Hello, everyone, and welcome to Speaking with Joy, a podcast to fill your soul, challenge your mind, and make you brave.

I'm your host, Joy Clarkson, and an evangelist for all things good, true, and beautiful.

So make yourself a cup of tea, find somewhere comfortable, and let's dive in to this week's episode. What is a child? What is life? What am I to do

with a life? Pinocchio asked. Jabeto pulled Pinocchio onto his knee. This might be a good

time to tell you a story, said Jepetto. For this is the first thing you should know. Good stories tell us

how to live our own stories. Hello everybody and welcome back to speaking with joy. You are listening

into my series on aggressively happy,

and this week we're discussing the theme of Chapter 5, which is tell yourself a good story.

And joining me today is someone I've been excited to chat with for a few months, which is Casey Fritz. Hello, Casey. Welcome to the show. Hello, thank you.

I appreciate it. I too have been excited. Yes. So I first encountered you because we have a mutual contact,

Caitlin Carlson and Nav Press. And you're coming out...

She's the best. She really, she really is the best.

And you're, you have a book coming out this spring, which I read and loved.

That's a bit of what I just read that excerpt from.

And so when I came around to this episode, I thought, Casey's the person I want to chat

with about this, because I think we have kindred thoughts on stories and their importance.

But before we get into that, give us a little introduction to yourself, who you are, what you do,

where you live, what you love, et cetera.

Awesome.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I've been married for 17 years this year. I have two amazing children,

one boy, one girl, 15, and just turned 13. So I'm in the full teenager zone of life with my children.

...