My guest today, Melissa Bernstein, along with her husband Doug, is the co founder of the legendary toy company Melissa and Doug, which has created over 5000 children's products and sold billions of dollars of toys since its inception.
And Melissa and Doug started the business in their garage back in 1988.
They have been on a mission ever since to provide these open ended, inventive, non technology driven playthings.
Young kids.
Sounds like a dream life, right?
But throughout Melissa's remarkable career, she kept her secret lifelong battle with severe existential depression and anxiety a secret.
She spoke about it publicly, I think, for the first time, actually, on an earlier episode of Good Life project a few years back.
And that moment became a bit of an inciting incident to come more fully out of the shadows and share her story in a much bigger way and to begin to devote herself to building community and experiences and solutions to help others moving through struggle and darkness feel less alone.
Among those offerings is her moving new book, Lifelines, that takes you deep into her story and then takes you along the journey of discovery and creation that would eventually become Lifelines.com, an online ecosystem that she and Doug are underwriting to really support those seeking support, guidance, and community on their mental health journeys.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
You and I have such a fun history around this, like, new season of life that you're stepping into.
I was funny, I was looking back at the first email I got, and it was from someone on your team.
It was October of 2017, and you were heading into the city, I think it was, to speak at she summit, and this person said, hey, listen, you know, like, Melissa's been, like, listening to the show.
Are you cool?
Just hanging out and saying hi?
I was like, of course.
And you came over, and my expectation was super cool.
She seems like a really, like, neat person.
Like, they've built this really awesome company.