The Outworker

#033 - Grace Wethor - Life After An Incurable Diagnosis

Tim Doyle Episode 33

Grace Wethor's life changed when she was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor at 13 years old. Now, almost a decade later, she reflects on how this profound experience shaped her outlook on life, mortality, and personal growth. Driven by her passion for storytelling, entertainment, and advocacy, Grace has built initiatives and communities that extend far beyond herself. Her journey powerfully illustrates resilience and self-discovery, demonstrating how to live life without context, and revealing that the hardest thing you go through doesn't necessarily mean it's the worst thing you go through. 

00:00 Being Told Your Pain Isn't Real
03:33 Being Told Physical Pain Was Mental Health Problem
04:48 Numbing Pain
06:33 Getting Brain Tumor Diagnosis
10:52 Processing Sadness
16:34 Becoming A Star
20:22 Stripping Yourself Of Societal Programming
23:23 Internal Voice
24:47 Power Of Alone Time
26:27 Role Of Creativity In Healing
37:17 Overcompensating For Health Identity
41:33 Combining Art & Health
51:06 Writing Seven Thompson & the Art of Remembering
1:00:51 Living Without Context
1:04:55 Unlearning
1:09:08 Relationship Between 'And' & 'Because'

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What’s up outworkers. Grace Wethor's life changed when she was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor at 13 years old. Now, almost a decade later, she reflects on how this profound experience shaped her outlook on life, mortality, and personal growth. Driven by her passion for storytelling, entertainment, and advocacy, Grace has built initiatives and communities that extend far beyond herself. Her journey powerfully illustrates resilience and self-discovery, demonstrating how to live life without context, and revealing that the hardest thing you go through doesn't necessarily mean it's the worst thing you go through. 

 

Tim (00:06.606)

I think you gain a greater appreciation for your own personal creative work and your book, Seven Thompson and the Art of Remembering, if you know about your own personal story. And there are certain lines from your writing that stand out more than others because of that. My sweaty palms remind me that my body hasn't forgotten as much as my mind has. It's quite comforting. Proof of my misery. Proof that it's real.

 

So at the onset of your own personal medical journey, how did you handle not knowing what the problem was that you were dealing with and also processing some going as far as to say that your pain wasn't real?

 

Grace Wethor (00:52.847)

Yeah, well you did your research. love it. So for people who don't know anything about me, I was 13 years old when the doctors discovered a mass in my brain and I was told that the tumor was inoperable and that chemotherapy and radiation would not work on the tumor either. And I was sent home and told to drink Gatorade because I was passing out multiple times a day at this point. And it had taken about, I think six,

 

Eight months to even get to that diagnosis and I went to countless pediatricians that said I was just a teenager that said I was Faking it for attention that said I was depressed and I just didn't feel like going to school and I think what really got my family and I through that time is Having advocates around me that knew me as much as I knew myself. My mom knew that Me laying in bed was not the real me I

 

grew up a very athletic kid. was a figure skater. I was a dancer and I was training like seven days a week most times. And so when there was this switch where I just could not get out of bed and I couldn't show up for the things I loved, she knew that there was something wrong and it was something beyond just a mental aspect of my life. And so she kept fighting for me and when a doctor said no, she would find the next one. And I think in pediatric cancer cases, that's something that we hear a lot is

 

this conversation of the parents having to advocate over and over for their child that doesn't have a voice of their own because they may be very, very young. So having my mom absolutely got me through that time. And then it was an entire journey just to get to that diagnosis. So a lot of people are always like, how are you feeling on that day when you finally found out you had a brain tumor? And I always say there was a twinge of relief in it because we had been fighting to find something for so long and doing hundreds of tests in all the different categories.

 

So the discovery of the actual tumor was like, thank God we finally have a starting point to figure out how to get better.

 

Tim (02:56.846)

How did it feel that people were telling you that this was a mental health thing?

 

Grace Wethor (03:02.483)

I think it was, it's hard. think what was really interesting is I was very young. I was 12 and 13 when this whole diagnosis process was happening. So sometimes you almost start to question like, am I actually sick? And you know, you start pushing yourself further and further and you don't really know where that line ends, especially when all of these tests are coming back and they're like, you don't have this, you don't have that, you're fine. We see nothing wrong with you.

 

And so I remember, you know, I don't really remember too much from that time, cause it was really difficult, but what I do remember was being really hard on myself when in that time, really what I should have been doing was healing and just resting. And I was always pushing myself a little bit harder than I probably should have been. I was still playing sports. I was still training and I had to continue living a normal life as much as I could. Cause there was nothing wrong.

 

So it was a really weird in-between time and then the diagnosis was like a puzzle piece and everything started kind of falling into place.

 

Tim (04:11.586)

You've talked about how you had been feeling the pain for so long that you started to numb it. Do you think that was a conscious process of you trying to do that? Or do you think that happened naturally and maybe subconsciously?

 

Grace Wethor (04:28.645)

I think it was probably both. I think, you know, I was living with headaches and I was passing out multiple times a day and I was having like seizure episodes. I was falling down the stairs at school and it kind of got to a point where it became normal. And it's still something that I try to like acknowledge and respect about my life to this day. I have now been living with this illness for it'll be 10 years in January and

 

What a lot of people don't realize is I am just as sick today as I was 10 years ago. And so I try to remember that when I get really hard on myself and I push myself too far sometimes. So I still live with headaches and I still live with these symptoms. I've just learned how to manage them a lot better over the years. And so I think, you know, falling into a pattern is something that all humans do.

 

things are really hard and then we live in those patterns for years and years and we're like, how did we end up here? And I think in a way it was a process of grieving. It was grieving the old life that I had before. It was grieving my healthy life. And so it wasn't really getting back to normal. It was figuring out what my new normal was going to be. And so day by day that just becomes your normal and then suddenly it's 10 years in the future and...

 

you know how to get through a day with a migraine. So I think it's, yeah, it's a process of grieving and just discovering your new limitations.

 

Tim (05:57.326)

So on January 9th, 2015 at 13 years old, you got an MRI on your spine and your head and you find out the concrete answer for why you're feeling this physical pain and it's a brain tumor in your brain stem. And you were told 8 % chance to live with six months left. What was your reaction to finding out that this was inoperable and untreatable?

 

Grace Wethor (06:30.511)

Again, like I said, I don't always know all the details, but I think for me...

 

What was really backwards about my whole experience was I had spent six months as a patient in the cancer department trying to figure out why I had all of these symptoms and side effects when no one really knew what I had yet. It just kind of by chance ended up that I ended up with these doctors. They did blood tests while they were doing all these testing and they found out that my red and white blood cell count was really far off, which is a marker for leukemia. And so I became a patient.

 

in the hematology and oncology center and continued on my testing. So by the time that we actually found the brain tumor, that was kind of the end of my medical journey. And I left the hospital that day. I obviously went back for scans and everything, but that was really the day that I left. And so...

 

Although I have one of the hardest types of masses to treat, it was a blessing in a way because if it had been any more treatable, I definitely would have been stuck in the hospital for months to years after that. And because I had such a limited amount of time, they were saying when I was diagnosed and it wasn't treatable, I actually had the opportunity to leave the sick life and go out and do whatever I wanted to do for those six months.

 

And to me that was be creative every day, it was travel, was go on adventures. And the six months and the freedom and the bravery that I had during that time, I think turned me into the person I am today. So I'm extremely grateful, as weird as it sounds, that they couldn't really help me too too much at the time.

 

Tim (08:19.008)

It's like it set you free in a way and going to that point of how you felt that relief that you finally had an answer. This just adds onto that. And you say, I wasn't handed mortality that day in the hospital. just became conscious of it. What was it like gaining such a high level of consciousness at such a young age?

 

Grace Wethor (08:42.375)

Well, I was 12, so I'm not sure. I think it shaped me so much more than I ever thought that it would at the time when I was taking on this mentality. I think when you live something every day, it becomes your routine. And during that time, I was just young enough to be crazy enough to...

 

Really believe I could literally do anything and I think believing that from such a young age and setting out to achieve those goals I Continued with that and I have this kind of outlook that really anything is possible because I have these facts of my past of doing things that I dreamed of doing And so I think that the bravery kind of like continued on And I always just said like during that time

 

And people are like, my God, it must've been so scary, you know, moving across the country and leaving school and pursuing your dreams. But the only thing that I was scared of was the chance of not getting to do those things. And so my biggest fear was not living every single day and doing what I wanted every single day, which turned into me waking up and saying, what do I want to get done today? Because I have today to do it. And so I tried every single thing that interested me and I...

 

explored a ton of different activities and if I had an idea for a project it didn't matter if I had help or not I had no excuses I just was like I'm gonna figure out how to do this on my own and that was how I published my first book that was how I I emailed people over and over and got my first TED talk like all of those things were me just being crazy enough to try and then somehow it turned into a career years later

 

Tim (10:26.52)

Your mom told you, can be sad, but don't be sad for too long. What did that two step process look like for first allowing yourself to feel that internal sorrow and then rising out of that?

 

Grace Wethor (10:44.113)

Yeah.

 

I think where I got really lucky in my journey was after my diagnosis, I had this dream of being in LA and working in entertainment and telling stories in any format.

 

And I can't even remember who said it, but someone said this to me once and it really stuck with me. During that time, I was running to something where a lot of cancer patients are running from something. And I think that really helped me stay out of the victim, like victim mindset. I was running towards my dreams and leaving this scary thing behind and...

 

I don't know how much you can like force yourself into that perspective. That just was my circumstances. But I think if you can be running towards something instead of running from something, it's a lot easier to not fall into that mindset of why is this happening to me? Why did this, you know, ruin my life? And so I never, I...

 

don't remember an extended period of time where I was stuck in a like this ruined my life situation. It was a very quick jump, especially because I was given six months. So it had to have been shorter than six months. But it was, mean, obviously you go through that first process of shock. remember that night, like sitting on the floor in the living room and my middle school best friend and her mom came over with like groceries and we just sat there and watched TV until the morning and

 

Grace Wethor (12:13.637)

You know, you go through this process of literally processing everything that you're going through. And then my school was like, she can't keep coming to school. This isn't going to work. So I left school and really I was just at ground zero. And it was like, how can we build up? Like, what can we run towards? And so I think having that goal really pushed me out of any trenches that I could have gotten stuck in otherwise.

 

Tim (12:41.196)

Yeah, I think that plays really nicely off of a point that I've heard you talk about also is how you're not defined by your situation, by your influence, but your influence by it where define meaning this is something that's holding me back and influence meaning it's pushing you forward. Did that take you a while to find out that sort of dual nature of your health journey?

 

Grace Wethor (13:00.209)

Mm-hmm.

 

Grace Wethor (13:07.749)

Yeah, I think, well, for me, the biggest thing was just the mental categorization of everything because you grow up with a context being pinned to a cancer diagnosis or to any major life event or trauma. You know, there's a very negative context pinned to it. There's this like,

 

It takes everything from you. It tells you who you are. It ruins everything. And I think I had been growing up with that. And then you're told that and then you're diagnosed and then you're told that by everyone. This is the worst thing ever. This is horrible. And slowly over time when I had those conversations with people because I talked to a lot of strangers about my story. I realized I was just kind of like nodding and smiling but not agreeing with what they were saying anymore.

 

And in my head, I was like, hmm, don't know. This is the best thing that ever happened to me. And I think I just realized it once and then I would realize it again.

 

And over time, the context of what it meant to me just shifted. And, you know, we're told a lot by media and by others that like, you can't let cancer define you, you know, you have to just like forget it and move on. But what I realized was it did influence everything that I did. It influenced the way I spoke. It influences the way I write. People who read my book know me are like, this is

 

really a hidden book about brain tumors and no one knows. There's no brain tumors in it, but it's about brain tumors. And I realized that I will never be able to forget this because it changed everything about me. And so I think I can let it not define me and I don't have to be the cancer girl, but I can let it influence my work and help me hopefully.

 

Grace Wethor (15:00.613)

change the world or help the world in some way. And I think if my writing and my perspective can help inspire one person, then I'm gonna keep talking about it. yeah, I love that sentiment. And I think that helps me focus on like not going backwards, but going forwards for sure.

 

Tim (15:19.264)

In order for stars to form, shit must literally collapse. So collapse, I will. How did your life come crumbling down in the short term? How did that set you on the path that you truly wanted to be?

 

Grace Wethor (15:36.719)

Yeah, you're pulling out all of my favorite quotes that no one ever notices. So I really, I think to me, when you have any life moment, you know, my mom is a lawyer and she works a lot in like, estate planning and there's a lot of family deaths or divorces. And I think anytime you go through this moment where you are stripped of everything that you

 

prioritize or focus on or think is the only way, you are forced to look around and reevaluate everything. And that was a big word for me and my mom, reevaluation. Like, let's just think it over, let's reprocess and just see where we land and like get rid of everything that we've believed or thought before because...

 

The truth is, is one day I was living, January 8th, and I was probably crying about a science test. I was panicking that I was 10 minutes late to ice time for figure skating and, my God, it's $10 per minute. Get on the ice, tire skates. I was like, someone's yelling at someone in the lunch room and there's drama and I may have like a pimple or something. Like it was so many things on January 8th and then January 9th.

 

I never went back to that school. Like that science test didn't exist in my new world at all. And so I think there's so many things that we think are mandatory that we force energy into and get so angry about. I think especially like the sports and for me.

 

What I realized after that day was all those things that we thought were required weren't and if we would have just like re-evaluated we probably would have realized like hey, maybe you actually don't like like dancing seven days a week anymore or maybe This school test is not going to be important in a year. Like no one's gonna remember it We don't need to stay up all night sobbing like It just made me realize all of those things were not the end of the world and so when I got to ground zero on January 9th and I didn't go to school anymore and I

 

Grace Wethor (17:43.527)

couldn't skate with blades near my head in case I passed out. You know, I lost so much of what I loved, but it also left so much room to add in things that I had been neglecting or ignoring that I was passionate about. And so that moment that anyone has to rebuild from whether you lose a loved one or you get divorced or you have an illness or you're just graduating college and going into the real world and becoming a new version of yourself. I think that moment

 

Although terrifying is so special because it allows you to look around and think, how do I want to fill in my new space that I have in my life?

 

Tim (18:22.966)

A large theme that has been built with the people that I've spoken with in previous conversations is how there's almost an unwilling type of challenge or suffering that comes from their personal transformation or almost a personal awakening of who they truly are, where you kind of live within the confines of your life and then something really challenging.

 

comes into your life unwillingly and you battle through that and what you learn from that creates this type of new person who's the truest most authentic version of yourself. How do you think you transitioned? I know this happened for you at such a young age, so you really hadn't gotten into your adult life within sort of the confines of society, but

 

How do you think you transitioned from being a person who was living within sort of a societal program and then getting into this mindset of, okay, I'm going to be who I truly am.

 

Grace Wethor (19:33.895)

Yeah, I think I always just say it forced me to live the life I always should have been living. And I think to me before that day, the things that I thought about, I still had these dreams. Like my plan was like, okay, when I turn 18, I'm going to move to Los Angeles and pursue this career and I'm going to go to college out there. And I still had all these dreams, but they just felt so far away and like dreams. And I could see how

 

You know, I'm pretty passionate, so I don't know necessarily if it would have gone this way, but I could see how, if this never happened to me, those plans could fade away and get influenced by something else, and I start thinking, okay, well, I need to make money first, or I need to do this because, you know, school says I should do this, and I could see how those dreams could get further and further away.

 

And I think where I got really lucky is I got sick at such a young age that those dreams were still at the front of my mind. And so I'm really grateful for the timing, but I definitely think it just is a process that everyone, like I always say, everyone has the worst day of their life.

 

And it may not be like, like you can compare it on scales of other people's, but everyone goes through their own worst day. And I think just in those moments of being able to reflect on like, what are the things that I may have forgot about or the dreams that I'm not actively pursuing. And I think if you can just like, I would just focus on him, like every little percent I could each day. And of course, you know, after the brain tumor,

 

It's not like a one time thing. Like you have to keep making that decision over and over. I had to make that decision again when I was 18 and I was figuring out my college situation. Like I got into all of these incredible colleges, but what felt like the right path forward to me. And I was, you know, I was in this in between time of like, okay, this is what I'm being told to do, or this is what I've worked so hard to do. And then this is what I'm really feeling passionate about over here. And I tried to do these things that I was told to do, but

 

Grace Wethor (21:37.955)

Ultimately, the brain tumor experience had taught me I just have to go this way. It just doesn't feel right. And so it's not a one and done. It's a one time that then influences you to continue making that decision over and over. And I think if everyone can pinpoint that moment for themselves and use that as an influence to make that decision over and over for the rest of your life, it gets a little bit easier each time because you know what it feels like when something just doesn't feel right.

 

Tim (22:07.746)

You think you have a really strong internal voice?

 

Grace Wethor (22:12.155)

I got something telling me to do this. I don't know, I think I just, I just from a very young age had projects that I wanted to make and stories I wanted to tell and I'm an only child and so, you my mom worked full time and...

 

I would just sit in the basement of this house by myself and just be like, what's my project today? And I think I just was always trying to figure things out on my own, which made me realize like how many things were possible. And so now anytime I get an idea, you know, my biggest thing is putting stories into the world. And so I just like have to, I have to do it now. So it really drives me. And I think a lot of what I went through, I met so many incredible

 

people through that experience, other families, other fighters, and they just have such incredible stories and perspectives and outlooks to share with the world. And the more of that that I can kind of inject into my work and share with the world, it's just like the most amazing group of people. And I think the world would be a lot better place if we got to hear all of the things that they've figured out through their trials and tribulations.

 

And yeah, stories for me are my big motivator. And every time I hear one, like, everyone needs to hear this.

 

Tim (23:32.394)

Recognizing what you do naturally when you're by yourself and who you really are, I think you discover a lot more than you think you will. And you've spoken about right now how you were an only child and you were in that setting of solitude almost. What do you think you've discovered about yourself in that alone time?

 

Grace Wethor (23:56.229)

I think in those alone moments, I do exactly what I do now as like a job and as a passion. And to me, that is so special. Like people, I work, I work very, very hard. Like I overwork myself. I'm working like when I'm working on a project, I'm working like 16 hours a day, like figuring everything out and every aspect of

 

the work that I put out, I'm involved in every piece of it, because that's just like the type of person that I am. And I would do it if zero people saw it and I made $0. And to me, I think that is so important to me that like if I was literally alone in a room, locked up with a notebook and like a laptop, I would be doing the exact same thing.

 

And so that to me is like ultimate freedom. And it's not like, it's not that I don't work hard or the job is easy. It's just that I literally don't feel like I'm working at all. And I would choose to be doing exactly what I'm doing. And I think that's how I know that I've found my purpose when I'm able to help people through something I would literally do alone. And it just feel, it just like clicks in.

 

Tim (25:12.194)

How has creativity been a part of your own healing process?

 

Grace Wethor (25:18.363)

I think for a while it was kind of all that I had. When I first moved out to LA, I was still very sick and a lot of days I would just have to lay in bed. And when I couldn't get up, that was like the one thing that I could use was like my brain and my creativity and my imagination. And I would remember I would like lay there and visualize like a cool outfit with like weird pieces and then

 

eventually, I would have like five minutes of energy and I would get up and go to my closet and put on the weird outfit or whatever I wanted to be that day and then look in the mirror and see myself as that cool version myself and I would feel cool for about five minutes and then I would get sick again and I would go lay down in the outfit but that process, you know, and I would do that with painting and

 

with sewing, would, you know, have some visualization of something in my head and then I would go make the outfit or I go paint on the walls. Like my mom was also very open to letting me be creative. But I think having that piece of my life that still felt like I was exercising some piece of myself because I didn't have dance and I didn't have skating anymore, it was very important. And it was, it became my like hobby or my sport in a way. And

 

having that time to foster that creativity was really, special. And I grew up that way too. Like my mom would always, if there was some craft I wanted to make, she would always help me get the materials. And I think to have that freedom of going from imagination to final product and doing that over and over again is what allowed me to be now good at my job of writing and of filmmaking. So.

 

Creativity from a young age was everything and I found my own way to turn that into something packaged up.

 

Tim (27:10.53)

I think with any type of creative endeavor or public facing goal, we can have the feeling like, I don't deserve this or I'm being something that I'm not. It can be challenging or we put our opinion. We have, you know, opinion of who we think we should be just, you know, staying within, you know, a box at such a young age and

 

moving to LA and getting into that entertainment space. How big was it for you to have the mindset of, I belong, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

 

Grace Wethor (27:54.127)

Yeah, I think I think that's something that everyone in the industry struggles with for ever. Like, I don't know if that ever completely goes away. I think the biggest stars in the world are thinking the exact same thing. But I think for me, and I said this earlier, I was leaving something behind. And the only thing scarier than doing it was not doing it. And that

 

was so helpful to getting me through that. I, in middle school, was always the weird kid. I was the kid that would like change my uniform and was posting stuff on Instagram that everyone was like, this girl is not normal. Like I got bullied in school a lot and I think that could have stopped me from a very young age. It almost did. I had to get off of the internet because the bullying got so bad. People were telling me to like,

 

kill myself and like they wish the cancer would kill me and it started to influence me and I you know was taking it on and into my work and I really the only thing that got me through that was I was like well so I'm not

 

gonna do this like I can't not do it. So I have to just do it and accept that that may come with it. And that really, really pushed me through and I think that's the biggest thing I think whole you know, are the most one of the most common things holding a lot of people back from their dreams is you know, if I start posting tic tocs, like what are other people gonna think if I write something like what if people don't think it's good. And I think that's what is sometimes hard about these passion oriented projects is sometimes they somewhat

 

rely on other people enjoying them. And I had to realize that I was making it for myself and it didn't really matter what other people thought. I came up with this system, a friend of mine was working on an art project and I was thinking about it in this way. And I think about this with my projects now, it's like you have 0 % and you have 100 % of your goal.

 

Grace Wethor (30:00.875)

And usually 100 % of my goal is like, I want this to be the biggest project in the world loved by millions of people and no one hates it. And that to me is not the best goal because a lot of it is out of your control. And when you're a hard perfectionistic worker like I am and you can't get a goal on your own, it's not a helpful goal. It's just a destructive goal.

 

And so what I realized was I started setting my 100 % at like 100 % of what I can control. And so my 100 % goal of my book was to write a book with a story that I loved and to put as much effort as I could into perfecting the characters, taking advice from people, and just making it to the point where I absolutely love it. And then anything that's beyond that is like bonus points. So we can score 110 % still. Like we still want it to blow up and take over the world.

 

But it's all bonus points. And I think having that allowed me to be proud of my work and feel accomplished in my work so that I didn't feel like I lost or failed when it didn't go exactly the way that I thought. I think pushing through it when I was younger, even through the hardship of all of that.

 

allowed me to continue doing that. And it just gets a little bit more comfortable each time. And you still think that every time you posted TikTok, you're like, this is so stupid. I hope everyone like loves it. But I think for me, what's possible is just so much more exciting than the fear of, you know, doing it. So that I think that's how you know that you've like found your passion or found your real purpose is when you're like, I just can't not do this. Like any fear you have about doing it, you're like,

 

I have to do it more than I don't. And I think focusing on that allows you to get over that first hurdle.

 

Tim (31:56.308)

I second all of those sentiments and completely agree with all that. And I think the main thing when it comes to creativity and creating something is you have to be in it literally just for the sake of creating it where you have an idea. And obviously you want some type of external result to come your way from that. But the result just has to feel like the creation is that's what I'm going for.

 

Grace Wethor (31:57.803)

Hahaha

 

See you

 

Tim (32:25.934)

And completely agree with you, you know, with this podcast, I had I knew I had wanted to start it like two years ahead of time. And then there was probably, you know, a good four to five months where I was like, I like I have things in place before I actually started it. And like you were saying, there was just that almost burning desire within me. Like you got to you have to do this.

 

And the motivation for me was more so like you were saying, it wasn't just, I want to create this podcast. It was more so like, I don't want to be the person who has this idea for something that they don't that they have to do. But they're not going to put it out in the world. Like that's like that is the motivation. It's not like creating a podcast.

 

Grace Wethor (33:13.593)

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. what people don't realize is when you're in that full authentic state and your goal is to create and you put that fear aside, that's when all those bonus point opportunities and situations come. Like my book, if know, if my, I was trying to force things to happen that I couldn't make happen on my own and just getting angry and frustrated.

 

I never would have gone the extra steps with the things that I could control creatively. And what was inside the book is what people fell in love with and what went viral. And I think that to me made me realize that like just creating it and being in that authentic state is what brings in the people and what brings in the success. If everyone like reading recommendation, there's this book called Think and Grow Rich and in it, it's just a collection of stories about people.

 

that had an idea that turned into something mega worldwide. And I think you read them and you realize that everything just starts with an idea and your idea for a podcast or my idea for this silly little romance book could be the next thing that is everywhere. And it is like we're on your podcast right now and my books all over. I think it really does just start with an idea. And what people forget is ideas can be careers and be money.

 

that book just does an incredible job. talk about like the guy who came up with Coca-Cola and like just like all of these little stories of like, well, if I did this, I could do this. And then they just do it and you find your path more and more. And when you look for opportunities, you just find them a lot easier. So yeah, when you're focused on the creative stuff and you leave the fear behind, I think a lot of those lucky quote unquote opportunities come, but really it's just being prepared and seeing an opportunity.

 

Tim (35:08.91)

Two of my favorite books, the first one, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, highly recommend it if you haven't read it, but it's basically about that main point where if you have that internal angst about some type of idea that you have, that is a massively positive sign because that is something that you obviously have true desire to build and create. And then my other favorite book,

 

is shoe dog by Phil Knight, who's the creator of Nike. And it goes to that sentiments that you were talking about with that book, Think and Grow Rich, where Nike, obviously this massive powerhouse brand. And it started on the bottom with this young 20 year old kid who was just like, I want to sell sneakers. And it's just remarkable to see. Another person that I've had on my show is

 

Grace Wethor (35:58.14)

Yeah.

 

Tim (36:06.528)

Eric Weinmeier and he is fully blind and he's done some incredible physical feats like kayaking the entire Grand Canyon and summiting Mount Everest. And he did it to prove to himself that what he was truly capable of, but also for the entire blind community, just kind of what he said is almost like a modern day Helen Keller.

 

But he's also discussed how he learned that he doesn't have to do everything to prove himself. Like, yes, these physical feats can show that he is capable of doing incredible things, but in a paradoxical way, he also learned that by not doing those things, it can even prove even more. Do you think there were moments in your life where you felt like you had to go?

 

after like these great things to try to overcompensate for your health.

 

Grace Wethor (37:12.911)

I think...

 

for sure, probably in there. I I'm thinking about, you know, a lot of the work that I do in DC when you, when you mentioned that I started speaking up about what I had been through publicly around 15 years old. Yeah, I gave my first TED talk when I was 15. And that was the first time that I spoke about what I had went through on like a public platform. And

 

After that, started getting invited to speak about it more and eventually ended up in Washington, D.C. and I was speaking in front of Congress and I started working with the White House on like cancer survivor programs. And what I realized in those moments was, you know, as far as it went with this kind of work, being in a room with one other survivor and changing like one life for real.

 

could be as impactful as reaching millions or speaking in that room in the White House with like three people, staffers or something could just be as incredible as anything else. And I realized that if there isn't connection with other people, then none of the work actually means anything or does anything.

 

And I think that's when I started thinking on a smaller scale as well as a big scale, because before it was just like, how can I reach every single person in the world and tell everyone that they have to care about brain tumors? Which is just not, you know, a lot of people don't want to hear about brain tumors. That's, you know, the reality of it. They're like, that's really sad. Like keep it over there. And when I realized I could reach families that had been through things and just, you know, I, I talked to multiple families a week now.

 

Grace Wethor (38:59.811)

and sit on the phone with them and just talk about what I had been through. And it could be as simple as checking in with somebody and it could impact someone's entire life. And I think it's not doing nothing, but it's not ignoring the mundane. And I think that to me is the difference. It's not Everest or sitting on the couch, it's like Everest or impacting someone that you love. And I think that...

 

to me is what I realized was that these small things could be just as valuable as the big things. And sometimes the small things have a larger impact than the big things actually do in reality. So yeah, I think really what the illness taught me was to celebrate all of the little things as well as the big things. And I try to do that all the time. You there's a lot of that theme in my book is like the special things that we ignore every single day. Like, yes, it taught me to live big and grand, but it also taught me that it's beautiful that we get to

 

breathe and walk outside and hang out with people because we want to and go to the movies. Like I love going to the movies and I just love like existing now as cliche and funny as it sounds. But yeah, it taught me the value in the small as well as the big thing. So yeah, it's not nothing. It's it's just the little things.

 

Tim (40:18.606)

How do you think your creative work has played a role in spreading those messages though within the health space and maybe not as much of a sort of medical type jargon and language but doing it in more artistic way?

 

Grace Wethor (40:35.205)

Yeah, well, I realized that really early on that a lot of these things weren't being talked about and if they were being talked about, they were being talked about by doctors who had never really been through it.

 

And I thought it was so interesting that, you know, I would say something to doctor and be like, hey, I'm having this symptom. And they'd be like, that's not from your tumor. That's impossible. But then I would talk in a peer group about it and they'd be like, who else has that? And everyone would raise their hand. And you're like, maybe we should be like listening to everyone that has this thing that we're talking about. for me, you know, that was part of my first book was a nonfiction book. And I had set out to write

 

Like a journal type book of everything that I had been through I had taken notes in the hospital But I realized really quickly that I couldn't tell the full story because I didn't go through chemo or radiation and I couldn't have surgery on my tumor so I started reaching out to other survivors and we compiled 14 stories together and I think in a way it allows it to kind of like tell the full complete brain tumor experience because we all have different medical journeys and

 

I started getting messages from people being like, I was diagnosed and I read this book and it was the first time I ever heard anyone actually talking about what I was feeling and going through, you know, like, I'm trying to talk to a social worker and they're not listening. I'm trying to talk to a doctor and they're not listening. And I realized that that was so important to talk about those things that people kind of just like brush under the rug is not important. Like, you know, I lost all my friends and that was something that no one ever told me was going to happen. So I thought it was just me. I was like, I'm just the weird one.

 

And then you go to a peer group where you talk to people who read the book and they're like, yeah, I lost my friends too. And then you look around the room and you realize everyone lost their friends when they were diagnosed. And you're like, maybe this has something to do with this. And so when it happened with that first book, my hope was that I could start expanding that more and more beyond the brain tumor community. And with this new book, that was really big for me as well. It was putting in those like,

 

Grace Wethor (42:39.335)

philosophical questions about why are we here? Why are we alive? Why do we have to do this even if we don't want to? And how can we choose to see the world more beautifully? And, you know, I was kind of thinking in the beginning when I was writing it, I was forcing people into the brain tumor perspective. And I was like, they're going to read about it even if they don't want to read about it. And then there was a passage from the book that went viral on TikTok. And I realized, no, it's a question that a lot of people have.

 

not just brain tumor people. We just focus on it a lot because we go to therapy for like life and death stuff. But it made me realize that it was a conversation that a lot of people wanted to have and there just wasn't a place for it. So I think my perspective of living and my perspective post illness is something that is very universal and everyone has probably experienced it in a range of different ways from different situations. And so I hope that I can continue to

 

just open up conversations that are maybe not talked about or uncomfortable or considered weird sometimes.

 

Tim (43:43.478)

You've talked about how it's our collective purpose to give stories rather than to collect experiences and memories for ourselves. And something interesting that you just said there is that when you were in the hospital, you would be taking notes. Were you consciously doing that because you knew you wanted to write a book or was it more so just a personal journal?

 

Grace Wethor (44:11.119)

I think a bit of both. think that time was just so fast paced that I like wanted to remember something. But even if it was like a I don't think it was necessarily even thinking about the future at all. It was kind of more like to compartmentalize in the present. Like there was so many voices, so many things happening, so many moving parts. And sometimes like sitting down and just writing a poem or just writing random scribbles and a notebook.

 

allowed me to like recenter and realize like where I was right then and what I was feeling then because I think when you're in the middle of an illness, it's really loud. I think writing for me became like a quiet place where I could be like, okay, I'm having this full body feeling, but like, let me try to put it into words so I can like get it out and then get it back in when I read it again. And so

 

For me, writing was just like a silent place. And I think that's where I fell in love with it and then continued to write a lot of poetry and then eventually started writing longer and longer stuff. But yeah, I don't think at the time it was necessarily a book, but most of those poems in there, which are awful now, no one reads them, please. But I think those poems, like those were written in the hospital in the moment, probably had a blaring headache and couldn't really see what I was typing, but I just did.

 

And a majority of I think like 99 % of that book like is just left exactly how it was like there's typos. There's things that I'm like, that's not that doesn't make sense. And that's not great grammar, but whatever. And I think it kind of to me was just like a really authentic way to be like, this is what I wrote in that second. And it may not be good, but it's the truth. So yeah, no, I think I just was like, let me just put them out there for someone to hopefully feel some comfort in them.

 

Tim (46:04.78)

While you were going through everything at the start, did you start to have the mindset of this is a story in the making?

 

Grace Wethor (46:18.341)

Well, the funny thing is I definitely felt like I was living a movie because it's kind of like, that's definitely like a movie log line. Like girl gets six months to live and lives her dreams. But I think it was also really interesting too, because there was a lot of things like, I remember I was around the time I was getting diagnosed, like the fault in our stars was coming out and I was watching like, you know, there's these cliche cancer movies and then.

 

have all the support and they live and you know, or they die, most of them die. And then it was just like, you know, they were all very dramatized. And then when you're actually in it, it's a lot different situation. Like it's like, where is my support? Where did my friends go? What happened? Like, where am I? And, you know, a lot of those like movies skipped a lot of those, you know, small trivial experiences like having to get your blood drawn every single day. Like it's not

 

fun and romantic and cinematic on day 12 anymore. So I think for me it was more normal than anything at the beginning. was like, is happening to me? But slowly and slowly it just became normal. And then you start that at 13 and then you're 16 and you have to go in for treatment all the time. even a couple months ago I did treatment for like two weeks straight and I was showing up to like.

 

a red carpet and I had a port in my arm like it just became my normal I made like my friends always jokes I'm like Hannah Montana like I'm on red carpets and let him in the hospital like the next day and I think for me it was just I realized that when I did talk about it people sometimes got something from it and so I just kept doing it and here we are

 

Tim (48:07.566)

But with those types of moments now that you just described about being in the hospital and then going to the red carpet.

 

Do have a feeling of pride in moments like those?

 

Grace Wethor (48:23.545)

I what's so weird, like kind of how I just said, is to me, it's a Tuesday that I go to the hospital and get a port put in or have to do an MRI. And so I think where a lot of people see like struggle and hardship, I just see a routine that I've been living for 10 years. And so I think sometimes I forget to remember that what I'm doing is difficult.

 

Majority of the time I forget to remember. I'm also not someone who likes to slow down and take breaks so sometimes I Remember to forget to remember in a way I don't know it just has become kind of part of my life And I think that's something now as I'm getting you know approaching ten years now. I still have my tumor It's stable, so that's great, but I'm trying to

 

let myself remember that what I went through was difficult and I can take breaks and I can process it and release it because my hope is eventually to kind of you know I may just have it forever and so

 

I kind of like separate myself a little bit more from that patient mindset day by day because I don't want to be stuck in that mindset for the rest of my life. And I think I'm getting there. I think I'm like slowly, you know, getting out of it, but it's a lifelong thing and I will always have to do scans and I will always maybe not feel good. So I think it's finding that balance of like recognizing it, but not sitting in it for too long.

 

Tim (49:53.718)

speaking of remembering and I've quoted from it a few times already, but diving deeper, what was the process like of writing your book, Seven Thompson and the Art of Remembering?

 

Grace Wethor (50:10.137)

I got the idea for this book probably almost three years ago now at this point. I spent about a year just like sitting in it. It slowly got more more real and living thinking about the characters and writing things in my notes app in my phone. And then the desire to write it got bigger and bigger.

 

And the fear about writing it got smaller and smaller. And that's kind of what you have to do until it just like met at a point where I woke up one day and I was like, okay, it's time to start I have enough to go off of. had like probably like 10 doc pages of like random notes about it and ideas I wanted to put into it. And then once I got to that point where the fear was small enough, and the inspiration was big enough, I just started writing and I kind of like cleared my schedule and just wrote

 

And then I finished the first draft in like two to three weeks, like I was writing like 10 pages a day, I was just going because I lived with it for so long. And I got, you know, you get stuck. And then you're like, okay, let me like, go hang out with my friends or go to a concert and try to find some inspiration somewhere. And I always would, you know, you go out and then you find something that you come back and you write about it and just kept doing that. And then I released the first draft to

 

like family and friends and people on my team and they all did notes and then it came back and reworked it a little bit and then it was time to put it into the world. But a majority of what you see in that book is from that first draft of those weeks that I was alone in my house, like just writing by myself. And so I think there's something really special about it really just like poured out of me.

 

in order because I had lived with it for so long. It was almost like in a way it was kind of like how you would assume you would feel if you were writing like a memoir, like you know your own life. So you just kind of write and see what comes out. And that's how I felt about this book. Like I felt like I knew the characters by the time I started writing. So I just wrote about their lives. So yeah, it was a hard setup for an easy write then.

 

Tim (52:27.426)

I just wanted to honor the words that came out of my brain. I always hoped I'd be the biggest fan of it. Obviously when writing a book, there is the process after it of trying to sell it and make sure that a lot of people see the book. But for you, mean, how much of the work felt like, or how much of a success did it feel like just completing it and getting it out there into the world?

 

Grace Wethor (52:56.615)

I mean, that's that was my 100 % goal. That was that was my goal. I always you know, it was it's hard because I think work is like any project is finding enough of like putting your ego aside enough where you can take advice from people and you can make it the best it can be. you know,

 

I was never good at advice when I was a kid. Like I'd be like, you don't get it. My teachers would be like, you should rewrite this. I'm like, no, it's perfect. And so with this book, a big piece of it was I really wanted to listen to people and listen to readers and have different people read that first draft and see how they were connecting to different things. So that was a big part of my goal was just making the story as universal and as loved with the people that I trusted as possible.

 

so that I knew when I got it out into the world, it would hopefully be able to find that same audience. so getting it out was amazing. And then the whole TikTok thing happened. And that was really like when it found its audience. And I think it was so interesting because when I talked to a lot of like industry people about the book before it was out, and you know, some of them had read it, they were like,

 

I think you need to like tone it down a little bit. Like these are 17 year old kids. They're not philosophers. Like they're talking like they're philosophers, but they're 17. So it just doesn't make any sense. Like you need to dumb them down. And I was just so adamant about me not taking advice again, I was just so adamant about the fact that no, like when I was 17, I was thinking these things. I was sitting there wondering why am I live? What is my purpose?

 

Where am I going? And you know, not feeling like adults understood me not feeling like people younger than me stood, understood me not feeling like some of my peers understood me. And, you know, I would hear others talk about it. And as I got older, and became, you know, a mentor for a lot of kids in the brain tumor community, I was hearing those same conversations happening between them, and their siblings and their friends. And I realized that these were conversations that young people wanted to have.

 

Grace Wethor (55:07.493)

They are smart. Like you don't need to dumb teens down just to make something easy. And so I kept it, you know, a little overly complicated in some places. And what I was really proud of is what blew up online and went viral were the words inside of it. Like I was finding words from the book on like Pinterest and tweets and everything. And for me, for people to fall in love with the words and those sentiments of

 

life and of the universe and of Earth as whole like that for me was the most special part and I always kind of knew that it was going to be that from the beginning because I knew that that was the overall message is you know we love these characters in here and I've fallen in love with them but really it's what they represent and the pieces of all of us that they represent it's like four people but they're all kind of a piece of all of us

 

Tim (56:04.344)

Did it feel extra special away because like you said, it was the words rather than yourself and your own personal story that were being highlighted.

 

Grace Wethor (56:10.492)

Mm-hmm.

 

Grace Wethor (56:14.991)

Yeah, and I think, you know, I was on a meeting about it the other day and I said, before this, I was always focused on the project, like whatever the project was as a whole. And with this one, it was what was inside the project that was really special for people. And I feel like that's so validating in a way as well. Like they really fell in love with the actual art.

 

of what the project was. And as an artist, that's like the dream because to sell a book is a really hard thing. You're selling like a cover or you're selling like a sentence and that's a really hard thing to do. But I was able to sell the book through just putting so much of myself into the words and just like putting it all out there and then not holding back when people were like, this is a little too much. And the exact parts that people were telling me were too much are what ended up

 

blowing up online. yeah, think just having full authenticity and putting everything I was thinking in there allowed other people to respond to it in a way. yeah, no, it was really special that it was like the actual words that people fell in love with for sure.

 

Tim (57:25.326)

think that's how you get the purest, most authentic product when you have yourself as the audience and you are just listening to that internal voice rather than listening to others people's vision for your work. And I came across a clip recently of Quentin Tarantino in an interview where he was rhetorically asking himself, like, do I have an audience in mind for the movies that I make? He's like, yes, for every single

 

movie that I make, know exactly who the audience is that I want to enjoy the movie. And he goes, the audience is me. And it just goes to, like I was saying, where you need to one create for the Sega creation, but you need to create the thing that you think is going to be best because that's what's going to be the most authentic. And like you were saying, you know, people telling you, 17 year old kids really don't

 

talk or think like this. I'm a big believer that the personal thoughts that we have, those aren't just unique to us. It's like if I'm thinking these certain things or if I'm living this certain way, there's definitely other people like me out there who are just like that and need this type of work as well then so that they can connect with it.

 

Grace Wethor (58:44.613)

Yeah, and if you believe that, then if you're the audience and you're creating for yourself, then there is an audience out there. And I think that's been the biggest thing is like, for me figuring out that balance of like my own audience and then thinking about the others. And I think as a filmmaker, that's something that's talked about a lot. It's like, well, what's the audience?

 

I'm like, well, I like the movie. So I know there's an audience. And I was told so many times, you know, like I read a lot of things before this book that were more brain tumor focused. And I was told by a lot of industry people that there was no audience for it. And I was like, I know there's an audience because I'm living it. And I meet these people every single day. And with Seven Thompson, you know, it was kind of my more like, you know, universal version of that same message. It was like, I know there's an audience for this because I lived it.

 

and I've met people who are living it. So yeah, I agree 100%.

 

Tim (59:38.476)

major component of your book. Talk to me about your philosophy of looking at life and living in the world with no context.

 

Grace Wethor (59:48.463)

Yeah, so this whole idea of removing context started when we talked about, you know, earlier on here that a lot of people would be like, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. This is the worst thing that can ever happen to somebody. And I was like, okay, like, get it all out, whatever you need. And I was like, actually, it's best thing that ever happened to me. And what I realized was I

 

could live like that, but then I was still angry about getting stuck at a red light and traffic. And if I could trick myself into thinking the hardest thing, because it wasn't easy. Although I sit here and I'm like, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. And it's the hardest thing I will ever have to go through. But somehow I removed the context of what it meant to be a brain tumor survivor. And I replaced it with my own context of freedom and joy and passion.

 

And if I could do that for the biggest thing I've ever been through, I could probably do it for the small things as well. And when I made that realization, those little things in my life that were frustrating or difficult seemed a lot less difficult because I would be like, that red light, I can just start my favorite song over again and listen to it one more time. Or maybe it's saving you. Like, that's the biggest thing. I'm late. Maybe I'm just like saving myself from a car accident. Like I just have to tell myself that every day living in Los Angeles and

 

I realized that I couldn't force people to, you know, experience the brain tumor experience that quickly. Like it's, I think it's a really hard thing to write about and to get people into the shoes of, cause not everyone has been through it or has a reference for what it's like to go through something like that. But I wondered, you know, how could I set up a character to live this experience? And I was like, well, if he just has no memories and he can't remember anything bad, then he has to start from ground zero.

 

And I think when you look around the world, a lot of the things we've been taught are bad or think are bad, just maybe aren't if we don't have that preconceived context. And so here's a character that's looking at all his friends in the world and he's like, it's so beautiful. I love it. I love her. I love everything. And you're like, dude, you were on a bridge. You're ready to jump like a week ago. So maybe we need to like think about this a little more. And I think it shows how fragile

 

Grace Wethor (01:02:10.051)

you know, everything around us really is and in a way it's kind of like very similar to what I went through with the diagnosis. It's like the day before I thought the science test was mandatory and I was had to be at practice, you know, on time and then the next day none of the context of any of that mattered to me anymore. It thing that was the most important to me the day before was not important to me at all.

 

And it made me realize that we create our own context. And if we really, really put our mind to it, we can replace the context of anything and choose to see the good in things. And I forced a character to do that by taking it all away. And I think then he's able to rebuild something really special and he still has those old pieces of himself, but he looks at the world in a bit of a different light.

 

Tim (01:02:54.678)

Any pile object or mess on earth can be beautiful. If you look at it with love, if you look at it with no resistance, no history. But when I go to sleep at night, I'm just a human. I'm just a body and going deeper into the plot line of why seven doesn't have a memory or why it doesn't remember anything. So he suffers from dissociative amnesia where his brain pretty much just resets. And I think that's such an awesome.

 

way that you did that, where it was very seamless of combining the something that is an actual health problem, but doing it in a very creative way where it feels fictional, but it's also a very real thing that can happen to people. And I think it's really fascinating because something that I've become really interested in is I like we're always in the mindset of wanting to become more.

 

wanting to learn more, wanting to become more educated.

 

But I think a lot of the time with becoming more educated, actually turns into needing to unlearn stuff and starting to strip the unnecessary parts of us away. What do you think within your life you've stripped away?

 

Grace Wethor (01:04:05.168)

Mm-hmm.

 

Grace Wethor (01:04:17.383)

I think, you know what we talked about this a little bit earlier, it's a lot of just like not pushing too hard at things that you can't control. Because I had no control when I went through this thing. Like I didn't choose for it to happen to me. The only thing I could do was make the most of what I had after it happened. And

 

I was very young, so I was very resilient at the time. And I think as we get older, know, practicing resilience gets a little bit and a little bit harder. And I think for me, it was so important to try to remember in that time, not overly pushing the things that I can't control. Because really, what I could have done is like,

 

you know, gotten angry about what I was going through and try to control it and try to force it to get better and resolve it. And, you know, that's the type of person I am, but you are just so helpless. Like, the only thing you can do is sit there and get mad about it and overthink about it. And it doesn't actually do anything. And so now it's constantly trying to remind myself like, hey, maybe you don't have control over this thing that is happening. All you can do now is take the pieces that are here and make the best of what you got.

 

And I think having a reference point for that from such a young age through the cancer experience has been very helpful, especially in the entertainment industry where I'm setting out to do a lot of big things that I don't always have full control over. So I think it's just always going back to that route and reminding myself, I can't force things to happen sometimes because I will try to force things to happen. And I think through that, I've found so much peace and

 

learning to sometimes let go a little bit of that and take what I do have and work with that. It's not giving up. It's like it is a completely different. It feels like giving up sometimes, but what it's not do like it's not giving up. It's just releasing that stress and that anger. And what I found is when I have that peace and that silence and that freedom of not being controlled by something else. That's when I create my best work.

 

Grace Wethor (01:06:31.717)

That's when this book came. That's when I write my best. That's when I'm my happiness. Like when I'm forcing something that's not working and I don't have any control over it, it doesn't really help anybody. It just makes me angry and then everyone around me angry too. So the Brandtumer has definitely taught me that, but it's remembering it. I think that is a really important aspect to it too.

 

Tim (01:06:57.696)

I wrote down this thought that I had very recently and I think it plays off of that well where I feel like the context that we always have is working very hard. Like we need to work hard, which you do need to work hard and that's a great mindset to have. But I've started to get into the mindset also of needing to work freely where when you work hard, it's just very rigid and very fixed.

 

Grace Wethor (01:07:08.891)

Okay.

 

Tim (01:07:25.302)

And I think it becomes that much more difficult. Like you were saying, when you need to control everything, that's when you just stay in a very fixed path and you don't actually make progress. But when you work freely, it almost allows the work to flow through you rather than you needing to push yourself forward. instead of you pushing forward, you're almost being pushed forward yourself.

 

Grace Wethor (01:07:54.065)

Mm-hmm.

 

Tim (01:07:54.902)

And I like this breakdown that you give in your book between the two words and and because and is my favorite word in the English language. It's full of hope consequences and unknown. It's not because the word because implies choice and is uncontrollable. She's wild. She's the pure magic that happens when we act, speak, think and move. So within your life,

 

You battle a very challenging health issue and you have chased your passions and your dreams and the work that you truly want to go after. And you've served a larger community rather than just yourself. So what do you think the next and looks like after all that?

 

Grace Wethor (01:08:49.404)

I love that. I think for me, what is so special about the and verse because thing is it allows for a continuation where a lot of life feels like a dead end. Like I think a lot of people, and me at the time, I was just very young.

 

Brain tumor diagnosis where you're given six months to live feels like an end point like you can't go anywhere from there. I Just happen to be passionate about this thing that allowed me to have my and so it was she's diagnosed with a brain tumor and she moved to Los Angeles and That was my sentence for a long time and I think Finding those ands and finding those next steps. It's just like a daily thing for me I'm always looking for the next story and I'm always looking how

 

I can continue on to the next thing. For me, it's always how can I tell a story that people can sit in their room and read and say, that's me. And I think when I was sitting in the hospital, I would just sit and watch these movies and I would look at the screen and they weren't even cancer related. They were just like coming of age teen movies. And I would look at them and I would say, that's me.

 

I'm like just a kid who's just living. I just happen to be going through this big thing, but I'm just trying to figure out how to get through the day and put on my socks and like have a good time. And I think there's something so special about young characters because of that, you know, they don't have to be superwoman or Spider-Man saving people from burning buildings. Like their big moment in their life is like going to the dance at school with a hundred other kids. And that is so special.

 

and celebrated and considered like the big main event. And I think anytime I can have a story that celebrates the mundane-ness of life and just shows how beautiful it is that we even get to exist at all, I'm happy. So I hope to continue sharing stories where young people can look at it and say, I feel seen and understood by this. And Seven Thompson, The Art of Remembering is the first time I've ever felt like I've fulfilled that. And I can't wait to do it again and again.

 

Tim (01:11:04.728)

Grace, where can people go to connect with you and your work?

 

Grace Wethor (01:11:08.263)

I'm on Instagram, it's Grace Weather, W-E-T-H-O-R, and the book is available on Amazon in Barnes and Noble, and there's a lot of fun fan pages out there too if you search up the name.

 

Tim (01:11:20.632)

Grace, appreciate you for coming on the show.

 

Grace Wethor (01:11:23.089)

Thank you so much for having me.

 

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