00:07:57.200And so you don't really have too much time to think about it.
00:08:02.060You're kind of in the in the midst of it all, figuring it out.
00:08:05.840And I think it's not only that short time period, but it's also this, you know, serving as a first lady or spouse to head of state. Maybe one of the things that people know most about it is that there is no rule book, right? There's no guidelines. It's not a real job. And yet it has all these expectations.
00:08:23.580And so in some senses, that's quite stressful, or at least for me, because I'm, you know, if I buy a toaster, I read the rule book, I read the manual for how to use that toaster. And all of a sudden, I had this role that I wanted to serve in to the best of my ability, but I didn't want to do it wrong. And yet I had no guidelines for how to do it right.
00:08:42.040And I think it just took me that kind of mental shift to think, well, if there is no rulebook, I can't be breaking any rules. I just have to serve, you know, trust my instinct and my integrity.
00:08:56.760And that's a little bit why I wrote a book about the experience, because it was so unusual,
00:09:00.860but I hope was encouraging for the idea of thinking that in our lives, we have so many
00:09:07.460different unexpected things that happen to us. This is a kind of extreme example,
00:09:11.980an extreme example of a kind of positive shift, which is therefore also intimidating. But we,
00:09:19.180you know, throughout the course of all of our lives, we've just accumulated this kind of
00:09:23.320toolbox of experiences and adventures and stories that we actually sometimes surprisingly can use
00:09:33.320to serve even in these more unusual circumstances. I should also add, because you used the word
00:09:40.140identity, just this idea of the fact that in Iceland here, I all of a sudden also became
00:09:47.360nationally known as someone's wife. And so what I really wondered was what's going to happen to
00:09:53.740Eliza in this whole adventure? Because all of a sudden I have this platform. I have this moment
00:09:58.560where people are maybe going to listen a little bit more to what I have to say, but are they going
00:10:02.800to listen to what Eliza has to say? Is Eliza allowed to speak when I only have this platform
00:10:07.200because it's something my husband had achieved? And that was also something that I grappled with,
00:10:12.780I would say, especially in the early days, in terms of, you know, am I allowed to use this platform?
00:10:42.260It absolutely does. But, you know, to become it on such a public scale. So then how did how did you reconcile those two things? You know, you're publicly known. You're like, I am wife of. Right. Yeah. Which I'm proud of, of course. Of course. Of course. But then also, I am Eliza. Like, how do you bring those two things together, but then also keep them apart?
00:11:03.260Yeah. You know, it was the forever balancing act. Right. I think I really had to ultimately rely on just trying to trust in who I was. And, you know, either, you know, having, you know, relying on my former experience, having self-confidence, having a sense of humor, asking for help when I need it, and then also faking it when any of those were in short supply, obviously.
00:11:30.940Yep. I think that it was really important to me to try not to lose sense of who I was. And at the end of the day, it really is just easier to be yourself in most circumstances because you don't have to remind yourself, who am I supposed to be today? What hat am I supposed to be wearing today? You can just be who you are.
00:11:52.740And again, that was that line of me, Eliza, I am a very, I want to say sort of down to earth, grounded person, casual, you know, not in a sloppy way, but, you know, not super, super formal.
00:12:13.120and so it was a matter of finding that right line of course because you're doing obviously your best
00:12:18.480to serve with dignity in this office and and and to treat everything around it with that respect
00:12:23.520and seriousness that that deserves obviously right like the gravitas that that deserves of
00:12:29.780course yeah thank you exactly yeah you see i've been on a book tour i've forgotten all my words
00:12:34.860the words get oh my gosh right yeah i mean it's also so the it's the book tour it's the being a
00:12:41.820mom of four kids. It's the perimenopause menopause brain that I'm going through right now. I'm like,
00:12:46.560I don't remember anything. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But it's true. I mean,
00:12:51.460you are. And, you know, I devoured your book. We sell copies in our bookstore. And actually,
00:12:59.820I gave some copies to recent graduates, because I think that a lot of young women these days are
00:13:06.160trying to figure out who am I and who do I want to be in the world? And can I be me when I'm
00:13:11.260Looking at all of these different ways of being a woman, especially on social media, a lot of which are not authentic, right?
00:14:09.360But also because, you know, even though very, very few people in the world end up married to a head estate, everybody, everybody experiences change in their lives, experiences change that on the surface is a positive change.
00:14:24.480And we have lots of books and they're necessary and they're important books about negative change, horrible things that can happen to us, to people that we love and how we overcome that.
00:16:41.920Chew on this bold question from Dantene Gum.
00:16:44.260is it ever okay to compliment a millennial on their skinny jeans in 2026
00:16:53.040dentine too bold what's the most fun you've had as the most as the first lady of iceland
00:17:00.700oh my gosh uh i i love how you phrase that question because sometimes i'm asked like what's
00:17:06.800the most memorable thing that's happened or other things and i like how you ask it in a
00:17:10.900the fun way because it was so much fun. And I'm glad that you noticed that because of course I
00:17:15.880talk about, you have to talk about the tensions or the frustrating things or the, these tiny
00:17:19.880little microaggressions that can kind of gnaw away. But, but the, the, the core of it was fun
00:17:26.300and, and, um, enriching and, uh, just, just a wonderful, I'm just so honored that, that I had
00:17:34.040the opportunity to do it. So what was the most fun? Um, there are so many things that stick with
00:17:38.480me. And I guess I'll, I'll tell you a couple of stories if I may, because we're talking about
00:17:41.940stories and then I'll maybe tell you my overall, um, impression. Um, but in terms of the fun,
00:17:48.300and I hope there's lots of these funny stories, you know, we, I don't know, it's really special
00:17:52.440to me that we went on a state visit to Canada, which is where I grew up and I grew up in Ottawa,
00:17:57.120the capital. So that's where we went on the state visit. And so to go on a state visit to my hometown,
00:18:01.360uh, where my family, uh, my brothers and my aunts, my parents could go to the state dinner,
00:18:07.380was pretty exciting. I made a visit to the White House in the US to attend a Women's History Month
00:18:15.000event in 2023. And afterwards, then President Biden called my mom with my cell phone on the
00:18:24.420farm in Canada to say hello. And, you know, that was pretty fun and pretty surreal. Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:30.420Yeah. I have to say, you know, kudos to my mom who, when she picked up the phone, which was my
00:18:36.140phone, which was an unlisted number, so it doesn't say who it is. And the person at the other end
00:18:39.700said, Hi, it's President Biden calling here. My mom just said, Oh, hi, how are you doing? Like it
00:18:44.680was like the neighbor borrowing eggs or something. She was like, I was just waiting for your call
00:18:49.260here. So there was, you know, so many little moments like that. And I tell a lot of those
00:18:55.280different stories in the book. And I think, you know, my overall impression, which almost sounds
00:19:01.920cheesy, but it's actually true, is how it just really made me feel more of an optimist in society
00:19:07.260because I can't think of really many other positions where you get to see so many different
00:19:12.860facets of things, right? Both within Iceland, because we traveled all over within Iceland,
00:19:17.020but also abroad, because you see cultural events, you see sporting events, you go to business events,
00:19:21.900you go to schools and old age homes and tourism clusters and startups and just every kind of
00:19:27.240sector and environment, healthcare centers. And you really see that most people are trying to do
00:19:33.560their best. Most people are, you know, just trying to do their part. And so many people do so much
00:19:40.580more than their part, right? So many people are baking the pie for the church bazaar, or they're
00:19:44.740knitting little hats for the babies, or they're volunteering for the search and rescue crew, or
00:19:50.040they're, you know, helping out at their kids' schools, or doing all these, you know, all these
00:19:54.660different kinds of things and it really just sort of bolstered my faith in humanity in that sense
00:19:59.980to get to see that you know these are people who are famous and they're not trying to get famous
00:20:04.200they're not trying to get rich they're not trying to they're just because they're just people like
00:20:08.180we all are right like trying to do their trying to do their part in their communities and i think
00:20:12.900um i think that that is most people and and that uh really made me optimistic and i think we could
00:20:20.020use a bit more of that jolt of positivity in the world. Oh, my God. We could use so much more of
00:20:25.240that positivity in the world. And I love hearing that from you, someone who has traveled so
00:20:29.520extensively, because I think it's really easy to lose ourselves in the negativity of the world
00:20:36.040right now. But there is so much positivity. And I think about this a lot because I do
00:20:41.780report so much on social media. Social media highlights the bad things so much more than
00:20:49.060the good things. I think that rage bait is often more viral than good and happy things. And so
00:20:54.980we start to think that the, you know, good things happening around us and, you know,
00:21:02.480these heroes, these everyday heroes aren't around anymore. And that's just not true. We just don't
00:21:07.100see them as much. Exactly. Maria Ressa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, who's a journalist from
00:21:12.820the Philippines, has done a lot of research on online and the threats that are going on online.
00:21:17.520You know, we all hear those statistics about how, you know, lies spread faster than the truth online. But her research also showed that inspiration spreads faster than hate. Because we as humans, we want to hear those inspiring stories. But I think you're right that it's a balance of remembering, you know, while the interconnected world can help us a lot, you know, you and I wouldn't be here talking if that didn't exist.
00:21:44.440can connect us in many ways. It also, in other ways, is not reality. And I feel fortunate,
00:21:52.980you know, that I had exposure to that, but I tried to do my small part to, as you said,
00:21:58.480I curated a social media image and I was kind of a one woman show in that sense as First Lady,
00:22:03.040like I managed my own social media accounts. And so that allowed me to curate in that sense,
00:22:09.340the type of First Lady I wanted to be seen as, right? Someone who was active, who was giving
00:22:12.820speeches, but also who didn't Photoshop my photos or refuse to post something unless I had the
00:22:19.480perfect haircut or it was from the right side or all of that, because that's not how we live our
00:22:25.300lives. And I think that that, you know, we need to try to remember that with each other because
00:22:32.640otherwise, you know, then we can continue to use social media as a way of connecting with each
00:22:38.640other instead, which I think is really important. We have to want to continue to nurture and
00:22:44.360maintain those connections because there is a lot of negativity in the world. I'm not a Pollyanna.
00:22:50.600We have a lot of challenges in the world right now. It doesn't help anybody to bury our heads
00:22:56.560in the sand and to say that it's just hype and it's not going on. We need to acknowledge that.
00:23:03.000But what we also need to do is lose the feeling of powerlessness as to what we can do, because there are so many challenges in the world right now and so much polarization that I think that there is sometimes a feeling that if I am not doing everything, I might as well not do anything.
00:23:22.380And that's something else that serving in this role taught me.
00:23:26.680You know, the president of Iceland, it's not a political role.
00:23:28.940You're not a member of a political party.
00:29:20.980And when we get back, I'd want to dig into Iceland, which we talked about the first time that you were on this, you know, about what can the rest of the world take away from Iceland in terms of coming together as community and also our general welfare and happiness.
00:29:42.700Okay, we are back. Iceland constantly ranks as one of the top happy, joyful countries in the world. You were not originally from Iceland. You're from rural Canada. What has living in Iceland and serving the country taught you about what makes them particularly, perhaps, and I don't even want to say happy because I don't think happy is ever the right word. I think it's more content.
00:30:07.880so yeah that's an interesting uh way of phrasing it so we have this phrase in icelandic
00:30:13.640which means a guest's eyes see more clearly or that's kind of a rough translation of it
00:30:19.780which is this idea she said like i was 27 when i moved to iceland and so i i do see the country
00:30:25.500even though i consider myself icelandic and i've been here for most of my adult life and
00:30:29.120i do kind of see things a little bit differently because maybe i appreciate things that someone who
00:30:33.600was born and raised here just takes for granted more. And, you know, absolutely one of the things
00:30:39.580that I love about living here is how high it is on those important indices in life, right?0.90
00:30:46.940Most peaceful in the world, second happiest, closest to close any gender gap, like, and of
00:30:51.400course, all of these things are interconnected, right? So the standard of living is generally
00:30:57.120very high. And I think, you know, it comes through a lot of different factors. And I suppose it
00:31:03.040Depends on your perspective. But I guess there's this there's a lot of trust between the government and the people, which I think is important.
00:31:09.660So if you look at something during the pandemic, there's so there there isn't as it exists, of course, here.
00:31:16.580But I mean, there isn't as much cynicism that, you know, there's an idea that government exists to help society, to help the people in the society, not to help itself.
00:31:27.000Um, that, uh, you know, there's a bit of a, it takes a village mentality so that there's this, um, sort of, uh, societal consensus that, you know, we, every, you know, it's safe for children to walk around everywhere. There's a lot of kind of independence given to children, uh, but also helping out with each other.
00:31:46.660You know, we pay really, really high taxes. And those taxes go towards, you know, obviously things like health care, school system, you know, subsidizing after school activities for kids. So it's that kind of it's that Nordic welfare state model. Right. So that, you know, you kind of pool your resources more so they get distributed to more people.
00:32:08.180Um, and this is a, you know, I would, I would not say we're isolated now because obviously we're, you know, we have flights all the time to places and, you know, the world is so interconnected. But, um, for centuries before, in that sense, Iceland was relatively speaking remote. Uh, I don't think anyone moves here for the amazing weather, uh, which can be touch and go.
00:32:30.220And it is a volcanic island. We have volcanic eruptions, which, again, handled very well. But I think that gives us mentality of like, you try not to sweat the small stuff because, you know, we can bicker today about which sports team is better or, you know, whether we should be investing in more or less public transport or whatever political issue of the day is the hot potato.
00:32:53.780But there might be a volcanic eruption tomorrow and then we all have to help out and try to do what we have to do. And so I think that always kind of gives a little bit of perspective in terms of, as I said, sort of not sweating the small stuff and supporting people individually in what they want to do and yet standing together when times get tough.
00:33:15.220yeah i agree and you know what i love your touch and go weather i had a girls trip there last year
00:33:23.100in december it was dark most of the time it was cold most of the time and we read books and drank
00:33:30.800wine in bars and wearing heavy sweaters with puffins on them and i've never been happier in
00:33:35.480my life yeah and we do like our book reading storytelling culture in iceland too so and
00:33:40.840there's good food so and there's good food and spas and spas we went to I'm not going to try
00:33:48.020to pronounce anything uh but we went to the hot springs that were a little bit north of Reykjavik
00:33:55.120uh where yes yes well I'm not saying it I'm not I'm not even pronouncing a k it's like an h but
00:34:03.640it's actually yeah yeah it was it was the dreamiest it was so lovely and then there was one
00:34:10.220wonderful used bookstore bar right in the city that had live music that we just went to
00:34:17.980every night. Like I loved it. I loved it. Awesome. Yeah, it was it was so great.
00:34:24.700When did you learn Icelandic? Because it seems like a hard language to learn for me.
00:34:28.620It is. Yeah, it's it kind of goes in fits and starts. Like it was just important to me. I knew
00:34:34.500I moved here because I'd fallen in love with an Icelandic man. But I wanted to stay for me,
00:34:39.980which meant that I needed my own job, interests, hobbies, all of that. But I also knew like if I'm
00:34:45.920here for the long term or even if we're not here long term, I'm always going to have a connection
00:34:49.620to the country. And therefore, it was important to me to try to learn the language. And I think
00:34:52.960kind of moving with that attitude of like, I'm just going to start right away, because I'm sure0.99
00:34:57.920as you who don't speak any Icelandic found, you could easily function and do everything you needed
00:35:01.780to in English. So you in a sense, that almost makes it harder to learn Icelandic, because if
00:35:10.420you're an English speaker, you kind of know that you can get by without ever needing to learn
00:35:15.480Icelandic, but you don't quite get into the soul of the society in the same way. So that helped me
00:35:22.400at least to practice. And I don't know, just goes and fits and starts and you start learning. And
00:35:26.900The hardest period, I would say, is when you kind of know more, you know, more than just small talk or ordering food in a restaurant.
00:35:34.860Like you can carry on a really simple conversation, but the person that you're speaking with still knows better English.
00:35:40.500And so, you know, that if you would just do this in English, it will be faster, more complex, more interesting.
00:35:46.560But if you don't continue in Icelandic, you never push through that phase.
00:35:50.580So that's kind of the hardest phase to go through.
00:35:54.880And then, I don't know, like having children and my boys starting preschool, all of a sudden you learn words like snot and dinosaur and things that, you know, if you're a parent to preschoolers, you say those words a lot, but you don't say them very much otherwise.
00:36:11.980So it sort of just depends on the context of your word.
00:36:14.080Right. Right. Exactly. What is the word for dinosaur? I have a dino-obsessed child, so this is my life.
00:36:18.380Oh, okay. Risa Edler. Risa Edler. It means giant lizard.0.97
00:36:41.840Is the Women's Day Off, the original Women's Day Off, and the push for gender equality in Iceland.
00:36:49.380I mean, it is so remarkable what has been accomplished on such a small island.
00:36:57.700And especially, you know, it's interesting because the first time we talked, I think it was 2022.
00:37:02.380And the world felt more hopeful then in terms of gender equality in the states and the direction we were going.
00:37:10.960And so I'd love to hear a little bit about, you know, what can American women who I think are feeling very hopeless right now take away from the fight for gender equality in Iceland?
00:37:21.280Well, the Women's Day Off is a great story and it's an older story. And I think before I tell it that the key message there, which is nice, is one that gender equality is a choice. It's not going to happen by happenstance. And it's not going to happen if we just let everything even out and it'll all come out in the wash.
00:37:41.920We have to decide as a society, as people, as countries or whatever, we want to work towards this equality because it's going to be better for everyone, for people of all genders, not for one group against another group or taking one against the other.
00:37:55.620Once we do that and we realize that it is a choice, you have to be persistent because, as we have seen since 2022, many countries, the U.S. included, have taken measurable backsteps in the area of gender equality.0.74
00:38:10.680Here's the good news. And this example comes from Iceland in 1975, when Iceland was not the world's best country for women, unlike the way that is now. And regular women, not led by a sort of Gloria Steinem or one example, just regular women from all sides of the political spectrum, thought we aren't being taken serious enough in society.0.76
00:38:33.740And so we will take a day off. Some people wanted to call it a strike. But women, some women more on the sort of right side of the political spectrum thought that sounded very communist and did not want to go on strike. And again, what a great example of just thinking to the ultimate point. People said, well, we will call it a strike. We'll call it a day off then. Like, let's just not lose focus on our goals.
00:38:57.620And so in 1975, October the 24th, 90 percent of the country's women decided to take the day off, which meant that they didn't go to their pay jobs, but they also didn't work in the home, whether that was doing child care, cooking meals, washing, anything like that.
00:39:11.800And guess what happens when 90 percent of the country takes the day off?
00:39:35.040But the wonderful example of this, a number of the, you know, many women gathered in the
00:39:40.220center of Reykjavik then sort of singing songs, is that it wasn't led by one person.
00:39:43.900It was a really kind of grassroots initiative, wasn't political, and it was very joyful.
00:39:48.360It wasn't an angry, you know, let's burn the system down thing.
00:39:53.820It was a really it was a really joyful celebration to just say, hey, we're here and we matter.
00:40:00.340And there's a wonderful documentary that I would highly recommend if you can find a way to see it.
00:40:07.780They I don't believe that it's on any streaming services in the U.S. right now, but if you run a streaming service, I think you should get it.
00:40:13.820And it's called The Day Iceland Stood Still.
00:40:16.200they have a website called thedayisonstoodstill.com which will probably have information on screenings
00:40:21.800and it's a documentary it's about 90 minutes about this day off and honestly I can't it makes you
00:40:27.680happy after you finish watching it and there's so many things that make you feel frustrated
00:40:30.940maybe galvanized maybe angry you know really I gotta go do something this makes you happy like
00:40:36.560I want to do something um and giving credit to credit where it is due I always joke now because
00:40:41.880I tell people about this film because I loved the film and I thought it was great and that the
00:40:45.860producers, the directors wrote to me and said, we're so happy you've been telling people about
00:40:50.500it. We want to make you an executive producer. And so as a warning to any of your listeners who
00:40:55.780see this, if you see my name as the executive producer, I really don't deserve any credit
00:40:59.820for this film other than that I've been telling people to go and see it. So credit where credit
00:41:04.720is due to say that it is not due with me. It is to do with the people who made the film and the
00:41:09.800women who star in the film, and that I have no skin in the game. But I highly recommend it.
00:41:16.680People should really go and see this film. I think we watched clips of it when we did our
00:41:21.360original episode together, my producer and I. And I will say, it is so joyful and so happy-making,
00:41:29.880and also proof of a lot of things, but proof that it is possible. There have been a lot of talks
00:41:35.860about women striking here in the U.S.0.96
00:41:39.060and then a bunch of factions, you know,0.98
00:41:40.800get into quibbles about what does it look like?
00:42:05.860Don't need to, you don't have to bear everything on your shoulders, but just bear a little of it and know that other people have got your back.
00:42:14.600Know that other people feel the same sense of hopelessness, you know, feel the same drive to want to do something and use that to kind of galvanize each other and encourage each other to keep going.
00:42:32.560Because you can't kind of persist in a vacuum. You need to do it with the support of other people. And so I think that that that's really important. And that ties, you know, that ties into that storytelling that we were talking about later, because that's how I think that's how we get inspired is by telling each other stories.
00:42:51.820It connects us and it helps us to relate to each other.
00:42:56.040It's one of the things I was doing a speech in the U.S. earlier this year in conjunction with, you know, the 250th anniversary of the U.S.
00:43:05.260And I was talking about the stories of America, and I say this again as an outsider, of the importance of individual actions, right, of the importance of the individual and the idea that if you work hard enough, that's the American dream, that you can achieve all of this or not.
00:43:19.480But if you can also flip that on instead and say, like, therefore, you as an individual have so much potential to make a difference, like this is the system that has such respect for individual influence, that even if you feel like you don't have it, you and I'm not going to be the one to argue that, of course, it's not equal as much as we would want it to be.
00:43:45.840Right. All the more reason for people who have a somewhat bigger platform than others to make a room to share the mic, to elevate other people's voices so that we're hearing all these voices.
00:43:57.200But but let's not pretend that we don't all have an opportunity even just to do a little thing.
00:44:06.920Exactly. Exactly. All right. I love that. That's our mic drop moment right here. It really is.
00:44:12.000eliza reed the first lady next door where can people find you on the ever more crowded internet
00:44:18.580the ever more crowded so you can find me probably most of all on instagram
00:44:22.860um or on facebook i'm at eliza jean reed r-e-i-d i also have a new sub stack which
00:44:31.880oh how fun i love i love a sub stack yeah okay it's i'm i'm i'm you know if you join now you'll
00:44:38.380maybe see me mature a little bit on it. Right now, it's a bit more of like a monthly newsletter
00:44:42.340because the algorithm doesn't always share that. So if I'm traveling or I'm going to be in your
00:44:45.940neck of the woods or something, I hopefully will be able to share that information. And yeah,
00:44:51.620The First Lady Next Door is available either narrated by me in an audiobook or at any place
00:44:58.020where you buy your books. Any place you get your books. And I like this as an audiobook because I
00:45:03.160think that your voice and your inflection and you can just you can you can really you can hear you
00:45:08.620in it so i'm a big fan of this one in audiobook cool thank you all right thanks so much for being
00:45:15.120here eliza my pleasure thanks for having me back