The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Didn’t See That Coming: Putting Life Back Together When Your World Falls Apart by Rachel Hollis

Episode Date: October 3, 2020

Didn't See That Coming: Putting Life Back Together When Your World Falls Apart by Rachel Hollis msrachelhollis.com Fear. Grief. Loss. Betrayal. Rachel Hollis has felt all those things, and she knows you have too. Now, she takes you to the other side. With her signature humor, heartfelt honesty, and intimate true-life stories, number one New York Times best-selling author Rachel Hollis shows listeners how to seize difficult moments for the learning experiences they are and the value and growth they provide. Rachel Hollis sees you. As the millions who read her number one New York Times best sellers Girl, Wash Your Face and Girl, Stop Apologizing, attend her RISE conferences and follow her on social media know, she also wants to see you transform. When it comes to the “hard seasons” of life - the death of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job - transformation seems impossible when grief and uncertainty dominate your days. Especially when, as Didn’t See that Coming reveals, no one asks to have their future completely rearranged for them. But, as Rachel writes, it is up to you how you come through your pain - you can come through changed for the better, having learned and grown, or stuck in place where your identity becomes rooted in what hurt you. To Rachel, a life well-lived is one of purpose, focused only on the essentials. This is a small book about big feelings: Inspirational, aspirational, and an anchor that shows that darkness can co-exist with the beautiful.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, we're coming here with another great podcast.

We certainly appreciate you tuning in. Be sure to go to youtube.com forward slash Chris Voss. You can see the video version of our incredible interview we're about to have with one of the most brilliant authors we've ever had on the show. We, of course, have all the brilliant authors. We Google them on the Google machine, and they just come to us like magic.

They're just like, the Chris Voss show? Let me on there, because I'm brilliant. So there it is. We want to welcome our newest syndicator, Amazon Music. They let us on their show with a personal invite. So thanks to them for putting us on as an additional syndicate. You can go to Amazon Music and check them out. Also go

to Goodreads.com. Goodreads.com. Search for Chris Voss. We've got a new book club we're establishing over there in a group. So if you're in that community, check it out. If you're not, sign up. It's a great way to find out about great authors, great reviews, and all that good stuff. We put our reviews up over there in a group. So if you're in that community, check it out. If you're not, sign up. It's a great way to find out about great authors, great reviews, and all that good stuff. We put our reviews up over there as well. And also, refer your friends to go to thecbpn.com and subscribe to online podcasts. Today, I'm really excited to have this author on because the last, since

February or March, if you've been under quarantine, it's been kind of dark. It's been kind of tough, and there's some people that I'm sure have had it tougher than I have. But this woman has written a beautiful book that really we could have used in March. I asked her if she had a time travel machine, but she doesn't. But she just put this book out, I believe, September 29th. So this just barely came out. Rachel Hollis. Rachel is with us today. She laid the foundation for her lifestyle brand and media company

with the same unfiltered honesty and staunch inclusivity that made her a two-time, number one, New York Times bestselling author. She connects with the highly engaged and growing global audience of women who treasure her transparency and optimism. She is one of the most sought after motivational speakers and plays host to one of today's top business podcasts and is a proud mom of four who uses her platform to empower and embolden women around the world. Rachel calls Texas home and more specifically the hill country just outside of Austin. We love Austin.

Her book is just out called Didn't See That Coming, Putting Life Back Together When Your World Falls Apart. Welcome to the show, Rachel. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? Good, good, good, good, good. Give us your plugs or people can find you on the interwebs. So my favorite place to hang out in terms of

social media is Instagram. I am Ms. Rachel Hollis on every platform, but Instagram is where you're most likely to find me. And then the website is thehollisco.com. There you go. Now you've written a multitude of books. How many books have you written? I've written 10. This is my ninth one to come out. The 10th one will come out next year. Awesome sauce. And this is a book that, well, let me just ask you what this book is about. What motivated you to write this book, I guess, first? So I went into quarantine here in Austin in March. We, our whole company, you know, we figured out how to work from home. And those first couple of weeks, I was editing the book that was meant to come out this year. And I tend to write with a lot of humor and irreverence. And as I was editing it, I just

thought this feels so tone deaf, like this just feels like the wrong conversation to be having. And I thought, if I'm going to bring a book out in 2020, I have to be able to speak about what we're going through. And unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with crisis and trauma and grief. And so I felt like I not that I had the answers for a global pandemic, because nobody does. But I did have some idea on how you deal with the side effects of what we're going through. And so that's what I started writing. And that is ultimately what came out.

And like I say, I could use this book in March, but of course, you're busy writing it. So and give us an overview of the book, kind of the context of it, and then we'll get into it. So the book is broken up into three parts. It's what to do today, what to do tomorrow and what to do forever. And I start off the book by saying, it's very possible that you're not at a place yet where you can read this. And it was important for me to say that because I know in my own journey of grief, like when I lost my older brother, when I've gone through really hard things, there are times you're like, you are not ready for anybody to give you advice. In fact, if someone tries to give you advice, you're going to come out swinging. So I wanted

to make sure that people understood that you shouldn't read this one unless you processed the way that you're feeling and you want some tools to move forward. So that's how it's split up. What can you do right now? What can you do next? And what are some habits you should establish forever? And quarantine was weird. I mean, it was a shock to everybody. Um, it was, uh, it was, uh, you know, I, I like many people who, uh, do events and travel and do things, speak center center., et cetera, like I'm sure you do, you know, just saw a bunch of pile of money just go up in smoke. And, you know, as I say, just watching event after event, Southwest, which is in your city, Austin, that was very painful for me financially to see that go up in smoke. and, you know, it was just head spinning. And fortunately,

I lived through the 2008 crisis, it wiped down an empire of businesses that I owned for 20 years. And I had to reinvent myself. And so I kind of had the toolbox to go from but the weird grief was there because most people weren't ever quarantined. I mean, I was sleeping four hours at a time having these, I think everyone was having these weird dreams. And I'm sure you were probably going through the same thing at this at the time and decided to write about it. Yeah. And I think what's so interesting that you touched on, because I talked about this too, I had an event planning company, a high end event planning company in 2008. And if you're curious, who wants to do a high end event in 2008? The answer is nobody. So like you having gone through a recession as a business owner before, I, I knew that we would get through it, but I also knew how much it was going to suck. And I don't think everybody

around me had that foresight, you know, that they were worried about, they were anxious, they're worried about different things. And I was like, no, we're going to be fine, but it's going to take us several years and this is going to hurt. And I think you, you hit the nail on the head. And it's something that I don't know that a lot of people are even talking about as business owners. Not only was it the loss of revenue for us as the bulk of my revenue as a business owner, 60 employees like comes from live events that we no longer can do. And what does it look like to pivot? And not only what does it look like to lose that revenue that you were planning on, but what does it look like to sort of hemorrhage

what you did have? Because now you're trying to sort of make everything okay. So it's been a brutal year for so many people. And I think it's really important. I'm just sorry, kick something. I think it's really important for us to be honest about what's hard and how it's hard because we are not the only people who are going through that. Yeah, most definitely. So you talk about fear, grief, loss, and betrayal. And the thing I like about your book is this is going to be a book for a lot of different ages. I mean, even after the quarantine, there'll probably be other crises, but this is something that someone can use as a toolbox. If, you know, any loss, a death of a family member, et cetera, et cetera. Is that correct?

Yeah, that was my hope. I mean, I definitely was writing about the time period we were living in, but I tried to write in a way that was evergreen. My hope was that you could pick this up four years from now if you lost your job or if you lost someone you love or you're just going through something really hard and it would still be relevant then just as it is now. I'm trying to show a picture of your book here, but my iPad won't work with me. So you fill it with humor, honesty, intimate life stories, I guess. Give us an idea of how the book starts out, how you get into it and, and people can get a feel for, uh, uh, how it can help them.

So I write, I tend to write through, um, stories from my own life. I try and use them as sort of, uh, parables for lack of a better word. I tend to almost write in an essay style. So I'm sharing an experience that I've gone through, whether that's the loss of my brother or, you know, navigating problems in my business, breakup, you know, my life as a mom, like all sorts of different things, because I think that those are relatable to readers, no matter who you are, where you are in the world. And then I'm only ever telling readers what worked for me. And it doesn't for one second presuppose that what worked for me will work for you. But my hope is always that even if what worked for me doesn't apply to you, that by me talking about it, by me explaining how I got to that solution, maybe it will encourage you to go on your own journey to figure out what your solution is.

Yeah. And, you know, processing this has been really hard. I mean, it's just been really hard because you're like, are we ever going to come through this? Even most recently when they said, yeah, it might not be until next summer before everyone gets a vaccine. For me, it's been challenging i've had two sisters in care centers so we've been living with uh just the terror because we've seen what happens at these care centers of people going in and then and then i don't know if you talk about this in your book but what's hard to process is the is the insanity of

some of these people that don't care about anyone else but themselves. And they're like, we're not wearing masks. And we're just going to do whatever we want. And you're like, the mask really isn't so much to protect you as it is to protect the rest of us. It's an insane point for us to be in, especially as Americans. Where it used to be Americans were like, yeah, we're all going to bind together. We're going to to kick some butt. And, uh, just the selfish nature of it was extraordinary. Um, and, and so to see that, and then, you know, we have doctors on the show, people have written books through doctors, you know, and they're talking about their waiting room experience and, and they're just like, I mean, I i i can't even imagine being a doctor we're just

like yeah we just uh you know we just uh had to give services to like 10 people a day and and code them and and uh and uh you know and you people won't wear masks like are you do you have any idea what you're doing to us so it it was kind of interesting. What are some different toolbox things that people can use to improve right now or get thinking maybe in some different ways of their paradigms? Yeah, I think that what many people struggle with is this idea that the future is so uncertain, you know, and it's the headline that we've heard a million times and an unknown future and an uncertain future. And I think that's so fascinating because the future has always been unknown.

Always. The difference now is that you're aware of it. That's what scares people that for the first time, maybe in their lives, they realize that they don't have control over the outcome. But the good news is that you are still in control of what you have always been in control of, which is yourself. And I would say when you see other people making choices or doing things and you get angry and you get sad and we sort of lose our faith in humanity or whatever that looks like for you, it just has to keep coming back to like, how can I control my attitude? How can I control my effort here? What can I do to make a difference? Because you can't control strangers. You can't control media. You can't control what's happening in the world, but you can certainly use,

you know, whether it's the platform that you have, Chris, whether it's, you know, people who are listening, whatever you have, whatever ability you have to affect the world around you, you can use it to make the change to be the person that you wish you saw in others. Was it Gandhi said, be the change you wish to see in the world? There you go. I like how you describe that. And you talk about in the book, how basically you, you, you realize what you have power and control over. And that's what people, like you say, they, they feel that loss of control. And so the, the challenges is to make you feel like, what are you empowered? What, what can you do? Um, I remember a long time ago, I was having trouble in my business and I had a friend who'd, um, gotten out of prison and he was a reformed guy. And I remember I called him one day and I

was really despondent about my business. And, you know, my whole life was going to hell, you know, three different houses, two different cars at two different airports at any given time. And my life is, you know, hell. And I call him up and I go, what are you doing right now? He goes, I'm out fishing. And I go, you're a grown man. What are you doing? Fishing. He goes, I like it. It's meditative.

And then I go, what are you going to do later? He goes, I got to go home and work on my garden and pick my strawberries. I was like, garden? Strawberries? What the hell? And then talking to him, I realized he was very much at peace with his life. He liked his simple little things. He loved them because he'd been in prison for a while.

But to him, they were the most important things. And he was happy. And I wasn't. Right. And it made me realize that maybe I need to focus on something other than, you know, what I can control and what really makes me happy. One of the things you start out with in your book is identifying the new you. And I imagine you talk about that a little bit, where you get into some of the trauma you're living with and what trauma might be. Give us a little expansion on what that means. So what is really

interesting is people are describing the hardships to me that they're going through. And what I feel like I'm seeing is people are having identity crisis, but they don't understand that that's what's going on. So anytime that we go through something that's life-changing, and as a global society, we've gone through something that's life-changing this year. It adjusts who we are. But oftentimes, we're trying to live in a new world with the mindset of who we were before. And that's where the tension comes from. And so there's a whole chapter in the book that digs into the different kinds of identity shifts we have as people. How do they affect us? How do they show up in our lives? I really believe that if we can get to the core of why we do what we do as individuals, like if we can understand why am I triggered in this way? Why did that make me so angry? Why did that give me anxiety? Like

if you can understand the why, then I feel like you can find a solution to anything. But if you don't know what's setting you off, if you don't know why you're struggling with something, you're never going to find the tools that you need to get around it. And I love that concept identity because when I went through it in 2008, you know, I was losing companies we built for 20 years. We lost a little empire. And, you know, one by one, you would reason with yourself. You'd be like, well, as long as we can keep these two companies, I'll be fine. Oh, well, as long as we keep that company, we'll be fine. As long as I can keep that property, that'll be fine. And stuff just keeps disappearing because you're going through that. And I had to find a new identity. I had to find a new me. One of the things that helped me with the quarantine was not only that toolbox of recovering

and creating a new person back in 2008, but I had a very good friend who's brilliant. And he wrote on Facebook something, and I was in like a three-day depression. Like I was like, I was just like, oh my God, 2008 again. And he wrote something very simple. He wrote, there's two things you do right now. One, be a lifter. If you can't be a lifter, go find a lifter. And I sat down and I said, what do I have to be a lifter? Because I can't go around finding lifters. I'll lose it.

So it helped me be creative in going. And I'm like, okay, so what assets do I have? I have a podcast. Okay, so what can I do? I can be a lifter through that podcast. And I started going on air and kind of unpacking my toolbox and giving people different things that, okay, I went through this in 2008. Here's some different ideas of what you can do now and some different ways to survive this. I don't know that I was great at it, but I did what I could do. And then we rejiggered the whole show eventually to where it used to be just CEOs and business people we had on the show. Now we have everybody on.

So we have people like yourself and different people that can inspire people, get people thinking and maybe managing their life and everything else. One thing that's interesting when you talk about identity is a lot of people right now are probably suffering, especially in marriages. Like, there's going to be a huge divorce thing after this, from what I understand from all my friends' wives. And there may be a lot of people that need to read your book that might be struggling with that because they're blaming each other and they're going at each other and they're destroying marriages and probably kids are going to be suffering.

One of the things we saw from quarantine that some different people that were running for governor talked to us about was that they're not seeing any child abuse cases turned in anymore because they're not going to school. And so there's lots of probably domestic violence and child abuse that's going on at home. But even then, normal healthy marriages might be collapsing under this. What do you think about that? Well, I'm going through a divorce. So this is something I'm very familiar with.

And I think that one of the things that has happened inside of the world that we're living in in 2020 is that people were forced to slow down. You were forced to slow down. You removed a lot of distractions. And so I think we are seeing things like we're having a mirror held up in front of our face in a lot of ways. And that can be really painful. And it can also be really necessary to sort of see the truth and see what's there. And I think I was driving the other day and I heard on the radio that touched on this a little bit in the book that I was going 100 miles an hour. You know, I was being a mama of four and leading this company and doing this work and writing these books. And so I tend to focus on the parts that really worked. And there are parts of my relationship with him that really worked. We were best friends and, you know, we are such good parents together. We're such a strong family, but then there were

parts that were very unhealthy. And when you remove the distraction and when you remove the hundred miles an hour, then you are forced to look at what that is. And, you know, this is, this is one of the most intense grief periods of my life because i'm grieving the loss of what was but i do think that as humans you know one of our greatest abilities is the ability to hold grief and joy the ability to go through something hard and also see what was good about it and um you um, you know, we were together 18 years and I don't consider that a failure. I think our, our marriage was a massive success. Um, but it looks different now. And a lot of people's lives look different as they move forward

this year. And what comes next is entirely up to us, up to you, up to listeners and the way that we choose to view this situation. Yeah. I think it's important if people, you know, have good marriages, they don't blame each other and identity, but yeah, a lot of people, it is a wilderness of mirrors. It makes you sit down just like 2008 did and go, who am I? What am I about? What is my identity? What do I value? To me, the very basic things came back into play. I mean, I, you know, like you, I'm doing all my stuff. And to me, you know, there's two things that are important to me right now. One, making sure my mother survives this. Two, making sure my sister in a care center, my other sister passed recently, fortunately not of

coronavirus. She had seizures and different issues, but, but, but so for a while there was making sure the two of them didn't get it. But there's not a lot of control we have over the care centers other than, you know, just leaning on them and influence. You're still just a gamble, but we've been fortunate knock on wood at this point. And that's really what became important to me was my mom and my sister and kind of family, I guess, if you will. And so I think a lot of people, you know, like you say, are going to sit down and go, what's my value and who's in my life? And is this important? Does this work anymore? That wilderness of mirrors just starts turning back at you and you're like, wow. And I think a lot of people are going to see broken elements of their life,

like their job, their personal relationships, maybe how they're interacting with their kids. They're probably going to see a whole lot more value interacting with their kids, although there's some parents that might be losing their minds with their kids before they go to school. What I like is you talk in the book about getting back to basics, what's important to you, what matters, the sun's still going to rise. There was a part that I was revisiting right before you came on the show

that kind of helped my dry and my contacts. And you wrote, I want you to know that what's been good will always be good the smell of coconut sunblock a five-year-old showing you the spot where his front tooth used to be home cook neil and your love kisses that exact spot on your neck a grandmother's handwriting a job well done and the kindness of strangers etc etc um you really, you really focus on getting back to basics. And I used to teach this to my employees. It was from the great basketball coach. And you always tell people, you know, I just want to, let's get back to the basics. Let's do the thing. Talk a little bit about that if you would. Well, I think that looks different for all of us,

but it's important to know what your version of that is. The beauty in quarantine was that a lot of us got to slow down. And for me, that looked like I started gardening again for the first time in a really long time. And I started cooking much more than I had been able to. And I just started to enjoy the things that I had always enjoyed, but had kind of forgotten, or you sort of put them off for special occasions. And suddenly every day was a special occasion because it felt really important and it felt fleeting. And so I think, you know, I always tell people we should all have a joy list. I have a joy list in my notebook. I have one on my phone of what are things in your

life that just bring you so much joy that don't have to make sense to other people, but just really make you happy. So I, for me, it's like a cup of coffee in the morning or reading a good book or really comfortable sweatpants. Or I do, I like, I made a list of things and you'll notice that my joy list isn't like staying at a luxury resort or a fancy car they're tangible things that I can access in my daily life and because they're tangible it means that I can get them whenever I need a little pick me up it also makes me really cognizant of how lucky I am to have those little moments. So even when I'm going through something hard, like I am right now, I am so grateful for that cup of coffee in the morning. I'm so grateful for my fuzzy slippers or when my eight year old

tells me the worst joke ever and I laugh and pretend that it's funny. Like I am because I take the time to be intentional about noticing those moments. Even when my life is hard, it feels so blessed. And that's, I think that's what we need to focus on. I really love that. I wrote that down a joy list. I need to make a joy list. I encourage all my, all my listeners to, because focusing on what's important, it's just like my friend who went to who went to prison i mean he's in prison for almost 20 years and i know i call him and be like what are you doing he goes i'm working on my strawberries i'm trying to get really good strawberries and i'd be like what the hell and you know and here i'm you know running all these

businesses and and nothing's working i'm completely unhappy unhappy. Everyone hates me. You know, I can never do enough for everybody as CEO. And, and, and he's really happy. I'm like, what are you doing? He goes, I'm just out fishing in the sun. I like being in the sun. I'm like, why, why the hell is that important? He goes, well, I was in prison for a long time, you know, and you're like, you know, I think he's having a better life than I am at this point. I think he's happier. And, you know, over the years, I've always studied these self-motivational people who are like, you know, find happier. I remember seeing Anthony Robbins in 1989 when he was just starting out. And he's like, you know, I work with people who make, you know, they make $2 million a year, and they're unhappy as hell and miserable because they don't make $3 million a year. And then I work with people who make, you know, $18,000 a year and

they're happy as hell. And what, so what is it? Money doesn't make you happy. And that, that was a lesson that I had to learn. So a couple of different things you talk in your book, I'm just going to riff on some topics you have here. Trying another perspective, change your mind about getting better, hacking your courage. What is that about? Well, I think that so many people believe like that courage or bravery is something that you see in a movie. So we see superheroes and warriors and all of these people doing brave things. And we forget that for some of us, the bravest thing we will do is get out of bed today. For some of us, the bravest thing we do

is stand back up and try again. And so it's a reminder. I mean, there's an entire chapter on fear and courage and what does it look like to show up when you're scared? And what does it look like to find something greater than yourself, find something greater than your fear to propel you forward? Because you as a listener right now, like you absolutely have done things that are brave and courageous. Oftentimes we just don't give ourselves credit for them. So it's about looking to our past and seeing those moments in our life oh wow i did i do show up when it's necessary you know when my back's against the wall i find a way and i keep persevering and i'm still here and so by giving yourself credit for things you've done in the past

it really does give you courage in the future. Yeah. And the thing that really helped me with courage was being honest. And I've learned a long time ago with having a huge audience and social media talking about things, you know, there's some times where I've shared stuff that I really didn't know about sharing. But when I shared, I found there was this well of humanity that also experienced the same thing. And sometimes what I shared, sometimes bleeding out on social media, my pain or my struggle or different things I was going through with death, etc., etc., people are going through the same thing. And in some cases, me talking about it and bleeding out online actually helped them. There was a bunch of people that wrote me and said, I didn't realize that I had a closure with my father's death.

And when you talked about it, I saw what you were going through and realized that I had dealt with it. I think there's two people that wrote me over the years on Twitter and said I was going to commit suicide today. And what you put out saved my life, and I want you to know that. And you're like, I had no put out saved my life. And I want you to know that. And you're like, I had no idea I was suffering, but so what I was doing was calling up my friends and we would, you know, anytime I felt really depressed to call my friends and we'd be honest with each other.

Like, how are you doing, man? Uh, struggling, man. And we talk about it and we'd be really honest about how we were feeling and what was going on. And by the time we got done, realizing that we were all in the same boat together, I don't know, what's the old thing? Miserable. Misery loves company. But we kind of lift each other up because we realize, hey, okay, so my friend's going through it. We're going to be okay.

He says we're going to be okay. We're all just going to get through the thing together and stuff and uh one thing i want to go back to an identity uh that that uh i'll ask you about you know one of the things that people build is is well you know this nice corvette's my identity this this nice house is my day and traveling to europe every year is my identity because that's what I do. And what a lot of people don't have to understand is they're going to have to lose a lot of this stuff. And for me, what it came down to 2018 was I realized that I still had the thing that built and all those companies and did all those things. Fortunately, I was always the guy.

And I could rebuild it all. I still had me. I still had the, I still had the creator me and I was the power and that's what it taught me. But all this other crap wasn't the power. It wasn't all the money and cars and houses and stuff. It was me. And as long as I still had that tool, I could be successful. I don't know if you want to expand on that a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I think that people do this all the time. It's we, we build our identity around things and really that's more ego than it is identity. And if that's removed, then suddenly, and I think people are experiencing this right now in big ways. Like they've lost jobs, they've lost their company, they've lost, you know, a relationship,

they've lost something this year. And they think that with that loss went the identity. And there's an entire chapter on this in the book that you are the only one who decides who you are. You are the only one who gets to say, this is who I am. And this is how I show up in the world. But you have to understand that the world will try and give you a label. It will try and say, this is who we believe you to be. And if you are not conscious of choosing that for yourself and knowing who you are at your core, like I'm, I'm with you all the way. If all of this was stripped away, I, you know, I taught, there's a, there's a chapter in the book on finance, which was kind of a departure for the rest of the book. But I really wanted to talk

about what is the financial implication of a crisis? Because it's one of those things that people kind of want to like pretend is not happening over here, especially women. They, they, they don't want to know what's going on with the money. And then when a crisis strikes, it's too late. And what I write in that chapter was I was like, if this was all stripped away today, if I could not, if everything was taken from me, you'd find me working at the grocery store and the Starbucks, and you'd find me working three jobs or whatever I needed to do to make sure that my family was okay. And I'd still be me. Like you could take away the social following and the success with the books and any of this. And I'm still going to be Rachel. That's who I am at my

core. And it wouldn't bother me for a second to go back to working three jobs. I've done that before because I have utter confidence in my ability to rebuild my life because I know who I am. That's not something you can take. You could take away the rest of it, but you can't take away who I am at my core. That's really beautiful. And I think that's maybe what a lot of people need to focus on and ask with the toolbox in your book is who am I and what am I? And, and that's basically what I had to do in 2008. I had to go, okay, Chris Voss is in all this stuff, but who is Chris Voss? And, and asking those questions. Uh, I like this chapter, choose joy when life sucks.

If you want to talk about that. Yeah. Um, you know, that's basically my motto. I get a lot of flack from people on social media because of how positive I am. And I think that people believe that it's an act or that they think that it's fake to be so positive all the time. But where that comes from is a lifetime of really hard things. And knowing for a fact that it's going to be hard either way. So why wouldn't I try my best to find some happiness, even in a dark time? So I really believe that we should strive to reach for joy. And I don't mean like, you know, immediately, I don't mean when you're reeling, I don't mean that you pretend that you don't hurt or that you're not feeling these things,

but I do believe that we can, it's like having a joy list. Like I'm not saying that you need to go find an experience. You're going to laugh for nine hours. I'm just saying, could you find sweet moments of, of appreciation in your day, even if you're going through something hard? And the answer is of course you can, but it takes effort and it's hard to do that when you're going through something tough. So I just think, man, we're, we're, we're gonna go through this either way. We're going to go through 2020. We're going to go through our life. We're going to go through it no matter what. So we may as well try and go through it with some levity, with something uplifting, with some light in our lives. And for some of us, we're going to have to create that in ourselves.

And you're right. You talk about in the book, we can't change a lot of these things. We can't change coronavirus. We can't change government testing. You know, we can't, we can argue about it on social media all day long, which is what I do. But yeah, I had to sit down and decide, okay, I've always been a leader. People have always followed me. I've always had an audience. I've always had a big mouth for being a CEO in my life since 18. This is what I do. So my job is to be a leader. And I kind of fake it until I made it because I was struggling. But I realized that unless I gave myself something to do, I would just wallow in that struggle. And so using a toolbook like what you've talked about in the book or what I did where I said,

hey, I'm going to go be creative. I'm going to go try and do some new things. I'm going to try and use my toolbox from 2018 that I went through of suffrage to help people. So I started talking to people about how I built my first businesses, how I built them with some money. My first biggest business, I had gotten a two-month. It was like basically my boss, I'd gone to him and said, look, I'm just going to start this business at night. And he knew I was an entrepreneur of his company and I was really entrepreneuristic. And he goes, look, I'm going to give you two months of pay and I want you to go try your stupid little business.

He goes, but here's the deal. If it doesn't succeed after two months, you have to come back and you're working for me for the rest of your life. I don't care. I own you. You know, he meant it in a nice way. I think he was crazy, but he goes, I'm going to need two months of pay to go get this out of your system. And you, you go do it. He goes, but if you're successful at it, you know, we use companies like the one you're trying to start. So maybe you can give me a good deal on some business and stuff. And so he did. He gave me two months of pay. And for two months, I went and rocked the business and created one of our first hugely multimillion-dollar successful businesses.

And so I was telling people during this time, I was giving them that toolbox. And I'm like, look, you're probably getting some money for your employer to do some stuff, or maybe you're, you're getting some employment, unemployment money. Uh, don't sit and watch TV. Don't sit and watch cracker, eat crackers, Netflix and stuff. Uh, get to work. This is a great time to start a new business. And especially when you've got some backup funding, like I had in the beginning. Uh, and so that's really important. Uh, you talk about re-imagining your future. I think this is really good because goal setting, you know, helps you see the future and gives you something to work forward to. Yeah. So goal setting is something that's really important to me. I really believe that we are, we find purpose in progress.

And if you want to have progress in something, you've got to set a goal for yourself, either personally or professionally, and it doesn't matter what it is. I just think it's incredibly powerful that you do have something that you're working toward. So if you are working toward, you know, paying off some debt, or you're working toward getting a raise, or you're working toward making the best banana cake the world has ever known, there's power in moving toward something. And so as you begin to rebuild and as you begin to look at the future and what comes next, challenging yourself to just set a small goal that you can move in the direction of is really, really powerful. Yeah. I like your other thing that you have another tip show up.

What is that about? I just, I mean, I get pretty fired up about, um, you know, people who step into position of leadership, either as a parent or in a company and just sort of crumble. And I know that it might sound harsh to people, but if you have someone counting on you and you can't find it, you can't find the will in yourself to show up. You got to find it for them. And that chapter is me challenging people a little bit on like, no, you have to find a way. This is what you signed up for.

When you signed up to be a leader, you signed up to make sure that whoever you took under your care was protected. And I know it's hard and I know it sucks and I know it's overwhelming, but just show up. Like you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to know how, but you do have to keep showing up for your life. Yeah. That's really important. Cause I, there were some, the bed, in fact, in fact, many times we changed the structure of my podcast to where we started inviting everyone to the podcast, novelists, uh except romance novelists, because there's only so much sex on the beach I can handle. But we opened up the show. We changed the format of the show.

And what's really been nice is I have to show up now a lot, as opposed to, I mean, the publishing companies we opened up to. So I always have to show up. I have to do things. There were a lot of people that, uh, they're really challenged, uh, because they're at home for the first time. And, you know, I've worked at home all my life. Like you probably have. So I'm used to this. I'm used to not knowing what day it is. And there's like a holiday. I'm like, really holidays. Do I get off for this? Uh, you know-7 is my world. And so a lot of people aren't used to working from home. And so productivity-wise, they're not used to having a schedule. And I've seen a lot of people talk about different things. Like, you know what? Especially for women, this is important for them. Dress up like you would like you're going in the office. Absolutely. like you're going in the office at 8 a.m. Have a, have a system just like you would.

Women really like dressing up. It makes them feel good. So dress up like you're going in the office. So when you show up for zoom calls, you look good. You feel good. You know, you're taking care of that self-esteem, that identity and stuff. There's some times where I thought maybe I should start wearing a suit on the show and maybe I should. I don't know. But this is part of showing up and having that schedule and the regimen. And to me, just getting back to basics. What's important to me? I love what you're saying about if you're a parent. I would think of myself, well, okay, so what's my job today? I'm the CEO of family one.

I'm the CEO of this family. Whether you're a mom or dad or you're sharing power, I guess somebody who's the CEO and vice president, most likely the CEO is the mom. The vice president's the dad, I think. I think that's usually how I see it, my married friends. But, you know, think of it maybe that way. This is your business, this is your life, your kids are your employees and you get them to do their jobs and do their chores or something. I don't know. I'm just being funny. One thing you talked about in your book that was really interesting, letting go of guilt. I think this is something that's really important. Yeah. I think that people are really dealing with a lot of that right now of guilt over not being able to control a situation,

guilt over decisions that they've made, guilt over something that they've done in the past. And I just wanted to address that and have a conversation about this idea that you holding on to guilt, like if you have made, you've done your best to make amends, you've apologized, you've tried to move on, you holding on to that guilt does not serve you. And it will not unmake the decisions that you made in the past. And so you really have to ask yourself why you are so carrying around this thing with you that just continues to harm you. It's honestly like you continue to drink poison every day, carrying around the shame. And I hope that in talking about that in that chapter, it gives people some permission to

let go of that. Yeah. And I love that concept because you are going to lose some things. Maybe they be personal relationships. Maybe they might be people that are going to die. I mean, we've, we've had to go through a death in this. Thankfully it wasn't coronavirus, but, but still we had to go through it. And when you're already kind of in a suffering stage, like we all kind of are, and there's loss for everyone, that's an extra kick in the head. And so people have to deal with that, and they have to approach it and go,

okay, we're going to go through this. You know, for me, I've been through death enough to where when something happens like a trauma like this, I realize, okay, here's the stages of going through this catharsis. You've got stage one, stage two. I think there's six stages of grief or seven stages of grief that you have to go through. And then I also have to realize that it takes time to go through those. I have to give myself time. And I've seen some people go, okay, well, yeah, I'll get through it and it'll be fine. And you're like, no, man, it's really better if you just kind of embrace this, realize you're going through it, because otherwise you end up being really crappy to other people. And I think some people, this is a bad opportunity to be crappy to other people.

I might have been guilty of some of that in the last six months because everyone's struggling. But I think if we all realize we're going through that, then there we are. I think this is a great book. This is a beautiful book. It should be a, we should get the government to buy it and just issue it to everybody. I'll work on that. Anything more we need to know about your book, Rachel, before.

No, I mean, I thank you so much. We've really gone into detail. And I think I hope that if someone heard something that sort of resonated with them, that they'll check it out and see if there might be something in it that will be helpful. Thank you for being on the show, Rachel. Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me. Pick up the book, guys.

It's Didn't See That Coming? Putting Life Back Together When Your World Falls Apart. I would highly, highly, highly recommend you get this book. It just came out on September 29th by Rachel Hollis. Rachel, give us your plugs or people can look at you on the interwebs? And I don't know if you want to plug any of your other books. You have a whole bunch of them looking here on Amazon. All sorts of books.

Yeah. So you can check out the website. It's thehollisco.com. And my favorite social platform is Instagram. I'm Ms. Rachel Hollis over there. And all sorts of books. Like I said, this is the ninth book to come out. So I've written in fiction.

I've written cookbooks. I've written self-help. You can find all of that anywhere books are sold. Cookbooks. Everyone's doing cooking these days. Even I've been doing more cooking. That's old. Yeah, those are old school for me.

Getting ready for the basics. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, thanks, Myonis, for tuning in. Be sure to go to, you can see all the books of all the great authors that have been on the show, including Rachel. And you can just click on them and order them. And this is a great time to do that introspective, as we talked about. Read, educate your mind, increase your value to not only yourself, but maybe your businesses or maybe businesses you create.

Go to Amazon.com forward slash shop forward slash Chris Foss. You can see all the authors of all the books that have been on the show. You can follow me on goodreads.com under Chris Foss, our newest syndicator, Amazon Music. Check us out over there, but you can get us on iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, Google Play, all this. There's like a billion syndicators you can find on thecvpn.com, an online podcast. And, wow, I think that's all the plugs we have. Thanks for tuning in, guys. We certainly appreciate you guys.

Stay safe. Register to vote. Wear your mask. Protect your loved ones and everyone else. Give everyone else a hug. And we'll see you guys next time.