Telling the Truth of Who We Are with Luvvie Ajayi Jones
January 11, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things and today, we are going to do a very exciting, easy thing, which is have a convo with one of my favorite people. Her name, and I’m sure that all of you know her already, but I hope today you get to know her better… Her name is Luvvie Ajayi Jones and she is a two time New York times bestselling author, podcast host and sought-after speaker who thrives at the intersection of humor, media and justice. Yes, she does. Her critically acclaimed books, including Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual, which just came out in paperback and I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual-
Abby Wambach:
The best.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, both of them.
Abby Wambach:
Love that.
Glennon Doyle:
The best. One, I will tell you that I’m Judging You is the one book that my sister read, maybe, cover to cover and then when she got off the plane, after she was reading it, she called me and said, “I actually just peed in my pants on the plane. Pee came out.”
Amanda Doyle:
You know how you always say, “LOL,” but really you’re just typing, “LOL?” You’re like, “I did not even a little bit laugh.” I actually was laughing out loud on the plane. People were looking at me funny. It was amazing.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, and so many people felt that way, which is why both of these amazing books became instant best sellers. Luvvie writes on her site, awesomely levy.com, covering all things culture with a critical and hilarious lens. Her wildly popular TED Talk, check it out, called Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable has over 6 million views.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
My bio’s so long. Glennon, you don’t have to continue. It’s okay because we are all suffering.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Well, I do want to say that she was born in Nigeria.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Bred in Chicago and comfortable everywhere. Luvvie enjoys laying around in her plush robe, eating a warm bowl of jollof rice in her free time. Her love language is shoes.
Abby Wambach:
I have so much shoe envy.
Glennon Doyle:
I know her shoe game is serious.
Abby Wambach:
Her shoe game is shoe game is outrageous.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, the best part of her shoes is that her shoes make her like a preppy frat boy. She has preppy frat boy loafers all the time. She’s so intersectional. So intersectional.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
I dress like I own a yacht and I summer in Maine. I do. I do. It’s true.
Abby Wambach:
Well, Luvvie, we freaking love you. Listen, you don’t know this, but I get you in my inbox because I follow your newsletter that comes out and every single time, because on the newsletter you say, “Abby comma,” and then it’s your newsletter and so I’m like, “Oh my gosh. Luvvie emailed me.”
Glennon Doyle:
Every time, Luvvie. Luvvie is not-
Abby Wambach:
“Luvvie emailed me,”-
Glennon Doyle:
… talking to you.
Abby Wambach:
And then I open it and it’s your newsletter to your millions of communities. People, I’m like, “Oh, she didn’t email me. She emailed all of us.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Abby, I want you to have the special feeling every time. I really do. So, yes, please, continue to think I’m emailing you directly because I probably am thinking about Abby. Okay?
Abby Wambach:
That’s [crosstalk 00:03:16].
Amanda Doyle:
Who isn’t thinking about Abby?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
That’s what I’m saying. That’s what I’m saying.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, many of us over time have been taught not to judge. We have been taught, “Judge not, lest we be judged,” so we’re scared because of whatever the hell that means. All we do is judge though. That’s the problem with that, is that all day all we do is judge.
Abby Wambach:
Some of us, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
No, no.
Abby Wambach:
Some of us.
Glennon Doyle:
We are all-
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
All of us.
Glennon Doyle:
… judging all the time.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
All the time.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. So what I love about Luvvie, many things, but one of the things is that she judges freely and openly and relentlessly and-
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
And shamelessly.
Glennon Doyle:
… shamelessly and it helps us all do better.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. So before we get into all of that, what I want to know, Luv, from you is… The theme of our podcast is that we can do hard things so we are always trying to talk about the real shit, right?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
So what would you say right now at this moment in your life, when you have such a beautiful professional life but also such a beautiful personal life, I love your marriage and just your relationship with your friends is so real, I want to talk about that later-
Abby Wambach:
Admirable big time. You guys are always doing something cool together and you’re always on a yacht somewhere.
Glennon Doyle:
And supporting each other.
Abby Wambach:
I want to be on a yacht somewhere with Luvvie and nobody’s freaking inviting me.
Glennon Doyle:
You don’t have yacht shoes, so you can’t go. But what, Luvvie, is hard for you these days? If you had to think about what you wake up, you go to bed worrying about or thinking about, what is the hard thing for you as we begin this 2022?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
The hard thing for me is stopping. Many of us are Type A overachievers, perfectionists, creatives, writers, artists. Stopping is my biggest problem. I always have a thousand ideas and here’s a reason why it’s a hard thing, because I feel like my brain just won’t shut off. Sometimes I’m like, “Brain, shut up. Let’s just chill for a hot second. Let’s not do another project right quick. Let’s actually just sit on the couch and be blobs,” and I think in the run, run, run of our lives and of these purpose driven lives that we want to lead, sometimes purposefully lead us to exhaustion. And you’re excited. You’re invigorated by the work and by the journey but sometimes you also hit a wall and you go, “I’m burned out,” so that’s why my challenge is to stop. I produce so much. So that’s really hard.
Abby Wambach:
Well, I have a question. I just want to follow up. What is driving you to not stop? What is the-
Glennon Doyle:
What’s the fear?
Abby Wambach:
… driver of the thing that rises up that’s like, “Oh no, I got to keep pushing on, I got to forge ahead?”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Ooh, that’s a good question. Momentum, maybe. It’s like the ball is rolling. Don’t stop the ball and I think it’s something that a lot of us have in terms of limiting beliefs. If you’re on any margins, you feel like your chance is small and what’s interesting is, I don’t even think my chance is small for whatever my purpose is but yet I’m still running. I think it’s our constant need to… Maybe it’s that we actually think without producing, we’re really not worth all we think we’re worth.
Abby Wambach:
Okay, so you’re driving towards a worthiness?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
I think there’s an imposter syndrome piece there.
Abby Wambach:
That’s cool.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
I think there’s an imposter syndrome piece there because we talk about imposter syndrome as like, “Oh my God. I can’t believe I’m in that room.” No, I think as a lot of us rise in our careers, it shape shifts into this thing that says, “Now you have to prove your way to stay where you are at.”
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
And to be worthy. I feel that. You and I, Luvvie, we have teams of people and we have people who are counting on whatever the hell we’re going to show up and do next so what if we don’t show up and do anything? It’s scary, actually.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
The other day I actually wrote a note to myself in my phone and I said, “Who am I when I am not giving something to somebody?”
Abby Wambach:
Damn.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
It was a question I wanted to start asking myself, “Who am I when I am not giving somebody something?” What do I feel is my worth when I have nothing to offer?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Am I still lovable in my most selfish moments?
Abby Wambach:
So let me ask a followup to that. I think it’s really important. Who do you take from? Because it sounds like-
Glennon Doyle:
Who do you get from?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, it sounds that you’re always giving, giving, giving. Who do you let give to you? Who in your life is giving you love, force, energy, light.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Ooh, this is so good. Wow. I take from my husband and sometimes he’s like, “Let me give you stuff,” and I’m like, “Huh, that’s hard,” and I’m like, “I just have to accept.” I am the person who… I’m not kidding. Again, I had this conversation with Carnell last week. Anybody who walks into my house, walks away with something. A book, some food, a drink, something. I don’t let people walk into my house without them leaving with something more than they came in with. So that question of, “Who do I take from?” Probably my village, my friends and my partner because they force it upon me. They’re helping to rewire my brain to say, “The giver can also receive.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
That reminds me, Luvvie, of that part of Professional Troublemaker where you’re talking about your grandma to whom that book is a tribute and you were talking about, in her late years, this woman, who had become so fiercely independent her whole life, was allowing herself to be taken care of for the first time. And you wrote, “The lifelong soldier had dropped the reins and allowed herself to be fully in the hands of someone else. It was a show of strength. If love is a verb, is there a greater show of love than to abdicate your very being to the person you raised well enough to hold you up? What is pride when we can have love shown to us instead?” And to me, the, “What is pride when we can have love shown to us instead,” was soul shifting for me because that encapsulates this whole conversation we’ve been having, right?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
If you think your worthiness is being in what you can offer, what you can prove and you take your pride in that it, becomes this self-fulfilling way of living your whole life and in the absence of that pride and the absence of that offering, you feel like, “What am I even doing here?” But when you compare it to love, where that might be your choice in any circumstance. It might be, you can choose pride or you can choose love.
Glennon Doyle:
So do you think it’s pride, Luvvie? Do you think it’s partly pride that keeps us hamster-wheeling, afraid of not producing the next thing? Is it partly pride?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
A part of it is pride but I think just a majority of it is fear of losing control. I think that’s also what it looks like when you have to receive something. When you’re are receiving, you’re not the person in control in that moment. You’re not the person who’s calling the shots and I always tell people, “I write things and I create things that are actually speaking to me.” So, as you’re speaking those words that I wrote back to me, I’m like, “God damn it. That’s real.” Because it is something that I struggle with and I actively have to practice, the willingness to let go of control by being the person receiving, not the person giving. And by receiving that, and again, some of it is ego because you think you got the answers. You think you have it all together but a lot of this is I’m not comfortable when I’m not the one in control.
Glennon Doyle:
Giving as control. Shit. Yes. And receiving as love because love is the opposite of control.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
And receiving is surrendering and surrendering is hard. Again, so it takes us back to why I can’t stop. If you actually stop, you have to surrender. You have to let go of control. You have to just trust something bigger than you for the next moment but I’m run, run, run, run, run, so that surrendering is a struggle. It is a constant work in progress.
Glennon Doyle:
Luvvie, for those of us who have any sort of concept that there’s some kind of bigger power, which we both do, it’s so amazing that we are so crazy hamster-wheeling-
Abby Wambach:
It’s unbelievable actually.
Glennon Doyle:
… because if we stopped, we have… Actually, do we believe that?
Abby Wambach:
I know.
Glennon Doyle:
Because I actually believe if I am the one creating all of these things, if I’m not stopping ever to let the creator-
Abby Wambach:
Unseen order of things.
Glennon Doyle:
… say, “Hey, how about this next?” I don’t know how they would get my attention. I’m too busy stressing about the next thing to listen for the next thing.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Correct. Because anxiety’s real, because Type A is real, because lifelong perfectionist is real, lifelong purpose driven people are real, but yes. We say we believe in this higher power. I wear a cross around my neck, have been since I was born actually, and yet I’m not surrendering to just let God do what he’s going to do or she or them. You know what I mean? The universe, align.
Glennon Doyle:
I was in my basement the other day and my mom, a long time ago, made my daughter this sign that said, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” which made me think of you, of course, because of the fear thing. That quote is always said to inspire people to do big things but my immediate thought was, “I would stop.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
I would stop. I would stop.
Glennon Doyle:
If I were not afraid, I would stop.
Abby Wambach:
Damn. Oh, that’s it.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
That’s it, because here’s the thing. I don’t think I’m afraid of failure. I will always win. I’m afraid of success and what comes with it and all the things I got to put in place because of it, all the things I’m not prepared for. I never call myself an expert in anything. I never say like, “Oh my gosh, I got it all figured out.” Even my book, I’m always like, “Listen, I wrote this for me. You just happen to be able to read it.” But the fear of, “I don’t know if I’m prepared for what is next,” is real.
Glennon Doyle:
You do such a beautiful job telling us how to do better in every way. My sister will call me and read your rants. How can the world do better in 2022? Who are you side eyeing, side eye sorceress, these days?
Abby Wambach:
Okay. Hold on. Before we get into this, I just want to say, when we first met Luvvie, we met her on a nationwide tour and she would do the same… Because we all had our scripts that we would say every night. It was so much fun and I had never heard of the concept, “side eye” until I met Luvvie and I just think that like some of your vocabulary is so important. So make sure to include, in all the story you talk about today, all of the fun little things, “side eye, fix your face…”
Glennon Doyle:
Well, Luvvie taught you fix… Luvvie, I have a problem. I can’t not show how I’m feeling on my face all the time.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Your face is an outside voice like mine is.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Face is an outside voice. We were all on stage together and if somebody stood up on our stage and started to say something that I thought our audience wasn’t going to like or whatever, my face would just look nasty and then that my face would be on a huge screen above-
Abby Wambach:
A little control situation.
Glennon Doyle:
… and I wouldn’t know it until Luvvie would look at me and go, “Fix your face, Glennon.”
Abby Wambach:
Fix your face, Glennon.
Glennon Doyle:
Fix your face, Glennon.
Abby Wambach:
And so it’s a marriage shifting moment for me because, number one, you gave me language at things that I could do that could help disengage Glennon from what was going on in her insides to like cover it up, just a touch. Just a touch.
Glennon Doyle:
She says it to me every day, Luvvie, now.
Abby Wambach:
Fix your face, baby.
Glennon Doyle:
Fix your face. So if you were going to say to the world, “Fix your face,” how would we fix our face these days?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Well, first of all, anytime me and Glennon were sitting on the stage next to each other, it was a problem. It was a problem because then you have two of us on screen at the same time. One of us undoubtedly having a face that’s just not it. There were other times when Glennon told me to fix my face, because again, I have an outside voice. I feel like Glennon’s my soul sister. We’re so similar in so many ways.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, that’s right.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
So me and her together is either disastrous in the best way… Actually, no. That’s always that. That’s it.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s disastrous in the best way.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
It’s disastrous in the best way. We both need supervision.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
And I feel like Abby and Carnell are our supervision. Okay?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, that’s it. Abby and Carnell should have a support group, is what they should have.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
They really do. They have a club. They really do. So what I’m telling the world to fix our face around because, yes, I am judging us. But here’s the thing, the thing about judging is instead of us kidding ourselves and being like, “We’re not judging,” we’re judging. We’re making judgment calls every single day. The problem is we’re judging each other on the wrong things. We’re judging each other on what we look like and who we love or don’t or what deity we worship or don’t. Instead, we should be judging each other on how to be better human beings. How are we showing up to make this dumpster fire world less of a dumpster fire? And who I’m judging now is mostly the GOP who is removing the rights of women, who are not recognizing the humanity of people, purely because they identify as a different gender.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
It’s just so crazy. I feel like we’re moving backwards in this country in terms of decency but I also feel like part of the reason why we’ve been able to move backwards is from the silence of, quote unquote, good people. It’s from the people who enable fuck shit, simply by just, “Oh, that’s not my business. Oh, I can’t say anything. Oh, I’m not going to challenge that.” That is how the world’s a dumpster fire and that’s who I’m constantly judging, actually, are the people who identify as good people but do not put action behind it, do not put voice behind it, do not put money or time behind it. But what’s good about you? Your apathy? That’s not good. Those are people who I’m constantly being like, “Yo, you’re not doing your part.”
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Amanda Doyle:
That’s your line of, “Life is one giant group project and our grade largely is dependent on other people’s actions.” It’s like we are living in a group project and half the people are like, “I’ll sit this one out. Someone’s going to do the report. Someone’s going to do it.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
You know what? That is why we are on the hamster world, Glennon. Because the A students are having to pick up the slack for the F students who just refuse to show up and the A students are like, “Come the fuck on. I did my part. I did my part of the project. Now I got to do yours. I don’t even have the time for this,” but then we still trying to do it. That’s why we can’t surrender because we’re like, “But if I stop, who’s going to keep going?”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s why, when you and I do any sort of group project together-
Abby Wambach:
Oh my God. The side text messages are…
Glennon Doyle:
… it’s you and I at 2:00 AM on the call still.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yep.
Abby Wambach:
I’m like, “Y’all. All right. Let me send Luvvie some food because she hasn’t left her damn chair in three days.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
For 13 hours. I just have to say again… Let’s actually go back to that.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
The group projects that me and Glennon have done together… At this point, I can count at least three.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
And I have to say, there’s usually a point where I call Glennon, where she don’t even get a hello. I just start cussing-
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
… on the phone where she just picks up phone and I’m just like, “Why are people awful? Why are people trash, every single time?” and she’s like, “I know.” So we have 20 minutes where we’re just cussing at the state of the world and people and why we hate people and we love them at the same time.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
And that you guys continue to engage in said group projects amazes me. I’m like, “But okay. So…”
Glennon Doyle:
Because Luvvie is judging people but what the thing is, that I love so much, is that the reason that she keeps judging… It’s like the James Baldwin thing about, “I love America and because I love America, it is my duty to ceaselessly criticize her.” It’s like that with you. It’s like you would not continuously and relentlessly show up and insist upon better if it didn’t come from a love, a belief that we can all create something better here. There’s no apathy there.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Here’s the thing. What it means to be a disruptor is not just the person standing on the corner being like, “I don’t like that. That’s not cool.” You have to be trying to put some skin in the game. You can’t just critique the world but what part are you doing to be a part of the change? Which is why I end up doing more group projects because I’m like, “I don’t like what’s happening. Instead of being on the sideline complaining, I got to do something.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
So it’s the, “Do something,” where that happens but I think we go against people whose why’s are not clear. We go against people who are not sure why they do what they do, who don’t have values that are very concrete and then we have to fight against that. We have to position it and shift it and make sure it’s in the right place. I am usually the person who will come back and say, “Hey, I don’t think this direction is working,” or, “We’re leaving some people behind,” or, “We’re not asking the right questions,” and the frustration is in the love of, “Let’s fix it.”
Amanda Doyle:
That’s why the difference between being a disruptor and a cynic is the risk you put in of your belief it could be better.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, that’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s easy to be a cynic and be like, “Everything is trash.” That’s not who you are because that person is removed and safe from the distance of having none of their heart in it. Right?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yep.
Glennon Doyle:
And the disruptor follows up. Luvvie, it’s saying the thing and then saying, “There needs to be a change here,” and then offering, the way Luvvie does, offering six creative solutions to that thing and then having four people that she brings the table that says these people will help and then still being on the call at 2:00 AM. It’s like, “Not this and I’m putting my blood, sweat, tears, energy, mind and soul behind changing it.” But Luvvie, how do you know when that’s enough?
Abby Wambach:
I was just going to say, what is enough?
Glennon Doyle:
We were at something recently and I was up at 5:00 AM and doing something on the computer. I don’t know what, writing something or… And Abby sat down next to me with a cup of coffee and she said, “Do you know that we are not going to destroy the patriarchy?”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Singularly not going to…
Glennon Doyle:
She was dead serious and I was like, “What?” and she was like, “Just us, we’re not going to fix this.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
And it might never…
Glennon Doyle:
“You’re not one project away from fixing this. You are never going to fix this,” and Luvvie, for a full day, I was like, “What?” It was as if I was actually living with the idea that we were just one group project away, that we were so close and this idea of, “Oh my God. I have to figure out how to take care of my life and each other and still engage but not live that way.” How do you-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, because we’re part of the long game here. We are, in terms of our little short lives, this whatever, 60, 70, 80, a hundred years, if we’re lucky-
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Amen.
Abby Wambach:
… that’s a snap in terms of the timeline of humanity. So what we’re working on is something we might never ever see fixed. How do you stay motivated to stay on that rat wheel-
Glennon Doyle:
But take care of yourself too and have a beautiful life because everybody deserves to have joy now and peace now.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
I will tell you one of my purposes and why it’s a selfish purpose. So I feel like one of my life purposes is to recruit more professional troublemakers in the world, is to create them, to affirm them. Why? Well, one, I’ll tell you what a professional troublemaker is. A professional troublemaker is not the cynic. They’re not the troll. They’re not the chaotic person, the contrarian. They’re the person who feels this deep compulsion to make a change for good. They’re the person who is speaking up in the meeting. They’re the friend who has a tough conversation with you. They’re the person who says, “You know what? I’m going to do or say the hard thing.” Why I called my book Professional Troublemaker is because I wanted some people to see themselves in it and I wanted to shock some people because it is a good thing for us to be troublemakers.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
I think about the late great John Lewis who said it was necessary to make good trouble. His life is a testament of making good trouble. Now, my purpose is to recruit more professional troublemakers so that, Glennon, you’re not fixing the patriarchy, but if a 100,000 people can say, “I am going to be a part of the fix,” maybe the 100 years becomes 80. Maybe it’s eight generations, not 15. Because selfishly, I want to be able to say, “You know what? Today, my job is not to fix the patriarchy or racism or transphobia. It’s your job today because you’re chilling right there.” The more of us who are committed to doing this work, the less time it will take, the more of us can rest and take breaks because somebody else will pick up the baton. But what happens is everybody is constantly waiting for somebody else to do the work.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Everybody’s waiting for Superman when they also have red capes. So it’s like, “How about if everybody thought they were Superman?” Everybody, all of us, says “It is my job.” So then when Glennon is sitting at home and goes, “I don’t want to do this today,” you don’t have to think, “Well shoot. Nobody’s doing the work.” Somebody else is always there to pick it up. So that is why I’m like, “I want to recruit more people in the world to feel convicted, not just compelled, convicted to want to do something, say something, be an actionable part of change.” Because listen, a lot of people are exhausted. A lot of people decide to take a day off or a month off or sabbaticals. Hell, I want to be a librarian in Ohio for six months one day. I don’t know.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, are you serious? I want to work at a small bookstore and that’s what I want to do. Every day, I think that’s my dream.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Where nobody knows me?
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yes. But I’m like, “Who’s going to be truth telling?” Who’s going to be signing on people and telling them to fix their face?
Abby Wambach:
The people that you recruit are going to be truth telling.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Correct.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. You’re creating the army.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
And that is why I’m also creating baby armies. That’s why I created Rising Troublemaker for the teens because I want them to also pick up the baton for us. So we-
Glennon Doyle:
Can we talk about that?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s talk about that because-
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
You and I have had conversations about what you talk about, being a disrupter and being a troublemaker out in the world. But what we have learned with our life recently is this very interesting thing, that when you model for kids what that looks like, as we have tried to model for our children, they start to become an interesting kind of troublemaker, which is that they start to notice and call out toxic patterns, not just out in the world where you taught them to do it but inside their own damn home.
Abby Wambach:
Even worse.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Luvvie, you know, we have had some things I’m not even ready to talk about in public. Our little, most sensitive kid is our troublemaker.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
She would never break a rule out in the world. But she calls out things in our patterns in our family that we, long ago, Luvvie, made an unwritten pact to not speak of. Okay?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
That’s Tish.
Abby Wambach:
She does.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yes, Tish I stan.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And Luvvie, that’s why your new book for teens and twins is so freaking important because these kids, the troublemakers are the canaries and the coal mines. They’re the ones who speak up, not just out there, but in systems in your home and break patterns.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Can I tell you that I wanted to write the Rising Troublemaker for teens because teenagers are the troublemakers of the world but what happens is it gets beaten out of them, abused out of them, insulted out of them. I think the truest version of ourselves is before that happens. So what happens if we catch them before they’re broken out of who they really are and say, “Continue to being that person. I need you to continue using your voice. I want you to continue being different. I want you to be too much.” And yes, have people be like, “She’s different.” “Yes, you’re welcome.” What happens if we don’t have to unlearn who everybody else wanted us to be?
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
The power of… If somebody at 12 or at 13 is told, “Who you are right now, as odd and weird as you want to be, is amazing,” we would not be 35, 36, 37, looking for who we are.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
So it was important for me to write that book and when I came to your house and I got to sit with them for three hours and talk to these brilliant world leaders, I was like, “Oh my God. Yes.” What you guys are doing that’s magical is that you are giving them the permission to just be and that in itself is revolutionary. That is in itself something that we did not have the privilege of having. I happened to have it because of my grandmother and because I had a mom who insisted she let me be this person. So I was like, “What is the thing that 17 year old, 16 year old, 12 year old Luvvie, what are the things that would be good for her to know which confirm her journey?”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
As opposed to her being like, “I’m still going to be myself. It’s kind of weird because everybody thinks I’m different, but I’m still going to do it.” But what if she hears, “I need you to do that. It’s not even an option. I want you to do it. I welcome you to do it. I will support you and have your back in it. This is the way you are supposed to move.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
So Chase, Tish, in talking to them, they inspired me to really go, “Yes. What does it look like for other kids to get that affirmation before something traumatic happens, before they have to unlearn all these things about themselves that nothing was wrong about.” It was just, people were uncomfortable with it.
Glennon Doyle:
Children are not actually supposed to tow the line because they’re from a whole new place so they’re supposed to be leading us somewhere forward. I told you long ago, I just think that your message is of insane importance right now, especially as we go into whatever the new normal is because I think that in corporations, in families, in schools, in every institution, we have gotten to a point where we understand that the dissenters are the ones who will save us. If families, institutions don’t start creating cultures where dissent is celebrated, they’re all going to go down because families and every institution is run by old ways of thinking.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. It’s just a matter of time.
Glennon Doyle:
And so if you silence people, you’re screwed later.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
The world we live in was built by troublemakers, was built by people who saw the way things were and said, “That’s not going to work.” We fly in tin cans in the sky. At some point somebody was like, “Maybe horse and buggy is not the move?” And then somebody else was probably like, “You’re crazy. That’s wild. I’m going to be in my horse and buggy.” This person was like, “No, I feel like we can get places faster,” and I’m sure along the ways, everybody thought this person was insane. The world we live in was built by people who saw the box and said, “The box is not enough. The box is not going to do. Let’s blow the box up and build something else.” So when we are against dissenters and troublemakers and disruptors, I’m like, “That means you’re against growth and innovation.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Innovation, whether in tech, business, media, families is from the people who say, “Let’s do something different.” So instead of us constantly punishing people, let’s actually celebrate them and say, “You know what? Yes, everything is ripe for disruption.” The world we live in was built by disruptive individuals who created disruptive systems, disruptive ideas and that’s how we have the best things we have. We’re on the Jetsons situation right now. Somebody thought that was possible. I’m like, “We’re talking. We’re not in the same room and I see you and I hear you.” And I’m like, “Wow, guys.”
Abby Wambach:
I know.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
“Huh. Amazing.” Technology was built by disruptors. People who were like, “Yo, we’ve gone to the moon, guys.” A challenger did that. So I just want us to start getting used to, whether it’s in our homes, where it’s actually really important.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Here’s the other thing too. Don’t be a troublemaker out in public and you are at home dealing with foolishness. Who you are in public better match who you are in private. So don’t make Facebook statuses about racism. Meanwhile, you cross the street when a black person walks by you. What was the status for? So I love the fact that you have kids who are like, “No, no, no. In the house, I’m going to start here,” because that’s actually most important. I don’t want us to think about making the world better by just writing checks. What are we doing about the house we live in, about the people we know and love, who we have access to? Part of the ways that I’ve built really deep relationships is I always tell my friends, my family members, that I’m always available for feedback. You can always tell me when I did something wrong and I’ll say, “Oh my God, I hear you. I’m so sorry.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
That, for me, matters more than the person who’s outside and caps, caps, caps on Twitter or Facebook. Glennon being able to text me something is way more important than 10 people telling me something on social media. It does not land just because I don’t know you. But I know Glennon, or I know this other person. They come directly to me. So in the same way, it is time . It is time that we start celebrating, creating, affirming the troublemakers because when we don’t, dumpster fires happen, like we are in now. I want the kids to get this and I’m so… Y’all are raising all these troublemakers which means they’re going to create other troublemakers, which means this world will be better for it, simply because you have the revolutionary stance of letting them be who they are. And that, that is significant.
Glennon Doyle:
I love the fire of the troublemaker but then, I love how you talk about the softness, which feels like the water part of it to me, which is, “And I have all of these things to say, and I’m saying them with fire and I am always open for feedback.” That feels so important to me. There’s so few people that actually feel like they are truly for feedback. It’s so scary to tell people when they’ve hurt you or… How do you do that, Luvvie? You do do that. Recently, you told me about, you were in a real conversation with somebody that you had had a long relationship with and you were telling the person that you were hurt. How do you enter conversations with people that you actually know and love? Because that kind of troublemaking is harder-
Abby Wambach:
It’s a form of disruption.
Glennon Doyle:
… than with people we don’t like.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yes.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
It’s hardest.
Amanda Doyle:
I’ve had conversations on this podcast about my marriage that I haven’t had with my husband. It is easier. It is easier than in the closest places. That’s the hardest part.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
It’s the hardest part. And I have to say, you have to have hard conversations with full vulnerability. Full uncomfortable, the naked vulnerability where you start the conversation by saying how hard it is to have this conversation. Where you go, “So I’ve been sitting on this for three weeks and I’ve been thinking about it and it’s really hard for me to talk about tough things. So allow me to say this and I hope you receive this in the heart that’s intended. Just know this is really hard for me, but I think it’s really important. So I’m going to just push past my discomfort. I’m going to tell you anyway.” Full vulnerability, just come with your imperfect self and just tell this person, “I don’t want to do this. This is not fun for me. I’ve sat on this for three weeks. I’ve procrastinated on it. I’ve thought about the words but here I am anyway. I’m just going to show up anyway and take me as I am.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
One, it gets the person ready to hear something difficult because you don’t want to go in all like, “All right, so you just pissed me off.” In that moment where you’re being vulnerable, you’re actually priming them to start hearing you, that something tough is coming so it’s not a blind side. And then in it, they also know that this thing that you’re doing, you don’t want to do it. So the fact that you’re doing it is necessary and it buys you a little bit more time. Even the 30 seconds more courage. It buys you a little bit more time and you go, “Okay, let’s have this conversation.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Here’s what I do practically whenever I need to have a tough conversation. I will write it down first. I will come into the conversation with my own bullet list of points I want to make. Why? Because when I get emotional, I can get derailed very quickly. I might want to focus on one issue, becomes eight. Next thing you know, the first issue that I was actually bringing to you, ain’t even that. So I actually know me. To thine own self be true. So I will have my bullet list and I’ll say, “Okay, I want to talk to you about these things. Let me finish before you say something because I want to make sure I get through it and then let’s talk it through.”
Abby Wambach:
Do you actually have the list with you or do you just keep it in your mind?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
No, I have the list with me.
Abby Wambach:
Oh my gosh. That is amazing.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
I have the list with me. So if the person’s not in the same room as me, I typically like to have tough conversations on camera. So I’ll video call them. So I have the lists on my computer. If the person is in the room with me, I will have either the notes on my phone and I’ll say, “I’m looking at my phone, not because I’m texting, but because I have my notes on here,” and the person goes, “Okay.” This is how I even do it with my husband. He knows when I need to have a tough conversation, it’s most productive when I have something written done. If I come to him off the jump, it’s not going to go well because I’m going to get real raggedy. It’s terrible. I get real [inaudible 00:40:34] and raggedy. I’m like, “My mouth, my mouth. Okay. My bad.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
So I come with the notes and then I talk and then we can go back and forth and it’s really logical. Whenever I’m really upset and I want to have a tough conversation, I also slow down how I talk. I’m actually very deliberate and intentional, especially when I’m feeling emotional, because I want to make sure I don’t ruin or break something that can’t be fixed because of my impulsivity or because of my mouth or because in that moment I feel like being petty. So I’ll slow down how I’m talking. I’ll say, “Okay. So how I’m feeling,” literally like this, “How I’m feeling is…” Me, who typically is fast talking, I get real slow and I say, “Okay, here’s how I’m feeling. Here’s how this thing hurt me. I feel like…,” and I get real slow and then the person is like, “All right. Got it.” So if the conversation does not go well, it’s not because I blew up the box.
Abby Wambach:
What is something in your marriage that you’re trying to do better this year?
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
That’s a good question. So remember how I said I need to write everything down? I also suck at listening sometimes. I’ll go, “Okay. I got to focus. I got to focus about what you got to say here.” I’ll be, “I’m here with you. I’m here it with you.” Next thing you know, I’m squirreling with my to-do list. I’m like, “What did he just say the last 20 seconds? Oh, missed it. Damn it.” So I’ll be like, “Can you write it down for me?” I’m actually trying to be a more active listener for when he’s talking to me in those moments where I don’t go in my head and start going, “Come on. That’s not what I meant.”
Abby Wambach:
Tell him to text it or tweet it?
Glennon Doyle:
But Luvvie, that’s part of receiving.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
It’s part of receiv… You see?
Glennon Doyle:
When you’re talking, you’re in control. You’re offering, “I’m giving you the business.” It’s surrender. It’s nothingness in the listening.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
It’s the listening. I am actively trying to be a better listener for him because he’s actually become a better communicator. Our therapist was like, “He’s actually more emotionally available than you.” I was like, “It’s true.”
Abby Wambach:
Luvvie is mouth open, completely shocked right now if you need…
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
I was aghast. I clutched my pearls. And I was like, “I don’t even have pearls, but I’m clutching them. But she’s right.” I was like, “I can’t even argue that fact,” because he’s a better listener, sometimes a better communicator when it’s time to receive information and I’m over here like, “Okay, I got to do better at that.” So again, as I’m judging the world, I’m judging myself too in the moment. The intentional fixes of my own thing, how am I making trouble in my own marriage? I got to be a better listener so I can be more present so I can receive better, surrender better, let go of control more.
Glennon Doyle:
The takeaways from that I freaking love. I think sometimes we think, “Well, if I’m going in with my closest person, I can just freeform,” and then we end up bringing our worst selves to each other. Whenever I leave a hard conversation feeling bad about myself, it’s because I lost my shit. I didn’t stick to the plan. I got emotional and then I feel guilty and worse afterwards.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
It just happened to be yesterday and then I have to apologize and do all the things.
Abby Wambach:
I hear this. However, I do think it’s important that, for those of us who want to have an intentional important conversation, that sometimes your script or your list isn’t really getting to the truthiest truth of it all because it’s just only one sided.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Correct.
Abby Wambach:
To me, I think it’s really important what you said minutes ago about being this disrupter and also being open to feedback. There’s this surrender in terms of those conversations. So yes, you can have a plan. Yes, you can have an intention but there also has to be-
Glennon Doyle:
Surrender within that.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
100%.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Correct. So here’s the thing is, it’s important to have surrender within a framework. Why? Because again, I had a conversation with him where I did not bring my list, where somewhere in the conversation, my brain shut off from listening and it just became defensive, defensive. I was not receiving anything and I just started spouting off at the mouth. So the next day, I’m recounting to my girlfriends. I was in WhatsApp and one of my friends gave me three minutes. She let me rant for three minutes and she comes back and she says, “So, you know you have to apologize, right?” and I was like, “What? What do you mean? I’m feeling petty right now. Why am I apologizing for anything? Why? Why?” and she was like, “Ma’am, if you don’t go apologize, you went too hard.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
And I was like, “But I’m feeling petty. I don’t feel like being a big person right now,” and she was like, “Your assignment in the next hour is to go apologize because you were wrong. You might have started with issues that made sense for you, but the way you handled it did not make sense.” And I was like, “Ugh, I hate when she’s right,” and I had to go apologize. So again, receiving the feedback, being able to get those from people who you trust and then, at that point, I received it and I heard and I said, “Okay,” and I went back and said, “Here’s what I said that was not okay. Here’s why it was not okay. Here’s how I will try to mitigate this next time and I am sorry, because I did get to a point in our conversation where I was not listening to you. I was not receiving anything you were trying to give me and that’s where it went wrong.” So yeah, it’s a give and take in that way.
Amanda Doyle:
I just think it’s interesting because on the issues of surrender and trust and communication, the part of your book that clicked for me was about none of those things. It was the part where you were talking about how you don’t share your first name outside of your house. You say that you stopped. When you came to America and you started a school in the U.S. for the first time, you said you stopped using your name because people, and you still don’t, you still only use it in your home, because people made it ugly and heavy. “I wanted to protect it fiercely. When people used it, it took on a sound that was unrecognizable”, and that for me is so much of why we don’t share. When I tell you my experience, when I tell you how I feel, you return it back to me in a way that is unrecognizable to what I feel in my bones and there is nothing that makes you feel lonelier than that.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yes.
Female:
Yep.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Wow.
Amanda Doyle:
And so I think that’s why when people share, I’m always shocked by defensiveness. I get it, but it’s like, “Are you kidding me? You’ve just been gifted with a trust that 99% of the world doesn’t have, because most people will just decide they’re done with you, will never disclose anything vulnerable to you because of that fear that when you return it to them, it’s ugly and heavy and unrecognizable.” And I think that’s why we don’t do it, because it’s so-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so vulnerable.
Amanda Doyle:
… hard. It’s so hard to have someone we love say, “Okay, so this is what I hear you’re saying,” and if it’s 1% off, we’re like, “You don’t know me and no one will ever know me.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
No one will ever know me! I thought we were in community. I think marriage, deep friendships, I don’t care about your acquaintances, deep friendships require that type of sharing and vulnerability and failure. Because you will drop the ball on somebody’s feelings, especially the people you’re closest to, are who you will drop their feelings more often than not. So how do you make it safe for them to do it again? And I think that’s where the apologizing comes in. It’s what my therapist calls, “Repairing.” It’s not that we had the argument. That’s not what matters the most. It’s how we finished it, how we buttoned it up, how we repaired it, how we came back together. So we can bust a fight, whether it’s friends or partners, but at what point did the fight end with, “But I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry that I did this thing that did not honor you. I’m sorry that I stepped outside of my own integrity and did something that made you feel unheard, unseen, unaffirmed.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
And I think that’s what’s important about anything. I’m trying to be a better friend and when I call somebody a friend, I mean it, because when I call you a friend, it means I’m taking some responsibility for your care.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Which is why I can’t call everybody my friend. If I say that is my friend-
Abby Wambach:
Whoa, that is big.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
… I am taking some responsibility for your care and I take that seriously. So you are all my friends and I’ve said that to you. I don’t use that word lightly because it means I have to put some skin in the game for your wellbeing.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Luvvie, I want to ask you if you were going to tell our precious pod squad just one little thing, one next right thing that they could do to just fight fear in their lives, just today… And it’s called We Can Do Hard Things, but Luvvie, just be clear that we really mostly like easy things. So not a huge hard thing. Just like a little thing in our everyday lives that we could do to fight that fear voice inside of us and kind of shift the wind.
Abby Wambach:
Drinking water is one that I love.
Glennon Doyle:
So, if drinking water is a two, we go to a four.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know. I think drinking water is hard-
Glennon Doyle:
That’s true.
Abby Wambach:
… and also really good for you.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
I think so but I don’t drink enough. One thing that somebody can do today to help them fight their fear… Man… I want you to give yourself permission to fail. What does that mean? Whether it’s having the tough conversation, maybe it’s not going to go well, whether it’s asking your boss for a raise, I think that’s an important thing because when you give yourself the permission to fail, the fear becomes less daunting. If you’re like, “I might not do it, but I’m going to try anyway,” it becomes less of a dragon. Slay the dragon.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. And you’re giving yourself permission to fail and you’re also giving yourself permission to try-
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
That’s it.
Abby Wambach:
… in the pursuit of this permission to fail. I love that.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Just be like, “It might not go well. It’s fine. Nobody dies.”
Abby Wambach:
Oh, I love that.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
It’s fine. Just give yourself permission to fail, today.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s like the Bart Simpson thing I always liked where he was like-
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
At least you tried, that GIF.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. And then he was always like, “I can’t promise to try, but I’ll try to try.” I feel that. I feel that deeply. I love talking to you so much, Luvvie. You’re just a really important person in my life and sister’s life and Abby’s life. We care for you deeply. We call you a friend and we would like to have skin in the game about your care. We are grateful for your time here and everyone’s going to be really excited to know that Luvvie’s going to be back answering our questions. So when life gets hard this week, don’t forget, you’re free to fail.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Yep.
Glennon Doyle:
And you can do hard things. We love you. See you back soon.
Luvvie Ajayi Jones:
Love you.