Feelin' Good with Marie: The week I cried at a Matisse exhibit, accidentally used Tinder as a friend app, why I want people to hate our gummies, and a Joan Didion quote.
Welcome back!!! Another week, another batch of thoughts.
A lot of these started as LinkedIn posts, but there’s always a director’s cut version, so I’m here to spill some beans...
Let’s go!!!!
Quote of the week
“Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life - is the source from which self-respect springs.
Self-respect is something that our grandparents, whether or not they had it, knew all about.
They had instilled in them, young, a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts.”
- Joan Didion
Nobody wants self-respect to come from sending an annoying email. We want it to come from a sunrise hike or a journaling practice or some other Instagrammable moment.
But it really does come from an email or workout.
The Matisse cry (longer version)
I posted about crying at the Matisse exhibit in SF and someone asked me afterward if I legit cried and had to leave: YES lol.
I walked out of the museum!!!! For like five whole minutes!!!!
But the upside (and less dramatic part), the person I was with told me a therapist technique he’d been learning; that I’m always connected to Paris, that the heart of a place I love is in my heart too, so it’s not really gone.
Reframe “missing” as “loving” and it flips the emotion on it’s head.
Surprisingly, haven’t seen this one on Linkedin Lunatics yet...
Haters are welcome
Last week we sent samples to a creator who works with the Kardashian family on their TikTok lives.
He passed them around, and said some people loved them and some people hated them.
A mentor texted me about it, and I think she expected me to be a little shaken.
The thing I’m actually afraid of is neutral. Neutral means forgettable. Neutral means nobody’s going to text their group chat about it.
If half the people who try GloGlo think it’s the best thing they’ve ever put in their mouth and the other half think it’s weird... that’s perfect.
BLAND IS NOT BRAND
Tinder, but for friends (a true story)
When I first moved to Paris someone told me to download Tinder.
I genuinely thought it was for making friends. Genuinely!!!!
I matched with a guy, we went to an Italian place, we talked about books and the city and our careers, very normal small talk.
At some point he must have realized I had no idea what app I was on.
Reader: we became actual friends. He later became a YC founder, which is somehow the most on-brand thing my life could have produced.
Days later a friend explained Tinder to me. I deleted the app. But honestly... it was a great run.
Moral of the story: misunderstanding isn’t always bad. Sometimes you accidentally show up to a dating app looking for a book club and you walk away with a friend for life.
Officially an influencer (or trying)
Everyone knows being a founder is the same thing as being an influencer these days. I’ve been hard at work, grinding 9-5 on YouTube shorts and Reels.
Am I doing it right??
THING OF THE WEEK
Where I share one thing that makes my life better...
We’ve done breathing apps, meditation, running, and walking.... Here’s a more abstract one:
If you are doing a one-on-one with an employee, give them some sort of idea what it’s about.
I’ve learned, especially in this job climate, people are scared of ambiguous one-on-ones.
Even a “hey btw you’re not getting fired”
On that note:
That’s me for the week! As always, send your French restaurants in SF (still collecting!!!), your running music (also still collecting!!!), and tell me if you’ve cried your way out of any buildings recently...
Until next time! embrace the polarizing opinion, and double check which app you’re on!
-Marie 💃