Podcasts about On Second Thought

Send us a textToday we're chatting with Debbie Weiss, who is an author, speaker, and digital creator.Debbie lost both her father and husband after being a caregiver to both of them. In this episode we talk about the process of caregiving for her father since the age of 17, followed by the mental and physical illness her husband suffered from for years which was incredibly challenging for her as well.With over 60 years of experience overcoming life's challenges, Debbie is a best-selling author, Canfield Certified Trainer, entrepreneur, and inspirational speaker. She wrote the memoir “On Second Thought... Maybe I Can”.Through her newest book, “The Sprinkle Effect: A Guide to Living a More Colorful and Fulfilling Life”, along with its companion workbook, she continues her journey of inspiring others.This episode digs into family caregiving, anticipatory grief, guilt after a loved one passes away, and how writing her memoir while her husband was dying helped her cope.Start your next evolution and transformation here: https://losses-become-gains.showitpreview.com/transformation Start finding relief here: https://losses-become-gains.showitpreview.com/relief-in-griefWork with me: Micro-Moments for Transformation: https://lossesbecomegains.com/transformation 14-Day Relief in Your Grief Challenge: https://lossesbecomegains.com/relief-in-grief Work with me one-on-one: https://lossesbecomegains.com/work-with-tara Connect with me further: Leave a voice note through Speakpipe! https://www.speakpipe.com/LifeWithGrief Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lossesbecomegains/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifewithgriefpodcast/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/losses.become.gains Website: https://lossesbecomegains.com/ Shop the LBG Daily Journal: https://lossesbecomegains.com/journal By accessing this Podcast, I acknowledge that the entire contents are the property of Tara Accardo, or used by Tara Accardo with permission. Except as otherwise provided herein, users of this Podcast may ...

It’s a jam packed On Second Thought podcast this week with Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte and legendary basketball coach Jody Conradt joining the Statesman’s Cedric Golden and the Houston Chronicle’s Kirk Bohls. Del Conte discusses his hire of basketball coach Sean Miller and the all-star selection of coaches he has hired to lead Texas into the future. He and the guys also break down the challenges that come with the NIL, the Texas women’s basketball team’s run at a championship. Conradt discusses the similarities between the Longhorns and her 1986 national championship team and why she believes the Horns will take out South Carolina in Friday’s first semifinal.

On Second Thought: Delving Into the Sugya with Rabbanit Yafit Clymer"On Second Thought" returns with a series of shiurim on the death penalty in Judaism, a central topic in Masechet Sanhedrin spanning four chapters, from Daf 49 to Daf 90. This episode: Capital Punishment in the BibleSanhedrin 49 -90Learn more on https://hadran.org.il/

In this week’s On Second Thought podcast, Statesman columnist Cedric Golden and the Houston Chronicle’s Kirk Bohls examine the hire of new basketball coach Sean Miller, Texas women’s hoops in the Sweet 16. They also discuss the start of Texas spring football and Arch Manning’s development at QB and the holes Steve Sarkisian will have to plug this fall, pls a review of Pro Timing Day on campus.

Send me a Text MessageWhat happens when you spend your whole life taking care of others—and forget who you are? In this deeply moving conversation, Brian Smith talks with Debbie Weiss, a woman who's worn many hats: caregiver, business owner, author, and now, a voice of possibility and hope. Debbie shares her incredible journey of caring for her father, her neurodivergent son, and her husband through terminal illness and mental health struggles.She opens up about anticipatory grief, the complexity of feeling both relief and guilt, and how writing her memoir On Second Thought, Maybe I Can during her husband's final days became an emotional lifeline.

On Second Thought: Delving Into the Sugya with Rabbanit Yafit Clymer"On Second Thought" returns with a series of shiurim on the death penalty in Judaism, a central topic in Masechet Sanhedrin spanning four chapters, from Daf 49 to Daf 90. This episode: Capital Punishment in the BibleSanhedrin 49 -90Learn more on https://hadran.org.il/

Special Guest: Celeste Headlee Celeste Headlee is the host of "On Second Thought" at Georgia Public Broadcasting in Atlanta and has been a host and correspondent for NPR and PRI since 2006. She is the author of the book, We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter (Harper Wave, September 19), a practical guide to the lost art of conversation. Celeste's TEDx Talk sharing 10 ways to have a better conversation was listed as one of the most watched TED Talks in 2016 (CNBC) and named the #1 must-watch TED Talk by Glassdoor (with over 11 million total views to date.)  Being able to have productive conversations is a skill—and it's a skill, built on a series of other skills from being assertive to listening to ensuring that we were heard correctly and yes, that we have heard and understood correctly what others are saying. These days, with so much communication relying on electronic screens and emojis, the art of conversation may be at risk. And that's a scary thought. To put ourselves in the frame of mind of taking in the importance of good conversation skills, just think of what happens when poor communication happens—people get the wrong idea, mistakes are made, feelings are hurt and stuff does not get done in the right way. And when conversation is clear and strong and good- progress is made, we feel understood and connected- truly, it can make all the difference. The post How to Talk to Kids about Having Meaningful Conversations that Matter with Celeste Headlee – Rerelease appeared first on Dr Robyn Silverman.

On Second Thought: Delving Into the Sugya with Rabbanit Yafit Clymer"On Second Thought" returns with a series of shiurim on the death penalty in Judaism, a central topic in Masechet Sanhedrin spanning four chapters, from Sanhedrin 49 to 90. This episode: Capital Punishment in the BibleSanhedrin 49 -90Learn more on https://hadran.org.il/

With Texas men’s basketball suffering through what could be a late-season swoon, beat writer Thomas Jones joins Cedric Golden on this week’s On Second Thought podcast to discuss the state of the program and newly embattled head coach Rodney Terry. They also break down the new face of Texas football Arch Manning and how he’s handling his first offseason as the Longhorn starter. Ced spoke with new Texas baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle on campus this week about his turbulent offseason and opening weekend in the Metroplex.

Debbie Weiss asked herself, “If not now, when?”—and transformed her life. "I realized that I had the power within me to change,” she tells Lesley Jane Seymour on the Reinvent Yourself podcast. “It was just changing my approach and my thoughts." Her desire for change ultimately helped her make the leap from a conventional insurance career to becoming an advocate for personal growth. As a caregiver and mom to a son with autism, Weiss overcame immense challenges, finding reinvention through podcasts, mindset coaching, and community. Her memoir, On Second Thought, Maybe I Can, inspires others to take small steps toward their dreams. Tune in to learn how her  journey can help you unlock your potential. Bio: Debbie, a seasoned life strategist with over five decades of experience, has faced some of life's most daunting challenges head-on and emerged as a beacon of hope and inspiration for others. A tenacious entrepreneur, Debbie manages both a thriving insurance agency and her charming online store, "A Sprinkle of Hearts." As the host of the "Maybe I Can" podcast and an inspirational speaker, she generously shares her wisdom and insights on overcoming limiting beliefs and fears. As a dedicated family caregiver and mother, Debbie's resilience shines through in every aspect of her life. Driven by her passion for helping others live their best lives, Debbie delights in laughter, dancing, reading, and staying active during her leisure time. Her unwavering spirit and infectious enthusiasm inspire others to pursue their dreams, regardless of the obstacles they face.   Connect with Debbie: Website Facebook Instagram LinkedIn   Timestamps: 02:47 - How to handle the transition from a regular job to entrepreneurship 04:16 - Life as a caregiver 10:03 - "Every single thing that's happened to me...started with a podcast" 12:56 - Debbie says she was looking for a way to make more money 15:17 - How Debbie found her footing in podcasts 25:23 - Why learning is the key to being excited about the future 26:17 - Learn more about Debbie's books   Connect with Lesley Jane Seymour: Website Instagram LinkedIn Substack If you found this episode insightful, please follow the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. For more resources and community support, join me on Substack. Until next time, keep reinventing!  

Columbus-Dispatch reporter Bill Rabinowitz joins Cedric Golden for the On Second Thought podcast and provides a peek behind the Ohio State curtain and what problems the Buckeyes will present for the Texas Longhorns at the Cotton Bowl.The winner will advance to the national championship game. Ced gives his take on why the oddsmakers who made Texas a 6 1/2 underdog could be sorely mistaken.

What if learning to say “no” could be the most powerful form of self-care you ever practiced? In this inspiring episode of Financially Ever After, Stacy Francis chats with Debbie Weiss, author of On Second Thought, Maybe I Can and The Sprinkle Effect, about the power of setting boundaries, prioritizing self-care, and living with greater intention. Debbie shares her personal journey of caregiving while pursuing her own growth, offering practical advice for anyone feeling overwhelmed or stretched too thin. You'll hear them discuss: Why saying "no" can be one of the most powerful forms of self-care, especially for caregivers, people-pleasers, and those who feel stretched too thin. Debbie explains how to recognize when it's time to decline requests — and how to do it without guilt. How the 24-hour rule for commitments can stop you from over-scheduling yourself. Instead of agreeing on the spot, Debbie suggests giving yourself space to reflect on what truly aligns with your priorities. Why self-care isn't just massages and manicures. Debbie's decision to learn something new during a caregiving crisis led to an unexpected sense of fulfillment and purpose. She shares how learning and growth can be a powerful form of self-care. The hidden cost of attending social events you don't want to go to. If you've ever said "yes" to a dinner only to regret it the moment you arrive, you'll relate to Debbie's story. Learn how to gracefully say no and avoid the "why did I agree to this?" feeling. How to live intentionally, even when life is chaotic. Debbie shares how she committed to writing her book during one of the most challenging times of her life. Her story shows that even in tough seasons, small, consistent steps can lead to big results. Why taking care of yourself is the opposite of selfish. Debbie reminds us that if you burn out, the people who rely on you suffer too. Her advice will reframe the way you think about self-care. How to break free from people-pleasing tendencies. If you struggle to say no because you don't want to disappoint others, Debbie's simple strategies — like not over-explaining your "no" — will give you a new perspective. An inside look at Debbie's new books, The Sprinkle Effect and its companion workbook. These hands-on tools offer exercises and reflections to help you create a more colorful, fulfilling, and intentional life. Resources Debbie Weiss on the Web | LinkedIn | Facebook | Facebook Group | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Maybe I Can Podcast | Email Debbie's Books: The Sprinkle Effect Book, On Second Thought…Maybe I Can Stacy Francis on LinkedIn | X(Twitter) | Email FrancisFinancial.com Reach out to receive a complimentary consultation! Contact Francis Financial at +212-374-9008 or visit Francis Financial today!

Sports columnist Cedric Golden is on the ground at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta and shares some of his conversations with the Texas contingent at Media Day for this week’s On Second Thought podcast. The Longhorns play Arizona State in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal and Ced visits with coach Steve Sarkisian, quarterback Quinn Ewers, tight end Gunnar Helm, cornerback Jahdae Barron and linebacker Anthony Hill and discusses the current playoff run and the opportunity to potentially play for a national title.

Legendary Longhorn play by play voice Craig Way joins columnist Cedric Golden for On Second Thought to discuss the historic first meeting between Texas and Clemson in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff and the epic quarterback rematch between Quinn Ewers and Clemson’s Cade Klubnik.

Columnist Cedric Golden gives you a peek behind both sides of the Texas-Georgia curtain on this week's On Second Thought podcast.Texas ex and ESPN analyst Fozzy Whittaker breaks down why the Longhorns will deliver a different result than the 30-15 loss to the Bulldogs in Austin at midseason while AJC-Dawg Nation columnist Mike Griffith explains why Georgia has some added motivation after being left out of the 2023 College Football Playoff.

Send us a textEmpowered Within presents an extraordinary conversation with Debbie Weiss, bestselling author of On Second Thought, Maybe I Can, speaker, coach, and podcaster. Debbie's journey of resilience, courage, and self-discovery will inspire you to take control of your life and chase your dreams—no matter the circumstances.In this episode, Debbie shares her raw and powerful story of overcoming limiting beliefs, navigating life as a caretaker, and finding the strength to rewrite her narrative. From caregiving at a young age to embracing her inner power and becoming a beacon of hope for others, Debbie's story is a testament to the transformative power of believing in yourself.Discover how Debbie turned life's hardest challenges into stepping stones for growth, her secrets to staying resilient, and how she inspires others to embrace their own "Maybe I Can" moments. Tune in for a heartwarming, empowering conversation that will leave you ready to harness the power within.

With Texas and Texas A&M preparing to resume their century-old rivalry with an SEC eliminator in College Station Saturday, some former Statesman colleagues reunited on this week's On Second Thought podcast. Houston Chronicle columnist Kirk Bohls and TexAgs.com columnist Olin Buchanan join Statesman columnist/host Cedric Golden to break down the first Longhorns-Aggies matchup since 2011.  The winner will advance to the SEC championship against Georgia on Dec. 7.  

Texas Longhorns beat writer Danny Davis joins columnist Cedric Golden on this week's On Second Thought podcast to break down Texas' Senior Day matchup with Kentucky and highlights which veterans have made the most important on a banner football season.Also, Ced uncovers the rubble from the Dallas Cowboys' 37-10 loss to the Houston Texans and the uncertain future of coach Mike McCarthy. And he recaps Mike Tyson's epic no-show in the much-hyped fight with Jake Paul.

Send us a textDebbie Weiss is a speaker, author and course creator who found herself placed in a caregiving role at 17 years old when her father had a massive stroke. That wasn't the end of her caregiver roles however, as she also experienced a special needs child and her husband who needed care until he passed away. Eventually she figured out that she had lost herself.  She speaks with Kim about her feelings of being burdened but having an "aha" moment when she turned 50 that set her on a path to self-discovery and purpose. A weekend with her friends also sparked a reminder of what she was like as a younger woman.  Debbie talks about learning to overcome a lifelong weight problem and learning to love public speaking as she found ways to take new chances even when she was scared to try.  She offers a new way to think about self-care as well-it's not just bubble baths or a glass of wine.  Debbie shares her messages through her books: On Second Thought, Maybe I Can, and The Sprinkle Effect and her WEBSITE. She also hosts a podcast called Maybe I Can. Support the showKim Benoy is a retired RN, Certified Aromatherapist, wife and mom who is passionate about inspiring and encouraging women over 40. She wants you to see your own beauty, value and worth through sharing stories of other women just like you. WEBSITEFACEBOOK

College football Hall of Famer Derrick Johnson joins Cedric Golden for the On Second Thought podcast to examine the fallout from Texas' loss to Georgia. The Longhorn legend also want to assure fans the Horns will be fine entering Saturday's road test against Vanderbilt. Also, Texas A&M beat writer Tony Catalina breaks down the No. 14 Aggies' biggest test to date, a prime-time showdown of SEC unbeatens with the No. 8 LSU Tigers. He and Ced also discuss the state of affairs with the Dallas Cowboys, who play a banged up San Francisco team Sunday night.

The host of the SEC Network's wildly popular Paul Finebaum Show joins columnist Cedric Golden on this week's On Second Thought podcast to break down top-ranked Texas' showdown with No. 4 Georgia on this week's On Second Thought podcast. They answer if Steve Sarkisian and the Horns are as large of a long-term threat to Georgia's recent dominance as it appears and the pressure facing Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer after the loss to Vanderbilt. Also, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones threatened the jobs of the hosts of his weekly radio show. Has Jerry lost it amid this embarrassing stretch of Cowboy football?

Between them, longtime sports columnists Cedric Golden (Statesman), Kirk Bohls (Houston Chronicle), Jenni Carlson (Oklahoman) and Berry Tramel (Tulsa World) have seen over 100 Texas-Oklahoma games. They get together on this week's On Second Thought podcast to break down Saturday's matchup and share their favorite memories from the always entertaining Red River Rivalry.

Self-care podcast Addressing Fear and Limiting Beliefs, Accepting Our Path as it Unfolds & Shifting From “I Can't” to “I Can” with Debbie Weiss. TOPICS:: ** Addressing Fear and Limiting Beliefs (06:53). ** Accepting Our Path as it Unfolds (12:31). ** Shifting From “I Can't” to “I Can” (17:07).   NOTES:: Show notes: amberapproved.ca/podcast/518 Leave me a review at amberapproved.ca/review Email me at info@amberapproved.caSupport the show: Donate Via Stripe or Paypal   Sign up for the Female Hormone Health & Weight-Loss Workshop series starting October 30th - on for early bird pricing now. https://amber-romaniuk.mykajabi.com/female-hormone-weightloss-workshop-series    SHOW LINKS: Click below to schedule a 30 minute Complimentary Body Freedom Consultation https://amberapproved.ca/body-freedom-consultation/  Take my free Emotional Eating Quiz here: http://amberapproved.ca/emotional-eating-quiz Listen to Episode 291 about what it's like to work with me here: http://amberapproved.ca/podcast/291/ Follow me on Instagram www.instagram.com/amberromaniuk Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@amberromaniuk/    ABOUT MY GUEST: Debbie Weiss, a seasoned life strategist with over five decades of experience, has faced some of life's most daunting challenges head-on and emerged as a beacon of hope and inspiration for others. As the author of the highly anticipated memoir On Second Thought, Maybe I Can... and a contributing author in the collaborative book Heart Whispers, Debbie's Words have the power to uplift and motivate. A tenacious entrepreneur, Debbie manages both a thriving insurance agency and her charming online store, A Sprinkle of Hearts. As host of the Maybe I Can podcast and an inspirational speaker, she generously shares her wisdom and insights on overcoming limiting beliefs and fears. As a dedicated family caregiver and mother, Debbie's resilience shines through in every aspect of her life. Driven by her passion for helping others live their best lives, Debbie delights in laughter, dancing, reading and staying active during her leisure time. Her unwavering spirit and infectious enthusiasm inspire others to pursue their dreams regardless of the obstacles they face.    www.debbierweiss.com https://instagram.com/debbie.r.weiss https://facebook.com/group/maybeican https://tiktok.com/@debbierweiss https://bit.ly/maybeIcanbook

The Texas Longhorns are on a bye week but the On Second Thought podcast keeps rolling.Host Cedric Golden visits with the three newest writers on the staff.Longhorn Insider David Eckert and trending reporter Caleb Yum pick their MVPs on each side of the ball through this 5-0 start and look ahead to the Oct. 12 showdown with Oklahoma.Texas A&M reporter Tony Catalina answers the biggest question from College Station: will coach Mike Elko start incumbent Conner Weigman or Marcel Reed at quarterback against No. 9 Missouri Saturday?

Texas football color analyst Will Matthews joins columnist Cedric Golden this week on the On Second Thought podcast to discuss the Texas quarterback storyline now that Quinn Ewers is injured and Arch Manning is possibly making his first career start against Louisiana-Monroe Saturday.Matthews, who played fullback for the Texas team that won the 2005 Rose bowl, gives his take on the culture that Steve Sarkisian and answers a huge question: are the Longhorns the best team in college football.

After Texas' resounding 31-12 road win at No. 9 Michigan, the Longhorns are trending like a national championship contender early in the season. With Texas returning home for a date with UTSA, Longhorn legend Alex Okafor joins columnist Cedric Golden for Episode 343 of the On Second Thought podcast and discusses why the Horns are off to such a fast start and what has to happen between now and the SEC opener against Mississippi State in three games to keep the team improving. Ced also discusses what coach Steve Sarkisian did to keep the Horns focused one week after a massive upset that rocked the college football world.

Dusty Mangum's 37-yard field goal at the final gun delivered Texas a 38-37 win over Michigan in the 2005 Rose Bowl. Twenty seasons later, Mangum and former college teammates Derrick Johnson and Justin Blalock join host Cedric Golden on the On Second Thought podcast and revisit the greatest kick in program history. They also discuss their impressions of the 2024 Longhorns who play at defending national champion Michigan Saturday.Detroit Free Press columnist Shawn Windsor stops by to provide a peek behind the curtain of the Michigan program. he also gives fans making the trip an idea of what they can expect from the game-day experience at the Big House.

The On Second Thought podcast is back and Statesman sports columnist Cedric Golden teams up this week with Texas beat writers Danny Davis and Thomas Jones to get their biggest moments from the preseason and examining the matchups that should most concern the Longhorns in their season in the SEC.Ced also breaks down the schedule game for game and reveals if he is sticking with his 10-2 prediction from earlier this summer.

Hey y'all! Nick and I are both back from vacations and catching up on the fun we missed while we were each enjoying some time with our families. We discuss the Bungie layoffs, leadership accountability in general, and also highlight Creative Assembly's absolute home run with the release of Total War: Pharaoh: Dynasties   Release Highlights  ReleasesSteam World Heist 2 W40K: Rogue Trader - Void Shadows expansion Creatures of Ava - odd looking Monster…saver game?  Total War: Pharaoh: Dynasties UBOAT 1.0   News Game Informer closes their doors, end of an era Bungie lays off most of the destiny 2 team, CEO celebrates with new classic carZero accountability for Leadership positions in gaming. More evidence of a “fully-fledged” Half-Life game in the works at Valvehttps://www.eurogamer.net/more-evidence-of-fully-fledged-half-life-game-revealed-by-valve-dataminer - could it be HL3?  Watching/PlayingGames Total War: Pharaoh: DynastiesIncredible free addon that makes the game everything it should have been and more Total War: Warhammer 3 UBOAT 1.0   Series/Movies     Shout outs to friends!: Geeks Gone Raw (Chase and Blue and crew)  On Second Thought with Mike and Matt from the BadFodderFigures crew! The Talking Place with Los Where you can reach us  Voicemails, and Plug Voicemail Line - 610-810-1654 Facebook (tiny.ccsavepoint) Email (theretrorents@gmail.com) Twitch (@RetroRentsAl, @Kibbis, @BlackEagleOps, SodaXBread)

Former Statesman columnist Kirk Bohls and longtime colleague Cedric Golden appear on their last On Second Thought podcast together after 340 episodes spanning eight years.They reflect on the beginning of the show, their favorite guests and what it is to come in the future. After collaborating for nearly two decades, Bohls has taken a columnist job at the Houston Chronicle while Golden will continue to produce On Second Thought in addition to his columns and videos for the Statesman.Enjoy this trip down memory lane.

What's up y'all! Al and Nick here! It's been a quiet week or so on the release front, but we talk about some of the older games we're diving back into and enjoying. We also chat about a really nice surprise on both PC and Xbox Game Pass that we're shocked more people aren't talking about! Releases  FF14 Dawntrail - tomorrow The First Descendent - tomorrow Legend of Heroes - Trails Through Daybreak - Friday News Steam Summer sale is underway - hide yo wallet hide your cards! Star Trucker coming to PC and Game Pass day one, September 3rd  Frostpunk 2 delayed to Sept 20th after Beta Feedback Watching/Playing Games  Crime Boss: Rackay City - fun heist shooter with roguelike elements and HORRIBLE voice acting Sailing Era - absolute love letter to the Uncharted Waters series Battletech by Harebrained Schemes - great tactical strat game Robin Hood: Sherwood Builders on Game Pass - very fun Shadow of War ($2 on steam sale) Satisfactory - preparing for 1.0 (later this year? I'm guessing Q4) Phasmaphobia - New Light House map   Series/Movies  Re-watching Fallout with the wife - Al Shout outs to friends!: Voicemail Line - 610-810-1654  Geeks Gone Raw (Chase and Blue and crew)  On Second Thought with Mike and Matt from the BadFodderFigures crew! The Talking Place with Los Where you can reach us  Voicemails, and Plug Voicemail Line - 610-810-1654 Facebook (tiny.ccsavepoint) Email (theretrorents@gmail.com) Twitch (@RetroRentsAl, @Kibbis, @BlackEagleOps, SodaXBread)  

With a potential in-state showdown with Texas looming at the College Station Regional, Texas A&M baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle joins the On Second Thought podcast to discuss the buildup and the full-time resumption of an age-old rivalry.Texas softball player Joley Mitchell stops in to recap the epic super regional win over Texas A&M and Thursday's Women's College World Series opener against Stanford.

Maggie Smith wrote a poem that went viral, but that wasn't the cause of her divorce. It was just one moment in a much bigger story about infidelity, raising children, and learning to live in a haunted house. Need some divorce catharsis? Join us.  Maggie Smith is the best-selling award-winning author of the memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful. She also wrote Good Bones and Keep Moving. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, The Nation, The Paris Review, and The Best American Poetry. Her awards include the Academy of American Poets Prize, Pushcart Prize, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Transcript MAGGIE SMITH: It's like the Instagram fail where you try to make the cake based on the beautiful unicorn cake you see, and then it's like, "Nailed it!"—and it looks like it's melting off to the side. You know, no one wants to make something that doesn't become the shining image in your mind you think you're making. BLAIR HODGES: That's Maggie Smith talking about her national best-selling book You Could Make This Place Beautiful. Her cake metaphor gets at some of the anxieties any author might feel, but it also works as a description of the marriage she wrote about in that book. Things started off well, with high hopes and visions of a shared future, but it turned into a Nailed It scenario when she discovered her husband's affair. Maggie Smith joins us to get real about divorce, family, patriarchy, raising kids, and more.     WHAT SOME PEOPLE ASK (01:21)   BLAIR HODGES: Maggie Smith, welcome to Family Proclamations. MAGGIE SMITH: Thanks for having me. BLAIR HODGES: I thought we'd start off by having you read one of the pieces in your book, it's called "Some People Ask," because it's short but it gives a nice overview of a lot of the things you talk about in this memoir about divorce and family, about your career, and about all kinds of things. Let's have you read that on page ten. "Some People Ask." MAGGIE SMITH: These were my attempts at—people won't ask me these questions if I put the questions and answers in the book. Alas, that did not actually deter the questions. So this is one of them. Some People Ask “So, how would you describe your marriage? What happened?” Every time someone asks me a question like this, every time someone asks about my marriage, or about my divorce experience, I pause for a moment. Inside that imperceptible pause I'm thinking about the cost of answering fully. I'm weighing it against the cost of silence. I could tell the story about the pinecone, the postcard, the notebook, the face attached to the name I googled, the name I googled written in the handwriting I'd seen my name in, and the names of our children, for years and years. I could tell them how much I've spent on lawyers, or how much I've spent on therapy, or how much I've spent on dental work from grinding my teeth in my sleep, and how many hours I sleep, which is not many, but at least if I'm only sleeping a few hours at night, then I'm only grinding my teeth a few hours a night. I could talk about how a lie is worse than whatever the lie is draped over to conceal. I could talk about what a complete mindf*ck it is to lose the shelter of your marriage, but also how expansive the view is without that shelter, how big the sky is. “Sometimes people just grow apart,” I say. I smile, take a sip of water. Next question. BLAIR HODGES: I love the "Some People Ask" sections. They're scattered throughout the book, and they get at questions I think a lot of divorced people run into. I think this is why folks who have been through divorce can relate so much to the book is these questions that are so familiar. What strikes me is, all that thinking in the italic text that you read, that happens in a split second. All of that calculus is so fast. MAGGIE SMITH: It does. I mean, it has to happen fast. Because when you're on the spot—whether you're on stage at an event, or doing a podcast, or someone catches you at the farmers market, like a neighbor—you have to do that quick mental math. What do I really want to get myself into right now? BLAIR HODGES: There's something else behind the question of “what happened,” which is like, what really happened? People kind of want like—there's probably something that's not public, or they want the tea. The question can be asked out of sincere regard for you, but there's also, most of the time probably a little bit of that human impulse to just want to know the dirt. MAGGIE SMITH: I think that's true, but I also think particularly with divorce, the wanting to know—that curiosity is a self-protective impulse. People don't even recognize that impulse when they are asking, but what they're really asking is, how does this not happen to me?   GROWING APART (04:44)   BLAIR HODGES: Oof. That resonates with people. Throughout the book my mind kept going back to this pinecone. You mentioned the story about the pinecone. Basically this is part of how you found out your husband was cheating on you. He had given your child this pinecone, and then later on you discovered this is a pinecone he picked up on a walk with a woman he was seeing in another state. I can hardly wrap my head around him giving that to your child. It's connected to this whole other thing he was doing. MAGGIE SMITH: That was why I threw it away. [laughter] BLAIR HODGES: That's right. The line I kept thinking of too from this one is, "sometimes people just grow apart." Now that the book's out, does that line still work? Do you find yourself still in conversations like this? People can know more, a lot more, about the situations you went through. Do you still find yourself sometimes having to say, "You know, sometimes things just don't work out?" MAGGIE SMITH: You know, the deep irony of that is when I wrote that section of the book, I thought the truth was in all of that italicized internal monologue text. The sort of, not really lie, but the "let's just get this over with” quick and easy answer was “Sometimes people just grow apart,” and the longer I've been sitting with this, the more I realized that's true. Everything in the paragraph is true, too. But “sometimes people just grow apart,” as sort of toss off an answer as that is, it actually is not inaccurate, and it's not not what happened. I mean, that happened also. BLAIR HODGES: The thing is, the growing apart could be incredibly painful or the growing apart could be incremental over years and people diverge in interests or mature into different people. The growth apart can be really painful, so it can be a true answer, and at the same time what's behind that answer could be really different depending on who you're talking to. MAGGIE SMITH: I just had friends who celebrated twenty years together, and they're posting photos of their younger selves, and you swipe to see the current version, or how it started, how it's going—that kind of meme. It feels like a miracle to me now that there are so many people who grow together over twenty, forty, sixty years instead of growing apart. I think it's a beautiful miracle that some people manage to do that. I did not. BLAIR HODGES: We see you grieve that. There are several times in the book where you talk about grieving the loss of that kind of connected relationship over the years. At this point in your life you can't ever have that. You can't have a relationship you shared when you were in your twenties and are now in your forties. That person is connected to the person you were with and it's not possible to recover it. MAGGIE SMITH: I get a little envious of seeing pictures of people from the nineties and they're still with that person. I don't get to do that. I don't get to carry forward that human being with another human being. I suppose if I met someone and got married this year and live to be ninety-seven, I could still have a golden anniversary, if they also live to be ninety-seven. I think it's unlikely that's going to happen. That was actually a fair amount of the grieving process. It wasn't just my specific marriage. I think everybody gets this. It's all the things in the future you think are guaranteed you when you "settle down" with someone, and then all those things go up in smoke when it doesn't work out.   REGRETS (08:38)   BLAIR HODGES: Did you wrestle a lot with feeling like those years were lost? A lot happened. You had kids during those years. You grew professionally. You struck out on your own in bold professional moves. You became a successful and very known writer. I'm wondering if there's a sense of lost years, because even some people that have a lot of things to look back on fondly still might feel like, "Dang it, I wish those years were spent differently." Do you live with a sense of regret about it? MAGGIE SMITH: No, not necessarily. I think at the beginning I did. Like, "Really, now I'm in my forties and I have to start over? Now?" It would have been easier ten years ago, for sure. It would have been easier fifteen years ago, for sure. But when I look at my kids and the life we've built here it's impossible to imagine it happening any other way. Because to rewind the film far enough to get a different result, I would be erasing them from the story and I can't. BLAIR HODGES: I wanted to ask you about this. How long—to preface this question—how long was it from beginning to end of writing the book? Do you remember? MAGGIE SMITH: Some pieces of the book existed before I knew I was writing a book. I pulled some poems in. I pulled some previous essays in, but I wrote the book for a year. BLAIR HODGES: The reason I ask is because we get to see you grow during that year. This is one of my "gasp out loud" moments. There are a few of them in the book where I literally gasped. It usually involved something your ex had done. But this one, one of the biggest for me, was something you said. When people would ask you a question, "Wasn't it all worth it because you got the kids out of it?" Earlier in the book your internal voice says, "Actually, I might undo it all, even knowing that would entail the kids." What you verbally say to the person is, "Well, I can't imagine life without my kids." The thing you're not seeing in italics is, "Maybe,” or “maybe even probably." But we see you grow from that. Talk about that growth over the course of the book, because that was a huge admission to be like, "You know what? Maybe not. Maybe it wasn't worth all that pain." MAGGIE SMITH: Not just for me, but for them. A lot of what I wish for them is a different kind of childhood and a different kind of family. I remember thinking about if I never had my children I wouldn't miss them, because I wouldn't have known them and they wouldn't miss me because they wouldn't have known me, and so it's not hurting anyone to say I would rewind the tape and completely do this all over again. Throughout the course of writing the book and living that year and sitting with everything and really thinking about it, I got to a place where I was like, "No, actually, I'll take the heat." I think it's worth taking the heat myself. I think they can take the heat enough so we get to have each other and in the end that has to be worth it. I did a lot of that in the book. A lot of my thinking at the beginning of the book is not my thinking at the end. That's an accurate reflection of life. Not necessarily a convenient narrative arc. "Oh, on second thought, I changed my mind, reader, from what I told you thirty pages ago." But that's how we live. I don't know how we live without that.   ON SECOND THOUGHT (12:04)   BLAIR HODGES: It didn't feel like a setup. I felt like I was experiencing you process that in real time and that when you wrote that original piece you hadn't set out thinking, "How is this going to fit into my book overall?" You were writing the pieces as they came and we get to experience that growth with you. Here's the piece "On Second Thought." It's short. I'll just read it. It says: I've been thinking about what I said before about wanting to undo it all. The more that time passes, the less I feel that way. Rilke comes to me in these moments—this is a poet—whispering no feeling is final. I don't just want to have kids, I want these kids, though dammit, I wish they had an easier path to travel. I wish we all had an easier path. Here's what I think about the most. In some parallel universe I can save the children and jettison the marriage. This is magical thinking, as in some Greek myth we're yet to discover. A son and daughter spring from me whole. No feeling is final. It strikes me, that can turn in on itself when it comes to joy too. That quote usually we think about if you're depressed or something, no feeling is final, but there's also a sense in which the best joys can be fleeting. MAGGIE SMITH: That is the last part of a quote I actually have—I'm looking at it right now on a sticky note on my office window. It's been living there for so many years, which tells you I don't wash my windows. "Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final." I feel so much of life is toggling between beauty and terror. Sometimes in the same three-minute stretch. BLAIR HODGES: It's great to see your relationship with your kids throughout the book. There's a beautiful piece about Violet, your daughter, and mixtapes. You both have bonded over music. MAGGIE SMITH: That's one of the coolest things as they get older. I feel like I set a music syllabus pretty early with my kids. We had a “no kids music” rule in our house, like no Kidz Bop, no music for children. We just tried to choose clean-ish music so we could enjoy it. One of the coolest things is seeing what from my music syllabus they're carrying forward and what they like of early to mid-nineties indie rock, and then what they strike out and find on their own. That's pretty much a metaphor for living with children. BLAIR HODGES: That's exactly why I brought it up. Then also the reciprocal love, the love your children showed for you. There's a piece called "Hidden Valentines," where your son Rhett had gone out of town. I think he went to his dad's— MAGGIE SMITH: I have one right here! It says, "You are nice and you make me laugh." BLAIR HODGES: He put these all around the house for you. It's so sweet. So I see romance happening in the book even when your partner was gone after the divorce. A certain kind of romance. MAGGIE SMITH: It's funny. It's the end of a love story, but not the end of all the love stories. I really think so much of this book is a love letter to writers and writing, but it's also a love letter to parents and kids, and a love letter to my kids in particular. The real love story is a self-love story, and finding yourself in the mess, but we have each other.   DIVISION OF LABOR (15:26)   BLAIR HODGES: That's Maggie Smith, and we're talking about her memoir, You Could Make this Place Beautiful. Her writings appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Nation, the Paris Review, and the Best American Poetry. She's a best-selling, award winning author of the books Good Bones and Keep Moving. Those books are also available. Maggie, you write a lot in this book about a common problem in marriage. This podcast has other episodes that will touch more on this, but I liked how you explore it, and that's how professional success and a division of labor in marriage can make a big impact. You wrote a poem that went viral. This was a landmark moment in your journey toward divorce, because your partner had started out as a writer as well and then had diverged from that path to become a lawyer. And it seemed like because you persisted with writing your partner couldn't fully embrace your professional success and he'd even downplay and sometimes even ridicule your career as maybe a hobby or a little indulgence. He also wanted you to step into the traditional mother role, despite the fact you're both progressive-minded folks. There was one time when he called you on a work trip to come home because your son had a fever. That, again, was another one of these gasp out loud moments. MAGGIE SMITH: I think this happens in all kinds of families, whether one of the partners is an artist or a writer or not. It doesn't necessarily keep itself to families where one person has a more traditional job and one person has a creative job. Frankly, it doesn't only happen in families in cis-het marriages where the man out-earns the woman. I know women who earn more than their husbands who are still packing every lunch and doing every pediatrician appointment and having a hard time getting away for professional obligations. I know lots of women who, when they go to conferences, someone comes up to them and says, "Oh, who's got the kids?" BLAIR HODGES: I've never heard that. MAGGIE SMITH: Exactly. And I don't think men get that, "Oh, who's got the kids?" Everyone assumes your partner has the kids. It's a real issue, and it's not a poetry versus law issue. It's not a creative versus traditional issue. I don't even think it's about earning—although I do think it can make the power dynamic more pronounced when one person significantly out-earns the other. BLAIR HODGES: It's in the data. MAGGIE SMITH: It's in the data. And there is a sense of feeling somewhat exempt from some of the domestic responsibilities if you are the person who's paying most of the bills via your income. That sets up couples for a lot of resentment, frankly. I don't think there's anything that kills a relationship faster than resentment, feeling like you can't be your full self. BLAIR HODGES: I think that's right. You talk a lot about it in the book, but you also pull back somewhat, because you mention at one point there's this spreadsheet of the cognitive labor that you're doing in the relationship, the day-to-day schedule keeping. One example that comes to mind for me is when a dad feels like he really succeeded because he showed up to Junior's ballgame, but he didn't take them to practices. But he didn't sign Junior up for ball. He's not washing Junior's uniform. He's not bringing treats, blah, blah, blah. But he feels like a really involved dad because he shows up for the game. You talk about this spreadsheet of labor and then you say, "I thought about including it here, but I'm not going to." So you didn't include the actual spreadsheet. But really, you know it's peppered throughout the book, right? The spreadsheet is pretty much in the book. MAGGIE SMITH: It's pretty much in the book. Anyone reading this knows what's on the spreadsheet. We all know—or maybe if you don't know what's on your spreadsheet— BLAIR HODGES: Thank you. MAGGIE SMITH: —take some time and write it down. Sometimes I'll get done with a day, and I'll think I feel like “I didn't accomplish much today,” meaning I only wrote five hundred words or something. Then if I think about what I accomplished, I've done three loads of laundry, I took the dog to the vet, I signed up someone for a camp or soccer, I emailed a teacher about a project my child had a question on, I looked at something, I planned a vacation, I did this, I did this. It's so much of that domestic stuff that doesn't count as "work" that takes up so much time and doesn't really feel like accomplishment or achievement. It's not performative. It's invisible labor. The one thing I realized about my invisible labor is when I was gone to teach or give a reading or visit a university, the invisible labor your partner does becomes very, very visible to you when they are not there. You realize the dishes don't do themselves and the laundry doesn't just arrive folded in the dresser drawer and the play dates don't get scheduled without this human being. BLAIR HODGES: This reminds me of your "Google Maps" essay where you wrote this beautiful piece about tracing your divorce through Google Maps, because you can go back and see pictures of the house. You sent it to your partner after the divorce to say, "Hey, take a look at this. I'm going to be publishing this and it involves you so I thought you should take a look before it goes out." He sent you notes back and one of them was like, "Oh, see the recycle bin? I took that out." [laughter] MAGGIE SMITH: It was illuminating. His edits were like, all of my crying was deleted. Anytime I mentioned crying was deleted. BLAIR HODGES: That's too on the nose, Maggie. Isn't that too on the nose? [laughs] MAGGIE SMITH: I mean, that's why I said it was psychologically revealing. Wanting credit for household chores and wanting to not acknowledge the pain you've caused another person. I found that interesting. I published that piece in the Times. I didn't think I was going to write a memoir, so I thought that was it. But when I went to write the memoir, I thought, I don't know how to tell the story without offering these edits as a kind of shorthand. I mean, I'm not going to offer the annotated version in this document, but it said so much in so little space. You know how if you know someone well, you look at them across the room at a party and their expression tells you “It's time to go,” or “Get a load of this.” That's kind of how I received those edits. It was a lot of data in a very small space.   MOTIVATION(S) (22:11)   BLAIR HODGES: I imagine there were probably legal considerations or some interpersonal considerations about sending it to him first. As you were writing that piece and then the book more in depth, did you worry at all about his reputation? Maybe the lesson here is, don't ever marry an author. But at the time, he was one. MAGGIE SMITH: It's tricky. We have responsibility to other people when we write about them. I was careful and people who know me, very considerate. The people who know more about the situation are like, "Oh, yeah, you were really considerate." [laughter] And I was. And not just because of the legal considerations. That's always something, but also because I didn't write this book to hurt other people. I certainly didn't write this book to expose other people. For people who might be thinking about writing about their lives, whether in a memoir or an essay or something, if they think they're going to share it with other people, the piece of advice I have is to always think about your motivations. If your motivation is anger or revenge or “they thought they could do this, well now I'll show them,” then put your pen down. Or pick your pen up, but that's for your journal or something you can share with a therapist or a friend. That's like Happy Hour venting. If your desire is to know yourself better because you're curious about a situation, because you think unpacking this might be useful for you or for someone else, I think those are safer, healthier motivations for writing about your life, and will probably, if you keep true to those motivations, will keep you out of the weeds. BLAIR HODGES: I want to go back to motivations in a second, but also want to point out you don't name him. You call him “Redacted” sometimes. This is the age of Google though. MAGGIE SMITH: If people want to do the legwork, anybody can find anything. BLAIR HODGES: Is it weird to you that people do? I did. [laughs] MAGGIE SMITH: It's a little strange, but I think it's a human impulse. Have I read stories where someone was unnamed and have I tried to figure out who they are? Of course. We've all done that. I don't think there's any shame in it. We live in an age where if you can find Trump's taxes, you can find anything. BLAIR HODGES: It's true. I also wanted to point out too, here's a piece called "An Offering," where you say: I feel like I need to reiterate something. This isn't the story of a good wife and a bad husband. Was I easy to live with? Probably not. I crave time to myself. I thought I knew best what the children needed. I was stubborn. I disliked, dislike confrontation. So I could be, can be avoidant or passive aggressive. We see this confessional mode a few times throughout the book, too. MAGGIE SMITH: Gina Frangello, who's a terrific writer, said something really smart about memoir, which is there are two essential ingredients. One is self-assessment and the other is societal interrogation. I think this book has both, which I'm grateful for because I didn't know the two ingredients from Gina until after I was done writing it and had already turned it in. But that goes back to motivations. If you are writing a book in which you are going to be the hero of your story? No. That's the wrong motivation. Not only did I not want to write that book, I don't want to read that book. I don't want to read that book. That's too easy. BLAIR HODGES: That's right. It's wonderful to see you wrestling with motivations throughout the book. This book is very meta. You talk about the creation of the book throughout the book, and what we learn is you didn't have one single pure motive. There were times when you talk about being led by curiosity and writing was an exercise in trying to figure out what you thought about something. When you're trying to make sense of everything. Another reason why you would publish it is so you could share pain and share discovery with other people. This is where memoir becomes a sort of curation. Why we read memoirs is because we get to try on other people's lives. Or why we ask someone what really happened, in that question is, “I want to see how this fits on me.”   MY TEACHER, MY PAIN (25:57)   There's one particular lesson you're trying to draw out. This comes out in this piece I just read from called, "An Offering." You're quoting from a Buddhist teacher about how—and this is the Amazon highlighted quote by the way. If you go to your Amazon page, this is the top highlighted part of your book. MAGGIE SMITH: Oh, wow. BLAIR HODGES: Here it is. It says: Thank you for the pain you caused me because that pain woke me up. It hurt enough to make me change. “Wish for more pain,” a friend's therapist once told her, “because that's how you'll change.” That really resonated with people. Pain teaches us. There's a utility to pain. There can be an underside to that, of celebrating pain or of having a privileged pain when other people have worse pains. It can be easier for me to talk about pain when the pain could be worse. I wanted to explore that with you, about the limits of the idea that pain can teach us. Because I agree it can, but there's limits to that. MAGGIE SMITH: Of course. I would like to learn lessons any other way, frankly. I don't want pain to be my teacher. But I think the bottom line is we don't get to choose our teachers. And so I've learned a lot in my life through joy. I've learned a lot in my life through, frankly, confusion, and not knowing things and having to figure it out for myself. In the case of the end of my marriage, experiencing that pain and grief and loss taught me a lot about myself. I don't know if I would have learned those lessons another way. That doesn't mean the scales are balanced. I'm not at all saying the lessons I learned about myself through my divorce made all this suffering for myself and my family worthwhile because they got me this lesson. No. I would always choose not to have the pain any day of the week. I would rather know less about myself and feel better. Absent that choice, which I did not have, I'm glad to have at least made some progress with myself and my life via this unpleasant experience. I do think that's part of why we go to memoir, it's also to feel seen and feel understood. When we share our pain with someone else, whether it's a big pain or a small pain, I think we're telling other people, “This happened to me, maybe something similar happened to you.” You pick up the book, you read it, and maybe you've been through a very similar experience, and it makes you feel less alone. Maybe you've been through a completely different experience that rocked your world in a similar way. You see how someone else kind of got to the "other side of it" and it gives you a sense of solidarity and like, "Oh, yes, this is the human experience." That's what I'm hoping for in sharing it.   READING MEMOIR (29:53)   BLAIR HODGES: My partner joked with me when I started this podcast, like, "Oh, you're going to include memoir?" In the past, I've just done academic stuff—sociology, psychology, Religious Studies, and all these things. I was a little snooty about memoir, dismissive of it, skeptical of it. But I decided to lean into it for this show. Two things happen when I'm reading a memoir. The two things I love the most. First, when an author says something I already knew in a way I never would have been able to articulate or didn't even realize I knew. The other one is when they tell me something I'd never considered before, but suddenly it snaps into place in the clearest of ways. These revelations that happen when I'm reading. MAGGIE SMITH: That happens to me, too. That's why it's a genre I turn to a lot. I get that from poetry also. I think that's probably why I read primarily nonfiction and poetry because those are places I go to be changed. I can't pick up a book of poems or a memoir and not be a slightly rearranged, slightly different person when I close the book. I don't think we exit good books as the same person we enter them, and that is a gift. BLAIR HODGES: We carry pieces of it with us too. We're changed. I should point out as we're talking about pain and all the suffering you write about, and the grief, and there's anger, there's frustration, there's some joy, there's some love. But you say you're a lot funnier than your book is. There's a footnote that's so funny. It's like, "I wanted twenty percent more wit and twenty percent less pain in here, but this is what we got." [laughter] MAGGIE SMITH: I think my gallows humor comes out in this book because I feel like I meet people all the time, and they're like, "Oh, you're a lot funnier than your writing." That's probably true of a lot of people unless you're maybe David Sedaris. I'm not a humorist. I tend to write through things I'm puzzling over or grappling with, and that's not necessarily a space where I feel free to be funny, but in every other aspect of my life it's part of my life. BLAIR HODGES: It made me think about the function of humor, too. Because sometimes humor can be an escape hatch out of difficult emotions. It felt like you resisted that. You could have—you're a funny person and I'm sure you could have said lots of quips and witty things. But it seems like you resisted them because you're like, "No, I need to stay in this moment and I'm not going to take the escape hatch." MAGGIE SMITH: It's just not that kind of book. I think I could have maybe written a funny book. Well, maybe not that year. I was not in a place to have written a funny book. Maybe I could write the funny book now. But it's something even, and I write about this, it's something even my therapist notices, that whenever I'm telling a particularly painful story or talking about something painful, I laugh. It's so bad, I have to laugh. Like, can you believe that happened? It is that sort of emotional escape hatch, where you can't let yourself look it straight in the eye and go there. It was important for me to do that. BLAIR HODGES: Well, I'm looking forward to your sequel to this book, You Can Make this Place Hilarious. [laughter] MAGGIE SMITH: I know! I wrote a book called Keep Moving. Then after that I thought maybe the next book is just like, Sit Down, or Rest Up, you know? [laughter]   BLAIR HODGES: That's Maggie Smith. We're talking about the book, You Could Make this Place Beautiful. She's an incredible author, and as she mentioned, also wrote a book called Keep Moving, which is a lot more like, keep moving. It's got your happy aphorisms and more motivational stuff. I think pairing these books is a good idea.   BEING HAUNTED (33:18)   BLAIR HODGES: I wanted to talk briefly about being haunted. You kept the house you lived with your family and your partner there, you wanted to keep the house so badly. But it means you live in a haunted house of sorts, in a haunted city. You drive places and see where you went out to eat, or you see where this thing happened, or that thing happened. Then in your house, all the things that happened there. You mention how—you don't put it in this way, but this is what came to mind, that divorce is kind of marriage by another means, especially if you have kids. I mean the relationship has to continue logistically, also in your memory, so divorce is a hard kind of marriage by other means in this hauntedness you describe throughout the book. MAGGIE SMITH: I still live basically in my hometown. It's always been that way. I see people from different stages of my life all the time. I see places that meant things to me all the time. I live in the house I lived in when I was married. My kids are still here. That was never going to change. One of the commitments I've made is keeping my kids' life as untouched by all of this as humanly possible, which is laughable because it's not untouched at all. I mean, it sort of napalmed everything, but the house is still here, and we're still here, and our neighbors are still the same, and they're still in their schools, and they still see the same people all the time, and we still walk to the farmers market. It's important to me to provide as much stability as possible for them. What that means for me is not being able to get that "fresh start" so many people want after a relationship ends, where you want to leave that part of your life behind and move onto something else. When you've lived in the same place for forty years you don't get to do that. You're taking one for the team, but that's what being a parent is. It's taking one for the team over and over and over. To be honest, on one hand it's difficult because there are a lot of memories. On the other hand, I don't think I would have thrived through this challenging time without my community. I don't think that would have been possible if we'd been living someplace else. BLAIR HODGES: Right, like your first lonely solo Christmas when neighbors were coming by and dropping stuff off on Christmas morning. MAGGIE SMITH: It's ridiculous how kind people are to me. People look out for me so much. My family is here. We have Sunday dinners every week. People have asked if it's weird publishing a memoir and having so many people know about your life and then you're walking the streets knowing people are looking at you, maybe knowing more about you than you know about them. It doesn't actually feel that strange. I feel very held here. I feel really supported here. BLAIR HODGES: You could make “this place” beautiful. “This place” means so many things, but I feel like in the book it also means the literal place—that house, which it's so kickass that you bought it. It's yours. It felt really empowering that you were able to do that. Reclaim it as yours. MAGGIE SMITH: The most terrifying part of the divorce other than being on my own was, where are we going to go? Being able to stay in this house, and that was thanks to the book Keep Moving, being able to stay in this house, and being able to provide that for my kids was something I didn't think I was going to be able to do as a poet. It has been really empowering. It's a good way to think of it. It's a double-edged sword. Yes. On one hand, it's a haunted house. Yes, my ex-husband's handwriting is in some of the cookbooks. But on the other hand, we're here and we're still standing.   AFTERLIFE OF A BOOK (37:39)   BLAIR HODGES: I love that. Do you have any favorite criticisms of the book? Something where you're like, "Oh, that's really interesting," or have you tried to ignore any of that kind of stuff? MAGGIE SMITH: I don't think people really ignore it. If fifty people say something nice about your book and one person says something mean, that mean thing will live rent free in your head forever. I think that's just what it is to be human. I try not to tune in too much or put too much stock into either criticism or praise because both can be dangerous. Too much praise can make you complacent and not make you challenge yourself to do better. You're competing against yourself when you're a writer more than you're competing against other people. Most of the criticisms of the book I anticipated. I anticipated people would say, "Why are you airing your dirty laundry?" Which is why that's a question I posed to myself in the book. I anticipated that people would say, "Oh my gosh, aren't you worried about your kids reading this someday?" I anticipated some people not liking the meta aspect of the book or the direct address to the reader. I made those decisions anyway because it's my book. Those people can do things their way if they want to. BLAIR HODGES: I imagine when people meet with you who have read the book—Most of the time if you're going to a reading or something, people enjoy the book. You get to see a lot of different positive reactions. There's so much in the book that a lot of different things could resonate with a lot of different people. There were so many pages I marked, like, I want to ask her about this, I want to ask her about this. But time is limited. There was way more than I could possibly cover, but I saw on Instagram you're celebrating the year anniversary of this book coming out. It's heading into paperback now. You said this book has sparked meaningful life-changing conversations. Maybe before we go, talk about the afterlife of the book as it continues in your conversations. Maybe an example of a meaningful life-changing discussions you've been able to have because of the book. MAGGIE SMITH: Book tour is always an opportunity to do that because I get to go to different cities and sit down with different writers and hear their questions and have a conversation about big life stuff with them. We end up talking about not just divorce, but all kinds of things. We end up talking about patriarchy. We end up talking about parenting. We end up talking about memory and hometowns, and family and secrets, and silence and all kinds of things. Depending on who I'm talking to, that conversation takes a different shape and different texture and different color. If someone wanted to follow me like the Grateful Dead on book tour and come to all of my events for the paperback, they would be witnessing five or six different conversations because they're all so personal. Some of the most meaningful moments I get to have around this book are talking to readers. It's sitting at the signing table and having people come up and hand me a card, or hand me a crystal, or hand warmers they knitted me, a little something, or just to say “I gave this to my mom,” or “my best friend really needed this,” or “I wish I had this when I was going through my divorce twenty years ago.” Something that happens with memoirs when you share a lot of yourself, it inspires or encourages other people to share a little bit about their stories with you too. That's been a beautiful point of connection with readers.   FORGIVENESS (41:48)   BLAIR HODGES: I really hope people who haven't had a chance to check out this book, check it out. It's called You Could Make this Place Beautiful. There's so much we didn't mention, like the fact your husband wound up with Pinecone. I don't know if he's still with Pinecone or not, but that at least happened. He moved out of state, which was earth shattering for you, and how that disconnected him from the kids. There's a ton of stuff we didn't cover, but I thought we would close with having you read a piece on page 302. We started off with a "Some People Will Ask" piece and I thought it would be good to cap it off with a "Some People Will Ask" piece. MAGGIE SMITH: Some people will ask, “You say you want to forgive. Have you?” Someone will ask that, I'm sure, because I ask myself all the time. How do I answer? I could say it's difficult to forgive someone who hasn't expressed remorse. I could counter with questions. Why do I need to forgive someone who doesn't seem to be sorry? What if forgiveness doesn't need to be the goal? The goal is the wish, peace. Can there be peace without forgiveness? How do you heal when there is an open wound that is being kept open, a scab always being picked until it bleeds again. I could say this is my task, seeking peace, knowing the wound may never fully close. “Forgiveness is complicated. To be at peace I think what I need is acceptance. I accept it."   REGRETS, CHALLENGES, & SURPRISES! (43:04)   BLAIR HODGES: That's Maggie Smith, reading from the book You Could Make this Place Beautiful. There's always a segment at the end of these episodes called “Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises.” It's where I ask people about anything they would change about the book now that it's out, what the hardest part about writing it was, or what the most surprising thing was. You've touched on some of these already, but before we go if you have anything to say about regrets, challenges, and surprises, we'll close there. MAGGIE SMITH: I don't think I have any regrets about the way I wrote the book. Surprises? Honestly, I think the reception has been surprising. I did not expect it to be a New York Times bestseller. It's an Ohio poet's memoir. No one was more surprised about that than me. I think I was folding laundry—literally—when my agent called to tell me I made the list. So that was certainly surprising. BLAIR HODGES: And you had two of your favorite songwriters write songs based on your book, too! MAGGIE SMITH: Crazy! Challenges? Fear. I think that's probably whether it's a named challenge or an unnamed challenge, I think that's one of the challenges for all of us. Fear of failure, fear of exposure, fear of litigation, fear of falling short, fear of not making the thing you think you want to build in your mind. It's like the Instagram fail where you try to make the cake based on the beautiful unicorn cake you see, and then it's like, "Nailed it!" And it looks like it's melting off to the side. No one wants to make something that doesn't become the shining image in your mind you think you're making. Fear is always the challenge, and the goal is to overcome that. BLAIR HODGES: The goal is to “keep moving,” as a wise person once said in a book you can also pick up at your favorite local retailer! [laughter] Thanks a ton, Maggie. This has been great. I loved your book. I truly, truly did. I hope people check it out. Thanks for taking time to be on this little show. MAGGIE SMITH: It's my pleasure. Thank you. BLAIR HODGES: Thanks for listening. Special thanks to Camille Messick, my wonderful transcript editor. Thanks to David Ostler, who sponsored this first group of transcripts. I'm looking for more transcript sponsors, these aren't free so help me out! My email address is blair at firesidepod dot org. You can also contact me with questions or feedback about any episode. There's a lot more to come on Family Proclamations. And here's the moment where I do the thing you hear on so many podcasts: Ask you to rate and review the show in Apple Podcasts of in Spotify! Let me know what you think about it so far. Here's a new 5-star review from "Fan of the Sun," and check out the detail here: "I have really enjoyed the variety of books and subjects that have been covered so far. I have been able to incorporate some valuable aspect from each episode into my personal life. Blair is a fantastic interviewer who knows the material and asks engaging questions. He digs deep, yet is able to give the listeners a well-rounded overview." Love that. It's my goal: to go wide but also dig down deep. Thanks fan of the sun, and I imagine that you've already recommended the show to a friend too because you know that's the number one way that people hear about podcasts is through a friend. Thanks to Mates of State for providing our theme song. Family Proclamations is part of the Dialogue Podcast Network. I'm Blair Hodges, and we'll see you next time.

The top-ranked Texas Longhorns are two wins away from returning to the Women's College World Series and star pitcher Teagan Kavan joins the On Second Thought podcast to discuss her spectacular freshman season and the best-of-three super regional series against Texas A&M which starts Friday at McCombs Field.Hosts Cedric Golden and Kirk Bohls also break down Texas baseball's postseason prospects, the landmark House vs. NCAA lawsuit and the end of the historic Longhorn Network, which ceases operations on July 1.

Topics and News Sony continues blasting their remaining foot off Microsoft lays off several prominent dev teams Phil Spencer - Time for a reckoning on his performance?   Upcoming Releases V Rising 1.0 Wildermyth: Omenroad Songs of Syx Ghost of Tsushima PC Dread Delusion (last week) Homeworld 3 (last week) Hades 2 Early access Songs of Conquest exits Early Access TOMORROW (or today when you listen to this) Hellblade 2 - May 21 System Shock comes to consoles this week Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord Remake Newfound Gems Fabledom 1.0 - Probably the most chill builder I've ever played and I really like it - your village/city is part of a larger continent. Go against other rulers, win them over with charm or sword.! Shout outs Geeks Gone Raw (Chase and Blue and crew)  On Second Thought with Mike and Matt The Talking Place with Los Where you can reach us  Voicemails, and Plug Voicemail Line - 610-810-1654 Facebook (tiny.ccsavepoint) Email (theretrorents@gmail.com) Twitter (@theretrorents, @RetroRentsAl, @BlackEagleOps) Twitch (@RetroRentsAl, @Kibbis, @BlackEagleOps, SodaXBread)

The Texas softball team has turned in a banner season up to this point, a Big 12 regular season title and a No. 1 ranking.The Horns are the No. 1 overall seed in the o NCAA tournament and open up Friday against the Siena Saints. 3 p.m. at Red and Charline McCombs field.Coach Mike White joins this week's On Second Thought podcast to discuss national title expectations, the 1-2 punch of Reese Atwood and Teagan Kavan in a loaded lineup, the omnipresent specter of three-time defending national champion Oklahoma and Longhorn Network's contribution to his building a national power.Statesman columnists Kirk Bohls and Cedric Golden also break down golf qualifying for the championship weekend, track's dominance and where Texas baseball might head for the NCAAs after closing out Big 12 play with a three-game home set against Kansas.

On episode #227 of The Author Factor Podcast I am having a conversation with nonfiction book author and podcaster, Debbie Weiss. Debbie is not only a seasoned entrepreneur but a new voice in the world of memoir writing, having transitioned from a diverse career in finance and insurance to becoming an author. Her journey reflects a rich tapestry of life experiences and personal evolution.Debbie's book, "On Second Thought, Maybe I Can," provides readers with a deeply personal narrative that is both empowering and relatable. It appeals to anyone who believes it might be too late to change their life's direction. Her story beautifully illustrates that meaningful change is possible at any stage of life, making it a compelling read for anyone facing their own crossroads.Learn more about Debbie by visiting DebbieRWeiss.com.For more details about our short, helpful book publishing program, visit BiteSizedBooks.com.

Nearly three weeks removed from the annual Orange-White spring game, Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian joins the On Second Thought podcast and gives an update on what improvements he seeks to make on the roster between now and summer workouts.He also discusses the NFL upside of Texas exes Xavier Worthy (Kansas City Chiefs) and Adonai Mitchell (Indianapolis Colts).Texas golf coach John Fields drops in to preview Monday's NCAA regional at the UT golf club. Hosts Cedric Golden and Kirk Bohls also touch on the red-hot Texas softball team and baseball's chances to repeat as Big 12 champions with two series remaining.

Topics and News We give our thoughts on the Sony/Helldivers 2 debacle (note: At the time of recording, Sony had not yet reversed the decision, which happened the next day). Indie games killing it, while AAA's FLOP hard. RIP Bernard Hill, King Theoden, Lord of the Riddermark 25th Anniversary of Star Wars - Episode 1, and the Mummy (dear god we're getting old. When did this happen!?) Upcoming Releases TW: WH3 - Throne of Decay - Excellent! Grabbit! Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Shin Megami Tensai V  Hades 2 (tech test)  Hellblade 2 - May 21 Frostpunk 2 - July 25 Newfound Gems Brew Barons - chill "golden age of flight" game where you... run a brewery and a bar?! Make drinks, get ingredients by buzzing (literally) farmer's fields with your propellers, and rain watery death upon thine enemies! (ok, not death, but it sure sends them running!) Shout outs Geeks Gone Raw (Chase and Blue and crew)  On Second Thought with Mike and Matt Where you can reach us  Voicemails, and Plug Voicemail Line - 610-810-1654 Facebook (tiny.ccsavepoint) Email (theretrorents@gmail.com) Twitter (@theretrorents, @RetroRentsAl, @BlackEagleOps) Twitch (@RetroRentsAl, @Kibbis, @BlackEagleOps, SodaXBread)

NFL Network/CBS football analyst Charles Davis drops in on the On Second Thought podcast to break down how several drafted Texas Longhorns — including wideout Xavier Worthy and defensive tackle T'Vondre Sweat — will fare with their new NFL teams.The Horns had 11 players drafted and several could make an immediate impact. Davis discusses those and Atlanta's surprising selection of Washington quarterback Michael Penix despite the offseason signing of Pro Bowler Kirk Cousins.

No one can break down a football team like Rod Babers.the Longhorn football legend and radio personality joins the On Second Thought podcast this week to examine Texas backup quarterback Arch Manning's superb performance in the Orange-White game and how it affects the dynamic with starter Quinn Ewers moving forward.He also points out Steve Sarkisian's biggest concerns as the Horns prepare for Year 1 in the Southeastern Conference.

Former Texas star Alex Okafor joins the On Second Thought podcast to discuss how the Longhorns will replace some huge contributors in 2024. Okafor, the 2012 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year and a Super Bowl champion with the Kansas City Chiefs, also gives his take on what we can expect from quarterback Quinn Ewers in his senior season and which player(s) will step up in the pass-rush departments.Hosts Cedric Golden and Kirk Bohls examine Texas baseball's major struggles after Tuesday's embarrassing 17-9 loss to UT Rio Grande Valley and the moves basketball coach Rodney Terry has been making in the transfer portal with the exits of starters Dillion Mitchell and Tyrese Hunter.

Texas basketball coach Rodney Terry joins this week's On Second Thought podcast to update us on the Texas roster and how he's navigating the transfer portal with leading scorers Dylan Disu and Max Abmas departing. He also gives us a primer on incoming freshman guard Tre Johnson, a a 6-foot-6 McDonald's All-American who has one-and-one potential.Hosts Cedric Golden and Kirk Bohls examine what football coach Steve Sarkisian is dealing with on the interior of the defensive line and also discuss the departure of Texas women's forward DeYona Gaston and the surging popularity of the women's game, led by Iowa star Caitlin Clark and South Carolina championship coach Dawn Staley.

We're at the midway point of spring football and Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian has his team preparing for the April 20 Orange-White Game at Royal-Memorial Stadium.On Second Thought hosts Cedric Golden and Kirk Bohls discuss the first half of workouts and examine Sarkisian's three most important areas of concern so far.They also put a bow on the end of the Texas women's season and chop it up with legendary Sporting News basketball writer Mike DeCourcy who previews the inevitable men's title game showdown between UConn and Purdue while hitting the women's Final Four and the huge surge in popularity of the game, led by Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark and others.

Spring football has started but March Madness is taking center on a jam-packed On Second Thought podcast.Hosts Cedric Golden and Kirk Bohls hit on what they saw from the Texas Longhorns on the first day of spring practice but first Texas basketball coaching legend Rick Barnes checks in to discuss his second-seeded Tennessee team's tournament hopes and a potential second-round clash with the Texas Longhorns, who he coached for 17 seasons and led to the 2003 Final Four where they lost to eventual national champion Syracuse and Carmelo Anthony in the semifinals. The men open with Colorado State Thursday.Women's basketball legend Andrea Lloyd, a member of the 1986 Longhorn team that went 34-0 en route to the program's lone national title, checks in and explains why she believes Vic Schaefer's crew will make it to the Final Four, which would be the program's first since the 2003 team that lost in the national semifinals to eventual national champion Connecticut and Diana Taurasi. The women open with Drexel Friday. 

With March Madness fast upon us, ESPN reporter/analyst Kris Budden joins the On Second Thought podcast to examine Texas' chances of making a deep run in the NCAAs along with the Big 12's best chances for a national championship. Hosts Kirk Bohls and Cedric Golden also discuss the biggest storylines surrounding Texas spring football, the resurgent Texas baseball team, Wemby's upcoming visit to Austin and the NFL free agent flurry. 

Will Texas wideout Xavier Worthy's electric 4.21 time in the 40 at the NFL Combine move him into the first round of the upcoming NFL Draft?Columnists Kirk Bohls and Cedric Golden break down his historic sprint and review how the other Longhorns fared in this week's On Second Thought podcast.They also break down the NCAA tournament fallout from Texas basketball's second-half collapse at Baylor, UT women's tourney hoops behind star freshman Madison Booker and the baseball team's massive struggles with the conference opener at Texas Tech coming up.

Texas baseball coach David Pierce joins this week's On Second Thought podcast to break down the team's explosive 7-1 start to the season and to preview a tough upcoming four-game stretch that starts with three games at the Astros Foundation College Classic in Houston (LSU, Texas State, Vanderbilt) followed by a home showdown on Tuesday against Texas A&M.Hosts Cedric Golden and Kirk Bohls also give the latest on Texas' men's basketball fighting to make the NCAA Tournament and preview this weekend's NFL Rookie Scouting Combine which features 11 draft hopefuls from the University of Texas.

Did the Texas administration overpay when it extended football coach Steve Sarkisian's contract from $5.6 annually to $10.3 million through 2030?Statesman sports columnists Cedric Golden and Kirk Bohls argue the merits in this week's On Second Thought podcast. Longhorn legend Keith Moreland drops in to give an early season primer on Texas baseball's 3-1 start, including his take on right-hander Tanner Witt's slow start after offseason Tommy John surgery. Moreland also dives into the never-ending debate surrounding the transfer portal, the NIL and his final season of games on Longhorn Network with his longtime broadcast partner Greg Swindell.

With a wealth of wisdom amassed over five decades navigating life's most formidable trials, Debbie Weiss stands as a luminary in the pursuit of personal dreams amidst adversity. Renowned as the author of the poignant memoir "On Second Thought, Maybe I Can" and a co-contributor to the acclaimed Amazon bestseller "Heart Whispers," her literary prowess resonates deeply with readers worldwide.   Beyond her literary achievements, Debbie is a multifaceted entrepreneur, steering both an esteemed insurance agency and her thriving online emporium, "A Sprinkle of Hearts." As the charismatic host of the empowering "Maybe I Can" podcast, she amplifies voices of resilience and champions transformative narratives. A captivating speaker and devoted family caregiver, Debbie's unwavering commitment to empowering others reflects her own journey of triumph over self-imposed limitations and fears.   In her boundless pursuit of fulfillment, Debbie finds solace in laughter, dance, literature, and an active lifestyle. Her indomitable spirit serves as an eternal wellspring of inspiration, guiding countless souls towards the realization of their fullest potential. https://www.debbierweiss.com ___________________ Subscribe to this podcast and download your favorite episodes to listen to later:     ___________________   ⚕️ Are you a woman healthcare professional who is struggling to juggle everything in your personal and professional life?