In short
Shannon Watts discusses her book Fired Up: How to Turn Your Spark into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age, arguing women often live on “shoulds” and obligations instead of desires. She frames “living on fire” as aligning values, abilities, and desires (a “fire triangle”), and addresses how to handle “blowback” when changing your life.
Guest background
Shannon Watts is founder of Moms Demand Action, a major U.S. grassroots gun-violence organization. She’s been recognized by Time (100 Most Influential People), Forbes (50 Over 50), and Glamour (Woman of the Year). In the 2024 election she organized a record Zoom mobilization of 200,000+ voters and raised $11M for Kamala Harris.
Key claims
Women face more guilt/shame and self-sabotage; “false fires” include purpose anxiety, happiness-chasing, and busyness. Community helps you persist (“you cannot live on fire alone”).
Notable examples
Her late-30s emergency-room eczema episode; starting Moms Demand Action after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting; “losing forward” and “founder syndrome”; threats of death/sexual violence; interviews with Eve Rodsky, Sharon Salzberg, and Kristen Neff.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOShannon Watts' Journey
0:04 to 0:31
Shannon shares her personal story of overcoming struggles and finding her voice.
“Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit and now made with no artificial dyes.”
Shannon Watts' Journey
0:45 to 2:56
Shannon shares her personal story of overcoming struggles and finding her voice.
“Shannon has been named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People, a Forbes 50 over 50 changemaker, and a Glamour Woman of the Year.”
Women’s Obligations vs. Desires
2:56 to 4:25
Discussion on societal pressures on women to fulfill obligations over desires.
“I had been living a life that was not authentic to me or true to me.”
The Fire Triangle for a Fulfilling Life
4:25 to 8:39
Shannon explains the three elements needed to ignite personal passion and fulfillment.
“I mean, we're hearing so much about what women are doing now, which is wonderful.”
Handling Blowback from Advocacy
8:39 to 10:41
Shannon discusses the inevitable blowback women face when challenging norms.
“We use a phrase that we learned from Dr.”
Handling Blowback from Advocacy
15:00 to 15:22
Shannon discusses the inevitable blowback women face when challenging norms.
“I wore them to rehearsal this summer and all the cool dancer kids were like, wow, those are amazing.”
Understanding Purpose Anxiety
16:14 to 19:29
Shannon Watts discusses the concept of purpose anxiety and its origins in societal expectations.
“I'm going to live my life on fire, but now I have purpose anxiety.”
The Value of Pursuing Passion
19:29 to 23:45
The conversation explores the challenges women face in pursuing their passions and how guilt affects their choices.
“And how many of them have liked my latest post, right?”
The Birth of Moms Demand Action
23:45 to 26:16
Shannon shares the origins of Moms Demand Action and the urgency that inspired its creation.
“Now you brought up the question of money.”
Managing Growth and Responsibilities
26:16 to 28:00
Shannon reflects on the rapid growth of her movement and the impact on her personal life and family dynamics.
“And so I just put this plea out into the world.”
Show all 15 chapters
Embracing Failure and Community Support
28:00 to 30:49
Learn how failure can be transformed into a stepping stone for success, especially for women.
“I mean, it feels real bad when you fail in front of people.”
Embracing Failure and Community Support
30:53 to 32:28
Learn how failure can be transformed into a stepping stone for success, especially for women.
“But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be.”
Reinvesting in Female Friendships
32:34 to 42:01
Understand the importance of female friendships and community in personal growth and activism.
“The fellow fire starters, the women around you, you say in the book that as you stepped away from Moms Demand Action was one part of your life where you said, oh, gee, I really need to reinvest in female friendships.”
Embracing Change and Self-Discovery
42:01 to 44:07
Learn about the importance of self-reflection and personal growth.
“I love that example because it's so tangible.”
Embracing Change and Self-Discovery
44:09 to 44:24
Learn about the importance of self-reflection and personal growth.
“Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents, but choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.
0:30Amy Wilson:Hello, and welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell? Laughing in the Face of Motherhood. This is Margaret. And this is Amy. Today, we're talking to Shannon Watts. She is the founder of Moms Demand Action, the largest grassroots group fighting gun violence in the U.S. Shannon has been named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People, a Forbes 50 over 50 changemaker, and a Glamour Woman of the Year. During the 2024 election, Shannon organized the largest Zoom gathering in history, mobilizing over 200 ,000 voters and raising over$11 million in support of the Kamala Harris campaign. Helping to redefine what's possible when audacious women unite to drive change, Shannon writes regularly about culture, politics, and women's issues for her sub-stack, Playing With Fire, and outlets like The Washington Post, Elle, Time, and The 19th.
1:21Today, we're going to talk about Shannon's new book, an instant bestseller, Fired Up, How to Turn Your Spark into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age. Welcome, Shannon. Thank you for having me. So let's start with a quote from the very beginning of the book. You say, so many women, especially when they reach midlife, wake up one day and realize they're living lives they didn't want or don't recognize. And you speak with authority on this topic because this was once you. Yeah, my book opens with a scene from me in my late 30s where I'm sitting in an emergency room and I'm covered from head to toe in eczema.
2:00And I could not get it to go away until I finally go to this specialist and he looks at me and says, how much stress are you under? And kind of won't let me look away. and I describe having a mini breakdown really in his office and realizing that I was at a crossroads in my life, that I had made a lot of wrong turns and wrong choices and I was either going to have to keep living that way or I was going to have to live differently. And after that appointment, I couldn't afford a therapist. I really couldn't confide in my husband because our marriage was a big part of the issue. And I journaled my way forward.
2:40I wrote every day and made it a habit ended up leaving my marriage leaving my career really upending my life and eventually remarrying and it was that journey that helped me figure out what I talk about in this book as the formula for living on fire. I had been on autopilot. I had been living a life that was not authentic to me or true to me. And then I saw so many other women in my career and activism do the same thing. And it really is this idea. The formula that I talk about is bringing together your values, your abilities and your desires. Why do you think it's so much more common for women to find themselves in this position?
3:19I mean, certainly men have midlife crises or crises of confidence as well. But I think this is very, very common for women. Why is that? So common. You know, the theme of the book ended up being that men are taught by society to fulfill their desires and women are taught to fulfill their obligations. We have so many shoulds in our lives that society heaps on us, that we internalize, that we begin to believe sometimes even that those shoulds, those obligations are our fire, they are our fulfillment. And I interview Eve Rodsky and 70 other women in the book, and Eve talks about being C-I-Y-O-O, complicit in your own oppression.
3:57Whether that's happiness or busyness or purpose, all these things we're being sold that we should be living for, it's really when we simply start to ask ourselves, what do I want? Which is something we don't often do, right? Because we're told we're going on a certain path or we're overwhelmed or we get to a later point in our lives where we don't think we're worthy. And we know what would happen if we asked ourselves, what do I want? Institutions would topple, governments would fail, family systems would fall apart. Schools would close, right. Exactly. And this book is really an attempt. I mean, we're hearing so much about what women are doing now, which is wonderful.
4:33That was not happening in my mom's generation, but this is really the how.
4:37Amy Wilson:I think we often look at successful women, famous women, women in the public eye in any way. And as we are sitting at home, maybe with young children or just feeling kind of stuck where we are in our yoga pants and old t-shirt, they are special in a way that we are not and that they have skills in a way that we do not. and going back to your personal story, you talk about dealing with ADHD and fear of public speaking. And I thought that was super interesting because knowing you as a public figure, I know that my brain would just put you in a category of like, born to do this. I guess she's got some secret superpower that just never trickled down to me who's sitting here not knowing what to make for dinner.
5:25Yes. Let me dispel that myth for you because as you said, I had this lifelong untreated ADHD. I barely graduated from high school. I barely graduated from college. I had a debilitating fear of public speaking. And I knew little to nothing about gun violence, the legislative process, organizing, really not anyone people would point to and say, oh, that woman over there, she should take on the most powerful, wealthy, special interests that's ever existed. And yet I was exactly the right person for the job because of my values, my abilities, and my desires. And so I don't want anyone to think that I am a unicorn, that I was somehow born uniquely to lead.
6:01We are all leaders in different ways, depending on our skill sets and what we bring to the table and what we want to be doing. And we really need to start thinking of ourselves that way. Let's go back to that metaphor, because living on fire, you go through very clearly that a fire needs three elements to survive. And those three elements are parallel to three things we need to light our fire. So walk us through those three parts of fire. Right. We learn about the fire triangle in school. What are the three things you have to have to start a fire? And if you don't have one of those three things, you can't start a fire or it goes out.
6:33And so in your personal fire triangle, as I was saying, it's really your abilities, your values, and your desires. That is the heat, the fuel, the oxygen. And it's not like you bring those three things together and suddenly you have this amazing life. It's more like a practice where, first of all, you have to figure out what those things are. and what I have seen is that women so often downplay their abilities and so there are exercises throughout the book. I want you to list everything that you've ever done successfully. That includes kids birthday parties, right? These are all skills that matter and make a difference and they're accomplishments and then I want you to ask other people what they think your abilities are because so often people see things in us that we don't see in ourselves and then you keep that list because it will help you not only remind yourself that you are very accomplished, but it will tell you what skills you still need to acquire if there are desires out there that you haven't achieved.
7:27Values, that's the second part of the formula. And I just did an event in Houston with Brene Brown, who's sort of the North Star of values for us, right? And there are hundreds, if not thousands. And they change throughout your life depending on what stage of life that you're in. For me, when I started Moms Demand Action in 2012, my kids were little. And so protecting my family and community were a priority for me. And then your desires. These are often dormant inside of us. They're things that we always wanted to do or what we were good at when we were kids or something that lights us up that we want to do during our lifetimes.
8:01And look, that might not be like me starting an organization. That may be having a tough conversation, asking for a promotion, deciding that you want to get involved in an issue. It can be very small or it can be very big. But when you bring this formula together over and over, eventually you will live on fire. And really that's a metaphor for figuring out two things, what is limiting you and what is calling you. And this is, again, a way to crystallize for women and prioritize their desires over their obligations.
8:32Amy Wilson:And that makes you a fire starter. I like that you said that it can be small because I think sometimes on the podcast, we're talking to a lot of women who are feeling really overwhelmed, really tired. We use a phrase that we learned from Dr. Lignetta Willis, stable misery. There's so much to do every day that it's hard to be like, wait a minute, now I'm supposed to overturn the government too? I can't do it. I'm too tired. But I think the book is very practical. This is really about sitting down to ask yourself questions about what you want your life to look like. It's not about don't take a nap today.
9:14Amy Wilson:You've got to start applying to NASA or whatever. Obviously, your story took you from one place to an extremely different place, but that might not be everybody's story, right? No. And I think the value of my example with Moms Demand Action is talking about and defining the blowback that will come your way. And I think that's a big part of why women don't get started on things. I had so many women say to me during my career and my activism, I just wish I had a manual to handle the blowback. And when I started Moms Demand Action, I immediately had threats of death and sexual violence to me and to my family.
9:53And very early on, I had to decide, you know, am I going to double back or am I going to double down. And I just decided that I did not want to be intimidated or silenced. And again, that can be about small things. Maybe you're not getting threats of death and sexual violence, but someone's going to make a snarky comment and the kids pick up lying. Or maybe your mother-in-law is going to say something about a dinner you missed, right? So when we decide to live differently, and that may mean doing less, it might mean doing more, but doing things differently will result in blowback. It is all predictable.
10:28None of it is personal. But even just knowing that that blowback is coming your way, I think helps you realize, and when you read the stories in my book of other women who have endured it, that you can get through it too. And I talk about three very specific ways to do that. Looking at the blowback and deciding who does this come from? Is this a person's opinion that I value? And so often it's not. It can be even strangers on the internet, and yet we personalize it, right? The second thing is to reframe it. I had the privilege of interviewing women like Sharon Salzberg and Kristen Neff, who are experts in meditation and self-compassion.
11:01How do you reframe those thoughts and endure the feelings that blowback engenders in us because it triggers guilt and shame, right? And then the last thing is to remember that you are a role model. And there are other women, maybe even your own kids who are watching you. And when you show the courage to endure the blowback they will too. It creates this virtuous circle. Do you think that blowback is, again, something that women are more likely to experience than men? I know the answer to that, but yes, it's leaving your lane that causes the blowback. Oh, absolutely. I mean, when I started Moms to Man Action, I asked people for advice.
11:38And so often I heard, you're not the right person. This can't be done. You'll never win. It's already been done on and on and on all the reasons why I wasn't the right person. And that kind of blowback I got the whole way through. And I do think when people see women being brave, it triggers them, right, to put us back into our lane. And that is the blowback. And that blowback, which I mentioned triggers guilt and shame, it makes us behave in ways that are extinguishers to our fires. For some people, that's people pleasing. For some people, that's martyrdom. For some people, it's perfectionism.
12:13I go through different ways in the book that this blowback might trigger you. And ultimately what it is, is self-sabotage because we have internalized. I talk about living from the inside out instead of the outside in. We start to internalize those things and it's very difficult to get past. We're talking to Shannon Watts. Her new book is called Fired Up and we'll be right back. Let me tell you, summertime is when you realize just how dehydrated your skin really is. That's why Osea's Hyaluronic Body Serum has been amazing for me to use this summer. Amy couldn't agree more.
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15:49Amy Wilson:That scratched up pear has done its job, folks. Upgrade today with Zenni. Go to zenni.com slash podcast and use code podcast15 for 15 % off your first order, plus free shipping on all U.S. orders over$65. The styles sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Z-E-N-N-I dot com slash podcast, promo code podcast15. Shannon, I had never heard this term before, and I wanted to ask you to explain it. Purpose anxiety. That's one of the first roadblocks. I'm going to live my life on fire, but now I have purpose anxiety. What is that? I love that there's actually like a psychological phrase for it. Look, I talk about false fires in the book.
16:29Again, when we start to think about our obligations or our shoulds, they become so all-encompassing, they can actually start to feel like the reason we're living. and we live in a very capitalistic society that commodifies all that we do from self-care to purpose and from a young age, we're often told we should find purpose, that we are bored for one single thing and we have to figure out what that is and then we have to make money at it and then we have to be good at it and we have to make sure other people make money at it and it has to last into perpetuity. It has become almost a business to figure out what your purpose is.
17:02You're supposed to buy all these books to read about your purpose. Right. Purpose is not side hustle. They're not the same thing. Exactly. And so we take something we desire or we love, and then we turn it into this purpose, and then it becomes just another obligation in our life. And the other false fires I talk about are happiness, this idea that we should always be happier, we should be chasing this feeling of happiness with this very ephemeral, right? And then the thing that I'm sure we're all familiar with is busyness, this false fire of, I must be productive, I must be constantly putting things out into the world, whether that's on social media or something we're making or something we're doing for our kids.
17:37And busyness can start to feel like the reason that we're alive. And so just being aware of those false fires, I think, is really important. And we can look honestly at our own lives and say, OK, have I started to go down this path?
17:50Amy Wilson:I think the idea of the false fire is so resonant, like that feeling of I mean, I've definitely had times where I was living to prove how great I was doing to other people and it had nothing to do with what I was doing for a reason or for myself. But I also think, you know, we're taught in some ways to be very presentational and with social media, maybe even more so presentational. And that that false fire for me really resonated with the idea of like, everything's fine, everything's fine, and I'm doing great, but I'm spending so much energy showing everyone how great I'm doing that I'm accomplishing very little at the same time.
18:30You're not only accomplishing very little, but you're really not enjoying the process. Right. And the idea of living on fire is to feel as though you've come alive. And that's very different than feeling as though you're being performative. The quote that I needed to have in this book was the idea, I'm going to quote you, your fire is for you. It doesn't need to earn its keep. That's where I've gotten caught, I think, is the idea that, well, my writing career is only worthwhile if you sell the book, right? Or the book is only good if you get the review, and that there's external markers that are showing, or that this book was going to teach me how to start my own mom's demand action, right?
19:12Like, this is the way. You just do what I did. But what you're talking about living on fire is so much broader than that, and also closer and more available than I guess I had thought. We are taught to commodify all that we do. In a capitalistic society, that's a sign of success. I mean, I'm as guilty of this as anyone. how many subscribers do I have on Substack today? How many have I lost? And how many of them are paying me? And how many of them have liked my latest post, right? We all start to get into this. And it just sucks the joy out of all that we do, right? This idea that the comparing mind is joyless.
19:43And so when you're living on fire, and you're getting back and focusing on the present, and you are figuring out what it is that makes you specifically come alive, your distinct values, abilities and desires. And I really wrote this book in many ways for women my age. That said, I think there are four archetypes, right? It might be the young woman who has just graduated from high school or college and is trying to figure out what she wants to do. I have so many, I teach college classes and so many women come up to me and say, I've been in school for four years to be X and I don't think I want this.
20:16And so before you spend so much time pursuing something that maybe your family or your friends have pressured you to want to do. It's interesting. So many women who are immigrants or the daughter of immigrants, they're giving three choices, you know, doctor, engineer, and lawyer. And maybe that's, you know, I'd interview a woman who wanted to be an actor. And the second archetype, young women who may feel overwhelmed by a family or career, but they still want to find time for themselves and what they desire. And how do they carve that out of their lives? Women like me who are empty nesters and suddenly have all this time on their hands and have to remember that they have value and that their stories matter.
20:51And then women I talked to who are retired, maybe in their 70s, 80s and beyond, who have all this wisdom to share with the world and are expected to kind of be invisible. And so no matter what stage you are in your life, you should always be feeling as if you have burned.
21:08Amy Wilson:I think that idea that the fire in itself has value. I remember having young kids. I had been a Hollywood television writer, that career disappeared. And I was home with kids. I knew I wanted to keep writing. I knew I wanted to keep being creative, but I had three little kids. So I would have to get a sitter or put them in daycare for a couple of hours a day in order to continue to write. At the time I was writing a blog that had like my mom read it and like six other people, maybe. That story can become very real to us. I'm not balancing the scales. I don't deserve to be paying for care for my kids when my fire is not bringing in any income at all.
21:50Amy Wilson:And I can't even see a path to where now in the long term, what happened was Amy also had a blog. We connected, we started the podcast. Like if I hadn't kept that fire going, I would never have ended up with this career that I have now. But I remember feeling really guilty. My spouse is very supportive and never said like, you know, why am I paying for this daycare when you're not making any money? But I felt so strongly in myself. And it took three years of writing for free, basically, when people are listening and feeling like I don't have anything that can make money or I don't have anything of value right now.
Read the full transcript
22:26Amy Wilson:How do you talk to them about the value of this fire? Well, you bring up so many good points in that question. As I said, I interviewed over 70 women for this book. And the most common deathbed regret in the world is that I didn't live a life authentic to me. And in every interview, I asked them at the very end, what are you afraid your deathbed regret would be thinking they would all say that almost all of them. And the majority of them were moms said the same thing that they thought their deathbed regret would be that they spent too much time focused on what they wanted at the detriment of their children.
22:58For other people, right? Yeah, it's this idea that because I pursued what I wanted, I was a bad mother. That's the guilt and shame we talked about. Of course. I don't know any men, including my own husband, who would ever say that. They just pursue what they want and assume that it will all end up being good for everyone, right? And yet women mostly worry that it will have a detrimental effect on their kids. Now I talk in the book about I'm on the other side of that chasm. I have all adult kids now. And they never say to me, oh, I can't believe because you were traveling, you missed that soccer game in 2006.
23:31They say two things. One is thank you for having things in your life that are important to you other than just me. It's a lot of pressure. And they also say thank you for giving me an example of how I can live as an adult. We all want our kids to pursue their desires. So guess what? They want us to do that too. Now you brought up the question of money. And I think this is an important and yet complicated question because you should pursue what you want just because you want to pursue it, just because you have that desire. We all deserve that. At the same time, we can't let people take advantage of us.
24:03I talk in the book about how one of my extinguishers is martyrdom. And when I started Moms to Men Action, I paid a passion tax because I cared so much about what I was doing that I didn't take pay for 11 years. and I thought, oh, I'm such a good girl. Like, yes, I'm doing all this provocative stuff and I'm working on a polarizing issue, but I'm good because I'm not taking money. So there's a lot in the book about how to parse what you should be making money for and what you don't need to make money for. But I think what this all gets to is really about leaving a legacy. And this is a very loaded word.
24:37Every time I asked women what they wanted their legacy to be, they shied away like, oh, that's reserved for people who have hospitals named after them or for people who start philanthropies. But every woman deserves to leave a legacy, right? That is just knowing that you lived your life in a way that was true to you, but also that you explored all of the things that lit you up. Let's talk a little bit about what you call the messy middle, because Moms Demand Action is just such a perfect, fascinating example of this. Well, tell us a little bit about how Moms Demand Action started in your home and then how the fire quickly turned into a very, very big fire.
25:12So in 2012, I had taken about a five-year break from my career in corporate communications to blend my family of five. And we have five kids. And so I just thought, okay, I'm going to take five years off, go back after that. And I was getting ready to do that when I was at my house in suburban Indiana, very cold day in December. And there was a chyron that came on the television that said there was an active shooter inside an elementary school in Connecticut. And like you, I'm sure, and so many people across the country. I just sort of stopped what I was doing, and I went to bed in tears. It was unbathomable to me that 20 children and six educators had been murdered inside an elementary school.
25:49And at some point during that night, that sadness turned into abject rage. And I woke up the next morning and remembered that nothing had happened after Columbine and Virginia Tech and Gabby Giffords and on and on, and probably nothing would happen after this shooting too. And so I thought, okay, I was so inspired in the 80s as a teen by Mothers against drunk driving. We need something like that to take on the special interest of the gun lobby. I had 75 Facebook friends at the time. And so I just put this plea out into the world. And those 75 friends shared it and they shared it with their friends and it just went viral.
26:23And within a week, we were on the cover of USA Today as this new organizing force that was going to take on the most powerful, wealthy special interest that's ever existed. And were you thrilled with that? Were you like, oh, no, I didn't mean to start this big a fire? Carly, how did you feel when this was taking off? The latter, for sure. I remember that night we went to bed, my husband looked at me and he said, you know, this is going to be a very big deal. And he did not say it in like a happy way.
26:48Amy Wilson:Right. It was like, okay, we're about to have our lives turned upside down, which is exactly what happened. It just grew at such an amazing and somewhat alarming rate. I went from kind of doing all the cooking and the cleaning and the kid driving to being busier than I had ever been in my entire life, even in my career. And it required my ex-husband and my husband to step up in ways that all of us didn't expect. And it ended up being very good for our family and for our dynamic overall. You know, that was important that they were taking on different things. But at the same time, it was shocking.
27:22But I guess when you think about type A women and all that we're capable of, you know, not surprising.
27:28Amy Wilson:The fear of the fire sometimes is what if it catches? You know, it's what if it doesn't catch? But then also what if it catches? And both of those, I think, are very frightening kind of thoughts about starting a fire. Like, first of all, what if it goes out and everyone's like, ha ha, your fire stinks. And what a loser to try to start a fire, which is a very scary. I mean, Amy and I are both performers and we've been there literally on stage where people are like, yikes, that was bad. And it feels as bad. I mean, it feels real bad when you fail in front of people. But it's interesting. It's also really hard when it goes well, too.
28:08Amy Wilson:I mean, it changes. It's change, I guess, very fundamentally and changes hard and scary, especially when you have a home where it functions very specifically with you in a very specific role in the center of it. Yeah, so on the failure piece, and I think this is particularly true for women, we are taught to be embarrassed if we fail and to be afraid of failure and to not even try because we might fail. And I interview a woman in the book who ran for office in Texas, and she didn't win twice. And she said people expected her to disappear. She was this living, breathing example of someone who fails.
28:49And we were talking about how men fail and they still get so many opportunities. I mean, think about it. Like everyone from Elon Musk to Beto O 'Rourke, like they fail, they lose, and they keep moving forward. And she said she refused to do that. She actually took her experience of losing and parlayed it into running an organization in Texas that helps train other women to run for office and to win, right? And so she can say to them, here's what you can expect. You will lose, but you will eventually win. And I just think that's incredibly important advice for women, this idea of a fear of failure.
29:23And in fact, with Moms to Men Action, we came up with this phrase called losing forward. It's this idea of maybe you lose a legislative battle, for example, but what did you learn? Maybe you have more relationships with lawmakers. Maybe you grew your chapter, but you learned something to win the next time. And I think that's applicable to life broadly. And then the piece about what if you actually start your fire? I do think that's scary too. What if I have the tough conversation? What if I get the bigger job? What if I volunteer and I really enjoy it? What's on the other side of that? And I can remember, and I write about this in the book, I was thinking about quitting Moms Demand Action in those early days because it was so all-encompassing.
30:03It was like a startup. And this woman who I knew sort of but not well, she was calling to ask me a question. I just began to cry on the phone. You know, this was a call she didn't really wasn't expecting to have. And she asked me what was wrong. And I told her that I was feeling overwhelmed. And it was so lovely, because she said to me, you don't have to do this, Shannon, you don't have to do this. And it was so freeing to me. And I think, you know, we'll get to this, probably the importance of community and women who support you. But her giving me the permission to turn back made me realize I wanted to go forward.
30:36It was just that tiny call that made all the difference. And it's so important to have those kind of support networks. We're talking to Shannon Watts about her new book, Fired Up. We'll talk more about that community of women when we come back. This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks, made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks, now made with no artificial dyes.
31:17Amy Wilson:Amy, let me tell you about a magical place that is so exactly designed to be in closed space, year-round fun for the whole family, that I bet you already know what I'm going to say before I even say the name. Let's say it together on three. One, two, three. Great Wolf Lodge. You got it, Amy. My kids loved Great Wolf Lodge when we went. You probably already know that it has a huge indoor water park with a wave pool, lazy river, a bunch of massive water slides. But then your pack can hit the other attractions because wait, there's more. Great Wolf Lodge has adventure packed attractions like Magi Quest, a live action game kids can play throughout the lodge.
31:59Amy Wilson:Plus the Northern Lights Arcade spent some quality time there. So your kid who loves the lazy river and your kid who loves fantasy games will both have a great time. Great Wolf Lodge also offers great dining options and complimentary daily events like nightly dance parties all under one roof. Unpack the car once and you're settled in to have fun. And with 22 lodges across the country, you're always a short drive away from adventure. We've both had such great times at Great Wolf Lodge. So bring your pack together at a lodge near you. Learn more at greatwolf.com and strengthen the pack. So Shannon, we haven't talked about that part.
32:35The fellow fire starters, the women around you, you say in the book that as you stepped away from Moms Demand Action was one part of your life where you said, oh, gee, I really need to reinvest in female friendships. How have you done that along the way? And how do you find those fire starters? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I wrote this article basically that I woke up in my 50s and realized I didn't have enough close friends. I had just stepped back from Moms Demand Action, which I understand is not lost on me that I had all these women at my beck and call at my disposal. And yet I had very few friendships.
33:06And part of that was because I had focused so much on my career and on my family. And I hadn't made the appropriate amount of time to invest in and nurture these friendships. And I was listening to a podcast one day and they said, if you don't have five people you can call in the middle of the night, you don't have enough friends. And I thought, well, I have five kids. Great. And then they said, except your kids. What's the point? Wait a minute.
33:28Amy Wilson:No, kids don't count. kids. And I really did go on this journey of, and I write about this in the book, you know, how did I figure out how to be more vulnerable and how to connect with people and how to invest in these relationships? And I'm glad to say five years now gone that I have created very close friends that I feel like I could call in the middle of the night. But that is the beauty of figuring out what your FIRE formula is. When I started Moms Demand Action, it was not hard to get people to come into the organization because of all the shootings and the lockdown drills, but it isn't easy to get volunteers to stay.
34:00That's why there aren't a lot of grassroots organizations in this country. And we asked our volunteers, why did they stay? Because we have now 11 million supporters. And they said two things. One is they felt like they were winning. That goes back to what we were talking about earlier, this losing forward idea. But the second reason was that they found their people. And when you figure out who has like-minded values, who's going to help you with your abilities, who's going to encourage your desires, that's your bonfire. Those are your people who will be with you in this fire and beyond. Those are the people who will encourage you to keep going, to get through the messy middle.
34:35And I've seen that in my own life. And all of these women I interview say the same thing, that you cannot live on fire alone. And as women, it is so important. I think that we are coming together in community more given the pandemic, given polarization, given social media. And something that's really beautiful that's happening with this book in states all across the country is that women are taking it and using it, as my kids say, IRL, right? In real life, they are having conversations about personal, political, and professional empowerment based
35:05Amy Wilson:on the book. Can we talk a little bit more about this idea of losing forwards? You know, I hear a lot now about family leave and more support for mothers, first five, and all of these ideas that we need larger governmental action to support mothers. And then it feels politically like we're so far away from that, that we've been talking about it now for 10 years on the podcast, talking about it maybe for 25 years in our own lives. What keeps you moving forward? I think that people feel very discouraged. We all feel like we need more support, but we're going the wrong direction, basically. And so why even start, I guess, is the question.
35:46It's such an important question because it's about hopelessness versus hopeful. And it is a choice that we make every day. What I have seen in the gun safety movement is that hopelessness or helplessness is often related to cynicism, which can be honestly an excuse for inaction. It's a choice that we make to be cynical. It's kind of saying, I see that things are bad and I'm not going to do anything about it because it's fruitless. It's so incredibly important to wake up every day and to decide to be hopeful and to remember the wins and to remember the people that you're working with on these issues and why that's so important.
36:22I think a lot about the suffragists who were beaten and starved and imprisoned for fighting for the right to vote. And many of those, all of those women really never saw the fruits of their labor. They just did the work. And And eventually it took 100 years for all women to have the right to vote. But they did get that vote because of the work that they had done, because of the investment they made. And a lot of us won't see the fruits of our labor in our lifetime. But that privilege of living in a democracy is why we must. Because we do it for ourselves now. We do it for the future generations.
36:54And I have seen in my work that all politics is cyclical. If you had told me Virginia, for example, would have become a progressive state that passed over a dozen good gun laws within a decade, I would have said in 2012 that you're out of your mind. And that's exactly what happened. So a lot of what we're doing is building a foundation that we can act on once that cyclical process of politics takes place. But it's also it's going back to these two things that our volunteers told us, remembering that we're winning. There are so many wins, things are so much different for us right now than they were 50 years ago.
37:30And also remembering that we do this because we want to find our people, because we want to lift other people up. And the last thing I'll say is I think about democracy as a sick child. When your kid is sick at three in the morning and they're throwing up and you're exhausted, you don't say, wow, you're really sick, but I'm really tired and I'm going to bed. Let's reconnect at like say 8 a.m. We'll see how you're feeling. You hold that kid's hand until they're better. And I think our obligation to democracy is no different. Wow, great answer. That sure is. I wanted to ask you about your decision to step away as head of Moms Demand Action.
38:05The organization is thriving and growing. But how did you, as a person who lives her life on fire, know that it was time to step away with this huge thing that you had built? I think this discussion about power is so important, particularly for women, because there is a sense of scarcity. We have not had access to power, and we still don't have parity. Women only hold about 25 % of the 500 ,000 elected positions in this country. We're less than 5%, fortunately 1 ,000 CEOs. So when we have power, it isn't surprising that we want to hold on to it. And I can remember back in the early days of Moms Demand Action, I was talking to a volunteer who lived in Silicon Valley and we were jumping off a call and she just said at the very end, whatever you do, don't get founder syndrome.
38:48And I said, of course not. And then I had to get off the phone and Google what that was. And it's this idea that when you start something, and it can be very little, it can be very big, but when you start something, your ego can become so enmeshed in it that when you leave it or it ends, which all things end, right, that you either want to burn it down or it can't exist without you because you've been such a big part of it. And so I just decided I'm going to ask myself every year at the beginning of the year, is this the time to step back? Because I knew I didn't want to do this forever and I knew that power should be finite.
39:22And in those first few years, the answer was always no. And then in the middle, it started to be maybe, but a horrific tragedy would happen or a piece of legislation that I needed to work on would come up. And then it was finally in 2022, I was standing in the Rose Garden. President Biden was signing the first federal gun safety legislation in a generation into law. And I just had this inner knowing that this was the bookend to my activism, that I had finally come full circle and done what it was that I wanted to do. That is not to say that it was easy. I spent a whole year saying goodbye, stepping back, and managing my own ego.
39:57That was my whole identity. It was very hard to imagine what life would be like not leading moms to men action. And yet it was the exact right thing to do was to line that fire down and to try to start a new one.
40:07Amy Wilson:It feels like going back to the metaphor of the fire, that the fire has value. It's not your fire. You start it, you tend it, but then other people can tend it. The fire metaphor is so useful, I feel like. Yes. Or you can pass the torch, right? Or light other people's torches. Exactly. You say in the book, you don't earn the title of fire starter after you've built your first successful fire. You earn it the moment you recognize that you want more out of your life. Let's talk to the person who's listening under a pile of laundry with kids sharpening the walls right now. And they're like, I am doused.
40:47Amy Wilson:I have no fire. I can't even picture what a fire would look like for me. Where does that person start? I have been there. Yes, we have all been there. Is it possible that you're like, this is not the right time for a fire or is it always the right time for a fire? I again think that women should be asking themselves, what do I want? And they should be thinking about whether the fires that they think in their lives are obligations or whether they're their true desires. And that is a good place to start, right? Just doing sort of an audit, figuring out the pieces of the formula and where you are, whether it's your abilities, your values, your desires, where are you right now in your life on those things?
41:28And then it is really about, I talk in the book about a controlled burn, right? When you think about prescribed fires that are maintenance to prevent fires from burning out of control, sometimes conducting one of those, conducting an audit of your life can be incredibly beneficial. And I interview women who have done everything from after doing a controlled burn, deciding they should do less doom scrolling or less Netflix watching, or even as big as leaving a relationship that no longer serves them. Someone threw out all her clothes because she felt like they were too small and she didn't want her clothes to be telling her the way that she should live.
42:06Amy Wilson:I love that example because it's so tangible. It's like, Exactly. What is holding you back today? Yeah. So another woman said it was, you know, a drinking habit that she had picked up during the pandemic. There's so many different things that we can look at our lives and figure out what can we do less of? What is it that we want to do more of? And then just moving toward that. This is a practice, the formula, and you should be doing it throughout your life. And that process of trying to start a fire is some downtime where you can figure out, OK, where am I in my life? What do I want? And how do I move toward it?
42:36Amy Wilson:And realizing that you're worthy of asking those questions. Yes. That you should be taking that time for yourself. Absolutely. Shannon Watts' new book is called Fired Up, How to Turn Your Spark into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age. This book will make a fire starter out of you. It's really terrific. Shannon, tell our listeners about your Substack and the other places they can find you. Yes, you can find me on Substack at Playing With Fire. We're actually starting a fire starter university on Substack. It's free to anyone who has the book. You can enroll at firedupbook.com, and it starts in September online, a year-long program.
43:11And then I'm on social media, Shannon R. Watts, pretty much everywhere. We will put the links to all of that in the show notes, including the book. This was an incredible conversation, and it's such an honor to talk to you, Shannon. Thanks for being with us today. Oh, you too. Thank you. Thank you, Shannon.
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From the publisher
Amy and Margaret sit down with Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, to discuss her transformative new book: Fired Up: How to Turn Your Spark Into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age.
Shannon shares the personal story behind her midlife awakening, how she built the largest grassroots movement to fight gun violence in America, and the life-changing formula she developed to help women find purpose, passion, and courage—no matter their life stage.
Shannon, Margaret, and Amy discuss:
How societal “shoulds” can keep women stuck
The “fire triangle” formula: how your values, abilities, and desires can reignite your life
Why “false fires” (like busyness and performative happiness) burn us out
How Shannon knew it was time to pass the torch at Moms Demand Action—and what it taught her about transitions
The importance of building our own communities of firestarters
Why your fire doesn’t have to “earn its keep”
Here's where you can find Shannon:
www.firedupbook.com (enroll in Shannon's course here)
@shannonrwatts on IG and Substack
Buy FIRED UP: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9780593831939
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