The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - 10 Life Changing Lessons Learned by Doing Over 400 Podcast Interviews

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

#423: On today's episode Lauryn & Michael are kicking off the New Year by sharing 10 of the greatest life changing lessons they have learned by doing over 400 podcast interviews in the course of almost 6 years. Listeners can apply these lessons to areas of their own life and career to kick start the New Year! 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. 

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. It is a new year. New year, new you. But really, I traveled for the new year. And I cannot believe when I travel how much plain puff I have. And I posted something about it on Instagram story. And so many of you guys slid into my DMs and was like, oh my god, I never had a word for why I get so puffy. My ankles swell, my cheeks swell, my stomach swells. And that is why I ice roll. I take freezing cold showers every single day for three minutes and I use Array. You've seen Array all over my Instagram. Melissa Wood Health talks about it. I know Arielle Lohr from the Blonde Files loves it.

It is basically created to help women feel their best so they can be their best. And what they do is they really target bloat. So they have these bloat capsules that I cannot stop talking about. Not only do they help me with plain puff, they also helped me with any digestive issues while I'm abroad.

And if I have digestive issues after eating like a huge burger, it really helps to calm the bloat. So if you're someone who's prone to discomfort, gas, or bloating after you eat, you got to try this. I really also like their products because I got a chance to meet the founders and interview them. And their products are all 100% natural, filler-free, organic, and formulated by a doctor. I personally really looked into the ingredients before trying this and the ingredients are insane. They have like bromelain, which is found in pineapple. I know I took that

and a lot of pineapple after I had my boobs done and it helped with swelling. Their product also comes with like peppermint leaf in it, ginger root, lemon balm, dandelion root, and slippery elm, which is my personal favorite. And of course, we worked out a discount for you. You are going to go to Array. That's A-R-R-A-E.com and use code SKINNY at checkout and you get 10% off of a one-time purchase or you get 25% off the first month subscription. I would recommend getting a subscription. I take it all the time. I hope you love it. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie.

And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. Happy New Year's, everybody. Apologies for anybody watching this on video. I know I look absolutely absurd. I'm wearing these blue blocking glasses because my eyes are just killing me. I think we've spent way too much time on screens, on Zooms. I think I'm done with the video for a while, or at least looking at video. This episode is going to be unique.

It's another solo episode from us. And Lauren and I were talking the other day and we thought, you know, we've done over 400 of these podcasts. We've got to meet so many incredible people, so many entrepreneurs, celebrities, authors, thought leaders, experts. And we do have to be a bunch of idiots

if we didn't pick up a couple things along the way. We've learned a couple things here and there from these people that we brought on. We definitely have. So we put together a list for you of 10 life-changing lessons learned by doing over 400 podcasts. And we really wanted to sit down and think about what those lessons were. So today we did a ton of brainstorming on our walk especially. And we just really wanted to give you guys lessons that you could go and apply to your own life for the new year. Yep. And this is for those, you know, maybe you're new to the show and you haven't listened to all 400 episodes. I can't believe

you haven't. I mean, how dare you go back and please listen to every single one. But high level, if you want to just jump in and say like, what can this show potentially teach me? What has it taught us? It's taught us a lot of things. And this is definitely, this list of 10 is definitely not everything we've learned, but high level, I think these are some of the more impactful ones. And honestly, this first one, Lauren, I think is probably like, if you just learned this one lesson from the show, it could live at the top of the list. It could be the only lesson to learn. I think it might be the most important thing we've learned. And that's that everybody has a story that's unique to them. Everybody has a story worth listening to. I think because we get to speak to so many people, Lauren and I, you and I,

we get to hear so many different backgrounds, so many different experiences. And I think what it's done for us is it's made us way more open to hearing other people's stories and perspectives and not being so quick to judge about how they come to their conclusions. Absolutely. I think one of the things that my parents instilled in me that I really want to instill in Zaza is to have a flexible mind. And I think having a flexible mind and learning that in childhood is obviously important, but I think it's important to actually work on every single day having a flexible mind. So what I mean by that is I like to surround myself with people with tons of different opinions

and tons of different stories. I don't want to go to dinner or hang out with people that all have the same mindset. To me, that sounds very boring. And so the podcast, what it's done for Michael and I, and what I hope it's done for you guys, because we obviously record the episodes, is it's made my mind more flexible every single day. Yeah. I think you and I are both very aware that every guest is not going to resonate with every listener. We are not numb to the fact that sometimes we have characters on here that some people might say, why the hell are they having them on there? But I think what's important to both you and I is that, especially now,

we live in a time where people are so stuck in their own ways, especially politically. They only want to look at the world from their perspective. They have a very difficult time, and not everybody, but a lot of people have a very difficult time looking at another point of view, respecting another point of view, understanding why some people may think differently than them. And while we came into this show from the beginning as what we thought were open-minded people, this show has reinforced, I think, for both of us continuing to be open-minded. You start to think, let's take Spencer Pratt, for example.

He's been on this show. When we first had him on, so many people had such a specific opinion of him. Sometimes some may say a negative opinion. And I think after that, we got so many messages to our DM saying like, wow, I never thought of Spencer that way. Or I never realized he went through that. Or even someone like Nick Ritchie, that ran the dirty, if you haven't listened to that episode. So many people had such a strong opinion of him and his character. And then they listen to that episode like, oh, I can understand what happened now a little bit more. And I just think having different walks of life, having people that have counter opinions and ideas of your own makes you such a more open-minded and powerful person. Yeah. I think even with people that I don't agree with personally, I love hearing

where they're coming from. I don't think there's anything wrong with learning about why they think the way they think or reasons that they do something. What I've realized through this podcast, like Michael said, everyone has a story, but like when you understand the story, it helps you to understand why they do certain things. Yeah. I feel like if you're not, if you don't look at life this way, you go through life half blind, right? If you can only see the world from your perspective and your point of view, and you can't understand why somebody else may come to the opinions they come to, you're literally going through life half blind. So again, I think the first lesson here, and if this show has taught any of our listeners and us anything, it's that everyone has a story. Everybody has a story worth listening to. Whether you agree with that story or

not, you can reserve for after you've listened. But by listening, you make yourself a more rounded person, a well-rounded person. You open yourself up to new ideas, more empathy, but greater understanding. And listen, you might learn a thing or two. And I think a granular takeaway is maybe next time you're at dinner or Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever it is, and you disagree with someone, instead of trying to prove them wrong and telling them why they're wrong, listen to why they came to that conclusion. And if you really want to listen to an episode

that will blow your fucking mind and a person that I think has been judged so many times and her story makes so much sense is Molly Bloom. She was one of our best episodes, in my opinion, this year. And to hear her story about why she did certain things was so mind opening. And I think if you can just take that little piece of advice into your real life, it will make a big difference in how you react to people and respond. Yep. Like I said, you could probably just take this one lesson, high level,

apply it to your life. And it'd probably be the biggest lessons you could take away from this show. You might not even have to listen to the rest. If you do want to listen to the rest, here's the second one. We have found that, and this is a hard thing because so many people, especially after the last few years, they're going through struggle. They're going through hard times. Maybe you've lost a job. Maybe you've had to change careers. Even something small, you thought you were going to get married. You had to put your wedding on hold. You thought you were going to get in this relationship. It didn't work out. Of all the guests we've had on this show, one of the common themes is that struggle is the doorway to happiness. So many high achievers that have been on this show and shared their stories,

they share this long story of struggle and hardship and a time when they felt down and out and like it was never going to get better. And what we found, and even in our own personal life, is struggle is the doorway to happiness. There has not yet been anyone on this show that we've met that hasn't gone through an extreme struggle or hardship or has been through a really rough patch that is successful without going through that struggle. So if you're listening to this and you're someone that feels like you're down and out and that life is really tough, understand that this is part of the process and that it is the doorway to happiness and success. Take someone like Khalil Rafati, for example. I know he's a fan favorite, hi Khalil,

of the show. If you look at Khalil's story, down and out drug addict, no money, living on Skid Row, homeless to now running a burgeoning empire of Sun Life Organics that everybody loves, completely healthy, completely happy. That struggle, that part of his life is what's made him who he is today. I think a really great book to read on what Michael's saying is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. He's been on this podcast multiple times and he talks about this whole concept about how you have to get uncomfortable to get comfortable. It's part of the process. If you're just comfortable every single day of your life, that is not the pathway to enlightenment. In fact, we just had a Marine on the podcast, shout out to Nate, and he was saying that we

aren't going to become enlightened sitting in our house, ordering Postmates, having everything warm and cozy and comfortable. How we're actually going to grow is through adversity and putting ourselves out there. Yeah. And Lauren, and you personally have had a ton of adversity, which you've shared on this show, obviously losing your mother at a young age and having to go through that struggle. I think people could look at this show and the end result of kind of where we are now. And listen, we're still working and still growing and still trying to get there. But people would say, oh, wow, it's been so easy. There hasn't been any struggle. That is completely not the case. You yourself have been through more struggle than most people will ever begin to fathom in their life. And I think part of that

struggle has made you who you are. It's built resilience. It's built character. It's built tenacity. It's built all of these things that without, you may not be who you are now. We may not be where we are now. I just think that there's no good without the bad. I really do believe that. And I think, yes, it builds resilience, which is really important, but it also builds resourcefulness and finding out different angles and ways to do things differently. And so I personally think Ryan Holiday could not have been more spot on with that book, The Obstacle is the Way. And maybe you could tell us some episodes that we could listen to, to learn more about that topic. I think even listening to someone like Joseph Nels from Straight Pepper Diet,

that was a great episode. People can go back and check that one out. Anyone with Khalil, hearing his story and him going from rock bottom to where he is. And just to get micro with you, the first episode with Joseph is all about how he was addicted to massage parlors and drugs and alcohol and how he came- Jail. Jail, how he went to jail and how he came out of that. Another good one is Ingrid Delamar Kenny. She ended up going to jail for a year. She had three young children at home. That one is all about overcoming adversity. And then of course, Khalil, who was literally homeless, shooting heroin and smoking crack in gas station bathrooms. And now like Michael said, he's thriving at Sun Life. Our buddy Doug Bobes.

That's a good one. Doug's been, you know, really been through it. The reason that we shared this one is number two is I know there's a lot of people that are struggling, a lot of people that are going through it. And I want you to, if you are one of those people, I want you to understand that this is part of the process. This is part of it. This is the pathway to happiness and fulfillment and success. You just got to get through it.

And the key there is just to keep going, not give up and recognize that this is teaching you something that will benefit you down the line. So that's number two. And like I said, we haven't really had any really successful guests on the show that haven't shared some level of struggle that they went through at earlier period of their life. The third one is all about focus. And Lauren and I have done episodes recently.

We just did that one on six strategies on how to focus more. But all of the high performing guests that we've had on this show, the successful entrepreneurs, the successful celebrities, the successful thought leaders, podcasters, whoever it is, they have a certain level of focus that stands out far and above than what the average person has in terms of focus. And if you start to extrapolate what Lauren and I have taken from these people, you could take someone like Robert Greene who what I would encourage people to do and the takeaway here that we've learned is nothing good in life, nothing lasting, nothing for an extreme success comes without a certain level of extreme focus.

This can be a weird little vortex that's happening right now. We have like a hibernation period going on. And some people feel depressed and anxious. I know this because I've been texting with a lot of my friends, talking to you guys through DMs. And I feel like I've found a tool in my toolbox that can really help. And that is called BetterHelp. Everything is digital online and you can connect in a safe and private online environment. It is so convenient, which is exactly what we need right now. A lot of people want to be in the comfort of their own home. And what BetterHelp does is it assesses your needs and matches you with your own licensed professional therapist. I have been super talkative about my experience with therapy.

I think if you find the right therapist, it can be incredibly liberating and therapeutic. So I want you guys to know that this is not a crisis line and it's not self-help. It's actually a professional counseling done securely online. So you can send a message to your counselor anytime. One question that I had for better help that I got answered for you guys is about confidentiality and everything is confidential. So anything you share is private. It's convenient. It's professional. It's affordable. I'm telling you, if you have depression, stress, anxiety, especially this time of year, family conflicts, grief, self-esteem, anger, BetterHelp is there to help you. I want you to start living a happier life today. And as a listener of the Skinny Confidential, him and her show, you'll get 10% off your first month by visiting our sponsor at

betterhelp.com slash skinny. Join over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health. Again, that's betterhelp.com. Yeah. And I think Robert Greene too came on this podcast and said that he has a specific ritual that he repeats every single day. And yes, it's maybe boring to some people and it's not fun to repeat the same thing every day, but it's helped him write all these incredible books. He's one of, in my opinion, the most prolific author and he has the same morning routine. So it's like applying that focus to small things in your life. The focus doesn't need to be this big overwhelming thing where you focus for four hours. The focus could

be as small as meditating for five to 20 minutes every single day. The focus could be that you write for 30 minutes in the morning. The focus could be that you put headphones on and you sit down and you post Instagrams for 30 minutes. Whatever that focus is, it seems to us that focus is a key ingredient in success. Well, I think, and tell me if you disagree, sometimes focus can be boring, right? Focus is boring. We did just an episode on it. We did a solo episode on focus and it is boring.

It's why I think so many people get distracted, right? Like you're doing this monotonous thing over and over and sometimes you feel like you're staying in the same place and you're doing the same thing. But again, most of the high achievers we've had on the show, you really start to strip it down and dumb down what makes them successful. And they're just so focused. They're not distracted what's going on in the news cycle. They're not distracted with what their friends are doing or what the outside world thinks or what social media thinks of them. They're just focused doing

them day in, day out, day after day after day. And it may feel monotonous. It may feel boring. It may feel slow. But I'm telling you what we've learned interviewing all of these people is that these high achievers are extremely focused. And so if we can encourage anyone to just focus, block out the outside world, do what you're doing, even if it feels boring, even if your friends tell you they don't get it, stay focused. What I would say too, before we move on to the next one is just a couple of little tools that I use to focus. As you guys know, Michael and I time batch, we use a calendar that's very color coded and specific.

We have time in our calendar to have creative time. We have reading time in our calendar. We have meditating in our calendar. Obviously we don't hit it every single day. But the point is, is those focused 5 to 10 to 20 to 30 minute periods are in the calendar to hold us accountable. I also think that you could focus by, like I said, just putting noise canceling headphones on, using a time cube, making sure that you're in an area where you can focus. But really, it is those little tiny habits of focus, even if they're five minutes,

that add up every day. This is a tangent. People know that I'm a passionate reader. I love to read. I think that, again, and this is not on the list, but if I could put a number 11, I would say most people that come on this show that are successful have some level of consumption when it comes to reading books. And I really am intentional personally about taking time to read all sorts of different things, whether that's fiction or history or biography or factual books or random books like that one I always talk about on the subject of salt or whatever. And one of the questions I get all the time is how do you find time to read? And it's exactly this. I stay extremely focused when it comes to reading. I take time. I schedule it in the calendar. I actually put's exactly this. I stay extremely focused when it comes to reading.

I take time. I schedule it in the calendar. I actually put a timer on. I get rid of my phone. I get rid of distractions. I go in a quiet room and I say, okay, I'm going to read for X period of time. And when I think when you're first starting and you're saying, this is overwhelming, I don't want to set a certain amount of time or a certain amount of pages. If you can just set a period of time in the day when you're going to be focusing, I'm going to read one to two pages, one to five pages, dedicated period of time. I promise you over time, your life will change and you'll start even just developing a simple habit of reading and focused reading will extrapolate into all other areas of your life. And once you learn how to do that, you'll be able to translate that to so many other areas of your life. So again,

just little things like that when it comes to focus, being intentional, getting rid of distractions, not listening to outside noises and just staying focused and hunkering down will make all the difference. And I promise you it's made all the difference in many of the people that we've interviewed on this show. And read the book, Deep Work. Yes, that's a good... I mean, if you really want to get into focus, Deep Work by Cal Newport is a great book.

Yes. This next one, Lauren, I feel like you can speak to. I feel like you nailed this one on the head and you've taught me a lot, but take it away. The next one is Be Yourself. This is such a good one in my opinion. Everyone who we have met who is successful on this podcast has found a place at the success table by doubling down in themselves, their interests, their successes. They are not trying to be anyone else but themselves. They're being them. They're being them. I think in 2021 and going into 2022, people do not have time for bullshit snake oil fakeness. I think people, they don't want censored fake

podcasts. They want real people with their real opinion being themselves. Well, listen, there's something endearing about somebody, whether you may, we've met so many people on this show. When you first meet them, you're like, oh, I don't know. But after getting to know them, you're like, wow, this is who this person is. This is the real deal. And I think there's some reason that these people have found success. And I think even you personally, you found success being yourself. There's something endearing when somebody is just living in their authentic personality. They're not trying to be someone else. It's not curated and it's unique. And that's the biggest thing here. The reason it's so important for you to be yourself and what we have figured out is so important for these people that have found success

is that this is the only thing that you can't be duplicated. You cannot duplicate somebody's individual personality. It can't be copied. It can't be mimicked in an effective way. I could say, I should say an effective way. Every time you're authentically yourself showing up as yourself, you stand out as an individual.

You stand out as unique. You stand out as different. And that gets people's attention. That draws people in. Not everybody, which we'll get to in a second. But for the high majority of people that come on this show that have found success, it's because they're individually themselves. I 100% agree with you. I think that it's very obvious when someone's trying to be a second rate version of someone else. And I think maybe you can speak to this because you at Dear Media get pitched a lot of different podcast ideas and people will come in and they'll say,

I want to be the next so-and-so. I want to be the next Joe Rogan. And you have always told me this and I think it's so commendable. It's like, come in and stop saying you want to be the next this. Be you. Yeah, I think that I'll put my network executive hat on. I think the most interesting and compelling pitches or the compelling people that come in is they come in without comparing themselves to who else is out in the market or what somebody else is doing.

They come in and it's like automatically just this huge bright light where like, wow, that person was unique. Wow, what like, what an individual and it stands out. And that's the key thing there is it stands out. And what we've deciphered over meeting all these people, we start to think like, look at someone like our friend, Taro from Four Sigmatic, who's been on this show. He's been on three times and he has been so individually himself. You know, he grew up foraging for mushrooms in Finland, His mom, multi-generational mushroom farmers, or is that how you call it? Farmers? I don't even know. But basically- Foragers.

Foragers. And he's so passionate about it. You can hear it in his voice. He is the mushroom king. He lives and breathes this stuff. And look what's happened since then. He's built a company. He's built a brand. It's like, who would have ever thought just being yourself and loving mushrooms and embracing that would lead to this massive success, which is now Four Sigmatic and the rest is history. And so I think we live in a time where there's so much abundance of opportunity that by doubling down on who you are, your passions, your strengths, your ideas, your personality, you really have opportunity. And what I see personally now on the other side of that is the people that try to be a second rate version of somebody else, they never make it. So that's when you're saying, when you're asking me about Dear Media, those are typically the conversations that I pass on or say no to, no matter how big the

person's platform is. I'm looking for unique people. And I think what we've found on this show is the people that are uniquely themselves have found the most success. It's so easy too, to just be yourself, to show up as yourself. And my thing is, I don't, I mean, I try not to consume tons of different content. I'm really purposeful and mindful about the content I consume. Because I have, you know,

there's a couple of people that I know that they just sit on Instagram and they consume everyone else's content. And what ends up happening is it sort of saturates their own personality because they've just consumed so much content that they don't even know what they want to be. Yeah. Well, you just kind of hit the nail on the head there about it's such an easy concept to be yourself that people don't think of it as a strategy. Does that make sense?

It makes total sense. And I think that it really is just showing up and being yourself. I mean, there's no strategy. There's no formula. You just be yourself. So that's what's such a mindfuck to people is people look at people that have been successful and they think, okay, what are the things that I need to do to be... And listen, there's certain traits that you can do. You show up stupid tactics.

You show up early, you know, beyond like all the... Whatever it is, you know, we're not going to get into need to do to be... And listen, there are certain traits that you can do. You show up stupid tactics. You show up early, beyond whatever it is. We're not going to get into tactics on how to be successful. But people don't look at being themselves as a strategy because it's such a simple and easy concept. But it really is a superpower. And the reason people have so much trouble doing that is because a lot of people just aren't comfortable with themselves. They're not comfortable with the version of themselves

that they present to the world. So they think they need to emulate someone else. The problem with emulating someone else is you can never really do it as effectively as that person, right? Like if I wanted to be like you, Lauren, I couldn't, I would be a second or third rate version of you. I couldn't do what you do as effectively. So you have all these people going through life, trying to be like other people. And it actually puts them back a step because they don't actually believe by being themselves, they can find success. So the point of this one is be yourself, everyone else is taken. And that's not my quote. It's someone else's quote. Sure. But it is speaking to all these individuals that have found success.

One common theme is that they are uniquely themselves. Next up. Next one. And this is kind of a tail off of that what we just talked about is, and this is an even harder concept and why I think it's so hard for people to be themselves. Next up. Next one. And this is kind of a tale off of that. What we just talked about is, and this is an even harder concept and why I think it's so hard for people to be themselves. If this show has taught us anything and boy, have we caught flack over the years for it and it hasn't always been easy, but I'll just use us as an example here. I'm not even going to cite the guests. I'm going to be kind of narcissistic and use us here is you don't want to be for everybody. You don't want to, you want to be for everybody. You want to be for the few that really are there for you, for your community, for your audience, for your product,

for your service. And that's okay. Again, ourselves, the high majority of people we've met, they're not trying to be for everybody. I think we live in a time where people believe they need to be for everybody. They need to capture every customer, every audience member. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't happen. Well, we were talking about this on our walk and you said such a good example. You said Oprah, who obviously is like a queen,

knew exactly who she was talking to. When she was a host, she knew exactly who her demo was. She wasn't trying to like appeal to 18-year-olds or 75-year-olds. She knew exactly who she was talking to. So I would say, if you're a content creator, really sit down and name the person you're talking to. What color nail polish does he or she wear? What kind of job do they work at? What kind of things do they like? Really zone in on who you are speaking to because you can't be for everybody. I am going to give you the hack of 2022. If you want to reduce food waste, save time on grocery shopping, and eat more fresh and delicious food, then you need to try Imperfect Food. Okay, so I tested this out and I can tell you this is

very on brand. So it's this grocery delivery service and it offers an entire line of sustainable groceries that taste absolutely incredible while reducing waste. So what you can do is you can go to imperfectfoods.com and see if they deliver to your area. And once you sign up, you get to personalize your weekly grocery list. So you can go on there and you can get fresh seasonal produce, all the staples for your pantry, and tons of snacks that are Zaza approved. And you can do it in one swoop. There's no more going to the grocery store, guys. That wastes time. That wastes gas. You have to park. You run into someone from high school, which is such a bitch. You don't have time for that. You want to just do your order on

imperfectfoods.com and then you get everything delivered to your door. And here's the thing, you're saving while you're shopping. So Imperfect Food customers save six to eight pounds of food with every order. And here's a fun fact, Imperfect Food customers save six to eight pounds of food with every order. So unlike other on-demand delivery companies, Imperfect delivers weekly by neighborhood. This is such a unique model and I find it so interesting. So say goodbye to packaging guilt. I'm telling you, they are a national grocery delivery company to check out and it's saving you time. So I go on, I get my groceries for Michael. I get my groceries for me. I'm being

sustainable. Zaza has her stuff all in one swoop. And right now, Imperfect Foods is offering all of our listeners 20% off your first four orders. That is crazy. When you go to imperfectfoods.com and use promo code PINKFOOD, again, that's 20% off your first four orders. That is up to an $80 value. You're going to go to imperfectfoods.com, offer code when you use promo PINKFOOD. Join the movement at imperfectfoods.com. code when you use promo pink food. Join the movement at imperfectfoods.com. Use code pink food. No, you don't want to be. And especially now when we live in a politically charged time, people feel like they have to edit themselves. Part of one of the things in this lesson about not being for everybody is stop editing yourself. Stop worrying about editing every single thing you say,

every single thing you do, thinking so much and so far in advance of, if I say this, am I going to offend this person? If I say that, am I going to offend this person? You will end up in a situation where it's a constant, every single step you take is a minefield, right? I know for a fact that there are things on this show that Lauren and I say that rub people the wrong way. I know we are not always politically correct.

I know there are people that are probably sitting out there in the Reddit threads, screaming and whining about what we're doing. I do not care. I literally- What threads? Because it's impossible, right? And this is where I think people fall into a trap, especially business operators, content creators, people that are putting themselves out there publicly. They get into the trap of thinking they need to be for everybody. And I can tell you from the people that we've met on this show for ourselves personally, as soon as you get over that hump of needing to be liked by everybody,

you will start to find massive success by speaking to the community that's there for you. And they will support you and they will double down on you for those that have been doing that. Love you. Thank you. But you cannot go through life worrying about what everybody's going to think, what your aunt Susie's going to think, what Jim from high school is going to think, what the guy next door is going to think. It's impossible to make any headway. And all of the successful people we've met have their blinders on. They're uniquely themselves. They're not worried about what everyone thinks. They're not trying to harm anybody, but they, again, they're doing them. They're not worried about what the outside world is going to chime in on everything they say, do, think, et cetera. Also, not everyone's

going to like you. Not everyone likes me. I'm okay with that. I understand that people will come to my Instagram page and they'll see fake tits in pink and they just will zone out. And that's like totally fine. And here's a little secret for the people that this is a little bit of victory that I always have. These stupid algorithms that everybody worries about, positive, negative reviews, they move these shows up when it comes to podcasts, regardless, positive, negative, when people are chiming in. So if they love you, they hate you, it's more attention on you. Back when Howard Stern did that private part show and they did that whole thing, what they call that guy, the guy that was the villain in the show. I can't remember. Remember that guy's name? Anyways,

the ratings came out and the listenership and it was like, here's how many listeners are getting. And he said, well, I can't believe his numbers are so up. What about the people that hate him? And they found the people that hate him were listening twice as much as the people that loved him. So if anybody's out there and they're nervous, just look at it as more attention. If you have a product or a service and it's getting pressed, good or bad, just look at it as more attention. Honestly, I have to be honest about this. I have never once in my entire life thought about the algorithms, ever. That word has never entered my ether. Sure, but people that do. But I just noticed sometimes on Instagram, this is just like a tangent, that people will be like,

guys, make sure you turn on my notifications because the algorithm, can you see this post? I don't even think about that because you can't control the algorithms. No. And here's again, like here's where people run into trouble by overly editing themselves and curating. That is exhausting to keep up with, right? Constantly editing yourself, constantly editing what you say, constantly worrying about what people think. That is not a long-term strategy because it's a matter of time before you step in the wrong direction and offend a group of people or upset somebody or piss off a customer and they're going to attack you for it. It's much better to just go... Jillian Michaels was a perfect example. She came on the show a while back and said, I know I'm not for everybody. I know people may not like me, but at the end of the day, people know that she's authentically being herself and

that she's being true to herself. And even if they hate her, they can at least say, well, at least she's in integrity. That cannot be said for a lot of people. But what I will say is the successful people that have been on this show, they are authentically themselves. They know they're not for everybody and they find success regardless and you will too next one I love this one confidence is a muscle it grows weaker or stronger as we work it out So people either become less confident or more confident as life goes I am a believer and i'm not saying my opinions and i'll be all That confidence is a choice It's something that you can work at. It's a practice.

It's not an easy choice. It's not an easy choice, but this goes back to the one that struggle is the doorway to happiness. It's not an easy choice, but it's something that when people say, oh, I wasn't born with confidence. That is, in my opinion, a losing mindset and it's scarcity and it's not abundant. Well, what we've learned, you know, Ed Milet's a perfect example. We, you know, people love him on this show. And we, one of the biggest questions that we get asked all the time is how do you build confidence? Where does confidence come from?

And what Ed says, and tell me Lauren, if I'm butchering this, he says, confidence is the promises you keep to yourself. And he basically says that it works both ways. You either keep those promises and continue to build this confidence muscle and get better and more confident over time, or you go the opposite direction and you break promises to yourself and you're not in integrity with yourself,

in which case you get less confident. The reason I love that so much is that there's been so many books written about confidence or there's been so many like workbooks or just all this content on confidence. But what Ed does is he really boils it down to you being in charge of your own future. So I would say if you want to be more confident, just wake up tomorrow and commit to one thing every day that you're going to do. So it could be, I'm going to meditate for five minutes tomorrow.

Keep that promise. Maybe the next day it's seven minutes I'm going to meditate for five minutes tomorrow. Keep that promise. Maybe the next day it's seven minutes. Maybe the next day it's 10 minutes, whatever that is, make sure you're keeping the little promises that you keep, that you make to yourself. I think that's really important and really gives you a foundation. Yeah. Well, and listen, you're one of the lucky people that for whatever reason you were born to be able to go on stage and be comfortable in front of people and publicly speak and create content and all these things. But I think there's a lot of people, myself included in the past, that's some of their greatest fears. My biggest fear when we first started this show, and I'll give people a little gem. If you go back to, I think it was March 15th or 16th of 2016, around then, our first episodes. And even if you go back a little

further to our friend, Gary Vee from obviously Gary Vaynerchuk, my first public appearance on any media platform was on Gary's show with Lauren. And I kind of finagled my way on there, knowing that we were- Literally manipulated your way on. Literally, if you look at me in that episode, I don't have a mic. I'm pretty nervous. Why are you even on that episode? I wasn't supposed to be. Thanks for having me on Gary D Rock. Thanks. But me on, Gary. DRock, thanks. But at the time, I was terrified to publicly speak. And I told myself, okay, for whatever reason, confident in other areas, but this certain

area, and I think this applies to a lot of people, I was very uncomfortable. I was not confident. So I said, okay, you know what? I'm going to throw myself out there. I'm going to go on a big show. And I'm going to make a commitment to start speaking on a mic every single week with my wife for as long as it takes for me to be comfortable. And as you can see, now you can't shut me the fuck up. And I'm completely confident and comfortable when it comes to public speaking,

both in person, on a mic. And it's just because we've done it for so long and we've had that consistency. Oh, what a monster that I've created. But I think like, again, people, what we've learned is everybody that comes on this show that's that shares a vulnerability or shares on a time when they weren't confident. It's they build this confidence muscle over time. They don't just, you don't just look at an Ed Milet and be like, damn, this guy's just confident right away. Or you don't just look at a Ben Greenfield who comes on here and rattles off of health encyclopedia and to say like these people have been constantly practicing on this confidence muscle

and working at it. And it goes both ways. You either let it defeat you or you let it grow you. Next up, vulnerability and honesty is a superpower. Being guarded and curated is a weakness. So this I think is a big theme

going into 2022. What I have noticed is that people are bored with the Instagram feed and they're more interested in stories and podcasts and TikTok. I have seen this and I think it's because people are sick of the picture perfect magazine editorial feature. They want to hear what you're about. They want to hear if you have depth or not. I noticed that there's a lot of content creators that I maybe followed in 2010.

I'm sure a lot of you guys can agree that maybe now they haven't evolved and they're still doing what they did in 2010. And it's almost working against them. Yeah, let me give you a perfect example and another fan favorite or listener favorite who's come on this show and just completely bared it all. And when you look at this person now, all you will see is success and light and happiness.

And I'm a super fan of her. And that's Melissa Wood. She came on this show early on. We had tears together. She cried. She was open. She shared about her struggles with eating. She was very emotional, very raw. And I remember doing that show at the time. And it was one of those things where even when you're in the room and you're hosting a show, you can just kind of feel the electricity and that vulnerability and her letting her guard down, I think opened up a conversation for so many men and women to feel like they had a say in a place to be heard. And I think for her, if you look at her business now, I mean, it is just skyrocketed. It is massive. And I think it's because she came on here and I don't want to take all the credit.

I'm not going to say that we built her platform because we didn't. She's done an incredible job doing it. We had this conversation together where she shared something that I don't think she shared publicly with anyone prior to that. And it just opened up the floodgates for other people to feel connection. And that is a perfect example of how being vulnerable and being honest and raw and real can just open a whole slew of possibilities. I noticed early on when blogging was the main thing and I was a blogger, when I opened up about my mom's suicide and my sister's drug addiction,

and then we ended up having my sister and her ex-fiance on the podcast and talking about it in an open way that it really resonated with a lot of people. I noticed a lot of people were DMing me and opening up about their struggle. And as this podcast has gone on, like we've also opened up about vulnerable topics that maybe people wouldn't necessarily equate to vulnerable, like sex. Sex to some people is a very touchy subject. So we constantly try to bring these topics on the show because no one wants to just hear 10 steps to wellness all the time. That's boring. It's great. And there's a lot of like tactics and tips in that. But people right now, the world wants depth. I think why you've seen the rise of platforms like podcasts is because for whatever reason,

and I think this equated to new technology, things like Facebook and Instagram and YouTube came out and you could create these artsy curated spaces. And where you've seen people have real success now is people that actually look for genuine human connection. And I believe personally, the only way you can find that genuine human connection is by being vulnerable. Imagine meeting somebody for the first time or going to meet with your family or dinner and all you give them is the surface stuff. I do this for a job. I saw this on the news. I watched this movie. You don't show them who you really are. And I think a lot of creators and a lot of

business leaders and just people in general go through life with this curated version of themselves. It's almost like this armor they wear because they feel that if they show who they really are, that the world's going to push back. But like I've said on this show, and Melissa is a perfect example, the people that we've had on here that have found massive success have just bared it all. They've been vulnerable. They've created that human connection and they recognize that vulnerability is a superpower and curation is a weakness. We are on vacation right now and Michael Bostic just whipped me up a cup of athletic greens. So how I like it, since we're going to get detailed, is I like a freezing cold

cup of water and then he puts a scoop of Athletic Greens in there and mixes it up. It's so easy. And then I just get 75 vitamins and minerals and you also get whole food sourced ingredients. There are so many green powders on the market, in my opinion, that are full of shit. And Athletic Greens has no GMO, no gluten, no dairy, no corn, no sucrose, no lactose, no eggs. It's wild. They don't even have artificial colors or flavors or sweeteners. I have yet to find a green powder that is better than Athletic Greens. And why I like it is it's literally full of everything. And I feel like when I start my day with this, especially when I'm traveling, that it's like kind of sets like

a healthy tone. You know what I mean? I really looked into this product before I started talking about it and drinking it. And I knew Tim Ferriss was a huge fan and he really does his research. So I did a little bit more research and found out that this product is really geared towards getting a better gut, more energy and an optimized immune system. Right now, especially when traveling, I feel like this is what we need. It has everything from sodium to potassium to vitamin B12 to folate to vitamin B6 to calcium. It even has protein, you guys. Michael has been taking athletic greens forever, and he's always raved about it. He said it helps so much with better sleep and mental clarity. And right now, it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition, especially

heading into flu and cold season. It's just one scoop and a cup of water every day. That's it. No need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health. To make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com slash skinny. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash skinny to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Also, just a note on vulnerability. People nowadays want to get to know you. They don't just want to hear one thing from you. Say you're all about diet. They don't just want to hear all

about diet. They want to hear what makes you tick, what books you like to read, your family history. They want to hear about how you grew up. People I have noticed are more curious about who the person it is that they're following and who they're going to invest their time in. Now people are taking time out of their day to watch Instagram stories and listen to podcasts and they want to know who you are as a person. So I think that's really important whether you're a business or a content creator

is to let people get to know you. It's not always about what you're selling and your main brand of whatever that is. It's about you as a person in a 360 way. All right, next up. Fast success is not the kind of success you necessarily want. This one's important. I think especially for the high achievers.

You know, if you're listening to this show, I think you're probably a high achiever because why else would you be listening to us? And I like to consider ourselves high achievers. We want a fast pace of life. We're going after it. We're working hard. And we're not saying that's a bad thing. But where I think you can get in trouble, where I've personally gotten in trouble in my own life, and I'll talk about in a second, is when you have fast success, sudden success. Lauren talks about astronaut syndrome. A lot of astronauts, they go to the moon and then they don't know what to do with themselves after. You go in that viral video. You have a business that a product takes off really quickly. And here's the reason. And

after talking to so many people that have found success on this show, it's mostly the people that have had years and years and years of dedication and focus that actually have lasting and fulfilling success. Because the problem when you have super fast success and you of dedication and focus that actually have lasting and fulfilling success. Because the problem when you have super fast success and you're impatient and you just want it right now is you can't actually appreciate all the steps it took to get you there, right? Like I think people will look at

maybe some of the successes that this show and this brand has had and they think it's been an overnight thing. But Lauren started blogging in what, 2009, 2010. We've been doing? This is again, over 400 episodes. This has been a slow, long, arduous, tough build. I want you to speak on your experience with Fast Success because I was front row seat to watch it. And I think that you've done a lot of evolving as a person from when I first started dating you to now being married to you? Well, the hard thing about this, and I debated putting this one on the list because

this is a lesson that I don't think you can learn until it happens for you. I think a lot of people that are in this crypto world that are day trading, a lot of these people that are having quick success with what I would call easy work, trading online, it's going to be difficult because what happens is you end up, say, either a boatload of money, or if you're a content creator, maybe a boatload of notoriety or whatever. And all of a sudden, you go from step one to step 100, and you're just there, and you don't really know how to appreciate it. And I think when that happens, a lot of people, one, they think the rest of life is going to be like that, and it's just not. It doesn't always happen that way. And two, like I said, you can't appreciate the times where

you had to sacrifice and struggle along the way. And if you go back to the beginning of the list, like that is what we found interviewing all these people is the reason they're fulfilled and they're happy is they recognize and appreciate the struggle they've been through. Well, I also think that success in any area of your life, whether it's a relationship, a marriage, a friendship, a business, there's a recipe there. It's not one thing. And this list does make up a lot of the recipe. But I think fast success sometimes doesn't have the full recipe. So the cake is like not fully baked. It's like missing the baking soda and the baking powder. And maybe you forgot the sprinkles. There are so many different things that really make up a strong foundation for success,

whether that's discipline, consistency, focus. It's important that as you're building something, you're using all the ingredients to really create something that's strong. Well, I think what makes... So here's what I'll say. Any milestone I've ever hit in life when it comes to business, and I'll just use the business context.

There's so many other areas. There's family, there's relation, all these things. But I'll use the business context. Any milestone I've ever hit in business, as soon as I got there, the thought that I thought I would have, the fulfillment I thought I would have, it was never there.

And it's still not there. And what I realized now over the span of my career is that it's never the end point that actually fulfills you. It's the stuff along the way that keeps you going. And so the problem with fast success and wanting fast success is one, you typically start to go after strategies that are not sound, right? You're starting to cut corners, do things quick, you're starting to get impatient. And then you get there and you're like, okay, I'm not fulfilled. So you start, you keep doing those practices. And so it's not to say that you shouldn't look for success. Obviously we want to keep people motivated and keep them hustling, but it's to say, it's okay to take your time. It's okay to

struggle. It's okay to constantly put in the work and chip away and do the building blocks because that is where you're going to find lasting success and happiness. And what we've learned from most of the people on this show that you can consider successful people, they've put in the work, they put in the time, they put in the hours. The next one, and we have to keep this one short, hence the title, is get to the point. This is something that we all can learn from. Myself, Michael, I think for me personally, this upcoming year, I'm done with 30-minute hour Zoom calls. I don't feel like that's an efficient way to run a business. I think that all of us could benefit from getting to the point more. Yeah. We get confused in life and we confuse social hour to business hour to health hour.

We start to try to jam all these things all the time. We waste a lot of time. If there's anything this podcast has taught me interviewing, and I think Lauren as well, all of these people is that you can cover a shitload of ground in 45 minutes to an hour. You can get someone's literal whole life story. Obviously not every detail. We're not going to be that naive, but you can pretty much get someone's entire life story in a 45 minute to hour period of time. So why the hell when you go to a meeting or you go to a dinner or you go to a coffee,

do you have to spend an hour in that meeting or 30 minutes to get to a five minute presentation? I agree. And what I'm going to do, and maybe this will help anyone out there, is I, from now on, when I have a meeting or a Zoom call or anything, I am going to have a specific itinerary of what we're talking about. Because I personally, of course, don't want to waste my own time. I don't want to waste other people's time. I won't take any internal meetings anymore without a specific

agenda. I say, if you want to catch up with me and chit chat and say, hello, let's book a social hour. But if you book time on the calendar now, and you want to talk to me, I was like, what is the mission? What is the goal? What's the objective? Let's outline it and get through it. And let's be on brand for this one. We got to the point. What's next? The last one, and I think, again, this could have been one or two, is being consistent. Again, we live in a time when there's an abundance of opportunity. There's an abundance of different things going on. There's different trends today. There's different political seasons. There's this, there's that. And people lose consistency. They lose the art of doing something over and over and over again. Lauren, you're a perfect example.

You still, to this day, blog how many times a week? I still blog five days a week, but I love the compliments in this episode to me. You've given me like so many compliments. Well, because I think a lot of people will look at the Skinny Confidential brand and they're like, oh, like that was quick.

That happened overnight. It's been around for 13 years. I try to be really transparent about that. I'm not trying to look to anyone like it's been an overnight success. And I think it's important to also say that I haven't even nicked the potential of what I want to do. The vision that I have has not even been penetrated. So even if people perceive certain things, I think it's important as you're building a business to really tell the truth. We just had Ryan Holiday and Robert Green on the show and we talked to them like

what it looks like a life of a writer, how often they're writing, how consistently. And it is an everyday practice for them. It is over and over and over. It's not easy all the time. It's definitely not glamorous. If you look at this show, again, doing 400 episodes, we've never missed a week. We've never missed an episode. It's just over and over and over again. And over time, these things start to snowball. A lot of podcasters that you respect, I was just listening to Not Skinny, Not Fat on Dear Media and The Blonde Files and Joe Rogan and Howard Stern. All of those people have one thing in common, and it is the consistency of the episodes. They are committed to the consistency in anything in life, whether it's fitness, marriage, business.

If you are not ready for consistency, that's like missing the flower from the cake. I was looking at one of our top episodes before we did this, and one of them's with Ben Greenfield. And I think you could look at Ben Greenfield, and I used him earlier, and think about all the things he's learned in the health field and the fitness world over the years. And you'd start to be like,

damn, look at this guy, great shape, great health, all these things. But you forget that this is decades and decades of consistent work day after day, week after week, month after month. And again, when you're in the beginning of this journey, I know we have people that are just starting out on their journeys. It starts to become daunting because you're like, I don't know if I can do this for 10 years or 20 years. But as soon as you make peace with that, you're like, I'm just going to be consistent with whatever I got to do, whatever responsibility I got to take for the X period of time. And you start doing that, you'll be surprised how much progress you can make in a short period of time. On that note, we wanted to do this episode for you guys to give you a quick spark notes of

everything that we've learned. We would love to know what you guys have learned over the year. It doesn't have to be from our podcast. It could be anything. Let me know on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic and we will pick a few winners to win my book, Get the Fuck Out of the Sun. It's available on Amazon. We hope that you guys had the best holiday season, the best new year. You guys constantly inspire us and we are so grateful for your support. Yes, love you all.

And if there's any of these subjects, I know we're starting to do more solos like this. And I've been reading the DMs. There are some requests to get more granular on a specific subject. We watch all of those messages come through. So if any of these really resonated and you want us to go into more detail on any specific idea or subject watch all of those messages come through. So if any of these really resonated and you want us to go into more detail

on any specific idea or subject, please let us know. We do read them. We do take them into account and we'll probably incorporate them into a future episode. Love you.