"A recipe is not delicious with one ingredient."
Kristen Bell spoke about her "polar opposites" marriage to fellow actor Dax Shepard on Tuesday's segment of CBS Mornings, explaining how they have worked to find compromise amid their wildly different personalities. In her words, "A recipe is not delicious with one ingredient."
"Dax and I are polar opposites and the solution is always in the middle," she told the three hosts. "You have to have diverse points of view."
Though she learned this lesson from her marriage, Bell now applies the philosophy to lots of other corners of life, including the second installment of her “My Purple World Series” books that she co-authors with Benjamin Hart.
"A lot of different brands work on kindness with kids," Bell explained. "We wanted to be slightly more specific. So what if there were a set of principles? Ours are, you need to laugh a lot, you need to work hard, you need to ask great questions -- both big and small -- and you need to use your voice but also listen, and just be you. We like to say, you're the only you we've got."
Bell and Hart's first book, The World Needs More Purple People, introduced the idea of a Purple Person, someone who embraces who they are and finds common ground with others. In effect, someone who can see beyond red and blue in order to become purple.
Now, Bell says their sequel, The World Needs More Purple Schools is a "logical next step. It's really a giant love letter to educators who have dealt with so much on the front lines these last couple of years," she explained.
Back at home, Bell says she and her husband are also working on becoming better Purple People. The couple recently announced a new podcast, The Honey and the Hammer, which brings listeners into her and Shephard's bedroom conversations.
"We're always talking about how hard it is to be human," she said. "Everybody's got a different point of view, it's hard to get along sometimes." Bell says that their new podcast came to fruition when Shepard put the microphone on their bedside table as they bantered in the evening. Now, they're taking relationship questions from Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast audience and answering them together.
"Our goal is to allow people to vent," she said, "and then encourage them to say 'ok what do you think your side of the street is?'"
The World Needs More Purple Schools was released on Tuesday. The Honey and the Hammer does not yet have a release date.
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