Chapter 91: Nora McInerny on nixing numbers and nurturing naked needs

Nov 19, 2021

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Welcome to Chapter 91 of 3 Books!

How are you holding up in 2021? It has been a wild 20 months.

You’ve been telling me you are thankful for the show and I have been telling you I’m thankful for you. I appreciate your notes, your phone calls, your letters, and your reviews and we travel and meet across space and time — meeting up whenever the moon above is is completely full or completely empty.

Today I am so thrilled to share with you the enigmatic, witty, multi-hyphenate Nora McInerny.

In 2014 Nora went through a deeply traumatic six weeks. She had a miscarriage, lost her father, and lost her husband Aaron with whom she had a young son. She spent the next year of her life couch surfing, staying with friends, trying to process the loss, the grief and the trauma. And what has emerged is somebody who I feel is at the world’s leading edge of discussing things like grief, trauma, loss, widowhood, and how we navigate forward with those all bottled up inside us.

Nora is the successful author of It’s OK to Laugh, Crying is Cool Too, No Happy Endings, The Hot Young Widow’s Club, and the movie novelization of Bad Moms. (Shoutout to Chapter 82 with Quentin Tarantino!).

Nora gave a wonderful TED Talk called “We don’t move on from grief; we move forward with it” which, at the time of me writing this, has 5,798,513 views.

But all that stuff — the books! the talks! — are probably not as well known as her spectacular, award-winning podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking (TTFA).

If you don’t already, check it out — subscribe, listen, and love. I was lucky enough to be a guest a year and a half ago and Nora gave me permission to share the audio in a 3 Books Bookmark this past March.

Nora McInerny is coming to us from her closet in Arizona, where she is now resettled into a new relationship, co-parenting her child with her new husband’s children.

Get cozy in between us and let’s the three of us hang out and talk about: intentional parenting, grief processing, shininess vs work, sliding scales of empathy, dating after divorce, navigating our deepest needs, and, of course, the one and only Nora McInerny’s 3 most formative books.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 91 now…

What You'll Learn

What is emotional coziness?
How do we navigate self-consciousness?
What makes children’s books so unique?
How can we better understand our values?
How can we process our grief?
What is the difference between processing versus coping with grief?
What is the difference between grief and depression?
How soon should you start dating after becoming a widower?
Why is the grief of divorce or breakups underestimated?
Why is it so important to convey the humanity of experiences vs the absurdity?
How do you turn the mundane into the interesting?
How can we curb digital self harm?
What is the value of effort?
What is digital enlightenment?
Why is categorization counterproductive?

You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://www.3books.co/chapters/91

Leave us a voicemail. Your message may be included in a future chapter: 1-833-READ-A-LOT.

3 Books is a completely insane and totally epic 22-year-long quest to uncover and discuss the 1000 most formative books in the world. Each chapter discusses the 3 most formative books of an inspiring person. Sample guests include: Brené Brown, David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, George Saunders, Angie Thomas, Daniels, Cheryl Strayed, Rich Roll, Soyoung the Variety Store Owner, Derek the Hype Man, Kevin the Bookseller, Vishwas the Uber Driver, Roxane Gay, David Mitchell, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Mark Manson, Seth Godin, Judy Blume, and Quentin Tarantino. 3 Books is published on the lunar calendar with each of the 333 chapters dropped on the exact minute of every single full moon all the way up to April 26, 2040. 3 Books is an Apple "Best Of" award-winning show and is 100% non-profit with no ads, no sponsors, no commercials, and no interruptions. 3 Books has 3 clubs including the End of the Podcast Club, the Cover to Cover Club, and the Secret Club, which operates entirely through the mail and is only accessible by calling 1-833-READ-A-LOT. Each chapter is hosted by Neil Pasricha, New York Times bestselling author of 'The Happiness Equation', 'Two-Minute Mornings', and 'The Book of Awesome.' For more info check out: https://www.3books.co