2018-03-19
59 分钟Such an awakening to know that the very thing you were trying to kill your entire life is the one reason you were probably put here on this planet.
That really was a wow moment for me.
From the outside looking in, this week's guest, Melissa Bernstein, is a wife, a mom of six, a partner with her husband in a legendary toy business, Melissa and Doug, that has become massive and a huge success story that's been built over a series of decades.
They've built a life together, a family together, a business together, become incredibly service minded, helping young entrepreneurs and all sorts of different things, and created toys that have delighted and created joy in the faces, the smiles, and the lives of millions of kids and families.
Which is why it makes it really hard to believe that underneath it all, from the time she was a young child, Melissa has lived with a veil of darkness that has sort of followed her through her entire life that she has struggled mightily with in many different ways and kept hidden, kept secret from the world.
She asked to share what's been going on behind the scenes in a very powerful, moving, raw, beautiful conversation.
She takes us into a part of her life that has been entirely private, known to almost nobody, and how she has recently learned to almost mine that part of her life as source fuel for beauty and joy and delight in the world.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
There's actually a really interesting backstory that starts with you.
I think the language you used was being born in a state of existential angst.
Yes.
You know, it was only through listening to your podcast, truly, that something was evoked in me, and I felt for the first time that maybe I had something even deeper than the toys to share with your audience.
And I've never been moved to do anything before.
I literally was moved to contact you and hope that you might want to share my deeper story.
Yeah.
Which I love, and I do want to share.
So take me back right now.
People know you as the co founder of this incredible toy company that has been built.
It's giant, it's impacted millions of lives and families around the world, and we might go sort of a little bit down the entrepreneurial path in some of the entrepreneurial education work that you're doing.
But take me back to when you were a kid, because if you looked back then, I'm guessing where you are now is a profoundly different place than how you were feeling.