Melissa Bernstein

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. This episode's remarkable guest is Melissa Bernstein. If you are a parent, you may have given your child a Melissa & Doug toy. She's that Melissa. It'd be natural for you to think that this podcast is about how she created her remarkably successful toy company. You'd be wrong. If you want that story, I suggest listening to the excellent interview Guy Raz conducted with both Melissa and Doug in his podcast, How I Built This.
By contrast, this interview is about how Melissa found herself after 50 years of trials, tribulations, and silencing. If you think Melissa is a good entrepreneur, wait until you hear her poetry. One more thing before we get started, you need to know the definition of sophomoric. It means something that's juvenile. You will hear why that definition is important in a second.
This episode of Remarkable People is brought to you by reMarkable, the paper tablet company. Yes, you got that right. Remarkable is sponsored by reMarkable. I have version 2 in my hot little hands, and it's so good, a very impressive upgrade.
Here's how I use it: One, taking notes while I'm interviewing a podcast guest; two, taking notes while being briefed about speaking gigs; three, drafting the structure of keynote speeches; four, storing manuals for the gizmos that I buy; five, roughing out drawings for things like surfboards, surfboard sheds, and office layouts; six, wrapping my head around complex ideas with diagrams and flowcharts. This is a remarkably well-thought-out product. It doesn't try to be all things to all people, but it takes notes better than anything I've used. Check out the recent reviews of the latest version.
I'm guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. And now, here's the poet and toy mogul, Melissa Bernstein. So, to put it mildly, when I started reading your book, it was not at all what I expected. I'm so used to... I've done about 70 episodes of this, and when I interview CEOs, it's typically like your, How I Did This, Guy Raz kind of session, the story of your company and how you started it. It started in a garage, and driving all over Connecticut, and trying with the videotapes and all that stuff, so I was blown away by it.
Melissa Bernstein:
I don't know if that's blown away in a good sense, or you were just like, "Oh my gosh, I cannot interview this woman."
Guy Kawasaki:
No, no, no, not at all. It's good to have challenges and differences, so I appreciate, basically, your... talk about exposing yourself. I don't think I've read a book where someone exposed herself or himself more than that, so I congratulate you.
Melissa Bernstein:
Thank you. It took every ounce of strength and courage that I have to do that.
Guy Kawasaki:
I want to read you two of your poems that I just love.
Melissa Bernstein:
Okay. You read them?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Melissa Bernstein:
Oh my God, thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
The first one is, "Keep it coming. Bring it on. Attack me with your wrath, for I no longer feel the blows as I have found my path."
Melissa Bernstein:
That's so cool.
Guy Kawasaki:
I just love that.
Melissa Bernstein:
Thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
And the second one is, "The best-adjusted folks are those who never fitted in, for they needed to forge courage from the wellspring deep within." Wow, that is such depth there, oh my God.
Melissa Bernstein:
Oh, thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
I read more poetry in the last 24 hours because of you, than in the first 66 years of my life.
Melissa Bernstein:
Oh, Thank you. That, it brings me to tears, because as you know from reading that, the one word I can never use to describe myself is poet, because I was rejected for my words very early on and never saw myself as a writer at all.
Guy Kawasaki:
Let's just pretend that the person from the University of Connecticut is listening to this podcast. What would you say to him now?
Melissa Bernstein:
"Look at me now, honey." No, I wouldn't say that. I would say, "You really should think about your words a little more carefully when you craft them, because something you write seemingly obliviously, can actually change the trajectory of someone's life."
And I didn't write for 25 years because of that one word, sophomoric, that he used to describe my verses. And it really changed my life in such a negative way, so I think I would say, "Words can be very powerful, and your one word surely was, in my life."
Guy Kawasaki:
When I read that part of your book, I'm like, "What goes through a person's mind when they write something like that?" I can understand sort of the neutral, no controversy, "You're highly qualified, but we have so many other candidates we just aren't able to offer you a position." But why did he have to call your writing sophomoric? I don't understand that.
Melissa Bernstein:
I understand.
Guy Kawasaki:
Why?
Melissa Bernstein:
Because the truth is, it was so simple and so different, and to be honest, I've had the same thing happen with my toys. It's this sense that when something is too simple, it cannot be accepted by people who view themselves as erudite and big thinkers, and the same thing happened. Luckily, our toys have sold. We sell, whatever, 65 million toys a year, so those have proven to be commercially viable, but without the awards and the accolades. But, he couldn't do it; it would be demeaning his entire career, to give those words credit.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, shame on him. That was a ridiculous thing to say.
Melissa Bernstein:
Thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
Even if it was sophomoric, it's a ridiculous thing to say.
Melissa Bernstein:
Thank you. You are giving me much needed validation from 30 years of heartache because of that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Let's just say that I'm not calling him to interview him for the Remarkable People podcast. Okay?
Melissa Bernstein:
Thank you. Thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
No, you have to ask yourself what if you were accepted, the entire arc of your life might be different. You might be Maya Angelou instead of a toy mogul.
Melissa Bernstein:
Who's to know, but the truth is, now, obviously, it is one of the profound dots of my life that have connected, because it showed me what a true white space creative goes through; because, it wasn't just that anyone who thinks differently is going to be criticized and rejected time and time again. And that's what's happened to us again and again, so I should have known. Had I had the foresight to know, "This actually means, Melissa, that you're doing something different because it is being rejected by the head of a poetry department," I would have saved myself a lot of anguish, sadly.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, this is a little late to help you, but you never know. So, I have a favorite book. This book is called, If You Want to Write, by Brenda Ueland. Are you familiar with it?
Melissa Bernstein:
Not at all.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, so you need to read this book. It's U-E-L-A-N-D. And it's, obviously, from the title, you can tell it's written for writers, but it really pertains to any creative endeavor. So, the gist of this book is, if you want to write, write. Don't wait for permission from people to tell you that you're a writer. Don't take an English class to learn how to write. If you want to write, write.
And one of the big things she addresses is, some of the worst critics is not the person in charge of the University of Connecticut Creative Fine Arts program. It's inside your head, where you don't think you're a writer. And so, that's maybe the biggest problem for people in that position.
The reason why that book meant so much to me is because at the time that I wrote my first book, The Macintosh Way... This is 1987; I didn't consider myself a writer. I took AP English, but I promise you that my English teacher who has passed on, is laughing in heaven, because let's just say, I'm not the person at the top of the list who he thought would become an author.
Melissa Bernstein:
Yes, a major author. And you know what? One of my life missions is to get people to move from their head to their heart. Any my number one mantra that I say every single day is, "Step on out of the head, moving into the heart, free to channel all dread into jubilant art."
And I think, when we go here, which is critique, which is the analysis, which is that professor at the University of Connecticut, we leave where all creation lives, and where all innovation lives, which is right here. So even with Melissa & Doug over all the years, so many people gave us advice like, "You can't make simple toys. They're not going to work. They need screens. They need apps. They need all sorts of gizmos." I never, even though it made me want to go up here and question everything I was doing and everything we were doing, I knew that if I left my heart where all that intuition and true white space creativity lied, I would lose the ability to truly create something different that spoke from my heart.
Guy Kawasaki:
When you started off that answer, you basically recited poetry. So, can you just recite poetry, just at-will now? It just comes out of you like that?
Melissa Bernstein:
It does, because everyone of my verses was a lifeline. It saved me. When I write a lifeline, it's because I have either some anguish that I can't seem to... it's like a needle poking in me that I can't seem to assuage unless I write a verse about it, or I'm pondering a question that I don't have the answer to, so it becomes my method of taking this chaos inside and making sense of it. So, it's like a piece of me; it becomes interwoven into my tapestry, and I know, probably, thousands of them. Every time I'm in a situation where the same question arises, I bring up a verse and I say it to myself so I can get through it.
Guy Kawasaki:
I mean this as a compliment, but you're like a female, Jewish Muhammad Ali. I mean, you could just...
Melissa Bernstein:
I don't know about that. No one wants to hear it, so it's not like... I mean, half the time, I'm muttering to myself and my kids are like, "What are you doing?" with this disgust. I'm like, "I'm either writing a verse or reciting a verse, sorry."
Guy Kawasaki:
You can float like a butterfly and sting like a poet.
Melissa Bernstein:
Not quite.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, not quite. Maybe what you can do for us now is, because you mentioned this so many times, the magic number in your book is 50. So can you just explain what was going on inside you for those first 50 years?
Melissa Bernstein:
Wow. It was something that I couldn't even put words to until I was 50, because I truly repressed it to such an extent. But all I can say is, from the time I was born, I felt like I wasn't at home in the world. And I felt this deep, deep sense that something was very wrong. This sense of not-quite-rightness, it's like an itch that's so terrible, that's deep inside you that you just can't scratch. And that sense of just being off.
And what it was, I now know, it was this sense of utter meaninglessness to life, and these questions that started ever since I can remember. I think I was probably either two-and-a-half or three, basically saying, "What is the meaning of life? I don't get it. And why am I here, and what am I meant to do while I'm here?"
And because I couldn't much less voice those questions, and certainly couldn't get an answer to them, I was left with just not able to become comfortable. And because I was so unsettled and so burdened with these questions that I couldn't answer, I basically needed to repress, deny and disassociate from everything I felt.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you have any explanation for how this came to be? Why were you like this?
Melissa Bernstein:
I now know. So, throughout my life because I didn't have an explanation, and I couldn't show it to anyone... In fact, innately, I channeled it into music. I wrote songs and I wrote verses from the time I was two-and-a-half, three-years-old. They just came out of me, but they were so dark and so despairing that I never showed them to a soul and never even looked at them myself after I wrote them. I just squirreled them away and tried to be normal.
And, I think I never was normal, unfortunately, even though I tried to be. I realized, again, at age 50, that I suffered from this thing called existential depression, which we are born with. Some people have existential crises because of an event, but not me, not I. I was born with this.
(singing).
Guy Kawasaki:
Can you define existential depression, because those two words may not be familiar to most people?
Melissa Bernstein:
To be honest with you, I read the thesaurus as a hobby as a child, and I did not know what existential depression was. So, when I saw those words just by accident in a book I read by Victor Frankl and looked them up out of curiosity, I was floored because it described my entire life.
So, basically, existential depression has three different arms to it. It has existential nihilism, which is where I started. Existential nihilism means there is no meaning at all to life, and we as people are insignificant and unable to make meaning. And that is the worst part of existential despair. When you're there, you pretty much feel no hope. And that is, when I was at my lowest of lows, I was an existential nihilist. I did not believe that I had the ability and anyone had the ability to ever find meaning. It's not a good place to be.
However, the really incredible thing is, I always had this rabid curiosity that I needed to find the meaning, and I wasn't going to end it. Even though I was really close, I needed to find that hope. And that's when I moved into existentialism, which still posits that life has no meaning; however, despite that, we as individuals can choose out of awareness, free-will, and personal responsibility, to still make meaning out of our time here. And that is where I moved into.
Then, there's a third part that's called absurdism. Those of us who have existential despair, we always think of life as absurd. We look at what's going on, people racing around, crazies trying to search for meaning, and we realize that it's all absurd, because, unfortunately, we're realists. We're deep realists, too realistic.
But, the absurdism philosophy says, "Although there's this conflict between an utter lack of meaning and man's search for meaning, we must accept that and simultaneous rebel against it by embracing life and making whatever meaning we can while we're here." And that's where I have come out, I'm happy to say.
Guy Kawasaki:
Were your parents aware of this existential depression this whole time?
Melissa Bernstein:
Not one person, including myself, was aware of any of this until I was 48 years old.
Guy Kawasaki:
And was there, particularly, a catalytic moment where the light bulb went on?
Melissa Bernstein:
Oh yeah, there was. I call them, "My dot moments," and yes, there was. I read a book by Victor Frankl called Man's Search for Meaning, and he talked about existential despair. And when I looked that up, I was utterly flabbergasted, because it explained exactly what I was. Even more, it said that, "Those who suffer from existential depression are highly creative."
And when I saw the list of some of the people who were afflicted with existential depression, it was like, "No, it couldn't be." People that I just, obviously, am not in a category with, but just people like Beethoven and Mozart, and Hemingway and Tolstoy, and a lot of others who are now prolific creators, too. But then, it further said that, "And those who have existential depression and are prolific creators, also have these things called, 'overexcitabilities,' which are a heightened arousal of your central nervous system, which makes your sensitivity to life so much greater."
And I always said, "Both the beauty of the world and the pain of it are impossible for me to bear." And I always felt like my tuning knob was just turned up a little too much. When I was little, I said, "Please turn off the noise. I've lost track of the joys. I can't hear anymore with this deafening war. I can't see anymore with this staggering light. I can't feel anymore with this stifling fright." And I wrote that when I was five, because it seemed like everything was just like this crescendo in my body, and that people would touch me and I'd jump because it was like my nerve endings were just on the outside of my body.
So, once I read about the existential despair and the overexcitabilities, I suddenly had the feeling-
Guy Kawasaki:
Can I interrupt you for a second?
Melissa Bernstein:
... Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
So, you have used the term, "existential despair," and, "existential depression." Are they one in the same?
Melissa Bernstein:
They are.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Melissa Bernstein:
It starts with existential angst, so you first feel the anxiety. And then if it doesn't get "fixed," it turns into depression, despair, anguish. I use them all interchangeably. It's just a lot of existential mess.
Guy Kawasaki:
You mention in your book, "Two more dots." And one dot was when you were rejected by a sorority. Do you look back at that now and say, "Why did I have angst and despair over being rejected by a sorority?" Or, at post-50, how do you view that, the trauma that that caused?
Melissa Bernstein:
That's an incredible question. So, the biggest trauma... and it's funny. We're starting this community LifeLines and we're having all these really deep discussions now, and we're having so many about this, about what it means to be your true self. I think the thing that I'm saddest about, to be honest with you, is, I truly nearly killed myself to be like these girls I wished to emulate, which was tall and blonde with long hair and a great figure, all the things I'm not.
That was sad in and of itself, but the saddest part of it was I rejected the girls just like me, who I could have had these incredibly deep friendships with. And what I didn't put in there, or maybe I did, is, a couple sororities really wanted me, with girls exactly like me, but I looked at them with disgust, and basically said... I'm sure I didn't say it, actually say it, but I thought, "I don't want to be like you. I want to be like these girls who are rejecting me." And it's such a testimony to how I killed myself throughout my early life, trying to be something I'm not, and not accepting who I was.
I think another example of that, which is just so heartbreaking, in 9th grade, we get these things called superlatives for exemplifying a certain quality. And I wanted to get one of the ones related to looks, more than anything. I wanted to get, "Most attractive," "Best smile," "Best dressed," "Best couple," and I ended up getting, "Most musical," which should have been... It was one of the only skill-based ones because I was-
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, no kidding.
Melissa Bernstein:
... truly musical, and I got it with this guy. I looked him up, and he's a professor now at UCLA. He's this prolific musician, so I should have been so happy, but I was so upset about that, that when I got my yearbook at the end of the year, I literally ripped out the page and threw it in the trash.
How sad is that? I wanted to be something superficial, and it doesn't even seem like it's me, but it was. I cared so much about the superficial and didn't care about anything that was truly meaningful; it's heartbreaking. So, I want to help others not go that path; and through our community, show others that they don't have to hide their things that make them unique. And, unique is good; unique isn't bad.
Guy Kawasaki:
Two more points that tie into this, those two girlfriends that you asked for advice and their opinion, both of whom kind of blew you off, right? They said, "Get over it. It's not that bad, whatever." They only saw the façade. So what did you learn from those two instances?
Melissa Bernstein:
It was the same thing everyone else did, and I wrote a verse like, "They could never just accept me as the one I truly was, always hoping I'd get better though depression never does." So, it's that sense that people always wanted me to be better and to be different, and to not be who I was. And the thing I wanted to say to them but I couldn't is, "But this is who I am, so if you're telling me I need to get better to be accepted, then you're basically saying that how I am is unworthy."
And, it truly made me feel even more unworthy, in that I never could show who I really was, and never let them see. Because the very few times that I showed even inkling of the despair that was really just swirling around me, I was disdained, I would say, by anyone I showed it to.
Guy Kawasaki:
So, the question that I have for you based on that is, people who listen to this podcast or read your book, how do they spot people who have these issues? And then, assuming that they can figure out how to spot these people, then how do they help people?
Melissa Bernstein:
That's such a great question. Thank you so much for caring about that. What I've realized is, to be a highly-creative person, you will have these overexcitabilities. It's a condition. One is tied to the other; my blessing is my curse, and I will never be free from it, or I will not create anymore. You must be highly sensitive to the world to be able to create from nothing. It is just a condition for creativity.
And I now get that, because I never quite understood why I could just create and write something without... just have it pop into my head; but I now realize that the cost of that is tremendous anguish, the full spectrum of the highest of highs to the very lowest of lows. So, I think knowing that... And the goal in our community is to make people aware of this.
I want to speak out for the creative misfits out there. I feel like it's my duty because so many of them don't have a voice and are in the shadows creating, and locked in themselves in despair of some sorrow in order to create. And I want to make people aware that, "We are weird. We are not going to be your average person. We think differently. We act differently. We are out of the box. We have quirks, and that's what makes us able to create. So if you like the things we create, then dammit, you better accept us in all our eccentricities."
I mean, it is so... I'll get emotional, because so many creative people take their lives because they feel they're never understood. And, again, at LifeLines, we want to embrace every single person for all they are, and show the world that it is in those different qualities that our gifts emerge, most of us.
Guy Kawasaki:
So, would your answer to the question how to help be, "Simply accept them, as opposed to try to get them to be normal"?
Melissa Bernstein:
Exactly. We all deserve to be accepted for exactly as who we are. And, I think, that was always, inside, my deepest sadness. And I think one of my verses... I hope I can say it perfectly, but, "Creatives are maligned for being overly-dramatic, exceedingly-despairing, and uncommonly-dogmatic, but it's those divergent qualities that birth such brilliant art, and we all deserve a chance to be exalted from the start."
Guy Kawasaki:
You can just whip that out just like that?
Melissa Bernstein:
It's like my toys, they're my children, so I have to be able to honor them. They're like my babies, but I think that's my lament, is that we're maligned our whole lives for being who we are; and yet, what do you expect?
If someone's going to create a symphony out of nothing, do you think it's just comes from being not sensitive to the world? I think we need to appreciate our... and that most creators are going to be introverts. They're going to have a hard time speaking.
I mean, I haven't spoken until now. I've spoken mostly through my hand, through creating. I don't speak through my voice. I never did, but I'm doing it now because I feel like there are too many people who are suffering because they're denying who they are.
Guy Kawasaki:
And what happens if you go on Good Morning America, and hundreds of thousands of people start writing in saying, "I heard you, and you described my life," and is that the intended outcome?
Melissa Bernstein:
Absolutely. Are you kidding? That would be the greatest thing ever, because we're starting this incredible community. And I believe we're doing something that no one has done. We're offering no promise. LifeLines is basically no promise. We're not saying we can make you better, we can fix you, we can change your life, not ever in the slightest.
We're saying that, "We accept you in totality." We're saying that, "You are not alone." That, "Starting with Melissa, she felt her whole life that no one would ever understand her, that she was on an island and no one would ever accept her for who she is. But she realized that that isn't true at all, and once she had the courage to say who she was and shout it from the rooftops, that there were people like her. And there were people who said, 'Oh my goodness, I feel the same way.' And there were people who said, 'Yes, show me how I can have the courage to say who I am.'" And that's all I'm doing.
All I'm trying to do is, through having the courage to finally accept myself in totality, which took 50 years, I now... Doug and I, now, we want to take the goodness that we gained from 32 years making toys and funnel it so that we can offer this free community that offers content and a journey, and all these things for people just like me.
Guy Kawasaki:
And, where are your kids in this? Are they going to pick up this book and say, "Oh my God. I had no idea. This is Mom?" Or have they been along this journey with you, side-by-side?
Melissa Bernstein:
So, that's the craziest thing. The craziest thing is, my own father, who about a week ago for the first time, I told him that I wrote this book and that I was afflicted with this. He said to me... and this is maybe one of the most staggering things ever. He said, "I find that hard to believe, because you were the most optimistic, happy, contented child ever." And I found that so sad, because it just showed how incredibly well I hid it.
And, I knew I hid it well. I mean, I was so disassociated from how I was feeling that it took me four years, when I finally admitted that I was broken and needed therapy, it took me four years to actually start to be able to feel emotion. I was that disassociated from it.
I think nobody really knew, including myself. That's the weird thing. I fooled everyone, and my façade, which was a façade of perfection; it was no chink in the armor. It was like a perfectly-constructed life, in a perfectly-constructed box that I lived in. I don't think anybody knew, honestly.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm going to ask a rather tactless, tasteless question now. Okay?
Melissa Bernstein:
Go for it.
Guy Kawasaki:
How did you not get divorced through all this? You're carrying quite a burden here, for 50 years. I dare say, most people might have gotten divorced. So, can you explain that magic?
Melissa Bernstein:
Yes. Doug has been the most incredibly supportive person through this whole thing. And to be honest, when he met me and I was 19, I was at my lowest of lows. I had a terrible eating disorder, and I looked like a skeleton. And he really was the first one. We never really talked about it because I was in such denial, but he forced me to eat. So I'm probably only here today because of him. And I think forging Melissa & Doug, although, again, part of me was so afflicted writing, in such denial of this angst that just effused me, the other part was a miracle.
When we formed Melissa & Doug and I was able to take all this darkness, because I told you, for 25 years, I channeled darkness into darkness, and it had no meaning. Right? Because when you funnel darkness into more darkness and it doesn't touch light or touch anyone, you can't bring meaning to it. But when I saw that I actually had this choice, this was when the existential nihilism changed to existentialism. Because, through creating toys, again, just by accident, I realized that I had a choice to channel darkness now, into this profound light through making toys.
That was salvation, and for 32 years, Melissa & Doug has been one of the greatest joys of our lives, and we've really reveled in every single moment. So, it wasn't that we weren't having an incredible life. We were building this company. We had six children. We were raising kids. And to be honest with you, my life gave me such structure, and I couldn't even breathe. Right?
I was running this large company with Doug. I was the mother of six children. I didn't have time to think, and it was actually really good, because I just basically did what I needed to do to survive and be a good mother and good wife, and good business owner. Time just flew by, so there wasn't time to ponder.
Guy Kawasaki:
But was this a huge surprise to Doug one day, or was he in on the inside story for a long time?
Melissa Bernstein:
Nobody was in on it, no. It was as much a shock to him, I think, as to me. Obviously, he knew me, and he knew that I was highly sensitive, although I hid most of it. And, I was a creative. I had whatever vacillations in mood.
But no, when I first discovered this and started to read about, especially the hypersensitivities, I was sobbing for days because I couldn't believe that someone had really articulated what I felt like and who I was with such alacrity. It was staggering, and I think he was shocked as well. He was, "Oh my gosh, this is incredible," and totally supportive like, "What can I do to support you in this?" But, I think we were both completely astounded.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think that this excitability, do you think it caused the creative expression, or do you think the creative expression caused the excitability?
Melissa Bernstein:
Oh my gosh, I just made this connection last week. This is the best question you could ever ask.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, that's why I'm a podcaster.
Melissa Bernstein:
Yes. So, this is the really cool thing. So, I've always believed because everything I've read has made this connection not between overexcitabilities and creativity, between depression and melancholia and creativity. And basically, it says that, "People who create..." In fact, there's even a statistic, if you can believe it, and poets are the highest, that 87% of poets are depressed.
And composers are the lowest; they're 60%, but from composers all the way up to poets, it's 60 to 87%. Supposedly, rhyming poets are even higher, which I am, because it's the chaos that rains and you need to make order of it, so you're even more afflicted.
And I shouldn't say just depression. It's 87% are afflicted with some psychological malady. That always plagued me, because although throughout my first 25 years it was definitely the despair that fueled the creativity, as I've grown to understand existential depression and understand myself, I'm not depressed anymore. And actually, I'm more creative than I've ever been.
So, this connection didn't make any sense to me, and suddenly about a week ago, all the dots connected. I realized two really crazy things. One is that existential depression is actually a symptom of intellectual hypersensitivity, meaning there are five hypersensitivities. One of them is intellectual, which means you really ponder things and you're always thinking, and you're really curious. That is what allows you to ponder your existence, and what makes you ponder these things, "What is life's meaning?" That gave rise, of course, because when you ponder what life's meaning is, you usually find there really may not be any, that makes you depressed. So, that made me depressed. And, I'll get to your original question.
Also, it's the intellectual hypersensitivity that got me out of that depression, because I needed to use philosophy and really look at all the philosophers throughout history, to understand how I moved from nihilism to existentialism. So, the intellectual hypersensitivity got me in and out, and it's also the intellectual and imaginational and emotional hypersensitivities that allow me to create. So, I was born with hypersensitivities first, and they are what fuel, what spawn the creativity a hundred percent.
Guy Kawasaki:
So when we encounter extremely creative people, should we assume that there's hypersensitivity going on too?
Melissa Bernstein:
In my opinion, it's 100%.
Guy Kawasaki:
100%.
Melissa Bernstein:
Yep. You can't do it with... You cannot. You need such... I talk about nature, and nature literally spoke to me in a Dr. Doolittle way. I heard voices in nature. You need that level of sensitivity to the world in order to forge something out of nothing. It's just, it's impossible not to.
Guy Kawasaki:
And do you think that all hypersensitive people are also creative?
Melissa Bernstein:
No, because there are five of them, and not all people have all five. People could have one small aspect of one, and you could have an intellectual hypersensitivity that just makes you a rabid need for knowledge. If you just have intellectual and you don't have the imaginational, you won't be a creative. Right? You'll be a thinker, but it's combined with living in your imagination.
So, if you combine, you start to see. It's so cool if you combine imaginational with intellectual and emotional. They usually say, "The three that are essential for creativity are intellectual, imaginational, and emotional." Which you can understand, right? You feel highly emotional. You feel highly in your imagination, and you're highly curious and intellectual. What do you think yours are?
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm going to avoid that... I'm going to tell you something. Okay? So by any chance, do you know who Steven Wolfram is?
Melissa Bernstein:
No.
Guy Kawasaki:
Steven Wolfram is a mathematician and physicist. He is the youngest recipient of the MacArthur Award, and I know him. He's a friend of mine. His conversations are always at a level about physics and quarks and particles and stuff like that, that I have figured out that I can talk to him only once every 10 years or so because it takes me 10 years to recover, because his brain is so much faster and bigger, and on such a different plane, that I am exhausted for 10 years.
And I mean this as a compliment, that you are the second person that I would put in that category. It's going to take me... Not that I wouldn't mind seeing you again soon, but it's going to take a while to, shall I say, recover is the wrong word, because that has a negative connotation to it, to embrace-
Melissa Bernstein:
Now I feel even more stigmatized.
Guy Kawasaki:
... to embrace this. This is such a deep conversation. I am so used to people telling me, "Yeah, you know, I decided that I would create this new widget, and come to find out more people wanted it. So my partner and I, we decided to ship it. And lo and behold, more people liked it. And then we changed our distribution, and that's the secret."
I thought I was going to have a Guy Raz how-I-did-this conversation. If Guy Raz listens to my podcast and hears this, what do you think his reaction is going to be? Is it going to be like, "Are those the same people that I interviewed?" Why didn't this come up in his interview?
Melissa Bernstein:
Yeah, because people don't go below the surface. Let's be honest. You have the courage to go deep, and if people just want to talk about the superficial, there's a lot of that to talk about.
Hey, we have a pretty cool story: We built a $500 million toy company in our garage, just the two of us with our meager life savings, still dating. So, it's a cool story in and of itself. You don't need to go much deeper to have that really sizzle story. But I'm soul, not sizzle. And the truth is, I'm a deep person; and that's where I create from, so I think for anyone who has the courage, like you, to go there, it's such a gift because I do feel like we need to go there.
Guy Kawasaki:
In a rare moment of humility, I don't think it took courage for me to do this, just FYI. I think it took courage for you to write the book, so let's just give credit where credit is due. I have never had an interview like this, oh my God. So, if someone's listening to this and can identify with you on any of the five levels, what's you're advice? What should they do to find themselves and before they're 50, if you will?
Melissa Bernstein:
I love that. So the first thing they should do, honestly, this is exactly what our community, lifelines.com, is going to do. We are going to have a whole series on hypersensitivities, and I am going to lead them; and no one's done this before. People don't even know they exist. It's almost like when Susan Cain came out with her introverts thing, and it was like introverts everywhere were like, "Hooray, we're not weird."
To me, for me, this was the most important thing I ever realized in my life. And there was this one guy, if I could meet anyone in my life... You know how they ask that question, "If you could meet someone"? His name is Kazimierz Dąbrowski. He died in 1980, and he spent his near, I think, 78 years on this world trying to help people like me, highly creative people who were at risk for not surviving in a world that would never accept them.
And, to me, that's my only goal, to create a community of people who feel that they will never belong, and I can say to them, "I get you. I get every bit of you, and I understand that your scourge is your gift. And, you deserve to be here."
And the other thing that we're going to do, because there are many people who have this hypersensitive nature and haven't yet discovered their sparks. See, I'm so fortunate because I know creativity is everything for me, and I've been able to channel it.
The crazy thing, when I think about the metaphor of my life, I wrote a verse when I was six-years-old, which is, "I am a mighty oak tree with limbs outstretched toward the sky, oft endangered by the elements that rage then roll on by. My appendages are brittle, yet my trunk stands tall and sound, ever knowing it's safeguarded with roots firmly in the ground."
So, I always viewed myself as this oak tree. My roots here, and my arms were up leaning towards the heavens, which is where my creativity comes from, my imagination. But the trouble was, my whole life, my trunk was so dense with despair and depression. Even thus, I created through this little vein, through my limb that went up to the sky; and it found it's way through, shockingly, even though I disallowed it, theoretically, with everything I was feeling. But as I learned to discover who I am, to accept myself in all my hypersensitivities, my trunk has now hollowed out, and now I'm just this incredible channel of all the way starting in my roots, going all the way through my being up to the heavens. And it's like the creation now just flows through.
We all deserve that ability. We all deserve to find our center, to find that spark within us that can flow all the way from our core all the way to the heavens. And that's my goal, to help people unearth their sparks, to hollow out their trunk, and to figure out what their flow is. We all have it, especially if we are hypersensitive. Some of us just, we buck to convention. We listen to the voice of others around us, and we didn't heed our own soul's cry that we needed to.
Guy Kawasaki:
My head is exploding here. Maybe you should go on Joe Rogan's show. Let's see if he can handle you. That would be something.
Melissa Bernstein:
Oh, gosh. Oh boy, I don't know if I could handle him.
Guy Kawasaki:
You think? Yeah, you would have him twisted into knots. The oak tree would be growing back into him. I have a tactical question for you. How do you do your deepest thinking? At a very tactical level, do you, I don't know... Is it a quiet spot? It is fountain pen and parchment? I mean, what is it? How do you do your deepest thinking?
Melissa Bernstein:
I love that. So, I have had such trouble with everything in my life. Everything has been a struggle other than creating. And I just simply can be anywhere, anyplace, anytime; I just travel into the white space of imagination, and I can get there in a blink. I literally just breathe and just go there.
My issue is that I don't ever want to come down, because it is so incredible up there. It's pure rapture. That's the only way I can describe it, and it's bliss. Because you know why? Because anything is possible, and I am in utter control of that big expanse of imagination. I have created so many lovely things out of that, that I know its possibilities and it just intoxicates me to no end, so that's the great thing.
I think, because as a child, I lived in my imagination because the world was so terrifying. I had imaginary friends, and I created an entire world up there, that is my muscle memory. Most people would be like, "How do you do it?" That is my default, so I'm fortunate that the hard thing is living here.
You should say to me, "How do you live in this world?" because my tendency is to always want to just go up there and never come down, and that's what's most natural to me. So I always laugh. I laugh when people talk about they're having blockages, and they're having creative dearth, because I'm like, "Gosh, that's never ever been my issue." It's the opposite; it's too much create... too much stuff coming out that it's like, "Stop, already."
Guy Kawasaki:
So you're telling me that you can be on the tarmac in Newark airport waiting for ground clearance, in a center seat in United Airlines coach, and you can just go to this place?
Melissa Bernstein:
Yep. I do some of my best stuff there, anywhere, anyplace. And you can ask anybody in my life, I am always. I'm always, because, again, creativity's about connecting dots, and it's about having that curiosity and seeing something again the way it is and thinking, "No, this could be different."
So, you never know, and that's the way I feel. I have such excitement, utter excitement, about the world. And that's why I love getting out and about, because I never know when I will see something. It'll be in that center seat, and I'll look at one thing and I'll say, "Oh my gosh, that connects to these three other things, and that's a product." It's just like, and I call it, "The angels sing," when you have that, just, epiphany and the angels sing, and you just know that's it.
Guy Kawasaki:
How do you deal with, quote, unquote, "normal life," when the angels are always singing in your head?
Melissa Bernstein:
It's really hard. I have to ground myself. I have to do a lot of mindful stuff, because anytime that something goes wrong or even with one of my kids, they are just, whatever, kids. They're in any sort of angst at any point during the day. I'll start to panic, and I'll start to truly feel myself getting unnerved like, "Oh my gosh, I can't handle this." And I'll need to continually ground myself and breathe, and be like, "It's okay." And try not to leave, because my tendency is, I feel like a lot of times, I'm a balloon and I'm floating off. That's how I envision myself.
I'm going up there, and I'm watching it. I'm like, "There you go," and that someone is, "No, you don't," and they're just taking... They're grabbing it just as it goes out of arm's reach, the cord on the balloon or the string, and they're pulling it back down. And it's, "Oh, no, don't. I don't want to come back down." So, I just have to... sometimes I have to force myself, and sometimes it's okay and I can be here, but that's my challenge. My challenge is staying here, right here, and being okay with being here.
Guy Kawasaki:
We have to end this interview because my simple brain can only handle so much. It's like when your iPhone says, "No more space to store any more pictures. You have to delete some or get the iPhone 14 Pro Max." That's where I feel I am right now.
Melissa Bernstein:
Are you kidding? That is not true.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh yeah, it's true. You can accuse me of many things, but false modesty is not one of them, I assure you. So when does the book come out?
Melissa Bernstein:
The book comes out mid-March, and our community goes live mid-February, which will have so much really exciting content.
Guy Kawasaki:
Are you on Good Morning America? Are you working on all that kind of stuff already?
Melissa Bernstein:
I think it is happening. And I, again, right, it's a double-edged sword, do you want it or not?
Guy Kawasaki:
Sure.
Melissa Bernstein:
But I hope that everyone is as incredible as you, and wanting to hear the story, and just organic. That was the best interview. You didn't go by this script that you had to ask all these questions.
Guy Kawasaki:
Actually, I do have a script. I'm checking a script. Just, my script is better.
Melissa Bernstein:
Okay, there you go; your script is just better. See, you don't give that impression, so that's what's such a gift about you.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, I hope that you get on Terry Gross' show. I think she would do a marvelous job with you, or her head will explode. You tell Terry Gross that... She doesn't know who I am, so it doesn't matter if you tell her that, "Guy Kawasaki suggested you be on Fresh Air."
Melissa Bernstein:
Oh, I'm sure she knows you.
Guy Kawasaki:
Nah, she doesn't.
Melissa Bernstein:
I'm sure she does.
Guy Kawasaki:
Either does Joe Rogan, by the way.
Melissa Bernstein:
I'll tell Joe Rogan and Terry Gross you've done pretty amazing for yourself, and you are a hero to me, such an incredible author, and your books are amazing. And, of course, before this, I absolutely read... I read, I believe, it's Enchantment?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah.
Melissa Bernstein:
Yeah. And I also read, what was it, Art of the Start?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes, for entrepreneurs.
Melissa Bernstein:
Yeah, I read two of them. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow.
Melissa Bernstein:
So, they're in my bookshelf, and that was long before any of this.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, that's fantastic. You flatter me. I'm proud to be on your radar.
Melissa Bernstein:
Same.
Guy Kawasaki:
So, thank you, so much. And I tell you, if I heard this, I would like your toys even more-
Melissa Bernstein:
Oh, thank you, even more.
Guy Kawasaki:
... because now I know there's a real soul behind your toys. It's not simply the fast buck.
Melissa Bernstein:
Yeah. A lot of people would say to me that, "When I played with your toy, I felt like there was something more to it," and it would me so emotional because I was like, "There is." I'm channeling so much. It's my salvation. It's literally my hope, so I was so glad that some people seem to feel that, because it was true.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm going to put the little pieces of my brain that exploded, back in my brain now.
Melissa Bernstein:
Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that to you.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm going to send this to Steve Wolfram and say, "Steve, here, I've met your match, Steve."
Melissa Bernstein:
Oh, thank you. That means the world to me. That's a real compliment, and that sort of begins to put back my ego after the professor, so, thank you. You just made one piece of it better, so, thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
Can I read you my favorite poem from her book one more time? "Keep it coming. Bring it on. Attack me with your wrath, for I no longer feel the blows, as I have found my path."
I hope you are inspired by this episode of Remarkable People. The path that Melissa Bernstein took after 50 years is remarkable. I hope that if you face similar challenges, Melissa's story will help you on your own path of self-discovery.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. Mahalo, to Jeff Sieh and Peg Fitzpatrick, who helped me on my path of podcasting self-discovery. Mahalo and aloha. This podcast is brought to you by reMarkable, the paper tablet company. Focus more and goof off less using a reMarkable tablet. This is Remarkable People.