Ep 121: Bright, Sweet, And Mildly Nutty with Morgan & Mom

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Transcript

[MISTY’S SPOKEN INTRO]
Hey, it’s Misty — welcome back to Morgan & Mom.
Today it’s just Morgan, telling her whole story, front to back, in her own words. Some of it I already knew. Some of it, I didn’t know the real weight of until I heard her say it out loud, sitting right across from me.
No advice today. No lesson at the end. Just my daughter, telling you who she is and how she got here.
Here’s Morgan.

[00:00:00] Misty: Ready? One, two, three, clap. Okay.
[00:00:05] Morgan: Story time.
[00:00:06] Misty: Story time. You go first.
[00:00:10] Morgan: Okay, okay. I’ll go first, and I’m gonna cap it at 10 minutes.
[00:00:14] Misty: Okay.
[00:00:14] Morgan: My name’s Morgan, and right now, in 2026, I’m 39 years old. I am single, divorced, and I live in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

[00:00:26] Morgan: I work as chief people officer for a SaaS data company, and I love my work. It is truly my vocation. I love my home. I have a house and a rental property, so I’m a landlord, basically a property mogul. And I have a pug named Hug. I’m on a couple different boards directly invested in the downtown community I live in, and I am a CASA — a Court Appointed Special Advocate,

[00:00:55] Morgan: which means I represent kids in the court system who have been displaced from their home of origin due to acute situations of abuse or neglect. I support them through their journey — reconciliation and reinstitution in their home of origin, or foster care, or liberation to be independent adults.

[00:01:19] Morgan: And then, let’s see, what else do I do? I teach yoga, I work out a lot, and I love to cook and host. Community is very important to me, and so is making the lives of people in my immediate circle better in any way that I can. That’s how I spend my time.

[00:01:40] Misty: Well, asking that, but also asking — is there anything else you’d like to include? Like, who is Morgan? What is important?

[00:02:05] Morgan: I’m a Pisces. And an Enneagram 7. And I forget my strengths.

[00:02:13] Misty: You don’t know your strengths?

[00:02:14] Morgan: I don’t remember them off the top of my head.

[00:02:16] Misty: Communication, number one, I think.

[00:02:20] Morgan: Oh, okay.

[00:02:21] Morgan: That’s just the synopsis of how I spend my time and what I do. Who I am in my core is I am a community builder, and I care very deeply about building community, whether that’s in my immediate vicinity, my neighborhood, my work. And I care very deeply about improving the lives of the people around me. There are different expressions of that, but everything I do is under that one thing.

[00:02:50] Morgan: So if it’s teaching yoga, I’m helping improve people’s peace and sense of being and resiliency and strength and trust and belief in themselves, as well as flexibility, mobility, and physical strength. If it’s CASA, then I am advocating for the best interest of these kids who have had their normal life and childhood development literally violently disrupted.

[00:03:19] Morgan: If it’s my work, I am stewarding the careers and vocations of the people in my company and working tirelessly for its success, because that impacts the economic and vocational wellbeing of every person I work with and have the honor to support. If it’s the boards I’m on, I’m advocating for their economic development and long-term stability, because I believe in the impact they’re making in my community. If it’s through cooking or hosting, it’s because I want to create a safe space where I nourish and support people I call friend.

[00:04:10] Morgan: That’s what I’m all about.

[00:04:12] Misty: It’s so rich and good and juicy. What was it? Bright and…

[00:04:18] Morgan: Bright, sweet, and mildly nutty.

[00:04:19] Misty: Yes, all of it and more.

[00:04:22] Morgan: That’s what I try to do. I do it imperfectly, but that’s what I’m all about.

[00:04:39] Morgan: Born in Indiana, raised in Kentucky. I was homeschooled — my mom decided, I went to kindergarten, and I probably had a boyfriend, and that was the deciding factor. No, it wasn’t.

[00:04:53] Misty: The boys liked her too much.

[00:05:01] Misty: Do you want to know the actual deciding factor? You and your older sister had the exact same teacher — an amazing teacher. I was highly involved in PTA. Your sister had 17 kids in her class, and it was beautiful. You had 24, and by the second day, three or four of the boys were sent to the principal’s office. Not the teacher’s fault — but I saw her spending more time managing the classroom than actually teaching. That’s what started me thinking about other options.

[00:06:26] Morgan: And the ratio is better. Two kids to one adult is way better than 24 to one.

[00:06:32] Misty: Those early years of homeschooling — I don’t know about you, I had the best time.

[00:06:38] Morgan: Homeschooling was fun early on, before there were a lot of textbooks — a lot of crafts and activities. In a previous episode I disparaged it a little, because I was grading my own math tests from the age of 11, and while I like to think of myself as a person of integrity, the answer key in the back of the book was very inviting.

[00:07:03] Misty: Oh, I’m just now learning this.

[00:07:04] Morgan: I cheated, so —

[00:07:06] Misty: You did? I never expected you to cheat.

[00:07:13] Morgan: I don’t think I acknowledged that I was cheating. I was just… getting help. Raising my hand for approval. So I didn’t classify myself as a cheater as a child. It’s only in recent years I’ve been able to acknowledge that.

[00:07:25] Misty: Okay.

[00:07:25] Morgan: Spelling too — I cheated on spelling.

[00:07:28] Misty: You did?

[00:07:30] Morgan: Yes. But I do think I learned so much, especially about the things that were naturally interesting to me — history, literature. Part of me wonders what I’d have been good at with more structured education, and maybe I was bad at math because I didn’t have consistent instruction — but also, I think I was just drawn to certain things naturally.

[00:08:01] Morgan: I went to public school for seventh and part of eighth grade, and my junior year of high school, and I was way ahead of everyone, because what you learn in homeschool, for the most part, is how to learn.

[00:08:15] Morgan: I grew up in a small town in Kentucky, and my childhood was marked by bare feet and brown skin. Outside all the time, hosing my feet off because they were black from running, staying out late playing flashlight tag with the neighbors. Sunshine and sweat. That was fun.

[00:08:43] Morgan: When I was 11, 12, my parents got divorced — very traumatic, a bad, messy divorce. My dad moved three hours away, closer to his work, and we saw him every other weekend, so he wasn’t a present or prominent figure in my life. Around 15, we moved to Kansas City — to what I’d now consider a cult, the International House of Prayer — and continued homeschooling.

[00:09:24] Morgan: When we first moved, I went to public school in inner-city Kansas City. Culture shock, big time — small-town Kentucky to inner-city Kansas City, homeschool to public school. But it was fun, and I was so different that peer pressure didn’t exist for me. I joke now that I was never cool enough to be offered drugs. I never felt like I had to fit in, because I couldn’t. I felt special by being different.

[00:10:05] Misty: Your year and a half in public school gave you access — you joined the debate team, and you traveled, and you started stepping into possibilities that flowed over when you went to college.

[00:10:28] Morgan: I think it was affirming. I learned I’m smart and capable — smarter and more capable than average. That year, I was number one in my class. And then I came back to homeschool so I could graduate early — so I could move to India. Since I was eight years old, I knew I wanted to be a missionary in India.

[00:10:59] Misty: No — you would not let people use the word “missionary.” You’d say, “I’m gonna live in India,” and people would say, “Oh, you’re gonna be a missionary?” and you’d say, “No — I’m going to go live with the people.”

[00:11:20] Misty: You had a very clear understanding that your role wasn’t the typical missionary role, and you wouldn’t even let people think that.

[00:11:31] Morgan: And I never wanted to be married. I always said, “If I ever wake up and I have a house with a fence and a dog, I will have failed.” Plot spoiler: I have a house with a picket fence and a dog.

[00:11:46] Morgan: When I was 18, I had the opportunity to intern in a children’s home in India. I thought, “This will be the rest of my life.” I remember crying, saying goodbye to my brothers, because I thought I’d probably never see them again or get to watch them grow up.

[00:12:02] Morgan: I interned outside of Bangalore for a year. It’s a very patriarchal culture — all of them are — and if I was going to exist as a single woman in India, it was important, socially, to have an education. It took going to India to realize I should probably go to college. So I enrolled in community college.

[00:12:44] Morgan: I came home, lived with my family, stayed involved with my younger brothers, enrolled in community college, and ended up getting a math scholarship. That opened opportunities I couldn’t have imagined — I traveled a ton, worked at the college, was the student speaker at graduation, and made friends from all over the world.

[00:13:13] Misty: And your face was on a city bus.

[00:13:22] Morgan: Yes. If you’re listening and can’t see us — I’m what we call ethnically ambiguous. I’m not Indian, I’m Puerto Rican — Mom’s half Puerto Rican, so I’m about 25% Puerto Rican. Six foot tall, black curly hair, brown skin, brown eyes. Most minority cultures think I look like I’m from there, so I’ve been used in student marketing collateral at pretty much every institution I’ve been part of. So — I was on the city bus lines representing community college.

[00:14:02] Morgan: After I finished my associate’s degree, I went back to India. When I went the first time at 18, I met an Indian boy through a pastor I was working with, and we stayed in touch. When I came home, the pastor said, “This guy wants to marry you — we think this is God’s will. Yes or no?” And I thought, “Well, it makes sense. Seems like God’s will.” And I really liked him.

[00:14:31] Misty: Yeah.

[00:14:31] Morgan: I’d never dated, never kissed a boy, never held hands, never had a boyfriend — nothing. So we became engaged, co-led some short-term mission trips together in India, and then he moved to the States and went to a Bible college close to where I lived. We were very involved in the Indian church community in Kansas City. And I was miserable.

[00:14:57] Morgan: It was a terrible, terrible relationship — deeply conflicting for me. There were character issues that were construed as cultural differences, and I didn’t have the insight to know the difference. I’d also never been in a relationship before and didn’t know anything. I think that was the dark season of my soul. I was depressed. I thought about dying all the time. I wanted a way out, but I also felt trapped, because this was supposed to be the culmination of my calling.

[00:15:33] Misty: And people had told you, “This must be God’s will.”

[00:15:35] Morgan: Absolutely. We had this great story, we were this cool couple, and being with him and his family in India was a dream — I was treated like a queen, given jewels and clothes, working in the villages with different children’s ministries. It felt like the fulfillment of what I’d been building my life toward since I was small, except the relationship itself was so awful. Toxic and terrible. I remember laying on the floor, wanting to die. I was miserable, and I’m generally a happy person.

[00:16:20] Morgan: I transferred — lived in Bethlehem for a while, worked with a family there — then transferred to a private Christian liberal arts school about four hours away in Northwest Arkansas to finish my degree. I wanted distance from this person, but it also felt like it was still under some kind of protective covering — a conservative Christian school.

[00:17:01] Morgan: I think the greatest miracle story of my life is that I reconnected with someone who’d been a mentor, and for the first time had the courage to tell her how unhappy I was, and how much despair I felt. And she said, “But you have a choice.” And I said, “No, I don’t — this is God’s will for my life, and he won’t — I can’t even not talk to him for a couple of minutes.” He had tabs on me. And she said, “Come stay with me.”

[00:17:48] Morgan: She and her family fed me and loved me, and she helped me process that I could leave — that this wasn’t the culmination of God’s will for my life, and that this internal anguish wasn’t right or good, and that there was so much more for me. It had never occurred to me before. It was an epiphany.

[00:18:00] Morgan: We arranged a meet-up with myself, my mentor, the Indian boy, and the pastor through whom we’d met. I had my notes written out, bullet-pointed: “I’m unhappy. I don’t believe this is God’s will for my life, and I’m choosing to end this relationship.” And he said, “I don’t accept that.” I felt despair. My mentor said, “Well, you don’t have a choice, because this is Morgan’s decision, and she has free will, and she doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you anymore — therefore, it’s over.” I thought, “Oh my god, I had no idea we could do this.”

[00:18:42] Morgan: That was it. I never saw him or spoke to him again. In the weeks after, people kept asking, “Morgan, what’s happening? You’re glowing.” I woke up the next day and felt like I was in love. Food tasted better, colors were brighter.

[00:18:56] Misty: Wow.

[00:18:56] Morgan: That was my salvation story. It’s crazy, because anyone who knows me now — I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. I don’t do anything I don’t feel peace about doing. I don’t go to a party or an event out of obligation if I can’t be there with my whole self. I just don’t. For anyone who knows me now, it’s inconceivable that I was ever like that.

[00:19:19] Misty: Right, but that’s where you discovered the power of that, and how much freedom there is in living in that place. And it sucks that you had to find it out that way. Gosh, I’m so happy — I’m so happy, every day, so relieved.

[00:19:39] Morgan: I’ve had several other endings of important relationships since, and every single time there’s so much peace on the other side. When you’re in constant conflict with yourself, the hope and the peace and the joy available on the other side is so worth it. Even though there’s also loneliness and fear and uncertainty, the trust you build in yourself when you make those decisions is so worth it, and the love you give to yourself is so irreplaceable. I’d do it a thousand times over.

[00:20:17] Morgan: So I graduated, studied abroad at Oxford, got to live my life and do good things. In college I met a friend — I was a mentor in the honors program — we were friends for years, and later became engaged and got married. When I graduated I worked downtown for an economic development nonprofit. He went to grad school at the University of Arkansas, and I thought, “If he can do grad school, I can do grad school too.” I enrolled and did my master’s in English rhetoric, composition, and literacy. I loved it — grad school was so fun.

[00:21:07] Morgan: We got married, living in a small town. I ran for city council — didn’t get it. Too young, too brown, too liberal for that town, probably — and that’s fine, probably a great outcome. The relief I felt the next morning when I lost the election was palpable. I felt so happy.

[00:21:31] Misty: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:31] Morgan: After grad school I worked for a healthcare network doing communication and grant writing. Worst job I’ve ever had — I cried coming home every day. Very unhealthy internal communication and leadership. No matter how great the work or the people, if the leadership isn’t great, everyone lives in fear. That’s also where I realized the importance of HR in an organization — “the only person who could check this is HR” — and instead HR felt like the parrot on Jafar’s shoulder in Aladdin, just egging him on. I thought, this role could be such a powerful position of advocacy for employees. I want to do this differently.

[00:22:42] Morgan: On my one-year anniversary at that job, I started quietly passing my resume to everyone I knew. I’d gone to an event at a T-shirt printing company and thought, “What’s up with this place — everyone here loves their job, loves their boss, goes on float trips together?” I reached out to the owner and asked if they needed someone who does highly organized internal and external communication. He said, “Yeah, we definitely need someone like that.”

[00:23:34] Misty: And at that point you hadn’t started down the HR education path?

[00:23:35] Morgan: Correct — no HR experience whatsoever. I was at this point where I wasn’t ready to take an entry-level job, because I’d been directing communications for a huge nonprofit healthcare network, but I also had no HR experience, so I couldn’t get an HR manager or director role anywhere.

[00:24:01] Morgan: I met with the CFO, who was blunt: “This guy loves everyone, we can’t afford you, we don’t really need you — here’s our business model, you don’t fit.” I thought, “Game on.” I put together a deck: here’s what I’ve heard are your most acute pain points, here’s what I can step in and do immediately, here’s what I can’t do yet and how I’ll close that gap, and here’s why you need women in leadership in this company, and I will provide that.

[00:24:41] Morgan: They hired me into a nebulous role — no one knew what my job was. I spent a lot of time just meeting people and building trust, and slowly things started landing on my plate — benefits administration, employee concerns, company events, our whole interview and onboarding process. At my 90-day mark I went back and said, “Here’s what you hired me to do, here’s what I’m actually doing, here’s what I think the real need is — I’d like to become director of people and culture instead of communications.” They agreed. The company tripled in the two years I was there.

[00:25:52] Morgan: Then COVID happened. We lost 90% of projected revenue overnight, let go of close to 70% of the company, including my position. I did a week and a half of consulting for an entrepreneurial ecosystem — business consulting for startups, everything from business licenses to COVID relief administration — for a couple of years. Then I was hired as regional director of the state’s oldest and largest revolving loan fund.

[00:26:45] Misty: You were there like two days, weren’t you?

[00:26:46] Morgan: Three whole months. Because — I got my dream job, one I didn’t even know was my dream job. My last day before that regional director position, I ran into the founder of a tech startup. I’d sworn I’d never work for a startup after consulting with so many — those founders and their egos. They said, “We’ve been wanting to talk to you, we’re hiring a VP of HR.” I said, “I don’t even think you need a VP, you’re too small, but I’ll consult.” I came in for what I thought was a consulting conversation and it turned into an intense interview. These people are smart, intense, and have a lot of integrity — I’m a better person for every interaction with them.

[00:27:54] Morgan: They said, “You should apply for this job.” I said, “I just started a new job, I can’t do that.” Then I realized — this is a unicorn opportunity, this team, this place, this timing, I’ll probably never have it again. Long interview process — I genuinely didn’t know if I was interviewing or consulting.

[00:28:23] Morgan: I started as VP of HR at my current company, where I’ve been almost five years. Very high growth — we raised a Series B, the largest raise in the state at the time, and tripled the team in a year. If you think solving people problems with people is hard, try solving people problems with really smart people. There have been really low lows and really high highs. We’re in a high high right now. I work with the best group of people I’ve ever worked with — it’s definitely my vocation, not just my job.

[00:29:06] Misty: But you’ve hired that best group of people.

[00:29:10] Morgan: I have. Whenever I’m interviewing I say, “I know this sounds cheeky, but it’s probably the best group of people you’ll ever work with” — I’m tooting my own horn because I helped hire this team, but we all built it together.

[00:29:27] Morgan: In summary, how I try to live: be excellent and opportunistic and do good to those around me, and that opens the next door, always. I don’t have a five-year plan. I don’t work toward some envisioned future. I work hard every day and try to stay dialed into what’s good to me — where do I find joy, where do I naturally excel, how can I do more of that — and I surround myself with people strong in the areas I’m not. That’s worked well for me. I try to be excellent in the work I do and to the people around me, and trust that will open the next door. And it always has.

[00:30:34] Misty: It has. It’s been amazing on this end to watch the doors open and keep opening for you.

[00:30:49] Morgan: I should add — I went down the career trajectory thing, but in the middle of that, I got married right before starting grad school, and my husband left very unexpectedly right after I started this job at my current company. That year we closed on a house the same day I started work. I was working 80-plus hours a week, sometimes curled up in the fetal position in the middle of the night thinking, “I’m going to fail — I should quit tomorrow.” And then I’d wake up, look at myself in the mirror, remind myself who I am, and try again.

[00:31:45] Morgan: I was enrolled in my yoga teacher training when my husband came home from a work trip and said, “I can’t do this anymore. I look back on the past ten years and all I see is how hard it’s been, and I don’t want ten more. I want a family — not with you. I don’t know what I want, but I know it’s not with you.” It wasn’t a discussion — it was his decision. There were a couple of check-ins, but it was hard and confusing. I realized I didn’t want to be with someone so conflicted about whether they wanted to be with me, and that became my decision too.

[00:32:27] Morgan: We met a couple weeks later and I said, “I don’t want to be in this.” It was important for me to come to that on my own terms, so I felt like I had agency. I said, “Here are my terms: this will be equitable, amicable, and efficient. I want us to do this as quickly as possible, to keep each other’s best interests in mind, and I will never disparage you in this community — I think highly of you, and I ask the same.” I think he was relieved, honestly — we’d seen divorce go so many different ways. But I had agency in how it happened, and it was on my terms.

[00:33:13] Morgan: It was record fast. We split everything very fairly, and then it was over. Afterward I wanted to be best friends — we’d celebrate things like selling the house or filing our taxes together. He’s remarried now and has a baby, so I think he doesn’t want to be best friends with me anymore, and that’s fine. That was about four years ago.

[00:33:50] Morgan: Well, I guess we’ll wrap this one up.

[00:33:52] Misty: We’re gonna go get a cookie now.

[00:33:56] Misty: And then we’ll come back and —

[00:33:57] Morgan: — and it’ll be time for your story.

[00:34:00] Morgan: Yeah, I bet it’ll be ten minutes.

[00:34:05] Morgan: This is about me. You know I don’t listen to podcasts.

[00:34:13] Morgan: I only record them.

[00:34:16] Misty: We’re so glad to be here together. That was fun. That was a good story.

[00:34:23] Morgan: Thank you.

[00:34:24] Morgan: Well, I’m Morgan, and I love you.

[00:34:28] Misty: And I’m Mom. And I love you.

[00:34:35] Misty: Okay. Bye. All right, bye. Oh, are we gonna clap?

[00:34:38] Morgan: Oh, sure.

[00:34:39] Misty: One, two, three, clap.

[MISTY’S SPOKEN OUTRO]
That’s Morgan’s story — at least the version she had ten minutes for. Forty, it turns out.
Some of what she told you today, I already knew. I lived a lot of it alongside her. But some of it — how far down that year with the first relationship really went for her — I didn’t know until she said it, right there, across from me.
I remember that season. We saw something was wrong. And instead of asking her about it, I set rules around the relationship. And when she kept doing what she was doing, I called it disobedience. I didn’t call it what it actually was — a daughter who felt trapped and didn’t know how to get out.
I wasn’t the mom I wish I’d been in that season. I know that now.
I’m just grateful she found her way to the other side of it — grateful for the people who helped her get there when I couldn’t.
If you’re subscribed, you’ll catch what’s next. And if there’s someone in your life this needs to reach — a mom, a daughter — send it her way.
Next week, Morgan gets curious about my story. Her turn to ask the questions.

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