What a 16-year-old girl and fishing for marlins reminded me

“Our house is on fire”, She said quite plainly.

That was Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who spoke to hundreds of world leaders at Davos back in January of this year.

She then went on to say that now was the time for us to speak clearly, and that’s when she really let it rip:

“Adults keep saying ‘we owe it to the young people to give them hope.’ But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel everyday. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as if you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is.”

BOOM! Drop the mic, Sister.

Did you say shit like that to an audience of world leaders when you were 16? Me neither. But the reality is, we are now living in a time when our children are feeling the need to step up and get in our faces as adults—to call us out on our adult bullshit.

Our house IS on fire, Greta. This is true. Thank you.

This is exactly the same energy I was tapping into writing my second book, Witch Ways: You’re Not Crazy, You’re a Woman. I didn’t PLAN on tapping into that full-throttle, but it just….came out. My bone-marrow truth hacked up like a hairball. Which had me feel rather nervous, because shouldn’t I be a bit more diplomatic, careful, or measured in my words? It wasn’t until I heard Greta’s speech, that I got the full power of it in my bones.

Nah. Because our house IS on fire. Why mince words now?

My truth came in the form of marlins. I know, it surprised me, too, when a story flew out my pen one day about a woman on a tourist boat fishing for marlin. Did I mention that she was naked? And me? Not being an angler or remotely comfortable with public nudity, I never quite understood where that story came from, what it was about, or why it found me. Until I wrote the entire manuscript for this second book of mine and then found myself hacking it up like a hairball of truth that wanted to be center stage.

I talk about Greta’s words and her courage in this latest episode of An Unscripted Woman—and use this as a backdrop for talking about urgency and not waiting any longer to act. I also read the story about the naked marlin fishing woman that set my hair—the one that is now an author’s note at the very beginning of the manuscript that is now (happily) in the hands of my editors.

And here’s what else I talk about that might be of interest—especially if you’re feeling the urge to speak clearly, call bullshit on our excuses, and take action: