Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #335: Unleash Your Inner GLOW When Life Gets Dark with Tara Schuster Entertainment Executive Turned Mental Health Advocate & Best Selling Author

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

In This Episode You Will Learn About:  Finding your own stardust self What happens when you slow down and address the problems  How to be truly honest with yourself and your feelings Resources: Website: www.taraschuster.com Newsletter: http://www.taraschuster.com/newsletter  Journal Club: Glow On with Tara Schuster Read Glow In The F*cking Dark TikTok & Instagram: @taraschuster Twitter: @taraschustar LinkedIn: Tara Schuster  Visit heathermonahan.com Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Go to 4Patriots.com and use code CONFIDENCE to get 10% off Go to stopboneonbone.com/confidence, stock up 55% OFF today on Native Path Collagen Visit Indeed.com/monahan to start hiring now Show Notes:  Are you ready to let go of “good enough”? This is your time to confront your fears and unleash the GLOW you have inside! Today Tara Schuster, former Comedy Central executive turned mental health advocate, coach, & best selling author, will tell us the SIMPLE and PRACTICAL ways to find our inner courage and embrace true joy and stability. The life you deserve is right in front of you so stop the hustling and start the healing!  About The Guest: Tara Schuster is an accomplished entertainment executive turned mental health advocate and best-selling author. She is the author of the forthcoming Glow in the F*cking Dark, and the runaway hit, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies, a finalist for Goodread’s Best Non-Fiction Book of 2020. It was selected by Cosmopolitan, Real Simple, Goop, Publishers Weekly, and many more as one of the best books of the year on mental health and self-care. Previously, Tara served as vice president of talent and development at Comedy Central, where she was the executive in charge of such critically acclaimed shows as the Emmy and Peabody Award–winning Key & Peele. She has contributed to InStyle, The New Yorker, and Forbes, among others.  If You Liked This Episode You Might Also Like These Episodes: Listener Favorite: Get UNSTUCK From Your Negative Thoughts with Trish Blackwell Top-Ranked Podcast Host & Confidence Coach Top Hacks of Breakthrough Thinkers, With Jeremy Utley The Director Of Executive Education At Stanford  How To Show Up As The Most CONFIDENT Version Of Yourself, With Kim Rittberg Digital Video Expert & Content Strategist  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm here to tell you about a new podcast that I'm really excited about. Negotiate your best life hosted by Rebecca Zung, a part of the Yap Media Network, as a globally renowned narcissist negotiation expert and an attorney recognized by the US news as a best lawyer in America, Rebecca shares her invaluable insights and strategies for navigating life's toughest negotiations. By drawing from her own experiences and the wisdom of her high profile guests such as Bob Proctor, Mark Victor Hanson, John Gordon, and Rebecca Deliver's empowering advice that will inspire you to reclaim control of your life. Negotiate your best life is all about how to negotiate your way to

greatness. She provides practical guidance on how to break free from toxic relationships stand up against injustice, and transform chaos into freedom, possibility, and purpose. Many times the first negotiation you do is with your own self and the morning. In this morning when you wake up, negotiate your best life is all about finding your way to greatness, conquering obstacles, and creating the life you truly deserve. Get ready to slay, thrive, and unlock your full potential. Don't believe me?

I'm going to go ahead and share some of the reviews so you can hear firsthand. You have helped me so much these last few weeks. I was with a narcissist for two years. She drove me to the point I wanted to take my own life listening to you has made a massive difference and now I know what I'm working with. Thank you Rebecca now the recovery. Oh, Rebecca's on helped save my life and I mean save my life. She helped millions of people stay on the right side of the law while breaking free from shattering, shocking, chilling narcissistic abuse. Wow. This is game changing stuff that Rebecca is doing. You gotta listen. If you are ready to stand up against injustice and transform the chaos in your life into freedom, possibility, and purpose,

then check out, negotiate your best life now. Subscribe to negotiate your best life with Rebecca Zung today on Apple Podcast Spotify or on your favorite podcast platform. What are small changes you can make in your life to find stability, to find solid ground so that you're kind to yourself and you're not living in misery because up until that point, I thought that life was just a series of crises to endure. That's what my take on life was because that's what it had been through my childhood and high school and college. That really was what life was for me. And with Lily's as I was writing it, my decision was, I can't be miserable anymore. I do not accept that my life

will be miserable anymore. I do not accept that my life will be miserable. I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. Overcome adversity and set you up for better tomorrow. After no sleep, yeah. I'm ready for my close-up. Hi, and welcome back.

I'm so glad you're back with us this week. All right, I can't wait for you to meet my guest this week. Tara Schuster is an accomplished entertainment exec. Turn mental health advocate and bestselling author. What? She's the author of the newly released Glow in the Effing Dark and the Runaway Hit by yourself, the Effing Lily,

a finalist for Goodreads Best Nonfiction Book of 2020. That is major. It was selected by Cosmopolitan real simple goop, publishers weekly, and many more as one of the best books of the year on mental health and self-care. Previously, Tara served as a vice president of talent development at Comedy Central Major, where she was the executive in charge of such critically acclaimed shows as the Emmy and Peabody Ward winning key and peel. She is contributed to in style, the New Yorker Forbes, among others, and she lives in Los Angeles.

Tara, thank you so much for being with us today. Oh, thank you for having me, Heather. Oh, my gosh. So I'm a follower of your IG. I love your content. And just selfishly, I want to get into your backstory because there are a lot of similarities that we both started out in these corporate,

exact gigs and then things totally blew up and we reinvented ourselves. So I love for you to take us back to, well, I mean, Comedy Central sounds like an amazing gig and your old job was beyond impressive. How did that go awry? Yeah, so I only ever worked at Comedy Central for basically a third of my life.

I started as an intern at the Daily Show with John Stewart and just was like, I'm gonna slay this, I'm gonna climb this ladder, I'm gonna go as fast as I can and I ended up becoming Vice President of Sound Development where I was like talking to Jordan Peale on the phone and running David Spade show.

And it was super status-y and glamorous and fun. I'm going to all these Emmy's parties. But what I didn't realize was that it was a magic trick. It was like a total distraction from 25 years of complex trauma due to a neglectful, psychologically abusive upbringing that I was always compensating for because I felt like such a weirdo and such an outsider. So I needed status. I needed saying to point to and say, Hey, look, I'm valuable. I'm cool. I made it, you know, not like, Oh, I have all this, these hidden skeletons that aren't even doing that good of a job

hiding. They're like coming back from the dead constantly. And so around, I was the beginning of the pandemic, Comedy Central laid me off with just about everyone else. And I had considered that home. And I had considered my colleagues' family and a replacement family for the one I never had. And so when I was cut, like very unceremoniously cut, I had a complete crisis of who am I? You know, I'd always been a hustler through high school. I always had a summer job. I always had an internship at college.

I had two jobs. I was always, always going, going, going. You know, I'm going to make it somewhere. I'm going to make it one day. All of the sudden, nobody else is telling me my identity. Nobody is telling me my role. Nobody is in charge of my schedule. And that's when my deepest traumas really came surging to the forefront, you know, I was single, living alone in LA, no family. It's the pandemic. Everyone had their horrible version of the pandemic.

That was mine. And I really couldn't bear these memories that were coming up from my childhood where essentially things came to my house to die. The plants, the pets, it was extreme neglect that I had kind of buried in order to get ahead and make it through. And so I decided I, I unwisely decided I'm not going to deal with any of this. I'm actually just going to move to Arizona. And I'm going to help with voter registration in the 2020 election. I was just like immediately like, Oh, okay, you dropped me. Well, I'll hustle myself into more meaning. All do something even like more impressive and part of the world and making a

difference. And so, you know, I grabbed my Vitamix. I grabbed bag of books and I just got on the highway. Basically in 48 hours to move to Arizona. Of course, what a good choice I made. What a, like, obviously this was gonna work out. And I was on the road in the Mojave Desert going 95, which if you know me, I should not be going 95, like bad, bad idea, having the worst

associative episode of my life. And, you know, I don't know if you've had a dissociative episode, so it's basically the unwanted love child of a panic attack and like out of body experience. I could see my hands on the steering wheel, but they were like floating. It's basically your mind, disassociates from where you are, so that you can kind of like escape reality, escape the trauma, but it feels horrible. It feels like your whole body sick and it would be better to throw up all of your insides. That would feel better than how you feel and So I'm racing down the highway. They're gnarled Joshua trees all around me I'm completely freaking out and out of control and I was lucky that my therapist called me and Said hey, are you safe? And I'm like, yeah, of course I'm safe. I'm just driving, you know, like just driving

It's no big deal. I'm moving to Arizona. She said, well, that's not safe. In your current state, what you need to do is pull over. And it had never occurred to me, not one time to pull over. I thought the creed of hustle, that I'm just gonna keep moving, keep going, keep surviving, get to the next thing. I thought that was the wayed of hustle, that I'm just gonna keep moving, keep going, keep surviving, get to the next thing. I thought that was the way,

and that that would bring me meaning and happiness and all the things I wanted, not stopping. And so I pulled over on the side of the road, and because I was such a good planner, it was like late at night. I definitely should not have been on the highway then. And I looked up up and in LA, we really can't see the stars. I mean, the best we see is a satellite. And you're like,

oh, it's a star. Oh, no, no, no, wait a minute. No, no, that's just a satellite. But in the desert, in the Mojave, it was just like, I was surrounded by a glitter field. It was so gorgeous and I looked up at the stars and I thought those stars keep on shining. It is bleak. The world is bleak right now. It is dead of night. How do those stars shine? How do they shine even in the darkest of conditions? And I started googling stars.

I think it was somewhat of a divine miracle that I had service. But I started just like, what more can I find it about stars? And I found out that stars actually come together from all the pressure and problems in chaos of outer space, the nebula and the dust. They all come together to become brilliant. And I thought, I wonder if I can do that.

Can I take all of this own it all? OK, yes, all these things happen. I've been laid off. I had a bad childhood. I've made many mistakes. My own substance abuse issues. I've had it all those things. Can I own everything?

Bring it in and shine from that place. And so this book, Glow on the Finged Dark, is basically about finding your own stardust self. Like, who are you at your core? Because we are all actually made of stardust, you know? It's not some cute thing that I would write on an Etsy mug in big script. It's the carbon in your muscles, the iron in your blood,

comes from stardust. So we all have that capability. It's just a matter of how do you unleash it? How do you let it glow? And so that's sort of what my, what glow in the effing dark is about and also what my mission is now is unleashing that glow that we all already have.

Okay, first of all, there is no way you were lucky that your therapist called. That was like a fine intervention. I agree. Oh my gosh, that is wild. What I'm saying? Okay, first and foremost. So, where do you go from the side of the road?

How does this really throw me for a loop? So if I'm honest with you, the next place I went was in and out. What's the next? I went on in and out. What's the next? I went to work. Or is it too down there? No, that was a good decision. That was a bit in a line of bad decisions going to in and out was a very good

decision. I continued on to Arizona. And what I realized is I need to dry out. I've basically been drowning in work and completely ignoring these deeper soul level wounds and it's time that I bring care and nurturing to these things that I didn't grow up with care and nurturing. I thought that taking care of yourself was like the icing on the cake of life. When now I've realized no no no no that's like the cake. Like you have a body, you have a life, you have it one time, so you better maintain it. If you actually value it or feel gratitude for it, take care of it. And so my mission became in Arizona, slow down.

I'm not going to hustle my way through this. I was very lucky I had savings because I've been an executive and because I was also terrified of money. Like, couldn't spend, absolutely could not spend any money really. So, had just been an aggressive saver, which had given me a big cushion to give myself some time to heal. And so, the book really goes into simple practices that anybody can use. They're, yes, scientifically. You know, they've been through like, yes, yes, mental health, real people, like not a non-expert, like me vouch for them, but I use my stories to show how you can incorporate them into your

life without blowing up your life. You know, like, you don't need to move to Arizona to find a little more emotional regulation and peace within yourself. Hopefully, I'm just giving you the quicker way to it with a story that I myself went through. What are some of the simple steps that people listening right now can implement in their life? Yeah, I would say the very first thing is journaling, which sounds everybody says it, but nobody does it. And I'm like, your life would be so much easier. If you just sat down and journaled,

because there's a lot of science behind, if you can label and identify your feelings, you can immediately feel some relief from them. And so for me, for example, I have really bad anxiety, but I didn't understand exactly why. And at the time I had this boyfriend who was constantly lying to me, just, I think for legal reasons, I'm not supposed to say lie. So telling stories that were like interesting. He was telling tales, you know? You know, he, you know, he like told somebody, I bought this house, gallery owner,

he's like, I bought this house, I'm like, you rented it. He's told me, I bought your book and like every state, and then I asked, well, can I see the list? He doesn't have the list. He's like, oh, it's in my laptop and like, you know, I almost just said a real detail. So I stopped myself. And it was constantly shifting reality for me to be lied to so often.

And I went to a psychiatrist. I hadn't been on medication for a long time. My friends were just worried about my level of anxiety. And I'll never forget this. My psychiatrist looked at me and she said, I don't think you're anxious. I think you're furious. And when she said that, it was like, mic drop. Wow, I'm not anxious.

I'm furious, but I don't know how to feel furious. I don't know how to feel anger. It's not an emotion I'm good at. So the suppression of my anger feels like anxiety. That's what's really hurting me here is that I'm pushing down how I actually feel. And when you journal and in the beginning of glow in the ethnic dark, I give you an emotion wheel

that is hopefully way easier to use than what you might get in a therapist's office. It's just like more real language, I think. When I'm able to identify in my journal, here's how I actually feel, not just a wash's office, it's just like more real language, I think. When I'm able to identify in my journal, here's how I actually feel, not just a wash of anxiety, but resentment, anger, grieving, when I can see what I really actually feel, then I have a chance to make a different choice. I have a chance to address the core issues and not just, you know, write myself off as anxious, and I'm an anxious person and there's

nothing to be done. No, there's something to be done. I just need to dig deeper. And so for me, journaling, by just telling myself my story, I'm able to more clearly see it when I'm lying to myself, which I often do in my journal, I also'm like, okay, cool, why are you lying about that? Like, what are you afraid of? And you build self-awareness. And self-awareness is a part of any healing journey, any growth you've got to be self-aware. So for those reasons, I love journaling and in this super chaotic world where I don't need to tell you, like, if you've opened the news recently, then things aren't the best that they've ever been, right? So in this chaotic world where there's so little safety,

a journal is actually your own place. You can take it with you anywhere. It's reliable. It's never going to judge you. You know, you write something dark on the page, something you're not proud of. It doesn't like come back and scream at you. It's safe there. It's a safe place to put things and close the cover on it. So journaling,

there's so much science behind it, but even just practically, it's basically free. It's the cost of the notebook plus a pen. In some studies have been shown to be almost or as effective as real talk therapy. So why not give it a try? You know, I really resisted it. I thought, I don't have time to wake up 20 minutes earlier, like that sucks. I've been consistently journaling for 10 years. I can just tell you, you have the time. What you don't have the time to do is ignore how you actually feel because that that was years of your life. So this is a way quicker path to what any kind of

self-discovering. So journaling is always my number one tip. Okay, now that we're in the thick of the summer, you may be like me in over cooking three different meals a day for you and for your family. That's where factor America's number one ready to eat meal kit can help you fuel up fast with flavorful and nutritious ready to eat meals delivered straight to your door. Just like me. You will save time, eat well and stay on track to your goals. Regardless of what your goals are, the food is fresh, it's definitely not frozen and meals are ready in only two minutes. All you have to do is heat it up

and you are good and you are back out there doing whatever you want to do or whatever your kids want to do. The options are unbelievable. My son's always looking to add more protein to his diet. I am looking to cut calories. You know, there's answers for everybody. There's a diet that should approve calorie smart meal with around 550 calories per serving or extra boost to support your wellness goals. That's what my son's looking for. He's trying protein plus meals with 30 grams of protein or more per serving. The food is delicious, flavor pack, and the options are going to blow you away. I mean, you can do the keto program,

calories smart, vegan plus, veggie, protein plus, the foods prepared by chefs and approved by dietitians. Each meal has all of the ingredients you need to feel satisfied all day long while meeting your goals. And you won't be stuck in the kitchen. Make this the end of the summer that you love because you're not stuck by a stove. With Factor, you can rest assured

you're making a sustainable choice. They are offsetting 100% of the delivery emission source, 100% renewable electricity for the production sites and offices and feature sustainable source seafood in their meals. This July, only a few days left get get factor and enjoy eating well without the hassle. Simply choose your meals and enjoy fresh, flavor-packed meals delivered right to your door, just like me. Ready, in just two minutes, no prep, no mess.

Head to factormeals.com slash confidence 50 and use code confidence 50 to get 50% off. That's right! Code confidence50 at factormeals.com slash confidence50. It will get you 50% off. You are welcome. Not too long ago, I had the idea I wanted to sell my confidence video course. I had no idea how to do it or where to get started. That is why I am so glad I found Shopify.

Yes, that's the sound of me getting paid while I'm sleeping. Thanks to Shopify, they made it so unbelievably easy. Shopify is a commerce platform, revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or IPO ready, Shopify is the only tool you need to start. Run and grow your business without the struggle. Shopify puts you in control of every sales channel. So whether you're selling satin sheets from Shopify's in-person POS system or offering organic olive oil on Shopify's all-in-one system or offering organic olive oil on Shopify's

all-in-one e-commerce platform. You are covered. Let me tell you, it's been unbelievable. I've sold my masterclass on Shopify. My video courses on Shopify. My workshops on Shopify. My virtual keynotes on Shopify. I mean, literally everything that I have for a concept now

goes on to Shopify and I make money on the platform while I sleep. And they continually upgrade and advance Shopify offering me new solutions and new add-ons to make my offering that much better. And it's so easy. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the US and Shopify is truly a global force, powering albers, Rothies, and Brooklyn and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 170 countries.

Plus Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. This is possibility powered by Shopify and they make it so simple. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash monahan. All lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash monahan to take your business to the next level today. Shopify.com slash monahan. And you'll be hearing this before you know it.

Tch. My first little confidence crater, I write about how journaling changed my life. And in my situation, I never, I was like you in an executive and corporate America, quote, unquote successful, but not fulfilled, not really happy, you know, just kind of living an empty life in many regards, just chasing a paycheck. And I would always say, well, I guess this is it. I don't know what else I'm supposed to do. And people would ask me, no, what's the bound? Like, I don't, this is it.

And then I started journaling. And it was not long. It was only a few months into journaling. I started seeing a pattern. Because I would go back and read, like, and read things, right? Like, the moment this seems like a clue. And it really is like a clue. It's like you're on like a little hunt in your own life. And I started seeing clues that anytime I was

speaking at an event, I felt like magic when I got off the stage. People were saying like the nicest things that they ever said, it was weird. And I would write that down. This is weird, like, but I would never acknowledge, wow, maybe this is something different I should start looking into. I didn't know it was a business the time. I was like, that's not what I do. I'm supposed to be over here. But after a few instances connecting those dots in the journal, it made me pause and say, wait a minute.

There's something here that I'm missing. I need to start looking at it. So I generally can help in so many profound different ways, whether you're trying to find your purpose, you're trying to find what your anxiety is, you're trying to find what's really going on. And like you said, just from a simple, self-awareness, oh my gosh, it is game changing. But when you were explaining that you went to the therapist, I thought she was going to say, it's not anxiety, it's, you got to dump your boyfriend. Yeah. Well, she did actually. She said, before I walked out, she said, I don't usually give advice, but you need to break up with him.

Because I was like, the door closed. She's like, and you need to break up with him. So she did also say that. And you did break up with a maf. Oh, yeah, immediately. I was like, bye. See ya. Once I realized, oh, the issue isn't even me.

The issue is how this person's treating me and that I'm allowing myself to be treated this way. So I need to get out. I have a lot of reasons to be furious. So this has to end now. Wow, it is always so much easier for someone else to see in us what we could be missing. And just the same way, I was just having this conversation

with a friend, I was telling her directly, it was so obvious to me what was wrong in her life, but for her, it was a mystery. And I think that happens to so many of us, but to your point, journaling can definitely be a solution. Absolutely. Yeah. And just to your point about patterns, so I have 10 years of journals sitting next to me. And it gives me the ability to be a time traveler. Like I can go back and see, well, what did 30-year-old me want? Was it really a good idea that I broke up with so-and-so? Was that really a good career choice when I passed up that job and go back and say, well, yeah, look, like literally in writing, here's what I thought about at the time. So, you know,

I could go on and on and I'm a big journaling proponent. I hopefully one of my impacts has just been to get people to journal to realize it's actually not that hard and there's so many benefits. So where did you go that took you to write your first book from comedy central to taking a break to heal yourself, which I completely get and I'm so proud of you that you, you know, had the awareness and commitment to do that. How do you go from there to writing your first book? Well, so if we back up in time a little bit, I had always wanted to be a writer. I went to Brown for playwriting. I was like deep in this theater scene in New York before Comedy Central. And I gave it up because I thought I'm going to be poor. I mean, be poor if I do this.

I don't come from a family of money. There's no security net that's going to catch me. I need to be practical. TV is close to theater. You know, being an executive is close to being the writer, but it's not the real thing, right? So I settled. I was like, I'm going to settle on this because it's an awesome settling. It's like the best possible good enough plateau. It's fancy, it's fun. I'm with creative people, but it's not the real thing. And so while I was at Comedy Central, I started feeling the pangs of I need to create. And so I started submitting things to the slush pile of the New Yorker. That's like their random email address you could send stuff to. And I started getting things in. And I realized, okay, well, let me take this a little

bit further. And I started writing, I woke up earlier every day before work. And I wrote the first book, which is by yourself, the Apping Lillies, and I had like two full-time jobs essentially. And that was what it took, you know, to get it done. But that book was really about killing myself enough that I was stable, because having such a chaotic childhood, you have no emotional regulation, right? It's like a rollercoaster of depression, anxiety, joy, total fear. anxiety, joy, total fear. And I basically just created rituals and ways to structure my day so that it always had consistency. So I write a lot about journaling, a gratitude practice, having a physical way that you move your body every day. And you have to trust me in the book, I'm way funnier, I'm funnier in writing. So stuff isn't like woo-woo, I'm not like,

blow up your life and start working out an hour every day. I'm like running sucks. I had to do about 50,000 things to trick myself into running. Like silly stuff. Like I had to, at the very beginning, go stop by stop sign by stop sign, and just congratulate myself, like bribe myself. Get a fancy candle if I went quarter of a mile.

You know, really like, I had to trick and bribe myself. And so that's what Lily's is all about is, what are small changes you can make in your life to find stability, to find solid ground, so that you're kind to yourself. And you're not living in misery because up until that point, I thought that life was just a series of crises to endure. That's what my take on life was because that's what it had been through my childhood and high school and college. that really was what life was for me. And with Lilly's, as I was writing it, my decision was, I can't be miserable anymore. I do not accept that my life will be miserable.

So that's how Lilly's came about. And then after I was laid off and realized, whoa, there's like, I kind of felt like a fraud too, because here I had written this self-care book, this memoir slash self-help book that had done really well. It was like a big bestseller. And now all of a sudden, I'm like, wait a minute, I don't totally have it together. Like, can I even write this? Are people going to think I'm an imposter? You know? And what I realized is, no, because we're all on this journey and it's always evolving and it's always changing and if anyone ever tells you, I've done all the work. I'm completely healed.

Well, then you know you've met a liar. Like, there's just, there's absolutely no way. And yeah, it kind of sucks that every time we think we get there, we realize, oh, wow, there's much more work to do. But as I have done this work, it's gotten easier and easier and easier. And my life feels like more, yes, like more just unabashed, yes, in it than no or misery or any of those feelings I used to feel. So it's definitely, it's a journey that is not linear, takes so many different turns. And now I'm just really up front with my readers and my community on Instagram. You know, if I'm having a messy day, I'm not hiding that.

I'm not perfect. And that's, we can't hold anybody to that standard. The best thing we can do is investigate these moments and be honest so that other people see, I'm not alone. You know, and at the end of the day, that's what I hope I do for people is just make them feel less alone. Okay, this is what I find weird though, now that you shared, thank you for sharing that, that you're back on with Brown and your passions for writing because I did not know about that.

So now I know that though, this is what I find weird. You're in the clonby central position. You write this book, the book does better than 99% of books, like this is incredible Tara. And I am so confused for me. That would be like the sign of women. This is my passion. I just took a chance and did it. I had the stability of the exact job still, which I totally get that, right? But now I have the proof. Now I don't I jump. It was a combination of things, one of which was I wasn't convinced that I was successful. It's taken me a long time.

You know, when you grow up in that kind of negativity, it's actually very hard to accept joyous, positive things. I think it's called the positive affect. You're used to misery, you're used to negativity, you're used to criticism, you're used to everything's doomed, everything's gonna fail, there's no way I can do this.

And so it's really hard actually to hold on to, wait a minute, I just succeeded. The data is in my favor, not against me. So that was the first part. The second part was my first book, Lily's came out at the beginning of the pandemic. So the time between success and pandemic being laid off was actually not that long, but it was a blessing they laid me off, you know, and so quickly, because what

probably would have happened is I would have tried to make that job work for fear of money, for fear of, I'm in a struggle, I'm going to be poor, then I'll be homeless, nobody loves me, then I'm going to die.. Like I would have gone through that and just stayed in my corporate job. So they did me a favor ultimately by cutting me loose. It was a gift, but did you struggle ultimately when you made a decision to write the second book to say, because I know I struggled with this

when I was really out of corporate and saying, okay, I'm gonna work for myself. That feels so unstable and scary at first, right? Yeah, I mean, I deal with that still. I mean, I feel like even up until last night, I was like way more nervous about it. It comes up all the time. I wish I could say, well, you know, now I've been fully supporting myself as an artist and entrepreneur for three years in a lifestyle that I'm obsessed with. I love my life. I never want to go back to corporate. I just want to show people that,

oh, if you don't like the situation you're in, you actually can change it. It's not a huge magic trick. It's a bunch of small steps taken with a teensy bit of discipline and a big dose of joy. So like you're excited to do it, but I definitely get scared. Sometimes you know and wonder, what if this next book doesn't do well? Like what if glow doesn't do well? And what if people stop coming to my workshops? And then again, I'm gonna be pouring and I'm gonna do them. Did did did did did did did.

But I stopped myself and I say, look at the data. Just look, like what has actually been true in my life? Has it been true that when I took a calculated risk, when I had created something of quality that I just fell off the face of the planet? No. And money actually isn't security. As much as I think it is, it isn't my relationships or security because the people around me, other ones who, if things get really bad, bad are gonna take me in and are gonna help me So it's I've had to tweak what that what is security actually and security can never be a job and it can never be money and I you know We need a certain baseline obviously for resources

But it's not everything and I I really genuinely used to believe that it was. So my answer is it's an evolving story. I'd say the majority of days I'm so excited to be an entrepreneur and an author and have all these things. And sometimes I worry. And then both of the things are true. And I just have to remind myself of the facts. It's so good. And I'm with you. I am so with you. And I'm five years into it. And I still feel the same way. Yeah, right. Have the days where I'm like, oh, I'm killing it. This is amazing. And then other days I'm like, wait a minute. What if this launch doesn't go well? What is that going to look like? Maybe it's not going to work. But can I ask you this overall compared

to your corporate job? Don't you feel more free, more alive? Like, isn't it? Like, I'd never go back now, even with my worry. Do you feel the same way? Yeah, no, I mean, listen, for a long time, I was straddling both because I was like, well, this doesn't work. All this head back took corporate.

I had to withstand an 18 month non-compete. So once that window passed, I was like, well, for 18 months, I had to go all in. And then I was like, well, I don't know. I was cheating myself because as you know, anytime, you split your attention and focus from one thing, my friend, friend when I just wrote this book, Burn the Boats, stop looking back at this, let go of that

and just go all in over here. That took me a couple of years to really let go of but that's all about impostor syndrome, self-doubt, negative self-talk, self-sabotageant behaviors. All these things. What are some of the other tactics you share in glow-in-the-effing dark on how to overcome those things? Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up that in particular, the negative self-talk because I call it the frenemy within. You know someone you've known forever, but if you met today, you wouldn't be friends. That's how I think of it. Like I'd never like if I met this person in a restaurant who's like constantly tearing me down and be like, bye, nope, like no, thank you, but since she's been with me since I was a little kid, I

feel some affection for her and some, you know, comfort with the discomfort. And so in glow, what I really talk about is I used to push all these things away, particularly I had a core wound that I felt like I'd always be lonely and I'd always be rejected and I'd always be abandoned. And it was actually that was based kind of on the facts. I was left alone a lot of my childhood. One of my first memories is I'm five years old, wandering down the cement roads of my neighborhood,

which was kind of more wild than you would think for Los Angeles. There's like trees and coyotes and deer and I'm really little and it's so scary because my babysitter has just vanished just completely vanished isn't there and And I go to a neighbor's house, you know, I'm like crying in the street looking for an adult and I go to the neighbor's house and I knock on the door and

She looks at me like I'm the most wretched little thing she's ever seen. Like it's my fault I'm alone, which looking back, I came from the bad family of the neighborhood, the family that had the garbage container on the front lawn, you know, where the parents were weird and nobody liked them. And so I was seen as that way, even just as a kid. And so not only did that memory kind of haunt me, I was so scared, but I was shamed into feeling that it was bad,

that it was bad that I was alone and I had done something wrong. And so I had always pushed away my loneliness as this shameful part of me, all I shouldn't need people so much, I shouldn't want to be with people so much. And as I did the work of discovering my own true self and being way more gentle with myself, I realized loneliness is my superpower. Because I have felt so alone, I want to write, I want to connect. I'm Jewish and I like go to my synagogue when I just need to see people in community. And all the best things in my life actually do come from and need to be seen and to see other people.

And when I realized that, I realized all these things in us are anxiety or depression, all the things we hate about ourselves, the way to heal them is not to reject them. You can't self-reject yourself into self-acceptance, right? You can't self-hate your way into self-love it. We all try and we all fail. It just doesn't work that way. But in the book what I talk about

is embracing that part of us, really saying, oh, my loneliness, like thank you. Thank you for truly all these gifts you've given me. I have a worksheet in the book actually that people find really effective for how to talk to that part of yourself. It's from a form of therapy called internal family systems that was created by this really smart doctor, Dr. Richard Schwartz, and it basically just says, we all have many different parts within us. You know, if you've ever said, I feel one way about it, but also this way, then you recognize the truth of it.

We feel a bunch of different feelings. And when we can pay attention to one at a time, and just kind of bring some caring and some loving to that part, rather than throwing it away as entirely bad, it loses a little bit of its charge. But with time, it becomes gentler and gentler and easier and easier. And now I see my loneliness as a great source of my power. So, you know, we all have this inner critic. We all have this frenemy within. And the way to overcome it is to accept it, to accept, oh, wow, why am I being so mean to myself. You know, I sometimes put a hand

over my heart and just say, it's okay, sweetheart, that's fine. I'm so I'm so sorry, you feel that way. That sounds rough. And by speaking to myself, the way I would want to be spoken to, you know, the way that I would want to be reassured and the way that feeling wants to be reassured. I have, I've really, the sounds insane to me, but I really don't have that much negative self-chatter. Like it does come up sometimes, you know, we're talking about the big career shifts, but mostly I walk through my days, there isn't, there's no longer a diss track like when I was writing lilies after my very turbulent childhood. Basically all I could hear was your ugly, unlovable, you're never going to make it.

At age 25, I was like, you're never going to succeed. There's nothing in this life for you. I was truly, that's all I could hear. And today, I can barely relate to that. I just don't hear it anymore because, you know, it's kind of ironic because I've heard it so clearly and I accepted it and I bring love to it and I no longer push it away as something terrible. So that's that's how I now deal with my negative self-chatter and also the facts like I talked before about you know I'll write, here's the fiction I'm believing. I am going to spiral and this next book isn't going to do well and then I'm going to be poor and then I'm going to regret everything.

Then I put, so that's the fiction, like I'm going to call a piece of paper I write, you know, a line down the center and it's called that's a fiction. The facts, everything I've done up to this point has been successful when I put in the work. I have put in the work and I have a whole network that loves me. Like truly what's the worst that's gonna happen? Dolly Parton said of her starting her career. She said, what were they gonna do? Kill me? Are they gonna eat me? Like really what was the worst case scenario? So that's another quick habit I have of deciphering fact and fiction. So loving on these parts that we want to reject

and always being good at backing up, being self-aware and seeing the difference between fact and fiction. Well, I know we were talking about this a little bit of off air. you've been talking about a breakup on social media and I find it so interesting because so few people, a lot of people will be like, oh yeah, I had a horrible childhood or like this happened five years ago and I got like me, like I got fired in the corporate America.

But very rarely do you ever see people in real time, the way that you're like documenting this, talk about a breakup and it caught my attention and I was so drawn to it because I've never seen it before. What compelled you to do that? Yeah. I felt like on Instagram or any of these things, people seem so perfect. And I think that you could look at my own life is like, oh, she wrote

these books and they did really well. And now she can, you know, fly her, you know, fly around the world, do whatever she wants. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. And I got dumped so badly and so cruelly. And my heart was so broken that I just thought there have got to be other people that feel the way I feel. And what I want right now is not to be alone. So I, but they don't want to be alone either. And so I just started talking about it and not in a, let me unload on you kind of way. Because I do think there's a difference between talking about our feelings and talking about our experiences and being the aunt who like went on a rant for like, you know, five Facebook posts about something and are like, wait, what? Like, maybe someone needs to

check on Aunt Shirley. Like, you know, there is a difference. And it's been really interesting because so many people, I felt really unloved. I felt really unlovable in this moment. And so many readers and fellow authors and people just like rush to my defense and we're just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I've been through this. You don't deserve this. This is terrible. I'm here for you. And it's just a good reminder that you never know who's struggling. You really don't. And if I can be open about these struggles without oversharing, you know, without making it a woe is me,

kind of situation, then I know I'm empowering other people to own their stories. Like, I own it. I got dumped in a really bad way. Like, it's somewhat embarrassing and it's what happened. And I'm not afraid of it.

It's nothing, it's nothing ultimately to be ashamed of. So that's sort of why I've been talking about it. Depend on yourself, if the power grid ever quits for a day or longer. January marked the third time a power station in North Carolina was damaged by gunfire recently. Authorities are saying the attack raises a new level of threat. Authorities are now checking our grid for vulnerabilities. They've identified nine key substations. If these substations are attacked, power could be knocked out from coast to coast for up to 18 months. Imagine a blackout lasting not days, but weeks or months. Your life would be frozen

in time right at the moment the power fails. Lights all over the country would go out throwing people into total darkness. That's why having your own solar power is more important than ever. With the new Patriot Power Generator 2000X, you get a solar generator that doesn't install into your house because it's portable. You can take it with you, even use it inside. But it's powerful enough for your phones, medical devices, or even your fridge. And right now you can go to 4patriots.com and use code Confidence to get 10% off your first purchase on anything in the store, including the Patriot Power Generator.

You'll also get their famous guarantee for an entire year after your order, plus free shipping on orders over $97. And a portion of every sale is donated to charities who support our veterans and their families. Just go to 4patriots.com and use code confidence to get 10% off. That's 4patriots.com use code confidence to get yours today. It doesn't need to cost a fortune for you to live your best life. Some of the smallest changes that we can make don't cost a ton, but can make you feel so happy in your own skin and in your own home. That's what cozy earth is doing for me. Cozy earth crafts luxury goods that transform your lifestyle. Cozy earth has been featured on Oprah's favorite things.

Five years in a row. All products come with a 10 year warranty. Cozy Earth is so comfortable. My tea is incredible. I love wearing it. I feel cool when I'm wearing. I mean, literally the products are incredible. They're so nice and high end, yet you won't believe the deal

that you're gonna get today. Cozy Earth Lounge where offers optimal comfort while maintaining a flattering elegant fit. And I am shouting that out because I love my new t-shirt. I've been wearing it every single day. And I want you to know that the sheets are the same. I mean, the product is just so high-end. And when you can make small changes like this, you're excited to get into bed at night. You're excited to put your t-shirt on. You just get happy and joyful. And isn't that what life

is supposed to be all about? I think it is. So if I can make some small changes, like adding cozy earth into my rotation, into my sheets, into my linens, and into my clothes, I'm pulling the trigger, and I already made it happen. Cozy earth betting is temperature regulating. For me, that's everything. I cannot be sweating at night. Listen, cozy earth made over favorite things five years in a row. For a reason, the products are incredible. Don't believe me, check it out. Cozy earth provided an exclusive offer for my listeners today.

And for you right now, you're getting up to 35% off. CozyEarth.com site wide. When you use the code, competence, that's 35% off cozy earth dot com site wide when you use the code confidence that's 35% off right now cozy earth dot com site wide use the code confidence you're welcome. It's funny because when I got fired I posted 20 hours later nobody was calling me known with saying anything so I realized nobody knows and so posted, I've just been fired. And people in my inner circle freaked out and they were calling me, take that down. Are you crazy?

People aren't gonna wanna hire you again. You're really gonna leave a mark on your good reputation. Like unwind that delete, delete, delete. And I remember thinking, I didn't kill anyone. I didn't kill anyone. Like this lady didn't like me. Why do I not feel bad? You know, but I was, you know, of course, I questioned it first. Why do I not feel bad, you know?

But I was, you know, of course, I questioned at first. I was like, is that right? Or, you know, I am not sure these people love me. But ultimately in the end, I decided similar to him, like, probably there's other people that have been fired. I'm pretty sure and they probably didn't kill anyone either. So maybe it will help some other people. And maybe it will help me to see

there's other opportunities out there, whatever. Yes. And it beyond did. Like, and like you people came into comfort to be like, hey, I've been there private messages that I would risk like, don't you get down my whole life turned around. Heather, here's what happened for me. And this was what's going to happen.

And you start getting inspired by real true life stories of other people. And that's when social media is at its best. Absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of us think we need to hide our problems and we can't ask for what we need. We can't ask for help because then we'll look weak or they'll look down on us. And what I have found is that every time that I'm just vulnerable and tell the truth, like try to be as truthful as I can be. If you look on Instagram, I'm not like, this guy's evil and

he, at all, I'm really just talking about my experience and how hurt I am. People, they just want to be closer to you. You know, it's like the friend who never has any problems is extremely hard to relate to. You're like, what's going on inside of you, Nicole? Like truly, like, do you have a life? Like, you're just smiling this whole time. There's no problems because we all want to feel needed. Every one of us wants to feel like we're needed and we're helpful. And so when we, in a measured way, express our grief, express, you know, that we've been laid off, that we've been rejected, and that we need community.

I have never seen anyone turn on me or anyone else because people want to help you. Like, it's the ultimate truth. There's people want to help you. They don't want to put you down. They've probably been through the same thing you've been through. That's how we grow closer. The way we grow further apart and like less in touch with our compassion and humanity is when we pretend life is some other way.

You know, I had a whole schedule of what was supposed to be on Instagram of like, woo-hoo! Look at me with my book in DC like, this is me at the White House. You know, I got a private tour of the West Wing. I did a post about the White House, but it was all about how I was unbelievably joyful to see the Oval Office, where so much history has been made. And wow, I can't believe how amazing this country is. And I cried directly after the tour about how hardbroken I was that both things were true at the same time. So It's it's been this one has been really interesting just to see how many people connect to having their heart broken and having no one to tell about it. I love your use of the word and I'm not surprised because of your background and comedy. And so this is interesting. When I gave my TEDx talk,

I was challenging the concept of the Me Too movement to look at not only as men bully women, but women bully women. Yeah. More often in my experience in corporate America. And at first, I guess the way I hired a coach who had a background in comedy and theater. And when we were working together, she's like,

I feel like you're alienating the people and the Me Too movement and then you're like saying, this one's better, is that what you're trying to do? I said, no, she said then what you need to do is use the word and effectively. And it's so interesting to hear how effectively you use it that I guess I had grown up this certain way of not thinking that two can be true at the same time

if they were, they seem polar opposite, yet they actually can't. It's just a way to bring things together and say it is okay to have both. Yeah, in comedy, the expression is yes and and it's comes from improv. Like if you're doing an improv scene, you can't and your partner says, we're on Mars and you say, no, we're not. Like, the scene dies. Like, where can it go from there? But if you say, we're on Mars, yes,

and the era appears freaking me out or whatever, you're building, right? You're not stopping, you're building, and you're including somebody else in your story. And so, I too grew up thinking things were black and white. It was totally right or it was totally wrong. But the more and more work I've done in both books, what I talk about is you have such a deep emotional world inside of you. And instead of thinking I'm either totally happier and totally sad, you could be happy, sad, grieving, jubilant, angry. You could be happy, sad, grieving, jubilant, angry. But you could be all these things at once,

and it's up to you to decide what are you going to tap into. You know, for me, this grief that I'm feeling about this breakup is not my whole life. It is one part of my life that I'm experiencing right now, and one of the ways I get out of it is by journaling about all the other ways that I feel. So I can see that this guy, this one little pinpoint, wow, it's just one pinpoint.

It's not my whole vision. So really getting good at feeling multiple things at the same time and accepting that it would be so much easier if the world was black and white, right? Everything was good, everything was bad. It's just not that way. So why do we pretend like it is? You mentioned earlier that one of the things that you learn after leaving corporate and

getting into this journey of writing is around the importance of joy. How do you get yourself to redirect and feel joyful in moments? So I would be lying if I said, it's so easy. You know, I've come so far and it's so easy. So generally for me what that looks like is actually feeling my feelings. You know, again, at first I felt really embarrassed. Just I'll use the breakup as an example.

It had only been four months. How could I be this heartbroken? Yadda, yadda, yadda. And I just said, I own my story. I really am this heartbroken. There's, I think a lot of us get caught up in how we should feel, and particularly about our childhoods. Like, why didn't have it the worst?

I wasn't starving. I wasn't the worst case scenario, so I should feel better. And I think we say that because we feel like we're being disrespectful to the people that we think, quote quote unquote had it worse. And it's, who does that help? It's actually demeaning to other people that you think that you're like so above them in their experience.

And it's brutal to yourself. Because if that's actually how you feel, then that's what you need to work with. You know, otherwise you're just going to be pushing it down, pushing it down, and what's really unfair about that is that the things you don't deal with deal with you. And they also deal with the people you love the most. So a big part of my message of self-care is if you want to change the world and the people you love the most like today in this moment, then you will start working on these things you don't want to deal with because they are unconsciously dictating how you see the world, how you move through it, how you communicate with other people. Self-care when done authentically, you know,

I'm not talking about a blowout vacation to Hawaii, though if you wanna invite me to Hawaii, totally game, like let's go, I get a vacation, but authentic self-care, where you really look at, how am I really doing? If I was honest, and I wrote an inventory of how I really feel, how I really think I'm doing in this world,

if you put that all down and brought nurturing and care and not condemnation to what was real, you show up very, very differently. You show up for your community very, very differently. And particularly in times like these, when everything seems so out of our control, I can't go change the world today, right? But I can change my world. And I can start to change the world of the people around me. And that has an enormous ripple effect. You know, I wrote lilies basically I wrote by yourself, the Epping lilies basically for a younger version of me. Like I wanted a younger version, but then I realized the book actually spans basically

all demographics. But I wanted somebody else to have a guidebook to how to find stability. And now that book has sold over 200,000 copies, that's a lot of people. You know, that's a lot of people where I thought that I'm just this one little voice, what can I really do? And then how do they act towards different people? So we start really little just with I need to heal myself. And the ripple effects are the magnitude is insane that how good it goes exponential. So I really hope that people, you know, realize that taking your mental health seriously is taking the whole world's mental health seriously. Like, you're not just a little island, you're connected to the rest

of us. Who did you write glow in the effing dark for? I'm so glad you asked that question. So I think that I was put on earth to write by yourself the affinities as wild and hokie as that sounds. That was in the book proposal, I thought that was my why I'm here. That's my meaning, a straight that book. Glow in the affing dark wrote me, because once I decided I can't live like this anymore, I can't live in the dark, I can't

live dimming my light one second longer. When I said to myself, I need to make decisions in line with glowing, with acknowledging that I am made of star dust. Like, I need to honor that, that I'm grateful to be here at all, much less in star dust form. It was a challenge. If you're going to write a book with that title, you better be living in line with that title. And so it upleveled every single part of my life.

And so it's sort of their sister books. One is about finding stability, finding grounding, and the other is about getting right with your soul, and shining. It's such a buzzword,, you know, what does it mean? I think it means really finding out who you were before everything else happened. Like, what was essential you, like, what did essential you want the most in life? And it's not that essential you, we think we can't trust ourselves, or at least I thought, oh, I can't even trust myself. I can't even hear my internal, like, what is my gut even? I can't make any decisions. But what I realized was yes I could.

I just needed to clear everything away that had dimmed me. All that had to go. And I had to let go of my identity and my status as money and corporate and Hollywood. This makes me a person. No, no, no, no. There were many other things that made me a person and I was just worthwhile. At the end of the day, there's so many of us who feel like we're not enough, we're not worthy.

We've made too many mistakes. And I'm really here to say, you are good as you are. And when you realize you have inherent self-worth, no matter what you've even done, your whole life gets a lot better. And just to bring it back to the stars, we never look at the stars. And this completely politically divided messed up world, we can all agree that stars are awesome. Nobody is saying, oh, those stars

didn't finish their to-do list. They suck. Those stars made a mistake in their job and they're bossively thinking about them poorly. We don't say that. And so we don't need to say that about ourselves. We have that in us. We can all acknowledge and embrace our inherent worth. Our inherent start us.

The thing about running your own business is every single hire counts. And no hiring partner understands that, like Indeed. Indeed is a hiring platform where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Don't spend hours on multiple jobs sites looking for candidates with the right skills when you can do it all. With Indeed, find top-down fast with Indeed's suite of powerful hiring tools like matching

assessments and virtual interviews. Hate waiting, Indeed's US data shows over 80% of indeed employers find quality candidates whose resume on indeed matches their job description, the moment they sponsor a job. Indeed, matching is the perfect way to match the ideal candidate that you're looking for, the need that you have and do it fast. Candidates that you invite apply through instant match are three times more likely to apply to your job than candidates who only see in search alone. According to US Indeed data, with Indeed matching as soon as you sponsor a post, you get a short list of quality candidates

whose resumes on Indeed match your job description. Boom, it's hiring at warp speed. Indeed does the hard hiring work for you. Sponsor a job and we'll match you with quality candidates whose resume is on Indeed. Fit your job description right when you post. With Indeed, you can start hiring fast. Join the over three million businesses worldwide using Indeed to hire great talent fast. Indeed knows when you're growing your own business, you have to make every dollar count.

That's why with Indeed, you only pay for quality applications that match your must-have job requirements. Visit Indeed.com slash monahan to start hiring now. Just go to Indeed.com slash monahan. Indeed.com slash monahan. Terms and conditions apply. Cost per application pricing not available for everyone. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Oh my gosh, you're reminding me of this morning. This is making me so sad. I want to give this book to this poor guy. I saw it this morning. Roke my heart. I live in a building that has a restaurant downstairs

and I'll grab and go kind of a place. And he had gone in those lines everywhere, I live in a major city. And he was running out in his suit. A young guy, late for work, like you could see it, right? And it's the impact people, everyone, he's got the sandwich and he drops the sandwich. No. On the cement., everyone, he's got the sandwich and he drops the sandwich. No.

On the cement. And obviously, Major City dirty. And he just starts picking it up. And another woman says, no, no, no, don't pick that up. Go get another one. They'll give you another one inside. Like, you don't need to eat that. Like, that's on the ground.

You know, she was trying to be nice. Yeah, yeah. And he goes, no, I can't. I'm late. I'll get fired. This is the only chance I have. The lines too long. And it was, I just saw like the fear he was operating from and like this. You could just see it on him and I so it resonated with me because I remember how I was in my

younger, I was, I was that guy. I was like, no, it's not worth a panic, panic, panic, and so many of us are living like that and not living as if we're stardust. Yeah, and the worst part of that is we just are stardust. Like it just is a fact, and we're living like it's not, we're living in some fiction where we all suck and we're in panic and everything's spiraling out of control, or at least that's how I was like him. Like, oh, I guess I'll just eat this disgusting, dirty, hot street gutter sandwich now. And now I've realized, you know what? You can go back.

You can go back to the restaurant and nothing bad happens. And they give it to you. He has to be, he has to be, he does happen and that boss fires you. That's nowhere that you want to work. Oh, no. You're if you're employer for anyone listening right now is going to fire you because you dropped your sandwich and you went back in line to get a

fresh one so that you could eat something decent during your lunch hour. That is not the company for you if they fired. No, I'm fine. Hard. Bye. It's, you know, when we think about it, it's just common human decency that we have to reclaim, that that's no way to live. Like you weren't put on earth to grovel on the ground to get your sandwich to go into an office. Like that's not worth your soul.

That's not, you know, I have a lot of compassion for that guy. Because like you said, I, having been there, I know how much it sucks to live from that place of scarcity. And, and you look at other people who talk about abundance and you're like, they're liars. There's no way that works. That's not going to work for me. Having been in both places and sometimes going, you know, visiting my shadowy, nothing's going to work out. I can say definitively 100% enjoying your life and thinking you are worthwhile and reminding yourself that you are made of stardust does not negatively impact you. In fact, it gives you the freedom to live the life you were always meant to live, to take

bigger chances, to enjoy the life you were always meant to live, to take bigger chances, to enjoy the time you have here. And I would have never thought that was possible. And probably if someone told me that, I would say, uh, you're a liar or a charlatan or like, what are you trying to sell me? But now I just know the truth. And I really hope that I can be with people in the truth. And that by being honest, they'll see like, oh, this isn't, it's not all one way, it's not always perfect and it's so much better than it was before. Well, since you do create things that aren't for sales, tell us a little bit about your newsletter and how we get that. So I have a newsletter where I write basically one short essay every

week about something you could do to up level or be inspired, but I'm real about it. No toxic positivity here. It's really real. If you go to tarashustor.com slash newsletter, or if you go on substack, tarashustor.substac.com, I have a weekly newsletter, and I have a journaling club. If any of the journaling has sounded interesting to you, you I have a journaling club. If any of the journaling has sounded interesting to you, you can join the journaling club.

I reply to every comment. I'm in a constant dialogue with my readers. And also on Instagram, if you're interested in any of this of me being real, but I think funny, I hope it's like, mostly it's like real and funny and trapped. You know, I'm just Tari Shuston Instagram. And obviously, I hope that people go out and get glow in the f-ing dark.

And glowing the f-ing dark, where do they go for that? Anywhere books are sold, target, Amazon, you're local indie, anywhere. Audible, did you narrate the Audible? I did, I did. Yes. Love that, I love that, it's my favorite when Audible? I did, I did. Yes. I love that, I love that's my favorite when authors do that.

Yeah, yeah, and it's really fun when readers come up to me and they're like, I feel like you're in my head. Like I feel like we've been in a conversation. I'm like, we have. Like true, like you know so much about me. Like we have just been in a very intimate conversation. But that's the coolest thing is a real community has grown around this book that has, like nothing to do with me. Like we have just been in a very intimate conversation. But that's the coolest thing is

a real community has grown around this book that has like nothing to do with me. It's just people who want to be real, who want to get better, who are willing to put in the work to have the life that they enjoy. If that is you or someone you love, get it now, blow in the effing dark. It is out there. You need it. Tara, thank you so much for being here and thank you for all the work you're doing. Oh, this was so fun. Thank you for having me. All right, guys, go get the book and until next week, keep creating your confidence. I'm Kevin Miller, a former pro-athlete author, father of Nine, and self-help guide. I broadcast the Self-Helpful podcast from my sanctuary high up in the Colorado Rockies. I'm a fan and critic of Self-Help. So I invite today's most important influencers to grapple with their own wisdom and stories

in an authentic, relatable conversation about self-help and what drives them. With each guest, I conduct a four-part series that distills the guest's greatest wisdom and methodologies into practical transformative steps that you and I can use to create our path to a life of growth, freedom and fulfillment. These unique conversations and candid explorations of paradigm-shifting perspectives is why the self-help-old podcast has been downloaded over 60 million times by people like you and me who take responsibility for our personal evolution. Change comes through connection and personal experience and this is what I strive to deliver

with the Self-Helpful Podcast. I invite you to join me as we elevate our personal experience of life and the way we show up for others. This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Holla Taha, CEO of the award-winning Digital Media Empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit. On Young & Profiting Podcast, I interview the brightest minds in the world, and I turn

their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. Each week we dive into a new topic like the Art of Side Hustles, how to level up your influence and persuasion and goal setting. I interview A-List guests on Young & Profiting. I've got the best guests. Like the world's number one negotiation expert, Chris Voss, Shark, Damon John, serial entrepreneur Alex and Leila Hermosi, and even movie stars like Matthew McConaughey.

There's absolutely no fluff on my podcast, and that's on purpose. Every episode is jam-packed with advice that's gonna push your life forward. I do my research, I get straight to the point, and I take things really seriously, which is why I'm known as the podcast Princess, and how I became one of the top podcasters in the world in less than five years. Young and profiting podcast is for all ages. Don't let the name fool you, it's an advanced show. As long as you want to learn and level up,

you will be forever young. So join podcast royalty and subscribe to Young and Profiting Podcast. Or YAP, like it's often called by my YAP fam, on Apple Spotify Cast Box, or wherever you listen to your podcast. or YAP, like it's often called by my YAP fam. On Apple Spotify, Casbux, or wherever you listen to your podcast.