A Spiritual Getaway Leads to Unlocking Transformation, Hidden Talent + The Power of Besties - Episode 29

We are all seekers. We are all seeking something from the moment we wake up. Whether it’s joy, truth, love, fulfillment, answers, money… The list could go on and on. And we all have our seeker journeys so far...we’ve featured many of them on Seeking with Robyn.

Robyn Miller Brecker and Karen Loenser catch up with Robyn’s former colleague and friend Peggy Panosh from her Oprah days. Peggy is well known as a global brand and growth expert.

Over the last few years Robyn’s been in awe of Peggy’s next chapter. She continues to be a sought after global brand and growth expert, and now she’s also become renowned for her illustrations and artwork. Peggy’s illustrations capture the heart and spirit of the people, places, and moments that touch her soul. She’s been featured on “CBS Sunday Morning,” at Soho House and she even had her first book published, “Billions of Besties.”

Robyn spent so much time with Peggy and had never seen her draw. She needed to know more about how this all came to be.

What she — and you— will learn is how a lifetime of travel and a spiritual getaway in particular, unlocked of a hidden artistic talent and led to Peggy’s next chapter. It’s a story you need to hear.

Plus, there’s so much more! Peggy shares the revelations she had while working with Howard Stern (hint: meditation) and the key life lessons she learned while working with Oprah. Think, the power of intention and the importance of being aware and owning your energy.

And of course, the power of besties! Best friends are soulmates. “Billions of Besties” shines a light on some of the most engaging, funny, inspiring, and sometimes unexpected sets of friends. It also reminds us that when we have each other’s backs, we have the power to change the world.

You can find out more about Peggy at http://www.peggypanosh.com

You can find out more (and buy) "Billions of Besties" at:
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Billions-of-Besties/Peggy-Panosh/9781982149857

You can follow Peggy on Instagram @peggypanosh

Visit theseekingcenter.com for more from Robyn + Karen, plus mega inspo -- and the best wellness + spiritual practitioners, products and experiences on the planet!

You can also follow Seeking Center on Instagram @theseekingcenter

Transcript

Have you ever wondered about life's biggest questions? Like, why am I here? What happens when we die? Or what else is out there, but we have, and we love to talk about it. And if you're listening, we think you probably do too. I'm Robyn and I'm Karen and we've spent our lives searching for those answers.

And we're seekers, just like you talking to some of the most fascinating spiritual teachers, healers and scientists. And showing you how you can use some of their spiritual practices for yourself. We'll also be sharing stories of other seekers. They motivate you to live your fullest life and we'll be translating it all.

So the spiritual stuff won't feel so out there. So if you're curious, get ready to rediscover why we're here together. We are all seekers, we're all seeking something from the moment we make. Have. Whether it's joy, truth, love, fulfillment answers, money. The list could go on and on, and we all have our secret journeys.

So far we featured. Many of them are seeking with Robyn recently. I was catching up with my former colleague and friend Peggy panache for my Oprah days. We've kept up with one another through mutual friends and social media. But we haven't had a good catch-up in quite some time, my Oprah family or like college friends, we've spent so much time together over the many years that even if we don't talk for a while, you pick up right where you left off over the last few years, I've been in awe at Peggy's next chapter.

She continues to be a sought after marketing expert. And she's also become renowned for illustrations and artwork. Her illustrations capture the heart and spirit of people, places and moments that touch her soul. She even had her first book published billions of besties, but you'll hear all about, I spent so much time with Peggy and I had never seen her drop.

I needed to know more about how this all came to be a spiritual trip, triggered and unlocking. And it's a story you all need to hear Peggy. Tell us about growing up, Peggy I'm like what led to your whole career at radio and TV and marketing? Where I was been raised in green Bay, Wisconsin. I am one of five children.

I'm the second oldest and the oldest daughter. My father was an engineer. And in a technician in radio and television, my mother was a homemaker for our young life and then worked in the medical profession and administrative role. We're a close family. I'm super close to my brothers and sisters. We didn't trap.

We weren't big travelers. I think partly because we had a huge family and partly, you know, it's expensive to travel five kids around. So we spent summers in door County, which was just lovely and idyllic and wonderful. I was raised in the Lutheran religion. I never really got it. I went through catechism and it was always just sort of a chore and a burden.

It was never anything that I really connected to. I was. And adventurous kid. I was a curious kid. I wanted to do everything. I had a lot of friends, you know, and also high school. I was introduced to drugs and alcohol and, you know, kind of went to town, exploring that. So I did hallucinogens at a really young age and smoked a lot of pot and hash and stuff like that.

I took two gap years before I went to college at the university of Wisconsin. I worked as a DJ. I lived with three roommates and we were just wild. I was a radio television. A film major. And interestingly, like not that I consciously wanted to follow in my dad's footsteps, but subconsciously, you know, I sort of did just on a different level.

I was super involved with student programming at the university, you know, social events and political events and all sorts of things. So that really helped round me out in addition to my academics. So I was highly functioning, but I was still partying. A lot. After I graduated from college, I moved to Chicago for five minutes and then met somebody at a new year's Eve party who lived in New York and worked for catch rising star and catchers can start with a comedy club in New York city.

They were opening clubs around the country, signing comedians, TB and movie deals and yada, yada, yada, where he said, we're doing an IPO. We're going public. You should come work for us. And I said, Great. What's an IPO. You're like, I didn't know anything. So I hopped on a plane, flew to New York, moved into a one bedroom apartment with a college friend in Greenwich village, worked for catchers and stuff for three years.

And it was a great time because it was like when people like, you know, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David and Adamson, all these guys were just. Starting out. And then I was tapped by infinity broadcasting and K rock radio for a marketing director job. Their morning guy was Howard stern and it was rock music the rest of the day.

So they wanted someone who could work with talents. So that's where they hired me. The interesting thing is I remember when I first met him, I had to wait because he was meditating. So his office. When I went up for the interview, I met with the general manager of the station. I met with the program director and then they wanted me to meet him and they said, Oh, you'll have to wait 15 minutes because he's meditating.

And there was some time that's Howard stern. Yeah. He's Oh my God. He's been doing TM for a zillion years. His mother. His mother was, has probably been doing TM, I would say 50 or 60 years, but that was the first time I heard about it. It was also around that time I sobered up, I stopped drinking. So I was partying pretty hard up until that point.

So now we're around 1990. I went into AA above the whole bit. And really that's when also I started working on my conscious contact with God. Now we've been thinking about in retrospect, you know, it's like how that coincided with actually hearing about what meditation was. I never really knew, but I also knew working at the station Howard's office was literally right next to mine.

He would meditate the first thing he came off the air and that's when I like started, you know, like bearing witness, like, Oh, it's a practice. Did you ever talk to him about it, about why he did it or what he got out of it? Did he ever share? He's shared it very publicly. He is an incredibly present person and you know, when he's on the air and off my experience with him is he stands in his truth.

So whether you love him or hate him, You know, he is very true to who he is. I will also say that professionally working with him and working with K rock radio and infinity broadcasting at that time, it was a remarkable experience. It was fun. It was fascinating readers of very immediate medium. So unlike television in radio, you can write something out, give it to me.

I can say it. It's on the air in like two seconds. And also it's like theater of the mind. So it's very intimate. So you only use, so your mind, your eye visualizes, what you're hearing and oftentimes have headphones in or you're in a car. So it's just you and whatever you're listening to. And it's it, it was a heightened experience also, too.

What I loved about that time in my career is I was able to do a lot. Because I demonstrated that I could get stuff done that I was trustworthy, but also it's like I had, you know, good judgment and a good, healthy curiosity and enough bad-ass Surrey. We could do great things. So yeah, it was, it was a great time.

And then it would lead to that. He broadcasting did a reverse takeover of CBS for two radio syndication companies or CBS radio networks and Westwood one. So I became the head of marketing. Communications and promotions for the combined radio networks. So we were the biggest and the carrier editor in the world.

We had everything from like the Olympics to the Grammys, to the super bowl. Like you name it, we syndicated it. So it was like a great as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, I wonder in your life. Where you decided to get sober and you're having all these experiences at work and opening up to wait. There's something bigger going on in addition to what I'm doing day to day from an astrological perspective, which I don't know if you've looked at, but I'm wondering if that's when your Saturn return, which is usually happens between the ages of like 20 and 32 ish is when that happens.

And I wonder for you, if that was that's, that's like. 30 to 32 is when this stuff was happening, by the way, that's also, I started dabbling being in writing radio in New York at that age, with that much pressure going on around you. I mean, getting sober could not have been just like, Oh, this is going to do it.

I mean, it had to have been a real conscious. Shift for you. It was very much a conscious shift and I have the good fortune. I was able to make friends who are still my very best friends today, who are also in the program. So that kind of fellowship and support made a huge difference. But also I think I hit my bottom.

So I was ready and open for change transformation and more something specific happened that airline champagne that I sobered up, it was I'm laughing because I was just so out of control, it was the late eighties. So my. 31 year anniversary was just on January 28th. I had become a blackout drinker and I was in Vermont with one of my best friends at the time.

He is still a really close friend today. We were staying at a friend's house and I had blacked out for almost an entire weekend. That was a culmination of eight months of real recklessness that I was scared. I was really, really scared. Well level you right to your knees to say like, help me. I need to figure this out.

Yeah. And also I was powerless, you know, that's the first step I was powerless over drugs and alcohol. I was in a place where I was ready to admit that I didn't know what was next, but I was ready to admit that. And even if you are someone who hasn't hit. That with drugs and alcohol. I was actually just having this conversation recently about how in this last year, let's say you're, you're an overdue or you're addicted to just, I mean, you could be addicted to so many different things and people can relate even in this last year to being stopped in their tracks.

And having to actually like look at themselves because they can't just do that's. What you learned then? Is it yourself that was around the time that you decided to do some other traveling Robynson, you went to 70 countries or something. The same time I started doing traveling little trips, and then I was doing modeling for this painter.

Her name was Gunilla Feigenbaum. So I would go and pose and she would paint and we would talk. And I was telling her that I had vacation time coming up and I had nobody to travel with. Like my regular playmates couldn't break away. And she said, go by yourself. And that was the first time I was like, Oh, it never occurred to me to, I was probably like 30, 31.

And she said, go by yourself. And I said, okay. And she said, make your first trip someplace easy. So I decided Bermuda. I learned to be really comfortable traveling alone and really loving traveling alone because I also have some very good friends that I love traveling with, but if they're not available or if they've already been where I wanted to go, like I have no problem picking up and going by myself, what I learned very quickly is it's a different kind of presence.

I remember that first trip to Bermuda. I just. I felt myself differently. I was able to save her things differently. I was slower, you know, I was still like insecure, but also that helped me be vulnerable. Very quickly, got much more adventurous about my destinations and I would also. I find it naturally a lot of the places that it would be drawn to had like architecture that touched my soul and ancient mysteries and sacred spaces that I really like places like chits need said Mexico or anger, rotten Cambodia.

Or a Tiger's nest or any of the monasteries in Butan, or, you know, the Shwedagon pagoda in Yangon, in Burma, you know, like, but you know, Bali, like each place I went, there was sort of a different sort of transformation that would happen a different sort of presence. You know, being able to be in these places where people practice their spiritual connections, you know, with God or their higher power or.

However they believed, but to be able to have the good fortune, to be able to physically go to these places and experience them was something that I never took for granted, you know, travel also became a spirit. Like I remember I climbed Kilimanjaro and with my friend, Robyn and I didn't summit though I got altitude sickness at the last base camp and he had to come down.

So that's on my list to go back and actually summit. One thing that you get local guides. That must go up with you with the guide, say to you, is. Poli poli and poli poli means slow down, but what you would also say savor, savor, savor. Yeah. So travel very much became a way for me to contact with that, which is greater than myself and also connect with the people and really learn from them.

And it still is one of my. Like greatest joys and pleasures. And it makes me crazy that I can hop on a plane and get my passwords. I think it's so interesting too. But he was raised Lutheran and was not like, particularly excited about religion in any way. Found such fascination. When you went and traveled at everyone else's religion, it was like a different kind of observation, maybe.

Well, it was a need though, because I think the need, since I was little, was always there to connect to with a power that was greater than myself. It didn't make sense. You know, I was forced to memorize scripture rather than explaining to me what does this mean? Like I don't get it. I think the desire was always there.

Looking back, there was a knowing there even as a little kid, like there was unknowing when I was ready to go. Well, that's what I was wondering because not everybody has the travel bug, right. Not everybody has the, I hope that we all have this. Want of knowing about something bigger than ourselves. I hope that that's the case, but I don't think everyone has it in the same way.

So that doesn't sound like it was coming from necessarily your family or your every day. It was like your own was your own thing. It was curiosity to be able to go and to do it by yourself. When I went to Birmingham was, you know, under military rule. And I remember, you know, I got there and it. I was under, you know, this extended trip around Southeast Asia, Robyn.

This was actually right before I moved Chicago from New York. I had quit my job in New York. I broke up with my boyfriend of 10 years. I sold my apartment was like, I'm done with all of this. And I went to Southeast Asian trip to run, but I was in Thailand and it took a while to get my visa to go into.

Burma. I finally did. I was like so excited, but it was also like, you know, it was a very difficult time to be in that country, like it is now. But I remember I got there, he put my stuff in, in my hotel and then I walked around the big Buddhist temple is the Shwedagon pagoda. Which is just like, it's huge.

It's massive. It's like a city. It's unbelievable. And I was walking around in this monk, came up to me and he said, are you American? And I said, yes. And he said, will you come speak at my school? And I said, yes. He said, come here tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. I said, okay. And then I was like, wait, what did I just do?

I agree too. And you know, keep in mind that air, you know, it's like young military guys with AK, like with machine guns. And I went back to my hotel and I went to the concierge and I said, What is this? And he said, look, you know, that's how school kids learn what's happening outside of the country is from tourists coming and speaking at the school.

So they do this under the radar because there's no internet, they have no access to outside newspaper. They don't know what's happening other than what the hunters. Feeding them. So anyway, so the next morning I got up, I went to this school, which was on these crowded streets and it was on the second floor above this noodle shop.

And I go into the class and there's probably, I don't know, like a hundred kids in this class ranging from, I would say like 10 to 18 and I see the monk and he said, ah, the America, you come, go. And he puts me in front of the class. He said, just speak English. And he said, because that's how they learn how to speak English.

And I said, Oh, okay, well, so I'm in front of the chalkboard. And I said, okay. So my name is Peggy. I flew here from New York city. I drew a really bad map of the world and I said, here's New York city. I flow to flew to Los Angeles. Then to Singapore just gave them the basics. I work in New York and then. You know, tell them a little about myself.

And then the first kid raises their hand. The first question was, are you married? And I said, no, I'm not. The second question was, why not? But I asked the monk after I said, why did you come up to me? And he said one, because you'd look like an American tourist. And number two is because he said, you, you seem to, yeah, really cool.

And just think about like however long ago that trip was and how that has. Stayed with you. Oh yeah. I'll never forget it. That's like a, meant to be moment for you, you know, you were at the right time and the right place. For that month I could have said no. Yeah. Could have been fearful and said no. And you also strike me as someone who does not live in fear because you wouldn't have right.

I mean, I don't live in fear, but I experience fear. So it's different. Yeah. In some respects, fear has been a great motivator, a great driver. To do things that I'm not comfortable doing. I've also learned that fear is often a feeling that isn't a fact, I experienced fear. I recognize fear. Sometimes it takes me a minute to recognize that when I'm feeling is fear, but also I don't live in it because I have the tools to like walk through it and pause, meaning, you know, I have meditation, I have prayer of the fellowship of going to meetings to help me deal with it.

Well, and it's a trusting both in yourself. And in that's something bigger. It also seems Peggy that you're also driven by that spirit of adventure too. Like there's something that happens to you when you get to those places that surmounts any fear. Yeah. And it's just like, you know, that's where the magic happens.

Let's talk about the fact that you decided to quit your job. You went to Southeast Asia and then you moved to Chicago, which is, I know where you and I met. And I actually remember sitting with you, you hadn't. Even accepted the job at Harpo yet. And we were, you were telling me all about this trip and all about what happened with that conversation stuck with me because you inspired me.

Oh, you're kidding. No, I remember thinking you did all that on your own. And I found that I hadn't met many people at that point who had done all of that on their own and made all these decisions and. Change their life. Oh, I love that. So how that happened, New York and I decided to move to Chicago and volunteer on Obama's first presidential campaign.

And it was also, I was able to be back in the Midwest. My mother's health started declining, so I could still be in a big city. But still get, you know, to be of service to my mother very easily within like a couple of hours. I was introduced to Harriet by a mutual friend in New York, Harriet Seidler, who we love Harriet.

I started talking, I started as a consultant and then a position was created after a few months of consulting. And so that's how he and I was actually only going to do it. For like, you know, a couple of years and then go back to New York and what was almost nine years later, I was like, Oh, I remember, I remember you really just going to be a blip.

It's going to be just for a second. You don't God, what a wonderful adventure that was. Yeah. And would you say that your experiences both from traveling and maybe even from a spiritual place continued because I even think that, you know, Oprah's message. There is such a wonderful high bar of excellence and such amazing colleagues, including you like just really formidable people who knew how to move mountains.

And there was a fearlessness and intelligent fearlessness that existed throughout. There were two big things. One is just working from a place of intention and that clarity is something that it's exactly one of the reasons why. I ended up there, but I didn't even know it, but is to learn what that meant and to be intentional about life decisions, business decisions, choices, thinking, you know, was a total game changer and absolutely transformative.

And then the other thing was it, remember Robyn was assigning to Oprah's office, but I think it was Dr. Jill Bolte. Taylor, who said you're responsible for the energy that you bring into this room? It's such a powerful statement. Yes. Yes. It was like, that was like. That was the other big, giant learning. Do you remember Robyn?

In my office, I had, this was a very crude drawing and it wasn't mine. It was like two circles. There was a little circle inside of a big circle. So since we're on, this is a podcast and trying to describe it. So inside the little circle, it said, this is where you are. And then outside of the little circle on this one, Base, it says, this is where the magic happens.

It's like this best space. That was my North star, but where the magic happens is, you know, with intentionality and also for me with presence and I am responsible for energy. I bring into any space, any room, any person, any relationship, any endeavor that I do, we need to take responsibility for the energy we bring to the room.

And also for me, it was. First, it was like to be aware of it, you know? Yes. But she, you know, and I'm, I am also so aware of it now. I'm not or if my own energy, but also like I can tell, like when you would come into my office or I would come into yours, the energy was all always like super good in vibe-y.

Right. We also know that the spaces that we would go in where the energy wasn't that, you know, yes. Yes, you can fit. It becomes tangible and doable thing. Yes. Mean people don't know it. That's the sad thing. It's like, it's so easy, right. To get sucked into the soup of everybody else's energy and to get lost.

In that, and then just feel like it's it's you, but it's, it's not yours. And the fact that like, even the fact pay you, that you drew the circle, like you drew a circle around your own little energy, because you always have to do that in those situations. Right. But it's the recognition that that's what you have the control over.

That's so important. Well, and that we also have the power to change our vibe, right. So no, none of us are perfect, you know, and we're, so we go through our ups and downs even within a day. Right. But if you can be aware enough to be like, I feel really low vibrate now, what can I do to change that? As long as you are aware of it and what you're bringing both to yourself and to others, That would, I mean, if everybody was aware of that, this world would be a very different place, it would just be, just think about it.

Cause if everybody, if we were all aware all the time, we would be energized and good vibes and the collective consciousness would be positive. It's cement. It reinforced it, cemented something that I'll read. That is wherever I go. I take myself with me. So even if I try to like escape, run, flee, whatever, I'm still with myself.

Yes. And you can't blame others for how you're feeling. And I think that that is, you know, people go to method is to blame others for their bad mood or for. Putting them in a bad mood that changes the game. When you understand you are responsible and then, you know, you can change that yourself. That's right.

So then you left Chicago. So I moved back to New York. So I had for the 20 years before he moved to Chicago, I'd always lived in Manhattan. So when I moved back, I thought, Oh, this time I want to live in Brooklyn. So Howie green, my real estate agent. Who is also like a comedian. He's so funny. So anyway, he found this like amazing apartment in Dumbo, Brooklyn, Dumbo, meaning down under the Manhattan bridge overpass.

So it's this great little enclave hip beautiful, gorgeous views of the city, right at the foot of the Brooklyn bridge. It was amazing. I continued to do consulting work for own with Harriet. I started getting other consulting clients. And then I decided that I wanted to just stop everything and like take an intentional year off.

So I did, and I was very untethered. Like I was not comfortable. It was not, I wasn't used to it. I was always using. Used to having, you know, sort of my career to define my purpose. And so I didn't have that. And also, you know, like days are never long enough for me. There's, I'd like to do so many things and experience so many things.

So suddenly I had all of this time and I, I just, I was like, wait, what? It was very overwhelming. And I went on this. This trip to Santa Fe with my two best friends, Robyn and Jenny, we went to this place called sunrise Springs, great shamans and practitioners. And, you know, I went, my intention of that experience was I wanted to get just cracked, open, like an egg.

I didn't know what I was looking for or wanted. All I knew is that I was completely surrendered to the experience and whatever it had to offer, there was absolutely a power greater than myself at work. So, you know, we go, it's the kind of places where, you know, you, there's a sweat lodge, you do a vision, there's all these different things that you can do.

So have you ever done a sweat lodge? I have not. Okay. I look forward to doing it, but I have not done it. I've done. So actually the day before the sweat, sweat lodge about. An hour outside of Santa Fe, we went to these hot Springs and Sunrise Springs. And it's very, it's an out of body experience. It's like really amazing.

Cause it's almost like it's a cleansing, it's a release. And I remember going back to Santa Fe, I got really sick. And did you have the driver pull over the side of the road, but the cleansing. From like what I've heard the group that it was just purging Virgin. And then so a sweat lodge, which I only did for a second because I just in this project, but I've done sweat lodges and other places.

So you take off your clothes. If you're comfortable, if the heat you literally sweat out. Toxins, but also you allow the spirits to come in and guide you through this experience. And it is, it is a remarkable, remarkable experience. I also did this hike with this vision guy, and I want to point out that you did not do Iowaska.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I just want people who are listening. Yeah, I did not do Iowaska. I, I can't do Iowaska because it would, for me, it would be a slip. I don't know if it's similar, but it was a dramatic and dynamic and amazing experience. I think it was one of the last days in Santa Fe, we were outside was a beautiful sunny day by this medicine wheel.

And the shaman said, find your place three, find a place separate apart from each other and sit and I will come find you. So I'm sitting under this tree. It's a beautiful, like a Lang you know, and I was transported back. Two, when I was a teenager laying in our backyard on town hall road, looking up at trees, blue sky.

I mean, I was there and then she came by and she dropped off. She sat down next to me, paper and some pens and she walked away. And so, so it was kind of in a trance. So it came out. And I just started doodling and it wasn't good, but I liked it. I, and then after that we had another experience with another woman who we did sort of this, this work with paint, black paint and paint brushes.

Actually we let our spirits guide our emotions with the paintbrush and it was like, that was really like other worldly ingrained and, okay, fine. So, and then after. They flew back to their respective homes. I have to, my Jeep went to Abacus. You went to Georgia O'Keeffe studio and I'd been there before, but I experienced it completely differently.

And then advocate, which is where she lived. I mean, the canyons, the mountains look like. Paintings. I felt it. So I got back to New York and went to, you know, the art supply store. I got some pens and stuff, and I just started drawing like every day, like after, you know, I meditate in the morning, I would just draw for like a half hour.

And the more I drew, the more I liked it. And the more I liked it, the better I got and I would also push myself. Then I started posting stuff on Instagram. And then do you know the show CBS Sunday morning? Yeah. So I, so that they use sons as interstitials on the show. So I thought, well, I'm going to send them a bunch of drop a bunch of sons and send them.

So he did get an email from this woman and her title is producer slash son coordinator. She said, we love your work. We're going to use some of these. I said, okay, great. So that opened up for me. And then. Rosewood hotels and resorts. I started doing work for them. And then one of the Soho house outlets in Manhattan Ludlow house, I did an artist in residence and I did a piece that they featured.

And so that the house that reads money for a women's shelter, but was things started happening. And one day I was driving out. To my friend Susie's house, Susie errands in New Jersey. And I was listening to NPR and I was listening to this interview with beanie Feldstein, and she was talking about the movie Booksmart and staying friendships.

If a God, you know, friendships, that's her best friends. There are millions of, and there's your billions of them? Oh my God. Billions of besties one, that'd be a fun book. And I got to Susie's and I remember this was in July. 2019. I said, Susie, what do you think about doing a book it's called billions of besties to book Abbas, best friends.

She's like, yeah. Okay. And then the next week I had a meeting with Theresa DiMasi a publisher at Simon and Schuster who was introduced. To me by my friend, Jennifer, and what I wanted her to do was just look at my drawings and let me know if I had game. And so she looked at me, she said, yeah, like your stuff.

She said, do you have any ideas for a book? And I said, yeah. How about billions of besties, blah, blah, blah. And she said, I'll Greenlight that book right now. And she said, do you know how to write a book proposal? And I said, no. And she said, okay, here's sort of the format, blah, blah, blah. So I went back to Susan and said, Susie, this thing has the green lights.

We. Started the book in fall of 2019, and it was published last October, billions of best speeds, celebration, fascinating and Sibley, exceptional friendships. Yeah. And think about how that came to you. We always talk about actually how long drives. Somehow it like allows spirit or something bigger than ourselves to come in because it's like where we get in a zone.

Right. You're in your phone, you're listening. And somehow you're, you're hearing the word whispers differently. Don't you think? Elizabeth Gilbert says. I heard her say this one time and it's so true. She said creativity is flying around all over the place. It's just looking for places and people and vessels to come out.

I use it 1000000%. Believe that does happen. It was what you said when you were going to Santa Fe, it was like the first time in your life that you were. I love you used the word untethered. Untethered from work, you had kind of released that. And so then you opened yourself up to the possibilities and then that whole experience opened up your, your spirit in a way that it never had the freedom to explore before.

Yeah. So it seems like it evolved. Like, it just was like, Oh my gosh, there's my chance. And I think I would love for it. Everybody watching her listening to understand that I've spent a lot of time with Peggy. Prior to this, and I'd never seen her draw when I was under that tree and I was 17 years old. So in high school and like grammar school and high school, I would draw, I remember making paper dolls for my sisters.

And I remember like taking our class in high school, but, you know, I would make like, you know, bonds, you know what I mean? Like it wasn't. There wasn't and I remembered my mother too, is that she encouraged my art, but at the time I just, you know, I wasn't in a place to like, feel it. So it's all over 40 years later, I started illustrate well, and that's what I want everybody to take in that we may have these gifts we don't even know about, and they may not come to you until later in life.

Like, you know, I mean, it is a million years. You wouldn't have thought, no, this is what you'd be doing now, after this unbelievable career that you've had in radio and TV and digital and experiential stuff. I mean, not to say that that's gone, but this is a whole new chapter. And you know what maybe realize too, like, I didn't get the note until later that you can be more than one thing.

You know, I was very, very linear, very one dimensional in my career pursuit because, you know, I always thought, Oh, you, you drive, you know, you find a goal and you drive towards, but yeah, it's like you realize I can do both. And other things. I was like in a place to receive this. Ability in this talent. Well, and then I feel like you listened to the whisper and I know for all of us, because you know, we we've been in the Oprah world in some way for a while.

That, that term, right. Like listen to the whispers before it becomes the, but you listen to the whisper back from that trip. You didn't let it go. You will allow yourself to be in it and look where it's taken you. I mean, you, you actually have your own. You have a, you have a book too, you know, I was, I had a good creative partner.

Susie is, you know, a terrific writer. Like it just, the whole thing worked well. It like vibed really well. Plus, you know, it's interesting because. You know, it's a book about friendships and there are, as in celebrating friendships and there's 10 chapters in the books and, you know, it's like classic best friends and, you know, Hollywood, best friends and unexpected, best friends, but you know, it came up in October.

And if you look at last year and sort of all the vitriol and all the negative and all the difficult things that we still have to deal with, but just like all of that negative, heavy, intensely troubling. Energy that we were dealing with. We were both so proud to be able to put out a body of work that was about delight and celebration and friendships in that way, which brings us together rather than that, which pulls us apart.

So in our own little way, this little piece of light. Billions of besties does exactly that. I love that you call it a piece of light. That's exactly what it is. You know, it's like we have this ability to put this positivity and give something to, and I want to just add to that because I think now, you know, our whole world has changed.

Or perspectives have changed. I was just talking to someone this morning about how isolated still a lot of people are friendships have become even more important than ever before, because they can be your only outlet. The book is even more important to shine that light. And I was just reading a footnote about the book and it says our best friends are our soulmates.

They understand us when no one else. It does lift us up and bring out the best in us. It's a relationship based on a bond that can't always be described, but it's always magical. It's so true. And I just love that because sometimes I think it's easy to take friendships for granted, but we all need those besties that.

Understand our heart and soul. It's a book of celebration that I think needed to be published and the way Allister. I mean, there's no way you can imagine that you weren't always doing that when you see the illustrations, they just feel so part of your, like, DNA. Like, they've just, they've obviously been in there a long time, just waiting.

They have personality, you're capturing personality, but you, I can feel, I see your own personality and they're two unique and distinct and they are, they are pieces of light. I love favorite. Here's a, so I think there's, so we have a chapter. Of unexpected friendships. And so my favorite is RBG and Antonin Scalia.

And because they were dear close, good friends, but they were politically opposed. They were at the absolute opposite end of the spectrum, but they went to the opera together. They traveled the world together with their, you know, his wife and her husband together. They would have dinner parties, you know, they love spending time together.

But they fundamental things that right now are tearing people apart. Here's another one, Hunter Thompson and Pappy cannon again, opposite ends of the spectrum later in life. They spoke to each other every single day, but there was opposite is opposite can be. So those are some of my favorites. I love, you know, Oprah and Gail, obviously, you know, this.

Quintessential like my best friend. I love Letterman and bill Murray, you know, David Bowie and Lou Reed, Philman Louise, like all these fictional characters. So defining there are real ones. There's cartoon ones, they're imaginary ones, but it's all you know, about the same thing. It's like what you said, care and that magic and alchemy that brings people together.

However, how that ever that connection comes alive for you. Is there anything else that you would want to share with people who are seekers? Yes. So like be open to what's possible and don't write the end of the script. It's like, we know what we know. We don't know what we don't know. It's always been in that.

Space of what I don't know, you know, that's where I've been able to learn more about who I am and what I have the capacity and the ability to do for myself. And for other people enjoy the journey. I am still very much a work in progress. There is, you know, I have a, I have a long way to go, and I will say that there have been very difficult parts of my journey, but I wouldn't trade anything, be present and know you can be more than one thing.

And know that you can be more than once thing and also just continuously energize good vibrations because it makes a difference for yourself and for the world. Peggy, thank you for being you. Thank you for putting out light in this universe. Thanks for being a light in this universe. Thanks for being my friend.

Oh, it's my God. Thank you so fortunate. I'm so fortunate. I'm so glad that you and Karen now know each other and really thanks for sharing your journey and thank you for. Living the life you've lived so far and I'm just so excited to see where else they're going to go. And by the way, back at you sister, I feel the same way.

It's, you know, thank you for asking me to join both of you today. And Robyn, I love seeing, you know, I've known you for. I don't know, 15 years more. I love to see like what's happening in this part of your life and what you're giving back to the world. So back at your sister, I love you testes. Yes. To besties

such a pleasure. Visit https://peggypanosh.com/. https://peggypanosh.com/ to find out more about her book, artwork and marketing consulting offerings. You can also follow Peggy on Instagram at peggypanosh .