Habits and Hustle - Episode 403: Cathy Heller

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Okay guys, we have a very special treat. We have one of my favorite ladies on the podcast today. Her name is Kathy Heller. She's actually the reason I even have a podcast. I love that. That's the best. It's true. Kathy and I went for coffee maybe what, four or five years ago. And Kathy said to me, I was, I don't even know what we were talking about. What were we talking about? Our careers and what's next. And I'm like, this is so you. All you have to do is talk. And you're the, you're not just, it's not just that you talk and have interesting things to say, which you do.

You're so loving and you're so enthusiastic that people like talking to you. And I was like, you should totally have a podcast to be like the easiest, it's the easiest medium that God ever made for you. And then you did it. And I didn't even, thank you. Thank you for that beautiful intro. I should be doing you a bit if I have an intro for you,

but that's a great one. I'm gonna keep it as usual. I say to Cathy that she is like molasses. She could just pour, like she pours sugar sweetness on everybody. I feel like you do that for me. You're one of like five people that always tells me how proud you are of me.

Like no matter what, we've been friends for a long time. Many years. And it's just like this like very beautiful, generous heart. Like most people, look, most people have like a competitive vibe. Yeah, true. I feel like you and I are just like so happy

to see each other just like in your light thriving. And you do that for me. Thank you. Always. You're okay. Well, this is okay. I'm glad that that's a great segue into what I was gonna say about you because A, you're right. I'm very proud of you.

Yeah. Kathy is, wait, what? Okay. I don't even know where to begin. So Kathy is very talented and it's true that you, where you've come from, where you work is extraordinary. Same, thank you. This girl, when you say habits and hustle, the word hustle personified.

The funny thing is if you know Kathy and her work and what she does, she's all about like I said, like sugar and sweet and manifestation and abundance. Her new book, of course, is called Abundant Ever After, of course. She's that girl who typically, you know, I'm not into that like woo-woo, you know, like be present and all that kind of thing. But you do it like that, but inside you are the most resourceful. So resourceful. Such a driven, ambitious soul. And what you've done and how you've kind of evolved and elevated over the last god knows how many years I've known you is literally astounding.

So incredibly kind and fully receive it. I feel like I'm getting like electricity running through me just being in your presence and hearing all those nice things. And it is really special when someone's known you the whole journey, because you see the person continue to reach for who they really are. And it's really cool. And I watched you do that too. That's really amazing. I think one of the reasons that we'll talk about it today, why I get away with that with you, like the manifestation-ish sort of spiritual, like the ease of the flow rather than the pushing is because I think you know from where it comes and you understand on some level,

there's like a sincerity to it with me of what it really means to me. And I'm gonna explain it to you so that your listeners hear it. But my word for and my paradigm for how to manifest is through a Jewish lens. And Judaism is really different with what we would call the law of reception,

which is what Rabbi Aaron says that's like really Jewish, than probably what's out there in the zeitgeist about most of what people hear about the law of attraction. That's not as much a Jewish concept as the law of reception. And I'm happy to like go into why they're different. But I think that's why, because you know me and because you're also really good at spotting if it's like bullshit or if it's real, we come from that same DNA, truly. Like, we're part of the Jewish people. And so there's something about it

that feels actually grounded to you. And I'm happy to, like, explain why I think Judaism has an amazing lens on manifestation. Good, because I was gonna say, I love that. Because the first question I was actually gonna ask you is when I was looking at the bio that, I guess your team sent me, it says here, okay, Kathy is a renowned teacher, podcaster, and author.

She hosts one of the top spiritual podcasts, which is one reason why I would never have her on, if it wasn't for you, Abundant Ever After, which is the name of the book, which has been downloaded 45 million times. I'm talking, like, that's insanity. And it says here, she's a practitioner of the law

of reception and has a deep understanding of the universal principles of manifestation. I've never heard of the word law of reception before. And the first question I was going to say is what the hell is that? Okay, so here's the cool thing. So when I was 21, I went to Israel. I was supposed to be there for three weeks. Great. I graduated from college, go to Israel for three weeks, and then go on to my life. Instead, I met Rabbi Aaron. I was so compelled by the depth that he offered. I just kept extending my trip and I stayed for three years. And in those three years, I feel like something hit control alt delete on the software program, which was how I saw the world, and inserted in me like new software to which allowed me to like see the universe through

the eyes of Judaism, which was unbelievably expansive. Like growing up, I knew Judaism was like locks and bagels and Mel Brooks. And it's like, I like Mel Brooks and I like locks and bagels, but there's so much more to it. And Rabbi Aaron said to me at some point in those three years, he said, I feel like everyone's into the law of attraction. Have you heard of it? I'm like, yeah, that's kind of like the thing everyone's talking about. He's like, I just want to share with you, like, if you're in a conversation like that,

I want you to know the Jewish take on it. I'm like, sure. So he's like, we would say the law of reception. I'm like, what is that? He's like, well, the word Kabbalah comes from the word lekabel. Kabbalah means to receive. So it's the law of reception. I said, well, what does that mean? He said, well, if you had a radio and you put the radio in this room

right now, and this isn't woo, this is reality. If you put the radio in this room, you turn it on, and all of a sudden you would hear something. You might hear music, right? You might hear static, but you'll hear something. He's like, so let's say you hear music. Where was the music before you turned it on? And I'm like, I've never thought of that question. That's a fair question. He's like, so let's say you hear music, where was the music before you turned it on? And I'm like, I've never thought of that question, but it's a fair question. He's like, the answer is it was hidden in plain sight. It's here, it's already an escrow, but in order to hear it, you have to tune the receiver

to a frequency that can actually receive the music. And so he said, most people go through their life pointing at the music, so to speak, of their life. This is my reality, this is my relationship, this is my health their life pointing at the music, so to speak, of their life. This is my reality. This is my relationship. This is my health. This is my bank account. Not realizing that they're choosing what station they're hearing based on their vibration.

And Einstein, right? Like, this is, again, not woo, this is just science, said that the world is not really made of three dimensions, but we perceive 3D with our naked eye because the eyeball sees things in cubes. It sees things in three dimensions, but we perceive 3D with our naked eye because the eyeball sees things in cubes. It sees things in three dimensions. But the truth is that atoms are 99% energy and 1% particle. So most of the world in reality is something we don't perceive with our eyes, but it exists.

It's 99% of the world, 99% of atoms are energy. So it's a frequency, which is why Malcolm Gladwell says in blink when someone walks in a room, within four seconds you feel their energy. You just know if this person is net positive, net neutral, net negative, because the energy goes first. Even my cat, like if someone walks in this space, my cat either like runs under the bed

or is like kind of intrigued by this person. Babies can feel energy, you and I can feel energy. We know that if you sit down with someone and have coffee, the most impressive thing is not what they're wearing, it's their energy. It's like, you have great energy. I feel like the reason people like being around you, you happen to be stunning, it's your energy.

Your energy brings people to life. Your energy is like bubbles that are boiling water that turn everything on. That's your energy. That's your greatest offer to the world. So Rabbi Aaron said, we have to understand that we are vibrational beings. And when we're truly in flow,

when we're truly in alignment with our soul, not our ego, but our soul, then the music is on and everything is beautiful music. And then our life is just like that. And then the synchronicity kind of takes over because what goes first is you're in the music. You have the vibration that like everybody wants to be around. So it becomes a magnet for stuff.

So how, I guess my question to you is how does somebody change their energy? If you are born or have a certain energy, right? Or frequency, how do you elevate it? If you are somebody who has bad energy or a certain energy, right, or frequency, how do you elevate it if you are somebody who has bad energy or a low frequency? Is that even possible? Yeah, I mean, first of all, it's a really good question. And when I left Israel, I moved to Los Angeles

and I started taking classes at the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. And I studied there for a few years and I started studying meditation, which was super hard for me at first. And then I wound up learning what meditation really is, which is, this is a long way to answer your question, but it's how I would answer it. Meditation is not about not thinking.

Meditation is about witnessing your thinking. When I met Jon Kabat-Zinn, when I've gone to Joe Dispenza's workshops, anyone who teaches meditation is helping you to get out of the swirling blizzard of your thoughts and perceive them, witness those thoughts, because consciousness is actually not even in the brain. I just had dinner with my friend Dr. Lisa Miller, who's a professor at Columbia who studies the awakened brain, brains that have like a spiritual flow state, brains that connect to something transcendent. And she said they did an fMRI on a monk and there was no activity

in the brain. Here's what I mean. Most of the time we are unconscious thinking the same thing we thought yesterday, which makes us feel what we felt yesterday. We know that every thought secretes a hormone or a chemical like cortisol or dopamine or serotonin and we are unconsciously living the same thoughts and the same feelings, which make us then do the same things we did the day before. So how do we change our energy? First of all, understanding,

instead of being in the blizzard of the mind, it's kind of like if it was Christmas morning and it's snowing outside, if you were in the living room looking at a snowstorm, it's actually beautiful. But if you're out in the blizzard, walking through the blizzard, it sucks, it's cold, you can't see in front of you four feet.

That's being caught in the mind. So you've done a lot of podcasts, I've done almost a thousand podcasts. Everybody I interview who's living their best life, feeling really good, and you said how to change your feeling good, is doing some version of some practice that gets them out of the cortisol addiction. That could be working out for some people, that could be meditating for some people. There's some thing they do so they don't just sit in the unconscious all day long. So when you say, how do you change your energy? Well, most people, first of all, become conscious that you're unconscious a lot of the time. You're just scrolling your phone

and taking in a lot of like, right? we have to remember, we get to decide I say to people the same way you select what you're going to wear today, select how you want to feel. And when I teach people how to meditate now, I teach them like a five minute meditation that first of all, what you first do is like notice your body first is your body regulated or dysregulated. You're either betraying yourself or you're not. It's that simple. And you will notice, oh my god, I'm actually like racing, right? I tell people, look out at nature. Do you see a tree that's rushing? Do you see like, you know, animals that are worrying and serious? No, they're in flow state. They're in homeostasis, right? You're not. You're in fight-or-flight. The amygdala

is constantly putting you in fight-or-flight.. So first notice your body, like attend to your body and maybe notice your sit bones. I'm like, can you feel your left or your right? Can you distribute your weight so you feel them both? Okay, that's the first step. Now, can you notice your thoughts with non-judgmental awareness? Like, oh, I'm thinking of my mother-in-law.

I'm thinking about my weight loss. Oh, I'm mad at myself. It's like, what if you could just have some distance from your thoughts? And then the trick is, who am I really? Because I'm not my thoughts. And when you really find this center part of you, there's a part of you that has equanimity, wisdom,

it has a capacity to just see for miles and miles, right? And so that's what you start to do, is you start to realize you are outsourcing your well-being all day long to what's going to happen, who you'll meet at the DMV, what good thing will happen. And when I teach people to meditate and they start to feel good again, they start to feel peace and equanimity and the lightness of being and their heart open and all that, it feels so freaking good. I'm like, if you could feel that good and give yourself less cortisol in those moments,

which is good for you biologically, why would you wait to maybe feel good today as opposed to like plugging in, plugging in, right? That is how you start to feel better. So it's funny because we say the same things, but we use different words to kind of get to the same, I guess, the same goal, right? What I hear you say is people need to take action.

They have to do something different than they did before to change their state of being, right? And so, right? So like, if it's meditation for some, like I am someone who really believes that you don't need, I mean, I can't meditate to save my life. I've tried a hundred times. It doesn't work for me in that way.

But what I realized over many years of like beating myself up for not being able to sit in the on position and try to feel my heart or whatever the wording is, my meditation is going for a run. Totally. Right? Could it quiet everything around me?

First of all, meditation has been such an abused word. That is meditation. The definition of mindfulness, right? And meditation is a byproduct of being in a state of mindful awareness, is having your own attention, right? So a lot of monks, their meditation is making sand art. They say that an adult coloring book is a form of meditation. Like, there's no such thing as beating yourself up that one version of meditation doesn't work for you.

Like, I also don't want to sit and breathe in and breathe out and say a mantra. Also, the other thing that's really cool about what you and I, I think, are more drawn to is when people are in flow state, when Tom Petty was writing a song, let's say, he's in a meditation. Because what they've come to find out from the science of the brain is like,

when you're in a creative flow, you are in the present moment, right? You and I are not people that overthink things. I don't sit and try to figure out the ROI, what's gonna happen, like, let's just take action, let's just go. And guess what? Then my whole life is like a meditation because I'm in the present moment having fun now, not saying, well, I'll only have fun if this gets 15,000 downloads or somebody. It's like, no, no, no. I don't even know if this idea is going to work, but I want to test it. I want to create. I want to keep

going. That's what nature is doing all the time. Yeah, because analysis paralysis kills every dream and every possibility, right? Could you sit in this like terrible place of like, is it not gonna work? Is it maybe gonna work? I agree. So that's like the first thing.

But you have something that's very interesting to me and I just realized it as you were talking, right? Because very few people, like you have people who are very hardcore in business or hardcore in creative. Very rarely do people have both sides of the brain working so well together. You are somebody, that's why I think I'm really, I've always been very admiring and it's very impressive.

Let me just give you some background, because I know like I didn't really, I said all those like buzzwords, like podcaster, teacher, she's telling you she's a meditation teacher. She I know like I didn't really, I said all those like buzzwords, like podcaster, teacher, she's telling you she's a meditation teacher. She's not. I mean, she might be now, but she wasn't, okay?

So when I met Cathy, Cathy was a struggling artist, like a music artist who was exceptionally talented. You were dropped from your record label, right? So she was a singer songwriter and I was obsessed with your stuff. -♪ You're home to me, you're home to me. -♪ Ever? Oh.

Okay, first of all, her voice, she's exceptionally talented. And by the way, I do like kind of blow smoke up people's ass sometimes. You're like three people that listen to my CD all the time. When CD is worth it. I am not just making this shit up. And you can ask Noah that I would put your CD in my car every day. I would listen to it like I would like the Alanis Morissette

you know, album, like, you know, Jagged Little Pill. You are so talented. So this is why I want to bring this up. OK, so when I met you, you were kind of doing all that stuff. You got dropped. Then you ended up, then she, I'm gonna say talk to you because you're here, you know, figuring out like, okay, now what? Like I have all this like creative talent and you figured out that you should maybe, okay, maybe the record labels

don't want you. By the way, did you ever figure out why they dropped you? Yeah, let's be honest. I was in the Sunset Sounds recording studio and Lady Gaga was there and I had just gotten signed and she was recording paparazzi and I was like, um, I'm out of my league. Like I was signed because Ron Fair had signed Vanessa Carlton and I was... And like, I, they were phasing out of that. Like they wanted pop, amazing singles. I don't write that kind of music. I don't sing that kind of way. I was like more in the Sheryl Crow, Natalie Merchant era. It was over.

I had to come to terms with it. And then as you know, I started licensing music. Don't tell me, don't tell me. Don't tell her. Hold it up. So she, cause she was a Colby Calais. I always say you're like a Colby Calais, okay? It's like the singer song where Vanessa Carlton

is a great example actually too. Okay, so then that we were kind of like getting out of that genre, all right? So then you're like, okay, what the hell am I gonna do now? And then you saw something or heard something and she figure out that like, okay, just because I can't do that, I'm gonna then license my music to TV shows and to companies.

So you started writing music for McDonald's, I remember. Grey's Anatomy. Every Little Liars, Younger, Target, Walmart, all of it. It was so fun. And you were now, now she went from being a starving artist making no money to now making money. You can make a lot of money with the commercials.

Yeah, there was like 75 grand per use. How did you get from, okay, my career and my life is over to then finding that opportunity and then by the way, we're not done yet. This is just part one. And then making a business from that because this girl, like I said, just wait. So how did you do that? Okay. Well, first of all, I just want to say that in the book I just wrote, it starts off with this like really spiritual sort of like landscape and then dives into the business and the resourcefulness because

I just want to pay homage to you. 100% we were put here to take action. 100% we live in a physical world. You cannot just sit on a mountain top and think that all of these things will happen. And also you would miss out on who you become when you take action. Like we were meant to do hard things and find that we have a bigger capacity to do things than we thought.

That's all in the book. It just starts off with this, you know what, it starts off with a lot of the spirituality. I have to say why, because my book was a version of this and it was supposed to come out in May. And after October 7th, I actually asked my publisher if I could put more spirituality and Judaism in the book and a little less business because everyone talks about anti-Semitism, which they should, I get it.

But to me, I'm like, what about pro-Semitism? These ideas are so beautiful. I want people to know them. So yes to the business part. So how did I do that? Yes, you were right. I thought it was Beyonce or bust. I had a record deal.

I was like, I did it. Look, mom, take a picture. And then I got dropped. And then I actually got a second record deal with Craig Kalman at Atlantic. And I was like, oh my God, this is gonna be so much better. And so glad this is where I landed. And then I was supposed to write a soundtrack to a Fraggle Rock.

Ahmet Zappa wrote the script. Weinstein was gonna do the movie. The movie never got made. And then Craig Kalman, who's like a sweet guy at Atlantic Records Records, like we have no vehicle for your music. So then that ended. And then I thought, well, now it's really over. And a friend of mine said, okay, so if you're going to give up your dream, you should go make a lot of money. And so long story short, she's like, what can you do to make a lot of money? You should work in commercial real estate. And so because you and I are pretty, we're good at manifesting, like whether you like it or not, like good energy is

the trick to manifestation. Like having fun wherever you are is how you manifest. So I was in line at the Cheesecake Factory and this guy was standing in front of me and Brett was and he was like, what do you do? And I was like, actually I'm looking for my next thing. And he's like, I own $300 million of shopping centers. You should come work for me. You have good energy. I'm like, oh, I was just thinking about commercial real estate. I went to work for this guy and I had a blast because you and I have a blast wherever we are. And I bought my little CLK coupe and I would like go with him to golf courses

and then they'd make deals and exchange like tenancies in common. I don't even know what they were doing. They're buying pieces of shopping centers. And I was like, oh my God, people just neutrally exchanged hundreds of millions of dollars like it's no big deal. Meanwhile, they're having fun.

They're going to lunch. They're going to the opera. Like I'm in, you know? And after two years, I was like, you know what? I'm not in, like I didn't come to LA to do this. And I saw that I could be successful at it because I realized that every business, but especially real estate at that level is all people.

It's just knowing how to be good with people and they have to diversify their asset anyway, they may as well go with you. And I was like, but this isn't my life. Like, I don't wanna do this. And I was making good money, but I left. And then I asked myself a new question, which is there, is there any other way I can make money with music?

Is it record deal or nothing? And I Googled that and these articles came up about like, you can license your music. I was like, what is that? I had never heard of that. And I saw Ingrid Michaelson was licensing her songs to an old Navy commercial. And I was like, you know what?

I should do that. And now that I've had two years in the real estate world, I'm gonna cold call my ass off. So I start cold calling Ogilvy, Lee Obernett. And they were like, who are you? Click. And then I just got, I like have a thick skin. So I'd be like, oh, okay, don't call it noon.

Call it four. But wait a second, you forgot a big part of it, which I love. The first part is when you did connect with people, you offered, you said to them, I want our Starbucks order. Oh, you remember? Yeah, so I love. The first part is when you did connect with people, you offered, you said to them, I want our Starbucks order. Oh, you remember? Yeah, so I decided.

Don't forget that, that's like- It's the gold, it's the juice. How are you like bearing the lead? Okay, that's in my book, yeah. So what I decided to do is I realized like it's people, it's people skills, right? So I was like, instead of asking them to give me an opportunity to write songs for their next ad,

I was like, listen, what's your favorite Starbucks drink? And she's like, what? I'm like, yeah, I'm like making it up on the spot. I'm like, I do this thing called mochas and music. I take your Starbucks order and then I'll bring you the Starbucks and I'll also bring you some music. This is like back when we would bring

like a zip drive or something. And half the time they'd be like, no, thank you. But the other half of the time they were like, I want a caramel macchiato. Oh, can you get one for my assistant? I'm like, sure. So I went to like 50 people's offices and sometimes I would even call like an ad agency in Minnesota.

Cause a lot of the big brands are there like General Mills and Target. So the ad agencies there do a lot of the big spots. So I would call these ad agencies in Minnesota and be like, you know, I'm going to be in Minneapolis. And they'd like, Oh, when are you going to be here? I'm like, Oh, I'm going to be there in October. And where should I go Apple picking? And then I would take a trip because then I would get the meeting and I would go

and then I would land the spot. And then I was like, oh my God, every one of these trips is worth it because if you get one song in a McDonald's commercial, they pay you $85,000 just to use it and you still own it and then you can license it again, license it again. And then you're right, I started teaching other artists how to do that. And again, I didn't overthink that either. It was like, you and I are not, I'm not existential. It's not like, oh, is my whole life licensing music? No, you're just doing it.

Is my whole life now teaching artists to license music? No, it's just another yes and. Other artists started asking me, actually, my friends and distant cousins were living right next door to me and they were my first people. They're like, can you teach me how you do this? And I'm like, sure, here's the list of people that I've now found, but you can find more of these people

by Googling who's the music supervisor, dah, dah, dah, dah. I'll show you how to Google it, I'll show you the numbers of names I know. And then my friend was like, this is so valuable, you should teach this. And I had my first class in my living room for 10 people. And then I was like, you know, resourceful. I should rent a theater.

And I start calling around LA and people are like, yeah, we don't even use our theaters on Tuesday during the day. We only use them at night. So I'm like, okay, there'll be like some weird set behind me for the play, but like I can rent it. She's like, yeah, if you rent it during the day, weekday, it costs like nothing, like 50 bucks an hour. Great.

So I start renting theaters, filling seats, and then one of my students, now I was licensing my own music and teaching people how to license music. One of my students in one of the classes said, you should do an online class. I'm like, I don't have an online account. I don't have Instagram. She's like, but why would it only be this is only available to people in LA? Like there's people graduating from Berkeley School of Music in Boston. They might want to learn this.

So I put up my first webinar. Again, didn't overthink it. I was pregnant with my third daughter. I didn't have a single slide, no slide deck. I just did what you and I did, just like told people my story and said, it's a thousand dollars. I made that up, thousand dollars and you can be in a group for a year and I'll come on Zoom once a week.

And 147 people bought it that night. How did they even know? Like this is the thing, right? Like, cause I think people get, like they also get, they stop in the start, right? Cause where, if you don't have all these things, you don't have the Instagram, you don't have this, you don't know people, right? I know.

How do you get people? You and I, you use this word, and I think this should be our like buzzword, is resourceful. So you know what I did? I thought to myself, who knows songwriters? And I'm like, where do songwriters hang out? And then I thought, oh, you know who knows songwriters? The guy who books Hotel Cafe, the guy who books what used to be Room 5. These were songwriter places. So I called James at Hotel Cafe. I'm like, how long is your list, your email list of songwriters? Because he'd been booking

there for years. He's like, that's like at least a few thousand. I said, why don't you send them this email that I'm going to do this thing? It's a free workshop. So he's like, okay. Like we weren't even smart enough to like give him an affiliate. I didn't even know that at the time. He was just like, sure. And then because he was a songwriter, he wanted to come to it. And then the deal that we made, he was like, can I just be in your class for free? I'm like, sure. But after that, I said, why don't I give you like a cut if you send me? And then I did that. And then the next thing I did was like, but this is called hustle. But all I was, what I was doing was just having fun and not overthinking it.

See, exactly. And so what I think that like people don't, people now are really kind of creating this, there's like a whole movement like, oh, the word hustles is a bad word. Yeah, they don't know what it means. Because yeah, exactly. It's like you don't, you can't,

no matter how much the word, now the new buzzword is manifesting or sitting back, whatever the word is of the day, I don't care. It all comes back to, you still have to like, get out of the chair. 100%. And do the work. Show up. Show up.

And do the work, 100%. You know, I was thinking my grandmother was a dancer. That's how she met my grandfather and he danced with Gregory Hines' dad. And they used to do the hustle. It was a dance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what I just realized is the hustle can be fun, meaning to say that is how it should be.

I think the reason people don't like it is because they're not as much like us, so when they do it, they feel they have to do it perfectly. They have to overthink it. They have to be over-preparing, and then they feel really rejected when something doesn't work. I think you and I are like, I don't even notice if someone rejects me.

I'm just like, fine, onto the next one. And then it's actually fun because I don't overthink, I don't over plan. So to me, the hustle is more like my grandmother and grandfather dancing. You know, it's so funny that you say that because that's the one question people, especially when I wrote my book

and when I was doing the whole circuit, like the podcast and all that, always people would say to me, like, you know, like, well, how are you okay with rejection or failure, failure, fail? I'm like, I did it so much and I failed so many times that, like, I became desensitized and immune to the feeling or it didn't even, like, make a difference. Don't even notice. Like, honestly, here's part of what I say to people is this. I'm okay if people decide not to like me.

Isn't that insane? Because guess what? I don't like everybody. Yeah. I don't. Like how many times you go to a party and you're like, oh, all these people, these are my people. No, there's like four girls.

You're like, I love these girls. The other one, not so much. Like I think it's weird that we think everyone's supposed to like us. People should reject you because you're not everyone's cup of tea. Oh my God, can you handle that? And also, why would you take it personally? People are so busy with their own self and their own life, they sometimes can't get back to you

or they sometimes can't help you, let it go. I'm like, I find it a little narcissistic how people want other people's approval. I really don't. I don't need it. I don't need it. I'm really okay. I don't need it. I'm really okay. I wonder why that is. Like why are we okay with that and other people are not? That's a good question.

What is the reason behind it? Because the truth is like I feel like people are like she doesn't give a shit. She's so the... I feel like I don't. I don't either. And people ask me why and I'm like I don't know. I wonder, I don't know. I'm thinking, what do we have in common? But like my parents got divorced when I was younger. I was making, like if I missed an orthodontist appointment, like I had to call, like I knew how to talk to adults.

I was a little bit older than my peers in a way, and my dad left, and so it was on me. I didn't, I guess maybe on some level, that's like the ultimate rejection, and I didn't even take that that way. So I'm like, if I don't take that that way, I'm going to be fine. I don't care. Like, I don't care. Let him go do his thing. Like, I was relieved when he left.

It was a toxic mess when he was there. Really? Yeah. My parents fought all the time. So then when they got divorced, I was like, thank God you got divorced. How old were you when they got divorced? Well, my dad lived a double life for a while, which was really gross. So he was like, I'm going to go get divorced.

I'm going to go get divorced. I'm going to go get divorced. I'm going to go get divorced. I'm going to go get divorced. I'm going to go get divorced. I'm going when they got divorced, I was like, thank God you got divorced. How old were you when they got divorced? Well, my dad lived a double life for a while, which was really gross because he would tell me about these sexual things he got to do with this new one when I'm like 12. But then he eventually left when I was 14. Wait, so he was telling you about his double life?

Gross. Did you tell your mom? I mean, yeah. And then she would try not to know that I was telling the truth, to keep herself from leaving. Like it was so lame. And also I think because my mom was so crippled with depression, I was like, that will never be me.

I was like, you deserved to live your life and to bloom. And instead you let this guy like totally walk all over you and then left you. I'm like, I'm not going to do. See, it's what I find so interesting why you say the story is it can go either way, right? You took a, you did like a balls to the wall type of approach. Let's go. And you didn't let it penetrate to the point where you became debilitated.

No. And you didn't like sit and ruminate on trauma. And I think this is the big problem we have in today's culture. By the way, you're right. I seriously agree with you. I'm like, why would you keep going back into something? And I, you know, I'm speaking, I know I'm sure you're friendly and connected to her. Dr. Edith Eager, I'm going this weekend to like this event to speak at her event. No, I don't know who she is.

She's a Holocaust survivor. She wrote the book called The Gift and the Choice, like super bestseller books. And she's also a therapist. She was like, being a survivor, right? She's a Holocaust survivor, but she's also like a therapist. She's like, being a survivor is like everything from the past just turns to wisdom. And you survive by living your best freaking life. Like that's what you do is you're saying, I will not eat this poison again and again.

Because when you go back into old memories, your body thinks it's happening again. And it's like, instead, why don't you create a good amazing moment right now? Like I've always kind of been like that though. Like since I was a little girl, I was just like, there's so much to enjoy. Why are you guys like just sitting in the sadness? There's so much more here. Because that's what I was, what my point that I wanted to make was, and I, like I said, I'm a big believer. That's why you and I get along very well, is not to sit and ruminate and talk about your problems day in and day out.

People are using therapy now, and I'm going to probably get a ton of shit for saying this, but as like a crutch, it becomes like their new hobby is just to go to therapy over and over again to talk about the same problem they had many years ago when it's been proven and shown that that rumination is actually a major reason for all this mental health decline. And so why is it though

that some people are doing it that way while other ones are like you? Like, cause you have a sister, obviously, who's, is she older or younger? Older. Older. Did she take the same approach as you? Yes and no, we're different. Very different. We live different lives.

But I think what you just said is like, one of the reasons I actually love going on like a week long meditation retreat, like I've been with Dr. Joe Dispenza maybe four times on a retreat. And one reason I really love it is cause you're not there to go back into your past and in your story. What you're actually doing is going to the truth of this present moment where you are bigger than your past and you find within you like your capacity for passion

and creativity and to see further. It's really interesting. I have friends who do mushrooms, okay, psilocybin, and they love it. And when I was with Dr. Joe at the last retreat, he showed us what psilocybin does to the brain. It shuts off the amygdala, which is where you sit in the past in your trauma, and opens up the third eye, because it's a serotonin enhancer,

and then you feel joy, right? But what he shared with us is you can create that experience by just getting out of the past, right? And stop projecting the past onto the present moment and actually go beyond time to where you really are, the part of you that is actually available for a greater possibility, right? Like I say in the book, people either live from probability, which is really just called the past, what evidence they have of the past, or possibility, which is in the present moment, what is possible, right? And I think this is interesting research based on what we just were saying. We know this, you live this. Grit got a

whole lot of attention with Angela Duckworth's book. And what I found fascinating when she says gritty people are the most successful, she says what makes a person gritty is optimism. Because in order to be in the science lab again and again and again and have the resilience to find a cure for cancer, you can't say, oh my gosh, I'm so upset I didn't find it yesterday that you have to be like, I know it's here, it's here, it's coming, it's here. So this is what you just said, think about this. If the most successful people have grit and if the only thing that they can show that actually correlates to grit is optimism, then that is a person living in possibility, living

in the what's possible in the future in here in the present moment, rather than going back into the story of what already was. So, you know, people might not like it or there might be other things. Of course, you and I can get a lot of things wrong and we don't know the full scope of why people go to therapy and maybe some of it is really beautiful and helpful and all that. But I went to therapy for years and I would say, based on what Angela Duckworth is saying,

at some point, if you want to be, when she says successful, she doesn't just mean like having followers on Instagram. She means a life that feels fulfilling and where you're walking in your potential and everything feels good to you, right? That's success, fulfillment, right? Then optimism has to be something, and that is a discipline. My grandmother used to say, it's easy to find the bad, you have to look for the good. And I think that's what this is. to say, it's easy to find the bad, you have to look for the good. And I think that's what this is. In fact, I write about her in the book

because she was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, lost her family in the pogroms, and they had no money, lived in a tenement, and her mother died really young. And yet my grandmother told me they had no money. So in order to go to a dance club, because she was a dancer, she would take an eyeliner

pencil and draw a line up the back of her leg, because you could only get in with stockings, but she couldn't afford the stockings. And the eyeliner pencil made it look like she had stockings on. And then she didn't go to school past the fifth grade. And she had a note on her shirt one day that said, this child suffers from malnutrition, because the school said to her parents, you know, she had nothing. And yet she would go to the library and she would read and she would go to this dance hall.

In fact, you would think this is cute. It was a restricted clubs to Jews. Jews couldn't dance there. So she said she was Italian because she had like dark hair and dark skin. She met my grandfather there and they started becoming dance partners. And she's like, oh, he's Italian.

And he went by Benedito, even though his name was Baruch, he used an Italian version of that name to get into the club, but they were the two best dancers. And one day he walked her home and they were sitting on the stoop and she said, I can't date you, but I'm in love with you, but I'm Jewish. And he said, I'm Jewish. And I say that because I think my grandmother lives in me. I think her optimism, like with all the crap that's going on around me, I'm going to go

dance. I'm going to find the music. Like her siblings didn't necessarily do that. Her siblings were like trapped in depression. Their mom had died. They came from the pogroms. They lost their family in the Holocaust. Like, well, this was before the Holocaust, but they lost their family to other versions

of the Holocaust, which were happening in Eastern Europe, which is why 3 million Jews were killed in what is now the Ukraine, which is why so many came here. It was like a horrible time. And her mom died of tuberculosis and they had no money. Like it was so easy to say, here's all the trauma here. And she used to say to me, always find the music, always dance. And I like, why would you rob yourself of like what's possible in this moment and just keep looking at the past? And I think you and I were too excited about what's gonna be possible today. I don't wanna really focus on where I once was

because I wanna be here with you in this moment. Wow. I know she's just a rockstar. That's amazing. I like that whole idea of the pencil bit. That's really smart. You are such a good orator. That is... No, no, no, you are really.

No, no, no, no, no, no. You are, you are. Let's take a quick break from this episode to discuss a very important habit we can all improve on. Do you know that three out of four homes in America have harmful contaminants in their tap water? And someone like me who is obsessed with building better healthy habits, this statistic stopped me in my tracks.

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even makes a great gift. Today, you guys can receive 20% off any Aqua True purifier. Just go to aquTru.com. That's A-Q-U-A-T-R-U.com and enter code HUSTLE at checkout. That's 20% off any AquaTru water purifier when you go to AquaTru.com and use the promo code HUSTLE. the promo code HUSTLE. I've got so many questions for you, but okay. When I was reading through your book, I mean, although I just got the hard copy, but I was reading the PDF. When I was going through it, I saw something that I thought was very true. You're talking about when you ask people,

because now Cathy also has these, she does like, what do you call these groups, these courses, these masterminds? Oh my God, I started doing courses in 2017, like every three months for like 500 people. She's making like millions of dollars. Yeah, it's really a great, it's fun. You guys teach me how to make a course, to do a course. I swear, I think I'm- Yesterday, you should be doing that.

I didn't, I haven't, I don't do courses. Oh my God, we need a deep dive. No, because it's so much more than a course. C haven't, I don't do courses. Oh my God, we need a deep dive. No, because it's so much more than a course. Courses, it's just like anything else. People use the internet for either lame things or cool things. So somebody can have an Instagram account

that's very like lame, and someone else can put a lot of value there. Your course doesn't need to be like a dumb course. It's gonna be a program. It's gonna transform people's lives. I'm not gonna do a course. I'm not gonna worry about that. Okay, this could be the second part.

That's part two of my direction. The first was a podcast and now it's the courses. But what you said was so interesting. I think this is very true. Cause you're like, when you say to people when they start or when you do your work with all these women, mostly women, I would say it's a hundred percent women. Mostly women.

It's like 99.99% women. And then one guy. That if you could have anything, or what would you do? They'll say, oh, they want a better body, or they want this or that. But the idea of them making a ton of money never even occurs to them. It's so gross.

I'm so allergic to this because we have, this is again, one thing I love about Jewish wisdom is the way I've learned how we don't have to choose, right? King David was one of the most spiritually evolved people. He wrote all those songs. As I walked through the Valley of Ashes, people are still singing these words. And yet, he ran an empire. Forget Kardashian wealth. King David had more money than Kris Jenner, okay? Really? Are you sure about that?

Have you seen her bank account? I am. Maybe not, maybe not, but you have to add inflation. But he could be both. And the word currency comes from the word current, which means on behalf of the world, when you get money in, it immediately is helping the world. Like, what do you put it under your pillow? No, you put it in a bank.

So immediately while you're making money, you're thriving. So now your money is paying off people's loans and credit cards. Like if you improve your house and you paint your house and you have money, your neighbor's house just went up in value. Like why would you not allow yourself to say with a big declaration, because I say this in the book and you know this, this is like your world. I say, if you decided that you want to be healthy, would you declare that to your friends at like a dinner? Would you post on social media like, I've decided this is my healthy era, let's go, I'm going to be healthy AF. And they're like,

yeah, I would totally do that. I'm like, great, you should do that. Would you declare to your friends into your world and on social media like you want to be the wealthiest version of you and like, oh, I would never do that. I'm like, why the stigma? Honestly, that's my question. It's not good. It's because we've been taught such scarcity mindset that if I have money, I'm somehow taking it from you. That's not true. If I open a store on Main Street because I have money, I just created more opportunities for other people to create stores on Main Street. This home that says like this, this home that says that money is like rain falling in a garden. It's an activator. This is really important because we have so much in our culture that tells us the more money you have, the more evil you become. That's a lie.

There you could make a list right now of people who have money who are horrible, and people of money who are amazing, whose names are on the sides of hospitals and theaters and everything. You can make a list of people of no money who are shitty people, and you can make a list of people who have no money who are awesome and kind. So the Talmud says, it's an activator of what is. So Talmud says, if money is like rain and rain falls on weeds, more weeds grow. If money is like rain and rain falls on the flowers, more flowers will grow. So that means if a person is blessed to have money and they're out of integrity,

they'll do more out of integrity with it. But if a person is in integrity and they've given more money, they'll just do more good with it. Well, I think I'll say it in a simpler way, which is more that whatever it is, whoever you are, it will be just exacerbated. That's what I'm saying. If you're a dick before, you'll be even up in your dick. That's exactly what I'm saying. If you were a nice person, you'll be even a nice,

you'll be even more nice. It's the same thing. But women have a hard time. We've been raised, little boys, whether we know it or not, now I'm generalizing, but it's the truth, by and large, boys are raised like you will be a provider when you roll out. Yeah. And you're going to own it.

Girls are raised like you will be codependent. What I mean is you will people please your way through life, make sure everyone's comfortable all the time and set yourself on fire if you have to to make sure because that's your job. You're responsible for everyone's feelings. No, like that's your job. You're responsible for everyone's feelings. No, like that's insane. Well, it's also been very much about, especially I think it's kind of come full circle now, where we had like an era where like women could be,

like, you know, they could be bosses, girl boss, all these, you know, silly names. And now it's actually like there's a big movement with masculinity versus femininity with social media. That like, if you're somebody who wants to be a quote unquote boss as a woman, then it's a very masculine energy. And it becomes, this becomes the thing, right? It doesn't have to be.

It doesn't have to be. You know, there's a lot of potency to alignment, right? And so if a woman decides like she wants to have a business and whatever, she might be able, like I've been doing this work that I've been doing, working part-time and picking my kids up at three o'clock because I wanted to. I went through IVF, I want to be with my kids, like I am, right? So yeah. I think when you focus on the right things in business, I don't know that I can claim Tim Ferriss that I do that a four hour work week. I don't, but I work 20 hours a week.

What I mean to say is you don't have to do it just because someone else did it. That way. Right. I think there is a way for you to bring more ease and joy and play into it because business at the end of the day, we know this, it's not a numbers game. It is a people's game. And your greatest strategy in a business is your identity What energy what you put in the world how you hold yourself the way you talk to people the doors that will open for you

From that that's your first strategy your second strategy is like Seth Godin would say do you have radical empathy? Are you listening because if you're nailing it with a client or a customer? You've factored in what works for them. That's healthy. A business is basically a relationship at scale. You're good at reading the room and you're also good at having the confidence to be a leader. Like so many women are like, I'm afraid to start a business because why? Well, because then I feel responsible for getting it all right. No, really good leaders don't have all the answers, but they lead their way through it. Like really good leaders in a business, in a family, you don't know what's coming around the bend. you can't be perfect, but you have the accountability to say like all right

I'll figure it out. I'll ask good questions. I'll be resourceful. It goes back to that goes back to us I think it also the quote you also love it. Our greatest resource is our resourcefulness, right? It's a hundred percent true exactly So I think that's what keeps people is this feeling of like, I couldn't do it unless I could do it the way someone else does it, or I could do it perfectly. It's like, it's not required. What's required is like, have the confidence to know that you've been preparing to be you every day of your life. It's enough.

You know, a lot of women, I think you and I also have this in common for some reason along the way, we decided to give ourselves the permission. We didn't wait for someone to give us permission. And so that's huge. Like who gave Oprah permission? Not that she's even the... But like who, who, she, she gave it to herself. A hundred percent. Right? At some point that's gotta happen. It's like, I think the two biggest lies in the brain, which is mostly lying to you anyway, is I'm not enough, and it's not possible anyway. And the truth is, who says anyone's enough to do anything?

Well, no, though, like this is a big pillar point for me, right, this whole I'm not enough thing. Because I think we always- It's exhausting. We always over-index what someone else is. Like, oh, they're there because they're so great and phenomenal and talented and skilled. And we under-ind index what we can do.

That's just human nature, right? When the truth is that, and by the way, and I can say this cause I meet everybody like you, and then you meet these people who are so extraordinary and wonderful and you're like, oh, they must be this, this and the other. And you meet them, you're like, they're not, they're not what that, they're not that great.

The only difference between that person and the other person is that they like believed in themselves just a little bit more and kept on going and kept on trying. I mean, I will not name names because it would be so disgusting, although it'd be fun. The amount of people that I know who are made it people who are at the top of their game, who are literally weeping and feel dead inside is shocking.

Honestly, because I think why I go back to this idea of the law of reception and all of that jibber jabber, because in a way it's like all we do is like blather as people, it's like just, you're either like being real or you're not, but I think the real part of that is I'm very impatient, so for me, I wanna have fun every step of the way, which means I'm not gonna try to be perfect, I'm gonna know that I can think on my feet and be resourceful, and I'm going to like

myself enough to give myself permission to show up. Totally. And when you're doing that, then if you get to the top of the mountain with some goal, it doesn't matter if you hit the New York Times list. You just had fun the whole time. That's what I'm saying. That's what I mean. I want to give you a good example.

When I started my podcast, I went to podcast movement, and I'm like, okay, I'm saying. That's what I mean that people, I wanna give you a good example. When I started my podcast, I went to podcast movement and I'm like, okay, I'm here and everyone had business cards and I'm like, oh, I don't have business cards cause I'm never prepared and I forget. So walking around, everybody had very schmoozy energy, which you and I were just talking before. I don't like that. I don't need to be in that room.

So I'm like, when does this end? Okay, it ends in an hour. I was like, I'm gonna leave. I'll come back when like the panel starts and the content starts. So I leave, completely leave does this end? Okay, it ends in an hour. I was like, I'm gonna leave. I'll come back when like the panel starts and the content starts. So I leave, completely leave the event for the networking, go to another hotel. And I said to my friend before I left, I'm gonna leave.

She's like, you don't wanna stay? You could meet the head of Apple podcast. You could meet Spotify, they're here. I'm like, oh my God, I can't. Like, I just need to be, no, these people are just too, yeah. So it was inauthentic to me. So I go to another hotel. I ordered a nice tea, I sat down, all of a sudden I felt fine again.

I'm like, oh my God, that energy of like, you know, trying to get something, I just can't do it. So I sit there, this man sits down next to me, he's wearing the same badge I was wearing, and I'm like, were you in there? He's like, I hate that energy. I'm like, me too. So we started talking, he's from Chicago, we talked about the Midwest. He's really interesting. We talked about the last good book we read. And then he gets up, it's like 45 minutes later and he's like, I'm going to go back in there. I'm going to be too.

He hands me his card. He was the head of Apple podcast. He is now such a good friend of mine. And of course he then featured me on Apple. Of course he then took me to New York to the podcast up front. And then yeah yeah a lot of good shit happened But my point is I know it sounds woo But when you every moment instead of thinking someone has the power that you don't keep choosing yourself You you already won even if he didn't walk in even if I didn't get featured on Apple If even if the Steve and I never had become friends it did it wouldn't matter It just wouldn't matter what mattered is that I knew enough to say, this is me losing my power all of a sudden,

trying to meet the right person who can do it for me. No one can do it for you. That's what I'm saying. I'm clipping that. How long is that? Because that's going to be the longest clip ever. It's what? Five minutes?

Damn. Okay. Well, I'm going to try to clip it because that is such a great story, Kathy. And like, this is what I'm saying, like you have such, you have good energy because you bring it, like you are so passionate and you can feel it's true. Like you're saying, like to wrap it all up, the truth is like, you can feel the authenticity. Like they're not bullshitting, you're not sitting there bullshitting it. This is who you are. And that's why so many women love you

and come to you for these courses or whatever you wanna call them, these programs. Because it's infectious. You make people feel like they actually have the power. We do have the power. And to wrap it up, the way I wrapped up what's in this book at the end, I was like, how am I going to close this book? And I think you'll appreciate this.

I may have even shared this with you. Esther Young-Rice, who's another Holocaust survivor, was such a powerhouse. Wow. Just amazing. She used to speak, I think, on the Upper West Side once a week. I think a thousand people would come to the synagogue to hear her. She was incredible. And she said to me something just magnificent. She said her favorite prayer in all of Judaism is that in the morning blessings,

which admittedly I don't do them, but I have seen this in the sedors. I know it's true. There's a prayer to be like a rooster. And she said, it's her favorite prayer. And she said when she was in a concentration camp, before she parted ways with her family, her father said, never forget that prayer. It makes me cry. Be like a rooster. So there she was in a concentration camp, her head shaved. Be like a rooster.

Be like a rooster. She didn't really know what that meant. And years later, get this, she was called, George W. Bush was president. He was going to Yad Vashem, which is a Holocaust museum, for those who don't know, in Jerusalem. He invited her to be his guest. So she gets on Air Force One, they go to Jerusalem, and they have a great time. And they're flying back on Air Force One, and she fell asleep. And she woke, well, he tapped her on the shoulder, and he said, do you know where you are? And she's like, no. And he said, you're flying over Germany in Air Force One, coming from the state of Israel to America. He said, I had to have that moment with you.

And she said, that is exactly when I knew why we pray to be like a rooster. That was the moment she said, because the rooster, this is so powerful. The rooster is the first one on the farm who knows, just when it looks like the night cannot get any darker, the exact second it's the darkest, that's the second the rooster cr any darker, the exact second is the darkest, that's the second the rooster crows and says,

the light is about to break. You see the light? It got as dark as it could go, so that's how you know it's time to wake up, because the light is here, because the dawn is here. Jen, that is everything we basically just talked about, is that I feel like I won the DNA frickin' lottery, because my grandparents and their grandparents, and by the way, everyone has this capacity. Don't be Jewish. Don't be Buddha. We all have the ability to be like

a rooster. That's what we just talked about. No matter how you slice it, it's no matter where you are. The first question, one of the first question, how do you change your energy? Be like a rooster. No matter what you've seen, no matter what you see at any moment, that's just the beginning of the story. The darkness is just the beginning. The lights are on the corner and you have the capacity to bring that light and to bring that to other people. And that's why we're all here for that. I'm clipping that too. One last thing I wanted to say, because we were talking about spirituality and we were also talking about doing, like taking action.

I find it really interesting when I graduated from college, I wrote a paper comparing Moses and the Buddha, Siddhartha. And I thought it was really an interesting comparison because they both grew up in a palace, okay, which is so interesting. Yeah. They both grew up as a prince and then they both went into the wilderness, except what I think is interesting. And this is just a matter of like observation. It doesn't mean one is right or wrong. I think

it's beautiful to be Buddhist. It's beautiful to be Jewish. It's just interesting to me. I like the fact that I think the idea in Buddhism is to really get into a state of peace, which I think they believe could then really affect the world, which you're probably right. I mean, who are we kidding if people walked around in a state of inner peace and wellbeing? That'd be a really good thing. Totally. But what I like about Judaism, for me, is that one day a week we rest, we have the Sabbath, which is just similar to that whole idea of being at peace. But six days a week, God says,

go out and make the world better. Go use your gifts because you're needed to contribute something and build something because you have something. I'm telling you, you're needed to help create and build this world. And I find that really fulfilling. I really do. I find it really satisfying to go out and to be a part of helping to create and to build things.

So I think the balance of one day a week being with what is and having equanimity and six days a week being out in the world and trying to take the right action to make the world better, I think that that's a really nice thing to keep in mind. I love that. There you go. Cathy, okay, guys, the book is called Abundant Ever After. You are incredible. You really are. You are a light. You are an inspiration. You are like, you walk the walk. You talk the talk. Kathy, where do people, okay, everyone buy the book. That's obvious. But where can they follow you on Instagram?

Oh, man, Instagram. Listen to her podcast if you haven't. If you're one of the unforty-five million or so. You can find the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target. And then once you buy the book, we have all these really fun bonuses. You get a journal and you get affirmation decks. And there's a course that I teach on sort of like a guide to the book. And you can get all of that if you go to kathyhow.com.com. And then you can get all your bonuses.

You're amazing. Thank you for being on this podcast. Thank you for being on this podcast. Thank you.