Welcome to the Gathering Pod, the audio version of my weekly gathering room broadcast. I'm Martha Beck.

I am going to introduce to you today this gorgeous female here. Melissa Kigua, who is one of the more

brilliant people in the universe.

And I'll just say if you, I hate it when people do this for me, but I'm going to do it

for Melissa anyway.

Melissa is an award-winning poet, one of 2020 Penn American Emerging Voices Fellows.

She's also, her first book of poetry was selected for,

This is Africa's 100 Best Books in Fiction, Poetry, Memoir, and Nonfiction. She's been a radio

and television host and a producer for both commercial and broadcast radio, including the BBC World Service. She graduated from the London

School of Economics, which is incredibly she-she if you don't know what it is. It's like very, very

up there. And along with the London School of Economics started a podcast called Grit and Grace,

now runs her own podcast called

The Idealists, yeah, as well as running her own company. And she recently put out this

beautiful journal, which I have been going, I've actually been fighting with my two-year-old

child over this. There's something so beautiful about the whole book.

She calls it her Booful book.

It's a boofal book.

And it's a,

as a life coach,

I fell in love with it immediately because it's a self-coaching book.

It takes you through different prompts and exercises and ways to self-reflect. And if you go through it, I've just done

the last few days. Every day it asks you to do something audacious, which I love. And I'm going

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