The Bossticks - Meredith Marks On Housewives Of SLC, BTS Filming, Marriage, Beauty Tips & Tricks, Business, & Life

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

#349: On today's episode we are joined by RHOSLC break out star Meredith Marks. Meredith joins the show to discuss her journey as a new reality star. What it's like behind the scenes and adjusting to life in the public eye, and how it can impact relationships. We also discuss beauty tips and tricks, business, life, and more.  To connect with Meredith Marks 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 The Skinny Confidential  The Hot Mess Ice Roller is here to help you contour, tighten, and de-puff your facial skin and It's paired alongside the Ice Queen Facial Oil which is packed with anti-oxidants that penetrates quickly to help hydrate, firm, and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, leaving skin soft and supple. To check them out visit www.shopskinnyconfidential.com now.  This episode is brought to you by HUSH Hush is on a mission to help people around the world relax with ease and fall asleep faster whenever they wish. We love the lunar grey throw. It's the perfect weighted blanked to help melt away anxiety and sleep better. Hush also has an amazing give back program where they donate 1 in 10 adult blankets and 1 in 5 kids blankets to charities and shelters in need. You also have a 100 night money back guarantee . Visit https://hushblankets.com/ and use code SKINNY for 10% off all items! This episode is brought to you by BETABRAND and their Betabrand dress pant yoga pants. To try these pants go to betabrand.com/skinny and receive 20% off your order. Millions of women agree these are the most comfortable pants you'll ever wear to work.  This episode is brought to you by Policy Genius  Spring is springing as we speak, and it's the perfect reminder to tidy up and get your life in order. Why not start by protec6ng your family with life insurance? Policy Genius makes it easy to compare policies from as little as 15 dollars a month. You might even be eligible to skip the in-person medical exam. Go to www.policygenius.com to get started! Produced by Dear Media 

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And if they like it, they like it. If they don't, they don't. And that's fine. I'm okay with that. And that's why I think that my way of approaching this was probably, from what I understand, and I still haven't gone back and watched every housewise, obviously. But from what I understand, the way I approached it was very, very different from how people have done that in the past. And it's because I didn't really know any different. And I just was myself. Hello, the episode you have all been waiting for. I've been waiting for this.

I'm going to go back and listen because I love this episode so much. We are recording live from Salt Lake City, Utah, with the one, the only Meredith Marks. She is so major, you guys. She is such a boss. She has shot Meredithmarks.com. She has a brick and mortar in Park City. She has three kids. She's been married to her husband, Seth Marks, since 1996.

And we had the pleasure of not only interviewing her for two hours. We also got to go to dinner and drinks with her and her husband. And we met her kids, which was so major. That was a wild dinner. I mean, we sat down there at like, what, 8, 8.30? Hopefully it doesn't put anyone in blast. And like, next thing we knew, we all looked at the clock and it was like two in the morning. And mind you, this is.

sitting in a restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah, or actually, I'm in a Park City. But time flies when you're with Meredith Marks, apparently. No, it does because she's so interesting and there's so many dynamics and she has so many different layers. And then her husband is also so outgoing and so funny. And he brings it. I mean, we have some fun. Seth, if you're listening to this, when are we investing in Powder Mountain? Seth, we want to invest in Powder Mountain. That's a, that's, I feel like we need to bring on Seth to discuss that. Also, for people that are wondering what the hell that is, that's an actual mountain in Utah near Salt Lake City. So don't get any ideas.

It's not what you're thinking. It is an actual place called Powder Mountain. It's an up-and-coming ski resort. And I think Seth and I were going in on a couple of ski properties there. Here's the thing I have to say about Meredith Marks. First of all, the real housewives of Salt Lake City has been such a hit, which is so impressive because normally it takes a couple seasons for you to get really invested in housewives. But with Utah, I immediately was drawn to Meredith.

This one sucked me right in. Yeah. Honestly, you have not watched. real housewise of Salt Lake City, you are missing out. Like, grab some popcorn, get some tea, like stick your pinky up. It will be erect the whole time. I am telling you, it brings the tea. I don't know what you're talking about with erect pinkies, but like you're erect pinky. You're erect pinky when you're drinking tea. I always put my pinky out. Oh, I get it. You're saying, holding the cup of tea. Don't get any ideas, Michael. Nothing's erect besides my pinky. I'm not doing a very good

clarifying today. Okay. So, so this comes out with such a bang. It's so amazing how we don't have really any context of the housewives with this season and everyone's obsessed. It's been a hit. Even Andy Cohen is obsessed. So I'm telling you, I think you're really going to love Meredith. She is a very dynamic life. She's very open. She is so classy, so chic. With that, let's welcome Meredith Marks to the skinny confidential, him and her podcast. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. We have Meredith Marks in studio, not in studio. We, this makeshift studio that I probably fucked up. Makeshift studio.

It'll be all right. At least you have a Dibolite. I am so excited because you're one of my favorite housewives for multiple reasons, which we'll get into. But first, I want to go way back, way back before housewives and talk about your childhood and how you grew up and what your family life was like. So I grew up in Chicago downtown on Oak Street and Lakeshore Drive in the heart of the city. And it was different.

Like I had coming to, when we. I moved to Park City. It was the first time I had lived outside of a city. I'd never lived in a suburb. I had always lived predominantly high-rise, but city living. We did live in homes at some points as well. And I went to a small school in downtown Chicago. My parents were divorced when I was pretty young.

And I was with my mom and with my dad on the weekends. It was times were very different then, especially in Chicago. You know, the city was very different. And it was like a very small little space that was sort of your save zone. And it just was totally, totally different than what it's like now. I actually started in high school. I had like a very strong interest in photography and started taking some more arts classes. And that's sort of eventually what led me into jewelry was my interest in the arts when I was

growing up. And also, of course, my mother's jewelry always sparking at me. When you say it was different, you just mean it was safer. Like to be outside? No, actually quite the opposite. I mean, when I was young, there are areas in Chicago that we go to all the time now that you just would never walk in prior to, you know, maybe the last 10, 15 years. So the city was, it was just very small because most people at that time were moving to the suburbs. It was just very different.

It was much less common to raise your children in the city. And so for the time that I grew up, a pretty unusual upbringing from that point of you. It's sort of like, I feel like it's for the last 15, 20 years, it's been on trend for people to stay in the city, raise their kids in the city up until this past year and a half with COVID now. The trend is started to reverse and more people are moving to the suburbs again. Things are changing, moving away from these very city-centric family lifestyles. And so when I was a child, that was really much more of the norm was growing up in the suburbs. And I just, I never had that experience. And even up until we moved to Park City 10 years ago, I had never lived in a suburb in my life. And Park City, I don't even really consider a suburb. I consider it a resort town. So it's, it's different. But it was cool. Chicago was just different than it is now. I love Chicago. It's amazing. But I love Park City. So how did you meet your husband? Is this simultaneously as you're designing jewelry?

No. So I met my husband when I was in my early 20s. We were set up on a blind date. He had met a friend of mine out one night and saw a picture of the two of us together and was like, oh, who's that? And she's like, oh, that's my friend, Meredith. I'll introduce you. And she called me the next day and she's like, oh, I met this great guy. And starts telling me all about how great he is, this, that and the other. And I was like, oh, set me up. And she's like, well, I kind of like him. She didn't tell me that he wanted to go out with me. That's a big mistake that people make is they rave about how great someone is and then they lose that person. Exactly, except the story goes, I turned to her and said, but wait, you have a boyfriend. She said, oh, yeah, you're right. Okay, I'll set you up. I was in business school at the time. We were on like a school trip to South America. So I was leaving town for about a month.

And she made a date while I was gone for several weeks later when I was back in town. I got back. the dating rolls around. She called me up. In the meantime, she had broken up with this guy. She had been dating. So we were now going to go on a double date with a friend of Seths and this woman as well. And she was like, well, I haven't heard from Seth.

I don't know what's going on. I'm like, okay, well, do you want to just blow it off or whatever? She's like, no, I'll give him a call. I'm like, fine. Go ahead, whatever you want. And she said, well, I just spoke to him. And this is the year Michael Jordan just came back to the Bulls. It was a very big ticket.

and he says he's going to the Bulls game and that he'd meet us for a drink after. And I said, well, I'm not interested. Sorry. No. You know, we planned this date a month ago. I'm not interested in meeting him for a drink after the Bulls game. You know, whatever. So I said, why don't you just tell him, I'm sorry that tonight's too inconvenient.

Perhaps you'd like to make it another time. So she does. And he's like, well, do you girls want to go to the Bulls game? So now I'm just like being a bitch. I'm like, let's call him out. It's the hardest ticket to get in town at this point. So I'm like, sure, let's go. And sure enough, he did get tickets.

He had two sets of two, you know, we're sitting in two different places. And he was a gentleman. He gave me and my girlfriend the good seats for the first half. And then he sat down with me and, you know, in the good seats for the second half. And what happened and the reason why he was so torn about God, was he had started dating somebody else while I was in South America. And he felt uncomfortable. He told me that after our first date and told him, he said, you know, I just, I started dating somebody else. And that's why I don't want to go, whatever. And but I think I like you better. What should I do? I go, well, I don't know. Figure that one out on your own and let me know when you figured it out. So he broke up with this other woman and that was that. So is it love at first sight you guys moving together quick or was it more slow? It was pretty quick. I mean, we met, we were engaged a year later and married six months after that and then had our first child right after that. It was just like boom, boom, boom, you know, met at 23, married at 24, baby at 25, baby at 27, baby at 29. It just was like super fast.

And you said on the show, you said that maybe it being so fast and you so young later, you were looking back and you maybe felt like you needed to separate because you were together so young and it went so quick. It's really interesting because at this point now, I have adult children and they have boyfriends and girlfriends. And they're, for whatever reason, my kids like these long-term relationships. They, you know, one met in high school, another met in college, whatever. And I talk about it all the time because you worry when when somebody meets really young and you think that they're going to get married to each other. You're kind of like, you start to get worried while they have a chance to see what else is in the world. Not that it's necessarily any better, but they need to know that. And I think that for Seth and I, it was like, it's not that we didn't know that.

Like, I don't, I met Seth and I thought he was incredible. And yes, it was 100% love at first sight. and it went very quickly. And I married him and I thought I really knew everything about him. And I woke up one day and I realized I'm like, okay, I really didn't know very much about him at all. I just got lucky because he was a kinder person than I ever thought. And it could have gone the other way. I got very, very lucky.

And so I think for us, we just needed like a moment to step back and recognize what we really do have and focus on that rather than like, wondering, you know, did I miss something? Because there's always something else. Yeah, I think, I mean, it's just for, it's not, it's similar, but different time frame. Lorne and I met when we were 12, right? And we started dating at that age. But we broke up. We weren't together all through high school and all through college. A lot of people think we've been together that whole time, but we separated. And yes, we experience other other things in the world to say. Things in the world. Other experiences. But I think about it all the time, because if we were to try to go the way through. I don't think we would work out because we would, you would wonder and you start to

think like, okay, what else or what if? And now we don't have those questions. No, 12 is like, I can't be with you since I was 12. No, no, no. But like, come on. That's not realistic. No, but I think it's important because some people, if your kids are dating since high school and college, we had that, a similar experience, but we kind of went off our separate ways of lived in separate cities, had separate lives for a while and then came back. And since we got back together, we've been rock solid. Right. So, I have a question since I just had a baby and it's hard to make time for each other. You had three kind of back to back. Like, how did that go? Are you glad you just did three and got like got it? I don't want to say done with, but like should I just have the amount of kids I want in a row or should

I take my time and space it out? Looking back, what do you think about that? So that's interesting. And that's, again, it's another like factor that contributed to Seth and I really needing that. separation, was you have children, which is like incredible. It's amazing. It's probably one of the most incredible life experiences there is. But they require a lot of time and attention. And your dynamic in your marriage completely shifts because what become, what was so important was the other partner. And it suddenly becomes a child. And the focus goes away from the partner. and it goes on to the child, and that's just human nature. And taking the time to make sure you make time for one another is really important.

Seth and I failed on that many, many, many times. We got very, very focused on our children and just sort of like almost lost sight of one another. And didn't even like, you wake up one day and you're like, I don't even know if I know you anymore. I mean, obviously you're the same person and whatever, but you sort of, just find this disconnect. And so I do think it's helpful to have kids back to back because I believe, at least for me, once I was out of that phase, there's no way I was going back to it. I sort of feel like you get into that zone and it works and everything comes together and you're used to dealing with all of the moving parts. And once you move out of that, I think it would be

really, really tough to go back. I do not have any regrets about having my children so close together. my only regret was that I allowed my focus to shift from my marriage completely. And I allowed Seth to do the same thing. And I hold both of us fully responsible for that. You know, you both have to look at one another. And we all have positive and negative times. And when you see someone going down this negative path, you've got to rein them in. You're your partners together.

And that's what's important is to stay there and be supportive and focused and make sure you're still very in touch and aware of what's going on with one another, even the reality is the kids take over on your focus. It's just, it's huge. If you were to go back and tell your younger self some tools and tactics and maybe habits that you would do in your marriage, what would those be? Like with all the wisdom that you know now, and you have been so open and I think it's so refreshing because so many times housewives come on and they say everything's perfect and dandy and then they get divorced. So if you had to go back and tell yourself the tools, what would those be? Oh, hey, guess what I am wearing right now as I podcast from home? If you guessed beta brands, dress pant, yoga pants,

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For Seth and I, it was like we were always either, you know, obviously working, but when we would, you know, dinner time is sort of our time together. And it sort of became, well, Well, are we having dinner with the kids tonight? Are we taking them out? Are we having dinner at home with them? Or are we going out with another couple or a bunch of other couples? So, you know, it just would depend. We were barely ever together.

And I mean, we were together, but not connected. Yeah. And even when we were alone and connected, it's like on the phone, Instagram, this, that, and the other emails, whatever. And the key, I think, is making individual one-on-one time without phones. it doesn't even have to be that long, half hour, whatever it may be. But where you're actually focused on one another, where you're communicating, where you are talking to each other about things that aren't related necessarily to your children and that are about you.

And I think that's, that is really the key so that you stay in touch. I mean, as you probably are, no, Seth and I have very different views. Like he would, he would, all the time would be like, here, you want to know what's going on in my life? Take my phone and read it. And obviously, you know I don't like for him to read my phone because I feel like people send me text messages that are sent to me, not to him. And I think that's like very invasive of somebody else's privacy. That is a problem. Like when he's saying to me, we'll read my phone to know what's happening in my life, that doesn't work. You have to talk. You have to communicate. You have to really stay in

touch with one another by talking and not by, oh, read my phone or, oh, you know, you can see my podcast today or whatever. You know, it's important. And that was actually something that the show was really, really positive for us with is it forces communication. There is no sweeping it under the rug. There is no running away. You don't have a choice, whether it's your marriage or your friendship or whatever else, you're constantly learning new information that's being thrown at you, and you have to address it. And I was very good at ignoring and swooping things under the rug. And you can. So is that therapeutic looking back on it? Like when you look back on the show and what you, like it did for your marriage or your friendships in the moment where you're frustrated and now you

feel it's therapeutic? Or how does that work? Yeah. So I always call it, I always say it's like glam therapy because you're talking and you are digging. And you are analyzing yourself and analyzing the way you behave towards others, the way you react, the way you, you know, anything communicate. And you're very, very in touch with everything you're saying and doing because you can't ignore the reactions. Like, you can't get away from it. In real life, you can go hide out wherever. There's no escape.

You're talking about all this. You're analyzing it. But it's like glam therapy because it is the most public thing under the sun. know, it's not confidential. There's no privacy to it. And in fact, there's a lot of judgment that comes with it because you're, everyone in the public eye is looking at you and they're formulating their own opinions on you and they don't even know you and they know have glimpses. Oh, we get it. We get it. Yeah. I was going to ask you, how have you dealt with, not, you know, coming into the public eye so quickly, obviously in a platform like Howl's wives, everyone's watching?

How have you dealt with that? You know, maybe before you had a more. private life. Now, I'm imagine, especially in the city, people coming up to you, obviously commenting on your life, your marriage, like, how do you handle that? Well, it's interesting. Because of COVID, it's probably been like a little bit easier because rather than diving and head first, it's like, I got to like, did my toe in the water. You got every troll in a basement ready to go on their phone. So maybe in public, but I would assume online, it's brutal. Yeah. It was probably worse online just because everybody was online during COVID and kind of like, not. out and about. And yeah, you get a lot of haters and trolls who have mean things to say. And that's fine.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. Again, like I said, like, you don't know me. You know, you, you know things about me and you're entitled to your opinions on those things. And that's fine. I'm, I'm okay with people who don't like me. That's okay. You don't have to. And in person, it was relatively, like, it's been relatively easy because of COVID. It's like, life is not. not that abnormal. It's just really busy. Yeah. And I also feel like in person, you know, what people will say online is much different than what they would say when they're actually face to face. I will say, though, out of all the housewives, I haven't seen you get a lot of hate from my perspective. And as a housewives fan, I feel like you really handled yourself very well on the

show. And I think people related to you opening up. And I think, I feel like people, you were a fan favorite. Thank you. I appreciate that. I mean, I haven't seen a lot of hate to you at all. I definitely got some. I mean, you know, it wasn't horrible. But there were moments that were worse than others. There was the hardest part for me was really after episode three when all the drama stemmed between Brooks and Jen. And again, everybody doesn't, they see a little glimpse. They don't know the whole story. They don't see everything. And some of Jen's hardcore stands were, were very cruel to Brooks. And that was very, very hard on me. That was like super distressing. I mean, I'm like going to cry thinking about it. It was really stressful because there's nothing worse. Yes. It's your child. And you know who they are and you know what their intentions are. And he's, yes, he's an adult. He is 21 years old. But in my view, he's a child. He's always going to be my baby. Oh, I'm going to jail if anyone says anything about my dad. I'm 100% no. Like I'm not going to

I think also, and I watch when Lauren watch, you can't turn away from stuff. Don't say I watch when Lauren watches. That's such a cop-out. You can leave the room. Your eyes are on the TV when I turn on house-wise. I mean, I'm not tuning. If I'm not with her, I'm not like diving in, but I watch every time it's on. So I'm well aware of what's going on on the show, right? And you come off at somebody that's very thoughtful, intentional and logical with your responses. And I feel like when you speak, people listen, or at least that's how it came off on the show, right? And I think that's maybe why you don't catch so much. black because you're not just flailing about, just saying anything that pops into your head. At least that's how I feel about what I saw. Overall, I am a pretty like emotionally controlled person. I mean, I'm human. You don't seem like you lose it.

I do, just not that often and not as often as some of my castmates. I guess I'm comparing it to that. Right. Relatively speaking, no, I don't. But, you know, yeah, I actually, to me, words are very powerful. They have a lot of meaning. I mean, my background is in law. Like, words are everything. And so I probably tend to think my thoughts through a little bit more before I vocalize them. I mean, if you notice, I'm probably a little bit quieter than most of my castmates a lot of

the time. But you're not like a meager mouse though. Yeah, no, I'm not at all. But I like to listen, assess and then speak. Which, you know, some people are quiet and they're quiet because they're like, like a meager mouse. That's not how you come off. You come off as like someone that's, like I said, thoughtful and intentional before you speak. Correct. I mean, I'm highly opinionated, but I like to make sure I understand what's happening before I express my opinions. I'm human. Look, you'll see. You know, I have emotions. I have bad times in my life. I just a couple months ago, I lost my father. I had a lot of emotional outbursts those first few weeks. It was really hard. I was very easily triggered and set off by things because I was having a hard time. And that's, we're all human.

do try. That's correct. I started to hear about your father. Yeah, so am I. Thank you. Yeah. I want to know if there's a reason that you are emotionally controlled. Is it from, like you mentioned law or is, are you do practice stoicism? Is there something that you do in the morning? What are the routines that you do to keep you even keeled? This is such a cool concept, you guys. Policy genius. What it does is it helps you compare top insurers in one place and you save 50%. You're, or more. This is something that before I had a child, I didn't put a lot of thought into, but now that I have Zaza, I really think about this a lot. And I want to make sure I'm protecting my family with life insurance. So when they came to us to partner, I was so on board because this is something that I personally want to have as a resource on our podcast. Michael's very versed in it. And this is such a great concept because you can just find the best option. And the policy genius team will help you set up your new policy for you. And they answer all the questions along the way. What's not only good for shopping policy, it's also good for comparing

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this very seriously. Yeah, we just recently did the finance episode, but there's one thing we didn't touch too heavily on, and that's insurance. And the type of insurance quickly that I would recommend everyone has, auto insurance, obviously homeowners or renters insurance, health insurance. If you're looking at a life insurance policy, definitely look at term life, especially if you're younger, long-term disability, long-term care, identity theft, umbrella insurance. These are all things you can compare. I know I just threw a lot at you, but there's a lot to look out with insurance, and policy genius can definitely help you do so. PolicyGenius can promise that you won't leave their website feeling like a fool. It's extremely easy to use and understand. And you can start now. So you're going to go to policygenius.com to get started. That's policy genius.com. Policy genius. When it comes to insurance, it's nice to get it right. I'm telling you, tell all your friends about this. This is important. Yeah, obviously taking care of myself is the most important thing. I feel like when we're all like run down and exhausted and everybody is more easily set off and triggered by things. So, I mean, just the basics, obviously sleeping and eating good food and whatever else. But also having fun, I think, like all the, like, it's all a balance, you know?

And it's like if you're going to go out every night until 5 a.m., okay, you're going to feel like shit. and you're going to be easily set off and whatever else. But if you don't ever go out, you're not going to have a lot of fun. You're going to be very content-grisles. So it's balance, I think, on everything, whether it's fitness, whether it's what you eat and what you drink and sleep and just having a balanced life, you know, finding positivity, focusing on positivity, trying to take the negative situations and spin them towards a positive side. You know, it's like for me, I look at COVID.

It saved my marriage. I look at what happened, housewives coupled with COVID, I would say save my marriage. That's a positive. I look at how I focused on my online business and grew that, you know. So I try to stay away from the negativity, stay focused on the positive side of things, and try not to speak until I really understand what's going on. because that's the whole thing. When you only have half of the story, it's really easy to get really, really angry.

But if you can try to ask more questions before you speak and ask, like, well, why did you do this? What was the motivation behind the behavior? It's easier to stay calm because you realize that it's just another human being struggling with their own problems, trying to work through them. And yeah, sometimes you cannot coexist. And that's fine. but it also doesn't mean that you have to destroy each other. There's balance. What you said about having a positive mindset in COVID, we've talked about so much. It is mindset. You can look at this

as all the negative or you can focus on the positive and what it's done. And that's so smart that you say it's helped grow your online business and your marriage. I think that it is so important to attack any kind of adversity like that. You have to have a mindset shift or else you can just think about all the miserable things. 100%. And there is always another way to look at it. I look at my separation. Was it really hard and awful? Yes, of course it was. But I wouldn't be where I am right now without having gone through those times. And so it's just a matter of finding the bright spots and adversity and trying to understand where people are coming from before you let your emotions get the best of you and get

that angry at them. And, you know, realizing that it's okay that sometimes you're just, just not going to work it out. And you just, you shouldn't be friends or you shouldn't be married or you shouldn't be whatever the dynamic is in the relationship. And that's okay too. It just, it's a matter of keeping enough control over the situation and yourself that you don't take it to a level where it just gets vicious, mean and ugly. I feel like separating from your significant other would help weed out who the toxic friends are. Because the ones that are going to talk behind your back by and the ones that are actually there for you, you can double down on that. I completely agree with that. I think you learn so much about people through situations like that when you're separated to see

who stands by you. Just watching how people treat someone who they don't stand something to gain from. That to me is the most telling thing about somebody's character. And so if they think, oh, well, you know, we were friends as couples and so I no longer and they turn on you, okay, that's not your friend. If they're rude to the, the busboy in the restaurant, that shows something about who they are. That's a big thing. Yeah, it shows a lot. And so to me, like, I try to watch those things or if you're, you know, in the same company and you think the person's getting fired and suddenly you're not interested anymore or whatever. That kind of stuff is very telling about loyalty. It's very telling about character. And those

are the things I try to watch for when I'm reading people. I'm very into like energy from people and usually I'm good at it. I found that when I don't follow my instincts, I get burned. Yeah. I think the best people are the ones that just give, give, give without expectation, right? And those are the people you want to be closest to. And the people that, you know, we all know those people. You meet them. And it's like, you can just tell they're there for something. Yeah. Stop giving with an ask. Yeah. In order to interact, you need to give them something. It's like immediately you should cut those people. Yeah, and that's like the thing, I mean, I remember, and that was something my sister was always so good at telling me to. I'd be like, for years, I would say stuff like, well, I was thinking about doing whatever for so-and-so. And she's like, so do it. And I would be like, well, I don't think they'd do that for me. And she'd be like, Meredith, you don't do something for somebody because you're looking for something in return. You do it because you want to do it. And that is the bottom line, you know, on everything. And that was like one of her best lessons to me. I love that. Thanks, Myra. Thanks, Myra. Thanks, Myra. I want to talk about your business. So you mentioned law. So you did law and jewelry designing. And then how did that turn into shop Meredith Marks online and in Park City or Salt Lake? Park City. Park City. Yeah. Okay. I went straight from undergrad into law school. And then my first, after my first semester of law school, I love like the law and theory. I think it's super, super interesting. But in practice, not. as much. And I sort of thought, I doubt I'm really going to do this. So after my first semester,

I applied to the business school to do a joint degree. And I did both of those. I had started undergrad as a fine arts major, switched out because I didn't think I'd be able to like. Seth is loving this. He's loving all, like all these smarts and the creativity. I bet he was just chasing after you. He did love that. If Lauren had a lot degree, I would bail out. I'd be like, this is too sketchy for me. It's too intense. I can do it. I'd be like I gotta go. I'm just enough. Yeah, so I

was in graduate school and I finished and I had during the time I was in school, we had opened a health club that was very much focused on like Pilates and gyrototics, yoga, you know, more alternative stuff. And I was in real estate development

and then I was mugged one morning after I dropped the kids off at school at 9 a.m. Where was this? in Chicago on Dearborn Street. Like, do you know Chicago? It is the 1400 block. It's about as safe as it gets. It's like very out of the blue kind of thing.

And it was very aggressive. The man was dragging me across the street by my handbag. And, you know, the whole thing was just traumatizing. And I had loved jewelry. My passion was always in jewelry from the time I was like a child playing with my mom's stuff. And it was like a wake-up call. I thought, you know what? I have three small children.

I am literally. on the phone with contractors on these real estate development projects all day and night. I'm not focused. I'm not present at all. And I don't want to do this anymore. And I sold everything. And I was done as as a condition. I was just like I am out, which was a blessing in disguise because within months, the whole real estate market completely crashed. And I would have lost everything. So it was, I'd like to say it was my genius foresight. But it was not. It was just. the luck of the draw. And so then I took some time off. I was like at home with the kids and it was day trading, to be honest, because I was, I'm very restless. I don't sit still very well.

Yes. Very entrepreneurial. It's sort of like a, it's a bit of an illness. Day trading is a dicey game. Yeah. Well, and back then, it was like insanity. But it was, it was wild. It was so wild. And, you know, the metal markets were completely out of control and, and everything was just unglued, basically. And I thought, well, I've always loved jewelry. It's one of the most competitive spaces to go into. But right now, I'm sure everybody needs the business. This is a time where, you know, they'll work with the little guy.

And so I dove in head first. My husband said that he had a business trip to Hong Kong and to India. And I, you know, knew a lot of the stones were sourced here. A lot of the production is done there. So I said, you know what? I'm coming with you. I took some GIA classes, Gemological Institute of America. And I went and I started learning.

And that was it. And I actually did my first trunk show. A friend of mine hosted it for me in her apartment. It was in, I mean, the height of the recession. Everyone thought I was completely insane. And all I did was I bought jewelry on this trip that I liked. I didn't design anything. I just wanted to see if the market would succeed.

stay in it at this point. And I also took orders on everything so that I could try out different manufacturers, but if it didn't work out, I had the original piece to fill the order. So I was able to test the waters, basically, that way. And that was that. And then we moved to Park City about 10 years ago, full time. We were here for a few years. And then we went part-time. My husband took a position as an executive at overstock.com, which is based in Salt Lake. And so that's what prompted us to move here. And he does liquidations, turnarounds, distress situations. And is he still going back to Ohio, or does he work here primarily?

No, neither to answer you. He bounces around quite a bit because he deals with distress situations. So the goal is to help fix it and move on. I imagine there's a lot of distress situations right now. Well, what's interesting, too, though, is he deals with all these, like, consumer product inventories and whether it's excess or people going out of business or whatever it may be. And initially, it was insane. I mean, he was just slammed with so much business. And then no one had inventory anymore.

Yeah. Because everything was shut down. So nobody was producing. And now that's, that, it's interesting because it's a shortage. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to get things made right now. Yeah. for manufacturers and the lead times are crazy and things are getting stopped. Chinese New Year just

happened. Yeah. A bunch of stuff. Yeah. That's tough. So when you, coming from Chicago to Park City, how is, like, that's a different culture. How did, in the beginning, what did, how did you feel about it? You know, Lauren, I'm feeling extra anxious right now. And let me tell you why. I was carrying all the podcast equipment down the stairs, all the mics, all these boomstands, the, you know, the Zoom, everything to record this in these intros and these pickups. And, You heard that loud crash? That's because I ate shit and fell down the stairs and I'm feeling extremely anxious about it now, which means I just want to curl up, get in bed with my hush blanket and just forget today ever happened. Honestly, if you're anxious, I am telling you

a weighted blanket is the cure. It's my favorite thing to do. What I do is I get into bed, I dim the lights, I turn my red light on, I put my star projector on, and I go under my hush blanket, and I am telling you, this weighted blanket is unlike anything. The inside of the blanket's non-toxic glass sand, which adds weight and flexibility and it wraps around you in this warm embrace. It's like a hug from grandma that you needed, and the weight just makes you feel so much less anxious. I know I'm not crazy, too, because my sister Mimi is obsessed. She swears by this. What's cool about hush, too, is that they have 100 nights to test your blanket. So if you don't love it, you can send it back for a full refund. No questions asked. If you feel like it's too heavy or too

light, you can exchange sizes. They're really great about that. They have a return and exchange process that's super seamless and easy. And then they also have this give back programs. So they donate one in 10 adult blankets and one in five kids blankets to charity and shelters in need. I am such a fan of hush. If you're going to start with one of the blankets, I would recommend getting their classic weighted blanket. In my opinion, it is just the best. It comes in four. different sizes and six different weights. I like intense. I like big. I like heavy. The one that we have is the gray. You've probably seen it on my Instagram story. I am telling you if you are an anxious person, you have to try it. Hush is a really amazing sleep brand and they are going to give you a 10%

off all items. They basically have everything that you need to get the sleep you deserve. You're going to use code skinny for 10% off all items. That's code skinny for 10% off all items. Go to Hush Blankets. com and shop the classic blanket. You're going to love it. That's hushblankets.com. Use code skinny for 10% off. So it was really strange at first. I mean, first of all, change from city to resort. You know, that's odd. Is this more of a seasonal place? I imagine winters obviously slam summer, but does it spring fall? Does it get slow? Yeah. Those are considered the shoulder seasons. And yes, it does slow down. The fall is actually really lovely here. It's beautiful. The leaves change. It's pretty and hopefully you don't have a super cold fall and it's it's really very nice. Spring,

not so much. I mean, we're going into the last few weeks of like pretty white snow out there and then it just you get into mud season and it's not my favorite time to be here at all. But yeah, it is very strange going from a major city to a resort town that part of the year there aren't people here. That was a very big concern when we first moved to. I wanted to make sure we moved into a community where there were people who lived you around because I don't want my kids to feel like they were living in a ghost town. But now it's like more and more people are just coming here. It's crazy. I mean, I have so many friends from, you know, New York, L.A., Texas, that have relocated here permanently. So when did you decide to open your shop? When did you be like, oh my God, I need a

brick and mortar here? And then when did you take it online? Was it during COVID or was it simultaneously? Yeah. So online, I started a long time ago. I mean, we've, we've had our website up for a long time, but did not do a huge online business because jewelry is a little bit trickier online. People want to, you're dealing with natural resources and people want to see the quality and whatever else. So I had started it prior to ever having brick and mortar even, but it was much, much slower than it is now. And the store, I opened about two and a half years ago. I had been looking for a space for probably four or five years before that. It was very, Park City is very, very small. And Main Street is what? Eight blocks long or something. I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm slightly off. I've never been. I have to go. I want to come see this story. Yes. We just got here yesterday. It's probably been 15, 20 years since I've been here. I used to come with my dad all the time. He actually used to build stuff around here. But it's been 20. years. When I got that, I was like, oh, this feels much smaller than I remember it because when I was a kid, I was like, this place is massive. So how did you find your place after four years? Did you see it?

And you were like, this is the one? I mean, the thing is is because Main Street, it's like, it's all historical landmarks. I mean, it's so charming. I don't know if you remember, but it's like, it's incredible. And because of that, you have sort of funky spaces. You know, it's not like everything's just modern and easy to deal with. And a lot of the. And a lot of the stores are like a lot of the storefronts are split level where you have to go upstairs and or or downstairs and they're not like where you walk right in at street level and so it was very important to me to have somewhere that you could just walk into because I just think it's way more inviting and I also wanted to be like in the middle part of me and I didn't want to be too high or too

low and and and I wanted a small space because I'm in jewelry and what am I going to do with 10,000 square feet you know yeah I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs. Make that mistake, they try to go too big at first instead of zoning in and refining a small space. Yeah. Yeah. And so it took a long time. But this space came along and it was perfect. It is small. It's very small. I love it. I now I feel like, oh my gosh, maybe I went too small. We might be looking for something a little bigger. Yeah. Yeah. But not crazy big still because I want it to be manageable. I don't want to feel overwhelmed by it. And brick and mortar is still, it's tough. It's online sales. are a lot easier. I will say that. Yeah, I think it's cool that you do both, though. I think people, as a tourist, it seems they would want to come here and come visit something that they see on TV. Yeah. I think that's nice. I think it's nice for people to have a physical space that they can walk into. You know, and it's very different. I mean, with COVID, my business model really shifted a lot because it wasn't so much away from the store because we were only shut down for about two months. I stayed closed a little bit long.

just because it was very strange for a while. But for me, a huge portion of my business was private events. And that's what was like devastating from COVID. I mean, normally in the fall, I would be throwing three luncheons every week, you know, in different cities and whatever else. The jewelry? Is it diamonds? Like what kind of tell us is it, I know that you have, it's called livable luxury, fine jewelry, but is it also stuff that's more affordable? Like, tell us what you're bringing to these luncheons. Yeah. So I, it's all fine jewelry. It's all gold or silver, precious, semi-precious stone. Take notes, motherfucker. We're going to end the interview now. I have still I'm not going to Main Street. He didn't give me a push present. Oh, but I'm never going to hear that.

No, I, this is a great person to talk to you. Go on. Yeah, we can help you. We can help you. We can help you. This trip is going to a lot more expensive. Yeah, I mean, it's gold, silver, precious, semi-precious. precious. I am working on, it will still be fine jewelry, but I am working on a lower price point collection because a lot of people have asked. And so I'm working on a collection where it will be silver and semi-precious and enamel. And I think it's going to be really cool. And it's going to be much more reasonable. Like, we will have some pieces under $100. So what should we look for in an engagement ring? And I mean this for maybe someone that's going to propose. What are the things, like, not to get ripped off? Yeah, I mean, assuming you want like a diamond

traditional engagement ring, you know, you're looking at your cut, your color, your clarity, and the size, the carrots. When I first started looking into that, I was so overwhelmed because I thought you just went to the store and just grabbed one. Nobody teaches you about cut, clarity, color, shape, all these things. And they, you know, you don't go to this. This isn't bonds. What's crazy is, you know, you can have a one carrot ring that could be a million dollar if it's, if it's a depending on the cut and the clarion. Or you could have one that's obviously. So the range is so crazy depending on the quality.

Yeah, the quality is absolutely everything. And usually for most people who have some kind of a budget, you want to balance that. And maybe you don't get the de-flawless diamond. Maybe you take an F or a GVS1 or whatever. You compromise a little bit so that you can get a little bit of a larger size, perhaps if you give a little bit on the color or the clarity. But you don't want to give a lot because honestly,

there's nothing worse than a bad diamond. I can imagine, especially being in the industry, I'm sure it's like when Dr. Jason Diamond, he's like a plastic surgeon in L.A. came on this podcast. I said, when you're at Thanksgiving, do you just look around the table and be like, he could use a little filler in his temples? Like the same as with a diamond.

I would think that when you're so knowledgeable in it, you're able to just look right away. And see. Yeah. I mean, yes, because when you, but honestly, you would notice too. Like, if a diamond's not good, you see it. And it's, there are some people who just are so much more interesting in getting a big stone that they, they don't care. Yeah. And, and that's fine. That's up to them. For me, I, I, the color and the clarity are very important to me. I mean, I'm a visual person, obviously. So I think for people who are more visual and more, I don't know, if my diamond was like looking gray or yellow or whatever, it would drive me insane. I'd be staring at and I'd rather

get something, and I'd have to take a look at it. Quarter of the size and that I like the color. I already changed yours out. That things are, that things are changed out. Yeah. What's, what is the tips with a setting? I think a setting is really important how you set the diamond. When we worked together on my ring after he let me design the same. He let me design the setting with him, but there was so many things that you could do to make it a little more sparkly. Are there any, like, little tips that you can give our audience that you would recommend that they tell their significant other? I mean, the setting is really a very personal choice of what feels good to you.

And some people like to set the stone a little higher. Some people like it a little bit lower. I tend to gravitate towards more modern designs, more clean designs, especially if you have a spectacular diamond. Like to me, the setting is about showing off the stone. So if it's a beautiful, beautiful diamond that's of significance, I would do a very simple traditional prong setting, maybe to, you know, some very simple side stones.

It depends on the cut of the stone to begin with. But clean. What's your favorite cut? I just have to ask selfishly. Well, I have a cushion cut. Beautiful. You guys, it's so sparkling. It's a little dirty.

Maybe you should talk to a narrative. I thought there's a blind now. Yeah. So Cushion's your favorite. I love cushion. I love Emerald Cut too. Those are my two favorites. I wanted the person that helped us to look at my finger and I wanted him to say what flatters my finger.

Is that crazy? Well, not necessarily because depending on like, like I have really, really long fingers. Like my fingers are not. Like, if I go finger to finger with most men, my fingers are as long as they're. You've got to hit their hand out of the equation. My hands are in this big. But my fingers are. So I can carry a longer stone. Someone who is really like shorter fingers, a round stone will be better, you know. So it does matter. I mean, it's not everything. But it does, certain stones do look better on certain fingers. That's true. Everyone wants to know your workout and daily eating routine. So many questions.

about that. Okay. Well, let's start with food. Oh, God. Yeah, I have very unusual eating habits. Please, the audience wants to know all of them. It's irregular. Like, some days I don't eat anything until very late in the day. And other days, I have something when I wake up. There's no real rhyme or reason. I have to have coffee for a thing in the morning. I'm like not even a functional human being. I've gotten lucky enough to finally show stuff that he can bring it to me in bed. Oh, please teach Michael. I can't believe how hard it is to do that. No, because you're irregular in that sometimes you want it downstairs since you went upstairs.

I always want a coffee in bed. I always want a coffee in bed. There is no woman who would be unhappy about having coffee brought you in bed. I can promise you that. See, this is like couples there for me. I learned something every new. So he brings you coffee in bed. So yes, he brings me coffee in bed.

Then I do not, I'm not like a breakfast food person. I usually like once in a while maybe I'll make an egg or something, but I will usually have like something very random, like a bite of cheese or a bite of fish left over from the night before or whatever. I don't eat very much in the morning. I have like very little appetite. And then it just depends. I mean, we used to go out almost every night, but not so much anymore with what's your

of a restaurant, just really sight. Handle. Handle. Handle. You guys have to go. Okay. It's wonderful. Okay. Okay. So is there anything that's I'm going to make sure I didn't bug it up and go somewhere wrong? Yeah. Tell the truth. I'll take care of you. Don't lie. So is there anything that you reach for like that's a healthy snack on the regular like hummus? I don't know, grapes. Like what is your like go-to? So we do have hummus. I go there phases where I'm into hummus. I'm not a fruit eater. That's the one thing I will say. I really do stay away from sugar for the most part. Every so often I have a bad day here or there. But basically speaking, I'm not into dessert. I'm not into sugar. I'm not into fruit. I'll have berries and cherries once in a while. But really, I very rarely will eat anything sweet. And I don't really, I don't eat, I stay away from processed food and fast food. I eat real food. That's the bottom line. I don't eat crap. And so I eat everything. I don't like fruit and nuts mixed into my food. But apart from that, I pretty much eat almost everything, and particularly about how it's prepared

and whatever else. But I like real food. So not like a pecan and dried cranberry salad. That's not on your list. It sounds like you don't obsess over food, though. I used to. I don't anymore. I used to be like super obsessive over everything.

I ate. I would journal all my food. I would run like anywhere from like seven to 15 miles a day. I was nuts. And it was so all encompassing and it made me so, like, to the point where I couldn't go out to dinner without bringing my Hello Kitty food journal. And yes, it was Hello Kitty. I don't know why because it made me laugh. What about cocktail?

I drink. What are you going to drink? So my go-to is Belvedere up with a twist and a glass of ice on the side. Okay. But of course, I drink Vita tequila. And I just, I can't drink as much tequila as I use. true for some reason I have like some acidity stuff sometimes when I am having a lot of tequila but I do love tequila and I love Lisa take a papaya enzyme for acidity

papaya enzyme all natural non-gMO just like Google it's a chewable you will never have that it saved me during pregnancy feels like fire like burning like acid reflux it'll it'll cure it I always wonder this is a side quote I know there's one of the different top but for someone like I said I think you're a well-intentioned person. And when I say that, not just a positive person, but you're somebody who's thoughtful. With everything you had going on, you get approached to do a show. What was the thought process like? Because for me, I like this because I control this, right?

Like, I don't have to worry about somebody else telling me or narrating or dictating what gets up and what doesn't. It's like, I have this little controlled zone, right? I don't know if I would be able to handle giving someone all the control over how I'm perceived in the world and what I, like, how do you, how did you go about that? So what's really funny about that is actually, I remember last March, right before we shut everything down, I was in L.A. right after we had just finished filming here, and I went and I was talking with one of the executives at Bravo. And one of the things she said to me is, you know,

by nature, anyone who's drawn to reality TV and doing reality TV is a bit of a control freak and they want to control everything. But the problem is with reality TV, you control nothing. And that is 100% true. Like, we are all control freaks, for sure. And it's like this very challenging process because you, you can try to control it all you want, but you're going to lose. Yeah, and I know how easy it is to forget because doing these, I mean, this is on a smaller scale, but you can forget that you're even like, there's cameras and video and mics. And I'm sure when you're filming and there's a little, like, you just forget you even doing it. 100%. I mean, not at first, and it takes a little bit of time to get comfortable,

but once you're comfortable, you sort of, the cameras don't matter anymore. You just like throw it on, you're like, whatever, I'm just going doing a thing. Yeah, you don't, you don't care. It doesn't matter. And you realize that, look, I am who I am. I can't control what is shown and what's not. That is just, there's no point and trying because it's not going to happen. Every aspect of my life is not going to be shown because it's just not possible and be really boring. And not that my life is boring, but any, every aspect of anybody's life is going to be super

boring. You're going into this saying, I'm giving that up. I know that I am confident and comfortable with who I am enough so that I really don't care what they're putting out there. And that's where I got to eventually. It took time. It took, I would say, probably almost three quarters of the way through the first season for me to really be able to let go of the control. You forget about the cameras much before that.

But to really say, I just don't care. Like, this is me. There's nothing so horrible. If you don't like it, stay away. No one's forcing you to be around me. No one's forcing you to watch me. And if you do like it, great. I'm happy.

I'm doing something right. And that's it. And you just let it go. I just, I don't care. I imagine, though, it might be frustrating if you're seeing something after the fact that you know is out of context. Oh, my gosh. Oh, that's probably annoying.

Yeah, that is really annoying. I know. Okay, so Lauren and I will catch flack all the time on the show. If a clip gets shared and, like, we'll say something. But it's always the stuff that's out of context. Or if you listen to everything, like, oh, okay, I can understand, like how that conversation got there. But people, we have the benefit of people being able to go and see the whole context.

Where, when they're editing something like that, like, they're not showing all of the context, right? and so you don't have that benefit. So I imagine that can drive you nuts. That is what's really challenging just because it's not even like this intentional, oh, we're taking this out of context. It's that we're showing snippets. And by virtue of that, a lot is getting cut out. And sometimes when you're saying something, what's really meaningful to you is the sentence before what they show. And then you're like, oh, wow, that's not really what I meant because you left the beginning part out or whatever. But, you know, it's part of it. And it's not, I would say that, yes, that happens here and there. But for the most part, you really are seeing most of the true intents of the people and most of what they're saying is pretty much what they said.

Do you want to watch it after it's all edited? Do you want to sit down and watch it? Are you like, oh, I just can't watch this? Oh, no. I don't like to listen to my own podcast either. When I'm done, I'm like done. Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm saying the opposite. Oh, you want to watch it. You want to watch it. Oh, I would think it was the other way.

Because like you're saying, it's snippets. You know it's the whole thing. So you want to see. There's no point in us. The narrative that they've crafted. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say is like we know, like this, everything that, I mean, unless, this is what comes out, right? Like, this is the, like, this is the episode.

Where with you, like, you do something and you don't know what's coming on, right? No, we don't know. We don't know. like, you know, are you going to show my lunch yesterday? Or you're going to show my dinner, you know, or whatever. It doesn't, you have no idea what ends up being put out there. And so yeah, as soon as I want to watch the episodes right away. Yeah. And then you want to watch it again because you're like, wait a second. And there's things that probably in those like interviews. I always wonder how they do those interviews. Maybe you can tell me, but that you see someone said, someone said something

that you weren't aware they said. Yeah. You're probably like, fuck that bitch. What the hell? And the crazy part, though, what's really interesting about that is you're watching that stuff and you get really, really agitated about something. And then you realize that happened like almost a year ago. Yeah. And you're kind of like, oh, really? Is it worth it to get mad at it? I know.

That's probably trying to see, like, if you do have friends on the show to see all the thoughts. And then you don't know if the producers took it out of context what you're watching. Right. So is it even worth it? Everyone also wants to know your beauty tips and tricks. Are there things that you reach for all the time? Skin, makeup, anything, any tips?

Yeah. So, again, I do think for skin diet is super important. Like, eating real food, I think, is the most important thing of anything. Like, not eating processed junk. I really, really honestly believe that because, like, I drank. We all know, thanks to Jen, I have an occasional cigarette. And, you know, it's not like, no, I couldn't care less. It's not like I live like this Uber crazy healthy lifestyle, but I do eat real food.

Okay. And I think that's really important. I think that's like what goes to your skin and everything. But as far as like products and stuff go, one thing I have coming up on the horizon is a night cream that I've been, it's a prescription night cream that I've been using for many, many years that we're working on reformulating to over the counter. But above and beyond that, I use a lot of Cicely. I do support Iris and Bo, my castmate, Whitney. And Whitney's products are in your shot Meredith Marks in brick and mortar and online? Not online right now.

We're going to do a website for the store because I do carry products other than my own in there, but we haven't done that yet. That's on the horizon. But yes, she is in store. I really like a I really like a lot of products. The ones I've tried so far, I haven't tried everything yet. But the ones I have in my store, I've tried all of those. I've used all of those really great. So I like that. I like Cicely.

I like Definage. I like, what else do I like? Cicely is really good. Yeah, I love Cicely. I forgot about that brand. That's a great brand. I need to go back to that. That black, they have like a black seed oil.

That's a good one. And the pink thing. The rose. Yeah. You used to use Cicist. too and you are way more glowy. I know. Then I almost went broke from it.

That shit is. But it's worth it. It's really good. It's good. Is there any makeup secrets? Like is there anything that you, like a lipstick that you like or an eyelash? I have, I use, for lipstick, I usually will use the Charlotte Tilbury pillow talk and Dior, like that super light pink, almost clear gloss. I don't know what the color is, but it's the only one they make that looks like that.

And what else? Makeup church? I like a very bright under eye. I like to sort of bring the shadow up a little to sort of lift. I try to lift. I'm like getting close to 50. I cannot believe you're getting close to 50. Oh my gosh.

You look amazing. I want to know what the night cream is. I can't wait to see when it's out. It's a little ways out still. But it takes time. Skin care formulations do take some time. I could see you writing a book on marriage too because you do have some really great tips. And I think it is so cool how open you are about it. Because like I said earlier, there's so many people on reality TV that aren't open. In my view, I sort of went into this. And what's interesting is I had watched very, very little reality TV prior to doing this. I had honestly, when I found out I was doing Housewives, I'd never watched a Housewives show before. And so I kind of went through. I had this, what I thought was brilliant idea, not so brilliant, of that I would just watch one

episode from every single franchise so that I could like see the different dynamics. Not such a swift move. I would have been much better sort of watching like a full season of one franchise, but whatever. So I didn't, it's not like I could have come into this manipulating the game because I didn't know how to play the game. Yeah. And I just sort of was like, well, I'll. be me and if they like it, they like it. If they don't, they don't. And that's fine. I'm okay

with that. And that's why I think that my way of approaching this was probably, from what I understand, and I still haven't gone back and watched every housewise, obviously. But from what I understand, the way I approached it was very, very different from how people have done that in the past. And it's because I didn't really know any different. And I just was myself. And that's why it It was funny when there were stuff coming up like authenticity. Oh, is she being authentic? Or is, oh, they fake their separation. I'm like, I wouldn't have known to do that. Are you kidding me? Like, you're giving me way too much credit here, you know? Whoever wants to fake a separation for reality television, you know what? God bless you

because that sounds like the most miserable, horrible thing you can do in your life. And there's just no way. I think that if you're not true to yourself, you know, there's going to be so many inconsistencies that you're just not going to make any sense to the audience. There's just, there's no way for the amount of time that you are on camera. I mean, we are followed by cameras for hours and hours every day. I mean, not seven days a week, but sometimes six, sometimes five, sometimes four, whatever it may be. You, you can't fake it. Like, no one's that good.

Also, the, the biggest gem, I think, too, is. realizing that the audience is not stupid. Right. There's so many people that come on reality TV and think they can outsmart the audience. I always would assume that the audience is smart and everyone that's watching is smart. I feel like that makes it easier to be yourself.

I agree. I mean, for me, it's like the viewers key in on things that I would never even think to look at in a million years. Oh, there's groups that are like fully dedicated. Seth scratched his nose. was while you said this. Right? I mean, it's like insane, like the things that people notice.

And so I just think that if you're trying to deceive or mislead, you may not get caught in it, but you're not going to be well received because you're not going to add up. You're not going to make sense. They're going to be too many holes in what you do. You just won't have longevity because it's too hard to keep up for that period of time. It's too much work. I mean, it's too stressful. I would be, I barely sleep as a.

it is. Like I can't even imagine. Yeah, it's too gnarly. If you were to leave our audience with something that you think makes a successful person, what would that be? Like some kind of tip that you feel makes anyone successful. We have a very millennial audience. So are we talking about success in business or in life or everything? Wow, that's a big question. You know what? If it's life, I would say finding balance, you know, finding not excessive, not deficient, finding what you really need to feel centered and happy and to be poised to find the positive things in your circumstances, whatever they may be. And I think that you have to find balance and live within the mean to be able to do that.

And that means something very different for every person. It's not like a simple answer, not being deficient or excessive, finding your space. where you can live in balance and have positive energy around you because that's everything. The negativity is just toxic and it takes over and it brings you down. I agree. And positive mindset, I think, is sort of a theme of this episode. It's so important. Where can everyone find you?

Where can they shop your jewelry, pimp yourself out? So you can find my jewelry at 511 Main Street in Park City. at Meredithmarks.com on Instagram. It's shop Meredith Marks is my jewelry page. We have at Meredith Marks Park City, which is the stores page or my personal page is at Meredith Marith Marks. At Meredith Marks Zero on Twitter. I do have a TikTok, but I haven't posted anything so we won't go there.

And where can we find the standout star, Brooks? What's his Instagram? Because Brooks is, Brooks is another housewife. Like I'm tuning in for Brooks. He's the best. So he's at brooksmarks.com. We try to keep his tracksuits in the store on Main Street, but unfortunately we sell out often. And production is not so simple right now.

They're cool. Yeah, they're amazing. These tracksuits are amazing. They're totally amazing. And he's on Instagram at shop Brooks Marks and at Brooks Marks. You're amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. I hope when Michael is looking for my push president.

in the next week that he contacts you. You have to get pregnant again. No. It's been a year and a half. It's time for my, I am not getting pregnant until I have a push present. We'll see about that. I don't know if it's fair up to you. We will.

Meredith, you're so inspiring. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you guys so much for having me. It's so nice to have you guys in Dear Valley. I know. We're so excited. Wait, don't go. We have a giveaway as always.

Make sure you've rated and reviewed the podcast on iTunes. And then all you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic and someone from my team will slide into your inbox and send you some skinny confidential goodies, all kinds of fun things. Thank you guys, as always, for listening and make sure you stalk Meredith on Instagram. She has some amazing content.