The Bossticks - Laura Lee On Cancel Culture, Adoption, Addiction, & The Path To Redemption

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

#224: On this episode we sit down with YouTube creator and star Laura Lee to discuss the current state of cancel culture and potential paths to redemption. We also discuss the adoption process and the impacts addiction can have on our families and loved ones. Laura Lee starrte her career by posting beauty tips on social media, she has also released a line of branded makeup. To connect with Laura Lee click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by Your Super. Your Super is on a mission to improve people's health with the power of super plants. Your Super's functional superfood and plant protein mixes are made from naturally dried, organic whole foods/superfoods— nothing else Get the cleanest superfood and plant protein mixes at YourSuper.com and receive 15% off your order when you use code SKINNY at checkout . This episode is brought to you by RITUAL Forget everything you thought you knew about vitamins. Ritual is the brand that's reinventing the experience with 9 essential nutrients women lack the most. If you're ready to invest in your health, do what I did and go to www.ritual.com/skinny  Your future self will thank you for taking Ritual: Consider it your 'Lifelong-Health-401k'. Why put anything but clean ingredients (backed by real science) in your body? This episode is brought to you by Vistaprint Vistaprint is offering our listeners 50% off one item to help you showcase your brand, customize office supplies etc. Just go to vistaprint.com/tscpodcast and use code TSCPODCAST now through November 4th. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. What up, guys, Vista Print. I talk about them all the time. They got me all this cute, cheeky, pink, custom TSC swag. Everything from hats to visors to door hangers, business cards, the whole team has one, to pens, to notebooks. I can't even tell you. Go to my Instagram if you want to stock the situation. So for all small business owners and bloggers, they have got you covered.

VistaPrints offering all TSC, him and her listeners, 50,000. percent off one item. So you're going to help showcase your brand, customize office supplies, et cetera, the whole works. All you have to do is go to vistaprint.com slash TSC podcast. That's Vistaprint.com slash TSC podcast and use code TSC podcast now through November 4th. I personally would start with the mouse pads. They're all over our office and they are chic. This episode is brought to you by Ritual. You guys know I'm a human guinea pig and I'm still here taking ritual and loving it. Okay, it's filled with iron, vitamin E, magnesium, folate, and omega-3. Kind of everything. It's made in the USA without synthetic fillers.

95% of women do not get the vitamins and minerals they need on a daily basis, so Ritual created a smarter vitamin with the nine essential ingredients women lack most. Go to ritual.com slash skinny today to choose clean ingredients backed by science. Sign up now at Ritual.com slash Skinny. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie.

And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you alone for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. Cancer culture is something that's growing so big today. And it's something that I don't value because I do believe that when people make horrible mistakes, there should be repercussions, right? But I do believe in mercy and I believe in grace and I believe in growth and change in forgiveness

and cancel culture doesn't stand for those things. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her podcast. Little ASMR, Michael, you know, don't you think? This lovely voice. Creeping me out. That clip was from our guest of the show today. Laura Lee, she's an American makeup artist,

YouTuber and blogger. And she has got a huge following. so this interviews should be super interesting. If you're new to the show, I am Lauren Everett's Bostic, the creator of The Skinny Confidential. And my name is Michael Bostic. I am the better half. Wow. Worst half, actually.

Wow. I tried to get away with it of this woman. Yeah, and the CEO of the Dear Media Podcast Network. And what's going on with your hair today? There's a lot going on. A lot going on. You are like, you are a wild hair today. You're all over the place.

I know, I'm letting it hang loose. Listen, I'm going to be a dad now. Things are going to change. You know, we start wearing dad clothes. probably get a bigger gut. Tell them about your fanny pack that you have. I'll probably have a fanny pack. Listen, I'm done.

I'm done. You got flip flops? I didn't know you are. I do not get flip flops. You did get flip flops. Let's keep it moving along. Daddy. All right, you guys.

So we are going to feature a question of the week every single week. And basically, we want to feature your Instagram and your question. The question can be about anything. It doesn't need to be about me and Michael. It could be a broad question. It could be a topic you want us to discuss. But what we're going to do is we're going to do is we're going to to showcase your Instagram handle, shout you out, and then feature your questions.

So this question is from at Inspire underscore HG. And she says, what's some important advice you can give to someone wanting to start a vlog or a blog? I felt like this question was very fitting for this episode. I feel like we've answered this a couple ways before, but I will let you lead and do the first response. Important advice to launch a vlog and blog in 2020. is to remember that there's a lot of different elements that go into it.

It's not one magic formula or one thing. I always say it's like baking a cake. So you need discipline, persistence, consistency, quality content, value to your audience, engagement. You need to entertain. You want to inspire. There's a lot of different things to think about. But just not to overwhelm you, what I would do is I would pick a niche topic. And I mean niche, okay?

I'm talking about like let's talk about sea monkeys. And I use that because it's so niche. And I would really, really talk about whatever that niche topic is for like a year and a half. And I would hone into it. And I would become an expert and authority in that space of whatever that niche is. From that niche, you can slowly grow out and expand your topics obviously. But I think just to solidify yourself as an authority in that niche at first is a really strong foundation. I would also always. look at whatever niche you decide to pick as a brand. So I see a lot of people just kind of launching something and not really taking it seriously. It's important to build brand. Michael and I are having a lot of conversations right now with a lot of very successful people and they all say that brand is key. So how do you brand, right? You want to think of colors, textures, fonts, how you want your audience to feel when they leave your website or your vlog, what your goal is, your vision, write it all down on a piece of paper. And don't be swayed by other people's formulas. I think that's such a hot tip to create your own formula. So, you know, for me,

just going back, it was like I wanted to have a cheeky happy hour with a girlfriend. And I wanted when someone reading my blog, I wanted it to feel like we were having, like I said, a happy hour, like just shooting the shit, very real conversation. And I wanted to talk when I started just about health and wellness. Obviously, that was in 2010. So it was more broad. If I started now, I would go much more niche. For me, my first piece of advice would be to not launch a blog or a vlog unless... Lauren's looking at me. So I'm not.

I agree with you. See, I would say not to do either of those mediums unless you decide that you really love to write or that you really want to be creating video content. So for me, back in the day, Lauren said, hey, can you write on my blog? Can you get on my vlog? Can you be on social? And I said, no, no, and no, because I knew with everything going on that I would not be good on those mediums. I did not have a passion for those mediums. I love to read. I don't like to write as much. I knew, though, that I could not shut myself up. So I said, why don't we do a

podcast? And so what's happened is it's become effortless because I love to talk. I love to have these conversations. So it doesn't feel like a chore. It feels like a pleasure. I would do these podcasts all day long for free just because of the connections we get to have, the conversations we get to have, the people we get to meet. And that's what I would say is if you're deciding to get into any kind of medium, any kind of business, make sure you really love doing it. Because as soon as it feels like work and you don't love doing it, you're going to give up. And I also think just playing off what Michael said, I agree with him about the blog and vlog. And I think if you want to go really micro here, you could launch a micro blog off

Instagram. So utilize your captions to launch a micro blog and then move it to Instagram stories and micro blog through Instagram stories. And then if you're still loving the whole writing thing, then launch the blog. I think you can really use Instagram as a powerhouse to begin with. Yeah. And then the last thing I would say is my trademark is launch fast and adjust. you really want to do, whether it's a product-based business, a blog, a vlog, a podcast, get it out there right away. Don't wait. It's never going to be perfect. It's actually probably going to be pretty shitty when you first launch it. You're going to have to wait for that feedback. Listen to it. Take it seriously. Adjust. Go back and listen to episode one through 10 of this

podcast to see how shitty we sounded, how much we were interrupting, how bad the quality was. We took that feedback. We adjust and we kept going. So many people wait for perfection to launch anything and they get in their own head and they don't because they're scared and then it never takes off. So just get going. That's my number one key, my number one tip for everything. All right, guys. So, you know, we had Ryan Holiday on the show last week, and we were talking all about stoicism and stillness and all of these different things. And, you know, like I said last week, I do read the Daily Stoic pretty much every day. And I thought, I came across a passage knowing we were going to release this episode that I think is very relevant to today's episode. I've never

really read a passage out of the book. And I'm sorry if this is boring to everybody, but I'm going to. So this passage was from October 15th. It says, give people the benefit of the doubt. In quotations. Everything turns on your assumptions about it, and that's on you. You can pluck out the hasty judgment at will, and like steering a ship around the point, you will find calm seas, fair weather, and a safe port. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

And here is the follow-up summary in the page. Even a dog, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Windle Holmes once said, distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked. Yet if you've ever accidentally stepped on your dog, you know that the first reaction is usually a bark or a yelp or a quick snap of the jaws. In the instant there is no distinction, just pain. Then it sees who it was. Here's your soothing voice and goes right back to wagging its tail.

A virtuous person does not jump to hasty judgments about other people. A virtuous person is generous with assumptions that something was an accident, that someone didn't know, that it won't happen again. This makes life easier to bear and makes us more tall. tolerant. Meanwhile, assuming malice, the most hasty of judgments, makes everything harder to bear. Be deliberate in accommodating with your assumptions about other people, and you'll find, as Marcus says, commercies and fairer weather. So for me, I think, and you'll see in this episode that that passage is very relevant. I was on a podcast the other day, and one of the questions they asked me

was what I think would make the world better. And all these people answer with like, oh, climate change or, you know, taxes or, well, for me, I said, listen, one of the benefits of doing this show is that we get to present viewpoints from all walks of life from all different people. And one thing that this show has taught me is to reserve my judgments and hear people's stories and wait. And once I hear the story, then I can potentially judge or not. But to try my best to understand where people are coming from, why they have the viewpoints they do, why they've made the mistakes they have, why they've had the success.

have and then just really try to understand. I think if we did that more as a society, the world would be in a much better place. I also think this podcast is about being in a non-judgmental area. And I think that when you come to listen to us, you're going to get what Michael just said, which is totally different viewpoints. And I hope that certain episodes have opened you guys' eyes in different ways. I know they've opened to mine. And just seeing all different walks of life.

And then you can make your own assumptions and your judgments after you hear people's journey and story. So that brings us to our guest, Laura Lee. So Laura Lee was involved in a controversy and we did talk about it in this episode. We also talked about her amazing adoption story and her beauty line and how she's a top vlogger. But we just wanted to give like the whole story and all the context. So we get into it in this episode. Like I said, Laura Lee is a superstar YouTuber. She's like major on YouTube. She's a huge Instagrammer and she's an entrepreneur. So with that, let's hear Laura Lee's story. Hold up. Before we get into that, let's talk about how I am pregnant AF.

And since I'm pregnant, I'm trying to be super, uber healthy, like even more healthy than normal. I feel like I'm always trying to crowd out the bad in my diet with good, but I'm even more on high alert. I have been adding your super to migraine smoothies, and I am telling you it is legit. So little fun facts for you guys, nine out of ten people. don't eat enough fruits and vegetables and they don't get the proper nutrition and this obviously is going to increase your risk for chronic illnesses diabetes heart disease even cancer so your super is on a mission to improve people's health with the power of superplants it's so witch doctory i love it so they make it super easy and efficient for you to get your nutrients to your

body and they do this quick it's a functional superfood and a plant protein and it's basically like made from naturally dried organic whole foods and superfoods and you can guarantee because we've vetted all of these brands for the show. With your super, they have 100% transparent supply chain. So you know you're getting the cleanest super food mixes on the planet. So like I said, I like to add witch doctor potions to my green smoothie, and this is one of them. I just feel like it's a great way to get more fruits and veggies straight to the baby and give me more energy, which I need because I'm not drinking a lot of coffee.

So, you know, the more energy, the better. I always feel so much better after Michael makes me a green juice. And I kind of insist on having one a day. and I just think it's so good for the baby. But even if you're not pregnant and you just need a way that's crafty to get more greens in, this is what you want to try. I post my green smoothie recipe all the time on Instagram stories,

but if you're looking for more recipes or resources or specifics, you can go on their site. There's tons of creative, delicious, easy ways to add superfoods to your daily meals. Anyways, get the cleanest superfood and plant protein mixes at your super.com. That's y-oh-u-r-super.com. Get 15% off your order when you use code, Skinny at checkout. Just go to your super.com and don't forget to get 15% off with the promo code Skinny at

Checkout. If you guys have any crafty ways of adding this to your daily meals or smoothies, let me know, a slide into my DMs. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. All right, guys, back again. Welcome back. We have YouTube Phenomenon, Megastar. Laura Lee in the studio, first podcast ever, popping the podcast, Cherry.

I hope that doesn't sound purvy. That sounds pervy. Okay. Well, it's not meant to be. You know what I'm saying. Welcome, welcome. Thank you guys so much for having me. I listen to a podcast every single day while in traffic in L.A.

So this is literally living my dream. So I appreciate you guys having me on. I'm excited that we're popping your cherry. Yes. You guys are the sweetest too. And I love your podcast. How many downloads do you guys have now? We got a couple.

Michael's a counter. We are the biggest show in the entire universe. No, we are. Oh, my God. I love it. I think that you're going to really end up liking podcasting because like we talked about earlier, you don't have to get, well, I mean, you can get glam, but you don't have to get glam. You can come in just like a hat and no makeup. It's so nice. Which as a beauty guru, as they call us online, I don't know, it's like so much glamming that that's just a dream. Just to come in, roll in with the messy bun, greasy hair, cheetah fingers, and chat away. I love it. Kim Kardashian did a speech at Creight and Coltsbyte and they said, what's the hardest part of being you?

and she's like, sometimes I just want to wear my sweats and like, go get a churro. I was like, you know. They don't do it. Yeah, she just wants a fucking churro in her sweatpants. I don't think we can all relate to that. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because if you would, well, and we're going to get into it, but if you go back years, you may at this point have really second guess, do you want to go and to be a beauty

guru because it's a lot of pressure to put all that stuff on all the time. I mean, that's like putting on the war pain every single day. Michael, don't try to relate. No, I'm saying I can't relate. I can't imagine. Literally, I just slap some water on, maybe a serum and head out. Your hair does take 40 minutes. Oh. Okay. So listen, let's go back a little bit.

There's a lot of listeners that know you, know your story. But for those that don't, let's get a little bit of back on where you're from. What was your childhood like? So I am from Alabama. I'm a southern girl. And I don't have much of a southern accident anymore, but it's kind of worn off in L.A. But when I go back home, I'm like super, super country. And I grew up there with my mom.

dad brother and sister. They're amazing. My dad passed away three years ago. He was an alcoholic. And I think that we did struggle a lot. Like I'm not going to be like, oh, it was just a fabulous life. But, you know, looking back, we struggle a lot, but it's like I wouldn't change a thing. What does that struggle look like? We were very low income. I think I had a lot to do with my dad's spending and his poor choices. My mom was a daycare teacher, which she's, she still is. She's been a daycare teacher for over 30 years, but they don't make a lot of money. I do support my mom now, but, and we literally didn't have much at all growing up. I remember our water and power being cut off all the time.

I specifically wonder, remember one time, which I thought it was normal, by the way. When you're a kid, you think everybody's water and powers cut off all the time, like you're sure of it. And I remember I saw the waterman truck, he had a white truck with blue riding and he would always lift the meter in our front yard with like a crowbar or something. Or what do you call a wrench? He would turn it off. And I remember going to grab a bucket to fill up. bathtub with water like put the water in the bucket and being like so I would have water for the rest of the day till mom got off work and I could be like yo they cut the water all we need some water

bottles so it would be cut off for a week or so and that was very normal for us but I mean I'm not I don't want any empathy or pity for that because it's like we survive like come on it's water and power we still had water we were fine you know little hot little cold we were fine and so you know again I just I know a lot of people can relate to that actually actually, even though we do live in a first world country. Shockingly, there are times. There's a ton of people that can relate to it. Yeah, right?

So I'm just like, but I tried to hide it before. Not necessarily high. I didn't want to talk about or tell people. I didn't want people to feel bad for me or think differently of me. But then it's like, what if people can relate and to be like, I'm not always going to be like this. Like one day it's going to change, you know. So that was that.

There was a lots of fighting and chaos my whole childhood. I actually didn't have a lot of anxiety growing up, though. Isn't that odd? Like tons of screaming, fighting. The fighting between. Your siblings between parents. Okay. And my sister was in a lot, lot of trouble all the time.

Like she was arrested out of our home in sixth grade. Like, oh my gosh, so much trouble. So lots of fighting with her. My parents fighting. I remember one time my dad went to turn the radio down. My mom picked up the, it was a boom box back then, you know, with the CD player on top and threw it through the wall and I was like, yes, quid. What do you mean? What do you picked up?

She picked it up and literally chunked it so hard. It hit the drywall and like stuck in the wall, like boom box full in the wall. That's goals if Michael Pissue. This is me off. I'm getting a fucking boom box. Thank you. Okay. See, in my life, I wasn't like, oh, my God, my family's so crazy. I was like, hell yeah, mom. Turn that music down. You know, so that was very normal for me. These things weren't sad for me. I heard the accent there a little bit. Okay. See, it comes out. So the boombox flies through the wall. Your mom and dad are fighting. You guys are going to school. How many years apart are you and your siblings?

Or is it sibling or siblings? Siblings. So my brother's six years older than me. My sister's two years older than me. So it's like, you know, doop, doop, doop. Me and my sister are really close. And then she kind of grew up too fast. She was pregnant at 16. And that's when my mom was like, you know, I'm going to divorce your dad finally, although we have no means to do this. But she was like, you know, your sister's going to bring another life into this world.

And we're going to have to help her raise it. And I can't make this mistake again. Like I raised you three kids. I know it affected you. I got to get out of here for the fourth kid. So we moved into like a tiny little apartment on the outskirts of Montgomery where I'm from. and me and my mom shared a room and my sister and her baby shared a room and we did the best we could but we went from low income to like no income but my mom did pick up extra jobs and she was gone a lot

and I was a kid like I was 14 you know 15 but I grew up kind of fast and I kind of learned to be really independent like there wasn't really much help for her I remember her sibling she was telling me this she just visited and I completely forgot this happened but she was like yeah we were so broke like she talked to about so nonchalant, but she was like, my sisters came down from Enterprise, which is this tiny little country town in Alabama. And it gave us all the meat out of their deep freezer. So we ate for weeks. And I was like, oh, my God, that's so sweet. But I don't remember that happening. So how did it affect you having an addict in the family? You said, you mentioned your dad was an addict.

And I know there's a lot of people out there listening, including me, that have had an addict in the family and people, I think people don't realize how much of an effect it has on the people that aren't addicts in the family. And you start to find yourself enabling the addict. Did you experience anything like that? Totally. Like my dad being an addict changed my life forever. Like I would not be who I am today. You know, it like sculpted part of me and part of my sister and from her brother. I think we all took it in differently. I think it hit my sister the worst. I think she kind of took to that and like craved his love and craved that. So she kind of became what he was. And me, I just so, I was, I think I was the youngest. I know it was the youngest,

but I think it caused me to stand back and be like, okay, put puzzle pieces together. Don't like that outcome. So I am not going to go down that road. You have to tell the Tony Robbins story, what she just said. Well, no, I mean, it's, everybody's heard this story. It's no, I'm not repeat. But it was basically like, and Tony Robbins says a lot more eloquently than me, but maybe you've heard it. A lot of the listeners have heard it. Or it's like there's the two siblings and one of them grows up and he becomes extremely successful and driven and the other one goes the other way and becomes extremely depressed and not successful and gets a lot of trouble. And basically Tony Robbins was saying this is, okay, how do you correlate your success? And the first one says, well,

because I had this broken house and this broken home and it was abuse and struggle and that's why I'm so successful and said, okay, to the one that wasn't successful. What do you correlate? like him from a broken house and abuse and struggle. So it's like they can have the same story, same upbringing, but go two completely separate ways. It sounds like that's kind of maybe it's different now. That's what happened. That's literally textbook us and literally.

My brother, he's a sweetest little man in the whole wide world. He's worked at a little meat store as a butcher since he was 16. And he has two kids, but he's very low income. Of course, I help him out. But he has no addiction issues whatsoever. But I feel like he handled his money kind of like my parents did and kind of took after that. Whereas that too was something else I literally was the opposite of. I remember, you know, I worked all my little part-time jobs, but no matter how broke I was, I always had a thousand

dollars in savings. And I would pretend the money didn't exist, you know, and it didn't matter if I was eating Roman noodles for a week straight. I wasn't touching the thousand dollars. Smart. Yeah. And I've always been that way, and I'm still that way today with money. I'm a little bit of a penny picture. So at what point do you start to see space for you in the YouTube field? Ooh. So life went on. I lived with a couple of gals, two other girls in a tiny house with one bathroom to be exact. In Alabama? Yes. Okay. And I was working for a dermatologist. I was a medical assistant. So I would cut out skin cancer and do all kinds of crazy stuff like that. And I am very driven. I feel as a person. And I was just like, I had fell out of college. And I was like, dang, I'm going to have to work at this job for the rest of my life because no other job with no degree. is going to pay me as much as a medical assistant would. So this is kind of like the end of the road. And so I was like, it just can't be.

And so I was watching Candy Johnson and I think Nicole Guerrero. And I was like, I think I can do what they're doing. Like I'm pretty not good at makeup, but I think I can do this. Like I love communication and talking with people and having fun. So I kind of just bought a $100 refurbished camera off eBay and I started my journey. And how long until you start, you know, vlogging does it start to take off? And what do you think it was that made it take off? It took me a long time, actually. In Alabama, I was like there a year and a half doing it before I moved to California. And I think I was at 10,000 subscribers in a year and a half

of uploading like five times a week. So, I mean, tons of videos, hundreds of videos and I'm at 10,000 subscribers. But the beautiful thing in that is I really thought I was famous. Like, I was like, I have 10,000 subscribers. I had made it. Right? This was years ago. So I was like, you know, there's blissfulness and how stupid that was. A lot of people forget, I mean, listen, if anybody could get 10,000 people's attention, that's still, like, and I think what's happened in the social landscape is we see these people, you know, millions of followers, hundreds of thousands, you start to say, oh, you know, like, that's what I need to have to be successful. And they don't realize if you, like, there's an article, and I talk about all the time on the show called a thousand true fans. And it's basically, if you can get these thousand people to spend a thousand bucks a year, you know, you can have a million dollar business. And so it's like, it doesn't really take that many people to find success, but we put this huge pressure.

Like I got to have the millions and the thousands and the number keeps coming up that you have to have to be successful. But back then like 10,000 was something. And when you hit 100,000 of anything, it was a party celebration, the full works. Yeah. And they don't realize, you know, like me sitting in the Dear Media seat. I always tell people like, give yourself that time to be around 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 listeners. I mean, that's like how the show starts. And all of a sudden you start to see exponential growth.

But people don't realize, like if they don't see it right away, they give up really quickly. That's like the number one thing with YouTube and people failing at it. they give up too quick. That's the number one thing in life, though. Dude, you know it's just 99% of people give up. They do a podcast until episode 60. That's a lot, but you can't give up at 60. You have to keep going and you have to be consistent. That's the, like, that's the magic potion. There's other things. I mean, it's like baking a cake. But that, but that is like really the baking powder of it. I think you can't give up. Possibly agree with you more. It's so stupid, though, because you can't give up sounds like dance like no one's watching. Yeah, it's like above

like someone's, someone's bedside in college, like never give up. But it's true. It's like shifting your perspective. It sounds like at the time you were extremely grateful for those 10,000 subscribers. Kissing the ground. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people aren't, I mean, a lot of people have a twist. They get those 10,000 and they're not grateful for them and they start focus. I need to get the next 10,000 instead of just saying like, hey, I have 10,000. I'm going to really provide value for these people. Hold on. Wait. We need to discuss prenatals. As you guys know, I was taking ritual the whole time before I was pregnant. I would take it every day.

I would do two in the morning. And then when I got pregnant, I wanted to research the best prenatal. So I went out. I talked to all my wellnessy friends like the preggers pantry and Melissa Wood Health and even the wellness mama. And I picked their brain. And what I found is ritual is a favorite of a lot of people. So I went and I looked into it myself.

I researched it. obviously it's something that I'm giving myself and the baby every single day, so it's really important. And so now I'm doing their prenatal every single day. I love it. You know what else I love, though, just like from a superficial standpoint, my hair is thicker. My hairstylist, Sean and Christina both said, what are you doing to your hair? Ritual Essential Prenatal is the prenatal reborn. So if you're thinking about trying it and expecting ritual essential prenatal is conceived to deliver the essential nutrients from DHA to folate that a woman needs at every single stage. I got pregnant as a surprise.

Surprise I'm pregnant. So I was on ritual regulars when I got pregnant. But if I was trying to get pregnant at this point, I definitely would switch to a prenatal. So if you're thinking about it, just throwing it out there. And then if you are pregnant, you got to look into it because this is like an obsessively researched vitamin. And it just gives you all the nutrients that you're not getting enough of from food. So you take two easy capsules.

They don't smell bad. And they have all the nutrients you need to support the foundation for your health. It's non-GMO, gluten-free, allergen-free, 12 essential nutrients. It's all the good stuff. Folate, omega-3, B-12. Better health doesn't happen overnight. And right now, ritual is offering all TSC, him and her listeners, 10% off during your first three months. So you can fill in the gaps in your diet with the essential for women or the ritual essential prenatal.

if you want your nails and hair and everything to grow. All you have to do is visit ritual.com slash skinny to start your ritual today. And that's 10% off during your first three months at ritual.com slash skinny. All right, back to the show. I remember after I did hit a million subscribers, I asked my friend, like, I think like I'm done. Like, what do I do now? Like I did YouTube. I got a million subscribers.

Oh my God. That's astronaut syndrome. We talk about this all the time. That was me. I was like, I think. And they were like, no. You exceeded what you, like you exceeded it. Way exceeded it.

And you're like, what do I do next? Yeah, that was me. And my friend was like, Laura, you have to hit the next million sweetheart. And I was like, oh. So we just like keep going. But you almost feel when you hit certain goals sometimes you can almost, it almost makes you feel depressed and not excited because you've actually hit the goal you maybe didn't think you would hit.

Oh, absolutely. And not only that, you like look back. And by the time you've hit your goal, typically you have 10 other goals sometimes, you know, so you're just like, okay, whatever, I hit that goal. It's really the journey. That sounds cliche, but it's the rough. That's the fun of it all. You have to enjoy the process.

That's where people get it so twisted. And they do, I mean, like, they do this in the financial world. Like, I'm going to make a million bucks. And then you do and you're like, okay, now what? Like, you just, like, I always tell people, you know, I'm very inspired by what are the people doing, but I'm not competing with anybody but myself, right? Like, because I, there's two, listen, every time you think you've made it, you realize you're a small fish and there's somebody else that's further along.

So you have to compete with yourself. Oh my gosh. Always someone bigger. Always someone better. Always someone under you. Always someone above you. It doesn't matter where you're at in life. Your dad tells a great story about that with the boat.

Well, no, we were like, my dad and I were on vacation one time, and we had this little boat and we were out, and he was like, you know, you feel like you're on top of the world. And I was like, man, this is really cool. I'm on a boat with my dad. We're cruising around. We're in Europe. And then we looked, and we don't see a boat. We see a ship.

It was like a battle ship. Like Leonardo DiCaprio's on it. No, we were like on a dingy, right? And my dad looked at me. He's like, see, right? When you think you made it, you realize you're just a fucking pissant. Yeah. Yeah.

And I was like, but. Love your dad. But put it in perspective. I'm like, you're right. Like, there's always something to keep striving for, and it doesn't need to be a material thing. But, like, just recognize that there's always somebody further along the path. So we'll go back to the beginning process, though, of YouTube as you're building. You have these 10,000 subscribers.

What's the processes like? Like, are you going from a shitty camera to maybe one that's a little bit better? Like, how are you growing when you're at that level? I think I started pretty crappy on YouTube. Like, I didn't start anywhere near a decent YouTuber. Like, the makeup was bad. the lighting was bad, the mic was bad, the editing was bad, the camera was like, and by bad, I mean the bottom of the total, like pretty raw stuff.

So I made a pack with myself, again, competing with myself saying, okay, I think you need to fix some of this to continue to grow. I think every single video, you need to change one thing that makes it better, whether it be a better backdrop, a new light, working a little harder on your editing, you fix your hair better, you do your eye shadow a little better, just one thing, every single video, and that was my formula and also whenever I started YouTube you know I watched people that were very normal and I was not I was just like wheehoo let's have some fun today with makeup like never took my tails too serious but on a new camera I would take myself so serious that was very cool and then

something clicked to me and I was just like I think that this isn't going to work because I can't continue to be this beauty guru like I have to be Laura and I think the day that I really like was like la la la la singing and acting crazy and just being myself my audience really started to grow that's so interesting that you say that i feel like i kind of had an epiphany too in my career where i'm like i'm just going to like be exactly exactly how i am at happy hour and that it is it is when you get that moment when you're like okay more people like want to be around that because you're really being who you are and they can feel it yes fill your energy they know james altature is that how you say his last name, honey?

Yeah. Says that he never tries to grow exponentially better every day. He just tries to be 1% better every single day. And that sounds like that was your strategy. That was early my formula. I think that's one of the smarter things people have said on the podcast is I just tried each video to just be a little bit better. Just a little bit.

Not change the world overnight, but just every video. Girl, get the KFC cup out of the background. Right. Light a candle. Light a candle. Brush your hair, Mama. Light a candle. Turn on an oil diffuser.

Something, girl. Yeah. So I think content creators that are out there listening or a business owner, like if you can just do something the next day that's a little bit better, it's not as overwhelming as doing it all. And you're going to look back in like two or three months and be like, who was that girl? I have come so far, you know?

Yes. And so how long from when you started YouTube to now? Like, what's the years? Almost March will be seven years. Okay. And this is posting videos how often? From the beginning, the first like three years was five days. week and then four days and now I'm down to two days a week, which I will, I've been at two days a week

for a while now and I'll stay there. Two days a week. Yep. Okay. Okay. So we're going to get into a little bit of controversy here. So you're riding a wave of success at the time and everything's going well. And then there's the Twitter debacle here, which we're going to get into. Because I want to get your take on it. I think it's important for you to get your voice out there. So you tweet, tip for all black people. If you pull your pants up, you can run from the police faster. Hashtag you're welcome. This in 2012. And obviously there is a huge uproar. A lot of people. offend a lot of people pissed off. Why at the time did you feel you needed to tweet this and what was kind of going through your mind? I have no excuse for the reason I tweeted it at all. I think if I

could go back, I wish I could have been more sensitive and to learn faster and not do that. But I will say today, you know, that did come out and I actually, it was awful. It's horrible thing that I tweet it and I do completely understand and respect people's thoughts on that and the reaction to that. I truly do, but I will say today, like I, those are not my values. At the time, did you, did you think it was like being comedic or like, what was? It was actually a black account for jokes. And I apparently thought that it was okay for me to be a part of that. And no way was it.

And I retweeted the joke account. So when you, obviously people are going to be offended and, and, you know, I think looking into the intention. But when you get the backlash, like what's immediate, what are your thoughts immediately? And really quick, just for context. How many years later did you get the backlash? I think the tweets were like six or seven years old. So just like before you answer Michael's question, where are you when you find out that there's all this backlash? I was actually on a brand trip, which is super unfortunate.

I was in a visa. Yeah. And, you know, I apologize to the brand. And they were very like, we know you didn't do this. Like you didn't plan this or anything. It happened. And, you know, so that was unfortunate. it, but I honestly was like, didn't think that could possibly come from me because of where I'm

at today. And so, so what age were you when this tweet happened? Seven years ago, 23, 22? Too old to do it. Any age is too old. Like I said, I wish I could have learned faster and been more sincere of a human being. But I've grown so much from it.

I've learned so much from it. Those aren't my values today at all, of course. And I never want to alienate anyone. You know, I never want to make anyone feel any type of way. And I work so hard on my content now to make sure everyone's included, regardless of their community or their background where they come from. So when people came out and they said, hey, Laura Lee is racist. How do you respond to that? You know, I just have to, you know, respect their opinion on it.

I understand where it comes from. I understand that they read a horrible tweet. And I am not. That's not me today. That's not my views or values. Yeah. So when this comes out, you're on your brand trip. Are you just like, I mean, I can't even imagine.

Do you even know what to do? Like, how do you go get the tools to fix this? I don't really know if there is a way to fix it, you know? But when it did come out, actually, we were all in our hotel rooms that night and we were going home in the morning. So the branch was technically over. So we were just taking a plane ride home. And first things first, I wanted to apologize. So I did that on Twitter.

I posted an apology on Twitter. And are you calling your mom, your man? Like, what do you do? Like, I know how, like, the internet is. Yeah, totally. It's like, attack. It's old culture. It's pretty strong.

Right. So are you, like, getting off Instagram? Like, what's your strategy? I did get off the internet completely. I actually deleted the apps from my phone because what good does it do? Right. And I was trying, trying as hard as I could to think rationally. And how long after this till you create the YouTube video of the apology?

I can't remember exactly, but I want to say at least a week. And how was that, how was that received? It was not received well. I was sincere in the video, but I understand people not seeing that, and I can't control everybody's thoughts on it. Why do you think it wasn't received well? I think, you know, I gave them more of a reaction than a response, and I should have, you know, calmed myself, maybe waited just a little more so I could give them a better response that they deserved. So what is the path to redemption for people, you know, listen, people make mistakes in life. I've made a ton of mistakes. Lawrence made a ton of mistakes. people, you know, especially, I mean, I thank God every day that I didn't not have any social platforms until after I got out of college, because God knows what would have been on there, what people would have seen me doing? I mean, when you're young and dumb, you make stupid

so what is the path to redemption? Because we're seeing this more and more, right? There's this cancel culture, our friends from the morning toast at the time, they were called the Morning Breath. We were talking about this. They had a Twitter controversy. So many people were quick to judge and try to cancel, and they've completely, in my eyes, redeemed themselves and really, like, move forward in a positive ways. So what do you think, should be the path of redemption? Do you think everybody deserves one? Do you think some people do? Some people don't. I do think everybody deserves one. You know, I think what cancel culture is something that's growing so big today. And it's something that I don't value because I do believe

that when people make horrible mistakes, there should be repercussions, right? But I do believe in mercy and I believe in grace and I believe in growth and change in forgiveness. And cancel culture doesn't stand for those things. So, you know, it's tough. And I think, I think one day it's going to get too big and someone's going to hurt themselves and then we're going to go, oh, well, let me go back and delete my comments that I left, you know? Let me talk about that, though. You're saying someone's going to hurt yourself. You must have felt pretty freaking low. Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to die, but not for too long because going through it, I quickly remembered my family, my husband, my cats, God, or what mattered to me, not this millions of subscribers. I love them

and I worked for them and I will do everything to be there. But like my house and my cars and those things don't matter. Right. If I lose those, like no matter what, I'm fine. I think also something to be said is that when you were going through what you were going through, it's unique. Yeah. You don't have a lot of people to call. You can call your mom.

You can talk to your husband. They have no idea. But they still don't actually understand the position you're in, which is interesting. Yeah. It's not like it's not like. It's not like you, you know, are pregnant and you can go call a pregnant friend. Right. And ask what they're going through.

Exactly. This is like a whole different situation. So you kind of have to sit with it. Absolutely. So when you were sitting with it, are you, like, are you anxious? Are you depressed? Are you everything? I think I think I was sitting with it.

And it was, I took some time off from YouTube, which I think was best. Because I needed it too. I don't want to come back and be disingenuous. I'm like, I'm okay. I'm not going through it. You know, I don't want to. to produce that content. So I was like, I should take time off till I am okay. And that's what I did. I actually took a lot of time off. It took all like two months off, which I still looking back

think was the right thing to do to be genuine to my audience. And I don't know if I was depressed. I actually very upset, of course, but I think being depressed and being upset are two different things. People are, you know, deal with depression and it lasts for a long time. And I think I was very upset, of course. And sure, I cried a lot. But I don't know. I, I always thought like there's a lesson in this, you know, learn your lesson. And so what, so what are lessons that you feel like you've learned out of this where you feel like it's, you had to sort of go through all the turmoil to get to the other side? I feel like I was really focused on my career more than I was my family and I cared more about my friends than I did my family. And I think I learned very quickly like,

hey, family comes first, ma'am, and you always knew this. You need to get back to your roots. And then I actually started taking improv classes, which comedy has just always been like an obsession mine and that's why I was telling you guys I listened to back Shepard because he interviews a lot of comedians and I just have to know everything about them always been an obsession so I kind of was like what do you love if it's not YouTube you know what do you want to do so I went to groundlings and I started improv and I started doing writing for a TV show and like doing the things I always wanted to do and I never quit doing them since then like I picked up something that I genuinely

love outside of social media and to this day I still work on it and I'm still doing improv classes well listen I think you know there's the monsters of this world, right? The people that, you know, and we all know who we're talking about, like there's people that don't deserve path to redemption. And then there's the people that make just stupid mistakes, right? And I think all of us, including people listening, can be like in that boat. And

a lot of people have said stupid things over the years are in their life, but they're not always on a public platform where the world can jump in and judge them. And so I think we have to be careful as we, as we grow as a society, to jump in so quickly and say, this person has no path to redemption. I mean, you can even,

I mean, I take that example with Kevin Hart, you know, he just had to step down from what was it, the Oscars or the Emmy. So, one of the things. And listen, obviously he said something that he didn't mean and that he regretted and that he thought was stupid, apologized for it. And he's like, now it's time to move forward. And so many people are like, we're never going to let you move forward. We're not going to let you have a path.

And I think that's what I, you know, what Lauren and I try to champion on this show is open mindness, you know, being in a non-judgmental space and also reserving a place for compassion for people, right, mercy and saying, okay, like, we've all made mistakes. can there be a path now for people to recover from those mistakes? And I think if we don't get there as a society, we're going to enter into a dangerous space. Totally. And I've even thought this way way before my drama.

I didn't have to experience trauma to think this way. Because I remember when Logan Paul went through the suicide forest drama, I took a step back and every influencer on YouTube was coming at him. And I was like, you know what? I don't think there's, I don't think what he did was right. I don't see how me ragging him on Twitter helps him learn. So I'm going to stay silent. Sure.

I mean, and listen, I don't think there's anybody more that regrets that than him. Exactly. Like, we know that. Like, you know the guy regrets it. And there's people that will always hate him for it. And, you know, he'll respect that and move on with his career. Nobody's condoning any of this type of behavior. Right.

But the point is, is like, listen, we all know it's wrong. Fundamentally human beings, we know things are wrong. Absolutely. But how do we reserve a space for say, okay, you fucked up. I fucked up. She fucked up. now how do we make it better? Sometimes it can't be better

but there at least should be some type of path for people to try to make it better. Right. And it's like, you know, if someone does something and they go through it then watch their future actions and if you feel like they haven't changed and that they're going down the same path, well then make a decision for yourself on them, you know?

I noticed something about the YouTube world and we kind of talked about this earlier, but even going more micro, the podcast world is so collaborative. Everyone wants to collaborate. the YouTube world is too, but just bear with me. So the podcast world's so collaborative. Everyone wants to scratch. Everyone's back. It's how you grow. Like everyone's supportive of each other. YouTube is collaborative, but there's also a little bit of a caddiness and dramas. How do you deal?

How do you navigate that? I feel like there's like I hear the most out of bloggers, YouTubers and podcasters, the YouTuber is always having drama. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's probably the meanest part of the internet. We were talking about that earlier. You know, the comments on there are rough compared to Instagram or even Twitter. Like YouTube takes home the meanest comments. But even amongst the creators, it seems like there's drama. Totally. Totally.

You know, and I'll be honest, I have my niece now and I'm so busy with her that I don't know as much of what's going on. Maybe I should know more, but I don't keep up with it as much. But my God, how can you not see it? It's always like trending on Twitter or there's always a fight going on or something. And it's like war out there. And I do dislike that part of YouTube a lot. And a lot of it does give me anxiety to read about it. Maybe it's because I went through some of it and it brings it back up for me.

But I try to like avoid it like the play. Like totally just avoid it. I think that's smart to just put your blinders on and stay in your own lane. I do. I like literally put blinders on. And like when all this drama breaks out, I refuse to even make the slightest statement because I have nothing to say. Yeah. And I think that making a statement just adds fuel to the fire.

It does. And I'm like, I'm not picking size. for anything. Everybody has their own thing. I'm minding my own business. Here's my family. I'm cooking brownies tonight. Yeah. Brownies sound good. I've said it once. I've said it on the show before. Sometimes people get mad. But if you're somebody that's sitting there behind your keyboard or behind your phone screen and you go and you follow an individual or account or anybody and you're pissed off about what you see and then you take the time and you have to write nasty, mean comments, like you're a loser. And a lot of people are like, oh my God, that's so mean, Michael saying that. But it's true. It's like you're wasting your time. You're wasting your energy.

it's more speaks to the person that's commenting than the other person, right? Like, if I'm wasting one second of my productive energy on doing something negative like that, it's my fault. Well, let me say why. Let me elaborate what I mean by a loser. I don't mean like you're a loser human being. I'm saying you're having a losing strategy in your life. There's no way that that is going to come back around in a positive way to your life. It's no way it's going to move the ball forward for you.

It's probably not going to affect the person you're commenting on that much. You know, like most of the time people say that to me and I'm not like really a social public person. So I just hit block and move on. And I'm thinking like, how are, like, if you're that upset in your own life where you have to spread that negativity, like, it's going to come back in another way and it's a losing formula. It just is. It's not, there's no win from being a troll on the internet. Yeah. And honestly, I firmly believe in the universe and I believe what you put out there in your frequency. It all comes, bounces back to you. And if it's like you're losing at the end of the day, if you're putting that energy out there in some way, some form that energy is going to come back to you in a negative form, you're putting that negativity out there. So be very careful what you're putting out there. How do you deal with someone on Instagram or Twitter or YouTube that makes a comment that's despicable? If it's a quick block, I don't really think much about it after that. If it's just like you're a loser, I'm like, you know what?

I'll even leave your comment. I don't care. Okay. But there's a third category too. Like I, you know, when I look at our podcast reviews, if I go in, I never look at the positive ones because I'm assuming those people are just nice, kind people. And like, that's great. But I go and I look at the most critical. And if it's someone like, hey, you know, you guys are interrupting or, hey, the sound was off or,

or hey, I wish you would do this in a segment or like have this. That's constructive. It's constructive and I take it really seriously because I'm like, okay, these people are actually trying to provide constructive feedback and this should be addressed. But the troll comments like, hey, I hate you, you're ugly or whatever. I move on. We're getting into negative space here. Let's move into positive directions.

You're doing a lot of positive things now in their life. And I want to jump into it. So you recently adopted your niece, Erin, and you shared the experience on YouTube. I watched the whole video. Oh, my God. Thank you so much. Very sweet. So let's get into it. So Aaron is your sister's daughter. Yep. And that is the kid she had at 16. Okay. So she's kind of like my little sister in a way because I helped raise her, you know. But my sister had her at 16. I think Aaron, my sister's just never been a very stable person. And Aaron kind of has been in and out of household and live with grandma and live with this guy. And then, you know, it's kind of been a little bit of the mess. But Aaron's been fine. And we've always trusted my sister. And I love her to. to death. She's my sister. I always will. So, and then my sister recently, she got divorced,

and then we noticed her substance abuse was huge, and it was on meth, and she kind of went MIA, and then she left Aaron with my mom, and my mom, 61, and my mom kind of acts more like a 70 year old sometimes. Like, she's not equipped to raise a teenage child, especially that's been bounced around and needs a lot of attention. And so I started looking into it, and so did Ty, my husband, closer and closer. And, you know, she had all Fs in school, including P.E., like straight Fs. And she was missing, like, 14 days and sleeping 24-7 and eating chips for dinner. And, you know, I lived in California, but I was still investigating it.

And then I had just was like, I think I need to take her. And unfortunately, my sister, of course, you know, no one wants to lose their child. And like, yeah, sure, take her. You know, she really fought me on it. And I ended up, unfortunately, having to get a lawyer. and unfortunately all this did happen during the time of the drama. Oh, my God. That's a lot of stress.

So your sister's on drugs at the time and she's fighting with you and you're fighting for the child. And- It's a lot of stress. What is going through what's going on with the child at the time? And when you say child, I mean, this is a 15, now 15-year-old woman, you know? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, she, Aaron wanted to actually come with me. I think she had been through it with her mom enough and she wanted to get out.

And she wanted to come with me. still had to do it legally to get her in school here and that way there would never be a battle at the end of the day of her trying to take her back so I did and I'll be honest I was scared that the drama would affect me getting her I was scared they'd be like oh my gosh like you're so problematic or you're drama from the tweets

yes like because the internet had gotten so big and I was that was one of my biggest fears like I don't care about these things let me get my niece so now you have your niece yes I got her I actually got her in January this year And how's your relationship with your sister now? It's so much better. My sister got in a lot of trouble when she was using. And honestly, the system helped get her clean, her going to jail.

And she does still face charges that she were hoping that, you know, she'll get to do probation. She might not. And she said she's okay with that, you know, but she's clean now and she's doing better. And Erin's doing great. She's in honors English. She's such a smart kid. It was such a shame to see her, you know, felt like that whenever she's actually very intelligent. So did you get her on a routine? Like how did you make the transition from moving her out here to LA? Because I'm sure it wasn't seamless. Oh my gosh. It was actually really difficult. I kind of made it sound like, and then she had straight A. You know, it was actually lots of arguments. And, you know, Erin hadn't really had a lot of authority in her life. You know, she was just kind of living on her own, like just chilling. And, you know, we monitor so much with her. And we have so many roles, but we have to, you know, she has to have A's and B.

Okay. And cell phone, if you have a kid, you can watch their screen time. So no more than four hours a day. And then she gives us her phone at 9 o'clock at night because, you know, kids will be on their phone all night long. So the phone thing is a huge thing for teenagers. I'm sure you can imagine. Good luck whenever yours is a teenager. Yes, mom.

Yes, ma'am. You guys are going to be the best. I know you are. You're very smart people. Thank you. Well, I wouldn't go that far, but maybe learn smart. Yeah. Yeah, I'll take all the credit for being.

So, listen, you have to all of a sudden jump in and start taking care of not a, young child, but a teenage child, and those are, from what I understand and thinking back, like, those are some difficult years. Oh, my gosh. How do you navigate that and figure out how to jump into being a full-time parent? You know, it's kind of like one of those things you learn as you go. Yeah. But I'm, like, quick with it because I'm not 40, not to say people who are 40 aren't,

but like I'm closer to Aaron's age and I'm on social media. Exactly. Like, you can't get by with nothing on me, girl. And so, like, I'm on it. So that does help, I'll admit, and we like to have a good time together. And she loves to come to my bathroom at night. She's like, do my skincare. And I'm like, yes, let me put LaMeryl over here, a little tiny 50-year-old face.

What a waste. But, you know, like we bond. But it's very challenging. And just I was like a YouTuber and I was so cool. And it was like social media and hanging out with my friends all the time. And then it was like, okay, Laura, time to grow up, time to be 31. You know, you're 31. Time to raise a kid.

And so I took that wholeheartedly. And I flipped my life around. My life is completely different from last year. How so? I hang out with my friend once a week, and by hang out, we play board games, or we go paint and do wine, although I don't drink wine. What time's bedtime now? For me, at 12 o'clock. Oh, that's still pretty late.

Yeah, see, I'm so cool. Do you drink any alcohol? I have a beer, like a Corona would love. A beer? Yeah. I'm a wine drinker, but not right now. You know, when I watched that video, your husband, Tyler, he seems like a really good dude. Oh, my God.

He's the best man in the world. I met him 12 years ago in high school. Wow. Yeah. I mean, to jump in and start taking care of another person's child. Oh, yeah. You know. And that is like his kid too.

Like no games played. Like, he picks her up from school. Like he takes her every single morning early to school. Like, he's there. So what is, like, when you dive into all this for people that, I mean, the adoption process, I'm sure, is not easy. No. Logistically, what do you have to go through to actually, like, you know, adopt a child, especially a child that's not your own.

I mean, I guess any child's not your own, but someone that's, you know, with another family member, like how do you even go through that process? Well, with family, well, with my sister's issue and, like, how much legal trouble she was in, it was a little easier to make the court understand that it needs to happen. So that actually did happen with only one case.

We didn't have to do several hearings because my sister didn't end up even showing up. And the dad doesn't try to stop this and step in? He tried to step in, but I'm like, show up to court. Didn't show up. So, you know, it was just one of the, those situations like we'll do a fair and square show up to court you sell tell your side to a judge and I will tell my side and we'll do it the legal way and cost a lot of money got to get a good lawyer

tons of paperwork lots of wait time lots of trip back and forth to Alabama and my sister actually has a second child who is three but her dad is different than Aaron's dad and her dad's the best dad in the whole wide world so he's taking care of the three-year-olds and so what's the relationship like now with Aaron and her biological dad or is there no relationship I don't think there's much of relationship. Now, her grandparents of her dad, there's more of a relationship. It sounds like, though, Aaron's, like, Aaron's killing it right now. It sounds like she's doing. She's a really cool person. Like, she, some things, I'm like, oh, my God, is this going to affect you forever? But then she's just, she's fine, you know? She's good. She's resilient. She is really resilient. But I think she was, like, raised with all of us crazy women. So she's like, I got this. Well, listen, you've had a, you've had a wild journey. You've had a wild ride here. Yes, I have.

What's next on the horizon? I mean, now it seems like everything's leveling out a little bit. Yeah, no, totally. I am the boringest person. I'm like, just let me stay on my little irrelevant corner of the internet. I'm so happy here with my subscribers. Like, I love my little friends. So, yeah, everything's leveling out.

I mean, I have a launch with Lorley, Los Angeles coming in November. And I'm pretty excited about. What is that? I can't. Okay. It's my holiday collection, but I'll send it to you. So you'll for sure know. Is it beauty space?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So makeup. Yeah, it'll be makeup, totally. I want to know, I can't not ask this. This isn't on Michael's little anal list. I need to know a couple of your beauty tips because it would be, it would be, I can't have a beauty YouTuber on here, Michael. I think we all need to know one.

Yeah, can you give us like three top beauty tips, ones that are maybe unique. Okay, let me think. Gosh, gosh, gosh. Well, I'll tell you for me, half of my hair is black eye shadow because I started gray. I'm salt and pepper. You wouldn't believe me. You'd be like, oh, no, you're not. I would believe you with a stressy panel.

Literally. What do you mean? A shadow. Black eyeshadow. I always take like a really dense makeup brush in my part. I just go in with black eye shadow. There is no root cover up that could do what black eyeshadow can do for your gray roots. That's interesting because I have a couple of gray hairs, but I kind of don't want to get my hair dyed right now.

No. So you would just use brown eye shadow on my hair? Totally. So easy. I'm going to be fucking eye shadowing it up tomorrow. Yes. I'm going to take longer to do my hair tomorrow than you, Michael Bostick. What's that do for the pillows?

They're really in not good. shape and neither is the back of my headboard. You know what, Michael, our bed's already fucked from my spray tan. My sugar organic-based spray tan. So get over it. Okay, any other little beauty hacks that you can give our audience? Okay, so I use translucent powder kind of like a makeup eraser. You know what I mean?

Cut the cheekbone like anywhere you got to smudge, a little translucent powder. It's like the makeup erasure. And then... Before you put on bronzer contour. Yeah. So you use the translucent powder to cut the face up. Like, you know, is that the right? To sculpt.

Totally. And then you put the bronzer and the highlighter on top. You're making it's so beautiful. This was done though by someone. It was done by glam squad. You look so good. I can't take the credit. Dang.

Well, you look amazing. I feel pretty puffy though. No, you look freaking amazing. What's translucent powder should we do? I like either Tooface born this way or Laura Marciae translucent powder. Okay. Or a drugstore. I want to give a drugstore.

Give a drugstore. Maybeame fit me. Mabelene fit me. Uh-huh. Okay. And is another tip? Anything? Skin?

Eyebrows. hydrate, don't ever pluck your eyebrows. And if you do pluck your eyebrows, pluck them in a not in a magnifying mirror, pluck them in a mirror that's really far away from you so you can get a visual. Because you get in there too close, you're going to go crazy. You don't want to hit those tadpoles. Taylor, next time you're plucking your eyebrows, make sure you're getting it from a really long angle. Not up close in that magnifying mirror you have.

Okay. So what is a book, a podcast, a resource that you look to that's brought you a lot of value that you think will bring our audience value? Oh, I know a book off the top of my head. You are a badass. You guys totally know what I'm talking about. Is it the one of the yellow cover? Yeah, that's a good book.

I've read it three times. Okay. Not obsessed or anything. And I kind of live by it. It teaches you how to tango with fear and how to live your life and control your mind, which takes over. I think our brains are super old creatures. And I think that it's still in survival mode.

And I think that we live in a different time now where we don't always have to be surviving. Like we can chill out and accept what is and accept the unknown. Well, you are a badass. Oh, thank you so much. Pimp yourself out to our. our audience, tell them where they can find you. If you guys can find me on Instagram at La Larlarli or YouTube, just type in Larley in the search bar. Which video should they start with if they were starting with one of your videos?

No doubt in my mind. You should start with the adoption video so you know who you're watching. Oh, I'm... It is a sweet video. Like that. I did. It's an emotional video. I agree, guys. That's what you do. It cheered me up, cheered me up a little bit. I filmed it four or five times by myself and I said this is not my story. This does not make sense. This does not resonate with me and will not resonate. my audience, sister, I love you, would you? And she was like, I would be honored to put myself

out there in hopes that I can help someone. Wow. Last question here. So what do you think? Podcast experience. First one. Honestly, I will talk to you guys for three more hours if you let me sit here. I love it so much. You can come back. Yay. Come back. Not too painful, right? Not at all. You guys are amazing, though. I have the best in the world. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It helps with good guests. Yes. Oh, cool.

Thank you for coming on. Guys, follow her on Instagram and come back anytime. Thank you so much. Fun, a little different giveaway for you guys this week.

Laura Lee has a cosmetics company and they are going to give away a couple of her makeup goodies to one of you guys. All you have to do is tell us the best part of this episode on my latest Instagram at the Skinny Confidential

and follow at Laura Lee, Los Angeles. It's on Instagram. super easy. She gave me some of her makeup and it's been really fun to play with. She knows her shit, if you know what I mean. As always, thank you guys for keeping an open mind and thank you for rating and reviewing the skinny confidential on iTunes and we'll see you next time. This episode is brought to you by Ritual. You guys know I'm a human guinea pig and I'm still here taking ritual and loving it. Okay, it's filled with iron, vitamin E, magnesium, folate,

and omega-3. Kind of everything. It's made in the USA without synthetic fillers. 55% of women do not get the vitamins and minerals they need on a daily basis, so Ritual created a smarter vitamin with the nine essential ingredients women lack most. Go to ritual.com slash skinny today to choose clean ingredients backed by science. Sign up now at ritual.com slash skinny. What up guys, Vista Print. I talk about them all the time. They got me all this cute, cheeky, pink custom TSC swag.

Everything from hats to visors to door hangers, business cards. The whole team has one, to pens to notebooks. I can't even tell you. Go to my Instagram if you want to stock the situation. So for all small business owners and bloggers, they have got you covered. VistaPrint's offering all TSC, him and her listeners, 50% off one item. So you're going to help showcase your brand, customize office supplies, et cetera, the whole works. All you have to do is go to vistaprint.com slash TSC podcast.

That's vistoprint.com slash TSC podcast and use code TSC Podcast. use code TSC podcast now through November 4th. I personally would start with the mouse pads. They're all over our office and they are chic.