James Patterson: She Taught Me I Was Loveable | Forward Progress

0:00And we're live on match day as Doug reaches for a Buffalo wing. He's got it. Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi, too. What a finish. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi. Hey, it's Thursday, which means we're coming at you with a short feel-good story from a past guest. Hope you enjoyed the clip. This week, James Patterson.

0:28In everybody's life, there are certain periods that shape them. And somebody I wanted to ask you about who seems to have had an enormous impact on your life was Jane, who you'd lived with for seven years, passed away at 39. You said that she totally saved you, your words. How so? Well, once again, knocking any chips off my shoulder, I'll give you an example, which I wrote in the book. She was just a sweet, sweet, nice, nice person, smart, and just one of the best people I've ever met. And she made me go out to this French restaurant in New York. And I'm this kid from upstate, and I don't know from French restaurants.

1:18And she knows that I'm like a little nervous and stuff, and I'm not totally comfortable. I'm 27 or 25 maybe. And so we're at the table. And she did this in a way that was like, it wasn't gonna bother people around her. And she had some kind of French stew. And she just took her face and put it into the French stew and came up with the stew on her face. And she said, this is our restaurant. We're here. This is, you know, relax. It's all good. And that was kind of the way she was. And then she wiped the stew off. But I mean, the point was, relax. You know, it's not a big thing. And she got me to get used to certain things.

1:56And, you know, her family had some money. She got me used to, you know, that kind of side of it. And she was never money. You know, she wasn't a money kind of person. But she was just a good life guide. In what ways do you think she caused you to change your view of yourself? Confidence. You can do it. She was there for the Thomas Barrowman number. So that was a big, you know, big deal. She's very funny, very funny, and confidence in your humor. And I think probably the most important thing, weirdly, is understanding that I could love another person at that level and that I was lovable. Key, huge, massive.

2:47A lot of guys don't really think they're lovable. They kid about it and they can brag about it, but they don't really believe they're lovable. And they don't know how to love another person. In her remaining days, you know, she's in a wheelchair. There are clumps of hair you wrote about sprouting all over her head. And you wrote that yet during those days, I was more in love with Jane than I'd ever been. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why? She was just a saint. She was so conscious of other people. she would you know she was in and out of hospitals for a couple of years brain tumor and people would visit her all the time and she had these like 50 different funny hats because she didn't want them to come come and get be bummed out we wanted to get married at the end and we just said you know it'll just but it's gonna bump people out it's just gonna be a weepy wedding and it's yeah so we're not gonna do it what do you think you learned through being with her in those Well, the main thing was just this notion about loving someone and what that means and that you're capable of it, which I think is huge for a lot of people.

3:59I don't know that they're, you know, especially now, I think a lot of people, they just don't know. They think it's going to be that it's going to be all this sacrifice and they have to change like crazy. And it doesn't really have to be that way. And if you're in a relationship where you feel you're going to have to change like crazy, you're probably in the wrong relationship. we'll be back with another positive story from a past interview next thursday and we'll pull it from our highest performing clips according to our digital community head over to youtube.com slash graham bensinger to join us thanks again for listening