Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Cathy Heller on How Do You Find Your Life’s Passion EP 149

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. I am so passionate about helping people get out of that moment when they're at a job. And they're like, well, it turns out it's not really fulfilling me. I guess I have the, I've checked the boxes. I've got the 401k. I've got some kind of a title. And I feel dead inside. It's like, yeah, we got to change that. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people

Starting point is 00:00:29 and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews, the rest of the week with guest-ranging

Starting point is 00:00:50 from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone, and welcome back to episode 149 become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 149 of PassionStruck. Recently ranked as one of the top five alternative health podcasts in the world. And thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. If you missed our episodes from last week, they featured Dr. Michael Slepian, the author of

Starting point is 00:01:25 the new book, The Secret Life of Secrets. And he and I discuss his amazing research that went into the creation of this book. And we also had on Dr. Scott Schur, who is one of the foremost experts in the world on hyperbonic oxygen therapy and how it can be used to treat neurodegenerative diseases, chronic conditions, as well as recovery from cancer, especially radiation, and how it can be used to treat neurodegenerative diseases, chronic conditions, as well as recovery from cancer, especially radiation, and how it can be used for peak performance. My solo episode from last week was on why we should focus on the journey and not the destination. Thank you for all your five star reviews and for forwarding these episodes if you love them. To friends and family members,

Starting point is 00:02:05 it makes such a huge difference to us and continuing to grow with the popularity of this show. Now, let's talk about today's guest. Kathy Heller is a bundle of inspiration and energy. She is host of the popular podcast, The Kathy Heller Show, which has over 30 million downloads. She has interviewed everyone from Tony Robbins to Deepak Chopra to Malcolm Gladwell. You may also know her as the best-selling author of the book, Don't Keep Your Day Job, or from her reputation as a singer, songwriter,

Starting point is 00:02:35 when her career began. When she's not teaching or interviewing amazing guests, you can find Kathy playing with her three little girls, writing books, songwriting for commercials, or enjoying a moment with friends. Today, we discuss Kathy's childhood, and why she describes it as being a five-year-old therapist for her parents. We go into her transition into the music industry, and why two failed recording contracts inspired her to take a different career path to being a songwriter who was

Starting point is 00:03:02 featured in Billboard magazine. We discuss the keys to her creation of an extremely popular podcast and we go over several of her recent guests. We discuss her book Don't Keep Your Day Job and why she feels what you seek is seeking you. We also explore why empathy is missing today in the world and so much more. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am so ecstatic to welcome one of my favorite

Starting point is 00:03:37 podcast hosts, Happy Heller, to the passion struck podcast. Welcome and thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for being such a loving, congeanious person. I knew that from first just watching your content and in the few minutes we just spoke before we hit record, I was just really touched by how intentional and caring you are about the way you hold space for people and some happy to be here. I mean, that means the world to me. I'm going to jump into it as I was reading your book and we'll cover this in more detail. In it, you describe how you had a tough childhood and not only that,

Starting point is 00:04:20 you said that you became your parents therapist at age five. And I can't even imagine what that would have been like. But how has that experience, and maybe you can talk about it, influenced where you are today, and how you've become an incredible woman that you are? Oh, thank you for the question. I mean, I think that if I interviewed everybody who lives on my block, let's just say all my neighbors, they all probably have stories. My husband lost his dad unexpectedly when he was a child,

Starting point is 00:04:50 which created a lot of interesting things in their life. And I had my story. And my story was that, yeah, my parents were indeed very unhappy. They were very mismatched as a couple. And they are both really ridiculed with their own amount of insecurities and anxieties, and my mom struggles with her, with depression, and a lot of things that went undiagnosed for a while.

Starting point is 00:05:15 And so it didn't create an environment where there was any kind of peace or well-being. And there was a lot of emotional things going on, but there was also physical violence in my house. And I think the role that I chose, I think as kids, were very adaptable. And it's amazing how we choose different ways to survive. And so the way that I chose to sort of make it through that was to be the peacemaker. And to always have something sweet to say.

Starting point is 00:05:43 And to be happy and smiley and never cause trouble and never say if I didn't like the food we were eating and never asked to change the radio station in the car or make too much noise. It was just very much a way of like walking on eggshells and sort of avoiding whatever would feel like a big scary landmine And I got praised for being helpful, right? And so I would sit and mediate between my parents and nothing was really off limits. They would tell me all of their problems. They would discuss in detail what was going on

Starting point is 00:06:15 in their sex life and what was upsetting to my dad and what he wanted more from her. And I look back and I think how like inappropriate and it was like abusive. Like I have three children and there's so many things that I would not only would I never share it, I wouldn't want anyone to share it with them, right? They're not at an age where any of it is appropriate. So I felt the way to the world. I knew how upset my mom was, I knew how unfulfilled, I knew how angry my dad was

Starting point is 00:06:40 and then my dad eventually left and he would confide in me about the women that he would see. And I felt very sort of pulled in two directions with my loyalty, and my mom wound up spiraling into like an even more serious depression. And that brings us to the second thing that you sort of asked, which is how did that affect you, or make you into who you are today. Well, when my dad actually left,

Starting point is 00:07:04 and my mom went from bad to worse and started to become very suicidal and I was like calling an ambulance in the middle of the night to come and get her. Dealing with this thing at a young age, I started to witness. I started to observe just what it looked like to not have a sense of purpose, not have a sense of fulfillment. And I knew that that was a cautionary tale. And I knew that there weren't that many people who were modeling for me the complete opposite. Like even if

Starting point is 00:07:32 my friends, families look to be maybe doing a little bit better than my family was in terms of an emotional stable environment. I didn't see like adults that lived on my block that were just like so passionately enthusiastic getting up every day. It did seem like people were saying things like you know how it is when you grow up, life's hard, it's a lot of sacrifice, it's it and I was just like wait, that doesn't seem like something I want to grow up to be. And so I started to seek answers. And so at the age of like 12, 13, 14, 15, I mean, I had already grown up faster than I wanted to because of the environment that I was in. So I was reading my friends were reading Judy Bloom or whatever, and I was reading Wayne Dyer and Don Miguel Ruiz, the four agreements. And some of it I really didn't get yet, right? Some of it was

Starting point is 00:08:23 too advanced, but some of it I did get, and I was seeking, I was wanting answers, right? And I started going to therapy at a young age because of what was going on with the divorce and all of that stuff. And I was really on my own, because my mom was really in and out of a suicidal sort of episode. And so I was living with her in this little apartment,

Starting point is 00:08:42 but I would go to my grandmother's house sometimes. Sometimes I would work. I would try, I got two jobs at the age of 15 so that I could be out of the house and making money because we didn't have money. And these books and seeking wisdom really helped me a lot. And I think it's so much wrapped up in what I do, right? Number one, I have a tremendous amount of empathy.

Starting point is 00:09:03 My mom, this is really relevant. My mom in her senior year, in this senior year book, she was chosen as like the most talented senior superlative, right? They picked 10 kids, most talented, most academic, most athletic. She was that. And when she was in high school, she was the lead in every musical. And her understudy in every single musical was this woman named Ellen Green, who was always not quite as talented as my mom, but almost. And after high school, Ellen said to my mom, I don't think I have the stamina to remember the lines or to live that kind of life. And she also thought she had a choose between having a quote unquote normal family life or having her dream. She didn't think she could have both.

Starting point is 00:09:54 Well, Ellen Green, this woman wound up becoming the star in a Broadway show called Little Shop of Horrors. And she played Audrey. And then they did the movie version. And she played Audrey and then they did the movie version and she played Audrey and I remember my mom saying to me that she didn't go to that audition and my whole life when she was like combing my hair or we were getting ready for school all she talked about. I mean it like 99% of the things we talked about was her feeling unfulfilled. And so I saw firsthand how having her own identity, that happiness is an inside job. And she put so much on the marriage, right? And blame my dad for so much of what was just missing inside

Starting point is 00:10:37 because she wasn't living in integrity with herself. And there was nothing that he could do to fulfill that. And he was also wrapped up in his own stuff and drinking too much. And he's got his own stuff. So together, it was just like a tornado. But as an adult, when I started to leave the house, I thought, I'm on a mission to number one, I want to live in integrity. I want to be my authentic self. I don't want to have to choose between doing a dream that's inside of my heart or having a family. I know that there's a way, there's got to be a way to be both.

Starting point is 00:11:11 And I really wanted other people to feel that the gifts that were inside of them should not be dying and collecting dust that the things that are inside of us. That is a right of passage that that's's a whisper there, that we are, I believe that we are assigned. I wound up after college going on a trip to Jerusalem, which was not so out of character because I was studying world religion and philosophy, which just to continue sort of my search for meaning, I studied that in college, wound up going to Jerusalem stayed there for two and a half years. And one of my rabbis said something so beautiful, which is we are each a masterpiece, a piece of the master. And that we all come into this world with a different imprint

Starting point is 00:11:56 to make, which is why we each have a different fingerprint, right? There's no evolutionary need for that. But it's a little wink at the idea that we have a soul. We have something inside us that's unique. And I think that the reason my mom was so infofilled is because we all deep down know that we were put here to contribute. We were put here to feel seen and we feel the most seen by making something better, by

Starting point is 00:12:22 touching someone else. And I think that's so incredible because nature as beautiful as it is. I don't think koala bears or kangaroos are thinking themselves, gosh, I really want to impact the world. But every time I've ever spent a substantial amount of time with any human being, there's a baseline need to do that. And that's like the most fulfilling possible thought as well. I don't know between where they are and that, there's a lot of, I don't think I'm good enough or I don't know that anybody needs me. But deep down, if for whatever reason, they felt they could in fact express

Starting point is 00:13:05 some unique gift and change the world, make it better, that always lights up a person like a Christmas tree. I think that is why I am relentless at helping people see that they do have an exponential amount of talent and that everybody has Michael Jordan's strength at something and that there is indeed a way for them to use their hands to use their voice to feel fulfilled and to make the world better and I I'm certain that all the things that happened were a blessing for me because it all led to me

Starting point is 00:13:39 waking up the way I am now feeling so grateful that I get to live out this assignment to help people find their life's life's work. And don't you feel just so much more inner peace when it's not about you and it's about just trying to do what you can. To help other people and their suffering and find joy in their lives. It's a night and day transformation. A hundred percent and I remember having Bob Goff on my podcast and he was talking about how it's really just about raising your hand and being available. Like Seth Goden has this beautiful piece where he says, imagine if you were a lifeguard and you just got done with training. So you've been a lifeguard for three days officially. And you're sitting next to the senior lifeguard.

Starting point is 00:14:30 And the senior lifeguard says, I'm going to go take a break for lunch. You got this. You've gone through training. It's now your third day. You'll be fine. And just as soon as the guy gets up to go, somebody starts to drown. There's a little kid drowning. No where in this person's mind would they think, oh, I'll just wait for the other life guard who am I to jump in there. I'm not seasoned enough. They would just dive in, right? Just dive in the water. Just do their best. And I think what happens is we all create, right? We all create an ego, anything psychological, whether you read Freud, or you read, like I mentioned Wayne Dyer before, read anything, right? We have a part of our self that's constantly trying to protect our self from danger. That's the brain does that, right?

Starting point is 00:15:16 And so part of what it's doing is always like over-analysing. Well, you might make a fool of yourself, and it's obsessed. The ego's obsessed with the self small ass the self with a capital S is the part of you that's beyond your ego, right? When I had de-poch Chopra on the show recently, he said okay, so who really are you? Are you the Zygote? Are you the eight-year-old version of you? Are you the college version of you? Right you you think of any time in your life You always had a different hairstyle. You had different friends, you ate different food, you like different music. So what's the same?

Starting point is 00:15:48 The same is the part that's not the ego, not the fictitious character you play, right? It's not like Kathy Heller, whatever story of the day is, makes up who I am, the roles I play, who I am is the part of me that's always been there since the second I was conceived, right? It's this life force, this energy,

Starting point is 00:16:05 you could call it consciousness, you can call it a soul. That part of us, the default is just to show up, just to be generous. It doesn't worry about being good enough, right? And so yes, it's unbelievably satisfying when you're not obsessed. I now see imposter syndrome as being what it is. It's the most egocistical state.

Starting point is 00:16:27 It's all self obsession with the small self. When you're in a state of open-heartedness, when you're in a state of generosity, when you're in a state of just service, passion, compassion, love, joy, enthusiasm, you can just show up and give. It's so easy. It's so effortless because you're not thinking about, well, how am I gonna look?

Starting point is 00:16:47 Well, what if I fail? You're not interested in yourself. You're interested in the big self, the one self, what connects us all. I'll give two more examples of it. I recently had Jen Bricker-Bauer on the podcast and for those not familiar with Jen, she was born without legs.

Starting point is 00:17:05 Now is a best New York Times best selling author. She speaks to hundreds of thousands of people and it's really because her parents taught her you can't put can't in your vocabulary. So her whole life's mission now is to go out and teach people that everything is possible, which, and she's doing it, just in droves, people just flock to see her. And this past week I did a solo episode. I'm not sure if you know who Lizzie Velasquez is. Why used her as the example, and if the audience isn't familiar, when she was around 17, she happened to go on YouTube and saw a video that had gone viral with her image on it, 4 million views, which said the world's ugliest human being.

Starting point is 00:17:49 Of course, she went through a tremendous amount of self-healing as a result of that, but she's one of only two people in the whole world. We have this rare disease that she can't gain more than 60 pounds. And she has completely turned it around though. And I think she's now in her early 30s. Her life's mission now is to help other people to not get bullied. So she's done 300 or 400 seminars,

Starting point is 00:18:15 written three books, her TED talk on it had 10 million views for YouTube channel, 71 million views. So I think God finds us. And we all have this purpose inside of us that we need to explore and when you do, it gets magnified so much because anyone I talk to who's living their purpose isn't doing it for themselves. It's like you. They're doing it to try to serve humanity for the better good. So beautiful. What an incredible example. So incredible. The power of the spirit, right? The ego, it's like, what can it do? It's like, I had Marion Williamson on the podcast a month ago and she said, it's not the faucet, it's the water.

Starting point is 00:18:59 You can have the most fancy faucet in the world, the most crummy faucet in the world. The water is the impressive part, right? So it's like, we have these bodies, right? We have these shells, we have these stories, whatever it is, where you were born, who your parents are, what you look like, how tall you are, whatever. And then you have what's flowing through this thing. And it's just magic, right?

Starting point is 00:19:24 And it doesn't matter. The power of an open heart, the power of passion, the power of resilience, the power of the intangible, it smacks you in the face. The second it walks in the door, you can just feel it. And if everyone really knew that and really And if everyone really knew that and really cultivated it because I remember Tony Robbins, I also had him on the podcast recently and he said, people often think that they're not going to get where they want to be because they lack the resources. They don't have the pedigree. They don't have the financial support. They don't have the time. They don't have whatever resource you think that you need. And he said, and it's never that, it's the resourcefulness. And it's the

Starting point is 00:20:06 resources that we actually have in spades, which is all the things that you were just talking about. The perseverance, the personality, the love, the all of that, the empathy, right, for other people. You turn that on to full blast. The money is going to show up. If that's what you need, the time's going to show up. If that's what you need, the time's going to show up. If that's what you need, the connections will show up. If that, you're just not turning it all the way on because you're so focused on the fact that you're lacking something physical,

Starting point is 00:20:34 which it never, I mean, how much money did Jesus have? Like, I mean, what PhD did Moses have, right? Like, what are we talking about? The people who changed the course of history, these are not people who were the prettiest most this, but they're just the the fullest, right? Inside. Yeah. Or Gandhi, who is one of the biggest introverts to have her live and look at what he did through just demonstrating. Embodying the peace, right? Fully embodying it. I know, I think about what's going on right now

Starting point is 00:21:07 with Ukraine and it's just like, it's just the oldest story in the book. It's the oldest story, right? That people think if I had more, right? If I have more power, I'll be more significant. If I have more land, I'll be more significant. And it's just like, no, that just makes your ego think it's bigger and more significant,

Starting point is 00:21:25 which if you just keep riding that train, it's never enough. I heard Jim Carrey say recently, I wish everyone could be rich and famous just to realize that it's not an answer for anything. We will be right back to my interview with Kathy Heller. Oprah Winfrey, she's living breathing breathing proof of the power of passion, running away from home at age 13, starting a media empire, and now worth $2.6 billion. All to say that, when she makes a big move, you can learn a lot by watching. And after she made $60 million in one fell swoop, I did some research on how, and my eyes

Starting point is 00:22:02 were opened to a market out there worth $1.7 billion. That for the first time, we all can be part of no Oprah-level billions needed. How? There's a startup that's blowing the whole thing wide open called Masterworks. Powered by passion, like all good startups are, and eager to change the world. To learn more, go to masterworks.io and use promo code passion. That's masterworks.io promo code passion. See important regulation, a disclosures at masterworks.io slash cd. That's masterworks.io promo code passion. And we know all these promo codes can be so difficult to remember. So we put them in one convenient place on passionstruck.com slash deals. Thank you so much for supporting the sponsors who support this show

Starting point is 00:22:58 and make it free for our listeners everywhere. Now back to my interview with Kathy Heller. Well, there's so much truth to that. I can tell you that firsthand. I think the times when I was the richest I've ever been in my life had these huge jobs, people, envy for I was deep down inside, the most dissatisfied because I would sit there and I'd look at myself and I'd say, why do you keep spending your life making other people's dreams come true, but not your own? So it takes a while to break free of it because everything around you, how people perceive you,

Starting point is 00:23:32 when they ask, what do you do? You say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the car you drive, the house you're in. And it's built on a pile of crap. It is the opposite of how great it could be if you were really doing the thing you were meant to do. And that one, I lived through that. I love that you just shared that when I was first in LA, I moved out to LA and I thought, oh, I want to, I want to use my gifts, right? And so I wanted to get a record deal because it was

Starting point is 00:24:00 the highest branch I could see that I could reach for. And it was also sort of the completion of the dream that I knew my mom always had that she didn't ever complete, right, as to get to be sort of using her musical talent. And she was so threatened. She's like, don't you go out there. It'll never happen for you. It doesn't happen for people like us. She was so threatened that there was a big picture of me from when I was a kid in the sort of hallway. And it was on the wall hanging next to a big picture of me from when I was a kid in the sort of hallway and it was on the wall hanging actually a big picture of my sister. She ripped the picture off the wall and the glass shattered on the floor and she slammed the door and walked outside.

Starting point is 00:24:35 She was just like, who do you think you are to move out there? It was just like she had to confront. Well, if Kathy does make something happen, then what does it mean about all the years I told myself? Then nothing could happen. Anyway, I wound up getting the record deal after two years of writing better and better and better songs until they actually were good enough. And I got signed to Interscope. I was actually sitting with Lady Gaga. She was recording paparazzi, and I was there. I was about to record next. And I couldn't believe it until about two months later, I got dropped from the label and I was like, crushed, until I was like, oh, I'll just sign with a different label. And so I met Craig Kalman who ran Atlantic records and we hit it off and he was like, we're gonna do this.

Starting point is 00:25:17 And I was like, great, and I started working on that record until that didn't work out either. And I wound up getting day jobs and there was a time where I was so unhappy, like you were saying, because my rabbi had once said, can you imagine if you were a guitar, but instead of being used as a guitar,

Starting point is 00:25:34 you were holding a potted plant, like inside the, you know, the hollow of a guitar, like that guitar would be miserable if it could have, it could pick a talk. Cause it's no, it knows it's not supposed to hold a potted plant. It's supposed to make music, which he used that example, not for me personally.

Starting point is 00:25:50 That was like an example. He was like, no, that's exactly how I felt working those day jobs. Because I was so close, right? I was so close, so it hurt even more that I was just like going to work, wearing a suit, blowing out my hair, wearing high heels.

Starting point is 00:26:04 I was working in Brentwood for this dude who sold commercial real estate. He bought these like $300 million shopping centers and then broke them into pieces. And he was a nice person and he was paying me about $150,000 and my friends said to me, you cannot leave this job. Like at 25 years old to be making this much money,

Starting point is 00:26:21 you would be actually crazy to leave. And I was able to rent an apartment in Beverly Hills on a really safe, beautiful block. And I was able to go to sushi and even pay for my friends dinner, right? It was, it was, it was definitely more than enough money than I needed at 25. And I had, this is a girl who paid my way through college. This is a girl whose dad wound up getting married to somebody else when I was in high school didn't invite me to the wedding. I was cut off financially. So having this money was helpful. And I was so unhappy. And I looked at myself in the mirror one day as I was riding in the elevator,

Starting point is 00:26:55 I saw myself in the elevator door. I just broke into tears and there was a voice, like me talking to me saying what are you doing? This is not okay. And everything in my life felt like a part I was playing. The guy I was dating, I liked him on paper, but I really wasn't into him. You're like, you kind of make sense, but I'm not like, I don't feel like you're my person. I didn't like how I was dressing. I didn't like the people I was hanging out with. I didn't like the bars we would all go to and the way that people talk to were all about being in financial world, the real estate world, like this isn't me at all. So I left and I asked a new question,

Starting point is 00:27:36 which is I literally walked outside to put my head in my hands, I was crying and I said to God, I was like, is there any other way? If I'm not going to be Taylor Swift or Beyonce, is there any way for you to help me use my gifts? And Tony Robbins had said on one of those tapes, I was listening to you in high school when I would listen to all those self-help books. I remember the tape in my car and it said, if you ask a new question, you're going to get a new answer. And so that became the new question. Is there any other way I never asked that question?

Starting point is 00:28:05 Is it only be a rock star or nothing? Because I think a lot of people think, well, I either get lucky and I become Michael Jordan or I don't do anything with basketball. It's like, well, wait a minute, you can manage a team. You could work for Madison Square Garden. Oh, that would be fun. I love this work. My husband worked at Fox Sports for 15 years. Like he was never going to be in the NBA, but he got to do something that was like really fun. There's so many degrees between where we are and what we think is the only end all be all. And so I started writing music for TV shows. I read an article about people who were licensing their music to shows like Grease and Adamie and Dawson's Creek. And I started to do it. And I started to write music for target commercials and Hasboro and Walmart and I was making no joke.

Starting point is 00:28:48 Every time I would write a song, they would give me 50 grand, 70 grand, just for the license, just for the right to use it. And next thing I knew, I felt so rich, it wasn't about the money. It was, I'm off the hipster wheel. Like people say, what do you do? And I'm like, well, I write music.

Starting point is 00:29:05 Like, you make money doing that? I'm like, I make $400,000 a year doing that. So for a whole decade, I wrote music for film and TV. And I had my daughter, and then I had my next daughter, and I got married, and I met a better person who really was my person, who by the way was always, this was so funny. He was living next door to me in those years

Starting point is 00:29:26 when I was working that stupid day job. And he remembers thinking, oh, I would never date her because he said to me, you look like you sold time shares. You look like a fake cardboard, like a mannequin who's like playing a part and he was totally right. He's like, I didn't think you had a lot of like meat to you. And I was like, oh my god, I was driving this white seal camor satis.

Starting point is 00:29:49 We all drove the same car like in real estate, you all, everyone played this role. And then as soon as I became myself, we started to become friends. And then he was always next door. It was so weird, right? I couldn't see him because I wasn't myself. Anyways, people started asking me,

Starting point is 00:30:05 they would see me actually sitting on my desk, but I was featured in Billboard magazine, and then I was featured in Variety magazine. I'm holding up these magazines for people who are not watching this, and they would write these full-page stories, it's gonna take me too long to find the other one. But they would write these full-page stories

Starting point is 00:30:20 on how I was making all this money writing music. And I thought, oh, goodie, the record deals are going to see these articles because they're full-page articles and all the biggest music magazines. And they're going to want me back. And I'm going to get my record deal. No, what wound up happening was even better, but I couldn't see it because God's plans are always so much better. What happened was for every article that was written about me, there were thousands. I mean thousands of people who read them and said, I want to be like that. And I would get email after email and message after message until one day I was in the LA Weekly in a full page story and my husband's friend who

Starting point is 00:30:58 was a lawyer was just reading the paper. And he came over and he goes, I need to talk to you. I'm sitting here eating my lunch and I see you in the LA weekly and you're talking about how you've done all this stuff with music and I'm saying Kathy's missing a huge opportunity and I said what? And he said, you should teach this. You should help other people. You should help aspiring. I, John, my ego was there and I was insulted and I thought, you know, Steve must not think I'm really talented because if you thought I was really talented, he would say, look, you're doing. I know you're going to be back on stage and he said, what do you mean? I'm not insulting you. Why are you being so resistant?

Starting point is 00:31:34 I said, because you're telling me to go teach. You're telling me to help other people. And he goes, no, it's so obvious that you've done something that's working. And there's a strategy. If you get, he goes, look, if you do one thing, one time you get a song on a TV show, maybe you got lucky, but you're doing it over and over and over and over and over again.

Starting point is 00:31:52 My husband was his friend and he goes, he goes, you're making more than the two of us and we went to law school, so you could teach this and maybe you could help other people. And I finally, it was a few weeks later, I was driving in my car and I thought, he's right. Say yes, help other people. This is a gift, this is a gift.

Starting point is 00:32:10 And so it just started with the intention of like, maybe I could help. And so for free, then I said, the next person who asked me, I'll take them to, or they can take me to coffee, however, want to do it. And just for the cost of coffee, I'll sit with them for an hour. Well, I wound up doing that like three or four times a week, people would take me to coffee and say,

Starting point is 00:32:26 what do you know? What can I do? They would make lists. I would tell them what did it. Next thing I know, I said, there's so many people now. My husband said, you know, you have two kids at this point. This is a lot of your time. So I held a little workshop in my house on a Sunday. People paid 300 bucks. So it was like three grand. I have 10 people come over.

Starting point is 00:32:43 I was like, wow, that's a lot of money for a day. People loved it. I wound up renting a theater. We had 50 seats in the theater. The theater cost me $200 to rent for two hours. We would charge $100 a seat. We would sell it out. I realized I really liked doing this. And then one of my students said, you should start a podcast. And I said, all right, I start writing up the idea for the podcast. I say to my husband, I don't want to write it. I don't want to do a podcast about the music business. And he said, no, you're missing it. You could help anyone with their dream based on the same principles. And so I started the podcast. And now we've 30 million downloads in five years. And the podcast turned into a multi seven figure-figure enterprise. And I'm so much happier. I don't even have to think about it. It's like, I'm just, it's a, it's like a faucet of well-being and fulfillment because every day, it's all about how many people

Starting point is 00:33:38 could I move into who they really want to be. How many people can I help rise? And that's what brought me here with you. So I am so passionate about helping people get out of that moment when they're at a job and they're like, well, turns out it's not really fulfilling me. I guess I have the, I've checked the boxes. I've got the 401k. I've got some kind of a title. And I feel dead inside. It's like, yeah, we got to change that. Yeah, but why do I know that feeling all too well? What an incredible story, and I'm going to have to relate this to both my kids. We started both of them in music early on. Both of them, we started playing piano, and my daughter now can play the bass and guitar and other things.

Starting point is 00:34:23 So cool. The son is a really good percussionist as well. But I think he more so than my daughter has some stage fright. So he's kind of always wanted to be in the music industry and didn't know where he could play it. But he has written like 200 songs. I'm like, the song writing deal is the deal. You can make the most money.

Starting point is 00:34:44 Like you just said, in fact, I remember because of my mom thinking she had to choose between being a parent or having a dream. When my husband and I got married, I remember thinking and telling him very clearly, I'm going to have a self. Like, I'm not going to wind up because it's it's worse for my children, right? My kids will feel the weight of me being unfulfilled. And so I purposely did not want to perform. Once I had my kids, I really wanted to be home. And so part of what I loved about licensing music is exactly what you said I realized, no, the songwriting is the whole deal. Like, A, it's the fun part. B, you get paid for it. The publishing is what's worth the most, right? Not the performance.

Starting point is 00:35:37 And so I loved that. I say this to people when I'm helping them create whatever career they want. If they want to sell candles or create a workshop or start a podcast or make their own canbucia, I say, you get to pick your fishing hole, right? There's always going to be a customer at the whole foods. And there's always going to be a customer at the whole food and there's always going to be a customer at the 99th store. There's no problem. You get to choose who's your investor, who's your customer, who's your buyer. Well when you license music as opposed to perform, if you want to go perform in a club and get a minivan and go around the country with your friends, you're not going to make that much money. But if you set your sights on I'm going to write music for McDonald's, I'm going to write music for ABC television. They have a checkbook and you may as well. So yes, definitely relay that to him.

Starting point is 00:36:15 I definitely will. For an audience member who doesn't realize how popular your podcast is, and I think of 30 million downloads and I'm just an awe. I started mine a little bit over a year ago in February and we're just at 500,000 and people ask me how do you get to 500,000 and then I like see where you're at and I'm just like how in the act do you go from A to B but if someone isn't familiar with your show and you recently changed the name to the Kathy Heller show, which I'd love to hear why, but what I love about it and what drew me to listening to it

Starting point is 00:36:55 is just the raw emotion that you demonstrate on the show. And if someone has never listened to it, I would recommend two episodes I recently downloaded, one with Gavvy Bernstein and the other with Deepak Chopra. And I love in the Deepak one how emotionally vulnerable you were about having an idol of yours on the show and the Gabby one, it was just tear jerking to hear your conversation about her losing her baby. For you to get people to express those things grief and other things like that on your show is a true gift. Do you think that's part of the reason it's taken off like it has?

Starting point is 00:37:30 Yeah, I do. There's a line in the Talmud that says that words from the heart speak to the heart. My friend Adam Grant says, you don't have to say something new if you say something true. And everybody who's listening probably can think of many people who've said the same things, but then there's somebody who says it and for some reason you hear it. When Gary Zoukov was on my show and he said, we think that there's something called cause and effect and the cause creates the effect. He said, but it's the intention that creates the effect because three people could do the exact same thing, but the effect will be different based on the intention. And so just like I said to you, you have a gift, right? As soon as I came on, I could just feel the respect and the love. And when you do that, it's immediate and it makes the other person feel seen and safe. And so I do think when people are like, so what online strategies for marketing do you do? I'm like, you're going to

Starting point is 00:38:28 think this is crazy now. But it's called love. When I'm with you right now, or when I'm with the woman at the checkout counter at the grocery store, or I'm in an Uber, where I'm talking to Gabby Bernstein or Deepak Chopra, whoever it is, I'm talking to Gabby Bernstein or Deepak Chopra, whoever it is, I'm there. And it's not about an agenda. It's about the connection, like being right there. And it's the most incredible gift each person is such a gem, right? And when the podcast started for whatever reason, I do it more now, but for whatever reason, then I did not think of what's the return on this in terms of like, how are we going to get all these downloads? I just thought, I'm going to do this period. And so I did. And then it got featured by Apple. And then I got

Starting point is 00:39:19 featured again. It's an interesting story. My agent said to me, she's going to be a podcast movement this weekend. And she's like, are you going to be there? And I said, no, I've spoken there before. And when I spoke there, this is four years ago. I didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't believe they asked me. I spoke in a small room about sort of starting a podcast. And everybody who was there kept saying, ooh, you got to walk the floor.

Starting point is 00:39:43 You got a network. And the person you really got to meet is the guy who runs the Apple podcast. He's here. You got to meet him. And I felt there was such a kind of gross, pressure-filled energy in the lobby where people kept trying it. So during my break, I actually, we were at a convention center, I walked out of the lobby into a different hotel just to have a nice tea and it was quiet in there.

Starting point is 00:40:08 And would you believe I'm sitting next to a guy? And he and I both had the same badge, you know, you wear when you're at a conference. So I knew, I couldn't see it when it was on his badge, but I knew we were both at the conference. So he turned to me and he goes, he had the same thought as me, it's crazy in there, right? And I said, yeah, everyone in there is just like,

Starting point is 00:40:26 they're trying to give each other their car. They're, and it's all good. It's just that energy for me. It's intense. And I just wanted to step away. I said, I like it in here. It's quiet. So we start talking.

Starting point is 00:40:36 He said, he's from the Midwest. I said, my husband's from Chicago. I love Midwesterners or salt of the earth. We start chatting. We're talking about our favorite podcast. We're talking about what makes us sort of tick. And then he gets up to leave. And he hands me his card.

Starting point is 00:40:53 He was a person from Apple. He's the head of Apple podcast. He said, I really like you. I could cry thinking about that. And he said, you're gonna do just fine. And it makes me cry because it was like when they zig you zag, right? You, you, so then he follows up with me. He invites me to come to the Apple headquarters. They have a place in Culver City. So I go and they treat me to lunch and he says to me,

Starting point is 00:41:20 I started listening to your show, I love it. And he says, would you come to New York to speak at the podcast up front where like I were glass from this American life and Dr. Phil had a new show and. Next thing I know I'm having dinner with him and he goes, can I show you the new ad that Apple is going to run for the podcast to show people about podcasts and how they can download it? I was like, this is insane, right? That's called magic. And that's what happens when you stop worrying. This is where the ego does. This is the agenda I need. This is what I need, right? I'm the world is scarce and I need to get mine and I got a puzzle.

Starting point is 00:41:59 No, when you actually drop fully into this is what matters. This is who I really am, right? Really. And whatever then is the best of this world, right? It'll all connect with that. You let go. I've had literally one zillion experiences like that. One amazing story. If we had more time, I would tell you about an almost exact story I had. I was trying to break into the top gun community, went to a conference. Okay. I'll just do a short version of it. Tell me I won't love it. And I'm not one of these people who likes the networking.

Starting point is 00:42:34 I would rather instead of giving out a million business cards, fund one meaningful conversation, spend my time talking to them. Well, I see this person wearing a Corvette jacket. I love Corvette. So we just started talking, didn't really talk about work at all for about 15, 20 minutes, then asked what I did and then said, do you know anything about how to do just an education? And I'm like, yes, we just delivered the biggest program for anyone in the world. And he goes, well, I'm the head of Top Gun. And I'm here looking for a partner and needless to say, under 18 months later,

Starting point is 00:43:08 I had a $5 million deal. It's now $100 million a year program for Booz Allen, and unfortunately, I left them or else I would have been like super rich. It's the same kind of thing. But it's when you've got those opportunities. That's so cool. Yes, it kind of just gives you goosebumps. In the introduction,

Starting point is 00:43:26 you talk about how so many people are getting caught in the matrix where other people are telling them what their worth is, how can you break free to understand your true worth? Well, this brings us back to that conversation with Deepak because his new book is called Abundance, the Inner Path to Wealth. You have to understand context. Deepak Chopra was born in India, whereas there's the most amount, I don't know if it's the most amount of poverty,

Starting point is 00:43:54 but it could be, I don't know, I don't know the data. So he's not a person who's cavalier talking about wealth, right? He knows what it's like for people to really not have. In this book, he's lays out what I've always believed, what I've come to know a lot more recently is really the truth, which is we never, never, never, never, never get what we want. We get what we are. And we've been talking about it already, but who we are is not this story. It's not this ego and this idea of like, what are we worth, right? When you really connect with that part of you, like he said to me and you heard it on the podcast,

Starting point is 00:44:36 I told him that it's been really helpful for me using his I am meditation and it's very simple and anyone who's listening can do it, which is he says, say first your name, I am, I am, you would say I am John Miles, I would say I am Cathy Heller, so say that three times I not lacking anything. That part of you is loving, right? That part of you is healing, that part of you is goodness, that part, right? That's our worth. It's called infinite. And to bring up what Mary and Williamson said, again, the second thing that she said that I thought was really powerful was that we look and we think, oh, I'm a wave next to other waves, right?

Starting point is 00:45:30 But if you know the ocean, it's like each wave is completely connected and part of the other waves, and it's completely connected to the ocean itself. So Einstein, who's pretty smart person, was famously saying that reality with a capital R is just this one connected infinite field that just keeps going on and on and on. That's energy. And so we get really confused, right? We buy into this illusion of the separateness of things, a smallness, the 3D part. But when Deepak was on, he said, Kathy, show me what's in the room that you're in right now. I said, well, there's a mug of my coffee.

Starting point is 00:46:11 I see your face on my computer screen. There's a candle. He goes, you just told me everything that you see that's physical. But you didn't name the space in between where you are and the computer, right? You forget to see that. An atom is 99% energy and it's less than 1% of particle.

Starting point is 00:46:31 And even the particle part of the atom, it moves, it vibrates so quickly that it's more of like a liquid than a solid. So just like we were talking about, there's just a tremendous amount. And I was studying at UCLA, they have this whole mindful awareness center. And at these huge universities now, they're able to measure energy. And so it's like, when you really see what's there to be seen, what we're swimming in, you realize this whole thing about what's my worth and all that, it's really a story that's looking at the world in the smallest most limiting way. And it's not really what's here. And what's really here is called infinite beautiful abundance. And that's what you are. And the more you feel that expansion, you will attract expansion on every level. Your relationships will be more expansive. The money you make, you'll

Starting point is 00:47:24 realize it's just energy. The T-Pock also said, there's no waste in the universe. If the money comes in, it just goes right back out. So you can allow yourself to be a conduit for more abundance on every level, more energy that comes to you, more love, more enthusiasm, more money. It just goes right back out into the atmosphere. So actually to hold ourselves back from it would be about the ego again, and what the ego believes is available and what's not. Do you understand? It's really fascinating. It reminds me of something a line you had in the book, which I loved, which is what you seek is seeking you,

Starting point is 00:47:58 which I thought was a really great point. It reminds me, I do a daily affirmation that goes, I just say, I am me, I do a daily affirmation that goes, I just say, I'm grateful, I am forgiving, I am giving. My life is beautiful, creative, prosperous, productive, and magical. And gorgeous and all true. And I try to say that every day because sometimes it's hard to be filled with gratitude for the things you have, like you pointed out, what's around you in this room and everything else, you end up taking it for granted

Starting point is 00:48:28 instead of living in the moment. I'm gonna ask you one last question. We touched on this a little bit earlier in the podcast, but I wanted to revisit it. My solo episode this week is on the importance of empathy. I think it's something that's not discussed enough and not enough people today are displaying it. Can you just tell me from your viewpoint, why do you think empathy is so vital?

Starting point is 00:48:51 Oh my gosh, I mean, I think that's what's missing. I think that's really what we need more than anything else. In fact, we live in an empathy deficit. You can talk about the economy or you can talk about anything else, but the real problem is there's an empathy deficit. Because we are one. What I notice is that when you talk to people who feel sad, they feel alone. When you talk to people who feel sad, they don't feel needed. They don't feel seen. And that's so ridiculous. Pain is inevitable. Pain is part of the process, but suffering is optional. And the majority of suffering that I see is unnecessary. It's that people don't feel seen by other people. People have lost the empathy in their life that they need.

Starting point is 00:49:40 And it starts with having empathy for yourself, right? As the Bible famously say, you love your neighbor like yourself. That means you can't carry shame and then think you're going to have empathy for somebody else. Because everything is a hologram. So if you're judging yourself, if you're constantly flogging yourself for what you're not enough for this or that, you're not going to project empathy in the world. So it starts with, you really want to change the world, right? You really want to help Ukraine. You could send money.

Starting point is 00:50:09 But you really want to help. It's like, heal, right? Hurt people, hurt people. And if thoughts can actually make us sick, which they now turned out, it's true. It creates, we think about thought, scary thought. It creates cortisol in the body, which makes us sick, creates inflammation. scary thought creates cortisol in the body, which makes us sick, creates inflammation. But thoughts can make us well. So we can make each other well. We can show up for each other, but we have to first have the presence. I've heard so many people say this to me, but one of my teachers said it too, which is when you have tea in the morning, invite your whole self. First of all, your big self with the capital S, which is what you said, I'm generous and prosperous. I'm creative. That's the deepok I am. But then even the ego, everyone who's listening right now has a part

Starting point is 00:50:48 of themselves that's brave, part of themselves that's terrified, a part of themselves that's self sabotages, a part of themselves that's a liar, a part of themselves that's a fraud. We all have aspects of the ego because the ego is it's broken. That's okay, right? Just welcome it. Welcome it. And then it's easier for you to give empathy to other people. But in everything I do, even in business, Seth Godin, who I mentioned before, he says, business when it's done right, when it's successful, it's a radical empathy.

Starting point is 00:51:16 It's really listening. It's really understanding how to solve someone else's problem, how to tell someone else the story that helps them get from where they are to whatever they need, right? So empathy is the glue. And when we slow down and we focus on that, if everyone did that every day, just a little bit, when Dr. Phil was on my show, he said, if you feel like you're missing anything in your life, give it away to someone else. So if you're feeling you want a little more love in your life, if you feel like you're missing anything in your life, give it away to someone else.

Starting point is 00:51:46 So if you're feeling you want a little more love in your life, or you feel a little lonely, or you feel a little sad, or feel a little alone, make someone else feel less alone, right? Go knock on your elderly neighbor's door, visit her once a week, just say hello, talk to somebody, reach out to somebody, and it's amazing how what you give, you get back. It's one of the biggest aspects of what I do. And I really feel it, and I can feel it from you as well. I feel that people walk around living quiet lives of desperation, that inside people feel oftentimes very invisible. And I don't want that. That's the thing that hurts me the most. I think I relate to it too as a kid with my parents going through what they went through and me kind of just like standing there left sort of alone. I felt that way. And so I like to just, I guess I'll end by saying give love for no reason.

Starting point is 00:52:40 Because I think that people think that love is earned. If I know you long enough, I give you enough rights to the airport. If I am cool enough, you'll love me back. Love by definition is for no reason. Otherwise, it's not love. It's something else. It's interesting how often we don't just give love generously for no reason at all. So more we practice that, maybe then we can do that with ourselves and love for no reason. Whether you have millions of downloads or not, you can still be loving and you can still love who you are and how you're choosing to show up and be a gift in this world without putting all of this pressure on yourself. It just keeps going back to empathy, doesn't it? It does. That was so beautiful. I'll just end on giving your musical background with one of

Starting point is 00:53:34 my favorite lyrics from Umford & Sons, which is, in these bodies we will live and these bodies we will die, where you invest your love, you invest your life. Kathy, thank you so much for joining us today. And I could have asked you about 15 more questions. You're such a doll. Thank you for being so sweet and so smart. And I hope that we continue to stay in touch. Yeah, I do as well. What an incredible interview that was with Kathy Heller,

Starting point is 00:54:00 who is one of my favorite podcasts, host such an honor to have her today on the show. And speaking of incredible guests, we have just some truly exceptional ones coming up on the show, including Cara Chamberlain and we tell her remarkable story of how she survived being kidnapped by serial killer. We also have on Vice Admiral Sandy Stowe's

Starting point is 00:54:19 who discusses her path from attending the Coast Guard Academy to becoming its superintendent. Dr. David Yaden, a Johns Hopkins neuroscientist, was studying the science of transcendence and Dr. Katie Milpin, a behavioral scientist at University of Pennsylvania, focused on how we change the science of getting from where you are to where you want to be. And if there's a guest like these that you would like to see me interview, please reach out to us at Momentum Friday at PassionStruct.com or check out my Instagram at JohnArmiles. And if you're new to the show or you would like to introduce this to a friend or family member, we now have episode stutter packs both on Spotify and on the PassionStruct website. These are collections of your favorite episodes organized by Topic, which gives any new listener

Starting point is 00:55:05 a great way to get acquainted to everything we do here on the show. Just go to passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started. Now, go out there yourself and be passion struck. you

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Cathy Heller on How Do You Find Your Life’s Passion EP 149

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