speaker
Exactly.
00:13:39
Speaker
Exactly.
00:13:39
Speaker
So the critical development of the eye is happening and these kids are spending hours upon hours on screen.
00:13:45
Speaker
I mean,
00:13:46
Speaker
I have kids that tell me they're on screens eight to 10 hours a day.
00:13:50
Speaker
They don't go play outside.
00:13:52
Speaker
And parents are really struggling too.
00:13:54
Speaker
It's a constant battle between the parents and their kids.
00:13:59
Speaker
Parents are aware to a certain degree that screens are not good for their children's eyes, but they're having a hard time controlling it because we do live in a digital age.
00:14:08
Speaker
And it's not realistic to just tell your kids that
00:14:11
Speaker
no more screens, you know, but at the same time, how do we find balance and how do we encourage our kids to play outside and have a more natural and wholesome upbringing the way we did when we were kids, you know, we would like disappear in the forest and, you know, I wouldn't come home until seven o'clock at night when I was a kid in the summertime.
00:14:33
Speaker
Nowadays, you see kids are just planted in front of their video games, their iPads, their phones, and they can spend, you know, literally the whole day.
00:14:42
Speaker
So many studies have been done to prove that this is, this has an extreme negative impact on vision, but it they're calling it an
Global Myopia Predictions by WHO
00:14:50
Speaker
epidemic.
00:14:50
Speaker
Like the WHO actually dubbed it the myopia epidemic because by 2050, more than half the world's population will be nearsighted, which is staggering.
00:15:00
Speaker
And already in certain parts of Southeast Asia, you have more than 80% of the population that have, uh,
00:15:07
Speaker
high myopia and are developing high myopia as well, which is linked to all these ocular complications.
00:15:14
Speaker
So my whole book, book two, which is called Misty Mole and the Big Switch Off is about how
00:15:24
Speaker
Misty Mole is surprised to see that all her friends in the Woodlands are on screens all the time.
00:15:29
Speaker
And she's asking them if they want to play outside with her.
00:15:31
Speaker
And they're saying no, they're busy on their screens.
00:15:35
Speaker
And of course, she gets really frustrated because she's the only one without a screen.
00:15:38
Speaker
So she begs her mom to...
00:15:40
Speaker
And dad, if she can, you know, she can also get a phone.
00:15:43
Speaker
And they finally give in.
00:15:45
Speaker
And I think this is the, you know, the typical story that you hear from parents is that their parent, their children beg them for that, that screen and they feel like, okay, well, everybody else has one.
00:15:56
Speaker
So my kid should have one too.
00:15:59
Speaker
So she gets the phone or the tablet and she starts playing more and more and more on it and kind of loses control.
00:16:05
Speaker
And then she realizes that her whole life has turned upside down and, you know, nobody's interacting anymore in the forest and they're not going outside to play.
00:16:16
Speaker
And she realizes that she has to make a change.
00:16:21
Speaker
So it's kind of idealistic, but hopefully we can all do that with our kids as well.
00:16:28
Speaker
And us.
00:16:29
Speaker
I mean, I feel like we as adults are stuck on screens all day as well.
00:16:33
Speaker
I know.
00:16:34
Speaker
I know.
00:16:34
Speaker
It's like, how do you tell your kid not to be on their phone or their iPad when you're on it too?
00:16:40
Speaker
That's the biggest challenge, really.
00:16:44
Speaker
I wonder if you'll be writing a new series of these Misty Moore ones once, because I know that the Apple Vision Pro recently came out and that's just, it feels like the beginning of all these headsets, which are going to start taking over.
00:16:59
Speaker
It's so scary, Jamie.
00:17:00
Speaker
It's so
Holistic Health and Eye Wellbeing
00:17:01
Speaker
scary.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:03
Speaker
How bad could it be?
00:17:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:05
Speaker
That's got to have a similar effect, right?
00:17:08
Speaker
That's got to affect our eyes in some way.
00:17:11
Speaker
But not just our eyes.
00:17:12
Speaker
I mean, look at social interaction.
00:17:14
Speaker
Look at mental health.
00:17:15
Speaker
You know, mental health issues are on the rise because kids are isolated.
00:17:20
Speaker
They're not interacting anymore.
00:17:23
Speaker
They're not getting vitamin D. They're not going outside to play.
00:17:27
Speaker
And it's affecting every aspect of their life.
00:17:30
Speaker
You know, obesity is on the rise and all these other chronic diseases.
00:17:36
Speaker
And it's all interrelated, by the way.
00:17:38
Speaker
So I also wanted to talk to the health, the underlying health issue that eyes are related to every part of the body, right?
00:17:50
Speaker
Like it's basically, I just want to say that it's really a holistic approach to health.
00:17:56
Speaker
So when we take care of our bodies, we're also taking care of our eyes.
00:18:00
Speaker
And that's why I wrote book three, which is about nutrition in the eye.
00:18:04
Speaker
um because we always hear about nutrition right but we don't realize that it has a huge impact on eye health as well i'm constantly told a very similar thing by the dentist who's the dentist always saying everything is connected to your teeth and like maintaining healthy teeth also affects like the rest of your body and stuff like that that's brilliant that's so interesting yeah
00:18:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's good to think about these things as like, yeah, your eye health, your gum health, like does have knock-on effects to the rest of your body and then your wellbeing and then like your mental health and, you know, this, that, the other.
00:18:39
Speaker
Exactly.
00:18:40
Speaker
Exactly.
00:18:40
Speaker
I mean, if you can't see well, imagine how that impacts every aspect of your life from your social interactions to your educational attainment and
00:18:50
Speaker
to your productivity, et cetera.
00:18:52
Speaker
So it's, it's really something that has such a ripple effect if people only knew.
00:18:58
Speaker
Right.
00:19:00
Speaker
So.
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:01
Speaker
Let's get back onto the publishing side of things.
00:19:06
Speaker
Do you have a literary agent?
Publishing Journey and Collaboration with Illustrator
00:19:11
Speaker
So Jamie, I was very lucky with my publishing journey.
00:19:16
Speaker
I was actually friends with my publisher.
00:19:20
Speaker
That's the dream, I think.
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:21
Speaker
So I got to skip all of those steps that, you know, unfortunately sometimes
00:19:27
Speaker
People have to go through hoops and hurdles to get their books published.
00:19:31
Speaker
I know it can be a very daunting process.
00:19:34
Speaker
But I was really lucky because I was actually sitting and having a coffee with my publisher at the Dubai Lit Fest in 2020, right before the COVID epidemic.
00:19:46
Speaker
And I was telling her about my book idea, and she loved it.
00:19:50
Speaker
And especially because she also has a background in health.
00:19:53
Speaker
She's a medical doctor.
00:19:55
Speaker
So she loved the idea.
00:19:56
Speaker
And in fact, she even pushed me to write more than one book, even before I was done with the first one.
00:20:01
Speaker
She said it would be really good if you could do it as a series.
00:20:05
Speaker
Because, you know, when you write children's books, people are often waiting for the second and the third book.
00:20:10
Speaker
So it would be good to just have it ready and launch it sequentially.
00:20:15
Speaker
But she was super supportive, gave me such great advice.
00:20:20
Speaker
And I can tell you, it was really...
00:20:24
Speaker
So much easier knowing that the publisher was on your team, you know, and working to make sure that your book is a success and helping you every step of the way.
00:20:33
Speaker
But but really the biggest godsend as well was having an illustrator such as Ishii Walters.
00:20:41
Speaker
Because when you write a children's book, the illustrator is everything, right?
00:20:46
Speaker
She's the one who brought life to the book.
00:20:48
Speaker
She's the one who made it alive and vivid.
00:20:52
Speaker
And she brought the characters, their personalities and their fun, relatable side.
00:21:00
Speaker
So it was such an amazing experience working with her as well.
00:21:05
Speaker
Because when she was illustrating, she also had a lot of feedback for me on how to...
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:21:11
Speaker
Like I had already written the text, but you know, when you're writing for children, it has to be very concise and very efficiently written.
00:21:19
Speaker
You don't want to write too much.
00:21:21
Speaker
And she would help me with making the text tighter and where we should put the text in relation to the illustrations and everything.
00:21:30
Speaker
certain texts we cut out and we added texts.
00:21:32
Speaker
So she, she actually helped me with the editing process, which is also not very traditional, right?
00:21:38
Speaker
When it comes to writing books, you usually have the, the writing process and then the editing process and the illustrating, but the illustrator in my case helped me with the editing as well.
00:21:51
Speaker
So that was amazing.
00:21:52
Speaker
Oh, so it was very collaborative between you and Ishii.
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:56
Speaker
Ishii is, she's brilliant.
00:21:58
Speaker
She's really talented.
00:22:00
Speaker
I'm really fortunate that I got a chance to work with her, honestly.
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:03
Speaker
The, the, the illustrations are lovely, but that's the end of your, that is quite unique.
00:22:07
Speaker
Cause often the thing that I've heard with, um, illustrations and stuff like that is that usually the, the writer does that, but the publisher then finds the illustrator and then the right, you won't get too much interaction, but you, you'll get a few kind of images sent back for your kind of opinion on them.
00:22:27
Speaker
And then that'll go back and forth.
00:22:29
Speaker
But,
00:22:29
Speaker
It's cool that you were kind of working more directly with your illustrator.
00:22:35
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:36
Speaker
She was so collaborative.
00:22:38
Speaker
She was so helpful and her feedback was invaluable and almost everything she suggested I changed.
00:22:46
Speaker
And there was a flow, you know, we had a good flow going and a good rapport.
00:22:52
Speaker
And I think that I really owe her so much when it comes to these books.
00:22:56
Speaker
So yeah.
00:22:57
Speaker
Oh, amazing.
Yasmin's Influential Book Choice: 'The Alchemist'
00:22:58
Speaker
Well, that brings us to what is often the hardest question of every episode.
00:23:04
Speaker
And that is, Yasmin, if you were stranded on a desert island with a single book, which book would you hope that it would be?
00:23:14
Speaker
My teenage daughter's diary.
00:23:17
Speaker
No, I'm joking.
00:23:22
Speaker
No, no, I'm joking.
00:23:23
Speaker
I'm joking.
00:23:24
Speaker
That was a question that I contemplated quite a bit because I'm an avid reader.
00:23:31
Speaker
So I have a lot of favorite books, but I have to say, this is probably very cliche.
00:23:35
Speaker
You've heard it a lot.
00:23:36
Speaker
I love The Alchemist.
00:23:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:40
Speaker
I don't think anyone said it before.
00:23:43
Speaker
Really?
00:23:43
Speaker
It's come up.
00:23:44
Speaker
It's come up often as people sometimes come on and say, you know, if I had a second choice or a third choice, I think it comes up.
00:23:52
Speaker
But I don't think anyone's picked it as the number one.
00:23:55
Speaker
Well, I think for me, it really spoke to me on so many levels because it really helped me overcome my fear and listen to my intuition, which is something I've
00:24:04
Speaker
been working on for so long and pursuing what he calls in the book, the personal legend, or I would say the personal calling.
00:24:11
Speaker
And that really was very deep for me because I think we all have it within us, but it's just about finding it and pursuing it.
00:24:20
Speaker
And a lot of us are fearful of the next step.
00:24:24
Speaker
So it helped me a lot on my writing journey as well.
00:24:28
Speaker
So that's why I chose it.
00:24:30
Speaker
And yeah,
00:24:32
Speaker
It's a book that I would read over and over if I was on an island.
00:24:36
Speaker
Yes, it's many layers to it.
00:24:39
Speaker
I remember reading it a few years ago and it was one of those books where I, every now and again, I set myself a challenge of being like, right, I need to stop reading the fun, new, modern stuff that I want to read.
00:24:49
Speaker
And I need to go back and read it like a classic or like something that's just iconic.
00:24:53
Speaker
So that was the book.
00:24:54
Speaker
And one of those books where I finished it and just thought, wow, that was so much more impactful than I expected it to be.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:25:04
Speaker
It really had a long lasting impact on me.
00:25:06
Speaker
And I think that's what a good book does, is it makes you, you know, you keep thinking about it even after you've read it.
00:25:13
Speaker
So that was my choice.
00:25:15
Speaker
I hope you like it.
00:25:17
Speaker
It's a great choice.
00:25:17
Speaker
And now I think about it, it's wild that I think you might be the first person to choose The Alchemist.
00:25:23
Speaker
Wow, Jamie.
00:25:24
Speaker
I thought you were going to tell me, oh, no, I've been there, done that.
00:25:27
Speaker
I've heard that a million times.
00:25:28
Speaker
So I'm glad that I'm the first one.
00:25:30
Speaker
If you'd picked Jane Austen, then maybe I would have said that.
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah, actually, I was on the fence.
00:25:37
Speaker
I knew it.
00:25:39
Speaker
But I figured, come on, that's been done.
00:25:43
Speaker
So yeah.
00:25:44
Speaker
But we love Jane Austen.
00:25:45
Speaker
Yeah, she's amazing.
00:25:47
Speaker
No hate, no way.
00:25:48
Speaker
Love Jane Austen.
Conclusion and Listener Support on Patreon
00:25:50
Speaker
Awesome.
00:25:50
Speaker
And that brings us to the end of the regular episode and into the extended cut section exclusive to Patreon subscribers.
00:25:56
Speaker
So anyone listening who hasn't yet joined the Patreon, please do think about it.
00:25:59
Speaker
It goes a long way towards covering the cost of running this podcast.
00:26:04
Speaker
Listen, this has been amazing.
00:26:05
Speaker
It's been so fun chatting with you.
00:26:07
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming on.
00:26:08
Speaker
It's been amazing.
00:26:09
Speaker
Thank you, Jamie.
00:26:10
Speaker
For anyone who wants to keep up with what Yasmin is doing, you can follow her on Instagram at dr.yasminlruby.
00:26:19
Speaker
You can head over to her website, www.yasminlruby.com.
00:26:23
Speaker
And Misty Mole is out now, available in the UK, but soon it will be worldwide.
00:26:31
Speaker
So you can go get that.
00:26:33
Speaker
All three books are out now?
00:26:36
Speaker
So in the UK, yes.
00:26:37
Speaker
And then once it's released worldwide, I think they're going to start with the first book and then they're going to move on to the second and the third book.
00:26:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:44
Speaker
Amazing.
00:26:45
Speaker
So there you go.
00:26:46
Speaker
Go get Misty Mole and learn all about vision and cute animals.
00:26:52
Speaker
To support this podcast, like, follow and subscribe on your platform of choice and follow along on all socials.
00:26:58
Speaker
Join the Patreon for ad-free extended episodes and do check out my other podcasts, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes.
00:27:03
Speaker
Thanks again, Yasmin, and thanks to everyone listening.
00:27:05
Speaker
We'll catch you on the next episode.