Caregiver To Creator with Debbie Weiss

Ever carried so much for so long that you forgot what you want? That’s where our guest, Debbie Weiss, once lived: 40+ years caregiving for her father after a stroke, advocating for a son on the autism spectrum, and supporting a husband through mental illness and a terminal diagnosis. The cost was anger, exhaustion, and a quiet belief that life was happening to her. Then a 50th birthday trip cracked the script. If time was speeding up, she needed to claim a response—not just responsibilities.

We walk through the small levers that moved mountains. Debbie began with one simple commitment—show up weekly to a meeting—ditched perfection timelines, and built from there. Over three and a half years she lost 90 pounds, but more importantly, she proved that mindset beats mechanics. She reframed self-care from indulgence to necessity, set boundaries that stuck, and used the E+R=O formula (Event + Response = Outcome) to take back agency without denying pain. We get practical about sustainable habits, saying no without guilt, and how stress, cortisol, and comparison sabotage progress if you don’t design around them.

The conversation turns deeply human as Debbie shares writing her memoir while her husband was ill, and how journaling unearthed beliefs she didn’t know she carried. Listeners looking for the “how” will love her second book, The Sprinkle Effect, which pairs stories with exercises on perspective, belief, action, resilience, curiosity, and joy. We also explore an unexpected plot twist: a self-described “math girl” unlocking a creative surge—card decks, journals, and a children’s series—once she honored her voice.

If you’ve been stuck in survival mode, this story offers a way forward you can actually use. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s caregiving or grieving, and leave a review with the one boundary you’ll set this week. Your response can change your outcome.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode of On the Spectrum with Sonia. Today we have a very special guest, Debbie Weiss. She is the author of two books. The first one being On Second Thought, Maybe I Can, and the second book being The Sprinkle Effect. Her first book, On Second Thought, Maybe I Can is a memoir of her experiences with being a caregiver for her father, her late husband. She also had a son who is diagnosed with being on the autism spectrum, and that led to a myriad of other diagnoses as well. Her late husband had depression and anxiety. And she has a podcast called On Second Thought, Maybe I Can as well. And she is here to share her story and give people hope of whom are going through midlife transitions, caregiving, perhaps going through grief. And without further ado, Debbie, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Sonia, thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Oh my gosh, Debbie, I'm looking forward to hearing all about this. Now you were on the Kelly Clarkson show. My claim to fame. Your claim to fame. Tell me about how that happened first and foremost.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

So it was through a connection. Okay. Not like I know Kelly, but at the time, I think maybe if I'm being honest, I got lucky because it was the time when there was a writer's strike going on in Hollywood. So like all of the stars weren't out and about as much. And so I think that they were looking for, you know, human interest type stories. And it was November, and November is National Family Caregiver Month. And as you already said, I I've been a caregiver for over 40 years to different family members. And so I went on the show to briefly share my story. It was I didn't get to sit with her in person on that couch, even though I told the producer, you know, I'm right across the river in New Jersey, so I could easily make it there. And they just laughed at me and said, no, no, this is a virtual segment. So I actually recorded right from here. It was a great experience.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Well, that is so awesome. So, Debbie, what inspired you to start writing and to start your podcasting?

Anger, Comparison, And Victim Mindset

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Oh, well, I think there is so much of a backstory that kind of got me to that point, right? It was it was a long way. And if you don't mind, I'll just give you a brief overview of that story. As you already said, my dad had a stroke when I was 17 and he was just turning 46. And luckily he survived, but he was permanently disabled and he lived for the next 30 years. And so uh my parents were divorced and I was his caregiver for the next 30 years. And then when my oldest son was two and he was diagnosed on the autism spectrum, as you and many of us know, that caregiving for any child is caregiving and difficult, but caregiving and advocating for a child with special needs takes it to a whole other level. And then later on in life, my husband suffered from a variety of both physical and mental illness. And eventually, out of the blue, was diagnosed with a terminal blood disease and passed away six months later. So I cared for him as well. But before my husband got ill, I was, after let's say those 30 years with my dad, I often found myself extremely irritable, constantly overwhelmed, resentful, and just exhausted, right? Because all it was was waking up and starting every day, figuring out who I had to take care of, what I needed to do. You know, I work as well. So I had to worry about my team members at work and my customers at work and my kids and my husband and my dad and all the things, and no time for myself. And when I turned 50, I kind of had an aha moment where I said to myself, wow, 50 years flew by, and the next 50 are gonna fly by even faster. And if I don't do something to change the direction of my life now, which by the way didn't mean that I would not care for my family members, but it also meant I had to pay attention to myself too, because this is our one and only life. And again, I choose and will choose over and over again to take care of my loved ones. But the mistake I made was doing that at the expense of not taking care of myself. And so at 50, I started to kind of go through this journey of learning about myself, really understanding. And that just led me down a road that was not and has not been a straight path, trying to figure out well, who am I? What's my purpose? What fills me up? What do I need? And eventually, nine years later, is when I actually wrote the book. So the first book. So it was a long journey to get there. And it's I'm 62 now, so it's a journey I'll continue on until I take my last breath.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

When you say that you had anger, did you feel like a lot of this anger that you had was because you had lot felt like you lost a lot of time in your life and felt maybe perhaps cheated out of things that you felt maybe other people got to enjoy. But here I was so busy being a caretaker for not only my dad, and then now my son, and now my husband, right? That it just kind of was like, okay, you were everything everywhere all at once.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

I was so young when I started. Like now at this stage, I hate to say it, but kind of you expect it, right? Because you expect when you're in midlife that you're gonna be a caregiver and, you know, have to have that role reversal with your parents, but you don't expect it when you're 20. Sure. And as I watched all my peers go out and enjoy their 20s, you know, carefree, not worried about anything. I was learning at 22 what's Medicaid, what's Medicare, what's disabilities, what's social security? Like, who knows that as a 22-year-old? Right. And so year over year, that anger and resentment built up. Even though I clearly knew it wasn't my father's fault, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't nobody's fault, but I kept looking at other people, comparing myself, which is the worst thing to do, and thinking, why me? You know, it just seemed like I just kept facing one big challenge after another that other people around me were not facing.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Hmm. And that must have been very difficult to watch all these other people living a life that you were like, you know what, that should have been me doing that. That should have been what I should be doing right now, not taking care.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, there was a lot of things that I didn't realize then, but after I turned 50, realized that I had a victim mentality, which I didn't understand what that was, and I didn't see that in myself. But I did, I felt that my life was not my own. It had been uh led by these situations that presented themselves in my life. And yes, I made the choice to care for my father. I made, of course, the choice to care for my sons, you know, all of that. So what choice did I have? Did I really have a choice? If it was gonna be, you know, it was either I'm caring or I'm not caring. But I did have a choice. And I think that when you blame circumstances or people for the outcome of your life, you are giving them your power. And I didn't understand, but that's what I was doing. It was so easy to say, well, what was I supposed to do? This is, you know, this is what life dealt me, the hand I was dealt. So I don't have a choice. But you always have a choice. You choose how you react to life, to these events. And I chose to be a victim and to say, well, I didn't have a choice. So what like almost to be a martyr. And it's very hard to admit that on the one hand, but on the other hand, also then once I started to understand it, found it empowering because now I know life happens to everyone. It looks different, it happens at different times. You know, that old adage, if you put your problems, everybody's problems, you'd still take your own out, right? So it was really the fact that it's empowering because life's gonna still happen to me. But I have the power to decide how I'm going to respond to those circumstances. And that's empowering because now I know regardless of what happens, doesn't mean that I'm not gonna be kicked down and I'm not gonna be sad, and I'm not, of course, I'm gonna be those things. And it's still up to me. Am I gonna pick my, am I gonna take that circumstance and am I gonna let it leave me down there? Or am I going to rise above it or with it?

SPEAKER_01 10:35

What was it like for you to first realize that you were in victim mentality? And what were lessons you learned about yourself in the process?

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Well, like I said, it was a little tough because, you know, when it's it's sometimes so hard to look and be honest with yourself about characteristics that you might not be so fond of when you realize that. But it was a sobering realization, and it was also helpful that I knew I wasn't alone, right? That this whole idea came from somewhere, I didn't invent it, that so many of us live our lives this way without realizing. And it's that awareness piece. I think that everything that I've gone through and that I continue to go through all comes back to being self-aware. Because I can still get myself in that same mindset. It's not like it's cured, but now I'm able to stop myself and say, hey, Deb, you're doing it. Watch yourself, get yourself out of there. You know better now.

The 50th Birthday Wake-Up Call

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Was there like a defining moment though when everything changed in that sense? Like, was there something that happened where that you came to that realization, like, oh my God, this is where I'm at right now?

SPEAKER_00 11:55

No, I think it was a series of small steps. It was turning 50. My friends insisted that we go away to celebrate for the weekend, even though I couldn't imagine how I was leaving my family for the weekend. They were gonna fall apart, but I did it. In in that weekend, that's when I realized that my life was not my own. One night when we were chatting over dinner, one of my friends said, So tell me, let's share what our hopes and dreams are for the future. And I was stumped. Like hopes and dreams. I have hopes and dreams for my kids, but my own hopes and dreams, like I'm 50, it's over. You know, it's already written. My life is, you know, already set. And they all kind of looked at me because the other three all had hopes and dreams. And that was the moment, I'd say the catalyst that started the idea of something's gotta give. I didn't know what. I didn't know how do I proceed from here. Um, I had no idea. So when I came back, I decided that the thing for me at that moment most pressing was my health and more specifically my weight, because I do talk a lot about it in probably both the books, because my whole life I've had a big problem with my weight from the minute that I was born, basically. And at 50, I found myself 100 pounds overweight, which was definitely, you know, for me being an emotional eater and using food to soothe myself. You know, that tells you where I was at that point in time. And so when I came back from that trip, I said, okay, now, don't get me wrong, I've been on a bazillion diets. I lost and gained hundreds, probably thousands of pounds. It's not like I never lost weight before, sure. But I came back and said, you know, Albert Einstein says the idea of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. So it was like, okay, I gotta approach this differently, because otherwise, same old, same old. And I didn't realize what I was doing then, but I gave myself permission not to be perfect, not to have uh a time-bound goal, because it would always be in the past. I have to use lose 25 pounds in three months, or by my birthday, or by the summer, or whatever it is. And if I only lost 18, I'm a failure. And also that realization of this is not a diet. You've gotta, this is you, it's not something you're gonna be on again, off again. This is your life here on in. Does it mean you're never gonna eat ice cream or pizza or bagels, my three favorite food groups? I can eat those things. I can't eat them every day, every meal. And it took me about three and a half years to lose 90 pounds. And I had done it differently because I just broke it down into very small manageable goals. And when I saw how I did that, I thought to myself, hey, really, I had done it through Weight Watchers and I've lost and gained weight on Weight Watchers countless times in my life. Weight Watchers didn't change. The only thing that changed was my mindset of how I was approaching it. And if my mindset could change what has been the biggest struggle of my life, how could I then take that principle and apply it to other areas of my life? And so that was kind of, even though it wasn't one moment, that whole experience was kind of what opened my eyes to what was possible.

Small Steps To Big Weight Loss

SPEAKER_01 15:43

And I definitely feel like when you have more smart goals and you have it in a way where it's set up more for success because it's something that is more manageable in that sense, right? That it's easier then to achieve those goals versus putting like a hard and fast timeline. And I feel like a lot of times when people say things like, I gotta lose weight in five weeks because I got this wedding to go to, or oh, by the summer I gotta be down all these pounds, you know, it adds to more stress. Yes. And as you know, we women especially know when you're under stress, your cortisol kicks in. And what does cortisol do? Stores everything, builds up your fat, basically, and it goes to all the places that we women hate to have fat go to. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah, you know, the very first thing when I first started, I said, my only goal is that I am going to go to a meeting every week. That's it. It doesn't matter what I eat, it doesn't matter if I exercise or I drink a bazillion ounces of water. I don't care. My only goal is showing up once a week. And that's what I did. And I didn't lose weight. I didn't. But it didn't matter because in my mind, I was achieving my goal because I broke it down to really the smallest step that kind of felt like nothing, right? But in the end, kickstarted everything. And then I just slowly, all right, two, three months going to the meeting every week. I like the meeting, I'm comfortable, I like the leader, the people, whatever. Now maybe I'm gonna concentrate on what I eat 50% of the time, or you know, and just kept adding on, adding on once the last goal was, you know, kind of incorporated into my routine. And it made all the difference, took all the pressure off.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Absolutely. And as you went through that metamorphosis with your body, with yourself, in every aspect of you. What were some of like the learning lessons then that came from each of those steps in the metamorphosis?

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Well, I think that I realized that I don't want to say I'm smarter than I thought, but maybe that's not the right term. But I think that I learned that I am stronger than I thought, although I had learned that over the decades of caregiving, lived through and did things that never in my wildest dreams did I ever think, because I was a very unconfident child, probably because of my weight, feeling like I was judged all the time, which I was by adults and kids equally when I was a little girl and moving on into my teenage years and adulthood. And so I didn't want to be seen and I didn't want to be heard. And so I would hide, really, try to hide. And so it kind of brought me out of my shell, helped to bring me out of my shell. Like I actually, when I'm talking about it, really think about a metamorphosis of a of a flower opening. It took 50 plus years, but that's okay. So it taught me that just by my thoughts, and I had no idea, I never stopped to examine my thoughts. I never stopped to think to myself, is what I'm thinking actually true? I just assumed it was. The thoughts go through your head and it's like that must be the way it is. And I never thought to examine it. And that I found so interesting. It seemed some like something so obvious, but it wasn't to me.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

You know, your your story, that's a very relatable story for me, because I too, you know, struggled a lot with weight my whole life. And I had a binge eating disorder, and it came to a head when I was living in New York for a few years. So from 2011 to 2016, I had lived there. And I mean, I binge ate before when I was uh in law school. I kind of had a history of that in middle school too, but it really came to a head when I was living in New York and I was not happy in my career, and I would knew I needed to change careers because it wasn't fulfilling me. And but even before, you know, I'd been judged by adults more so. I never remember anyone, any of my peers per se making fun of my weight as they would just make fun of me in general. But like weight specific, I had a therapist who used to be quite critical about it. And I'm on the spectrum. So for him, you know, he used to say one of the things he would say to me at times is when they used to call it back when they used to call it Asperger's, he said, Because you have Asperger's and a mood disorder, everything has to be perfect because then people get away with more. And he'd say stuff like, You have a pretty face. That's the worst. Yes, he'd be like, You have a pretty face, just match it to a body now, or something like that. Oh my god. But unfortunately, he spoke for what I'm not gonna say all society. Yeah. But he he was speaking up for what a majority of people think. Agreed. You know, I mean, not everyone, I'm gonna preface that, not everybody, but a majority of people, yes. And a therapist?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

That's what a therapist says of all people.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, just because they're in therapy doesn't mean everybody's well.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

That is definitely true. Usually it's not. That's just a good good example of just because they're the therapist, don't think they're right and go find a therapist that you uh gel with.

Rewriting Beliefs And Finding Strength

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Absolutely. And then the one thing I noticed is I feel like the therapists who got me best were people who really truly were in the thick of it themselves in their life. Yeah. You're helping people now in their own midlife transitions, you're helping, giving them that confidence that spark, you know, like through your writing, through your podcasting, you're helping, giving people that. So when you talk to people and hear stories of people going through midlife transitions, grief, caregiving, what is the one thing that you hear is common among people when they share their stories with you? And what is something that you really wished somebody would have told you when you were going through it that you want to impart to other people?

SPEAKER_00 22:01

I think maybe my answer is gonna be obvious. Self-care is not selfish. It is imperative. And for the longest time, and that's what got me to that place of being angry and resentful and exhausted and overwhelmed and all the things, because I was not only was I not prioritizing my own needs, they weren't even on the list, right? I mean, I never got because I was at the bottom. And I thought that if I did prioritize my own needs, well, how selfish is that? I have all these other people that I'm caring for and worrying about. And that would be so selfish. But what I realized was when I did care for myself, then I showed up as such a better person for all of my loved ones. I mean, I I think back now, and unfortunately my father passed away the year before I turned fifty. So I had not yet had this realization. But I think now how many times I snapped at my father. He knows I loved him so much and you know he loved he loved me more than anything, and I'm well aware of that. However, that's a perfect example. If I was taking care of myself, I wouldn't have I wouldn't have been so quick to anger.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

A lot of people are not raised to believe that self-care is good, right? A lot of times people have been raised by people who demanded that they take care of everyone else, that maybe perhaps they were raised by narcissistic parents, for example, who tell them, you know what, your needs don't matter. It's about us. Or they come from places where they are taught, okay, you're you're just being selfish and bringing shame if you don't take care of everyone else or look after people. So how do you reach out to those people?

SPEAKER_00 23:55

I think that, um, I think as women in general, we believe that, well, we are. We're natural caregivers and nurturers. And I don't think that that's going away, and I don't think it should. I just think that we have to learn to nurture ourselves. And I think the biggest excuse, and it is an excuse, is that I don't have enough time. I don't have enough time. Look what I'm doing. I'm running to work, I'm running to the nursing home. This was me. And then I gotta figure out what activities the kids have and who's gonna get them there, and all the, you know, I don't have time. Two a couple of different things. One, I don't know if I'm the only one who didn't realize this. I didn't really understand in totality what self-care was or is. I would equate it with, oh, take time for yourself to go have a massage, which it is that, and you should do that. However, there are so many other forms of self-care. And the one for me that I learned about that another thing that I really had to take a hard look at myself was setting boundaries and learning to say no. That was very difficult. In my highest season of caregiving, I was the treasurer of three different organizations. Did why? Well, they needed me, I couldn't say no, it's not that much time. But each layer that I was heading on was just burying me. And learning to set those boundaries, learning to say no, I needed to exercise, not just because of the weight thing. For me, that cleared my head, that relieved the stress. Every time that I went out to go to my class, it was wait, mom, I forgot this. You gotta run to the store and get this. And I said, no more. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 6:45 to 745, I'm going to my class. You need me, you tell me beforehand, you tell me afterwards, but I'm walking out the door at 6.30, and that's that. And believe me, in the beginning there were growing pains. They got used to it. Everybody got used to it. I was so afraid to do that. That is the most amazing to me, the most amazing form of self-care. Not only am I doing was in that case doing something good for myself, which was exercising, but I set boundaries and they started to understand, even though they balked at it at first. That's self-care.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

And that's very powerful to hear because what self-care is gonna look like for everyone is gonna be so different depending on what their needs are, what where they're at in their life. But I think it's one of those things, it's like a journey, once again, that people have to learn for themselves what um what that's gonna look like for them and what they need. And a lot of that is being in tune with their body and listening to your body, what's it asking of you? Yep.

Self-Care As A Non-Negotiable

SPEAKER_00 26:50

And it could be, it could be, you know, meditating, it could be journaling, it could be reading, praying, knitting, you know, it could be a variety of different things. Something, if you can incorporate something into your life every day that brings you a little bit of joy, it really starts to change everything.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Yes. And I think the more that you find joy and peace within yourself, the more you're able to actually be able to provide to others. Yes, and I think a lot of people misunderstand, you know, but they they forget that piece, especially when everybody's in the thick of everything. And because life, when it's lifing, it will give you the biggest throws, okay? Like it's just like that, you know, that's force. So with your books, um, now you you have your memoir.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Thought maybe I can. And the sprinkle effect. Can you tell us a little bit about these books? Sure. So the memoir.

Boundaries, Time, And Saying No

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Uh well, first let me say that never in my life did I ever want to write anything. A sentence, basically. Never. I consider myself I'm a math girl, my first career, I'm a CPA. I I practiced for 10 years, and for the last over 30 years, I've been an insurance agent. Also, a lot of numbers. I love my numbers. Never, ever I would be that person in college who would say, look at the syllabus and find out, is there a paper? Because if there's a paper, I'm not taking this class. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So it's not like I always had this dream to be an author. Not a chance, not even a little whisper. But after 50, I did kind of follow these paths that led me to this place where people were like, well, you have to get your message out there. And how are you going to get your message out there? And I said, Well, uh, you know, I want to be a professional speaker. Well, how are you going to be a speaker? You need to have, you know, some kind of something to give you credibility. You should write a book. Well, one, I didn't have enough confidence that my story would be impactful because I felt like an impactful story would have to be a big T trauma, right? Like, God forbid I was kidnapped or I fell off Mount Kilmanjaro and, you know, something like that. And my story wasn't like that. But then I realized, do I relate to someone who, you know, fell off a mountain? No. I want to hear about someone like me. And luckily, I think the majority of people are more like that. So why wouldn't my story be impactful? So, okay, maybe I got that down. But then who's writing this? Because I don't know how to write a book. And I was listening to a podcast one day, and they were interviewing a woman who helped first-time authors get their stories out there. And I thought, hmm, I must be listening to this podcast today for a reason. I liked the woman, contacted her. She was launching a small group program. I was about to join, and that's when my husband got diagnosed with the cancer. I was seeing a therapist at the time. I said to the therapist, I'm embarrassed to even bring this up because obviously I'm not signing up for this now because I don't know what's going to be happening in my life. Everything is so unknown and out of control. And she said, I disagree. You're going to need something separate just for you. And I said, Well, what if I can't show up one week? What if there's homework and I don't do the homework? What if, what if, what if? And she said, Who cares? And I thought, oh, I never thought about that. You know, just like maybe that I have to be an A student kind of thing. And so I decided to give it a try. And it was very difficult at first, not just because of my circumstance, just because of this whole I'm not a writer thing. But once I kind of figured out a format to how it was going to work, I made time every day. I would schedule it in. Whether my husband was in the hospital, I'd, you know, bring my stuff there. And when he was sleeping or went down for a test, I'd write. I'd wake up at five o'clock in the morning, right before he woke up at home, whatever it took. And even though the writing was so hard, I was focused on something else. And it true she was a hundred percent right. It saved me. It gave me something else, something else that I was learning that was new. Which, you know, in hindsight, I never who would ever think, oh, your husband's dying? This is a great time to learn a new skill. I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but it was such incredibly smart advice because it did give me a separate outlet and something else to focus on and look forward to. And when he died, I was three chapters shy of finishing the memoir, which I then did finish over the next several months. And, you know, when I wrote the memoir, I learned, because I didn't know, that I had to make a decision what type of book it was going to be. So I chose a memoir, meaning there is no like uh self-help advice or reflection. It is just a series of stories that starts with the first third being my childhood and how I developed a lot of my limiting beliefs, the middle section of adulthood when a lot of the rough things hit, and then what I've done after 50. And then after that book came out, people said, Oh, this is wonderful, but you didn't tell me. Well, what'd you do? And that's why I wrote the second book. So the second book is called The Sprinkle Effect, and it is about getting in little sprinkles into your life of different things, like things we're all familiar with, perspective taking, belief, mindset, action, resiliency, curiosity, joy, those types of things. And so in that book, I still tell a personal story, talk a little bit about that sprinkle, and then at the end of each chapter, there are exercises and a journal prompt. Because what I've learned through this last decade or so is you can read a million books unless you take the time to really apply it to your own life. It's gonna sit on a shelf, even if you finish it, you're gonna put it on the shelf and it's gonna have no impact. Right. And I can't tell you how many books I've read with exercises or whatever, and I'd be like, oh yeah, I'm not doing that. And just I want to get to the next chapter, the next chapter, the next chapter. And so I totally get that, but it's just won't be as impactful because only you can work on yourself. Oh, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

When you look at uh your memoir and the sprinkle effect, what is one thing out of each book that you wrote that stood out to you the most?

SPEAKER_00 34:11

So in the memoir, there was something that I was not going to share. It was not in the original outline. I had an outline of stories and it was intentionally left out. And then one day, I don't know, something kind of came to me, and I thought I have to be completely honest because otherwise, what good is it? And it is a chapter about a money story situation that I got myself in, and I had all the reasons and all the excuses that I did, and it got pretty darn bad. And I was so ashamed, especially because of my background, I didn't want the world to know. Nobody knew. My closest friends did not know. It was a secret I was was gonna kill me until I started to finally tackle it. And I thought, no, I want to reach everyone. I want people to know just the depth of where I was and that they can relate to if they're in that situation, to know that even when things look so bad, there's always a way out. So that's from my memoir. And from the sprinkle effect, it definitely is the chapter on a sprinkle of responsibility that I talked about earlier. And specifically, since I am a math person, Jack Canfield in his who's the guy who wrote um all the chicken soup for the soul series, he also wrote a book called The Success Principles. And one of the things he talked about in responsibility is a formula called E plus R equals O. So again, math person, I like formulas. So E is an event, R is your response, and O is the outcome. So you have the event, you add your how you respond to the event, together they equal the outcome. Where I was living my life, E equals O. My father had a stroke, outcome bad, right? Not taking into account that I have a say in the outcome with my reaction, how I respond. And so to me, personally, that's most impactful.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

It reminds me of something that we learned about in grad school, where it talks about how our responses to things is what can determine our behavior and moods towards something. And that way, then that consequence comes about from that. And it's all about our reactions to things, how we interpret things, how we how, you know, what how do we allow things, how much do we allow things to penetrate so much into us, you know? And, you know, it's at what point do you put some barriers up to protect yourself? But then at what point do you also then allow yourself to feel things too?

Writing The Memoir Through Grief

SPEAKER_00 37:03

So it all started with me actually journaling. And I, my gosh, just the word journal gave me anxiety. And when I first started, I was actually taking a mindset course. And sh the woman had her own little journal that we were supposed to fill out, but it had prompts, but they weren't clear to me. So it was like, again, with that A-Student thing, I'm like, what is supposed to be written here? Maybe I'm not using it right. Every time I opened it, I got so stressed until I finally gave myself permission to realize no one's grading this and you use it as it works for you. So once I figured that out, I actually enjoyed it. But the idea of not having the prompts and just opening up a notebook with a blank piece of paper like made my heart palpitate. I was so scared. Like, what do I write? And one day, podcasts have done a lot for me. So one day I was listening to a podcast and the woman was talking about the benefits of free form journaling. And she said, even if you don't know what to write, just start writing. I don't know what to write. I don't know what to write. And sooner or later, you're gonna know what to write. And it amazed me, amazed me when I did that. What was lurking inside my mind that I was totally unaware of. And so it was only probably about four or five months before I started writing my book that I started journaling. And then I did start to enjoy it. And I couldn't believe, and sometimes I would read it back and I'd be like, well, that's not so bad. You know, maybe I maybe I could do this. I think that that was the precursor that gave me a little tiny nudge that I could do it.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Do you have any other further plans of writing any more books in the future? Do you have any more like things in in the works coming out?

SPEAKER_00 38:56

So a couple of different things. What I found was that we didn't talk about, besides the fact that I never wanted to be a writer, I would tell everyone I don't have a creative bone in my body. And I believe that 1,000%. I don't do crafts and I don't do art, and I don't, you know, like I could list all the things that I don't do. I was very good at that. And then all of a sudden, it was like my brain just exploded, and all these ideas just keep coming to me, so much so that it's like, I gotta make this and I'm gonna make this. And then I'm like, who is this person? So I've taken the sprinkle effect and like created a bunch of other products around it. So I have a card deck that goes with it. I have actually a gratitude journal that I'm obsessed with, but it's I I'm not happy with the the binding. So I'm waiting for it to come out with spiral because otherwise the one I have now, it's too hard to open. I'm not selling something I don't like. But that's coming, and I have a blank journal called The Sprinkle of Thoughts to freeform journal. But in answer to your question, I my next project is to take the ideas in the sprinkle effect and write a children's book series. That is so awesome.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

I'm so proud of you. Seems like you really found your footing in this because even when I hear you talk about all the things you're doing, you light up. Actually, you were lighting up more than Tom than when you were telling me that you were a CPA and an insurance agent. Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Let's be real.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

I mean, but you know what? I feel like, you know, the creativity thing, I think I think it's in us. Yes. But I feel like too often than not, like when we're growing up, you know, I always thought in order to be creative, you had to be really good at something like art, or you had to have a good voice to sing, or you had to have just the it factor in some way, shape, or form, maybe be the triple threat of acting, singing, dancing, right? Yes. But there's so much more to creativity than what people realize. And I feel like, you know, even writing memoirs like I wrote a memoir, you wrote a memoir, podcasting, it all takes a bit of creativity to be able to pull all this together, creating merch out of brands, right? That you come up with, that takes creativity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

I I never, I like I said, I am still learning to own that identity. But I just think to myself, if I had never taken that first step, I would never uncovered a completely other side of myself. I had no idea existed. And the rest of my life, I never would have, you know, when you start down this path and you think to yourself, okay, you know, there's lots of ways to do it and there's lots of different methods, but you know, okay, you write down all of your strengths and then your, you know, what does the world need, and all these different things. I'm like, strengths? Well, okay, I'm good at math. Yeah, what else? And I I was like, I couldn't, I couldn't really come up with anything that seemed like it meant anything. And then the funny thing was is that this is gonna sound crazy. I've always been a good talker. And it's not just talking. I think I've always had a natural ability, at least the girls in my office tell me this, and I've always wanted to be a teacher, but I think I have an ability to take a more complex topic and make it a little more understandable. Who would I, you know, that's just something you don't think about. And then I realized, because sometimes I would say something and I'd look at people and I'd say, well, doesn't everybody do that? Like that's whatever it was, that's not that dick difficult. But you don't realize it's not difficult because that thing is not difficult for you. Right. So you don't realize that not everybody has that ability.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

No, and I think a lot of times people tend to box people also. Like, you know, so for example, when people think of somebody being very good at math and being a numbers person, they tend to think of that person as, okay, they probably are behind a computer, they're probably working in tech, they probably have a job maybe nowadays with developing AI, which probably would be a very lucrative career at this time. Yes. Most likely than not. Um, they're probably doing something with computers, right? You think of them as that. You don't think of them as being out and about as much or talking much. You think of them more as people behind screens and quietly going about their day, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Whereas, you know, it's just there's so many facets to people. And it's always so much fun when you find those fat, you know, the facets, you see all of it, and it just shatters the box away.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Exactly. Couldn't have said it better. Yes. So, Debbie, where can people find you? Or they where can they find your work? The best place for everything is my website, which is Debbie Rwiss.com. You have to put the R in there, otherwise you'll wind up on a realtor in California. And that's not me.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Okay, so Debbie Rwece.com. And where can people get a hold of your books? Is it also on the website or is it available on like Amazon? On Amazon and all the places, or my website. Excellent, Debbie. Well, thank you so much for being on here. This wraps up today's episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to rate, review, subscribe, and share with your family and friends.