Chapter 17: Emily McDowell on family fallouts, finding phrases, and forging false fairytales

  Have you ever looked through a bunch of greeting cards and felt like nothing reflected the way you feel? The greeting card industry is 150 years old, and yet they haven’t quite mastered this skill yet… But Emily McDowell has. Emily has an uncanny ability to characterize the relationships we have, not the relationships we want to have. Emily runs Emily McDowell Studio, an online hub of greeting cards, tote bags, and other gifts that articulate things in an emotional way that we often can’t express ourselves. Emily finds the right words to say … when we can’t. For our Valentines when we haven’t quite defined our relationships yet. For our loved ones who were just diagnosed with cancer. Emily is also the New York Times bestselling author of There Is No Good Card For This, which acts as a guidebook on how to navigate our relationships so we can understand our pain, work through our challenges, and develop resilience and empathy. I think she has really put her finger on something that we desperately need in the world right now: how to create more empathy. We discuss some really interesting themes including how our pasts affect us, how to raise creative children, and how to use lessons from advertising to make things people want… not make people want things. I hope you enjoy Chapter 17. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: How can we identify universal truths to better relate to others? How can we turn pain into humor? How do you raise children out of your own shadow?   Leave us a voicemail! Your message may be included in a future episode: 1-833-READ-A-LOT You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://www.3books.co/chapters/17 Sign up to receive podcast updates here: https://www.3books.co/email-list/