Episode 195: Choosing Joy In The Face of Chronic Pain | Karen Duffy | Bestselling Author & Stoic Thinker
Karen Duffy is one of Kara’s heroes, and after this episode, she might be one of yours too. She broke onto the world stage as the MTV VJ “Duff” in the early 1990’s, was on People’s 50 Most Beautiful People list in 1993, she is an actor, a model, a producer, an Oprah and NY Times best selling author, a speaker, a writer, and has also had a full assortment of social service roles including being a hospice chaplain in the Buddhist tradition. In 1996, she was diagnosed with sarcoidosis - a currently incurable chronic pain illness and while it may have slowed her down in moments, it has not stopped her from working, creating or making a huge impact. This conversation is about how to live beautifully within limits, how philosophy can be a daily practice, and how joy and pain can exist side by side. They talk about parenting, creativity, friendship, and why confidence comes from the inside out. It’s a masterclass in resilience, purpose-driven living, and choosing how you want to show up.
“Purpose is the siamese twin to powerful. Often the obstacles that we overcome guide us to our power”
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Saying yes to life
01:15 From VJ to chaplain
03:00 Living with chronic illness
05:10 Discovering stoic philosophy
07:00 Why joy is a daily choice
09:10 Practicing gratitude and self-talk
11:15 Mentorship, friendship, and writing
13:00 Parenting while living with limits
15:10 Building confidence and resilience
17:00 Reframing how we think about work
19:15 Service as a mindset
21:00 The meaning of powerful
23:00 Humor and humanity in hard times
25:00 The impact of creative community
27:30 Books that shape our lives
30:00 Turning pain into purpose
32:00 What legacy really means
34:15 Advice to her younger self
36:00 Kara’s favorite takeaways
One of my favorite books is by Viktor Frankl, man's Search for Meaning, and Vitor Frankl says, say Yes to Life in spite of Everything. And I think that is a really good motto yes to life in spite of all the no. And the injustice keeps saying yes.
That's Karen Duffy and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys, I'm Kara Duffy, a business coach and entrepreneur on a mission to help you live your most extraordinary life. By showing you anything is possible. People who have mastered freedom, ease, and success, who are living their best and most ridiculous lives and who are making an impact are often people you've never heard of until now.
Today's guest, Karen Duffy, has a diverse and impactful assortment of careers. She broke into the world stage as the MTV VJ Duff in the early 1990s. Was on People's 50 Most Beautiful People list in 1993. She's an actor, a model, a producer, and Oprah and New York Times bestselling author, A speaker, a writer, and an addition has had a full assortment of social service roles, including being a hospice chaplain in the Buddhist tradition.
In 1996, she was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a currently incurable chronic pain illness. And while it may have slowed her down in moments. It has not stopped her from working, creating, or making a huge impact. In this episode, we dive into the wisdom of stoicism, the power of gratitude, how to be joyful through the pain, and why serving others is the answer to everything.
We also discuss her latest projects, the Bill Murray documentary, new Worlds, the upcoming movie, greatest Beer Run Ever starring Zac Efron and her soon to be released. Newest book.
Welcome to the Powerful Ladies Podcast. Thank you very much. I'm from one Duffy to another. Exactly. Let's jump right in and tell everyone your name, where you are in the world, and what you're up to.
My name's Karen Duffy, and I'm in Greenwich Village in New York City. And I am I am, I'm a writer.
I write about stoic philosophy and I'm also a film producer. And I have a new film out right now that I associate produced called The Greatest Beer Run Ever. I'm really making the most out of life.
Yeah. And I also love that you started your career as a vj.
Yes.
I'm old enough to remember what a VJ is 'cause they were amazing.
They had the coolest careers ever.
It was amazing, Kara, when I started my career, I was a recreational therapist. I really grew up in a family where. Service was the rent we pay for life on Earth. And we as big Irish Catholic family, we all had to find ways to be of service. And I really loved working at a nursing home.
And so I started working at the Village nursing home, which is right around the corner when I was 12. And kept, I stayed there. I loved it. I went away to college and got my degree in recreational therapy. And when I moved back to New York, I was hired back by the nursing home. And I feel that the skills that we have in life are transferable.
And so I recognized that my elocution had to be clear the way I moved my body that I was working with. My clients who had Alzheimer's and had impacted. Attention spans and memory, and everyone kept saying, MTV was ruining America's attention span. So I figured, oh, I've got the skillset for that.
And so it was serendipitous, I think having the confidence of doing s. I, I knew I was a great recreational therapist and I still carry on as a volunteer in my life, but I think that gave me the confidence to just go for it, take the shot, send in my video. I'd never been on camera before and I wound up getting the primetime VJ slot, which was amazing, within about two weeks.
I think that we. Should always remember to carry those feelings of success, of purpose and meaning, and then they can help us figure out our next steps.
You never know what's gonna cross your path. You really don't. I love whenever people talk about. The importance of being presence present, excuse me, is more about being able to see what's right in front of you and all the cool things you have access to, almost more than being still with your thoughts.
Like, how do we just stop being distracted first?
It's true. I think we have to expand our sweet spot for luck and Seneca said, opportunity and preparation equals luck. And Mickey Mantle said the more I practice the lucky I get, so it's some mindset. But also being aware of opportunities.
Like we were saying, like one of the things I love about your podcast is that you, I feel like your messages, it's like ideas. Don't count unless you take action. And everybody has ideas, but we have to take action. And that is a great inspiration in my life that I really appreciate that I've gotten from you.
Thank you. And I'd love to go back to stoicism because it's, people know, we'll call people stoic, but I don't think a lot of people understand really what stoicism is and how a lot more of it's ingrained in. Common Western vernacular than we give it credit for. So could you give people a little bit of background of what it is, what it represents, and how you fell into being passionate about it?
I think that when people hear the small s word of stoic, meaning essentially a stiff upper lip that is very different from stoic philosophy with a capital s and stoic philosophy goes back 23 centuries ago and in ancient. Athens there. The Greek word for porch is stoa. So again, this is the golden age of the philosophers.
So Aristotle had his parapet school where he felt all the highest ideas came. When you were in Parapa, when you were walking, Plato had his academy where I just spoke last a couple weeks ago. And the stoics. Believed that this is a practical philosophy of love and that it should be available for to everyone.
So they had, they gathered in this open air porch where you can still visit in Athens, the Stoa Park, and so where. People think that you can get confused with the stiff upper lip, but I think that stoic philosophy, this philosophy of love is about turning that lip into a big smile that's just gripping your face.
How did you discover stoicism?
So when I got my gig at MTV and I realized that with responsibility comes a lot, with a lot of power, and I felt like I, if I was going to be a voice of popular culture. I should actually look back at the classics. And I really like my first, the first book I read was Marcus Aurelius Meditations, and it just blew my mind.
And the first book that I wrote, first book that I wrote, model patient, I read it recently and I have so many quotes from Marcus Aurelius. It's stunning. I felt like with responsibility. Like I, I need to educate myself. I feel like every day we have an opportunity to be a weight less stupid than we were the day before, hopefully.
And progressing from Marcus Aurelius to Epic Tatu epic status. The thesis of my new book Wise Up is he says, if you make beautiful choices, you will make a beautiful life. And this just reverberated through me like a firecracker and a silverware drawer. It's like exactly the stalks are really known for what they call the dichotomy of control, which says.
We can't control what happens. We can only control how we respond. And so it is a, I can't wait to wake up in the morning to work on my next book about stoke philosophy because it is so rewarding. It's. So Rich, and what's really interesting is, I was just in Athens for a week speaking at a conference on stoicism for Modern Life and all of these eggheads, all of the they like, like all of these.
Dusty philosophers from Oxford and Cambridge, they were incredible. They embraced me. They understood that there is room for wise Aery in stoicism and to get it out into every I, I try. And they kept saying these are like unbelievably educated. Philosophers and they're like, how come you find all the funny stuff in stoicism?
And it's because it's what I'm looking for. And I truly believe that stoicism, it's not just about living your life, it's about loving the living of your life.
One, I, for me, I can't imagine having as much fun in life if there isn't a little. Snarky wise, ay, going on. I put so much value in, in the skate and punk rock past lives that I've had because there's something nice about being skeptical of things and being like, let me I'm suspicious first. Which I think is well balanced in as I've become an adult, but I really appreciate that approach would be of. The humor and skepticism and that view on things, making it a little less precious, I think has been helpful.
Absolutely. And I am on a mission because I love my life and it is not perfect.
I have a chronic illness. I live with chronic pain. But I believe that. Reading the stoics kind have created a scaffolding and it helps me think when I don't know what to think. And so I am here to pass on this joy and I feel like I try and distill all of these ideas and then put 'em out in a really friendly, loving way that hopefully people will embrace and that is a, a.
The great joy of my life. I love it. And I just for new ideas, we often have to go back to old books and 'cause we're all reading the same popular literature, we're all gonna have the same ideas. And so I love that books are not just lifeless lumps of paper. They are minds alive on the shelf.
As I can see. You have many right in back of you,
Reading. If I couldn't read anymore, I dunno what I would do. It books have always been such a love of mine since I was young and I'm such a consumer of them still. Like this is me trying to be cautious and wean down my books and like passing them on more.
I love it. I love that it's a way to literally share a brain with someone for a period of time or Exactly.
So there, Galileo said, and this is in the 14 hundreds, he said that, reading was like a superpower and that we can transcend time and space through reading. And cognitive behavioral therapists have proven that reading.
Has the same benefits as cognitive behaviors, cognitive behavior therapy. It's called Bibliotherapy, the Novel Cure. And it is a studied, and I know Biblio therapists. And the idea is that when you immerse yourself in a novel that you experience empathy and you have this. Brand new perspective in life by inhabiting somebody's space, somebody's head.
Somebody's view. It's fascinating.
I, yeah. It's for people who aren't readers, I'm like, what do you do? Like, how do you function in life?
When we,
there are so many distractions. Yes. And that's why we have to, make an effort and make ourselves disciplined because it is a gift to ourselves.
And actually, I'm always telling my son I'm a geezer, you're a kid. The compound interest of knowledge, you've got another. 60 years ahead of you can use this for another 60 years. Get smart early. Because it keep building on it,
you totally can.
I'd love to go back to 8-year-old. You. Would she have imagined the life that you've created and would any, what would delight her and what would surprise her?
I think the. 60-year-old me is absolutely delighted that I get to talk to the world through books. And I was always a great reader at eight years old and to the point where I would stay up all night reading and it was and I'm still like that. I think the 8-year-old me would be surprised that 52 years later that I have a 19-year-old son. Yeah. I think the 8-year-old me would never under, couldn't comprehend that someone could live in chronic pain for two decades and still maintain and.
An incorruptible sense of optimism and gratitude. I was a devout little kid and so I am very aware of being grateful. And giving back to the world. And I think when I was a little kid, I would walk by the street I live on. I live in the West Village and I would say someday I'm gonna live on that street and I am absolutely living on the same street with my best friend right upstairs.
So what the plans that I made at eighth when I was eight years old a couple of 'em did come true.
I think we overstep how wise we are, like in that time period. And I'm totally jealous that you're living the dream of living in a great neighborhood with your friend upstairs. I'm pretty, I think that was my wish when I was eight also, and I keep being like, how can we all live on the same neighborhood?
Or do we need a compound somewhere? Yeah, we wanted to be
like Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda. Yeah, Lucy. And we did. And it's been amazing. We've lived we were, we've been best friends since we were little kids and we went to college together and roomed together after college. And she got married first and bought an apartment and then found our apartment.
I think again our ideas, epic data says our soul is colored by our thoughts and that we are the sum of what we think about the most. And I think that I'm grateful and I am inspired to do good work and the thoughts that are running in the program of our mind. I just read that, our brains.
We are 40 trillion cells thro with life force and our brains which are the most evolved material in the universe. Marcus Aurelius said, there is a miracle in our head, like we should essentially worship our brains. And I think that when we. Talk to ourselves. That's almost the program that we're running.
And so if it's oh, I got a big keister. Oh, I, I've got ugly feet. Oh, my jeans are too tight. If, oh, if you're filling your head with negativity, I think that. Is what's going to be most prominent. But if you can be like, oh, I got a small piece of cake. I'm like, whoa, cake. I think that absolutely has an impact directly into your attitude.
Absolutely. It's making the choice, right? We can choose to be grumpy or we can choose to be psyched about what's happening. I was recently in a bunch of national parks and. Saying hi to everybody walking past that, I'm like, sucking wind going up this ridiculous incline. And the first I was like, why are you so happy?
I'm like, we're in a national park. This is beautiful. We're not working. We're on a road trip. Like we, this is great. Why aren't we like jumping around? It's yeah, I'm sucking wind, but. That's okay. Yes, exactly. Like I think
we often get perfection wrapped up almost like an invasive species onto happiness and, it's important yes. To appreciate the moment and then keep stringing them together and until you get a hat trick. Yeah. And we have to thank Theodore Roosevelt for creating our national park service. Yeah, I love that. His nickname was a locomotive in human pants. And Theodore Roosevelt was a great follower of the stoics and wrote an amazing book called The Strenuous Life where he believed in just being challenged.
It's amazing. So I live. Just a few block, a few blocks away from where Theodore Roosevelt was born. And I really enjoy visiting his birthplace. It's a national park. And Theodore Roosevelt had terrible asthma where he couldn't even. Go to school. He had to be tutored at home, but his father would give him cigars to smoke to try and help him with the asthma, and he would have to juggle Indian clubs and all of those are in his nursery.
And he wound up actually building up his chest and became a boxer at Harvard and went on to live a long, strenuous life of great acts.
So often I'll have clients ask me how to increase their confidence, especially around like selling or pitching their business. I'm like, the only way you can gain confidence is by doing something scary.
That's it. Or something that you don't think you can do. It doesn't have to be scary, but we get so nervous to be challenged as we get older. Like before COVID had lockdown everything, I had started practicing jujitsu. And I was laughing so hard at myself every. Practice because I looked completely ridiculous.
I dunno what I'm doing. My hands and feet are in the wrong places. And as an adult it's so unusual to be a complete idiot novice, and it was so refreshing.
That is so great because I think when you awaken. Your mind to trying something new. Again, you put yourself in that sweet spot where more opportunities can happen and then you build up that confidence.
And people always think oh, they're not gonna do it until, unless they do it perfectly. But that is the joy is getting from knucklehead to novice. It. That is a great achievement. The word amateur is often, I. Thought of as a pejorative, but it means for the love of doing things like it's, I, I love that if you're an amateur, you're doing it because you love it.
Not that you're some second string, nobody. You're doing it for purely the love. That's the only thing that's getting you on the mat for jiujitsu.
I love that definition. Yeah, and it's a great example also of how so many. Just words are taken out of context and redefined in Western society today.
Truly, I believe that sloppy speech leads to sloppy thinking.
And I, I used to give up cursing for Lent and then I realized I should just stop doing it altogether. There is a palliative. Benefit from weaving. A tapestry of profanity, like when you whack your thumb with a hammer. But I believe that when we speak clearly, it's because we value what we say.
And I mentor a couple of young women and one of 'em wants to be an actress. And I said, okay, you've gotta do, you've gotta be great at something else. Besides just being an actress do something that you love and go get great at it because that will then give you the confidence. I read a study about fear and the.
The number one fear is not snakes or spiders or flying. The number one fear, nearly like 81% Americans have it is fear of public speaking. And if you have that fear and you were at a funeral. You would rather be in the casket than the one delivering the eulogy. So again, it's a great opportunity is, especially for women who've been socialized to speak softly or not speak at all, is to practice speaking and challenge yourself.
Call in radio shows. Just little acts will get you there. It's small actions and that's how you get. To proficiency.
And it makes me go down an entire Phil, wow. Excuse me. Philosophical black hole of if the number one fear in the world today is public speaking, how many leaders are we missing out on?
How many just people who can help be moving things forward and creating conversations when right now there seems to be such a void in. True conversation, true discussion. And there's so many people that need to be spoken up on behalf of or for it, it just breaks my heart thinking about how many people have so much to say and have so much compassion and are stuck behind that I can't speak up piece.
Truly, and the Oratory and the great orders, the there's a great CD that we have. It's the best like 50 greatest speeches in American history. And it's something like, I like to listen to just to listen to Cadence and again, i'm not always this courageous.
Sometimes I have to borrow somebody's courageous courage, and a lot of times it's Pictus, or it's Seneca, or it's one of my favorite philosophers or, mother Teresa who said, we all can't do great things, but we can all do small things with great love. So I think, many small steps take in action.
It's. We're responsible for how we interact in the world. And if we keep practicing and overcoming fear I think we will be in, I think, feel more confident in our own skin, but also a greater contributed contribution to society.
I don't know where it comes from and I'm curious.
Being a fellow east coaster, if it's something in the water. But there was always, I've never known a life where I wasn't encouraged to have give an opinion or have one, even if I wasn't meant to share it at that time. There was an expectation that you had an opinion and you contributed.
And I don't really know where that comes from and I can see it through family lineage if I look, and it seems to be a common thread from people I know who have an East coast upbringing. I don't know if it's as reflective on the West Coast where I am now, but I think it's so interesting that those two things are kind of twins, like side by side in, have an opinion and then be a contribution.
Where did that come from? From you, from family, from church, from like how ingrained was it in you and has it gotten deeply more deeply rooted? Or has it, how has it changed as you have gone through life?
I grew up in a big family with many raconteurs and being able to crack the table up at dinner was looked as valuable.
As a great spelling test, being able to tell a story and and perhaps, this comes from an Irish background where we are great storytellers. But I think we have to infuse this with confidence. And I have a big, I believe in philosophy. I don't believe in self-help. Because I think there's too much emphasis on self and not enough help.
Helping others. There was a study I read in this report called the Oracle at the supermarket and said the reason why self-help. Diet books don't work is because the reward center of your brain lights up just for buying the book, not for adapting any of the ideas. And as we say, ideas don't count with act, without action.
So I find being of service to be a great, it really helped me with my confidence. I, am a hospice chaplain and I thought like I, I could just like slowly lurk around the hospital and secretly pray for people. They're like no. No, and I was like, no, nobody wants me bothering them.
They're like, that's exactly what this is. You've gotta knock on those doors. And I was like, but I spent a ton of time in the hospital. I don't want anyone else coming in. They're like, not everybody's like you. So it was a real. Probably some of the greatest lessons in my life as an adult came from taking a class on how to be a hospice chaplain.
And another great lesson that I learned was, I think being afraid and then doing it anyway and it's don't expect perfection. But my teacher told us he awakened us to this idea of fugal. Which is Gaelic for fear of endings and that he would always say, be aware of how you end things.
Now, I tend to get off the phone with as if my hair's on fire. Okay. Goodbye. Like I, there's a reason why we call it the Irish exit, where you climb out the window without saying goodbye to anyone. And I. And understanding. Okay. It's good to think about how we end things. And then Seneca said every new beginning comes at some other beginnings end.
So I like to con contemplate how I can be better at ending things and great at beginning them. I'll come in like a bull in a China shop, but then I slink out like the Grinch walking down, going down the stairs.
What was it that made you want to be a hospice chaplain?
I. I think because I don't scare easy.
I loved working at the nursing home. The nursing home where I worked closed down. And when my son went to kindergarten, I thought, this is an opportunity for. Where I can go back to school. And I'm so grateful I did. And after COVID and because of my illness, I can no longer practice in a clinical setting.
But I use those skills every day as a patient advocate, a pain patient advocate for people who live in chronic pain and people who live with. This disease that I have called sarcoidosis. So again, like we were saying, like the whole vibe is, all skills are transferable. Yes. When you gain proficiency in one area of your life, you can then pivot and apply that confidence and skill and knowledge and service to another area of your life.
Part of my business coaching practice is helping people be in more alignment. Like, how do you make money doing your thing? And what you just said is not really the secret, but the methodology of how can you put all the things that make you a unicorn and be of service and in a business setting be paid to be of service.
It doesn't mean that you're always paid to be of service, but that's the magic sauce where you're like, wait, you're paying me to do this? Like I would've done it anyway. And you're like, yeah, like it's a valuable skill. And I think we don't, most people are not giving themselves credit for the fact that everything that's happened up to this point keeps making your little di, diagram, the center of it where they all overlap, get more and more defined.
'Cause I can only imagine how. The disease that you are living with, that like how much access it gave you to things that you never thought you would have
it. I didn't know it would be possible to live in this high of a register of pain. And now it's interesting, we were talking earlier about.
How I am aware of the way I speak. And early on when I was going through chemo and there's, we use many war-like metaphors in in, in, in healthcare, and the doctors were like we're gonna blast this and then we're gonna, kill these and we're gonna radiate. And I was like whoa.
I'm a lover, not a fighter. Yeah. And they kept saying you go imagine visualize these cells fighting and I'm like. I don't wanna fight my illness. I understand. That does not mean I'm giving up, but I live in chronic pain every minute, and what I want to do is peacefully negotiate with my illness.
I'm not capitulating, but I just, if I hated sarcoidosis and if I hated. Chronic pain, I would hate far too much of my life. That would make, yeah, it livable. So I, I just accept it and I think, no one gets through life without. In perfect condition we're all going to experience illness and or the people that we love.
And I believe that yes, pain is inevitable, but suffering can be an option. While I live in chronic pain, I am not living a life of suffering. And one of my favorite quotes is from Lord Byron who said, always laugh when you can because it's cheap medicine.
It. So is it, and I think, and then laughing about what hurts the most.
Exactly. There's, I have Sarah Saeed on the podcast recently who's doing so much work for everything that's happening in Iran, and we were talking about the choices to punish the nation or the leadership. Or we can empower the people and like you, I'm so much more pro the love approach because it's more fun, it's more exciting.
There's power, I think in like the Care Bear stare versus the opposite. I'm definitely dating myself with Care Bear Stare references. But it's, I, there's always an option to change our words, to be powerful, to change your perspective, to be powerful. I wish more people knew that the shift starts there.
Does it frustrate you seeing people who are choosing otherwise? Like as much as you're being this in a positive, appreciative mindset, are you sometimes get over here. It's okay.
Yes. I understand that. We are born with essentially a baseline happiness, and it's been proven that we can probably jimmy that up by 10% by.
I believe by, doing good works, by being appreciative. Dan Harris, who's one of my colleagues at the Zen Center believes in meditation, whatever, it makes you happy. But I think if you wanna change the world, you have to change your thoughts. And and it starts with you rather like thinking, oh, I, I can't.
I can't do this and somebody has to be the rock. And I was just at a birthday party and and it was for a writer from Saturday Night Live. And and he wrote for Letterman and it was really funny, like Triumph, the info insult dog gave a roast and Jimmy Fallon was singing a parody song and the guy in front of me just.
Keeled over, and that's a real way to clear a party. But I'm looking at him and I'm just like, all right, no. All right. Call 9 1 1. I'm going in to do first aid. And and Tim Meadows was calling and we were giving first aid on this guy, and then my friend said, how did you know how to do that? And I was like I did take First Aid, but I realized I have to be the one that will go. And then once I went to 'em, other people came. So I feel like one of the be best things is to take, truly, I made everyone at that party promise that they would take a Red Cross CPR course and a first aid course, it's free. You can take it online. And and I'm really on that because I feel like you have a confidence to know how to respond.
And I also find that immersing myself in a, such a radiantly positive, optimistic philosophy it, these are is the program that's running through my head. So I feel like it's a gift to be able to share this with others.
It is a gift and I think, so your story of jumping in to provide CPR, I think that it might be an example of how you have done life in general.
Because when I look, if we just looked at your resume, there's so many different exciting things where I'm. I am amazed and so excited by people who have just said yes, that sounds fun. Yes, I wanna be a mermaid. Yes, I wanna be a vj. Yes, I wanna be a writer. Yes, I'm gonna do CPR. And there doesn't seem to be a limit to you saying not, no, I, not that you don't have boundaries, but this curiosity to be like, oh, what's over there?
Like how much is curiosity and. Like intrigue about these random things that end up in front of you. Like how much has that been fun for you to play with the world and universe and how much of it have you sought after?
It's up to us to be the architects of the type of life we wanna live. And I and I was always adventurous.
And when my world slowed down because of my immune system, I found ways to still communicate with the world. And I, no I'm. The associate producer of this movie that's just out right now called The Greatest Beer Run Ever. And my son's babysitter was a film student at NYU and he, his first movie won the Tribeca Film Festival.
I was like, Hey. Let's think about doing some projects and one night we were at a party and I introduced Andrew to a friend of mine, Joanna Malloy, and I said, Andrew Joanna's a journalist. And he asked the best question. He said, what's the greatest story? That you never reported on. And she told us the story of how Chicky Donahue in 1968 he was a veteran and four of his best friends from his neighborhood in upper Manhattan were drafted to the Vietnam War.
And there were all these protests and he didn't know how to feel and he wanted his friends to feel supported. And he decided I'm going to get on a munition ship with a duffle bag full of Paps blue ribbon, and I'm gonna go bring. Perhaps Blue Ribbon Beer to my four best friends. So this is a story that has been told in bar rooms for 50 years, and once it landed in Andrew's ears, he's okay.
So we made a short documentary and then I sent it to Pete Farley who did Dumb and Dumber and pete had just done Green Book and Pete. Took our YouTube 10 minute short documentary and made it into a theatrical. So I think one of my favorite books that I think everyone in the world should read is by Viktor Frankl, man's Search for Meaning, and Victor Frankl says, say Yes to Life.
In spite of everything that was the name of one of his lectures. And I think that is a really good motto Yes. To life. In spite of everything. In spite of all the no. And the injustice keeps saying yes.
Up to us.
So what I'm curious then if it's up to us and if we should be saying yes to life, how does that translate to how you define powerful and ladies, and do those words mean something different when they're next to each other versus in on their own?
I think that power comes from purpose and I heard President Biden speak one of my. Lost her son, Dylan Hawley in the Sandy Hook massacre almost 10 years ago.
But Nicole Hockley has turned her pain into purpose and created the Sandy Hook promise in sane gun laws and keeping our kid kids safe. But president Biden was speaking and he spoke about purpose, and he said, in order to find our purpose, we need something to love, something to do, and something to look forward to.
So I think purpose is absolutely the Siamese twin to powerful. And and I think to be a part of the powerful Ladies community, I think, all of your, the guests that you have, they're sharing their stories of their purpose and the obstacles that they had to overcome. Marcus Aurelius says the obstacle is the way.
Yeah, what impedes us inspires us so often. Like I was just leading to your last, on your most recent podcast where the, it was a manufacturing trays and all the obstacles to get to the right version and it's blowing up and the joy in her voice. Was, I dunno, I thought What's so great is that we can share in the celebration and listening to Powerful Ladies podcast because it's such a gift to hear other.
Other women succeed and whether they're in any area of life, politically whether it's through their own businesses in media. And it's great to share that because they used to have the old boy network. You're the Hot Chick network, like you're the hot, smart chick network.
Into the Old Boy Network.
I we're definitely renaming the entire group too. The Hot Chick Network. Absolutely. I think people would prefer that name than powerful ladies sometimes. I think it's so interesting the choices we make, right? And when we get to that crossroad and knowing oh, we are at a crossroad right now.
There are moments in life when you can feel it. And I think back to moments that I have felt it and. Chose purposely to go left or right. And I also hear in your story of especially you dealing with your illness of no, I'm choosing to go right. I'm choosing joy and happiness. And I think often so many people get paralyzed in those moments because the, sometimes the fear and the literal pain and everything else is screaming.
No. And the power and courage it takes to say yes. Like sometimes I don't know where it comes from for people like yourself. Because it's wow. Did you, did you call on the entire universe to be like, I need all the yeses right now, like all the yeses in the universe. I need all of you right now.
Yes. Listen, the universe. He's made of us. Yeah. The same four atoms in the universe are the same atoms that make us up. And again, what Viktor Frankl said, he was this he was a neurologist. And a physician, and he said yes to life. In spite of everything. Essentially we make about 35,000 decisions a day.
A lot of 'em are involuntary. But a lot of times I think the words of epic beautiful choices make a beautiful life. And so making the choice to act in a way that is. Reflective of that maxim that swims in my head every day. And, two, even small things, again, just carrying somebody's groceries, holding the elevator.
You just small acts of kindness build up. And then I think you really start to I like where I live. I like living in this noodle. I like that I am game for adventure.
And so this has been a choice to be the architect of this life. Every decision that I made brought me here and there's things that are out of my control and I understand that.
But what I can control, I will do the best to live and to honor this life that I have and to give back and be a good role model.
No, I wanna come back to you as an author because you so many people choose when they're brave enough to become an author. They never think that it would be a New York Times bestseller.
They never think that Oprah will bless their book. What was that feeling for you? And. Was it like I knew it would happen or was it a holy shit? It happened.
The first, my very first book and I had been writing, when I was at MTVI had a column in glamor and I wrote for Spin I and a couple of other magazines.
I had a collection of essays, humorous essays, and my agent said no. It's, I think you've really gotta talk about how you, it went from. A woman who looked like she had everything to then losing. I lost my job, I lost my health, I lost my fertility, I lost my hair. I grew a hunch back.
Like I lost a lot, a part of my vision and my feeling and and I was able to share that and model patient. And as I've grown as a writer I always feel that the books that I write are not, they won't be judged as a success in my view, by numeracy, whether or not they.
Our bestsellers I feel like they are worthy of being bestsellers, but I feel if I can help 10 people, man, it is, it has been worth the years of effort that I've put in a lifetime of reading. And I just, I love it. I love where reading and writing can take you. It has been.
An extraordinary gift that they've been, the books that I've written have been recognized and the fact that they've even been published, are, is a it's mind blowing. But I have purpose, I write every single day and I really work hard at it. And that is what I think shows up on the page.
And. I think what's so interesting as well is the, as you said, the amateur definition, right? The sake of writing for the love of writing and for sharing and connecting, and I've, you've heard me say it a million times in this podcast, like how much, how selfish this is for me, I get to hang out with you and be tapped into your brain for those 45 minutes and be like, wow, okay, what else is in there?
What else can we dig out in there? And it's surreal to, I think, also be going through life and seeing it as it's hap 'cause there's these outof body moments that we have of, I've been working for this. And you're like, oh wait, it's happening right now. Wait, like when you are. When you see your life happening outside of yourself, it's so cool and trippy at the same time.
But I think it also, to me it's a signal that we knew this was gonna happen. We've been working for this and check it's done. Now we gotta go onto what's next. Exactly.
And also I think that's so important is like really like confidence in women. Is so attractive and it is not conceit. Like having confidence and walking in with a, walking into a room knowing that you have a place at, in that room, your voice matters.
I think it's important to be elocution is very important and that this one, you woman, a men mentoring, I was like, you have to work on your voice like. You can't sound like a baby girl. You need to command if you really wanna be an actor, like nobody wants to hear, blanc de blah whisper, you're gonna have to really find the tiger in you.
And so I believe that having confidence it is important for those of us who have earned our confidence to then light. Kindle it in other women and mentoring is incredible and that has been a great source of joy. Foster Care to Success, you can sign up for online mentoring. I love camp Felix, the Felix organization, or even doing it informally.
Finding a way to be a mentor is a great way to learn also as this, the great stoics teach Express that. When we teach, we're really learning and it's a great symbiotic relationship.
It's the best. Yeah. And then to layer on new friendships and relationships and the seeing the chain that you're creating, I think is also such a fun experience.
Exactly.
So I'd love to know what is next for you? So movies out book is out, what is next that you were excited about? Or what are you working on?
I'm working on a new book about stoic sto again, and this idea of we all know about Memento Moray, remember to that you will die, and this is Memento Vire.
Remember to live, I truly feel like I'm shot out of a canon every day and I can't wait. To step outside 'cause I never know what's gonna happen. I'm always looking for mischief and fun and just seeing what happens. So I've got a new book that is in the in Progress. I have a documentary which is about Bill Murray, which will be, it's called New World, which is up for consideration for a Grammy.
And I've got another two films in production. But pretty much every day I am here writing because it is through daily practice and working on yourself daily that you wind up where you want to get to.
I love that. We ask everyone on the podcast where you put yourself on the Powerful Lady scale.
If zero is your average everyday human and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine. Where would you put yourself on that scale today and on a regular day?
Okay, so today I'm all hopped up on caffeine and talking to you and I had a, I had to bribe the jackhammers who were on, the guys who were jackhammering.
I ordered them pizza and gave them beer. And I said, can you just be quiet for one hour? And they, so I feel like that was a badass way to get to this podcast. Bribery works. I learned that in parenting. And so I would say yeah, today I'm full of beans. I would say I'm seven.
I'm at my lucky seven. And I would say on days where I am roped to the sofa, like gu over because of a pain flare. I still feel powerful, even though I can't leave the house, I still look how lucky we are that we can speak to the world. Yeah. It's you and I are on opposite sides of the continent. And we're speaking through pictures in this box of wires on my table. And, I think, remember a couple years ago during the power pose was all the rage, Uhhuh. And I think maybe there is a power pose in our brain, and that's what I'm doing. My, I. My it is incredible that our brains are made out of the same material that's in the deli drawer of my refrigerator.
Fat, protein and water. That's all it is, but it's the miracle of life that adds breath. And it's us up to us to honor this and worship our brains because that makes us powerful.
It sure does. It has been such a treat to get to spend today with you. And the. Teenager me who was fanning out on, oh my gosh.
There's someone with my name on MTV. It's just, it's great to talk to you and for, to share your wisdom and to really just let the power plays community, hear another badass story of what's possible and what a great reminder to go and live and yes, live boldly, go do it. What are we waiting for?
Like Exactly.
Exactly. So yes, if anyone's interested in learning more about stoicism, I have a website called Wise Up stoic.com. Awesome. And we've got tons of information there, but I really, stoicism has turned into bro in a way and. Stoicism needs women and women need stoicism. So thank you so much for sharing this and for sharing.
I, let's see, eight out of the 10 letters of our names. I was just thinking
like how many nicknames we must share between Duff Duffy, K do. Yes. Hey, Duffy. We, I, the fact that we haven't gotten each other's emails at this point is probably shocking. It's so great.
All the links to connect with Karen, her websites, her books, and all of her other projects are in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast and leave us a rating and review. It is so critical in helping us connect with more listeners like you. Come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies, and if you wanna connect with me directly, please visit kara duffy.com or on Instagram at Kara Duffy.
I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I we're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Instagram: dufflambros
Twitter: duffynyc
Website: wiseupstoic.com
Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
