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Babes in Bookland
A podcast celebrating women's memoirs, one story at a time!
Babes in Bookland
Motivation and Mindset // Emma Lovewell's "Live, Learn, Love Well"
What if the phrases you hear in a workout could actually carry you through the hardest chapters of your life?
My friend Suz and I sat down with Emma Lovewell’s memoir, "Live Learn Love Well", and followed the thread from the bike to real-world resilience: family roots on Martha’s Vineyard, the ache of divorce, the shock of loss, and the steady return to self through movement, mindfulness, and self-respect.
We talk about why “progress, not perfection” is more than a punchy motto—it’s a practical way to live when goals get heavy and life gets loud. You’ll hear how Emma’s early exposure to meditation and her mother’s fearless body comfort set the tone for emotional tools that actually work. We also dig into gardening as a life practice: patience, compost as “valuable trash,” and the deep peace of tending something you can control when everything else feels uncertain.
Her care your identity shines through every page as Emma aims to help us all discover our Voice. She shares what it meant to feel caught between cultures as a half Chinese woman, and how a trip to Taiwan reframed belonging as a bridge rather than a gap. Suz and I reflect on forgiving without forgetting and learning to shout out your wins—big and small—so opportunities can find you. If you need a reset that blends therapy-backed tools with sweat-tested wisdom, this conversation meets you where you are and walks beside you, one honest rep at a time.
If this resonated, follow and subscribe, share with a friend who loves Peloton or a good memoir, and leave a quick review. Your support helps more curious listeners find the show and build their own best days.
If you leave a kind review, I might read it at top of show!
Suz and I’s favorite mantras:
Tunde’s “It’s a great day to have a great day!”
“You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only option”
Transcripts are available through Apple’s podcast app—they may not be perfect, but relying on them allows me to dedicate more time to the show! If you’re interested in being a transcript angel, let me know.
This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me.
Theme song by Devin Kennedy
Special thanks to my dear friend, Suz!
Xx, Alex
Connect with us and suggest a great memoir!
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Hi, welcome back to Babes in Brookland, your women's memoir podcast. I'm your host, Alex Franca, and my friend Suze is back, and we're chatting about Emma Lovewell's Live, Learn, Love Well lessons from a life of progress, not perfection. Thanks for tuning in, and if you'd like to further support the show, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Patreon to access the extended version of this episode, or you can buy super cute merch at our Tea Public Shop. Okay, let's ride.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, Alex. Great intro.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. And you just got back from the US Open and you saw Emma Lovewell there. You texted me.
SPEAKER_00:I did. Did you yell? I read your memoir, Emma. I didn't, but I uh you were the first person I texted when I saw her from afar.
SPEAKER_01:That is so cool. You are an Emma Lovewell fan. You're a Peloton fan. What did you think of her memoir?
SPEAKER_00:I thought that this memoir was really relatable. I could definitely see myself in a lot of her own experiences and just the way that she wrote about things. I am a big Peloton fan, so I feel like I spend a fair bit amount of time with Emma specifically on a weekly basis. So I really enjoyed learning more about her beyond the bike and beyond the mat.
SPEAKER_01:I thought there were some surprising tidbits. Same. Emma is not one of my go-to Pelotonians, but I have ridden with her and I really I think she has such a great energy. I do really love motivational spaces. Like I'm a sucker for the catchphrases and the corny one-liners. And like, you know, if you're taking a pretty hard A, it's hard to get used to cycling if you're not used to it. And then they have other sorts of like strength classes too. You're like riding uphill and you're second, you're just asking yourself, why am I doing this to myself? And then they say that one thing that makes you feel capable. And you can take that out of the exercise class and really apply it to life, which is what I feel like her memoir did here. She takes a lot of things, some of her catchphrases that she'll say in her classes. And then she goes deeper into how she lives her life by those philosophies every single day, even outside of the exercise room, which I really I appreciated. I feel like this book would be particularly helpful for like young women, kind of just starting out in their independence, like post-college graduates, early to mid-20s, where you're really trying to figure yourself out and maybe you'll get knocked down a few times and you have to like find that strength to get back up. I mean, I definitely took a lot away from it too at this point in my life.
SPEAKER_00:I totally agree. And going back to what you said about the Peloton, I feel like I need some of that motivation sometimes so that I don't stop. And also, whenever I hear someone say, live, laugh, love, I cringe. But when I hear Emma Lovewell say, live, learn, love well, I'm like, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Thought that this book was really sweet. And you can really feel how much Emma cares about other people from the pages. She's found these things that have really worked for her, helped her get through adversity in her life, self-doubt, among many other things. And really, her memoir to me was her wanting to provide a game plan for other people in case it can work for them. It definitely felt like taking a class with her, and by the end of it, you felt pumped up and more capable of taking on the world without the sweat. Okay, let's get deeper into it. It was published in 2023, and this is her dedication. To my father, Mark Alan Lovewell, and my mother, Teresa Yuen. Thank you for encouraging me to use my creativity always. I love you. Okay, so we'll start with a quick topic, Suze. Emma writes, I became a fitness instructor because I believe movement can change your mood and transform your mindset. My love of movement has been like a thread of positivity running through my life, even at my lowest moments. Movement isn't just a must-do for your body. It's like taking a multivitamin for your soul. It's also helped me stay connected to my body, shown me I can do hard things, and encouraged me not to give up when life gets tough. Okay, so you talked about how you need that motivation. What's your overall relationship with exercise? Has exercise kind of always been something that's been important for you to maintain? Yes. Yeah. I work out on a regular basis.
SPEAKER_00:I feel like I'm a very active person. I did grow up playing sports. So working out is kind of just like part of my daily and weekly routine. I literally have a to-do list every day and I put workout on there just so I can check it off. It definitely sometimes takes me a minute to get motivated to work out, but I've never regretted working out. I've only regretted like, oh man, I wish I worked out today or whatever. It makes me feel good physically, but also mentally. Like if I'm stressed or if I am not feeling great, like working out is a good way to get me back on track. So what about you? I do love to work out.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like sometimes I can get in a funk where I have to change it up. I love Pilates. I started sort of getting into running. I would do Peloton, but I get bored. And I do love that about Peloton. Like, y'all, this is not a Peloton ad, but I loved doing the classes where you would get off and you would like lift weights in between writing. I have to keep it fresh. I that's what I found about myself. I can't just do the same type of workout over and over again. I also have found about myself that I really like class workouts. I like an instructor there. I like an energy in the room. I think that's why I like doing the Peloton at the gym a little bit more. It's super convenient to have at your home, you know, because there's really no excuse then. Just hop on the bike and watch the great British bake-off. Like there's no excuse. I like the energy of a gym. So I just feel really lucky. Like I'm a member of my local Y, which is super affordable. They also have childcare. So I really don't have any excuses. I am the same as you. If I don't work out, I actually am sort of recovering from like a knee tweak and I haven't been able to work out for like the past two weeks. I've just done some upper body lifting and I don't feel settled. I don't feel grounded in myself. Like I do feel like more antsy, more stressful. Like it helps me deal with my anxiety. So I hope, I hope I'm not falling apart, Suze, because man, it sucks when you get an injury and you're like, oh, I was so there. I was so motivated. And you feel like you take five steps back.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So you talked about how you like motivation. Do you have a favorite? You talk and you talked about live, learn, love well. But do you have another favorite catchphrase that one of the Peloton instructors says, or somebody from, you know, a different type of workout class that just you that you just love and you think about often?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yes. That I use in my daily life. I tell my husband it all the time. I use it all the time. Leanne Haynesby, or is it Leanne Hainesby Aldous? Leanne Haynesby. We'll say Leanne Hainesby. Leanne Hainesby's done and dusted. I use it all the time now. I will my husband will text me and say, Oh, do you work out? And I'm like, done and dusted. I love it.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's a British thing because I had never heard that phrase before, but but it's in I gave you the Vary McFarlane book, and I want to say in one of her books, she writes that. I so I think that like British people say that, but maybe I'm just making that up. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, not to be like corny, but I I feel like with Peloton, I ride with Leanne a lot, I ride with Emma a lot, and I ride with Toon Day. And Toon Day has one that she says it's a great day to have a really, really, really great day. Oh, and I really like that.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. That's such a great thing to like put on your mirror in the morning. I know. The older I get, the more that I've really discovered, unfortunately, maybe to some extent, that like my mindset is really everything. If I choose to see the good in something or to if I choose to have a good day, I'll probably have a good day. If I'm gonna wake up and if I'm like, uh, today's gonna suck, like today's probably gonna suck.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I love that. Yeah. Okay. I recently went to a class and it that this guy who was the instructor, the leader, he was so just charged up and there was such a beautiful energy in the room. And he said two things that I really loved. One that I'm going to steal for when I coach my daughter's softball games. He said, There is no triumph without a little umph. I had never heard that before. And I freaking love it. And then he said, You only know how strong you are when being strong is your only option. Wow. Is that I know, right? Like these are kind of like profound things. And so I say, bring on the catchphrases, bring on the cheese. If it doesn't work for you, let it roll off your back because these things do work for people. Yeah. They help lift us up and make us feel stronger and more capable. So Emma really emphasizes progress, not perfection. It's literally the subtitle of her memoir. And she she says that a lot in her classes. Remember, progress, not perfection. How do you try to remind yourself that it's progress, not perfection?
SPEAKER_00:I feel like I am a perfectionist to a fault, mainly because I'm 1000% not perfect. It's impossible for me to half-ass anything. Like if I'm gonna put my name on something or claim something, I want it to be something that I'm proud of. Knowing that, I try to be, try to make it perfect, knowing that like it's not gonna be perfect. Yeah. So it's kind of a lose-lose. But I do appreciate Emma's progress over perfection, and I feel like I have been trying to do more of that. What about you?
SPEAKER_01:My mother instilled in me from a very young age this idea of doing things to the best of your ability. And most of the time, if you work hard enough, it can be pretty perfect, right? Like I remember when we would have to create poster boards for science fair, she would have a ruler and we would draw a line, and I would write everything in pencil first, and then I'd go over it in Sharpie. Yes. She really just wanted to instill in me a sense of pride in my work. And if I was capable of making it look neat or perfect, which with time and effort I was, then I needed to do that. And since then I learned to cut myself some slack. I mean, I still take pride in my work, believe me. When I edit these episodes, I'm pretty nitpicky, but I also remind myself that it's okay if it's not perfect. Because I'm not perfect, and that's okay too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Let's dive deeper into Emma's memoir. We learned that Emma grew up on Martha's Vineyard in a working-class family. Her mother, Teresa, had bucked the path she was supposed to follow: study accounting, get a practical job, earn money, marry a Chinese man when she fell in love with Emma's dad, Mark, a folk-singing white man. Together they built a creative life for themselves. Mark encouraged Teresa to follow her passion, oil painting. Emma writes, My parents both worked full-time while attending college full-time. Hustling to make it is in my blood. Her parents decided to move to Martha's Vineyard to raise their family. Her father's family had been there for three generations. Quote, Martha's Vineyard can be opulent, but our existence was hand to mouth. I've been to Martha's Vineyard and it is beautiful, but the dichotomy that but the dichotomy that exists for those who summer there and for some of those who are full-timers can be quite stark. Some of the wealthiest people in the world have their second, third, fourth homes there. And then Emma's experiences like she writes here, hand to mouth. Growing up, there are rich kids in my community, but the wealth gap was not this large. I also couldn't imagine living on an island and being so isolated or having my hometown full of people for a third of the year and then empty. I Googled it, and according to the 2020 census, there are approximately 20,500 permanent residents of Martha's Vineyard, and that number swells to nearly 200,000 during the summer tourist season. That's that's crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's an interesting way to grow up.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, really interesting. I I can't even relate to that.
SPEAKER_01:Going back to how she talked about her parents hustling, do you feel like your parents taught you to hustle? Was that like a thing in your household?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, they must have, because I feel like I am a huge hustler and I have side hustles, galore. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Did you see them hustling? Like consciously, like were you aware of that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think so, like to an extent. I mean, my parents both worked when I was growing up. So maybe, maybe that was it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Emma learns a lot from her mother, including gardening, which we'll get more to, but also meditation. She says that when she's about seven years old, she comes home from school and finds a meditation pillow on her bedroom floor. She ignores it, but a few days later, she comes home after a hard day at school where kids were being mean to her, and her mother tells her to meditate for 10 minutes and then they can talk about it. She writes, just treat your thoughts like clouds passing by. Acknowledge them, but don't get too attached to them. At first, Emma's really upset. She writes, The suggestion that I needed to meditate just fueled my fury. Why couldn't my mother just wrap me in her arms, hug me tight, and let me cry it all out? But I did as my mother said, even if it made me angry. She continues, My 10-minute mother-mandated meditation session calmed my breathing and allowed me to sit with my thoughts, even the ugly ones, and breathe through the messy mixture of emotions I was feeling. When I got off my cushion, my eyes were still puffy, but the tears had stopped. All of the overwhelming emotions that had caused me so much distress had been knocked down to size. The beauty of meditation is self-realization, especially as a kid who didn't always love advice from my parents. I found that meditation gave me the tools to figure out problems on my own. I think meditation is a beautiful tool. It's one that I try to incorporate more in my life. I find moving meditation works best for me. Speaking of like of exercise, Pilates is my the way that I have found I can meditate the best. What are your thoughts on meditation, Suze?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I don't really meditate. I wish I did. I've heard so many people talk about how it's so helpful, including Emma here. Since we're on the topic of Peloton, I will say I have tried like their meditation classes. Okay. And I did like it. I just didn't really keep up with it on a regular basis. I prefer like a Pilates, I don't know. I kind of feel like when I work out, it's more meditating because I kind of try to not think of anything else aside from what I'm doing. So I feel like that's kind of a similar-ish thing.
SPEAKER_01:It's really lovely the way that she's described it here because I think it does feel like there's a right way and a wrong way to meditate, right? Like you there are these rules that you're supposed to follow. So you can get kind of like down on yourself if you're like, uh, I can't let go of this thought. I love this phrase, right? Just treat your thoughts like clouds passing by, acknowledge them and don't get too attached to them. It's great, but it's still kind of like, well, what if I get too attached to them? Am I doing it wrong? What a gift that her mother gave her to teach Emma from a young age that emotions are okay. She wasn't telling her, like, go upstairs and like stop crying or stop feeling. She was just telling her, go upstairs and sit in how you're feeling. And I promise you, when you do that, you'll be able to see your emotions and your thoughts and your reaction to how you're feeling in a very different light, which is exactly what she did, which has set her up for the rest of her life to be able to process emotions and anxiety and stressful times. So, how do you feel like your parents did or maybe didn't teach you how to process your emotions growing up? Like if you were upset, what was the protocol?
SPEAKER_00:Honestly, I can't really remember like back then. I know like my mom always likes to remind me that I can't control what I can't control. So to let go of things. I can't say that I'm great at that, but I'm definitely actively trying how to acknowledge what I can control and what I can't control. How to do that, I don't really know. My dad, a couple of years ago, I don't even know where he learned it. I think from a doctor of some sort, but I can't remember, taught me this breathing exercise where you like put your hand on your heart and then just take a bunch of deep breaths in very slowly. And there's something about the blood flow and the like openness of like your hand. I don't know. Suze, isn't that meditating? That's like mini meditating, right? Is it just breathing? What is meditating? I don't really know.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's a state, what however you get to that state, whatever you need to do, whether it's going for a run, whether it's being in Pilates class, whether it's being able to sit with your thoughts, staring at a candle, putting your hand on your heart, listening to your breath. I think it's just a way of separating yourself from your emotions in order to acknowledge them and not let them control you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think you're right. I think that's why I feel like moving meditation is more effective for me because I feel like when I was doing Peloton meditating five, 10 minutes, I'd be done with it. I would be like, okay, I feel no different whatsoever.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But then if I'm doing a workout or something, I do feel like my mind is more clear than when I started it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Do whatever you need to do to be able to kind of take a step back. Then it has a cumulative effect where you will become less and less reactionary, less and less controlled by your emotions, which I feel is the goal. Okay, so back to Emma. In her memoir, she does encourage us to develop a healthy relationship with and make time for mindfulness. And that meditation doesn't have to be perfect. She writes, What matters is that you are giving yourself the opportunity to be mindful. You deserve to be at peace. So another great gift that her mother gives her, Emma writes, a positive body image. My mom always sat on the beach proudly and without self-consciousness. If she had neglected to shave her legs or armpits, she didn't care. My mom was unapologetic and carefree with herself in a way that empowered me to be comfortable with my own body. My mother never criticized her own body either, and I am grateful about this. Okay, Suze, how did your mom help cultivate a positive body image for you?
SPEAKER_00:I don't I don't know. I don't really remember talking about like body image. I don't know. I think because with playing sports and being so active, that's like really how I grew up. Daily, weekly. My mom also leads a very healthy life. She still to this day goes takes long walks. She golfs, she does the Peloton. So I think probably seeing that, I don't know. I feel like I just also come from a very sporty family. So that was just like something that we did.
SPEAKER_01:Did you ever feel pressure to like be a certain weight or look a certain way?
SPEAKER_00:Not really. No. I think for me it was more about like how I felt. Growing up until I got to college, I was like rail thin. I was very active. I ate a lot. Once I got to college, I will say that kind of changed just because, you know, you're eating, you're drinking, you're whatever. I studied abroad in Italy, ate pasta and prosciutto every day. I think I came back and I was like maybe 10 or 15 pounds heavier than normal, which I didn't love, but just because it's like, well, my clothes didn't fit. Now I have to go get new clothes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Clearly, your mom, whether consciously or subconsciously, taught you from a very early age that there wasn't a lot of value on how you looked or what body size or type you were. And whether that just kind of worked in your favor because of your like predisposed body type and the way you were active, you didn't have to struggle with those things early on, potentially, right? So they were never an issue to discuss. It just feels like your mom set you up, whether she like meant to or not, which is really cool. Like my mom was kind of on diets on and off, but she always made me feel beautiful. So even whatever she was dealing with with her own body image, it didn't really get passed on to me. But that's also maybe because I was petite.
SPEAKER_00:I had buck teeth when I was younger, and then I had to have braces with everything that came with it. So I feel like that I was more self-conscious about like that. Yeah. But it's like, well, what am I gonna do? Not fix them. Right. But that's like temporary. Oh my, I had like headgear, the cranker, the spacer, everything. That's just painful. Yeah, it was bad. So I think I feel like I struggled more with that.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so let's talk about gardening. Do you garden, Suze?
SPEAKER_00:Do you think I garden? No, you're too busy. You're always gone. I do have a lemon tree. So I am very proud when I grow a lemon. Yes. It's very slow, but it works. And then I also grow green onions. I grow them in the sense that we buy green onions and then when I cut them down, I put them in water by the window and then they regrow. Would that be urban gardening? Yes. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What about you?
SPEAKER_01:We had a garden at our old house. I bought a lemon tree after I did our episode on Lab Girl by Hope Jaren because she encourages all of her readers at the end of her memoir to go and plant a tree or to buy a tree. So I did buy a lemon tree after that. And yeah, it's slow, but it's, you know, we remember to water it and we have little baby lemons that are growing right now. But my husband really got into gardening. And I will say, I feel like that's something that I look forward to doing in five or six years when the kids are a little bit older and we can really go through all the steps together because it is so incredible when you walk outside and you're like, oh, I want to make a salad. Let me just go cut some of my kale.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And gardening is a huge part of Emma's life. She writes about the beautiful garden that her mother cultivated out of necessity on Martha's Vineyard, because it's an island, like I said, getting even the most basic items were way more expensive. They would take time because they all had to come in from the mainland. And she writes about being embarrassed growing up and having to help her mom in the garden because it's really smelly and gross. They were composting before it was cool, but now she really recognizes the valuable lessons that gardening taught her. In our lives, we had definitely come across, you know, that big gardening metaphor. You reap what you sow, right? Yada yada yada. But Emma touches on these, and we will too. And she's right. But there is one parallel that she drew that I especially loved. She writes about the concept of valuable trash. This is her composting. She writes, some bad days, gross tasks, or seemingly useless experiences can add up to be really valuable given enough time.
SPEAKER_00:I think these days it's everything is like instant gratification, instant satisfaction. So I feel like that is a good reminder.
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes you gotta go through the shit to get the goods, you know? You really just keeping on, keeping on a little bit. Yeah, you have to. Being able to take those quote unquote trash days or trash moments and realizing that you're adding on to something greater. Later in life, while living in New York, Emma will work on a secret garden of her own from her small apartment. She said that she loved making salads with homegrown tomatoes for friends and also feeling in control of this tiny plot of dirt that is all of her own. She's kind of at a moment in her life where everything feels out of control, but this she's got, right? Like she knows how to garden. She knows if she just puts in the time and energy to this tomato plant, it will bloom, it will produce. She goes into a lot more detail about all of this, which is great for anyone living in an apartment. I mean, she's like, she actually breaks it down to you, like how to do it, which I think is really cool. And then I do know that around at least LA, there are all of these great neighborhood gardens where you can rent. Yes, I've seen those. Yeah, they're incredible.
SPEAKER_00:Do you only pick from your garden? Can you pick from anyone else's garden? What's the etiquette there?
SPEAKER_01:I have to look into that, but maybe. I mean, I don't think you can just like walk into someone else's plot and and take what they're growing, but maybe there's sort of an exchange of goods situation that happens. I love that LA does that. That gives has these plots of land that you can, I have no idea how much they cost. And it probably varies by whatever part of LA you're in. Yeah. But if this is something that you want to look into, you know, speaking of meditating, I know a lot of people who call gardening a moving meditation. Oh, I bet. And you're grounding yourself with earth. And it's just a beautiful reminder of how you can create something out of nothing. And we have the power to cultivate positivity in our own lives. Emma writes all the digging, shoveling, and watering is hard work, but I know it will be worth it for the bounty it brings me. And even beyond the bounty, it brings me peace. If you can find anything in this world to bring you peace, I mean that is a gift. Suze, what brings you peace? Traveling brings me peace.
SPEAKER_00:I think being uh surrounded by family and friends also brings me peace. I feel like every time we hang out with our little group, I leave thinking like, okay, that was good for the soul. That was a good, that was a good hang. Mm-hmm. What about you?
SPEAKER_01:The really quiet moments with my kids, you know, like if one of them is in my lap and they're reading and I'm reading, or if I'm reading to them, also a good bath. I know that that's kind of cliche, but man, sometimes just sitting in warm water does it for me. Yeah. Especially if I have a glass of cold rose or aberril spritz, which has been my new thing.
SPEAKER_00:So I love that. That's a form of meditating. There you go.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Sue's we're gonna make everything meditating. Like anything is meditating, whatever.
SPEAKER_01:We're into it. Just to kind of close out the gardening section. I just love gardening as a metaphor, right? Like you can slow down when life gets overwhelming and do something that you are in control of. Through gardening, you are reminded that things don't happen overnight. But each day, incremental steps are taken forward if you put in the work. Emma writes, I'm a big believer in loving yourself to success, and that requires being kind and patient with yourself. You cannot hate yourself into change. You must love yourself into greatness. Give yourself the time and care you need to really blossom into the best version of you. But you can't be afraid to get dirty and dig deep for that personal growth. There are no shortcuts.
SPEAKER_00:I once heard somebody say, How can someone else love you if you don't love yourself? Yeah. And for some reason that has always stuck with me. She's right on there.
SPEAKER_01:I think you need to do the work on yourself to create your own happiness. But I think it's also important to believe that you deserve that as well. You are a priority in your own life. I think, especially as women, our needs can take a backseat to other people's needs. And really reading a lot of these, all of these memoirs is just that reminder that you are worth showing up for yourself for. Right. So yeah, we all need those reminders sometimes. This is a world that martyrs mothers, martyrs women, the sacrifices that we all do, but like it's your life, man. Like you deserve to be happy and fun. Her mom eventually opens up her own gardening business. So there you go. You never know. Could turn it into a business. All right, we're gonna move into a section about finding your voice. Emma writes about how growing up, she quote, associated being quiet, keeping her thoughts, wants, opinions, and ideas to myself with being good. She struggled with this notion of, you know, being a good girl, equating with being good, with being quiet, being compliant. And so she says that she really struggles with this notion, not wanting to be a problem, not speaking up when she felt something wasn't working for her or when she had a preference of something. And she writes about being out for drinks one night when a person in her group makes a racist remark about Chinese people, and Emma goes mute instead of sticking up for herself. She is a half Chinese woman. She writes, what she said hurt, and knowing that I didn't respond to this racist comment was like dumping a pile of salt in a wide open wound. My heart broke for her in that moment. That's really hard. Also, she shouldn't have to defend herself. Like that other girl just shouldn't be racist. Right. She really credits her mom again with encouraging Emma to find out who she wanted to be and be it because her mom had the opposite experience growing up. So, how did your parents encourage you to be confident in who you are and the choices that you wanted to make?
SPEAKER_00:I think they just let me do things. I mean, not like insane things. I mean, I did move to LA right after college and no one stopped me. And I feel like in moving here, I did kind of figure out like who I was or who I what I wanted to do or what I wanted to be or who I wanted to be. Yeah. By not holding me back, by not I don't know. They were kind of like rode that middle line very well where it wasn't like I didn't grow up in some like super strict household, but I also didn't grow up in something where there were no rules.
SPEAKER_01:It seems like knowing who your parents are, knowing you, your parents trusted you to make the best decisions for yourselves. And they trust, they trusted that they gave you a good foundation to be a good person who would go about making decisions in life in a healthy way.
SPEAKER_00:I think there was also like an open line of communication where I wasn't afraid to tell my parents everything. I was afraid that I would maybe disappoint them. It wasn't like a, oh, I could never tell my mom this. I could never say this. So I think that also was helpful.
SPEAKER_01:I love that.
SPEAKER_00:What about you?
SPEAKER_01:My parents were very supportive. I I chose a very difficult path. Yeah. It's not a path that guarantees success. In fact, it doesn't guarantee success way more often than it guarantees success. Their big thing was we want you to have an education. I had to go to college. I could major in acting, which I did, but I had to go to college. And you know, I'm still paying off a very small student loan in the grand scheme of things, of what USC cost. But my parents took on a lot of that payment themselves. They both set me up and supported me financially. A few months after I graduated, pretty quickly I was able to financially support myself. And that was important to me. They also instilled the desire and ambition to be independent. I think sometimes parents can enable their children a little too long.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You won't sink or swim if your parents constantly throw you a floaty device. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:Like I feel like that too goes back to why I have so many side hustles too. Cause I I don't want my parents paying for my housing. I don't want my parents paying for my car. I don't want my, I don't want, I don't want that burden. Not not even the burden, just I don't want that.
SPEAKER_01:Right. My parents never once made me doubt my talent or my dream. And that's huge. I think that's really huge. Yeah. Emma writes that she loves to sing and dance. She writes, dancing and singing freed up something inside of me. It was like I was taking a break from being the good girl without being bad, which I thought was really fun. Okay, so how do you think that you found your capital V voice? That's what we always called it in college. So that's what I do.
SPEAKER_00:That's so funny. Isn't it cute? Um, I feel like I'm still kind of working on it. I feel like I can advocate for somebody else very well. I can do a full monologue about you right now and how great you are at acting and And how good of a mom you are and all of that. But if somebody asks me to do that for myself, I'm terrible at it. I'm trying to be better at it because especially with like work, I am a freelance producer. I have to pitch myself a lot to people. And nobody else is like advocating for me. Like I'm not the top of somebody else's mind. So I have to be the person that's like saying why I'm the person you should choose. And I feel like a lot of times that's hard for me because I'm like, oh, they don't care. But if I don't say it, then people don't know. Yeah. It's definitely something that I do try to work on. I would love to know how you have found that.
SPEAKER_01:I think that the more you know yourself, the more confident you can feel in speaking about yourself. This thing just came to me. I just read it yesterday, actually. So it's kind of funny, but it was just this question that someone had posted on social media. When asked to list what you love in life, how long would it take you to say yourself? And that really made me stop because I was like, wow, I don't think I would say myself. I don't either. I don't know. I I don't know what else to say about that, except like if you're listening and it also would take you a while to list yourself, why? And how can you change that? I think we live in a world where, as Emma wrote, women are conditioned to feel a lot of ways about themselves. And big ones are that we should be quiet or be good, or there is a right or wrong way to exist as a woman in this world. And I think we're also really conditioned to believe that if we speak up, if we know ourselves, if we're confident, that that's not necessarily a good thing. Uh, we've talked about this many times on the show that strong, confident men are looked up to and strong, confident women are called bitches. The world doesn't necessarily welcome that. So it is a hard thing to fight against, but it's an important thing to figure out how to fight against. Right. Um, because you're right, Suze, you are your biggest advocate and you know you're talented and good enough for the job that you're pitching yourself for, but you do have to be able to communicate that to the person who would hire you, right? So I'm not saying it's easy. I'm still working on it for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think that when you care less about something too, like if there's a job that I'm like, I really want this, I really want this. I feel like I'm a little more reserved in an interview or something. And when there's something that's like, sure, I'll do the interview, but like I'm not really that interested. I kind of let go of all of that. And then they're like, We'd love to offer you the job. And I'm like, oh god.
SPEAKER_01:It's because the stakes are lower. So there's something you gotta trick your brain into always thinking that the stakes are low, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, who cares? I don't know how to do that, but I feel like I am getting better at the if they don't want me, then whatever. Across all things, not just work, you know, their loss.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love when Emma writes, shout out your wins, both big and small, because your value deserves to be seen and celebrated.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Celebrate the victories. Don't let somebody else make you feel like a small victory isn't worth celebrating.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I love celebrating victories.
SPEAKER_01:And when Emma finally owns her worth and knows her value, she feels confident to reach out to a certain Peloton CEO and inquire about a job opportunity. And we now know that the rest is history. Believing in yourself goes a long way, but it's not always easy. Emma expands on this as she writes about growing up and how, quote, while being Asian made me feel like the odd one out on the island, there were just as many times when I did not feel Asian enough. Not belonging was a constant tension in my life. On one side was my white family, on the other was my mother's family from Shanghai. I was constantly trying to find my footing between the two cultures. There always seemed to be a reminder that I wasn't enough of either. That seems so tricky to navigate to. I know. She writes about a 2018 trip with her family to experience Taiwan through her mom's eyes, and how during that trip, something shifted for her. She writes, for so long, I didn't feel Chinese enough. But if it wasn't for my mother, if it wasn't for the beautiful country we were visiting, if it wasn't for her courage to leave for America and conquer the hardships she faced as she settled in New York, I wouldn't be here. I had viewed being half Chinese as a problem that needed to be solved, but it turns out having a foot in two different worlds was what bonded my family together. I left Taiwan with a deeper sense of connection to both. And I think family heritage is such a beautiful thing. Now, more than ever, we need to remember the immigration stories of our ancestors and the hope and opportunity that America once stood for. And I know that you've spent some time tracing your lineage back, and you're even an Italian citizen, Suze. I am small victory. That's right. That's a big victory. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:That is a big victory, all right.
SPEAKER_01:Walk me through that. Like what stemmed your curiosity?
SPEAKER_00:What did you find? I was really close to my mom's parents, my grandparents who are both Italian. My great-grandparents were born and raised in Italy, and then they immigrated to America in 1906, I believe. Wow. So I've always really resonated with my Italian heritage just because, you know, a lot of our family traditions are those Italian traditions. And my grandma passed away when I was 12, and she had always wanted to go to Italy. She had never been there. It's where her parents were from. She had never been. That always made me really sad. And I don't know if I'm like avenging this for her. And I'm like, you couldn't go. I'm gonna go every year for you. Yes. And then my grandpa died when I was a sophomore in college, and it was kind of when I was in that process of applying for study abroad programs. And I just vividly remember sitting at his funeral, and I was kind of debating like, maybe I want to go to Australia so I can learn how to surf. And I was sitting at his funeral and I was kind of like, what am I doing? Like, I'm going to Rome. And I went back to school. I applied for Rome. I got in, and the rest is kind of history. I feel like if I didn't go to Rome, I probably wouldn't have fallen in love with it for like living there for so long. But I mean, I'll spare you the the long journey of how I actually became a citizen, which I guess is me not wanting to pat myself on the back. We'll get into it in our next episode. Don't don't worry. I put yeah, I did put a lot of time and effort into it. But the headline is that it took about three years. I had to gather a lot of paperwork, had to pass an Italian fluency exam at a certain level. So I learned and I'm still learning Italian. And then I would say that I'm probably the most proud Italian citizen out there. Um when I'm in Italy, I tell everybody I'm a citizen. I'm literally like, hello, how are you? I am also an Italian citizen. I am one of you. That's incredible, Suze. I don't know. I I just feel that I have this like deep connection with Italy. Side note, I had a boyfriend who started dating somebody else while I was in Italy studying abroad. And he dumped me actually the night that I got home from studying abroad in Italy. After he'd been cheating on you the entire time you were studying abroad? Yeah, more or less. So I also feel like when I got home, I there was always these thoughts in my head, like, well, maybe if I didn't go to Italy, I wouldn't have been dumped. But then, like, once I pulled my head out of my ass, I was like, screw that. This place means so much more to me than, you know, any high school or college boyfriend. It always like reminded me of that episode of The Hills when Kelly Coutron told Lauren Conrad, you'll always be known as the girl that didn't go to Paris. And I'm like, well, I'd rather be known as the girl who went to Italy, lost the guy. And you know, if I didn't go, I probably wouldn't have fallen in love with the place and gone full throttle to become a citizen.
SPEAKER_01:So there you go. There you go. I don't have many regrets in life. I really don't have any regrets in life, except I wish I would have studied abroad in college. I was too afraid. It was a program you had to audition to get into. I didn't feel confident that I would get in. Where would it have been? London.
SPEAKER_00:Oh.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, obviously my life turned out great. I'm happy with where I'm at, but yeah, I don't know if that would have changed too much, you know, just like going to London earlier. Who knows? Maybe it would have changed everything. So maybe wasn't meant to be.
SPEAKER_00:I'm a big, big advocate for it. I don't know. I feel like in college too, it's weird because I didn't want to leave college because I had so many friends there and I've like loved being in college. So it was hard to leave to go live somewhere else. But also my college roommate and I did the same program and we lived together with like a family who I still talk to to this day and I still see whenever I go to Rome. And I had like my mom has family close to there, so I like visited them and I got to know them. And so I'm very thankful for all of that.
SPEAKER_01:That is so cool. I think college is the best time to push yourself out of your comfort zone because there still is that safety net of like you're in college. Yeah, exactly. Getting back to Emma, she writes, the journey to embracing who I was at my core took years. Growth can happen when you release the struggle to be like everyone else and recognize that you are enough. Okay, so this is a really difficult thing that Emma deals with. Her parents separate. She writes that her dad had many interests and talents, including astronomy, and shared that with her growing up, but she recalls the moment that her parents tell her that they're getting a divorce. She's 12, and her dad had just left a note for her and her brother on their pillows. And her brother reads it first, and he was the one to tell her. I felt like that was I just can't imagine getting that type of news in a letter. I was very angry for her and her brother. Emma writes, The next few years of my life were marked by huge adjustments. My world as I knew it had shifted. It wasn't just that dad didn't live with us, it was that my mother was truly suffering, and this was taking a toll on me and my brother. She was heartbroken and felt alone in a community where there were virtually no other Asian people. Her brother goes off to college and her relationship with her mother is very, very strained. She writes, I felt like my mom was totally checked out and that I was on my own. And then Emma's doctor finds a lump in her breast. Her doctor isn't too worried about it, but she wants to remove it just in case. And Emma knows that her mother can't help her navigate this, so she calls her dad, even though she's still very angry with him. She writes, I loved him so much, but he had ripped apart our family and it still hurt. Could I depend on someone who had hurt me so much? But she had no other choice. The surgery does go well, and ultimately she's glad that she let go of her anger enough to allow him to help her. Yeah. What I loved about her relationship with her dad is that he never did stop showing up for her, even when she pushed him away. I think that's the mark of a good parent. I think a big thing of growing up is realizing that our parents are people too, and they are fallible, and they don't always show up for you how you wish that they could or would. Right. But Emma's still so young here, and that's a really scary thing to find a lump in her breast. And at the end of the day, it's not Emma's job to love her father. It's his job to love her. She writes, I couldn't control what happened in my parents' relationship, but I could control how I chose to move forward with my relationship with each of them. Forgiveness is freedom. She continues, but forgiveness is an ongoing process. Remember that the process is about you, the forgiver. Anger is a very heavy burden to carry.
SPEAKER_00:I'm a big believer in forgiveness, but I know I I don't forget, but I forgive. I like that. The Taylor Swift song Endgame, there's a lyric in there that says, I bury hatchets, but I keep maps of where I put them. And I feel like that to me is kind of like where I stand on the whole forgiveness thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's kind of like that fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I'll forgive you, but I also see you. Yeah, exactly. But I do believe in change. Same. And I do believe that we should give people second chances if they show us that they deserve them. Um but it's all on you. This is all your own journey. But I do think that anger is a very heavy burden to bear. Anger and hatred can seep into so many aspects of your life without you even realizing it. Like if you're an angry, hateful person, you just see the world differently, you walk through life differently. And so if there is anything that you can let go of to make your experience a better one, think about what that could be. That's all. That's all. It's that cliche. Forgiveness is for you.
SPEAKER_00:That's a good way to put it.
SPEAKER_01:Emma also credits her dad with encouraging her to write her story down and instilling confidence in her writing ability because after the separation, she wrote him the scathing letter, and his response was, This is very well written, Emma. I love that. I was like, you know, that's great. Her father's still finding ways to support her, even when, you know, she's basically like, You are an asshole. Yeah. There are some other difficult moments that Emma has to overcome. We learn about Brad. Emma dated him for almost two years when his demeanor shifted and he became withdrawn. He would disappear for days. She makes the really difficult decision to break up with him. She writes, It was painful, but for the sake of my own mental health and my heart, I couldn't remain in the relationship. A few months later, Emma receives word that Brad had overdosed. She's shattered and also feeling racked with guilt that she could have done something to prevent this. But because of therapy and having gone through her parents' divorce, she knows that she has to face this heartbreak head on. She forces herself to go to yoga every single day for a month. This is really where she starts writing about how exercise shows up for her in her life. She writes, the pain was acute in those moments. But as the days of yoga classes went by, I was able to release some of that guilt and self-blame. I began to think about the good moments. There was nothing I could have done, but knowing this didn't make the pain disappear. In addition to the yoga, I went to therapy twice a week and wrote down all of my feelings. I mean, she had to do a lot of work to get past this moment in her life in the healthiest way that she could, because she knew, she knew she couldn't go around it, she couldn't go below it, she had to go through it. Right. I can't imagine how difficult a situation like that would be. I've never experienced something like this. Same. Reading this part of her memoir, you could feel the guilt and the blame. And like you understand why. In lots of situations, we ask ourselves, like, could we have done something different in order for the outcome to have been different? Right. And I just love that she just very simply tells you what she did and offers that to you as support or guidance, but isn't like this is the only way. She's just like, this is how I got through this horrible moment in my life. And it's not just I went to yoga every day. She went to therapy twice a week. She's like, there's no magic pill. You have to do the work.
SPEAKER_00:I like how she just writes about how she handled various experiences. Maybe that works for everybody, maybe it doesn't.
SPEAKER_01:She's just offering a lot of things up, and it's it's up to us what we take from it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:She writes, saying yes often means a leap of faith, but magical things can happen when you say yes and open yourself up to new possibilities. I mean, you talked about saying yes to studying abroad in Rome, and I mean that completely shifted your life path. That's so exciting. You know, you were feeling a little unsure about it, but ultimately you decided to take the leap. Emma writes about a casual yes that she writes in a job posting on Craigslist that eventually leads her to Peloton. And you can read her memoir to like go into that a little bit more, but that's crazy, right? There are so many little yeses and big yeses along the way. I don't even think maybe we realize all of the yeses that we actually say.
SPEAKER_00:I know. I I do try to say yes more than no. If someone asks me to do something, I will try to say yes if if I'm available to, or yeah. Even like with my husband, going on a first date with him, like I worked with him. It would have been very easy for me to say no. Yeah. But I was just like, yeah, let's do it.
SPEAKER_01:And here we are. Yeah. I I try to lean into yes. And then, you know, we covered Shonda Rhimes' year of yes on the podcast. Yeah. If anybody really needs to see how saying yes can affect your life in the positive, read that book because she was definitely changed by leaning into yes. And then listen to our episode on it. Here's another piece of advice from Emma. Emma writes to aim for more best days. She touches on this idea that we save the best days of our life for these momentous occasions when really, why can't every day be our best day? She writes, a best day is something you can celebrate all the time. And I feel like that goes hand in hand with what uh you said Tounde says in her rides.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a great day to have a really, really, really great day.
SPEAKER_01:It actually makes me think of two things. One, I don't know if you've seen the thing going around social media where it's like when you're tired or feeling like stuck in a rut, imagine you're actually your 90-year-old self who was able to come back to this point in your life. How would you view your life differently, right? Right. And then the actually this memoir that's on our list, Between Two Kingdoms by Selika Zawad. I saw an Instagram reel where she talked about how she hates the phrase, live like every day's your last day. And she said, I don't want to live every day like it's my last day. I want to live every day like it's my first day. I like that. You and I talked about this, right? Like finding awe in things. Yeah. I love live every day like it's your first day, way more than live every day like it's your last day. Because if it's my last day, dude, I'm spending all my money on I'm fine first class, I'm just probably somewhere. Emma wishes this for all of us. Lean into yes, celebrate all the moments, sit with yourself and your thoughts without judgment, push towards your goals, but give yourself slack when you stumble, knowing that tomorrow you can try again. Focus on the journey, not the destination. Really just keep moving, keep moving, keep keep moving, you know? Ride that bike, ride that bike. She writes, magic can happen when movement becomes a major theme in the story of you. I love that. Okay, Suze, that was Emma Lovewell's Live, Learn, Love Well. Do you have any closing thoughts? Your biggest takeaways.
SPEAKER_00:Going into this book, I had really low expectations. And when I finished this book, I was really happy I read it. Like I really liked Emma before reading this book. As I mentioned, I spent a lot of time with her on the Peloton. But I really appreciated her and her outlook more after reading this book. I'm really glad we covered this book.
SPEAKER_01:Me too. Emma has been through a lot. And using exercise, therapy, meditation, and other tools she learned along the way, she maintains a positive outlook on life that has clearly taken her very far. Her memoir is a reminder that you can't judge a book by its cover. This motivational woman leading you through your workout has not had a perfect, easy life, but she's here. She's showing up, she's progress, not perfection. She gives really good, solid advice and she shows us how she used it in her own life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I feel like she's really relatable in how she delivers the messaging, also. That you can kind of see yourself in what she's saying. And I feel like too with Emma, and maybe just because I look at her more of like my personal fitness coach, because she has helped me through a lot of things. I like what she says, I like what she does. I I have taken a ton of her classes. I also did her four-week crush your core class, and it really did wonders. So she's good at what she does. And I if she's telling me to do something, there are proven results that it works. So I'm I'm listening. Highly recommend. Again, not a Peloton ad.
SPEAKER_01:This is not a Peloton ad, but it's a thing in our lives that we have found to be helpful, which led us to Emma's memoir. So we tied it into the show. Suze, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. I always love our conversations. Thank you to all the listeners out there. Make sure you connect with the show on Instagram. We're at Babes and Bookland Pod for more memoir inspiration. And please share this episode with the wonderful people in your life, especially if they're already Emma Lovewell and Peloton fans. And I'm gonna leave you all with one last favorite, Emma ism. Tough times don't last. Tough people do. Love that. All right, guys, we're all stronger than we think we are. Suze, thank you again. Bye. Bye.
