YouTube Channel: @dothethingformula

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. I am so excited, you guys. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so I have a lot to tell you right now. I met my next guest through an expert panel that I did for the upcoming do the Thing Bucket list challenge. And I was introduced to her through Laura Carney, who had written a book called My Father's List, and she had connected me to my next guest through her inspirational story. And you know when you hear someone in a panel and you don't get to talk to them individually, but it's through a group, but you are just feeling every part of you wants to get to know this person on a deeper level? Well, that's pretty much what happened when we were in that expert panel is I was just dying to get to hear more of her story. And so I am just so thrilled to get the opportunity to do that with her and then also share her with you guys. So I am welcoming Mary Latham to the show. Hey, Mary.

Hi, Stacy. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, thanks for being here. I just feel so privileged to have this chance to talk to you.

Oh, well, I'm honored that you do. I'm. I had such a good time talking in our last talk with everybody, and it was such good energy. And so I'm pumped to be back and get to talk to you one on one. Yay. Well, I'd love to have you start.

Off and just tell us your story.

Okay, so let's see. In October of 2016, October 29, 2016, I decided to pack up my mother's old Subaru and hit every single state, all 50 states, to compile stories of acts of human kindness. The origin of this idea was born In December of 2012, on the day of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. I had been working in Manhattan in the time and was working at a law firm, kind of 9 to 5 in the online department, health insurance stability kind of job. I was doing photography on the weekends and also nannying for a few different families just to kind of hustle and afford your shoebox apartment in Manhattan. And I was just getting to work the morning of the Sandy Hook shooting and opening my computer and kind of reading all the news like we all were that day, being absolutely horrified. And he was still an active shooter at the time. I was still hitting the refresh button and trying to find out everything that was going on. And I grew up without a television in my home, so I feel that I was shielded a lot from all of the bad Stuff that always was going on. And also with the Sandy Hook shooting, I mean, besides Columbine, that was really the first huge shooting that is unfortunately a super popular word in our vocabulary now. But at the time I remember just being extremely scared and horrified that someone could do this. And as I was sitting there and looking through all of it, my coworker walked by my desk with a coffee from Starbucks and he was like, oh, you should have come with me today. And I would go with them once a maybe once in the week for a whatever flavored latte was out during that season. And I hadn't gone with him that day. And I was like, yeah, I couldn't afford it. And he was like, no, it was free. And I finally kind of turned around. I was just staring at the news. He didn't even know what had happened yet because it was all around 9am on December 14, 2012. So I turned around, I looked at him and I was like, what are you talking about? And he was like, yeah, there was a guy in earlier buying gift cards because it was right before Christmas and he bought an extra card for $100 at the end and said run it out on everyone in the line behind him. And my friend that I worked with was one of those people. And he had just turned 30, he was going through a divorce, he had lost his mother that year to cancer and he had back surgery coming up. And I just remember it was not his year and he was such a positive, happy person. And he had just been down lately and I can still see his face. He was glowing about this free $4. It's probably $10 now, coffee from Starbucks that he had gotten because of a stranger. And it was just so cool to see you always hear stories like that. But I never really directly been impacted. And he walked away and I called my mom and I told her the story about it quickly. And then I immediately switched over to the shooting because she was in the home we grew up in with no tv and I was telling her all about it and how could this happen and how is there so much bad out there and how am I going to babysit tonight without crying on this kid? The kid was six years old, which was the age of most of those children. And so my mom kind of was listening to me go on and on. And then she politely interrupted and was like, Mary, you got to remember that other story you told me first. There's always going to be tragedies and horrible things that will inevitably happen in our lives and in the world. But there'll always be more good out there if you look for it. And so that conversation kind of put more good into my mind. It started as a little Facebook project and I was collecting stories. And just about 11 days after I launched that little website with a friend and was asking people to send stories, my mom ended up in the hospital. And she was supposed to just have a pretty easy procedure, but something went wrong and she ended up passing away at the end of that week. So we had enough time to get all of our family at the pretty, pretty big family in that waiting room and able to say goodbye to her. But it was kind of in that waiting room that I realized there is nothing in here. And it's such a horrible time. And I felt so fortunate and lucky that I had a big family and my parents had been married for almost 40 years and we were all together supporting each other. But there was a couple in there that was divorced and they were in a fight and their 30 year old daughter was dying and there was a guy in there alone. And it was just such a.

Hopeless room that everyone was about to lose a person they loved and it just felt so lonely. And so I thought, well, what if I expanded this instead of just making it a little silly website, what if I went out and collected these stories and made a book to put in these rooms? So that's what I did in 2016, when I was finally ready, I packed up the car and I took off and collected stories for three years and 31 days.

I mean, there's just so much about this that just blows my mind. It is like, I love what your mom said. There will always be more good out there if you look for it. And I feel like those words are really what then got you to just completely do the thing right after she passed away. And then you had this experience with Sandy Hook. You had this memory of the guy that had been through such a hard time and then being able to see the light in his eyes just from a simple act.

Yes. And I think also not only to just do the thing I did, but I think that her words were what I realized. I was so focused on like we all are doing the thing, whatever that beautiful bright thing looks like, which was, there's more good out there. But those last five words, if you look for it, were really the most important ones that I had to remind myself every single day because there were so many hard days and there were moments that you felt defeated and you couldn't feel find any good, but you really have to look and dig it up if you want to work. And so I think that was kind of my realization later. The whole if you look for it is really the biggest thing. And it's in all of our lives, whether we're getting in a car for three years like a lunatic, or we just want to have a more positive outlook and feel better about the state of the world. It's a choice that we have to personally make every single day and look for the positive things and search and kind of. There's so much access to the bad. So it really is. It's like this.

Conscious decision to hunt the good instead of just looking at the news or whatever negative things that are getting thrown at us.

Yeah.

And it's interesting because I had with Sandy Hook when that happened. I ended up getting involved with this organization called Kids for Peace. And then I helped them with the Great Kindness Challenge through all the schools. And so it's incredible when you can take an experience, experience that is just horrifying, but then being able to just find something that you could do that's good about it. It sounds like that's really what you were able to do.

Yeah. And then really it was all the stories, too. Because every story I collected was coming from not everyone, but probably 95% of them was coming from a dark place, some tragedy. Losing a child, losing a spouse, losing a best friend, losing their legs. It was some type of loss or darkness that they had to go through to get to the beautiful thing they end up creating. And then that was what I would highlight. Whatever nonprofit they set up or all these other things they. It was kind of like how we get through the bad and keep moving forward as opposed to what I thought the trip would be, which was more like someone bought me a coffee once and it made my day. It was like my child died and I created a scholarship and I've sent all these kids to college that would have never been able to afford it now. So to not be naive to the fact that there is still. Is still bad out there, I mean, people would think like, oh, you're like, on this beautiful trip, collecting stories of rainbows and unicorns and sprinkling kindness around America. And it was like, no, I was at war, it feels like, and trying to create this, I don't know, collect these army of do gooders and figure out how they keep going forward too. Because we're all kind of trying to figure it out every day. Even if you're a super positive person, it's work. And so just really shedding a little bit more light on all of these people that don't get highlighted because it's a nice story instead of a dark, gruesome car crash that makes the headlines.

Yeah, I'd love to talk about you packing up your car, your mom's car, and you kind of doing that. So you basically were inspired. You had been doing the WE website. You decided to take it one step further. Where did that idea even come from that you were going to pack it up and then travel the country and do this?

So I definitely had this idea in the hospital that week. I was trying to tell my mom that I was going to do something to honor her, even though I'm not really sure if she was conscious enough to understand all of it. But I knew that I wanted to figure out a way to honor her. I knew that I wanted to collect positive stories. And I just had this idea in my head. I'm from New York, and for some reason, there's always those certain states that get made fun of. So we're always kind of harsh to New Jersey. I don't know why, but we call it, like, the armpit of America or something. There was always these silly phrases that people say about other states or they have these assumptions about other states. And so I think that, to me, and this was before our country was heading in the direction it was when we hit 2016, I could tell that it would be cool to collect stories from every single state just to show that there is good everywhere. And so I had that idea. But I definitely needed a moment to gather myself and prepare to take off and do it. So I actually moved to St. John in the Virgin Islands right after my mom had passed away. A friend reached out and she said she lived down there. She was working on a sailboat at the time. And so she said, I'm down here. You. You could do your photography full time. You wouldn't have to have all these other jobs. You could do some hiking, clear your mind, just kind of hit a restart. And you could have a place to live with me and my friends. And I kind of just like, laughed at her at first. I was like, is she serious? I have three jobs in New York. My dad's falling apart. My family is here. I lived with my two best friends since preschool in New York City. How am I going to leave? And I actually went to a happy hour the next night, and. And I met up with this girl, and we were talking and we were, like, acquaintances. We were that close, but we were friends. She had just been at my mother's funeral a few days before and she was going on and on about this Tinder date that she had gone on and how the guy wasn't calling her back and she couldn't believe it and what is the chances Everything bad always happens to her and she's so unlucky and her life is over because they had this connection on this one date for two hours. And I was like, you freaking serious? Like quietly in my head was thinking, are you? I just buried my mother. Tell me more about the guy that you hung out with for two hours that isn't calling you back and how your life is the worst. But I didn't. I just bit my tongue and was like, I'm so sorry that happened to you. That stinks. And then I went into work the next day like a robot and booked a one way ticket to the Caribbean. Oh. It was just like. Oh. Knew it. I was. It was that moment where it was.

Just like, I just can't and I have to do this.

New York is one of those places you love it or you hate it kind of feeling. So I was like, I cannot be here right now. It's not the right place for me. So I did it in enough time where I gave my job plenty of notice. I mean, I had where I got myself out of New York City. I finished that job, I went home and helped my dad through Thanksgiving and Christmas because it was our first ones. And then I left the day after Christmas and flew there. And it was terrifying. I mean, I didn't know anyone but that one girl, she was going through a lot when I first got there. So that was a lot. And people hitchhiked everywhere. So I was like.

There'S no way I'm coming from New York City that I'm getting in a stranger's car right now to get murdered. So the first couple days, the first three days, I think I walk to town in 90 degree heat up and down these hills. And then I was like, maybe I would rather get murdered. So I started hitchhiking and it was fine. And the island is very small, so it's one road. So if you're going for one side of the island, you're getting to that town or the other side, vice versa. So people don't mind. They're just dropping you off in town at the roundabout. So I started hitchhiking and it worked out and I kind of just figured out my grounding and I don't think it would have mattered where I was. I think I had a lot of to figure out and heal anyway. Yeah. So it was a distraction to put yourself in a completely ridiculous environment, which it felt like. But it was really what.

Helped me get into the car and trust strangers more. Because, yeah, I literally was doing that when I was in St. John hitchhiking, and it was working out. And so after I had done that, and then I got back home and kind of started figuring out what this plan was going to be. I kept thinking, well, I'm a wedding photographer, so I have to wait till the season's over. But then there's the spring season. Am I really ready? Do I feel healed at all? No. To all of those things. I was so not ready. And then I realized I'm never going to be ready. I'm always going to miss my mom. I'm always going to be sad about that. There's always going to be work to be had. You can push and push and push the date that you do the thing, but at the end of the day, you just have to start. You just do it. None of us are ever ready. You just kind of have to figure it out as you go. And so I just picked a date. October 29th. There was literally no significance to that date. And I wrote it on the calendar. And for months leading up to that, I just plan, like, no matter what, that is the day I will leave. And then the day comes and I break a tooth. I have to rush to the dentist. There's all these issues. My dad's like, why don't you just go tomorrow? It's like, have to go on October 29th. So I. My ferry was doing, but I went that day because I knew in my head, it has to be today.

Okay, so you're in the car and you go to your first house. What is that like?

So the first place I stayed was in Nanta, Connecticut. And I remember the girl reached out to me on Facebook, on messenger, and we weren't connected, so I didn't ever see the message until months later. So I had said I was going to do this project, and then I made a little video about it. My friend helped me make it. He took a little drone footage of my mom's car driving over the causeway in our town. And I explained this is what I'm setting out to do, and if you have any friends or an old coworker that lives in Pennsylvania, or an aunt that lives in Texas, or anyone that lives anywhere in the States, let me know. And so she reached out right around that time. So it was a month before I was going to be on the road. And I finally saw it and opened her message and I was like, I'm so sorry. I didn't even see your message, but I would love to stay with you. And she was like, that's great. Maybe we could jump on a phone call and just make a plan. So I called her a few days later and it was like, I remember her saying at first, she was like, oh, do you have any dietary restrictions or anything like that? And I was like, yeah, I'm gluten free and vegan. And she was like, oh. And I was like, I'm joking. There's no way I could do this road trip if I was. Unless I was feeding myself the entire time, which I was not. But it was just like, she immediately was like, trying to figure out all these different things. She's like, my husband's gonna make a steak dinner and we're gonna invite some friends over. Maybe they have some stories. Can I help you connect to anywhere to figure. It was just such an exciting call because it was the first one. But anyway, when I got off of the phone call with her that day, I remember being so, so pumped up. I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm doing this. And I have my first host lined up. And it was so exciting. And then I did. I got to her home and she had a sign that said welcome in the guest room. And she had a little gift care package of water and granola bars and stuff. And they made this delicious dinner and their friends came over and shared some stories. And I had reached out to the local coffee shop and said I had no idea how I was going to collect my stories or do anything. And so I reached out to them and I explained what I was doing. And if there's any way I can put something on your Facebook page or just so people know, hey, this girl's going to be here. If you have a story to share, a moment of kindness in your life, let's connect. And the people wrote back to me the day I was leaving, and they were like, we're so sorry we were away. We just saw your message, but we have something for you if you're able to stop by. Otherwise, give us an address and we can send it to you. So it was conveniently two minutes away from the apartment I was staying at. So I walked down the street and I walked in and I said my name, and they came from. They were in the back doing something. And they came out and they had two big Bags. One was full of stuff for me in the car. Again, some treats and waters and whatever. And then the other one was a bag of 15 or 20 bags of coffee because they were a coffee shop. And they said, we figured now you'll have something to give the people that are hosting you. Oh, my gosh. That is.

Who'd even think about that? That's so sweet.

It was such a cool thing. Not only were they thinking about me, they were thinking about the other people that were gonna be thinking about me, too. And now I can provide something to them. And so it was just a really cool gesture. And so it was for that to be the first weekend of getting on the road and having these things happen, sprinkled along with some car trouble and other issues and figuring out what the heck I was doing, you had to take it all in at the same time. And so that was a very good first experience, though. And I think that first set of hosts in those first few weeks, it would be maybe a friend of a friend or there was some kind of connection. But by the seventh host, it was a total stranger that reached out from a newspaper article. And the experience was so good that it really set me up to want to continue to stay with strangers for the rest of the trip as much as I could, because I was so fortunate to have the experiences I did with these people because they were so excited to be involved in it. Like, I think that everyone wants to be involved in some type of good or. Or contribute to the good in some way, but they don't always know what to do. And for them, they were like, oh, we just, like, have to give this girl a bed because she's. She's out there collecting the goods, so this is what we could do for her. And they were awesome. I mean, the people that would put me up and feed me and send me off with, like, a sandwich or something or 20 bucks of gas money or whatever it was. Yeah.

I want to talk more about the stories, but before we do that, I wanted to ask you more about. Did you get rejected at all? Did people not show up? What was the hard side of you actually doing this and traveling around the country?

Well, what comes to mind first is kind of. I started to touch on earlier, but I think with anyone in life and anything they do, I think that being misunderstood was one of the most challenging things by certain people that would think you're just this hippie in the car that's sprinkling rainbows and kindness around, and they didn't understand it. A lot of people maybe wouldn't have understood it because there's gotta be an ulterior motive. What are you getting out of this? Or who's sponsoring you or stuff like that. And then when they really understood, no, my mom just died. And I thought it'd be nice to make a book for hospitals. Like, once you could really talk to them, then they would get it if they could meet you. But I think just that the people that were unable to completely comprehend it was always a challenge because you were already getting into homes where you were so tired and you had been explaining your whole story the whole day before at the other home or with whoever you were meeting in coffee shops or at parks or at their houses or whatever stories I was collecting, it was just like you were on every single day. So when you would get to certain homes and they would just welcome you in with huge hugs and lasagna and be like, oh, you must be so tired. Make sure you get some sleep and this and that. Which rarely happened with the sleep part. But I feel like it was just like they were clearly, they knew you had been on all day and done doing the stuff. Sometimes you get into a home and the wife wanted to host you, but the husband didn't even know who you were, who was a stranger in my home. And she's just on this kindness mission. Would that be nice while I'm at work? And so then it was like you had to prove yourself and sit there and explain the whole thing, and then they loved it, and you would connect and it would be great. But to do that so much, like, it was just that feeling of it's exhausting. And I was already exhausted, so that was definitely a challenging part. And also just collecting a lot of the stories, I think people feel their stories aren't big enough or matter enough, so they were always hesitant to share them, necessarily. If they heard, oh, she just got this story of people that donated a kidney to a stranger, then they felt like their story was not as good, which was not accurate. The small stories are really the most important ones because they're so translatable. And we could. We're all capable of doing them, these tiny acts of kindness. So I tried to focus on those and share those as much as possible.

Yeah, that's such a good point. People don't realize how by sharing those really small acts are powerful, even sometimes. Maybe I wouldn't say more powerful, but they're really powerful because then other people can see, oh, okay. That's that step that I can Take now to be able to do something kind. And then once you kind of open that door, then who knows what that leads to, right?

Yeah, exactly. So that was always really important. But the real kind of big part that got me on the road in the first place and the challenge I faced on the road all the time was that feeling that when I started the project, it wasn't like, oh, it'd be cooler to get in the car and go collect the stories across America. It was that the project was dying. I was just sitting in a cubicle in New York asking people to share stories. And. And in the first couple weeks, it was exciting, and there was a wave of people sharing a lot of stories and momentum of a new project, and then it just dies out. And I feel like I didn't want it to die because it was a project I started on my mom, and she already died. So in my head, I was like, I have to keep this project going. But then I realized, well, I can morph it into something different and really just start planning this road trip, because I don't want to get discouraged at the fact that the stories aren't coming in. I'm just gonna go out there and dig them up myself and find them on my own. And so that was a constant challenge, like I said, looking for them, finding them, digging them up, getting people to share them. But that was really how the trip ended up being successful in the end, because you were out there, boots on the ground every single day, talking to everyone because you said yes to this and yes to that and yes to this. Then you got to a story.

Yeah, it's just that scrappy and resourceful way of doing it. I love that.

I actually.

When I was in college, I sold bookstore to door and we had to. In order to find a place be to knock on doors to strangers. And you don't realize how good people are when you actually give them the chance to be. Yeah, I would love to hear more about just the stories and what you ran into as you were going around and meeting the different people and what was coming up.

So, like I said, I definitely thought in the beginning it would be more people sharing a little moment of kindness that had happened in their life. Someone bought their family dinner at the diner, and they never forgot it. But right when I got on the road, I was in Massachusetts, which was the sixth state. And I remember someone reaching out and saying, you really need to meet this person. They have such a cool story. It was a little boy. His name was Ben. He was from West Springfield, Massachusetts, and he had been diagnosed with cancer when he was six years old. He had leukemia and he went through all of his treatment. And when he got finished and was in remission, his mom said, how do you want to celebrate? We could go to Disney World. We could have a party. What do you want to do to celebrate? And he said, at seven years old, I just want to get as many toys as I can and bring them all to the hospital for the kids that are still stuck there. Because he remembered. And when I would talk to him and ask him, why do you want to do that? Said, well, there weren't that many toys. So sometimes when we were all in the hospital, not everyone got a toy to play with. And just hearing a 7 year old say something like that and be thinking about the others and he could have gone to Disney World, but he wanted to do a toy drive was a very humbling experience. But also it was so cool because then I went to his home and got to sit with him and his mom, and his mom's a single mom and there's another child and just watching her juggle that, being behind the closed doors and hearing these stories and having that whole experience and then going out and taking a picture of him. He dressed like Captain America when he delivered all the toys. So he has this whole uniform. So he put on his uniform and he's standing there on the sidewalk in Massachusetts in December. It was like three days after Christmas. And he's in his little uniform, holding up his shield, and there's snow all around him, and he just has this huge smile. And it's like, if someone saw that photo, they'd be like, that kid is adorable and what a beautiful story. But because I was in their home and seeing the mom and the struggle that she had and all these different things and just seeing this kid understand the struggle. The mom had her telling me the story and her crying while she was telling me the story while him and his little brother were playing with toys. And then all of a sudden him coming over and just giving her a kiss on the cheek and saying, I love you, mom. And then going back and playing because he could tell she was crying, she was upset. There's all these moments that were so intimate and personal that I would have never gotten if she just told me her son did this nice thing. And I posted a picture on Facebook. It became like I was intertwined in all of the stories by being in these homes and seeing all of it. And then there was, like I said, the bigger stories where there were these two girls from Chicago who their father had kidney failure. And so their brother had donated his kidney to the dad. And for eight years, he was able to function. He could play catch with them in the backyard and go to their sports games and be not in the hospital all day the time and sick. And then he ended up passing away. And so both sisters decided to donate a kidney to a stranger in honor of their dad because they saw how much life quality he got from his kidney. And so they did that. And the week they did that was when I heard about them. And I met them in the hospital and were in the hospital room as the other one had just done surgery the day before. And the one sister got out two hours ago. And I'm in the room with the mom and the brother and them in this extremely intimate, important moment of their life where they just gave life to someone. And I'm sitting there in the room with them. So, like I said, the stories were just so intertwined with the journey at that point. And to just be able to experience them in such a way where you were really part of it made it so special and also made it feel like, how am I ever going to explain this to people? Because it does feel challenging to really describe it exactly as it was. And then the smaller stories, as I said, there was one of my favorite ones that I shared all the time was a woman who was a bank teller. And she was working one summer, I think it was on Block Island. And she was probably in her 20s, and she was having a really bad day. And it was visible on her face that she was upset. And another woman came in and was taking money out. And she looked at her and she said, are you okay? Are you doing okay? Is there anything I can do for you? And the bank teller was so embarrassed. She was like, oh, no. Nothing some M and Ms. Won't fix when I get out of work later. And made a weird joke. And the lady laughed and left. And then 30 minutes later, the lady returned and she slid a bag of M and Ms. Under the window to her and left. And she was like, I never saw her again. I swear. She was an angel. I never saw her in the bank again, But I never forgot that story. And I told my kids and my grandkids, and she was like 60 now. And in the beginning of my trip, I thought maybe she stubbed her toe on the way to work or her boyfriend broke up with her. But as I continued my journey, it was like her aunt could have been diagnosed with cancer that week, or someone died in a car accident in her family. You just don't know what everyone's going through. And that's why these tiny little moments can be so impactful and you can be providing them. We are all capable of buying a bag of M&Ms. And so that's why that story was always one I wanted to share the most because. Because the kidney people are amazing to me. I don't know how they do that, but The M&M's is translatable and it's something we can do. So, yeah, it was really a range of different types of stories, honestly.

Yeah. And speaking of that, I'd love to just get your advice for the listeners on if they want to start to do more good today. What would be some things that they could do?

Well, first of all, just researching your own community, because there are so many people out there that are doing so many things already. So I would get involved in something that's current and happening because the feeling you get just from volunteering or helping at something is so satisfying. And then if you want to come up with your own ideas or you're seeing really looking around, I mean, the need is there. It's everywhere. So if you walk around and look at your community, also you see a need, whether it's the garbage on the street or whatever it is. There's just so many different things we can offer to help. And if we're paying more attention, even the old person crossing the street, if we're not looking at her phone, we see that, we go help her. And so I think that paying more attention and looking up is a huge thing, but really getting involved in figuring out what's already out there. I thought that when I would stay with strangers, it would help me figure out my stories a lot easier because they already lived in the community and they would know people in the community. But that was very rare. And not because my hosts were terrible by any means. They were lovely, and a lot of them did help. But it was almost as if I thought I could get there and they'd be like, oh, you gotta meet this person in this room or go to this place. But they were just working and providing me a guest bedroom and in their lives and doing the best they could and to no fault of their own. We all are. We're all in our bubbles. But I would go out and I would collect a story of, like, a woman down the street that was three houses away that's been running a nonprofit out of her basement for the last two years, and they had no idea who she was and what she did. And she does community fundraisers, and they didn't know. And there's signs down the street, but they don't see them. So to me, it's a testament to why we think everything is so much worse than it is and everything is so bad because we don't actually even know what good is going on. And it's not getting highlighted anyway in the newspaper, so we're really not seeing it. But I think that when you research and you figure out different things in your community that are going on and you go and you volunteer, that would be the first step, in my mind, to really start getting involved.

How did you. When you were staying in that house and then you met the woman in the basement, how did you end up meeting her to even get that story?

Because, again, I would walk around in communities. I'd go to coffee shops, or I would reach out to local newspapers, which was how I connected to her, because someone had told me about her. They saw the little article. So it's just little blurbs in the paper. I never wanted to be in there because I looked like a dog getting dragged behind a vehicle every day, like rolling out of your car and just wearing the same T shirt that said more good every day and jeans and Converses. But it helped to get the story in there so that people knew if they knew anyone, they could reach out and email me and tell me about somebody. But, yeah, I think it was a lot of word of mouth, a lot of just walking around into different shops wearing the uniform help. Because people would be like, what is that? But, yeah, it was definitely. It was really hard just to get people to find the stories. And not because they weren't there, just because they were hidden and not everyone knew about them. And it's the case with everything. I'll post something online and be like, hey, I'm selling this sweatshirt for 50, and the sales end on December 1st. And the amount of messages you get. How much are the sweatshirts? Can I still buy one? It's December 2nd. No one reads anymore. Yeah, it's true. So that was a big thing with. With everything. So, yeah. Yeah.

What would be a way to open the conversation as you're in these communities and getting people to tell you their stories?

Well, I would usually say, you know, I'm traveling across America collecting stories, acts of human kindness. And then I would share a little bit maybe of some of the stories or types of things I'm collecting. But I think really, the biggest thing that I noticed with people and how to engage with people is just a lot of eye contact and smiling. People don't smile as much anymore. And I feel like there's something very comforting about when you're trying to talk to someone and they're smiling. It's a comfort to me. Like when I do speaking events, I'm looking in the audience for the one person that's smiling at me and reacting to the stuff I say and using her or him as a baseline. I always, I'll scan the audience, but I always come back to them to see how they're reacting because it's so comforting to me. And so I think that was a huge part of the trip. Sitting down and starting to talk to people. Making the direct eye contact and smiling was allowing them to know she is listening and she is interested and not immediately bombarding them with a ton of questions, but just kind of sitting there in the silence and letting them figure out what they want to say or what are they trying to say. Which is hard for me because I'm the youngest child, so it's very hard for me not to be talking. But as much as I could from advice from a friend, I tried to just sit and let those awkward silences be okay because they're awkward for me because I'm so used to all the talking all the time. But for then, they're actually thinking and kind of coming up with what they're about to say. And the second you start talking about something else, now that's lost and they're answering the new question. And so it was more so almost journalistic interview tactics that I was trying to use when I would talk to people instead of some elevator pitch I was giving them. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. So when is this book going to come out, do you know?

On Friday.

I love that. That's great. I, you know, people would always ask me when the road trip was going to be over and I would say on a Friday. I wrote it like that Saturday so that I didn't even get that right. But I think that, yeah, so I've been writing the book, but it's two books. So the book for the hospital waiting room is more of a coffee table style book of shorter essays of the stories. And then I'm writing my own book of kind of life since my mom died. And so I'm writing them at the same time to kind of remember things as I'm going, which has been great and way more work at the same time. And I Actually have been working with a writing therapist, which I didn't even know existed. A woman told me about her that I had met on my trip, and she had found out that her father was not her father years after he had died. And it completely affected her entire life. She found out that her mom had used a sperm donor. And she said that she was working through this and she was starting to write through it. And she had been told that she should connect to this writing therapist. And it had been really helping her because she wanted to tell the story, but the emotions were so heavy, and every time she tried to sit down and start it, she would get blocked. And I was like, this is exactly how I feel. What is a writing therapist? And may I have her number? And so she connected me to her. And it's just been really helpful because I think that was a big holdup for me to start the writing and get going, because not only did I get off the road after three entire years of being with strangers 24 7, hearing all of these really emotional, heavy stories, and then suddenly having the world shut down after you get off the road, to be collecting all these types of stories and be in and out of people's lives and constantly around people, and then have yourself alone in an apartment during a global pandemic to kind of write about all of it. It was too much to go from one to the other and the contrast. And so I really struggled with that for a long time. And then I think I also just struggled about how and what I really wanted to say with the book, because it was the most amazing and beautiful thing I'll ever do with my life, I feel. But it was also the most challenging and emotional and heartbreaking thing, too. And so to try to figure out what I'm really trying to say. But it was cool because the second I started with her, she said, I sent my first 10,000 words to her, and she said, this is beautiful writing, and you've got me invested. And I want to know what's going to happen. But there's something I feel you're not being vulnerable enough yet. And I really need to know, why did you get in the car? And I was like, but I got in the car. My mom passed away, and she said there was more good out there. So I went to go look for it, and she was like, no, why did you get in the car? And I was like, I don't know. I guess in a way she had said there was more good out there. And my whole tagline on my Little brochures that I would give people with the website and stuff. Said, my mom said this and I'm gonna go prove it. But I think I really needed to prove it to myself.

And I thought that was a better answer. And it is a lot of the answer. But she was like, no, why did you get in the car? And I was like, I don't know. And in the car. I feel like it's been a haunting question that I come back to and write through as much as I can now because there's so many things. And the trip was so many things. I was in Strangers homes. I was in high schools talking to them about the mission. I was collecting these different types of stories. I was doing public speaking events. It became so much more than a road trip. And so when people would say, how was the road trip? I was like, what? It was so hard to describe and put in a nutshell and give an elevator pitch on. And so I'm still working through that question. It felt like goodwill hunting, though. And he's like, yeah, not your fault. And he's like, yeah, it's not my fault. It's not your fault. And that they're, like, hugging and embracing, and it's just like, that's what it feel like. She was like, why did you get in the car? I was like, I'm still figuring it out.

I love that. I love that question. Well, I would love to have you share what your number one piece of advice is for the listeners on Doing the Thing.

So I don't know why this. I think because of the way the question is. I always think of a quote or something, and this is such a ridiculous thing, but there was a yearbook quote from the 1995 yearbook in Greenport High School, and his name was Peter T. Copas. I don't know why my brain retains these things. I can't even remember what I had for dinner last night. But his yearbook quote was, shit happens unless you're constipated. And I don't know why, but that quote has led me through my life in a weird way. A, I think it's hilarious. B, it's true. But see, when you apply it to your actual life, so many of us are constipated in our lives. We have all these grand ideas and we're not moving forward with them and we're not getting it done. And. And shit is going to happen no matter what, in a way. But if you don't get out of your comfort zone, if you don't break out of the box. You're always going to wonder, what if? And it's never a bad idea to go for a dream, either. It doesn't work, but at least you try. Otherwise, you sit there with all the things you didn't do at the end of your life. And I feel like it's just. I don't know. But anyway, it's such a ridiculous quote, and it's not even advice, but I just think that taking the chance to break out of the comfort zone and just live a life that you would be proud of and live a life in honor of the people that couldn't. I feel like.

Everyone has had someone in their life that has inspired them in some way that has passed away now. And so kind of trying to live it in a way to honor them and just do as much as you can while you're here with what you have.

I'd love to have you share with the listeners where they can follow along with your story and eventually get the book and all the things that you're doing.

Yeah. So my website and Instagram and Facebook are all@moregood today or moregood today.com and so I post some stories and updates there. I've created a nonprofit now and been doing small fundraisers just to kind of keep the active part of More Good alive while I'm just sitting and doing the writing. And so, yeah, More Good today. Yay.

Thank you so much for coming on. This was absolutely incredible, getting a chance to talk to you about your story. There's just so much in it that I think people can learn from from you being able to connect with others that anyone has the opportunity to be able to do in whatever way that they can, and then how the doors open as you move through it, and then also being able to connect back to your mom. And it's just there's so much in it that I think people can learn from.

Well, thank you so much. Yeah, it's been. It's been a very beautiful journey.

And for the listeners, do the thing, don't wait for opportunity, create it.