Financial Feminist - 254. Scarcity, Survival, and the Price of Power with Survivor All-Star Parvati Shallow

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Save your seat inside Business Bootcamp! Your COMPLETE roadmap to go from idea to income: ⁠herfirst100k.com/business-bootcamp  What does it really cost to survive — on reality TV and in real life? In this episode of Financial Feminist, I sit down with Parvati Shallow — Survivor legend, and author of “Nice Girls Don’t Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power.” We talk about her journey from growing up in a high-control spiritual community (yes, basically a cult) to winning multiple seasons of Survivor and becoming one of the most iconic players in reality TV history, and how the scarcity mindset shaped her money, relationships, and self-worth for decades. Parvati opens up about what it means to rewire survival into abundance, motherhood’s lessons in surrender, queerness, and why playing “villain” on TV mirrors the punishment women face for stepping into their power. If you’ve ever been told you’re “too much” or felt you had to play small to belong, this conversation is for you. Parvati’s links: Website: https://www.parvatishallow.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pshallow/?hl=en  Read transcripts, learn more about our guests and sponsors, and get more resources at https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-show-notes/the-price-of-power/ Looking for accountability, live coaching, and deeper financial education? Check out our exclusive community! Join the $100K Club: https://herfirst100k.com/100k-pod   Our favorite travel and cash-back credit cards, plus other financial resources: https://herfirst100k.com/tools Not sure where to start on your financial journey? Take our FREE money personality quiz! https://herfirst100k.com/quiz Special thanks to our sponsors: Squarespace Go to www.squarespace.com/FFPOD to save 10% off your first website or domain purchase. Indeed Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com/FFPOD. Rocket Money Stop wasting money on things you don’t use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to RocketMoney.com/FFPOD. Quince For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from Quince. Go to Quince.com/FFPOD for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. NetsuiteIf your revenues are at least in the seven figures, download the free e-book Navigating Global Trade: 3 Insights for Leaders at NetSuite.com/FFPOD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine winning a million dollars and not being able to even afford a sandwich at the airport. Buckle up, because today we're joined by multi-time survivor winner, Parvety Shallow, and she's pulling back the curtain on everything you thought you knew about being a contestant on reality TV. Parvety Shallow is the winner of Survivor Micronesia, fan favorite on Heroes versus Villains, and now author of the new memoir, Nice Girls Don't Win, How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power. Oh, and she also just won Survivor again, this time on Australia versus the World. I was at JFK flying back from the finale with a million dollar check in my purse and could not buy a sandwich because my card is getting declined. And if you don't watch Survivor, maybe you watch a little show called The Traders, where she has been featured twice.

Parvety and I dive into her journey from growing up in a high-control spiritual community. She might not call it a cult, because legally she can't, but I'll call it a cult, to becoming one of the most iconic reality TV players in history, to unpacking the scarcity mindset that drove her for decades. I would go to a friend's birthday party and I would be talking to someone and I would be in the back of my mind while I'm smiling and having a conversation with them thinking, what does this person want for me? Are they trying to get something? Can I trust them? Are they using me for something? It was like this game that I could not break my brain out of. We talk about money, survival, queerness, motherhood and what it actually takes to stop playing small and start living fully in alignment with yourself. Because I was so in the survival mode, it's like an impressionist painting. If you're up too close, you don't, you can't see the landscape. That's how I was living my life. I was just running through my survival modes.

If you've ever been called too much or felt like you had to contort yourself to belong, this episode is an invitation to burn it all down and to build something real. Let's get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors. You know we love a good deal on this show. So I am giving you all of our incredible sponsors deals up front with a little more information on the rest of the episode. This episode of Financial Feminist is sponsored in part by Squarespace, Rocket Money, NetSuite, and Indeed. Need a new website, whether it's a brand portfolio or store, Squarespace makes it easy.

Head over to Squarespace.com slash SFPod and use code FFPod for 10% off your first purchase. Stop paying for subscriptions you forgot about. Rocket Money finds and cancels them for you. Go to RocketMoney.com slash FFPod to take control of your finances. Running a growing business, NetSuite helps you manage. it all in one place. Download the free CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash ffpod. Indeed is the number one job site and a global leader in job matching and hiring. Get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash ffpod.

You've been called the Black Widow of Survivor and a cultural icon, and I have been obsessed with you for years. But in your memoir, you say you were really just really good at surviving. What did that kind of survival actually cost you? I think it cost me my authenticity. I didn't know who I was for most of my life or what I wanted, what I needed, because I was always putting other people first so that I could be liked so I could belong so I could get my needs. met my basic survival needs. I think one of the things that made you so good at Survivor and other reality shows was ultimately the things that made life really tough for you, too. Can you take me through some of those formative moments in your life before you went on Survivor the first time? Yeah, I was born into a really high control spiritual community that was run by a very charismatic controlling female guru.

and she controlled everyone's lives. She was arranging marriages. She was putting relationships together. When people would have babies, she would sometimes adopt their babies as her own. My parents got me and my sister out of there when I was nine, but I lived there for, we were there for a long time. So the blueprint of my life was established in that environment. So what I was able to do without even realizing that I was doing it was take all of the, the map that was laid out for me in childhood and turn it into something that I could monetize and be successful at in my adult life with Survivor, with reality television, with these games that are power games that I was basically living in as a kid without even

realizing it. So it's kind of, it's really interesting. I mean, what I've done with my book is is really kind of work through that and put the pieces together so that I could see with more consciousness what I have been doing for my whole life. But I'm also really proud of myself looking back that I found a way to supplement these sort of like distorted modes of living and turn it into something that's been really, I've been really successful at and paved a full-on career out of Do you feel like, and I don't know if it would, do you feel like it was a cult? Can you say the word cult? I mean, I don't, I don't want to be in any kind of drama with anyone. I can call it a cult. How about? I'll call it a call. So, yeah, great. So I mean, it has all the hallmarks. Absolutely. A charismatic leader. Control. Yeah. So I think one of the things we've talked a lot actually about cults and these kind of like institutes. on the show. And one of the things that every guest has talked about is like having to

shape shift in order to survive, in order to navigate that and realizing the power dynamics are changing all the time. And you're exactly right. That's basically the definition of survivor. Like, that's the whole thing. Yeah, exactly. And I didn't realize it until much later. I was like, someone asked me the other night, they were like, did you really not have any sense of what you were doing that like it stemmed from your childhood? And I said, no, actually, because I was so in the survival mode, it's like an impressionist painting. If you're up too close, you don't, you can't see the landscape. That's how I was living my life. I was just running through my survival modes, going fast, trying to keep up, trying to achieve. I'm very ambitious. So I just wanted to succeed and do well by the standards of life, you know, that the world sets out for us. And I was just going on autopilot for so long. So it wasn't until my divorce where I was alone for the first time where I could actually sit with my own thoughts, with my own energy. And this was just a few years ago.

So it really like it really took me a while to figure out how intense that kind of upbringing was. Did you have any moments at any of the times playing Survivor where it felt like you were back to being a kid again? Does that make sense? Like were the triggering moments? Oh, so many. I think that's what these reality competitions, like doing the show will do. It infantilizes us as competitors because all of our autonomy is taken away. They tell the production tells you when you're going to wake up, what you're going to do that day, what you're going to have for breakfast. you're eating where you're shitting like literally where you're shitting yeah truly and we have to walk in a single file line in the jungle and I'm like I I'm like a six year old but he's a cult now you're described it's a cult and chef preps is the leader of cult no it's kind of crazy so many parallels in the book to my culty childhood and survivor it's very similar so what were you're finding is like before Survivor, as transparently as you're willing to be? Like, what did your money situation look like before you went on the show? Yeah, I wrote about this pretty extensively in the book

because I think it's helpful to share information about money, especially as women. You know, you're doing the Lord's Workout here. I was a waitress and a bartender and a, like, cocktail server, and I did odds and ends and gigs here and there, but I never had really, I didn't really enjoy being in an office. So that wasn't the lifestyle I chose. So my money situation was very sort of up and down, very erratic, sort of in flux. I always paid my rent. I always paid for my car. I could handle my stuff. I was never in debt, but I was always sort of scraping by the seat of my pants because it was motivating for me, like not having enough money and not knowing where I was going to make rent from next month was really motivated and lit a fire under me to put myself

out into the world in a bold way. And so I lived that way for a really long time. And before I won Survivor, I think I had, like, I had, I wrote the story in my book because I had no money in my bank account because I just played in one survivor. But it was like a year in between playing and then winning, like getting the money actually, because the whole show, they had to edit it. And then it aired and then we did the live finale and I got the check. So I didn't have a job in between playing and winning Survivor and then getting the actual check. I had no money in my bank account. I was at JFK flying back from the finale with a million dollar check in my purse and could not buy a sandwich because my card was getting declined. I had no money at all. Wow. That just feels like

a weird metaphor for America, like the promise of like an American dream and maybe having it, but also not being able to afford a sandwich. It's like just to add my grasp. Right, right. I mean, we've had 200 plus conversations about money and I don't know if I've ever heard somebody articulate that feeling. And I know it's true for people of like, I'm scared of making money because maybe my driver ambition will go away. Like if I make, if I'm secure, Maybe that's actually a bad thing because then I might get lazy or I might get complicit. That's, I think that's so smart and I've never heard somebody articulate it like that. It would force me out of my comfort zone.

Yeah. Because I was like, I need to make money to pay my rent this month. And the same thing when I got pregnant. Because when I got pregnant, I was married and my husband at the time was working for this great company. He had a business, an MBA from Columbia. We were like, it seemed fine. And then he lost his job. And I was seven months pregnant. And I was like, oh, my God, they gave him no severance. I was like, how are we going to pay our rent? Like, I'd quit my consulting job. And so I just started a life coaching business. I paid my all of my savings. I had like $9,000 in my savings account. And I just paid it all to this woman to teach me how to build a business. And I think it's like it's because I had nothing that and I had this pressure. And I had this pressure. of I'm going to have this baby to take care of. And I have to have a house for her to live in and I

have to have money. And so it just forced me into this place of, okay, well, I'm willing to do something I've never done before that I could fall flat on my face because I need the money. So it was like this very sort of fiery drive. Yeah. And I had to, I had to heal that, undo that and completely transform that driver so that I could be motivated to create from something that wasn't scarcity. I've always wanted to bring somebody onto financial feminists who had won a reality TV show, especially Survivor, because it's my favorite, because of that story she just told about winning millions, but then not being able to afford a sandwich. And don't worry, we're talking plenty about money after this word from our sponsors. So when we come back, Parvety opens up about

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Was there like a transition moment? Was there a practice that helped you? Was it therapy? Like, what was that? It was mostly through coaching. Like, I had a couple of coaches that worked with me around my money mindset. And just first of all, seeing that I was motivated by scared. was helpful because I didn't know that. I didn't have a consciousness around it until I started working with these coaches. And then we did all of this kind of deprogramming around my money mindset because I was born into a cult like environment where all of the money that everyone made was given to the guru. So and like being poor was associated with being spiritually closer to God. Right.

So I had to undo that, too, where it was like, oh, having money doesn't mean you're a bad person. Having money is spiritually, like, okay, and supportive even, like, God wants you to have money. Abundances, you know, associated with, like, spirituality and success, and that's good. So I just had to, like, completely rewire my brain. I read a lot of books, too. Overcoming under-earning was a good one. I don't know if you've read that one. I haven't.

Other people have read it. That one was really helpful because it's really tactical. Yeah. And kind of weaves in your community and like all these sort of other areas of life that are related to money because it affects everything. Like if you don't have any money, you can't go out to dinner with your friends. And you can't go buy a new outfit to like if I had a press interview or something. You know, so it's just, it was, it's connected to every area of life.

So I had to upgrade every aspect of myself and allow for myself to, like, give myself permission to flourish rather than be a caught in swirling chaos and scarcity. It was a process. Do you feel like playing Survivor, especially the amount of times you played it, helped or hurt that scarcity mindset? Well, Survivor is an arena of scarcity. but at the end of it, somebody can win like a million dollars. So it's like you're living with nothing, but at the end you could have everything or this life-changing amount of money. So it's

kind of a mind-fuck like that. Totally. But like, yeah, I don't, I don't think it helped. No, I don't think it helps a lot of things. Well, okay, so I don't know if I told you this when we finally got to meet, but I was asked in an interview in 2020. It was like this fun little, you know, it was part about my business and then part some rapid fire. And one of the questions is like, what is the best game ever invented? And I said Survivor. And my friend looked at me, I was like, you know, I showed her this interview because I was proud of it. And she's like, the best game ever invented and she had never seen it. And I was like, what do you mean? It was, of course, the best game ever invented. And she could not understand. And so I went through

the whole thing of like, okay, it's a sociology experiment. You put strangers on an island and they not only have to literally survive, figure out, especially in the early seasons, it was like, how are we going to build this shelter? And like, how are we going to survive basically a tsunami? And then as it's evolved, it's like what is allowed versus not allowed, like what is okay in the construct of the game versus what is not. And, you know, 20 years ago, you couldn't say, I swear in my grandmother's life, you can say whatever the fuck you want now. And so I think it's just is such an interesting, I mean, obviously only as a viewer, such an interesting thing to look at as who humans are, what happens when you put humans together who would never have otherwise met,

but also what they're made of or what is going to break them in that way, I think that, especially with the logistics, obviously they're crazy. So you have to take off work, you have to isolate for a week just for casting, and then you disappear for weeks during filming. And I'm giving all this background in case somebody hasn't seen Survivor in a very long time. Like, how did you financially plan for all of those logistics or not plan for those disruptions? Like, how did that work for you? Oh, my God. Every time I played Survivor, I moved out of my house. I just moved out. I was like, I'm not going to pay my rent. And that's actually a crazy thing to do because I was only gone for a month. But in my brain, I'm like, who knows how long I'll be out here?

Who knows? It's Exile Island this season. It goes on for three months after. Completely insane. But I do think this is like a product of my upbringing because I'm like, I really thrive in chaos. So I would create just a little extra insanity before I left so that I couldn't be too afraid of what I couldn't control. because Survivor is an arena you can't control. Any aspect of it, everything is controlled for you, like down to the minute you're like taken

on the boat and thrown on the island. So I was like, okay, well, I don't know, because I'm not home. I'm not going to be able to work. So let me just move out of my place. I'll throw my stuff in storage or just get rid of all of it. I was basically like very bohemian about that lifestyle. And I was just like, I was just flying by the seat of my pants because I was in my 20s when I played Survivor back to back to back.

And I didn't have when I came back, I would, I never set myself up with any kind of like real career paths. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I was so good at Survivor, they kept asking me to come back. So I was like, well, maybe I'll just do this or maybe I'll be a. a TV host or something and I just tried a bunch of stuff. But I, I certainly didn't think, oh, how do I financially prepare? I was just like, how do I go win this game? Yeah. When I think about, I didn't want to have any responsibilities at home. I think that was it.

Yeah, you didn't want to have to worry about two things. You're like, let me just go all in and worry about this very hard thing that I have to do for the next 39 days. Totally. I always just, I would just cut off my world at home. And then so my real life and real world was the bubble of Survivor, which was pretty problematic. Yeah, totally. Well, you're literally escaped from reality and you're in this new reality. Right.

What I was saying before of like the reason I love the show so much is it like, again, catalogs almost just America generally or like what we will or won't accept as a society. so you've played or is it five times now oh dude that's so many times okay so what in the first season or two would have been allowed quote unquote that wasn't allowed later

like one of the examples I think I can give is like there were a lot of very inappropriate jokes about gay people in the first couple of seasons and like that would not be allowed I think or would not be okay now when folks are playing So is there anything either in the tactics for the game or the just kind of mindset or environment

that can almost track where we've moved either as like a country or as a society? Yeah, I think in the early days of Survivor, there was more outright bullying and cruelty. Yeah. And it wasn't jokey or lighthearted. It was just mean, spirited. And that was sort of. encouraged at the time. I think it was because of the format of reality television, it was new. And people were looking at it as we need to have a clear villain and a clear underdog or a

hero or, you know, there were archetypes of people. And now that just won't fly. Like there's, what's shifted is there's snarkiness. There's like, like making fun of people. But it's like, it's like more humorous or it's more kind of intelligent the way that people will put people down. So it's like funny and highbrow villainary, villainry, I guess is happening these days. And I think also what has shifted is the attitudes around women and women in power and women using all of the aspects of our power that we have, including our sensuality or our flirtatiousness or ability to charm someone. It's more accepted and lifted up when women do that.

It's more celebrated than it was in the past when I played. It was very like, shame, shame, Scarlet letter. Well, and I had to ask you about that because, again, early seasons of Survivor with you playing, there's a reason they called you the Black Widow is, I think very intentionally and you can tell me maybe it wasn't intentional. It was like, I'm going to flirt and I'm going to get. get what I want. And then as soon as you don't see me coming, I'm going to stab you in the back. And it's brilliant gameplay. But of course, there's immediate sexism in that, which is like,

oh, she's just like putting her tits out and whatever. Like, talk to me about that transition now where, yeah, it's more socially acceptable. But also, like, we got to do what we got to do as women to do. It's a game. We got to do what we got to do to win. It's a game. We got to do what we got to do. And that there's this such an entitlement with the men where they're like, oh, wait, she shouldn't be, especially because it's survivor. It's already so inherently masculine, the container. So the men are like, this is my arena. And I am going to take care of you, pretty little lady. And then if the woman comes back around and like Viper snaps him and kills him, When he least expects it, he's like, wait a minute, I was providing for you.

How could you do this to me? Oh, she was so pretty. And it turns out she's smart too. Crazy. Oh, no, you can't be both. You can't be hot and smart. Right. But of course, like, I know the tropes.

Like, I use that to my advantage in the game. Like, I know the guys think I'm a dumb dumb. So I definitely played that up. And man, were they upset about it? like really very her egos from my seasons and we still see this we do we do see it a lot no we see it a lot we see uh i i think they're more likely to maybe disparage women quietly or like in a confessional they're less likely to do it uh in like with other people around and i think yeah misogyny has gotten, well, in some ways, quieter. It's less obvious, I think. And in that way, it almost makes it

worse because I can't see it in the same way. Well, they're hiding it more. So it's sort of lurking in the shadows. But you can feel it. Oh, absolutely. Like, oh, I can feel it. I'm out there. I'm like, oh, it's the same shit. It's just like glossier. Well, when I met you for the first time, friendly in person. I had a friend who is English who hasn't seen American Survivor. And I was literally just talking you up and I was your hype woman. I was like, she's one of the best to ever do it. She was, you know, super hot and sexy and all these things. And then she'd stab you in the back later and it was so good. And I think that a lot, especially for a really long time, we just thought of good survivor players as the ones that we could quote unquote root for. And of course, the second time they brought

you back you were in the villain camp and that is just kind of misogynistic on its own right of like we're going to make this woman who is very good at this game okay we'll acknowledge she's good but we're going to label her as a villain in order for it to be socially okay if a man would have done it it would have been the plot it as the best strategy in the entire world exactly and i i mean i looked at that i saw the way that they split up the tribes for heroes versus villains right and the men winners were on the Heroes Tribe. And the women winners were on the villains tribe. There were two women winners, me and Sandra, and we were both cast on the Villains Tribe. While my friends who were in the Black Widow Brigade with me on season 16 were put on the

Heroes Tribe. So I was like, this doesn't compute. And when I said something about it at the start of the game, Jeff really doubled down. And he was like, oh, no, no, no, no. He justified why I was cast on the villains tribe and then he asked James Clement who was one of the guys that we'd blindsided if I was a hero or a villain so he gets back up from one of the guys who we took out.

I'm like, ask Courtney Yates, ask Jerry Manthy if I'm a villain or a hero. Was that the Eric Idol season? Right? That was that era. Oh, God. That was so good. We could cut this. I know.

I'm just so proud. I see clips of it on TikTok now, dude. And I just, every time I sit and watch it, I like every time. Okay, Kristen, I have to tell you, because you haven't seen the show, they convince a guy to give him their idol, or his idol away, and then they vote his ass out. It's so good every time I watch it. It's so good. I mean, especially because that final challenge, the puzzle said guaranteed final four, and he won it. So he was guaranteed a spot in the final four, but then he gave up his necklace and it never made it. I literally am like a little teary. It's so. good. It's just all of these women who have convinced him utterly. And even you can see in

Seri's face especially, it's like shocked. She's like, did we actually pull us off? Well, and Tori, it completely changed the landscape for reality television from that move, especially with Survivor, because people are so terrified of a women's alliance taking them out. Like everyone really, that's the only time it's ever happened. That's the, at least that I can. can remember. You've had like voting blocks or you've had, but like the amount of times I think it gets vote, you know, every single season women go, okay, we're going to do all girls. And it never happens. And I think that's the only time that at least I can remember in Survivor history that it actually worked out and happened. It was such a magical group of women and the stars aligned.

And I was just like, oh, fuck yeah. Like, it was so good. Oh, it was so good. No, it was so good. And again, the look on his face, I was like, oh, sweetie pie. That's okay. Go ahead. Go get your torch snuffed. But then every man is now. Oh, so scared. So scared. So scared.

Terrified. Yeah. And as they should be, quite frankly. Oh, the way I've been dying to talk about the Black Riddo Brigade. When you know, you know. When we return, poverty and I dig more into the financial and other compensation from the game. And some of it is truly shocking. And what it means to be powerful, why women are punished for playing the game well,

and how those lessons of Survivor mirror the real world. Thank you for listening to our sponsors. They allow us to do this show for free for you. We'll see you back here in a second. I don't like wasting money. I don't like when you waste money. As your resident financial expert, wasting money is bad. You heard it here first.

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staples from Quince. Go to quince.com slash f-fod for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash F-F-F-POD to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash F-F-Pod. Okay, so you get a million dollars after all of the scarcity mindset stuff. In addition to the million dollars, is there any other financial support that is offered to contestants? Like, I think we've all heard the rumor that, like, you get a little bit of money depending on how you place. I believe that's true. is there anything else that you're getting outside of that million directly from CBS or from

Survivor? No, you're really, we're cut loose. Like the shows over, we've given what we promised to give. They give what they promised to give, which is the million dollar check or whatever a little prize money you get if you don't win. And we have a contract to go to the finale. And that's it. That's where we see everyone. And then it's over. Like if a contestant needs psychological support, it's on them to reach out to ask for it. And they get, they'll give you like a fact sheet. And then I think there's maybe a call with a like a one psych call to see like, are you good or whatever. Yeah. But it's definitely not enough for what we go through. It's, it's such a pressure cooker of paranoia and survival, like starvation. Like it's the our bodies are in complete fight, flight, freeze survival mode for 39 days. And that's enough time to rewire the body and the brain to a mode of like you're in a trauma response now.

So to not have a way of even contextualizing that for myself when I came back, I was like, I'm whack. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I would go to a friend's birthday party and I would be talking to someone. and I would be in the back of my mind while I'm smiling and having a conversation with them thinking, what does this person want for me? Are they trying to get something? Yeah, like, can I trust them? Are they using me for something? It was like this game that I could not break my brain out of. And I didn't understand. I was split into kind of two different parts because of that situation. And so when I got the money, I like didn't know what to do with it. And it felt like blood money because Ozzy was so mad at me. He was like, you're greedy. And I was

shamed and I was told I was a mean girl. And I'd done all these horrible things. And I'd chosen greed and selfishness over friendship and lied. And I was a bad person. And I was like, fuck, oh my God. Like, uh, I don't even want this money. I was like, I earned this by being a bad person. So I just, I just like didn't even acknowledge it. I shoved it under my bathroom sink. I had a gig. I had gotten like this bit part in a movie. And so I'd flown straight from New York to L.A. And I only had one day, turn around before I flew to Hawaii for this movie. So I shoved the million dollar check under my bathroom sink.

Oh, my God. And flew off and I still had no money because I didn't deposit anything. You know, I couldn't even buy a sandwich. So when I got to Hawaii, they gave me an envelope of cash for a per diem. And I was like, well, I got 60 bucks. I'm good. I had a million dollars under my bathroom sink. I think that's, if you've never seen Survivor,

I think that is one of the hallmark differences as you continue to play and as the game evolved is, again, the earlier seasons, typically the person who was winning was the person who deserved it more or betrayed people the least. And I think now there's more of a respect if you play the game really,

strategically, even if you fuck people over. Would you say that's accurate? Yeah, I think now the way that the show is being cast is the people that are getting cast on the show are super fans of the show. So they've watched every season and they know how shitty it is to have a bad winner at the end, like a winner that was just like kind of nice, but not, didn't do anything. So people feel like a sense of responsibility now, I think, to choose the right winner, the person who played the most strategic game, whether they have hurt feelings by that person or not. As I'm thinking about any game show, reality show, where there's money involved, one of the things that honestly makes me really emotional is the amount of people who go on

these shows who put themselves through, and the way you're describing Survivor, I mean, that's torture. You're not eating, you're not sleeping. There's natural disasters. You have challenges, physical challenges you have to do. You don't know who you can trust. There's nobody around you who you know or love until the loved ones visit for like four minutes. It's like literal torture.

But the way the American healthcare system works and the way minimum wages has stagnated, a lot of people I think feel like game shows are the only way to financially provide for their families. It's like winning the lottery. It's like

like, okay, I'm going to put myself, it's like, it's quick game, right? It's like, the only reason I'm doing this is because I need the money. And that's always felt like deeply unsettling to me that we live in a society that can't just like provide its citizens with like its basic needs. And you have to go do this crazy thing in order to just get enough money to like buy and pay for your mother's cancer treatment. Is that something that's always sat weird with you too? Well, I think it's sort of the American dream. It's the like, we can strike it rich. And God, David on dealer, No Deal Island that I just played won $5.8 million in a month playing a game show. It's insane. And the thing is, it's way better odds than playing the lottery. Because on Survivor, you have a one out of 20 shot of winning this game. Like, yeah, you have to sacrifice your mind-body spirit for it. But also, it's not all good or bad.

Like, I think that's why I wrote my book the way I wrote it is I wanted to break down the survival modes because it's not bad that we have these modes of operating and that we live in fight-flight-free sometimes. It's actually a very helpful thing that our bodies do to keep us. safe when we're under duress or under threat that we have these modes. So it's like, okay, I'm going to put myself out into the world and try some, especially Survivor. I think it's one of the more compelling reality shows to do because it's such a grand adventure. And it does test a person on every single level. So I think that's something for me, when I'm saying yes to go play,

it's never only just about the money. Yeah, the money's amazing, but like I just played Australian Survivor and, you know, that money's like not even real. So I'm like, okay. If I win this game, I'm winning like $30. But I'm going to play. It's $30.

But I'm going to play because I love testing myself on that level. And I think that's one thing. Like when it's, when I think back to how I used to create money from a place of scarcity, there is something to it that's like if we're reaching for, no, I don't think that we should be in a society where we can't take care of our kids. I think this system is so fucked, especially with mothers, single mothers, parents with kids. Like, we need childcare, we need health care. We need support because it's this single family unit is just not working in the way that we've set it up. And it keeps people stuck in scarcity, which is really, it's really hard

to get out of it. It's like a hamster wheel that you're just like trying to make ends meet from one day to the next is not an easy place to like make a big quantum leap to abundance and thriving. But if someone can go play Survivor and win a million dollars, maybe they can. And, like, Kenzie, who won Survivor more recently, she's now a mother. She credits the show with giving her that chance because she was a hairdresser before. And now she's like, I'm in a place of security and I can take care of my baby. And I feel really complete with my survivor journey. She's not trying to keep going and going and going.

But she's really very vocal about how helpful playing the game and winning it was for her. And I think she was also just a beloved. character. So it helps a lot if you're not destroyed in social media. Yep. But look, we all have our path in life, you know. Well, and it's also the edit. And I will move on because I have other questions for you beyond Survivor. But I think that that is the thing that terrifies me most about reality TV and why, I don't know if I want to say it on Mike, so it's set in stone. I don't think I'll ever be on reality TV. Because I think one of the, the biggest, scary thing is like you're not in control of your own narrative. They can cut and splice things that you're saying or like position it in a certain way or they can make you out to be the villain and you don't have any control over that. It's just the edit. Yeah. That's, yeah, that's a challenge. You just have to completely release control and surrender and you have to know why you're saying yes

to go play the game knowing that it is going to be a TV show. I was talking about Ethan about it who Survivor, Africa. And I love the process. I love the game, going out and playing the game, regardless of what the game is. If it's traitor, dealer, no deal, survivor, something else. I just really enjoy that aspect of it. But then the watching of the show part of it is, oh, I have like so much anxiety about that because I have no control. I don't know how they're going to edit the story. I don't know how people are going to respond to it. And like the intensity of, the like physicality of playing is over. And now it's just very cerebral and mental. So that is the hardest part for me. And that was the hardest part of writing my book. Writing my book was an

incredible, very therapeutic, very cathartic process that took three years for me to do from start to finish. And then publishing the book, I was like, nah, like going out of my book tour. I'm like, oh, God. Well, because it's no longer yours. It's like your. Yes. You can't do anything different and people are going to say or do what they're going to say or do. And yeah, it's no longer yours. You have to give up that ego to say, okay, this is everybody else's now. Right. And so I make peace with the process as I'm doing something. If the process is fulfilling and feels good and right and aligned, I will say yes and do it. If I'm inside of a process of something and I'm like, this feels really bad. I will stop.

And I think that's the gift of sufficiency, like having enough money gives me the privilege of being able to say no to projects that are not aligned. Speaking my language, girl, that's what we say all the time, is money gives you options. And you get to say no and you want to say no. And yes, when you want to say yes, and it's just so true. You wrote about a moment in your book when you found out you were pregnant and how something shifted pretty much instantly. You said you had spent decades being, quote, hard and rough with yourself, always

pushing your body, surviving, but now you physically literally had to soften. Like, your survival depended on surrender. And I think that line is just so powerful. Do you remember what it felt like in your body to make that shift from force to softness? And what did it teach you about safety and trust and love? It was a really massive transformation in every way. I, because I remember if I would sit down on the couch, I felt lazy. I felt like someone who was going to catch me. Like, I always felt like that.

Like, I need to be doing something. I need to be productive. And it was this constant busyness inside of me that sort of felt like there was some like overlord that was going to like reprimand me if I stopped and rested or took a nap or something. And when I got pregnant, I was fucking. zonked. I was so tired. I could not go to a spin class. And I was like, oh my God, what? I went to flywheel. I remember because I was living in New York at the time. And there was a studio called Flywheel,

kind of like Peloton. And I went in and I was like, I sat on the bike and I was like, I can't even push this. This is not happening today. This is the house. Which my body, like, I've always been able to command my body to do, perform, like move for me. I have always. always been very like, I can push myself. But when I got pregnant, it was like, I got run over by a truck. So I just had to go home and sit on the couch. And it was because I physically could not do more than that. And I was so nauseous. So I was like, well, I'm not in charge. And it was like a flip, like a switch flipped. And I was like, oh my God, I'm going to just, I'm just going to give myself permission. I'm just going to let this happen. I'm just going to let my body be in charge of me. And I talked

to some people who were like mentors at the time. I've always been really into like therapists, coaches, teachers, people who've gone before, who have a little more wisdom, who've been down the path a little further than me. And they're like, girl, you are doing, and friends of mine who have a different kind of mindset. Because I'm just so intense. I'm so intense. I'm so intense. I'm like just chill, okay? I can't. So and my friends who've been down this path who had babies were like, yeah, you're doing the most productive thing that any person can do. But it's just not treated like that by society. If a man was pregnant having a baby, do you know how the world would stop yes and it would be like oh you're doing the like you're doing the thing like this is

the most important thing you could be doing like rest let me rub your feet but because it's women's work and women are expected to do literally everything and we're not allowed to stop and even if we're pregnant it's like oh she's still working nine months pregnant my friend i can't say who this person is because of whatever, but she was, she's a PR person and she works for a successful, like, TV person. And she was nine months pregnant. We were at Magic Mike, the movie. So this is a while ago.

And the music comes on and they're doing the dance. And her belly starts moving. She goes into labor at Magic Mike. We go home. Really titillating that movie. Oh my God. That baby was like, like, burn. Literally.

It's like pony. The maiden's like genuine. But she drives herself home. She won't even let us drive her. And then she gets there. She's bouncing on a ball fielding calls from her boss. And I said, girl, tell him, tell him you're in labor. And she's like, I can't.

She's like, I can't do that. Oh, my God. He'll be so upset. Like, I have to help him. I was like, fuck him. Yeah. So for me, I was just. just like, it was a complete shift.

And it was like, oh, I can take, it changed my whole life. I can now, I realize napping is so productive. Rest is so helpful. I had a whole day where I did absolutely nothing yesterday because I've been on this tour for so I'm exhausted. And I let myself draw the shades, stay in the house all day long. I never would have allowed. I thought in my brain multiple times, I was like, I need to take a walk around the

neighborhood. And then I was like, yeah, I'm going to lie down and take a nap. It's a complete shift. And now I realize, like, the nervous system is so much more capable of handling a bigger life when you're well-rested, when you're well-resourced, when you're really taking care of yourself in kind of an exorbitant way. like a very extravagant, over-the-top way of taking care of yourself. Like, then your nervous system loves that, and then it can handle, like, big, massive upgrades in your life. But if you're stretched too thin and you're too exhausted,

you're not going to be able to succeed, I think, at the bigger opportunities that will come your way. That would actually be a life-changing thing. Yeah. You describe this moment, and my jaw dropped when I read this, where your ex-husband casually said he imagined your life as him being a CEO and you standing beside him. You're beautiful and supportive and basically making him look good. And it hit you like a ton of bricks that you, quote, married the patriarchy.

Can you talk about what it felt like to realize that? And were there any red flags? Was there anything that you missed going into that? I think I'd always known in the back of my mind that that was what was happening in our relationship. And that was sort of his vision. But he'd never explicitly said it like that. And when he did, it was like this watershed moment where I was like, God damn it. I walked into this trap and I write about it in earlier parts of the book where I met his family

and his family is very like gender norm conforming like very traditional the mom is sort of the caretaker of the family cooks the dinners the dad was the businessman quote unquote whatever and um and she was like the social butterfly and it kind of was like appealing to me only because I had no sense of what I was doing with my life at the time. I had no career path for myself. I had no sense of like consistency in how I was going to take care of myself or make money. Direction was helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Even if it was the wrong direction, it was like, okay, cool. I know what to do now. I know how to play this game. Yeah. Yeah, it was like someone else would take care of me. And I think it's a trap that women are sold.

like, I'm just going to find a man to take care of me. And that was sort of like, I thought of myself as this very empowered woman, very feminist, very strong, very like girl power. But I walked right into that trap because I wanted a baby and because I had no like direction for my own career or life at the time. So I just wanted to be taken care of. And this man kind of looked the part. He looked the perfect part. So I walked into the trap. There were a hundred million red flags. And I was talked out of them by friends or by therapists or by myself. I justified everything at every corner because I wanted a baby and I wanted to be taken care of. And then I got the baby. And then I was like, ah, I'm in a really bad situation where not only am I not

being taken care of. I'm being actively sabotaged consistently all the time by this person. who he like didn't have direction for himself or he lost it you know so it was just it was really a recipe for disaster well and you got pregnant gave birth to your daughter and then had to go back on survivor partially due to money like you had learned all of this softness and this rest and had been forced basically to do this and then oh we got to thrust ourselves back into the most chaotic environment possible. So what was that switch like having to then go back to scarcity? Marrying the patriarchy. Enough said. When we come back, she's sharing how her pregnancy, divorce, and discovering her queerness all pushed poverty toward living authentically and why power

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This September, lease a 2026 XE90 plug-in hybrid from $599 biweekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions apply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. You know, it was so intense, but it was like the softness and the rest only existed in pregnancy. Once I had the baby,

it was full on out of control of postpartum anxiety. Oh, man. Insane anxiety, sleeplessness. Like my body was crazy, hormone sweet. I didn't know what was happening. And I didn't know that I had postpartum anxiety until much later because I didn't have the language for it. I'd only heard of postpartum depression. But I was not okay when my baby was born.

I was a wreck. And so the softness went like up in flames as soon as my baby was born. It was gone. And then, yeah, we needed the money. And I was like, well, this is the fastest track. to get a little bit of cushion so I can get out of survival mode and just like feel safe with this baby for six months. I just need to, I just need to know my rent was paid for a few months because my husband at the time had lost his job. There's something crazy ironic, by the way,

of being like, I'm going to go out of survival mode by going on Survivor. Like, there's something crazy to that. Yeah. No, it's really the whole thing is like full of paradox. It's Because it's, and that's why I think, that's where I got to in the book where it's non-binary. Like, the way that I think about life now is it all, it's all shades of gray. Nothing is good or bad. I learned so much through my relationship and through my marriage and through my divorce that I am a different person through, from having had that experience. I'm grateful for it because it really matured me and grew me up.

in a way that I don't know how else I would have become so fully realized. So there's like good that came out of it too. And I mean, this is how I live life too. I'm always kind of mining shitty experiences for the gems because like I have to. I have to do that to survive. But you're right. Like playing Survivor was my mode of getting out of my means to getting out of survival which is crazy crazy of a sentence it was so because it really did it took everything out of me there

was a challenge where we had to we had I'd already been voted out of the game I was on edge of extinction and they just like did random torture experiments with us and they like hit a bunch of very heavy coconuts across a ravine we had to like run across this like slippery rocks and through soft sand and I was like oh my god I'm I'm 10 months postpartum And I'm running a marathon and carrying heavy coconuts. It was like a three-hour endurance race. This is the winner's season, right? This is the...

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I remember that challenge. It was hard to watch, yet alone. I can't imagine what it was like to actually do it. It was... Yeah. And again, it's like these challenges, this game is hard enough.

If you're well-slept, well-fed, you're around people you trust. Like, it's just insane. It's insane. I came in and I won the challenge. with like it was like the top three won the challenge so Tyson and I came in together and Tyson is an endurance athlete he is like a former pro cyclist so I was like oh my god I'm 10 months postparting just like had a baby and I'm coming in with this guy so there is this sense of like whoa I'm high I'm so strong and so capable and it gave me a lot of my confidence

back going out and playing Survivor, knowing that my body could still do those kind of things that it could do before I got pregnant. Because I hadn't been working out. I was on the Stairmaster trying to train to go play Survivor and I was like, oh, the Stairmaster is the worst. It's so hard. I am not pregnant and I also agree. It's the worst. It's the absolute worst. Okay. So I also loved watching you on Traders. I haven't seen the New Deal Island, but I've seen Traders. Are reality stars smarter at playing reality games because they've done it before? Like, was Traders harder? Traders was harder because of the format. Because Traders is 20-something people all together. And Survivor's 20 people, but you're split into two tribes of 10. So you only have to negotiate relationships with half the people. And then Survivor, you're not.

given like a lie that you have to cover up and pretend like you don't have the lie everyone's on the same even playing field of like lying and making alliances and stuff but traders is like it comes in so much suspicion right off the bat and paranoia and it's in a really like confined space that really stresses me out but you look fabulous so there that's got to mean something like you get you get to look hot the entire time and you get to you know I heard you don't stay in the castle Is that true? That they bust you out of the castle and you stay somewhere else?

I could never reveal that production secret. Okay. That means yes. Okay. So, but how is it harder? Like, because I think, yeah, everybody's immediately suspicious.

There's like no trust being built. And I didn't even think you're so right of like you're battling against 20 people all at once as opposed to like even now, typically with Survivor, we have three tribes. So it's even less people. Is there any other things like that are crazy

that the average person wouldn't think? oh, this is way harder? Well, I think also gamers have an understanding that the game is the game and we will play the game. Regardless, if we don't like someone, we'll still work with that person because you'll do whatever you have to do

to get farther in the game. Housewives don't care. They're not going to work with someone they don't like. They're going to kill that person or banish them just because it drives me crazy. I screamed at my TV during your season. Honestly, during every season of Housewives, wife's on. I'm like, play the

fucking game. You can't just not like this person or like, oh, it drove me crazy. I was like, it's a game. Voting blocks. You can't just vote for who you don't like. It's a voting block. But that's why I think that's what makes Traders so

fun to watch. Because the game is still played like that. No one has gotten it together to create a voting block. To figure it, figure out the fuck out. But I think also the thing with traders that makes it so fun is the cash prize at the end isn't that big it's like no people are not really going to sell their newborn baby down the river to win 40 grand like probably but but they do want to

make good tv so there is kind of that sense of performance and campiness and high drama and you're in a castle with alan coming and uh nothing beats alan coming i love him so much it's so good Okay. So my last question about the shows you've been on. Now you've been on Australia Survivor. I know it's harder. I know it's more intense. But what, like, from a sociological perspective, what's different about Australia Survivor versus U.S. Survivor? Like, how are the people or the way they go about it different? Australian Survivor is more like old school survivor where the contestants are game players. Like we're characters. We're playing a game as a character. We ham it up for the cameras and it's more like there's the arc of the character inside of the game that has nothing to do with our lives outside of the game. So I think now with what's happening with these new era Survivor U.S. is they're showing the be.

role of what this person's going through outside of the game. You're hearing about their childhood and stuff. You're not going to hear about any of that on Australian Survivor. Australian Survivor is we are here to play this game. We're here to win this game. I will do the hijinks and shenanigans and whatever it takes to win and make a really fun show that's super like kind of Marvel action movie style Survivor. Did you watch seasons? Did you study before you went out there? Yeah. They sent the links because you can't watch it here. No, you have to go to like a pirate third part. Yeah, to go to

a third party sketchy website to watch it. Yeah. Yeah, it's like weirdly controlled. I wish it was available in the U.S. I think fans will love this season. It's me, Surrey, and Tony from the U.S. playing, and it's so fun.

But yeah, I watched links. The producers sent me a few seasons. So that's how I knew who David was from Australian Survivor when we played Deal or No Deal, because I'd watched some of his season to prep for their playing game. Speaking of Alan Cumming and fabulousness and gay in general, you discovered, I think, part of your journey in the last few years has been discovering your own sexuality and your own queerness.

When did that come about for you? Was that during a lot of this emotional unpacking? And what did you learn about yourself, especially related to maybe how you grew up or that trauma of the cult not cult. How did that take shape for you? Everything happened for me in the side of the process of grieving the death of my brother and going through my divorce and writing my book. I did all of that at the same time. It was sort of like melded into each other. So I'm writing my way into a whole new story as I'm grieving, as I'm doing all the stuff you have to do to get through a high conflict

divorce and it was so gnarly and so intense and then I was like I want to have some fun and so I started dating and I was like going out with some guys and I just I was only finding that I could have either a physical connection with a man with no emotional connection and the chemistry was good physically or I could have an emotional connection but the physical connection was torture so I was like I am not I didn't not just battle my way out of this marriage and divorce to now settle for like a mediocre man. So I opened my app up to date women because I was like, well, I've never done this before. I've always kind of been curious. I've never really explored it because I always had so much

success with men. So I feel like I've always like no, yeah, the formula worked for me until it was like, Oh, it's no longer working. This is laughing. Yeah, this is like, I don't want some mediocre stitch. So I opened my app up. It was wild how it all happened because I, my divorce finalized in March. And then like a week later or something I met May and started dating May. And May Martin, the comedian who I write about in the book and who is non-binary.

And it was like, uh, the clouds part. and the gates of heaven opened up. And I was like, God, this is so cool and fun. And I was just, I, it really fit and worked for me. It was just like, the emotional connection was there. The intellectual compatibility, the physical connection. It was like, everything worked. And yeah, I was like, all right, I'm fully headed head first.

Yeah. When you think about this journey from being likable, from using charm to survive to being sloth shamed publicly to then reclaiming your sexuality, what does powerful look like and mean to you now? Being powerful is aligning with authenticity. It's knowing who I am and what I want

that is truly coming from inside me. and that's not looking for external validation to, like, be okay. I think that's really the message of the book that I wanted to drive home that's like, I burned it all down to claim my power. It's like I burned down all the structures. I mean, I'm still work in progress, right? I'm still burning stuff down, but burning consistently, continuously burning down structures is that I didn't build, that someone else built, maybe like thousands of years ago in like

the Roman Catholic empire that I'm like, oh, this does not fit my life. I don't want to play that game that these old men created thousands of years ago. I want to play my game. What does that look like? And then that's really hard to decipher what we want, I think, individually and authentically. because it requires like introspection on so many levels and kind of like a curiosity to like explore some of these very difficult feelings and some of the pain that we may have experienced in the past. So for me it's like power comes from not being afraid of the past, not being afraid of pain, not being afraid of difficult conversations, being curious about life. and moving towards creating life on my own terms.

Well, and the deconstruction of all of it, too. I think that is unfortunately the biggest job we as women have, the biggest task of our lives is deconstructing everything we've been told it is to be a good girl or a nice girl or the, you know, prized daughter or wife and determine what we actually really want. Mm-hmm. Because it feels good getting praised. Yeah. It feels good. It's like I want to be told I'm a good girl.

But it also feels safe. Well, safer. It feels safe to not rock the boat because if you draw attention to yourself, you might literally get murdered. Like you might literally not be safe anymore. So no wonder all of us are in survival mode. No wonder all of us are just trying to not piss anybody off so that we can maintain. some semblance of safety and control. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really getting into these, like, kind of forgotten scriptures, like Mary Magdalene. And there's this book called The Girl Who Baptized Herself. It's about Thecla.

Megan Waterson writes about these women whose voices have been erased. But really, their Gospels, what they were talking about was having how to have a direct experience of God ourselves, which is just essentially like God is, the way that I think about God is like God is this sort of generative organizing, directing force that we can create our life. If we can attune to that force inside of us, we can create a life that is our highest potential to live. And it's like, you've got to remember, the way that this world is set up, it was set up by a bunch of men who were in power who wanted to stay in power. So there's a lot of perspectives, especially women's, that were erased or not included. So that's one of the

reasons why I wanted to write the book that I wrote that included a lot of sort of more of the darker kind of shameful aspects of being a human woman on this earth, like an emotional affair, like having a queer relationship, having it going through a divorce, like rage. I wrote about all that stuff, money, because I want women to, like, hear that, those stories. I think we heal when we hear stories that are real. I'm blown away by you. I'm so thankful you're here. Plug away, my friend. Where can people find the book? Follow you. Plug away. You can buy the book anywhere. It's called Nice Girls Don't Win, how I burnt it all down to claim my power. And you can find me on Instagram at P. Shallow. And I usually give updates there. I do book tours and drag shows

around the country. So you can find me somewhere. Thank you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, Tori. Thank you so much to my friend Parvety for joining us. You can grab a copy of her brand new book. Nice Girls Don't Win. Oh, I burned it all down to claim my power wherever books are sold. And if you loved this episode, you want to share it with a fellow survivor or traders fan. We really appreciate it. It allows us to continue bringing on great guests and supporting feminist media, which is really hard to do right now. So we really appreciate it. Thank you, as always, for being her financial feminist and we'll talk to you soon. Bye. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, and

episode show notes, visit Financial Feministpodcast.com. If you're confused about your personal finances and you're wondering where to start, go to Her First 100K.com. com slash quiz for a free personalized money plan. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant, research by Sarah Shortino, audio and video engineering by Elisa Midcalf, Marketing and Operations by Karina Patel and Amanda LaFew. Special thanks to our team at her first 100K. Caitlin Sprinkel, Masha Bakkeyeva, Sasha Bonar, Ray Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Darrell Ann Ingman, Shelby Duke Close, Megan Walker, and Jess Hawks.

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