I Love Elizabeth Gilbert

Some months back I met a girl who wanted to be a writer. We connected in the way people sometimes do. You know, there are just some people you like and who like you back even though you just met. We got to talking about For You, Mother and where that came from. I was honest in that I pulled from a lot of my experiences, especially loving people even when they don't deserve it. I mean the story is fiction, but the themes are not. "I don't have that," said said. " I never went hungry. I never felt unloved. Nothing truly bad has happened to me in my life. My parents were great so I don't even have that to write about. I could never write a story like that."

"Then don't," I said. "Write about great parents. Write about a girl who hasn't been hurt or wounded, write about how she fits into a world where so many people have."

Being in Korea at the time that Love, Eat, Pray came out, I don't think it had the impact on me that it would have if I wasn't traveling. But this video below exemplifies why she's a successful writer and speaker. She has found HER truth and the guts to share it, no holds barred.