Hello, my name is Leslie Cain.
I am the host of the Why Not Today podcast.
This is a podcast to celebrate people who have been courageous and said, Why Not Today?
I started this podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Cain, who often said, Why Not Today?
I'm based in Reston, Virginia, a planned community right outside of Washington, D.C., and thanks
for joining us today.
So my guests today, and I always say I'm excited about my guests, but I am really excited about
this guest, is Laura Carney, because I did not know her at all.
And I always talk about how we connected, how we met people.
And I happened to be in Asheville, North Carolina, on Father's Day for a good friend's birthday
party.
And CBS This Morning came on.
My friend had the TV on.
I don't ever watch CBS This Morning.
And it had a story about Laura and her book, which I've got right here.
It's called My Father's List.
And I'm going to let her talk all about it.
But basically, her father died unexpectedly, very young.
And she found his bucket list and started doing it.
And it just spoke to me.
I read it from cover to cover.
So many coincidences and connections.
Like the first chapter was Swim Across the River.
And she swam across the French Broad River, which I was in Asheville reading the book.
And just in our conversation just now, we already came up with a gazillion other connections,
but just so many different connections.
And so I read the book this summer.
And then I reached out to her, I connected with you, Laura, on social media and was kind
of stalking you, watching you.
And just one night out of a whim, I'm like, would you be a guest of my podcast?
And you said, yes.
I'm like, yeah, I'm so excited to hear about you, your book, your courage.
I have, I mentioned, been reading the book again and kind of in different eyes because
I lost a close friend this summer, very unexpectedly, kind of like your dad.
And so reading it a different way.
And it just talks.
I pulled it out last night, some of my highlights.
And it talks a lot about bravery and courage and doing the things and living your life.
And that's really what the Why Not Today podcast is about and the theme is, we got to live
our life and say why not today and do the little things.
And I think you did that a lot with the bucket list.
So I'm really excited to have you on.
So Laura, why don't you quickly introduce yourself, a little background of you and a
fun fact about you.
And then we'll talk about courage in the book.
That is quite an introduction.
I don't know if I know how to follow that.
Thank you so much.
I love hearing those stories about somebody, you know, being somewhere on Father's Day
and watching that, that interview and just thinking about what, just the connections
that were happening all over the place, you know, all over the world.
And Father's Day, I lost my father 10 years, would be 11 years in March.
And Father's Day is probably the hardest holiday because, you know, Christmas, you've got all
these other things going on, but Father's Day is all about your dad.
You know, everybody's dad and their cellar and I purposely hope the day goes by quickly
and stay off social media because I don't want to see all the pictures of everybody's
dads and doing it.
It's a hard day.
So having you on TV and talking about the book and things, it was just so, made it a happy
day.
Oh, good.
I'm so glad.
Yeah.
I know that that's true for a lot of people.
And that even, you know, it's funny that that interview wasn't even originally supposed
to air on Father's Day.
It was supposed to be the week before and then Tina Turner passed away.
And so it got pushed.
And everyone was like, oh, why was this, why wasn't this scheduled for Father's Day?
Like that's perfect.
Yeah.
I mean, that's just that, that was the nature of my project, I think too, that, you know,
I set out to do this bucket list that had 54 unchecked items on it.
My dad had written down 60 of them and he wrote it when he was 29.
I'm told soon after I was born, but I don't know quite when.
I think he probably added new things throughout the year of 1978.
And my mom knew about it, but nobody else knew about it.
And I've since learned, since my book came out, I was actually at my book launch.
The man who interviewed me on CBS Sunday morning, Jim Axelrod, he lives right here in my town
in Montclair.
And he was the person who helped me, who helped interview me in the bookstore from my book
launch.
And he asked me where the list was that whole time.
And other than in a box in my brother's house, I really didn't know.
And my mom told me later that night, oh, didn't you know they found it on your father when
he died?
Oh, wow.
So that made me think, oh my gosh, he probably carried this in his wallet.
He probably had it with him.
Every time I was with him, you know.
For the 25 years, I knew him.
So that's-
All right, so we're going too far forward.
We should start with-
Oh, yeah, that's okay.
We're going to- this is going to be a fun interview.
But let's talk about this.
Tell us who you are.
Oh, sure.
Well, I'm a journalist.
I've got the book and who you are.
Yeah, I'm a journalist.
Fun fact.
I'm just outside New York.
I'm a copy editor.
So that means most of my work, when I'm not writing, most of my work involves, you know,
fixing spelling, grammatical mistakes, punctuation.
I fix other people's writing.
A fun fact about me.
Oh my gosh.
I'm double-jointed.
Okay.
That's a cool fact.
You know, all my fingers can- and I can do it twice.
It's really weird.
Oh, wow.
That is cool.
My youngest sister has Down syndrome and her fingers go back, like totally-
Oh, okay.
When she was a little kid, we'd always bend them back.
I bet she loved that.
Yeah.
I fix one of the kids.
So okay.
So before we talk about the book and all the things you did with the bucket list and how
it came about, what does courage mean to you, Laura?
I read this quote a few years ago from Renee Brown.
And she said that- Right, wow.
Courage is a heart word.
And I thought that was really fascinating because of course, you know, I'm a big logo
file, big word lover being a copy editor.
And that really struck me that the root of courage is COUR, which means heart in Latin.
And you know, to me, having courage means you're choosing to listen to what your heart
wants you to do instead of your head.
Love that.
That's probably one of my favorite.
I love Renee Brown as well.
Follow her and another coincidence connection is I'm definitely a word girl.
I've got them all over my house, even on my-
All right.
So let's get to the book.
So your dad had a bucket list.
So how'd you find it?
And he passed away, was he 54?
Yeah, he was 54.
It was because of a distracted driver.
I was a teenager who was lost and made a phone call at a red light.
And then, you know, back then nobody really knew yet, even though the research existed,
it wasn't out anywhere yet.
And I tried to cover this in the book as broadly as I could, which, you know, I didn't know
either.
But, you know, it turns out there are certain things you can do while you're driving that
are really just, they refer to it as too much of a load.
You know, it's too much of a cognitive load.
And, you know, when phones became ubiquitous, it just became a thing most people started
doing.
We didn't really know.
We couldn't just plop right in the driver's seat and just continue having our conversation.
I've been watching the Gilmore Girls for the first time and I can't believe how many people
like just hop into a car and are holding onto their phone.
And it looks so strange now because most people use Bluetooth or hands-free these days.
But the thing that really surprised me when I was in, I started being invited to these
seminars on safe driving and becoming an activist in that around the time I was about to get
married.
And that too was a coincidence.
It just was because of an article about it that came across my desk one day at Good Housekeeping
where I was working because I didn't know what distracted driving was.
But the thing that really surprised me was that it's really not about where your hand
is.
It's just that like having a conversation with someone who isn't there, it just is too
much for your brain to also function like at full capacity.
So it makes it so basically as you're driving, like let's say you're pulling up to a stop
sign and something's sort of coming out, coming at you, like your response time is going to
be slower.
And it's purely because you're having a conversation with someone who isn't there.
Like it's just that part of your brain can't do both things at once.
And a lot of people don't know that and it creates a lot of problems in people's lives
because they don't know it.
And sometimes those problems are fatal.
And I was meeting a lot of families who had mostly children who had died in these kinds
of incidents.
And one of the things they talked about a lot when I would go to these seminars was
how do you tell your story?
And I would sit there feeling like a dork because like that's what I do for a living.
You know, I already knew how to tell a story.
And I would almost be like silencing myself because I didn't want to sound, you know,
like, oh, well, really, it should be like this.
You know, like they had their way of teaching it.
And then it sort of hit me one day.
And this was, I think, pretty shortly before my wedding.
And I was in Chicago at that seminar.
It hit me that, oh, maybe there's a reason.
You know, maybe this wasn't just random and meaningless that my dad died this way.
You know, maybe there's a reason I was so, you know, I was so dead set on becoming a
journalist after he died.
Like I had just moved to New York for a college internship and I wouldn't give up on it.
And maybe this, this type of thing was supposed to happen to a family where someone is a journalist
and someone's a writer because I didn't know anybody else who was.
And I thought sometimes it's like, I think you encounter a problem in your life.
And it's like, if not me, who, you know, and you recognize you're the only person who
actually has a chance.
You know, like I felt like I had a 5% chance of writing a book about this.
Yeah.
And it's interesting how, you know, we think we're going, our life is going this way.
And then it has the diversions and my dad has a perfect example of his life.
And when he passed away, my brother's eulogy was talking about, he always had a plan A,
B and C. He, the logo, the podcast is an eye patch and handlebar mustache.
Because that's, that's, that was his logo because he had an eye patch and a handlebar
mustache.
And he got into a major car accident.
He grew up in LA and he got in a car accident at the night of high, the graduation from
high school.
They were drinking too much and got in a major car accident and almost died.
He was in the hospital, I think for six months or a long time, lost sight of his eye.
And he was supposed to play football for USC.
I'm pretty sure.
And he couldn't because of the car accident.
So this is a long time ago.
Hey, he had a grandfather in Cleveland and his dad's like, why don't you go to Notre
Dame?
So they sent him on a train and he went by himself on a train to Notre Dame.
And that's where he went to college.
And my mom grew up in South Bend, which is where Notre Dame is.
So, you know, just, you just never know where that path of life is going to take you or
something so terrible turned out like here if it wasn't because of that.
Yeah, if he had never gotten into that accident.
Yeah, you know, and it's, you know, with losing fathers or losing, you know, your dad, the
way you did my friend, the way it's like, okay, what can we do to honor their life?
And I think you did a great job with that and make something really bad and something
sad.
Find something good out of it.
Yeah, I don't think I even really knew how badly I needed to do that.
When we first discovered the list that happened because my brother had just moved into his
first house.
I was kind of jealous of that honestly, because it's like, oh, he's, he's my younger brother
and he's growing up faster than me, you know, because we were still in an apartment.
And I thought, you know, I really need to be supportive and celebrate this.
That's what my dad would do.
And I went up there and my husband and I were celebrating that he had moved into his first
condo that he had bought.
And because it was with his fiance, who was really good at sort of like, you know, I call
her like the anti-horter because she's really good at knowing like what should stay and
what should go.
Right.
And she had found, she had found the list because my brother had in a box that whole
time for 13 years and he had to open the box and she's like, what is this?
So he knew that he needed to show it to me so we could figure out what to do with it.
And when I first saw it, you know, I, like I said, I had been gotten, I had been getting
involved in activism.
So I thought, oh, this is great.
Like this is a person's life, their dreams, you know, this is, of course my dad wanted
to ride a horse fast or swim the width of a river and he was so poetic and he would,
he would have written things that way.
So as endearing it was, as it was for us to remember that about him, I thought, oh, this
is the kind of story they keep trying to teach us.
Like they're supposed to tell, like tell the person's story.
And then that is how you change hearts, you know, because when you change hearts, that
has an impact on how you change minds, I think.
So that was my initial instinct that I knew I needed to at least try to do this because
it would be activism.
But it wasn't until I really got into the throes of pursuing this thing that it hit me
what a big commitment this was, how challenging a lot of the items were going to be, and that
this was something that really was just going to like, you know, turn me inside out, reach
into my heart and heal all of the places that were still wounded from my dad's, my dad's
death from the trauma of it, you know, from how shocking it was.
And how many years ago?
Did you guys?
Well, it was 20 now, but when we found it had been 13.
But that kind of traumas can stay with you.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And I think because it was such a formative age with me being 25, that it just sort of
made me bitter about life.
I mean, I was a New Yorker, so maybe that was part of it.
I don't know.
But it was like this rude awakening of, oh, this is how life is, okay, you know, because
most people are in their 20s and if they move to a place like New York, it's so exciting.
And you sort of feel like you're on top of the world, you know, even though you might
be broke and have no real real real like career prospects.
And really, you're just having a pretty good time.
But you know, I was unlike a lot of my peers in that I wasn't there just to have a good
time.
And it felt like I needed to make something of myself.
And I got really focused on that for a while.
Luckily, I met my husband that same summer, three months before my dad died, he did get
to meet him once, and then he died a week later.
So that was lucky.
And you know, my husband was a very self made man.
He had gone to art school for a year and then he just sort of started traveling.
He went to Seattle.
I think he lived in Richmond, Virginia at one point.
He lived in Wilmington, North Carolina, wherever a friend was going, he was going to go with
that friend basically and just take a chance.
And he was very, you know, self educated.
And he kind of taught me about what it means to be a lifelong student.
You know, being someone who I find that people who don't have a traditional college education
are like that a lot, you know, like they they kind of learned to fashion their education
themselves.
So they're always, you know, they're always thirsting for knowledge.
They're always finding things to learn about what they're doing.
And he's definitely that way.
So that was great for me because it was helping me to think outside the box a little bit at
a very young age.
And I think probably if I hadn't met him when I did, you know, it's probably true that I
wouldn't have said yes to a project like doing the list because it was so unusual.
It was so nontraditional and one of the things, you know, that you know that I talk about
a lot in the book is how I was so almost stifled by this, by these ideas I had about what my
life was supposed to be, you know, I was really resisting it when I was starting to do these
list items.
Yeah, we, yeah, the think we're supposed to think we're in this box of life.
And then it throws us that curveball and we get to do the different things.
And you know, you just never know where it's going to turn out.
Yeah, I mean, when you say why not today, it's like, I really did have to start thinking
like that.
I set up a deadline for myself with the list.
I thought, okay, well, the first item says he wanted to live until the year 2020.
So that's the year he's going to live until or at least that's the year that's when how
far his dreams will live.
So I thought that makes sense to me that I have four years to get all these items done.
Of course, then that turned out to not happen either, because like I said, with the list,
it's like up is down and down is up.
So what you think it's going to be is always not quite what it's going to be.
And then COVID happened.
So then I had to add an extra two years to the project.
Right.
But, you know, I feel like 54 items in six years is still pretty good.
That's pretty amazing.
So what was your favorite?
Is there a favorite?
Oh, I have so many favorites for so many reasons.
I like to say that, you know, there's one that I feel like is ongoing, which is make
my husband feel happy, healthy, handsome and young every day of his life, which of course
my dad had written for my mom.
Right.
You know, even just yesterday, I was thinking to myself, huh, is he feeling all those things
right now?
I don't know.
Like am I slacking?
And I think that's a really interesting idea because, you know, in my experience, people
get married and they sort of start to forget how when they first met that person who they
fell in love with, they just, oh, they really cared about was, oh, I just love making this
person happy.
You know, like I love seeing them smile and how you would just devote yourself selflessly
to doing that.
And then it's like you're with someone for a while and then it becomes a relationship
and then it becomes just your life in a lot of ways.
And then they're your family.
And it's like, oh, well, this is my other half.
But, you know, am I still, am I still working on that?
Am I still trying to make them feel that way?
And I think that's how you really keep the love alive and something.
So that's that.
That listening is a great gift for me.
That's awesome.
You know, and then what else?
I've kind of the opposite of that one, but I guess not really because I think it shows
the strength of my marriage.
I was able to even do this, but is visit Vienna because I ended up doing that by myself for
two weeks.
And, you know, we just couldn't afford for both of us to do it.
And my husband was super jealous, but he also was very supportive.
And it felt like he was there because I was calling him every day and every night, you
know, but that was just, I sometimes feel like the whole list.
And I hope this comes across in the book too.
The whole thing was leading to that, you know, the whole adventure, all of these different
diverse items I'm doing, they're all preparing me for those two weeks.
Because if I had tried to do it in year one, I couldn't have done it.
You know, like I even now think when I was trying to check off, own a $200 suit, which,
you know, in my, in my, you know, hair brain schemes can end up becoming a triathlon suit
because that's an easy $200 suit.
You know, just learn how to be a triathlete.
No problem.
And now I feel like, well, maybe all of that time that I spent out there in the cold, you
know, cycling 20 miles at that one night or, you know, running down to the YMCA and then
swimming, you know, for an hour and then running back home.
Like that's really, you know, you have to do that several times a week if you're training
for these half Ironman races like I was.
And I did it during the pandemic because I sort of had more time and I was trying to
fill it.
So now I feel like what I was actually doing when I was out there training for those races
was getting really good at being by myself, getting to a point where my brain became accustomed
to it.
And then that way when I went to Vienna, it was just like, Oh, this is not, this is not
a big deal.
You know, like being alone is, I think I referred to myself as my own best friend in the book.
And that was something, you know, for someone like me who was diagnosed with depression
at a young age and was taught, you know, like don't be, I mean, no one came out and said
this, but this was the impression I had, like don't be alone too much because you can't
trust your own thoughts and you'll get really lonely and down.
Like I really felt that way as a very young person.
So to now be someone at 44, I'm 45 now, but I was 44 then, you know, who's, who's choosing
to be alone and embraces it and loves it.
It's like, that was a revelation for me.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah.
And when I was talking to a friend about that this morning, we were talking about depression
and addiction and the loneliness and how it's, you know, people that are depressed, they
go in and spend time alone and, you know, we need to,
Yeah, but not in a good way.
No, not in a good way.
Exactly.
No, true.
And so yeah, the loneliness and so I'm single and never been married and traveled corporate
America for years and did lots of things, lived by myself.
And I remember the first time I was supposed to go to the beach with a friend and she backed
out and I'm like, you know what, I can go by myself.
Like I live by myself.
I travel by myself for business.
Why can't I go?
And I had the best time.
Like I had ice cream for dinner and read a book on a gazebo and I had nobody else's agenda.
So it is kind of a fun adventure to do things on that.
I mean, if you can't enjoy your company, who else is going to enjoy it?
Exactly.
And the other thing, and now I think that it did, that it did for me once I got really
good.
I remember being a person who when I was a teenager, the only thing I ever did alone
was go to the mall.
I remember even doing that in Delaware and thinking, oh God, why don't I have any friends
who can go to the mall with me today?
Because, you know, I was very popular in high school.
But you know, now I think because I pursue things in my life like these triathlons and
travel and things like that alone sometimes, and I actually really enjoy it, it has become
a defense against my depression, which is a lifelong condition.
You know, I take medication for it, I see a therapist, but it's something I'm always
going to have.
And I think now if I get into, if something's triggered for me or if I'm getting into an
episode of it, I come out of it a lot faster.
And the reason for that is I've gotten really good at talking to myself in my head.
You know, I've gotten good at, you know, say, like just stopping the thoughts and saying
to myself, okay, you know, what's going on here, Laura?
Like, what are you really thinking?
What's, let's put this into words.
What's really bothering you.
And that's what that comes from.
It comes from being in Vienna, walking down the street and sometimes just saying something
out loud that I was thinking if I saw something completely awe-inspiring and realizing, well,
this is weird, this crazy lady's walking down the street and said something to herself.
But then I thought, well, I'm speaking English and most people here don't even speak that
so it's okay.
And half the time people have earbuds in and they're talking to somebody, but yeah, I
think getting into the practice of talking to yourself preferably in your inside head,
not outside, is really healthy.
It's really good because you're the one who has to take care of you, you know.
Saying the good things to yourself though.
So in writing the book and doing the bucket list, because you said you do suffer from
depression, has it helped with that part of your life?
Has it helped you be more creative?
How has it changed you?
It changed the way I looked at myself almost completely.
And you know, my mom hates this part because I have such an incredible mother, you know,
and she did, she was a guidance counselor for God's sake.
She did such a great job at helping me to be emotionally intelligent and express myself
and be my real self, you know.
But when you have depression, it just, it distorts your thoughts.
It changes the way and especially if you're being treated for it as a kid, I think, because
I was seeing all these therapists at a very young age.
And you're old enough that that was not, I mean, luckily it's more accepted now, but
then absolutely not.
Yeah, it was not common.
And, you know, I felt like I felt very othered because of it.
I remember having to like quit certain activities in school like basketball or AP English marching
band because these doctors were telling me, you know, this is too much stress for you.
And you really like you're going to have a life where you can't do much, like you can't
stress yourself out too much, you know, you can't, like you need to be aware of your limits
here because you're not like other people.
And you have a, I remember one time someone saying, you have a disease, you know, like
just so, so, so dramatic.
And to tell a 23 year old that is just like, oh God, you know, like I'm doomed.
And, you know, I can laugh about it now, but it really wasn't very funny for me at the time.
And I was on a lot of different medications and we really were just, we're trying to find
the answer for why it was that I just couldn't get out of bed sometimes.
And, you know, I had formed ideas about who I was just based on how I grew up.
And you know, I had a bit of a sheltered existence in the suburbs in Delaware, which, you know,
a lot of suburban kids had.
And I had a really lovely childhood, you know, it was really nice.
Really I got to keep my innocence, I think in a lot of ways that some kids don't get
to.
And my mom and dad orchestrated that very, very carefully.
So I know how fortunate I am.
But I think there was just something for me about being sort of an intellectual and then
also becoming a woman that didn't pair very well.
And that's why the way I described it in the book was it was when I was reading Betty
for Dan's The Feminine Mystique That My Brain Broke, basically, because it was like, what?
Wait, as women, like we got the vote and then we were sent back to our homes, like what
is this history, you know, like this doesn't make any sense to me.
And I just couldn't, I couldn't piece it together.
Like what kind of life am I going to live if, if, you know, the greatest accomplishments
I'll ever have are being married and having kids, you know, if that's really what American
society sort of expects from me.
And it just, I think something in the core of my being, it just didn't match very well
with what I was supposed to do.
And I think that was what it was.
At some point I really got into like an existential depression that took me many years to navigate.
But you know, like you were saying, everything happens for a reason.
And if I hadn't had that experience of navigating depression and seeing all these doctors and,
you know, getting to a point where I actually had to go to a hospital after my college graduation,
because I'd been put on way too many of those antidepressants, I would never have moved
to New York.
I would never have really taken the plunge with magazines.
I wouldn't have met my husband who lived across the country.
I met him online.
You know, I wouldn't have been prepared for when my dad died suddenly and I had to make
a choice.
Do I go back home to Delaware or do I keep sticking this out?
I don't think I would have had the courage to stick it out if I hadn't been in that hospital
the year before.
Because what that taught me was, well, you know, I think in general people have this
fear of they don't want to lose control.
You know, like they don't want to be the person who has just had a nervous breakdown and now
they're being carted off to a hospital or something.
You know, like it's a real, what's the right word for it?
Even pride, you know, it's like you don't want to be seen that way by other people.
So there's a real effort, I think, that people make in their lives of just let's keep it
all together, you know, like let's keep my emotions in check.
And the thing is, like that's not really being alive.
No.
Like if you're always trying to maintain something and hide something, what's the point?
Are you even enjoying your life?
And I got to have this incredible blessing, which I feel like it would surprise my mom
to hear me describe it this way because it's still a, it's a painful thing for her that
this happened.
But I got to have this incredible blessing of being in that hospital in Johns Hopkins
for a week and seeing, oh, okay, now I've done this thing that everybody's afraid will
happen to them.
So there's nothing left.
There's nothing left for me to be afraid of.
And like the world is my oyster now.
That's awesome.
And it is those things that happen to us and how we react to them, you know, and, you know,
you could have hidden from it and that could have been your identity.
Well, and I did, I did hide it for 13 years.
I mean, that's the thing, you know, part of why I wrote about my dad's secret life in
the book is because I realized how much I identified with that.
And here I was 35 years old or 38 years old, finding this bucket list, starting to embark
on his dreams that he didn't get to and recognizing, oh my God, I've become him.
Like here I've, here I've made all these efforts to be, you know, responsible and steady and
not be this like adventurous dreamer the way that he was, or at least like to limit
it, you know, to have a creative life, but also feel kind of successful with it.
I'd really made these efforts to do that.
And I think sometimes when we resist becoming our parents, we still become them anyway.
And I had become him in the fact that I had these secrets, you know, I had the hospital
I had even my dad's death by then had become like a secret to me because really I was at
a point where anything that felt vulnerable to me or, or othering or different, I would
just hide from people because all I wanted was to be accepted and like celebrated for,
you know, not my accomplishments, but seen as someone who mattered.
I think most people feel that way.
Oh, absolutely.
I, I, the weirdest part is now I'm living this life where people treat me like things
I'm doing matter.
And after being on CBS Sunday morning and having this book out and whatever else, and
that stuff had started happening for me when I stopped caring about it, you know, like
I was too busy doing my thing.
Like I don't care if people think of me anymore.
So you're passionate about your self about what you're doing and you're living in alignment
with your values.
Somebody said that to me the other day.
Oh yeah.
And that's really important.
And that, that resonates with people.
There's an energy to it that I think that people give off when they're a person who's
doing that.
Yeah.
And like you said, you've never looked for a job.
It all came to you.
And since I've never looked for a job in my life.
And, you know, it all just kind of got handed to me.
And you know, it's who you knew, the connections and just it's being open to what's there.
And so many people just have their life closed off and I've talked about this loss with the
podcast.
It's there's a author Daniel Pink.
I don't know if you're aware of that.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I've heard of him.
He actually lives close to this.
He's my, he's my big scary person interview.
One day he will be on this podcast.
Oh, do it.
I've asked once, but he didn't respond.
I want to keep asking.
But he wrote a book about regrets, right?
About when I started this podcast and he said, we never regret the things that we do.
We often regret the things.
No, yeah, we never regret the things we do.
And so like we got to do those things.
And that's kind of the message here is step out of your comfort zone.
Do those things.
Don't stay in that box.
And I think that's where my dad's legacy is, is he was definitely a big thinker and crazy
thinker and way ahead of his time thinker.
He had had a major stroke in 2000 and pretty much was comatose for months.
People's like, oh, he'll never walk.
And he actually lived 13 years after he had the stroke before he passed away.
But they were bringing a Metro and from DC to Northern Virginia.
And that was in the works for years and years.
And my dad's like, there's going to be intellectual property going over the toll road and all
this stuff happening.
And he would be talking about this in the hospital and like, oh, he's still not together.
Well, things are coming to fruition.
You know, crazy things.
He thought outside the box.
He was, and he made you think he made, he asked questions.
I had several friends say that they had more conversations with my father than their own
father their entire life.
And you know, people would come to visit, you know, friends would come to go out or
do something.
And he would be like, hey, Laura, grab that bag of mulch and spread it or pick up those
leaves and they do it.
I'm like, what are you doing?
But he just had that positive attitude and, you know, good things were coming.
And I just feel, yeah, there's so many connections between you and your dad.
Yeah, just the positive attitude.
And I think you mentioned earlier, just having your dad with you.
And so I told you, my dad had the logo.
So we all got tattoos with his logo.
I love that.
Like before he passed away, we got him.
But my siblings have him, my nieces, some of my nieces and nephews.
But you know, I just feel like if I have a hard thing or a question, he's right here.
And I can, you know, you've got them in your book in the bucket list, which I just love
the whole premise of that.
So many cool things.
Yeah, I mean, and the thing too about my dad is, you know, he wasn't perfect.
Nobody's perfect.
Absolutely not.
And it was important to me that I described every person who's in that book.
It was important to me that I described them as a human being, even if they're like my
mom and like, you know, the most saintly human being I know, you know, that is just not reality
that every single interaction with someone is going to be like, oh, they're a saint every
time is just that's just not life.
And I felt like if I was going to share all of my flaws or not flaws, but challenges that
I was overcoming.
It was important to me that I showed the reality of people in my life and my dad in particular,
because for a long time, I think I let my fears about certain things about him, whether
he was, you know, because he kind of went from job to job.
And my mom was the one who was really sort of providing for us financially, even though
he would take us out twice a week, you know, I found out eventually she was going to be
paying for college.
And as a young person, I was resentful of that and I didn't understand it.
And you know, I think it was important that I wrote about those parts of his life too,
which, you know, I think troubled him a great deal.
I think he felt a lot of shame about it.
And I think he probably felt like he didn't get to do everything that he thought he was
going to do because he was such a talented person.
So I needed to come to terms with that, I think, because the only way I was going to
get to a point in my life where I could let myself thrive and be brave enough to take
things on that I care about, that I have a chance of being good at and have a chance
of helping people because I'm good at it.
The only way I could get there was if I could accept that I have these difficulties too,
you know, that I have things specific to me or things I might have inherited from my parents
and, you know, just get on with it.
Let it be.
And I think sometimes it's difficult for people to be brave enough to say why not today, to
actually live in the moment and do what they want to do because they've just sort of become,
I guess the right word is encumbered by these things that become like a load they're carrying
of.
And the haphood and the should-bees.
Yeah.
It's like, I think the focus can become more am I keeping up with the Joneses and not am
I just being me?
Am I being the person I was built to be?
Because I think even our challenges that we have in life, like these unique things that
seem like they're only difficult for us, even those are actually gifts because they're things
that we're supposed to work through and then take that, you know, who was it?
Joseph Campbell used to always say your wound is where your treasure lies.
So you're not supposed to avoid that pain.
You're not supposed to just not ever look at it and not let anybody else see it.
What you're actually supposed to do is just go into that cave and find it and spend some
time with it and become friends with it.
So that's really, you know, ironically, that's what going after my dad's dreams forced me
to do.
I had to look at my own nightmares and hold hands with them.
And say, why not today a lot?
Yeah.
Well, that's the other part, right?
I think it becomes a practice.
It absolutely is.
I think it's going to be a person who's, sorry, what'd you say?
I said it absolutely is a practice.
You've got to keep doing it and keep doing those brave things.
And, you know, I talk about here often, some people, and luckily that's not the way I'm
wired is getting up in the morning.
Some people, like you said, it was hard to get out of bed.
Yeah, well, depression will do that to you.
Yeah.
And so I can say, gratefully, I've not experienced that.
I'm usually bouncing out of bed.
But yeah, it's all the things just having the courage to do and, you know, live out,
live your life that you want to.
I mean, I left corporate America 24 years ago to pursue a side hustle and was able to
walk away and everybody's like, you're crazy.
What are you going to do for insurance?
And why are you doing this and helping?
I'm like, you know, if it doesn't work, I'll get another job.
And that was 24 years ago and I have not gotten another job yet.
And, you know, it's being able to be true to who you are.
And I think that was what I was modeled with my dad.
He always owned his own business.
And it wasn't perfect.
And it was ups and downs.
And it seemed like everything was good.
My mom's told me since that it wasn't always good and seemed to be always around a birthday
that they were short on cash and how is it going to work?
And, you know, it always worked out.
And it's something you and I talked about before we even came on is, you know, do the
things and the money will follow when you're true to yourself.
Well, encourage is a faith journey, I think.
I was thinking about yesterday how funny it is to me that if you look at my book, the
end papers, and this wasn't a decision I made, although I had the final call on it, of course,
the end papers are watermelons.
I was wondering about that.
Yeah, it's kind of whimsical.
And when I first saw it, I was like, oh, this looks like like a scrapbook or something,
you know, or like an elementary school.
What's the story behind the watermelons?
Well, the watermelon, it was a list item, grow a watermelon.
And it's actually, it's really at the very heart of the book.
It's chapter eight, it's just about dead center in the story, which I sort of love that that
happened that way.
One of my favorite books of all time is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
And she does this amazing thing or did this amazing thing where the way she wrote that
book was very layered.
So it's sort of like there are five different narrators of Frankenstein.
And it starts with the creature's experience, which is kind of dead center of the book.
And then outside of that is Dr. Frankenstein's experience.
And then outside of that is someone he meets on a boat, you know, and outside of that is
the aunt who's receiving letters from the guy on the boat, you know, it's like layer
upon layer of narration.
And I always thought that was such a cool way to tell a story.
And I think it probably impacted the way this story is told because, you know, that watermelon
seems like it should be one of the least significant items on the list, but it's actually the most
important one.
Even though it was the size of a golf ball, you know, when we grew it.
And I think the picture is of me holding it in my hands like in the hands were just sort
of forming the shape of a heart, which at one point the watermelon did become slightly heart
shaped, which I thought was really cool.
But it was really important to me because I think it really represents that idea we
were just talking about, which is that courage is a practice.
And the things that are going to require courage for people in their lives, it's going to be
different depending on the person.
So while growing a watermelon might seem like nothing to someone who has a farm or is a
gardener and they do things like that all the time, or someone like me living in the
city who was rarely home and was, you know, copy editing in an office until late at night
and was maybe home on weekends, like that was a big shift for me to have this little
thing I had to take care of every day that my husband would water in the morning because
he's a morning person and I would water at night and watermelons require a lot of water.
Like it's like more watering than you're ever going to give a plant.
In the title, watermelon.
You know, and I remember thinking it seemed synchronistic to me that I was checking off
this list item at the same time as beginning to write my book because the book to me felt
like I was planting seeds and something and almost like, I mean, I don't have children
myself, but I imagined this was sort of what that would feel like to if you had a child
and you were, you had just become pregnant and it's like you have a seed that's growing
and you have to wait.
And I remember thinking like I wish I had a pot that was made out of glass because then
I could see what was happening, you know, and I could because I couldn't see it.
And I just had to believe I had to have faith.
I had to wait.
And, and, you know, that's what I meant when I said that courage is a faith journey because
if you're doing something new that you think that you could fail at, I mean, I really did
think that that was going to be the one that was going to do me in, because I just thought
I had to lack them or something.
And to have it actually work, it really was just, okay, well, you know, you just have
to trust that life is going to do what it needs to do to help you.
And, and, you know, and the Jimmy Carter sermon I experienced that really helped with that,
thinking too, but I really had never thought that way before.
I never had this concept that I'm not in the world alone, that there's something so much
bigger than all of us that really is guiding all of our lives.
And if we can just get aligned with it and be like, okay, I agree, I'm cooperating.
Let's go.
It really helps you with that courage.
I love that.
And you know, I do these interviews and often think when I'm talking to people, it's like,
okay, God, you put Laura in my path.
For a reason for the things you just said that I needed to hear.
And oh, really?
Oh, absolutely.
Like just trusting the process, the whole podcast and where it's going and what I want
to do with it.
It's just, yeah, the seeds and growing them and somebody said, those are the scariest
things in life.
I think somebody said the other day, you know, talking about growing a watermelon like that
seems scary for you and you never done it.
Now, I've never grown a watermelon, but I do have lots of plants and they grow like
weeds and like, they don't die.
But you know, those things that seem really easy to us, the people go, oh my gosh, how
did you do that?
I'm like, what do you mean?
It's so simple.
And so those are the places of our genius and those are the places we need to spend time.
The things that you know, you writing and copywriting that scares me a lot, but that's
not going to be.
But you never know when the book might come from this.
But you know, stay in those places that just feed us and give us life and give us energy.
And I think we can.
Okay.
There you go.
I think we can talk forever, but yeah, all I was going to say is what I have discovered
is that if there's a yearning that's inside of you, even if it's super scary that yearning
is there for a reason.
Yeah.
And you know, this whole podcast and how this came about, I don't know if I shared
this with you, but I thought about doing a podcast.
It was just kind of one of those, maybe I should do a podcast.
No idea.
A friend of mine did one.
I'd been interviewed on a couple.
No idea what I want to do.
And I remember it like it's yesterday.
I was at a friend's house and there's a social media site that had a story and I don't ever
look at it and it just popped up in my feed and it was some man that lived locally and
he had an eye patch on because he had some surgery done.
And he said every morning he got up and looked in the mirror and thought of his old friend
Pat Cain and he talked about my dad and things he did.
And he said, and we both always said, why not today?
And that just stuck to me.
And it's actually, it's interesting.
It was September 13th.
My dad died in 13.
You had a 13 reference.
Just that was how many years ago your dad passed away?
When I found the list, it had been 13 years.
13 years.
Okay.
13, 13, 13, 13, 13.
But yeah.
Yeah, that was a big number for him too.
Yeah.
And it was just one of those things that I'm just like, okay, there's something here.
And so I talked to my friend that I talked about the podcast and told her that story.
She goes, well that's the name of your podcast and just do it.
And I've just done it.
I just feel like there's something bigger and better.
And your book just so spoke to me.
And you're my rock star interview.
Like my favorite thing.
You are.
The fact that you said yes, I've told everybody I was so excited.
Oh, that's so, wow.
That's so nice.
I don't know what to do with it.
I feel like I have a new best friend too.
Well, we started doing sponsors for the podcast and I'm going to, we're going to end in a
second, but I do want to share our sponsor.
So as this is going to launch right at the end of 2023.
And as we start January, it's going to be the why not today be intentional month.
And so I do a one word and I know Laura and I, you talked about this too, that you do
your one word.
And the last couple episodes are centered around that.
But our sponsor this week is Pino's Palates.
It says, why not unleash your creativity and have a little fun at Pino's Palates in
Herndon, Virginia.
Paint and sip while socializing with loved ones and friends and discover your inner artists.
No artist ability required.
Entertaining artists will guide you step by step from blank canvas to a masterpiece.
Why not paint and sip today?
So thank you Pino's Palates for being our sponsor.
So as we wrap up Ms. Laura, how would you encourage somebody else to say why not today?
It's funny.
I was just thinking about that what we talked about my little known fact about me that I
was double-jointed.
And it just occurred to me like maybe that is the secret is being flexible.
You know, I think because I was diagnosed with depression and ADD at a really young
age, one of the things I learned was how important it was to be flexible.
Knowing that I might be late to something sometimes or I might take an extra hour to
finish something that I thought was going to take this amount of time.
Or I might, I don't know, get caught up in a conversation for a really long time because
I'm hyper-focusing.
Like that's just how I function and that's okay.
And when you're that way, you learn to go with it just to flow with whatever's happening
in your environment.
And I think now that that is a big key to success for people when they're going after
something that scares them because the truth is taking that first step and saying why not
today, that's just the beginning.
I mean, you're really way ahead of everybody else if you can take that first step.
But if you actually want to succeed at something that you're afraid of, that you're doing,
you're going to have to remember that the universe is going to send you curveballs.
And usually that's not a bad thing.
Like that's, it's actually a detour and it's where you're supposed to be headed.
But if you try to stay in this fixed mindset of no, no, no, it's not supposed to be like
this, then you're not really helping yourself.
So it's really just having this very malleable mindset and a willingness to cooperate with
like the forces that be that are trying to guide you.
And I think you just covered that pretty well when you said you see all these signs and
things pointing you in a certain direction.
And I think people who really succeed at something are able to cooperate in that way.
Yeah.
And so true.
And I think we've talked about it circled around that subject many times with my dad,
you know, his life went this way when it was supposed to go this way.
Yeah, he's guiding you.
And he, oh yeah.
And he was on several, he flew, traveled a lot for business and he was on, missed several
flights that had major accidents or something happened.
Like he escaped death so many times.
And just, you know, when it was his time and it was time and he actually the day he passed
away was his birthday.
And he'd gone to the dentist.
He talked to several people.
He was totally fine.
He had lung cancer, but we don't know what killed him.
But that night my mom was getting ready for bed and his arm was sore.
So she gave him some Advil turned around the water down and he was gone.
And I think he was like, I mean, I've been thinking about Mark Twain this whole conversation
because that's like Mark Twain.
He was born and died with Haley's Comet.
I really he predicted it.
He's like, yeah, I was born with Haley's Comet and I'll die when Haley's Comet comes
back and that is exactly what happened.
And he was the person who said that quote that you said earlier.
It wasn't just Daniel Pink.
It was Mark Twain.
Wow.
I would do what, don't regret anything essentially, I'm paraphrasing, but do the thing that you
want to do.
Yeah.
And he's one of my big role models.
He was one of my dads.
And I mean, talk about someone who accomplished things that were really scary in his life.
I know some of his stuff.
Well, and I know in your book, before we close, I did in your, the very first, it says, strange
isn't it?
Each man's life touches so many others lives when he isn't around.
He learns an awful, he leaves an awful hole doesn't he?
And it's a wonderful life.
And I have on and I wear a starfish necklace a lot because of the story of the starfish.
I don't know if you're aware of that.
No, what's that story?
But a, and it just talks about how many lives you can touch.
You just never know who that one person is.
But this guy was walking down the beach and picking up starfish and throwing them in
the ocean.
And this man came up and he's like, what are you doing?
It's like, I'm saving the starfish.
He goes, there are thousands out here.
How can you make a difference?
And he picked one up and he threw it in the ocean and goes, I made a difference with that
one.
And I just feel like I live, try to live my life that way that, you know, you don't know
what one person you're going to influence by just smiling at or just saying their name
or doing that one thing and being aware of who God's in your surrounding.
And I really think with this podcast.
And as you said, you know, my dad's here for me, like your dad is, and that just paying
attention to watching people on social media, like I've interviewed several people that
I was watching.
I'm like, okay, there's a story behind what she's posting.
And just with you, like I remember it like it was yesterday sitting on my couch and on
Instagram just scrolling and seeing you.
And I'm just like, I'm going to ask the worst thing she can say is no, which is what my
dad always taught me is always asked because she never know.
And I'm so blessed and grateful that you said yes.
I feel that way too.
So fun.
So, so I always try to circle back to my dad and I would say, you know, what's the connection
my dad and people are like, I didn't know your dad.
And oh my gosh, so many things that connect.
First of all, the connection with your father's list and my father and they sound like they're
probably up in heaven hanging out and having a totally crazy time.
Watch my interview for sure.
Exactly.
So my dad was a sailor.
He swam.
He, what else I said, teacher story, he always taught with stories.
He definitely thought outside the box.
Pope Francis, who I know you were able to communicate with, which I'm Catholic and my
dad right after he died is when Pope Francis was, I don't say put in office, but and he
was born, I think the same year my dad was in my dad's middle name is Francis.
So my mom's like, that is such a sign.
You know, things you said about your husband just so much like my dad to adventure is take
a chance.
You know, he just he traveled, he did things and I think I do too.
It's like, you know what, I'm just going to do the things because you just never know.
We are not promised tomorrow and we need to live our life and be happy with it.
So what do you think?
I mean, I just, I would say the biggest shift from doing this project and writing this book
for me and what I'm still carrying through my life every day now is that life is a gift.
I used to be really afraid of life in some ways because of how my dad died.
And also what I had been told at a very young age about my own limitations and things that
were stressors for me.
So it was like, you know, just try to stay in control, just try to not do too much and
try to avoid getting killed by someone on their phone, you know, like which I was seeing around
me all the time.
So it was a very fearful way to be living.
And really my focus was try to accomplish things so people think you were important.
That's really what I wanted to do because I thought my dad died and he hadn't finished
anything.
But doing this list forced me to really like live day to day instead of in that sense of,
okay, how will I remembered 50 years from now.
So when you start choosing to live day to day because you're so engrossed in what you're
doing, everything starts to change because you're actually instead of planning for how
you're going to be alive someday when you actually get to a point where you're happy,
you're choosing to be alive right now.
Because you're just going to take whatever you have within you and use it for what you
have to do.
And that's what I had to start doing if I was going to accomplish this mission.
And now it's become like just habit for me where every day I get to have a chance to
feel alive and I get to do something that matters.
And that I think is just the greatest gift of it because it's like I'm always thinking
about what would my dad feel about getting to be alive.
How would he feel about that today?
As opposed to like I don't ever think anymore about, oh, how sad that he died so young or
how sad that this happened to my family.
But I look at it as how lucky I was to have him for the amount of time I did.
And that's the greatest tribute, I think.
Yeah, and you hear people who've lost children are very young and they're like, you know
what, I was grateful I had him that period.
And that was supposed to be the time.
And I always said, because he had this major stroke and he had several health issues after
a stroke.
And he was like, I'm not done in this world.
I've got grandchildren I need to teach.
God's got bigger plans for me.
And as I said, he lived his life until the minute he died.
And even he was diagnosed in October with cancer.
And we're like, do you really want to go through chemo?
He's like, heck yeah, like whatever I can do, even though his quality of life wasn't great.
He was still going to do the things to be here.
And people would ask, how are you?
Because I'm on this side of the grass today.
Oh, I love that.
Yeah.
I mean, I feel like it's a little different with kids because I mean, I'm not a parent
myself, so I can't imagine how difficult that is when a child dies.
And it's so unnatural seeming.
And it's like, because you don't feel like there's ever supposed to go before you do.
So I try to never speak to that because it's like I just, I can't fathom it.
But I do know that the families that I've met who have had a child die because of a
distracted driver are just some of the most special people I've ever known.
And really, it's been a blessing for me to get to learn about their kids because I think
of my life sometimes as a tribute to those kids.
The daughter, they didn't get to walk down the aisle.
The kid who was in journalism school and never got to actually work for a newspaper.
It's like my life is a tribute to them too.
Yeah.
We just never know.
We need to live our life and live it the best we can.
And just like you're doing and I'm doing, be able to have somebody's life that was cut
short or somebody not even touched on them and my dad, yeah, it was short, but it was
77, I think.
But still, to be able to give the tribute and to make a difference because of them.
And I love one of the things you have as a nonprofit.
Yeah, that's nuts.
And that's something I'm very passionate about is being able to give back and make a difference.
And yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, my dad helped me write this book and there are some passages in that book where
I would write it and I would feel like, oh, I didn't know I could write that.
Like something had come through me and I really think it was him because he was a writer too.
So half of the royalties are going to go to a foundation in his name and then I will donate
to every person who helped me with the list to their personal causes because they helped
me with mine.
And yeah, I think, you know, I think that it's important to do that.
It's important to live for something that's bigger than you and to feel like, you know,
those are the happiest people, I think, the ones who are doing something that's way bigger
than themselves.
Yeah, that's kind of where I feel like I am.
So, so grateful for you and we will share how to find you in the show notes.
I'm assuming you can find the book anywhere books are sold.
Yeah.
It's my father's list.
I got mine in Amazon and the next day and super excited to have you on here.
It's so much fun to get to know you and I'm going to connect you with a couple people
and hopefully get you down here sometime to do a book reading or something around.
Yeah, yeah, I love to do that.
So I'll share all Laura's contact information, the show notes.
Is there a favorite way for people to get in touch with you?
Oh, you can find me.
I'm my father's list on Instagram and Facebook pretty much everywhere or, you know, my website's
good by lauracarni.com.
You can get the book there.
You can also email me through there.
So, perfect.
And then you can always find the podcast at why not today podcast.com.
And we do have why not today swag like ups and shirts.
And as you start to hear, like, encourage yourself daily to remind yourself to say why not today.
So thanks again, Laura.
And let's start 2024 strong as you listen to this episode.
Yeah, do you have your word?
Did you pick your word?
I've got a few.
It hasn't resonated.
Do you have yours yet?
Yeah, 2024 is going to be a scary year, I think, because my word is truth.
Oh, I love that.
Yeah.
Okay, well, we'll leave on that note.
So thanks again.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
This was really cool.
It was, they think and remember say why not today?
Why not today?