Speaker 1: Are scrolling through your Instagram feeds and then you see
Speaker 1: a post from upworthy and you know it's going to
Speaker 1: be good, it's going to be positive, it's going to
Speaker 1: be uplifting. Well, Now, Upworthy has a new book coming out,
Speaker 1: and I'm pleased to have two of the people behind
Speaker 1: Upworthy and the new book. We've got Gabriel Raylik and
Speaker 1: Luci Hanell on the show today, And first of all, welcome,
Speaker 1: And second of all, how lucky are you that you
Speaker 1: get to make your living sharing fun and happy, uplifting
Speaker 1: stories with people. That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a pretty good gig. No complaints on our part.
Speaker 3: So thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Well, you guys are now branching out into the printed word,
Speaker 1: And tell me a little bit about the book and
Speaker 1: what you guys, how you chose the stories that are
Speaker 1: going in the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this book came about you know, we,
Speaker 2: Lucy and I built a really large following on Instagram
Speaker 2: at upworthy. There's about five million folks who follow us
Speaker 2: now and which is amazing. And one thing that we
Speaker 2: started seeing happening on that channel was when we would
Speaker 2: share a post, you know about you know, an act
Speaker 2: of kindness, or decency that was going on. Other people
Speaker 2: would be inspired to start sharing their own stories, and
Speaker 2: we thought that was really neat, and Lucy and I
Speaker 2: would kind of like screencap these comments and stories that
Speaker 2: people were sharing, text them to each other and be like, oh,
Speaker 2: did you read this? This is great? And it was
Speaker 2: like the best part of our job. So we decided,
Speaker 2: you know what, let's see how many of these stories
Speaker 2: that we can get and get to know our audience
Speaker 2: and the people who follow up were they well, And
Speaker 2: so we started asking questions like, who's the kindest stranger
Speaker 2: that you've ever met, who's a teacher that you'll never forget,
Speaker 2: What's a small thing someone did for you that had
Speaker 2: an outsized impact on your life. And we would just
Speaker 2: get thousands and thousands and thousands of responses and we
Speaker 2: read through them all or we decided that they deserved
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, to be preserved forever because they
Speaker 2: made us feel so good to read them, and we
Speaker 2: thought a book would be the best way to kind
Speaker 2: of pay homage to the gravitas and power that these
Speaker 2: stories hold. So, you know, we reached out and we
Speaker 2: interviewed hundreds of people in our audience and worked with
Speaker 2: them hand in hand and with writers to turn them
Speaker 2: into the stories that are featured in this book. And
Speaker 2: that is what makes up good people, stories from the
Speaker 2: best of humanity. And you know, we're really proud of it.
Speaker 2: It's a good feeling read we Liza, What are you
Speaker 2: some of your favorite stories that you remember that are
Speaker 2: in the book that you were especially touched by.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, there's so many, and I genuinely mean
Speaker 3: that every single story in this book is wonderful in
Speaker 3: its own way. I really enjoyed the ones that are
Speaker 3: about a small thing, a seemingly innocuous thing that actually
Speaker 3: had a huge impact on someone. There's a story that
Speaker 3: comes to mind called good hair Day, which is about
Speaker 3: a woman who had gone through radiation treatment for cancer
Speaker 3: her hair and it had just started to grow back
Speaker 3: and looked like this, like pixie cut. She was rocking,
Speaker 3: and she felt very self conscious, and she was out
Speaker 3: and about with her family and this group of girls
Speaker 3: looked at her and said, cute haircut, something super simple.
Speaker 3: But they had no idea that that actually meant a
Speaker 3: great deal to this woman. She had been debating whether
Speaker 3: or not she was going to wear a wig to
Speaker 3: her son's wedding, and because of that moment, she was
Speaker 3: able to say, you know what, I'm not going with
Speaker 3: the wig, and she sent us a photo of her
Speaker 3: looking radiant and gorgeous at this wedding, rocking her short haircut.
Speaker 3: And it just goes to show you have no idea
Speaker 3: what people are going through, and a tiny, small thing
Speaker 3: can actually have a huge impact on someone.
Speaker 1: What about you, Gabriel, Is there anything that stands out? Oh,
Speaker 1: you're muted, You're you're muted.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry about that. Yeah, nothing stands out, just total silence. No,
Speaker 2: I mean, look, they all work together. Every story builds
Speaker 2: on the last to kind of create a wonderful you know,
Speaker 2: breadth and depth of the human experience that speaks to
Speaker 2: just what it means to be alive. And I really
Speaker 2: that's the power behind it. And so many stick out
Speaker 2: to me. There's you know, one about a guy who
Speaker 2: takes a different route and when a stranger suggests it
Speaker 2: to him in a diner in Texas and he's returning
Speaker 2: back from being on leave in the military and he's
Speaker 2: going through a hard time and this simple act of
Speaker 2: driving down a different road, you know, leads him to
Speaker 2: have a completely different outlook on his life and leads
Speaker 2: to a well of support and good memories that he
Speaker 2: really needed at that time and in difficult times. I
Speaker 2: would follow in the future, And so I find myself
Speaker 2: thinking about that one a lot. It's actually called a
Speaker 2: curly Fries and it closes out the book. It's one
Speaker 2: of my favorites.
Speaker 1: How many stories are in the book overall.
Speaker 3: From one hundred and one wow, short stories plus comments,
Speaker 3: you know, taken directly from the comment section and sort
Speaker 3: of interest first throughout.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's very cool. So this is the kind of
Speaker 1: book that you can pick up, you can put down.
Speaker 1: You don't have to read it in order. You could
Speaker 1: just kind of go through at your pace, or if
Speaker 1: you're having a rotten day, you could pick it up,
Speaker 1: open it up and get something out of that. I
Speaker 1: love what you guys do. I so appreciate what you
Speaker 1: guys do, because, like I said, the Internet is a cesspool, right,
Speaker 1: and part of it is self inflicted.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I'm on X you know, I'm on Instagram. Instagram is
Speaker 1: actually the best of all of them to me. But
Speaker 1: seeing what you're doing and reminding people that even when
Speaker 1: we're reading all of these terrible things that politicians are doing.
Speaker 1: Seeing these small acts of kindness and the impact that
Speaker 1: they can have can really change your perspective and remind
Speaker 1: you that no matter how bad the big bad is,
Speaker 1: the small things and the people in this country are
Speaker 1: really the best of everything. And that's what I'm kind
Speaker 1: of taking away from it. I put a link on
Speaker 1: the blog so people could buy the book. I feel
Speaker 1: like this, if you're the to buy a book for Christmas.
Speaker 1: I do buy books for Christmas. I was telling them
Speaker 1: that I sent out Larry Read's book on Character often,
Speaker 1: but now I'm going to have to add the Upworthy
Speaker 1: book because you never know who's going to need a
Speaker 1: great little story that day. I do have to ask
Speaker 1: you this, out of thousands of people, how did you
Speaker 1: what was it about these stories that made you say
Speaker 1: that needs to go on the book? When you're talking
Speaker 1: to thousands of stories that you were sifting.
Speaker 2: Through, you know, the truth is there's probably enough material
Speaker 2: in people that we talked to to fill a dozen books,
Speaker 2: and so it was hard to decide, Okay, like these
Speaker 2: are the ones that make it. But the common thread
Speaker 2: I think with and this is true with any good stories,
Speaker 2: it's stuff that we wanted to hear more about when
Speaker 2: we first had someone reach out with like, hey, this
Speaker 2: is something that I want to talk about, and that
Speaker 2: we wanted to share it with other people and thought
Speaker 2: that folks could benefit from it either because it's a
Speaker 2: life lesson or because it's a reminder of you know,
Speaker 2: profound goodness or a simple thing. But that's what ties
Speaker 2: it together. It's all stuff that deserves to be heard
Speaker 2: and can be uplifting, you know, upworthy. It's where the
Speaker 2: name comes from.
Speaker 1: The book is called Upworthy, and I put a link
Speaker 1: on the blog today so you can just zip right
Speaker 1: over and buy it for all your friends. Gabriel Rayleik
Speaker 1: and Lucia Nell, thank you so much for making time
Speaker 1: for us today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Mandy all.
Speaker 1: Right, thanks guys. Yeah, if you're looking for the perfect
Speaker 1: gift for this hour puss in your life, this might
Speaker 1: be it.