The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Molly Bloom Pt. 2 - How To Set Boundaries, & Take Personal Inventory In Your Life

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

#697: Today we're sitting down for a second time with Molly Bloom. Molly is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, former member of the U.S. Ski Team, one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, and host of the two-time Gold Signal award-winning podcast, “Torched,” featuring the inspiring stories of world-class competitive athletes. Today, we go over her fertility journey, having a baby at 40 years old, and learning how to be a mom when you're so used to living in your masculine energy. We also discuss how to take inventory of your life, how to gauge what kinds of presence you want to be around, and how to be vulnerable and have boundaries at the same time.   To connect with Molly Bloom click HERE   To Listen to Molly's previous episodes click HERE   To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Watch the Show click 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    This episode is brought to you by AG1 If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Go to drinkAG1.com/SKINNY to get a free 1-year supply of Vitamin D3K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by Branch Basics The Branch Basics Premium Starter Kit will provide you with everything you need to replace all of your toxic cleaning products in your home. It’s really a no-brainer. Go to branchbasics.com and use code SKINNY for 15% off their starter kit and free shipping. This episode is brought to you by Nerdwallet NerdWallet lets you compare top travel credit cards side-by-side to maximize your spending, some even offering 10X points on your spending. Visit nerdwallet.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Nike Find your feel with Nike Bras & Leggings that deliver supportive flexibility and comfort for whatever your day brings. Shop now at nike.com/women This episode is brought to you by Superhuman App Superhuman is a new revolution in personal development and manifestation. Get 14 days free and 60% off your membership at activations.com/skinny This episode is brought to you by Primally Pure If you're tired of discomfort during your menstrual cycle, try the Cycle Soothing Spray from Primally Pure at primallypure.com/SKINNY and use code SKINNY for 15% off your order.     Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. 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.

I made the US ski team with a reconstructed spine. I ran the biggest poker games in the world. I was beaten up by the Italian mob. I dealt with the Russian mob. I stood up to the United States government. I got $9 million seized, found my life in ruination, and had to sort of battle back. And I will tell you that being a parent is so much harder than any of that stuff. And I just, I want to give a voice to that. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. Today,

we're sitting down for the second time with our friend, Molly Bloom. For those of you who missed the first episode that we did with Molly Bloom, it is a groundbreaking episode with such an incredible story. I think to date, it's one of Lauren and I's favorite episodes. I don't think I actually know. And the audience at the time received it so well. She has such an incredible story that was actually eventually made into a movie called Molly's Game. So definitely check that episode out if you haven't heard it. But today, Molly's joining us again. For those of you who do not know who Molly is, Molly is an entrepreneur. She's a bestselling author, former member of the US ski team. Today, she's joining the show again to go

over her journey with fertility, having a baby at 40 years old, and learning how to be a mom when you're used to living in your masculine energy. We also discuss how to take inventory of your life, how to gauge what kinds of presence you want to be around, and how to be vulnerable and have boundaries at the same time. Molly is a pro on a mic. She's a pro on really any media platform, and we love having her. With that, Molly Bloom, welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. One of my personal favorite podcast guests, Molly Bloom, is back on the show and when someone asked me which episode should i start with i'm like molly bloom you rocked my world when you were on the

mic last hour world i was like and i look back and watch my face in that episode and i'm just like your storytelling is like nothing i've ever seen so if you guys have not listened to that episode go run they did happen to make a Hollywood blockbuster movie out of their life. So the podcast was better than the movie, right? But keep going. I want to go back to where we left off with you. You told the story of everything that happened to you,

but we didn't get to tell the chapter that you were in at the moment. So what was that chapter that was happening while we recorded that episode? So I froze my eggs at 36 and I did it at an extremely reputable place and we had a good result. And the fertility doctor was like, you're good. And so I just kind of thought I had time and I thought that I could put my life together. And obviously I ideally wanted to meet someone who I felt was going to be a good parent. And I did that at 40. Around 41, we decided to fertilize the eggs and none of them worked.

And so, you know, I think this is an important conversation in itself. How much people are overselling, how much clinics are overselling the egg freezing success. And now we're starting to see results. This is not to suggest people shouldn't do it. It's just to make sure that you're doing to see results. This is not to suggest people shouldn't do it. It's just to make sure that you're doing your own research. You're not just listening to a doctor who stands to make a lot of money from sort of like a little effort. Then I went to get my fertility measures checked, which I think everyone should do over the age of even 30

it's a blood test and it's a it's an ultrasound to look at follicles and my fertility was dismal and the doctors said i think you should we'll try around but my my gut is telling me that you should look at donor egg or adoption and so so we did a round, didn't get much. And then he said, let's start to go in a different direction. And I was like, thinking to myself, if I had only tried once at everything that was important to me, I would have done nothing, right?

And this was maybe the most important thing. So I did all this research and I left sort of no stone unturned. I did Chinese medicine. I was cooking these herbs in this crazy pot and traveling with them and taking the supplements that i read about and then i did a lot of research and found out that it's really the labs and and the embryologists that are going to kind of determine your fate i mean the the protocols are all kind of the same but it's really these people and and these centers that can handle the this very fragile piece of biology right and so i did all that research i found that one of the most reputable clinics was in denver so i was flying back and forth i did nine rounds holy shit i want i want people to understand what that looks like on a day-to-day basis on your weight, bloating, hormones, emotions, relationships. That nine rounds is not a fucking joke. It's not. And it was a huge lesson to me because I have always had this sort of idea, I can handle anything, right? Like whatever. It's going to be hard. It's going to be hard.

Day to day, you are, first of all, paying a lot of money each round. You know, you're already kind of like stressed about that. You're injecting yourself with medications that cost like $15,000. And what you're doing is you're stimulating your body. Normally in a woman's cycle, one egg is produced. You're trying to get as many as possible. So you're jacking your hormones up to like this crazy degree. I was 30 pounds heavier, 30. For the first four rounds, I kind of kept it together in terms of like sanity, optimism. And what was happening was I was getting more embryos. So all the sort of interventions that I did, the Chinese medicine, the meditation around it, the supplements, they really did work. And a lot of fertility specialists will tell you that you can't improve your egg quality or your egg count and i absolutely stand here and and completely disagree with that you saw it happening i saw it happen i changed my nutrition you know and and

my results were like you know i was getting like one to two eggs. I started getting like 11. Wow. Now I'm 41 at the time. So 10% of my eggs are chromosomally normal. 90%. This is what, you know, the science is 90% or not. So this is what saved me. If I had a shred of sanity left, this is what saved me. I did the math. I'm going to have, if I want two viable embryos, I'm going to have to test 20 of them. You and I, I could have been in Molly's game with you, but you would have had to do the math. Can you explain the math to me? She's giving you the percentages of the success rate i know but i so what you're saying is i don't understand what you just said you're saying like you're saying she knew she had to get x amount of eggs to just to for just statistically be possible for her to get the results right because i only because 90 of my

of a woman's eggs and and this is this varies this is just the this is just the sort of like the average 90% of your eggs by the time you're 41 are chromosomally abnormal got it you have 10% that feasibly are normal so if you want to get one good embryo you have to test 10. And when you were doing it, how many embryos that were healthy were you getting? None. Wow. So what you're saying is she need like, say you like, okay, I need a hundred and then I'd have 10 good ones statistically. Right, exactly. But she's saying 20, she'd have two good ones statistically. Right. Okay. I got it. And let's make sure you're not in charge of the family finances. I do other things. By the way, it's so funny because in high school, I sucked at math. You became pretty good. Well, because there was such an

upside, which, you know. I find that in most things. Yeah. I agree. Until you become really interested in something because there's a reason to be, most people write things off. So did you kind of know before you went into this that you would have to do it around nine times? Or when you're in your fourth time and you're feeling like the way you said it kind of switched, did you know you had to do nine times? I had this sort of probability structure in my mind. So I was like, as long as the math is working, I can keep doing this. And so I think on my fifth round, we got one normal.

But that was, you know, so you inject yourself with all these hormones. You feel absolutely insane. I have a friend who said that she traveled internationally and then she did IVF and she thought that she had gotten rabies from traveling because that's how just like crazy you feel inside. Finally, we got a normal one. Now, so you're injecting yourself with all these hormones, then you do an egg retrieval, then you fertilize the egg and they call you and tell you

how many fertilized and then they try to grow the egg into an embryo which means that the cells have to keep dividing and multiplying and each call is there's there's this massive attrition rate you know there's this like okay now we have this many this many but i was getting to the point where i'd have six or seven viable embryos then you wait 10 days for the the genetics to come back and they'd be like all seven of them are chromosomally abnormal you know so anyway finally we got a normal and then i then now you have to deal with the odds of a transfer. At my age, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's 50-50. It's a coin toss. I know there's two different things. There's like a turkey baster situation, for lack of a better word. Yes. And then there's where they, like, you do all these hormones, right? Which one did you do? So you do all the hormones in order to stimulate your body to create more eggs per cycle.

So most of the time you have one egg per cycle. Think about the amount of energy, the amount of sort of the symptoms you have. It's times 10, 20 because they're stimulating your body to create as many eggs as possible so that when they go to you know extract them they have as as many as possible to work with and and obviously it's you know it's a it's a process that happens in a lab so you have to figure that in and then when you get a good embryo then you then it's time for transfer more hormones you gotta sometimes you gotta take this you know take something to put your body temporarily into menopause i mean it's an intense intense process and then they

put the little embryo like they they bring it out of cryo freeze they put the little embryo, like they bring it out of cryo-freeze. They put the little microscopic embryo into this tube and then they like shoot it in and you hope that it holds on. So what happened the first time? She held on. It worked. So after nine rounds, the first time that you put it in, it worked. It did. After all you'd went through and then it worked,

it was terrifying. Wow. Because you were worried that something would happen. For sure. That's so wild. I thought you were going to say you're so happy, but that makes total sense. You're terrified. Of course, when I got the call, I fell to my knees and I was overjoyed. But you've had so much bad news. You've had so much negativity. And for me, it was the bottom of the ninth. I'm 41 years old. It took me nine rounds to get two embryos. You know, this is it. Simultaneously, I had started to realize that my husband, I didn't have those feelings for him anymore. I loved him as a human being. I had a massive amount of respect for him,

but I didn't feel romantic about him anymore. I mean, it had changed. Do you think that that had to do with any, and you obviously could speak more eloquently on this, of the way that he showed up for you while you were going through those rounds, or is that nothing to do with it? I think that it was, it would have happened no matter what. We were in very different places in life, and I met him right around when the movie was coming out. never heard a man like who's good looking and and whatever speak about principles and character and

and women with this level of reverence like i had spent my days in poker rooms you know with some characters i relate to you on the smallest little level i was a bartender and i always and these rich powerful men would come in and rancho santa fe and i'd really be able to hear the real conversation for sure i always said that i felt like a picture on the wall yeah like it's like i wasn't even there right i was just like more of a fixture right and they were really saying their real things in front of me and it was a fucking trip it was a i look at it as that for me i like love i love it i look at it like a really positive thing because it gave me all these it's not

like a focus group it's like data that i wouldn't have had access for sure but i can only imagine what you heard right i mean that's a book in itself yes that i will never write don't worry secrets safe yeah so so when So when you met someone that is all these qualities, you instantly fell in love with him. I did. Yeah. I didn't really project what it would mean to be with someone who was, for instance, 10 years younger, has had completely different life experience. As terrified as I was, I used to wake up every night in the middle of the night just to make sure there wasn't I wasn't having a miscarriage you know like it was I was scared when I see the truth about something I can't just hang out like I knew it was that part

of our relationship was over and I also knew that when this little girl came into the world, I wanted to have our shit figured out. And so at two months pregnant, I sat down with him and had this tough conversation. And he's an incredible human being who is so able to bench his ego and and to really look at the bigger picture and we spent 48 hours kind of with each other grieving crying and then and then I moved he was we were on the east coast because he was finishing his PhD in neuroscience and then I moved back to Colorado and basically spent most of my pregnancy alone or traveling and speaking, which is a trip. You know, because everyone's like expecting like Molly's game, you know, badass. And I'm like waddling up there. Like, what's up, everyone?

But it was a very challenging challenging time and then every checkup I was sure that they were going to tell me no heartbeat or and then she was born and it was like such a profound experience and I just had this thought like why did I think anything ever mattered before this you know and then the like real terror took like over because vulnerability is not my strong suit you know being exposed to the world like my whole life I've I've tried to be strategic and can you know try to control my environment and have as much information as I can and also try to fortify myself so that when bad things happen, I can get through it. And all of a sudden, I know now there is no safety because I love this child so much that if something happens, I just didn't know how to deal with it. It was the most vulnerable and sort of exposed I'd ever felt. But it was such a good lesson because I think

over the years, I had been brave in other places, but I hadn't been brave in relationships. I'd always had that, that armor on. I, I, I never wanted to lose control. I, and so as a, as a by-product, I don't think I really had like true intimate relationships where I really opened myself up. And Fiona changed that. I mean, I had no choice. I couldn't logically come up with a plan to be okay if something happened to her. For longtime listeners of this show, it might feel like Groundhog Day because I cannot stop talking about AG1. I have been taking AG1 for close to eight years now, ever since we learned about the product. And what I love so much about AG1 is it's become an absolute staple in our morning routine. AG1 actually reminds me that I need to hydrate more properly. I know that sounds strange, but

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It almost takes a while to wrap your head around the exposed feeling that you're talking about. For sure. I sometimes view it too as people have had trauma. It's like a defense mechanism because you've been able to wall off your emotions for so long and you can't do that as a parent. No. Or you could, I guess, but you shouldn't do that as a parent. Right, right. You become acutely aware that any of your maladaptive coping strategies or defense mechanisms or neurosis need to need to be resolved otherwise that's what this kid's gonna you know that's what this kid's gonna see modeled well they reflect it to you too

like if you're doing something that is not i don't know motherly they'll reflect it to you and that's why it's a wild thing it's. Wild. It is. And, you know, the other thing, and maybe both of you will relate to this. I was a freedom junkie. You know, I wanted to live life on my own terms. I wanted to make my own rules. If things got stale, I wanted to be able to, you know, go. Yeah. And all of a sudden you realize that's not possible anymore my dad said

like the longer a man stays single the harder it is for him to get in a relationship and i could imagine the same for a woman the longer you take to wait to have kids it's like you're so set in your ways because it's been yeah instead of some people have kids at 21 instead of 21 years it's been an extra 20 years so you're even more set in your way right we just went on a vacation with a bunch of friends yeah and it was fun but we're all standing around and now a lot of us have kids but we were this was a no kids trip okay and like at the end of it we just it was like kind of a morning phase we were like this is just it's just kind of over. Like you can't. Like the bender. Yeah. You can't, there's just things you can't do anymore.

And I think a lot of people that don't have kids or maybe even do have a really difficult time fathoming that. Sure. Like there's, like I was, I saw this stand up comedian talking and he's saying, oh, do you think it's hard having kids? What do you do when you leave the house? Most people without kids, they leave the house. Yeah.

Where the kids are like, where's the shoes? Where's this? Where's the lunchbox? Yeah. The car. But it is the most rewarding process in the house. Most people without kids, they leave the house where the kids like, where's the shoes? Where's this? Where's the lunchbox? But it is the most rewarding process in the world. But you just, you have to make peace with a certain part of you is dead and gone. You sort of have to let it break you and re and re and remake you. But, you know, then now I have this little baby that, you know, you have that feeling like if I'm not vigilant, if I'm not there, they're not going to stay alive. Like, you know, you have that as a mother. I feel like my amygdala

grew like 20 times the size, you know? And so I have these fears and Devin's on the East Coast and I have to start working three weeks after she's born so I have to leave this little like center of my universe that I'm so afraid that something's gonna happen and because you know I'm the I'm her financial support yeah I was breastfeeding. I breastfed for 14 months. I would fly to Australia for one day, pump, come back, drop off milk. And I was just probably doing that a lot to deal with the guilt that you have. But eventually that sort of loneliness of being a single parent, and I had help. I don't want to minimize that. My mom moved down the street.

I had nannies and everything. But at some point, everyone goes home and you're alone with this baby. It doesn't feel good. So all of these factors, like the crazy travel schedule, the overwhelming sort of anxiety you feel about having this kid. Ultimately, I got to a place that I've never been to in which my mind and body just like was done. Like it was such intense burnout and such intense like depression that I didn't know what to do because you can't I can't stop working and I can't stop showing up for my for my kid you know so it was this just extremely challenging time and you know I don't think parents and moms especially

get enough respect. And I am here to tell you that I made the US ski team with a reconstructed spine. I ran the biggest poker games in the world. I was beaten up by the Italian mob. I dealt with the Russian mob. I stood up to the United States government. I got $9 million seized, found my life in ruination and harder than any of that stuff. And I just, I want to give a voice to that. Because I think sometimes the role is minimized. And, you know, it's like, there's this like reductive sort of idea of mom sitting around drinking Pinot Grigio.

And like, it's a, I mean i mean it is hard you can't quit like you can't you can't take a day off you can't go somewhere and just like you can't go to a spa but then devin finished his phd a couple months ago and he moved back and he moved in with us how's that going my ex you know my ex lives in my basement i love it modern family and i'm always like you need to find us a wife if you if you if you and i divorce you can move in my basement yeah okay i could still use a helping hand no it's amazing like my life is so now. Can I have carte blanche over the basement design? No.

Deal breaker. Meanwhile, he like wanted the basement because he wanted his own space. Yeah. And for four months, he's slept in the day bed in our daughter's room. Oh, so cute. And he, but you guys are just friends we are best friends he's the dad that like every little girl would want like she is the center of his universe he's done so much work on himself he's been sober since he was 23 and really involved in that community so always looking

at himself always looking at ways to improve a real deep understanding from not only his neuroscience education, but also like helping other people with addiction. So like a really profound understanding of how to use emotion skillfully. And, you know, he's just, I would love to have like what you guys have you know that's the dream but this this is a close second you know what i was telling my friend though what we have we've known each other since we were 12 it's like so it's so like niche like it's like i i don't want anyone to look at us and think that because it's not lost on us that i guess what we have is rare it's very rare it's really rare but i don't think anyone should compare that i don't say that to be like oh it's i say it we're very careful to give a ton of

relationship advice that's not somewhat broad because our relationship is unique and i think sometimes people will view it from the outside and be like wow wow, this looks like the most dysfunctional thing ever. But I always say like, imagine you've known somebody for 30 years. There's a lot of things that really work about it. And a lot of things that I would not tell anyone else to do. Like most couples should not work together. Most couples should not co-host a show together.

Right. You know, most couples maybe shouldn't know each other since they were kids. Like there's pros and cons. And so I just think every individual's unique, but I've also seen people get together much later that have had the greatest love stories. Right. You know what I mean? So I think it's just, sometimes people try to force it.

Everything's happening for you though. You're going to find someone that fits into your puzzle. But what's more common, and I guess my thought process here was what's more common is somebody will be in the situation you were previously in and know it's not right and stay in it for the sake of whatever somebody told them. Or safety. Yeah, or safety. Right. And then they take a large portion of their life not living as happy as they should be. Right.

Right. So, I don't know. I guess that's my point. Yeah. Well, I think you should also give yourself more credit because from the outside, you guys have known each other for so long. You've built this business together. There has to be a lot of work you do. I think we're both, and I don't want to speak for Lauren, but I guess I am speaking for her. We're committed to doing i guess

some things that maybe many others won't do when things get really bad like we were on the plane going back and we were talking to a group of our friends we were talking about like the worst times in our relationship and i think many of those times people like they throw in the towel right that's what i mean yeah and i think we're, okay, we're not gonna throw in the towel. Right. If that makes sense. And I mean, I think it's like beautiful to see what you've built and to see the, and to have that kind of history with someone. And yeah, like a lot of people can't replicate that, but it's a great love story.

Thank you. It really is. Let's see how it ends. I'm just kidding. Not over yet. Oh, YouTube's gonna love that they say like does she hate her husband i'm like no i love my husband why it's our banter if i can't have fun with my husband of course put me down all right like old yellow i know i know i mean people

there's like this quote from this aldous huxley book And it just talks about living a bit lighter, you know? Yeah. Feeling lighter, taking everything a little bit less seriously. And well, the type of women that I'm attracted to in my life, and this is my friends too. I like a very strong, brash woman. Yeah. I like, I don't.

That's why I loved having you on the show. But yeah. But if you look at the women I surround myself with in my personal life, they're all like ball-busting women like my mom's that i was just gonna say you must have had oh my god my dad is like he's like you he's like so i think she's wearing this like the suit like you she's like she's a boss i'll just be honest like some some women are dating these guys that if you say one thing wrong about them the guy loses his shit and goes into a tailspin and they're like so they're like i can't believe your wife would talk to us.

I'm like, listen, tell your husband to grow a pair and not be so offended. I've never went to each its own. Yeah, she's trying to muffle me now. But that's, you know. I think going back to what you said about parenting,

why it's so hard out of all those things you've been through is there's no gauge on it. Like with the law, you could say black or white. But with parenting, like if you do something that you perceive to be really smart,

you still are questioning yourself. You still don't know if it's the right thing. Absolutely. For instance, if I'm like, I'm going to put my kid in school, and then I get all this shit on Instagram, like homeschool. It's like, fuck. You know what I mean? It's like you never know if you're doing the right thing.

That's what's hard about it. And that's why I think it's so important to try to re-village yeah to some degree because we are not meant to raise kids by ourself we're meant to like learn from our elders and learn from a community and the more and more sort of isolated people get and parents get i think the more unhealthy culturally we get and so you know i i think it would be a really cool thing to take on to try to create community and resources and a more accepting environment like Like you have to have, like you have to build a culture in which it's okay to sleep train.

It's also okay not to sleep train, right? It's okay to close sleep. Both of these things can be true simultaneously. And it's so interesting because I just talked to Annie Duke. Do you know who she is? I know who she is. Yeah.

We never met her. You should have her on. She is so brilliant and so fascinating. So I was talking to her because I was interviewing her for my new book. And she was one of the most prolific female poker players. And she won a ton of money. And so now what she does is she teaches people how to make good decisions and humans are really bad at making good decisions because they trust their gut and the gut is

sometimes it's on but most of the time it's it's very error ridden you know but so I was asking her because I was talking we were talking about tribalism and how this country has gotten you know like almost tribal politics and and she said people love to be people love to identify with a position because it satisfies two really deep human needs to be distinctive and to be part of something and so I said well what's the solution? And she said, what I do with the companies that I consult is we make our culture this open-minded, non-binary, not black and white, nuanced perspective on life, it's okay to sleep train it's not it's also okay not to sleep train and then she says what happens is then it satisfies the distinctiveness and the part of

being a tribe because you're like i i'm an open-minded thinker i'm accepting of of all positions and that's what I pride myself in. And that's like, you know, what I identify with. Imagine if everyone was an open thinker. Can you imagine that? Well, I'm writing this book on effective presence, which is the science of how you make people feel. So how people feel, what kind of emotions people have in your presence. And there's some people that have negative affective presence and there are those people, you know, like there are the people where everyone's like, oh my God, you know, like they walk in the room and everyone's like, oh God. And, and, you know, there's this thing, emotional contagion. So the,

you know, the, the sort of happiness degree goes down. And what's so important about understanding this is people make decisions mostly with their emotions. And so even if you're the less qualified candidate, if you know how to invoke positive emotions from people, if you know how to make somebody feel seen and you know listen to them and find you know fascination in their life there's this this data that shows those people do better in every situation even if they're less qualified. And so one of the worst offenders, one of the things that causes the most negative effect of presence is people who are inflexible and deeply opinionated.

These people, this is not malicious behavior. They're passionate, right? They're very passionate about their position and it doesn't mean they have to abandon their position. It just means that they have to allow other people to have a different perspective. The problem with people like that though is if they attach that to their identity, it shatters their identity. That's right. And their ego. Yeah. And what I do, it's so funny to me because we will have people on this show. Let's just use a political example. We have people that have very right-leaning views and very left-leaning views. And I say, and I try to tell this to the company

all the time. Carson's been in those meetings. And I say, sometimes you're going to hear perspectives that you don't get. And if that perspective shatters you that much, there's work you need to do on yourself. Right. Right. For me, I want to understand why somebody came to one conclusion and somebody living in the same world came to a different conclusion. Because that's going to help me as a person try to develop my own thought patterns so that I can understand something better. Where if I just blanketly accept what everybody's saying on one side or another side, then there's really no point for me to think at

all. I might as well just pick whatever, whatever, whatever group I feel better with. I'm just going to do that and mindlessly run around like a drone. Right. And let's establish Lauren, Michael and Molly aren't saying you shouldn't be opinionated. Sure. And this is science, right? This is what the science is saying. So it doesn't mean that you don't have strong views and stop hating each

other and literally wanting to harm each other for those different views. You may have heard me talk about my daily non-negotiables on past episodes, one of which is a morning walk with my son. So after I wake up, I try to make the bed. I hydrate with an electrolyte water and I do my quick wellness and skincare routine. I make my kids breakfast. Then my son and I go outside for a walk. So he's in the stroller and I'm doing a walking meditation. We get in our morning light and movement in, and we love it. It's like a habit stack if I've ever seen one. And during those morning walks, I'm wearing Nike, specifically at my Indie bra and my Nike Motiva walking shoes. The bra is so supportive. In fact, it comes in

different support levels, so you can get like low, medium, or high support depending on the size of your boobs or preference. Plus, the bra has adjustable straps and is so comfortable. Nike's Motiva walking shoes are smooth. They're cushioned. They're comfortable. They're great for like a daily walk. And what I like about them is they give you optimum support for every move every day. I have plantar fasciitis, and these are amazing for that. Both the Indie Bra and the Nike Motivas are the move. The Indie Bra just sculpts your body in a perfect way. I feel like we've been talking a lot lately about tailored, well-fitting clothes, and this is it when it comes to athletic wear. Another thing that I love is they're both so durable. So you're getting high quality, flattering apparel that you can wash and wear over and over again. You'll just keep reaching for these staples just like me. Shop now at Nike.com. Again, that's Nike.com.

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constantly worried about an algorithm, and where you honestly have no ownership other than renting the channel that you're using from them. Lauren and I have been building our own channels online since the early days. We own our own websites, our own blogs, our own e-commerce channels. Even this podcast is owned on our own RSS feed. This is why I love Squarespace so much. It lets you own your own content, your own channel. So if you're somebody that's been thinking about building an online brand and you don't know where to start, start with Squarespace. If you want to build a website or a blog where you speak to your community, that's a great place to start. If you want to build an e-com channel where you sell your products online, start with Squarespace.

If you want to build a newsletter and manage all of your clients and contacts there, that's where you're going to want to do it as well. And like I said, it's so important to build on a platform that lets you own your own content and own your own channels. And of course, we have an offer just for our listeners. Head over to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to www.squarespace.com slash skinny to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Again, that's www.squarespace.com slash skinny to save 10% off your first purchase. I look at it this way, like say that all three of us found a specific diet that if we followed, we knew we would live a radiant, healthy life. And that's like, and we become like, okay,

everyone's going to do this. But then a year from now, information comes out or a new perspective is shared. It's like's like hey actually there's something here that if you do this your life expectancy will be cut by 20 years but we've we've attached such a strong identity to that certain diet that we thought was great that we can't move off that position that's what people do now but they do with a lot of other things right but and i think that way of thinking is insane and i think it's also a bit of a new way of thinking where you know growing up you didn't have these dug in groups and positions everyone's kind of like okay like I got this side or that side or this person for that but like you're willing to move off ideas right and I think social media doesn't do is is bad in this regard because it creates these pockets of communities

where people dig in and make it about their identities for sure and then there's no separation. If somebody insults that diet, they're insulting you. When does this book come out so we can all read it? Because I think a lot of people need this book. I feel like it is because I went back through my life and I thought about the through line and almost everything I've taken on I've been underqualified as an underdog statistical improbability and I think what the skill that is probably most prominently responsible for being able to reinvent and be successful in fields where I don't, you know, I'm a novice or whatever, is this ability to authentically connect with another person. And that's what effective presence ultimately is about. And most people are in sort of autopilot, you know, and they're just they're going in and they're meeting people for a meeting and they're not thinking about the human experience or what's happening with this other person. And, you know, my my dad, he's a psychologist and he's he's co-writing this book with me, which is kind of a full circle moment because really cool we had a tough relationship but you know he says when you walk into a room with someone you're not just walking you're not

just with them you're with their parents and their exes and any boss that's ever fired them and this whole contingency of their history and their trauma and people that have rejected them or made them feel unworthy and it's your job in a couple minutes to let them know that you're not that's not you know you're not with them that that you really authentically you know want to get to know this person and think that they are worthwhile. And the number one salesman in the Guinness Book of World Records is this car salesman, okay? And this was his strategy.

People would walk in and start talking to him and he would say, I like you. And then every year, he would send them a card saying, I really like you. Like, how are you? Like, it was so simple, you know, and I think we try to overcomplicate things. And I think we walk in with a lot of our own social fears.

And the only way to truly connect with someone is to be a bit vulnerable not over vulnerable right right someone comes in and they're like telling you every detail from when they were born they're like it was a stormy day or like telling you things that like i should know you for 10 years before you tell me that right right and and i think renee brown talks about you know vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability that's a great quote it is yeah she's she's so smart and and the work she does is so prolific but it's not really a heavy lift and it doesn't rely on like you know that there is this whole movement for with eq which is mind-blowing research and i think so important but with effective presence you don't

have to try to read social cues because even for the best person who can read social cues, it's pretty error ridden because people have a lot of shit going on. Right. You know, I mean, and it's like sometimes I'll get on a stage and I'll and I'll make a speech and it looks like everybody hates me. Like their expression is just, you know, it's like. They don't laugh at the jokes that you know like and then I'll get off stage and people will come up to me and they'll be emotional and you know it just shows me like trying to read people and trying to like figure that out for yourself is not the way it's understanding how people work doing a real inventory of you know these are the factors of positive effective presence these are the factors negative effective presence

where are your strengths where are your weaknesses and starting to work on that when is the book come out because you have to come back on the podcast and we have to do a whole episode on effective presence yeah i would love to do that nine months nine months yeah it's like a bait always right i would love to invite you back on and do a whole like niche episode on effective presence i would love to do that in the meantime where can everyone find you i'm sure there'll be a lot of people who will want to ask you questions because your story of everything you've gone through i know there's a lot of people listening who are going through ivf or freezing their eggs or embryos i'm sure they'll have questions yeah so and i'm so happy to share everything all my research the best place right now i think is instagram okay and it's i i'm

molly bloom so i am and then molly bloom i'm super excited for your book i think that'll make an insane episode yeah and i love is that the title no it's not gonna be the title i'm so bad at titles i think maybe it's like a subtitle effective presence is strong yeah it is and it's effective with an a and it's so there's like two scientific papers on it and that's it and one of them is on speed dating and the other one is on i don't know like cohorts in a in a in a in a office setting and i just think it's so important because i think truly connecting with people first of all it makes you feel amazing yeah and then second of all, it makes you feel amazing. Yeah. And then second of all, it's massively predictive of how happy you're going to be, how well your relationships go, how well you're going to do in business.

And it's a learnable skill. Open in by any time. Go listen to the first episode with you too, you guys. If you haven't, it's one of my favorites. This one was very close to it. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, Molly. Thank you for having me.