Trading Secrets - 45: Amazing Race Star Turned Successful Entrepreneur, Mallory Ervin on Building an Empire

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Pre-order The Restart Roadmap: Rewire and Reset Your Career TODAY!   In this week’s episode, former Miss Kentucky, reality TV star, author, influencer, and wildly successful entrepreneur Mallory Ervin shares her experience growing up on a farm in western Kentucky surrounded by her family’s business in the telecom industry and her being exposed to the entrepreneurial hustle from a young age. She talks about the advantages she had in life because of her father’s intention to instill money management skills in her and her siblings. Mallory’s life changed forever the second she decided to compete on stage in the state pageant. So how did a self-proclaimed tom-boy growing up ended up competing for and WINNING Miss Kentucky? You might be surprised that the role is decent paying and as Miss Kentucky, Mallory was employed by the Department of Agriculture. She shares all the financial benefits associated with the role, as well as the expenses. She went on to compete for Miss America and was a runner-up. Mallory talks about what the organization looks for and how she differentiated herself from her competition. Guess who one of her judges was. (hint: we’ve had her on the show!) As soon as she walked off the Miss America stage, she was cast for reality TV. In the episode, Mallory opens up about her prescription drug problem that was driven by her ambition after coming off of Miss America and how she overcame it. Despite losing the All Star season of Amazing Race by just 90 seconds in the last episode, Mallory and her father have crazy stories of their travels and won various prizes along the way. Leaving reality TV, Mallory taught herself how to leverage the world of social media to have a successful career. Most merchandise businesses don’t execute well and struggle to enjoy competitive margins. Mallory was able to grow a multi-million business for which she sells a million dollars worth of merchandise in a matter of minutes. How exactly does she do that? How can you do that? Listen to find out along with endless life-changing advice in another episode that you cannot afford to miss.   Sponsors: Coinbase.com/trading for $10 in free bitcoin Masterclass.com/secrets for 15% off an annual membership Go.factor75.com/secrets120 for $120 off Shopify.com/secrets for a free 14-day trial   Host: Jason Tartick Voice of Viewer: David Arduin Executive Producer: Evan Sahr   Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are joined with a special guest who many know and love name Mallory Irvin. Mallory is a small town Kentucky girl turned internet sensation. After college, she was crowned Miss Kentucky, and later became a runner-up in the Miss America pageant. You might know her from her three seasons on The Amazing Race. Her brand, Living Fully, really blew up after launching a blog, then a YouTube channel, then a podcast, then merch, a book, and more. We're going to get into all that.

And everything that she does, she helps people find joy, happiness, satisfaction, and connection in this crazy world we live in. She lives here in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, Kyle and their children and shares all of her life's joys and challenges with her community of loyal followers. She is a force to be reckoned with, and we're so lucky to have her on Trading Secrets. Mallory, thank you so much for being here with us today. You are so welcome. What a sweet introduction, Jason. And it's well deserved. I got to say, so I want to talk about your childhood and stuff, but one thing is I'm reading your intro.

I'm thinking about as I saw your YouTube, you had this YouTube click about your morning routines. And I'm thinking the kids and everything you guys have going on. I mean, there's so many things going on in your life and so many things that you manage. Before even to get into your childhood and how you got to where you are today, what is like one thing you do to just manage all the mayhem

and still drive professional success daily? Oh, gosh. You know, it's really fly by the seat of our pants right now. So we get a two and a three-year-old. and we're having another one in June and it's so funny Jason because I do everything really big but I do everything like at the same time

so we decided like this week oh yeah let's buy a house and then also like I'm pregnant we got two wild children that we don't have really have help with because I want to do it all myself and you know I really

I'm not hard on myself when it gets super crazy I think that that's the way that I deal with it. It doesn't have to be totally perfect. But I really try and keep my priorities in check in that, like, I really want to be the one to parent my children most of the time. And I'm really grateful to be able to run my businesses from my home. I mean, you and Caitlin, I'm sure are the same. Like, what a great thing that you get to be around your family when you run your business. So anytime it just gets tornado mode, which is mostly every single day, I have to go back to thinking, you know, I'm thankful for this. This is, this is the dream. And then if it gets

too chaotic, I have to bring in help or I have to figure out something to drop so that I can keep the things that are important at the forefront of the way that I'm living in my life. I like that strategy, though, it's a tornado and you just keep the tornado moving forward because Caitlin and I have a similar type of thing where we live this tornado lifestyle. What we need to instill and take on from what you do is just do. Right. So like, even with our wedding. And today, I just had a 20-minute segment to look at a new home. We have, like, if it's not perfect, we're just like, wait to do it. And sometimes you just got to say, let's go do it. That's something we're going to think. And if we do it wrong,

then like, we can just, we can alter it. But I'm not one. I make quick decisions. I do things really big and really, it won't be like this forever. It's not always going to be the tornado season. So it's like, I need to enjoy it while it is here because it goes so fast and just live, just I was having a lot. I was back home this past week in Buffalo and Rochester, got to see Caitlin perform. And I had a lot of conversations with my friends about how many kids you want. And someone said to me, and it just really resonated. They said, you'll have this conversation with all your closest friends and family. And you'll get a hundred different reasons of why you should have more, why you should have less. But I read this one quote that you should have as many kids or ideally

as you can if you're lucky enough to have that when you are right now, like if you fast forward, your life and you're 60 years old, 65. How many kids do you think would be like ideal when you think about like your holiday dinners and like everything. Yeah. What would your answer be then? Because there are so many reasons to have kids or not to have kids or timing. But like think about that life at 65 and that is something that you really want to focus on. And when I think about that, you like that. I'm glad you something with that. Because I was going to say when I think about a lot of kids, one of the things I think about is your upbringing. And I know your family, we had talked about it even before the podcast set, your family had a lot of success in the telecom business

and that you guys were able to drive a lot of wealth from that. But you guys lived, and I heard you say this on another podcast, you're on his guest, you lived on this like compound fog. Like all your family was there. But one thing you told me is that your dad and your family, you guys were, even though you guys had the means and maybe could have spoiled you guys, he was very intentional with the way he raised you guys and things that he did from teaching money management. Tell me about how a parent and at one point a kid, like what that was like and how that's changed your life. Yeah. So we did. We grew up on this farm in western Kentucky and it's in the middle of nowhere. It was a really beautiful. It's like totally opposite of the way

you grew up. You know, in New York City, everybody's close. You know, me, it's like, there was nobody. It was only our family. My grandparents were and still are in the middle. My dad had six siblings who were all dispersed around like all of this acreage. And my dad, dad and his brothers, we have a family business that's still operating today. And it's in telecom, all things telecom. They have a lot of other businesses too. But they started from nothing like a lot of these stories go. And my grandpa was like the ultimate entrepreneur. Like the bank asked him to file for bankruptcy like three times in his life. And he was too proud and like wouldn't do it. Always he went from a pig farmer, went under to like the biggest mobile home salesman in the state

of Kentucky within like six months, you know, just these crazy amazing stories. So I think that my dad and his brothers really learned to take risks and chances from him. And he's still around today. So, you know, all of us cousins, this generation does too. So they decided to get into cable TV back in like the 80s when cable TV was really in its infancy. And they hustled. So growing up, we didn't have a lot as I was younger. And then they continued to build this business and build this business. And eventually, because they kept a lot of things from us, my dad started reading a lot of literature about if you don't let kids in on wealth that you're building or you know that they could potentially come you know that's a whole different story because uh like a lot of families

with high net worth they didn't just hand over things to us which i'm really glad because i think it made us all hard workers and into the people that we are now the way that they set things up but he started reading a lot of this literature about how the first generation makes it the second generation holds it holds on to it and the third generation squanders it if you don't if you aren't intentional about teaching legacy and like why it was built and that you know money management so he took this this shift so i was younger or i actually i'm the oldest of all the cousins so i was in college when they started they started doing all these meetings about money management and the our family history and our family story how it was built and they always

taught us ever since we were young like it's a wonderful thing to be able to build wealth in your life. It's not something that you should be ashamed of because you can change the world with money if you are fortunate enough to come, come into it or make it in your own life like they were teaching us to do. And it was an amazing 15 or 20 years that we did this. And we met like four times a year and we had advisors come in that would talk to us about, you know, how the choices you make with your money can change your life can change the world. And not necessarily talking just about money that we were given, but talking to us about money that we would make, because we, like I said, we're not given, even though they had a lot. My dad was very much like, yeah, you can do philanthropy

and like you can have education funds, but you ain't going to buy Porsche. That is amazing. They started that at a young age, though, and the impact that we'll have on your generation and then, you know, the generation after you. I think that that's huge and that's something that anyone listening can really think through, especially as like you only have so much time on this earth, not only what impact are you making, but what lessons and what legacy are you leaving to your kids and their generation? That's huge. So as far as like career trajectory, is this something you always had your eyes on and you just like fall back into it, give it a shot and took the crowd? How'd that work? A lord no, I was not what you would call. Patrick Girl was a

tomboy growing up. I was a singer from a young age. So I was like this little kind of like a star in my community. I'd sing at every county fair and festival and funeral and wedding in my hometown. And then starting to do like surrounding states. And then I got to do some bigger things. I made a few CDs. And I got to do the national anthem and a few NBA playoff games. Oh, cool.

Open for the Charlie Daniels fan, do all this fun stuff as a young person. So my community always kind of put me on a pedestal. And it was a really special thing to be able to do things that seemed too big for this community, for what people expected of people from my hometown. And so I think I got a little taste of that then. And then my sister did little county fair pageants and stuff. But that never crossed my mind. I was never like the pretty one.

I always thought it was all about looks. Like I was never, I'm five feet tall. Like, I always thought they were tall. And, you know, so we were in the car one day. My dad said, I think you should be Miss America or Miss McCoskey. I don't remember what he said. And I was like, what? And he, but it's very wise and very smart.

And it was so bizarre that he said that. And I was like, okay, I'll Google it. So I started looking it up and realizing that 35% of the score was talent, 25% was interviewed, 10% was on stage question. I was like, oh, it's not about looks. It's about talent. I can win this. I like that.

I did it. It took me three years to win. And I won on my last year. You age out at age 25. So I so desperately wanted it that I became a crazy person in the end, just like you do, like when it's your last. shot. I was runner up the year before and then I ended up winning it. And what's amazing about the role of Miss Kentucky, what a lot of people probably don't realize, it isn't a legitimate

role in your state, a paying role in your state. I was employed by the Department of Agriculture. They paid me for every school and every appearance that I did. So this was like my first job out of college. I was a year out of college. All my friends are doing internships and I'm walking around with the crown and banner into, you know, hell. What do you get like, what do you pay for something like that? It was like 1.35 a school, but sometimes I would do seven schools in one day. And I had everything else was sponsored. So I had a sponsorship from Lexus from a car. I had a sponsorship for my wardrobe. My parents helped out with my apartment. You know, sometimes the checks are big. Sometimes the checks are small. You know, back in the day, if I had had Instagram or some other way to leverage this brand that I was building, it would have been amazing and it would have been easier to make a lot of money. But it was still, it was a decent paying gig. Yeah. But what was amazing for me is it was the basis for the rest of my career. Like I always thought I wanted to sing country music and I'd come back and forth to Nashville

and done all this stuff. But then when I was doing Miss Kentucky and I started speaking and it's kind of where my message of living fully was born, I realized I loved to speak. I loved having a platform to speak about and they let me speak on the house and Senate floor about autism insurance reform and like all of these things that I never would I've had these doors open to me had I not had access to these places being Miss Kentucky. And it was a wonderful year in my life. And I was runner from Miss America in 2010, you know, halfway through my reign is Miss Kentucky.

As soon as I walked off that Miss America stage, I was cast for reality TV. And I'm sure that you know about, because you know reality TV as well as I do. Some people just apply, but some people they reach out to and they cast and then they go through the application process. Is it like that with The Bachelor, or can you say, I don't know? No, so I think it's both ways. So I think a lot of people apply and then some people are reached out to. And then there's even the circumstance where there are a couple people at our season, they were just walking around at a mall in L.A.

Recruers were at the mall and they picked them up. There was actually one thing from our season, yeah. One dude from our season was passed out because he drank too much the night before and he was passed out with his banjo on the beach. And they woke him up and they were like, hey, like, you. look like you can be on the show. Ironically, he didn't last long because he slept the whole time.

So anyway, that's how you can find people from that show. That is so funny. Well, it's kind of the same thing, you know, with these CBS reality shows. So you still do have to go through the application process. It's not like an automatic ticket in, but they find the people that they think would work well on these reality shows.

Like they do with The Bachelor, it sounds like, yeah, with the banjo on the beach. Well, I was a crazy woman on stage that couldn't contain her emotions on live television. So they're like, you so they first they offered me survivor uh to start the application process with survivor and i was like i've been on this pageant diet for like months and i will die if i have to go on the deserted island and do the thing like they you know if they really starve sure i can't i can't even though like i'd add all the success i needed a new big thing i was starting to

actually get really attached to my achievement and my notoriety and And like, I really wanted something else. And they called back right after one. Like, what about the amazing race? And I said, my dad has been sitting on our couch and watching that show for 10 years. Could he be the person I applied with? They said, sure. So we, you know, went through the grueling application process.

We ended up making it on the show. And if you win that show, you win $1 million. And so we did the first season of that show. like two months after I was, I walk off the Miss America stage with like full glitz and glan non-suitcases to backpack on my back, back to the country girl mode, racing around the world for a million dollars. And it was just the most amazing experience in my life. I'm really close to my dad. And it was a really amazing, special crazy thing. Do you think the sole reason that it worked out for you to be on amazing race is because you were runner up and you were Miss

Kentucky? Like, do you think it's that title and that platform that got you? at the show. I think that that's always, you know, they need the characters, just like they do on The Bachelor. They really brand you as the character. And it's really great when you come along with the title that they don't even have to think of branding, like, a country Miss Kentucky, her dad, perfect, put them on a four-wheeler, lean him against the fence, like, perfect. So we already came with all that. But I had casting agents, this was like the third casting person that had reached out to me. People were trying to cast me for reality TV for a, for a, for a, for a while. And I was like, I am just doing Miss America. I'm not interested in it right now.

And so I think that that was part of it. And maybe that's what pushed me through to actually make it. Because I had some characters on my season. I was on there with people I'm still friends with today with a couple Harlem Globetrotters and two like true Ata Oklahoma Cowboys and like a really gothic couple that would like do full makeup, the guy and the girl every single day like paint their nail like we had a bunch of extreme characters on our season and we really fit with that and then you know we lost that season like a few episodes from the end and then we got called back a couple weeks later and they said would you be interested in the all-star season that we're about to start filming so before that one even aired we went on to do an all-star season that we almost won

we lost by one minute and 30 seconds in the last episode oh I know I was so I was I want to know all about that, but one thing I don't want to pass over is the Miss America. So you talked about the characters on Amazing Race. I have to imagine there are some serious characters in Miss America. So the two questions I have for you is when, and this can hopefully be relatable to anybody, regardless of what they're doing, when you're branding yourself to differentiate yourself amongst all of these missed states from that they're coming from, what is one thing you did to differentiate yourself to become a runner-up.

And then another thing I was curious with Ms. America is what is the, do you get paid anything for coming and runner-up or winning? Or is it the same thing like Ms. Kentucky, you just get paid for gigs? Well, Miss Kentucky, so in the end of the day, people make fun of people saying this, but it's true. It is a scholarship pageant. Like, if you win Miss America, I think you can win like $60,000 scholarship money. Okay. When I won Miss Kentucky, I think I won, I got like $10,000 in scholarship money.

I had already graduated college. My dad was trying to push me into law school. and I was like, I don't want to be a lawyer. Why in the world? And I go to law school. So I pushed that off as far as I could. I ended up using it for some smaller continuing education programs for some careers that I was kind of getting into. But if you win, Miss America, not only do you, a lot of times, it's opened so many doors to opportunities and higher earning jobs, you know, at a young age, but the scholarship money, like, if you are going on to continuing education, I know I've heard you talk before about like your MBA debt and like you can, you can

really, there were a lot of girls that going to law school and med school and going to get their MBA, or there were a lot of girls that were still in college. So, whether you win or you're a runner-up, or there's just a lot of different opportunities for like different types of awards that you can win within the Miss America Paget, that

are worth several thousand dollars in scholarship money, which is valuable, especially if you're still in your education journey, you know? So, yeah, with Miss America, fourth runner-up, I can't remember how much I I won, but I mean, I never went on to do a continuing education. So that went right back to the Miss America pageant, I guess.

Now I donate money back to them, but that was a large sum of money before I had money to donate back to them. But yeah, it's a wonderful thing if you are still in your kind of education. They don't give any cash or anything like that. You pay a lot of cash because the dresses are expensive. Does all that come out of your pocket? Like when you're paying for training, coaching dresses, they don't pay for anything? A lot of it does.

in different states, pageants are more serious in different states and they are other states. In the southern states and in California, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Kentucky, Texas, those states pageants are a big deal. So they have a lot of sponsorships, like I was saying, like the car, a lot of wardrobe sponsors. But there's usually always some slack that the family has to pick up or that the contestant has to pick up. And it varies, though, from state to state from year to year. And then you just budget accordingly. But back to the the characters saying, oh, that was your original question. Yeah.

You know, I think everyone is kind of playing a part sometimes. You show up to these pageants and Miss America is such an, you know, they are looking for this well-rounded, ideal, amazing woman that can be this figurehead to these speaking engagements.

They want someone that's smart and they want someone that is really together. And I was like a wildcat. I was very much not what they were used to seem probably on that stage. And I think it was very different and refreshing and I was very authentic. But I'm sure that I was a runner-up also because they probably looked at me and were like,

ooh, okay, this could go one way or the other with you. Wild card. We don't know what to. We don't know what takes that. We don't know. So a lot of the girls are very serious, very polished. They are journaling in the corner, any free time. And there's a handful of girls that were like me that were so grateful to be there, so excited.

So I was, we stayed at the plane at Hollywood and I was eating, I gained nine pounds the week of Miss America. I trained for six months for swimsuit. And then I was like eating the international buffet. Like I'd never eaten at a buffet in my life. I would be like, you've got to try these sushi holes. The other girls would look at me like, what are you? You aren't insane. There were a lot of characters.

But my overall experience with Miss America and the contestants, I think, too, because talent's such a big part. They've got to be smart girls, too, and they've got to kind of be with it. There wasn't, like, the catiness that I hear about in a lot of the other pageant systems. Or maybe I was just, like, totally out of it. But they, everyone was really nice. They really did kind of, like, compete with themselves as weird as that sounds. And it was a really great experience for me.

Is it fair to say that then you differentiate yourself strictly by not conforming to, like, what the quintessential page is. it should be, and you just continue to say, like, I'll just continue to be me, and I'll take it or leave it. Yes, and, you know, I really conformed the second year I competed in Miss Kentucky because I was like, okay, if I want to win, I need to play the game. And I did everything, right, I cut my hair the way they told me I should cut my hair, or the color dress that they said, I sang the song that they said I should sing. And on my last year, I really took a lot of chances.

I sang a song that everyone said he shouldn't sing. I did my hair different. My dress was different. I've been a lot of things different. And I carried that into Miss America. They would always say, look, all the winners were white or, like, neutral color dresses. And I wore, like, fire engine red. I sang a song that people had heard before, but I did a different rendition.

I didn't really know how, like, pageant walk. So I did some training on it. But I was just had this really bouncy, like, walk. And, yeah, so I think that definitely differentiated me. Yeah, I think there's a lot of takeaways there, though, right? There's so many people that tell you to. differentiated and winning things like that, you have to check the boxes. But there's also something to be said. If you're only checking the boxes, you're just another person in the box.

And sometimes it hates an outlier to be noticed, like whatever your endeavor it is, even if it's just walking down the runway. And so then you transition, though, that type of swagger coming in second place, too amazing race. You go on with your dad. One question, you know, trading secrets. We talk about money here. What happened? if you and your dad win that million bucks, did you guys have like an agreement before 50-50 split or daughter gets it all? What would that of what?

So, you know, now I know in my real life as I'm bringing in money with a lot of different businesses, like taxes, they take it all back. It's all gone. Comes in, goes out. Everybody, great, I'm making a lot of money, but I have to give it all back to the government. Like, I gave me every bit of it back.

Like, how do people even build wealth? I mean, they take it all back. But so they take it. take, you know, a big portion out for taxes. And then, you know, you split at 50-50. My dad didn't need the money. I desperately needed the money. I don't know exactly what that split would have been, Jason, but I should actually ask him now that we're on the other side. What that split would have looked like. Well, we'll have to follow back up with that. But what about coming incentives? So obviously, first place gets a million bucks for amazing raising.

What was it, 92 seconds away from winning first place? Do you get anything? second place or no. So, so in the end, in the last episode of the 12 episodes, so you start in America, if people don't know what amazing race is, you do all these challenges, it'll say, flat Australia, find a sailboat, look under the mast and there will be a clue, dive with a great right shark, find the next clue, like learn to sail, sail across with the skipper. I mean, it's just the craziest thing. You fly, and then you don't do the whole world in like 22 days. And in the last leg, you'll race again, there'll be three teams that will race for the million dollars. And only three. And so,

So we, so the winners, Jen and Keisha, who we're still friends with, they won. The Harlem Globetrotters were second, and we were just like a few seconds behind them. But behind the winners, we were 90 seconds. And I think, I think second place maybe gets 25 and third place gets 10. But there are prizes at the end of each leg. And we won, I think, four legs during that season. One leg we won in India, we had to drink like hundreds of cups of tea. I mean, I've never, I'm drinking tea right now.

But for a long time, I was like, this Southern woman is not going to be able to go back to the T's because it's made me so sick. But that leg, my dad and I ended up getting really lucky and we won and we won one million rupees, which ended up breaking down to maybe $25,000. So that leg, like we each one, maybe $12.5. And then you can win cars on legs. You can win trips. But the trips, you have to pay taxes on. So it's like, I got to pay $3,000. I mean, I'll give it to somebody.

And you've just tripped around. the world, us twice. So we didn't need another trip together. So I gave me to my mom. But we won several prizes throughout, some cash, some other things. And then I think it was 10,000 that we won for third place. So not a ton. But again, the exposure was amazing for me.

And honestly, like, you know, I had this book coming out. You'll hear why it was the most amazing thing that I didn't win. because if I had had all of that cash at my disposal, I had a prescription drug problem that was getting a little bit, I was starting to spiral a little bit. So I was on, like, Adderall during the day, which I was not ADHD. So I think Adderall is like giving, life saving to some people that need it.

I did not need it. I know exactly what I need to say to the doctor to get it. And I was, you know, this high performing person, I'd just come off of Miss America and I just wanted to, I wanted to do more and more. And eventually I was taking way too much. And I couldn't sleep. And then they prescribed me ambient.

And it became this roller coaster of up and down. And I was taking hundreds of milligrams by the end of it over a span of like three years. And I almost died. Wow. And, you know, it wasn't to the point where I was like near death, but it was becoming a really big problem when I was kind of in the midst of these shows. Also, a lot of people take stuff like Ambien because you only sleep when you go overnight to the next country. So if I'm flying from Australia to India and I've only got 18 hours and I had to sleep for eight on the plane, it's like, it was like, oh, take a sleeping pill.

No big deal. For someone with an addictive mind, it was a big deal because I couldn't stop it after. And that went on for a few years, but losing the Amazing Rice was the best thing that ever happened to me because I don't know that I would be here if I had had all that. money and all that addles because I'm you know I was having to work and having to do all these different things and focus on making money because you know I wasn't getting any from anywhere else so I had to survive I was living in Nashville and I think the idle time just kind of uh it makes those kinds of fires just blaze faster so I think it was a great thing that I ended up losing I was going to ask you that was my next question was you know we just talked about two runner up

stories, which would you, like, if you go back in time of one, one of them, Amazing Race or Miss America, what would the answer be? I got to assume it's Miss America, right? No, though. I don't know, because Amazing Race was probably the best experience, like, of my life up until that point. And if I had won Miss America, I wouldn't have been able to do it. Okay. Was it Amazing Race, though, that really sparked the addiction to the Adderall Ambien in that cycle? I think it was just, it was, I was in a cycle of achievement. I was in a cycle of, I've heard you tell the story about like your corporate days.

When you get in these, especially in your 20s, these jobs or roles or whatever it is, a reality TV show or corporate America. And you're so young and it's such a public facing, everybody can see that you're successful. If you were a person, you know, I told you, I grew up on this farm with all these cousins. I was the oldest, oldest of all my siblings. always an achiever. I was valedictorian in my class. I did, you know, I did everything number one, always. And achievement was always a great thing and a goal and a driver. And then it became crippling to me. It became an obsession. And it became like, if I don't achieve this and if I don't do something bigger than what they just saw me do on TV in January, Miss America, or what they just

saw me this summer compete on the amazing race, I'm going to let my whole town down and my family down and myself down. And it became something that I became so obsessed with that I was like, I have to do more. And I confused that with, if I take this medication that makes me feel like I'm doing more. You know, I mean, if you've ever taken those medications, you don't do anything productive if you don't need the medication usually. You clean your house. You do crazy.

You run a marathon. You do crazy. I was just like a chicken with my head cut off. It made me even more scattered for years. And then it got really out of control. And I don't think I can really blame it on either of those things that I did. I think it was just, it's the way that I'm wired. I'm always an achiever.

I always want to do things at a 12. If the max that you can do them is at a 10. And it's just how I'm wired. And I did the same thing with prescription medication, unfortunately, too. But fortunately, you know, my parents started to see that I was so different. I'd always been just as a vibrant child. and this, you know, I had, I had always been so happy and just alive and like a lot of prescription addictions or whatever substance it is or whatever thing it is, it gets so out of

control and it slowly just feels your spirit and your soul and you just feel like a shell of a person. And I did, but I was such as just a slave to achievement that there were doctors that would look at me, Jason, and I would say, I don't know what you're doing, but if you continue to do it based on your vitals that I've just taken and what's just going down, you are not going to live much longer. And I thought to myself, because my body was shutting down, I was having many strokes, my blood pressure was off the charts. I weighed 90 pounds. I mean, I was just a shell of a person and my body was shutting down. And I thought to myself, when I would hear that, I would say, you know, I've lived a good life and I've done these great things and I would rather go out like this,

nobody knowing that had these issues, then I would admitting that this has happened, disappointing all these people. And it's so sad that you can get to that point. And especially like someone like me that have been so full of life, but it took the life right out of me. And that was the point that luckily I had people, like when you have red flags flashing like I did on the outside, hopefully have people around you that love you and that know what you normally like and they can kind of step in.

and be like, we've got to help. And my family didn't know what to do. We didn't have anyone that had ever been through anything like that. So we just started Googling things. And I ended up going to a treatment center for like five and a half months. And that's the story that like nobody's known for like eight years. I wrote it in the book that's just come out. And I started, you know, I'm an influencer online and do all these different businesses.

And people see the other side of this life that I fought for. And then I continue to choose. And I was like, I'm not doing anything. any favors or myself if I don't tell the whole story because I can't just let them see this side of things and the vibrant life that I'm living now without knowing that I've been through some stuff that you didn't know about. And I continue to choose a different way to live, which is like living fully. It's my whole brand, my whole brand every day because of what I went through. And if you were, for you to say that there was a point in your thought process that

it would almost be better if you just went and no one knew the story versus actually living and fixing the problem like that that is it's severe and it probably is a testament for like how challenging that must have been for you to tell your parents about this so i mean what was that like for you when you did have to sit down with them and explain what happened and how did you overcome that to say i need to talk to someone well like a lot of people like when you are in the state where you're about to lose your life. You are not thinking correctly. Like you are in psychosis.

You are delusional because clearly you're delusional to take that much medication and think that you're going to continue to be able to live or that it's helping you in any way. So it wasn't really a choice for me in the beginning. My parents were just kind of like something is wrong. We have to figure out how to help you. We don't know what is even wrong or like how to help you. So we have to find someone that can. And they took me to a facility.

and I thought they'll drop me off because I was still in my mind was like trying to be the perfect child and I was still doing a lot of things in the public eye and kind of folding it together until the very end and I thought like you know as soon as you get to these places

no person with an issue with substances is going to be like well here's what I'm on here is the milligrams here is what's going down you know they take your blood they're like we don't trust anything that you say and I was so delusional that when they dropped me off there

I say well take my blood and then let my parents know that I don't do drugs and I can leave this place because I just was in denial that I had a problem. I knew something was wrong in my life and I knew that like I was taking too much of this medication but I didn't really like believe that I had a problem. So the first choice and you know while I was in there

getting my blood taking my parents left and I was admitted I stayed for 30 days and I realized I did have an issue and as a sobriety from those substances kind of started to happen, And it's like my mind came back into focus. And I realized that in numbing out all of the bad and the pain and the trying to achieve more, I was numbing out every bit of the light that I had and the goodness and the joy that I felt. So I started to feel that again. And I was like, oh my gosh, why did I even do this in the first place?

Like it happened so slowly I didn't even realize it. It just took my spirit from me. So at the end of this 30 day program, though, they will like assess you. They'll let you go home or they'll say, you need to go to sober living or they'll say you need more extended care. So I was like, they're for sure going to send me home. Like, I didn't even think I was that bad.

You know, there were people in there for a lot. What I wanted to qualify is a lot worse, drugs than I was, even though the amount that I was taken definitely equal theirs, even though theirs was from the street. Mine was from the pharmacy. Right. So I sat there and my therapist said, we are recommending extended care for you another three months at least.

And that is the point where I made the decision. I fought and I said, I'm fine. Like, this is what you wanted me, was to be sober. But, you know, it's never about the substances or the numbing behavior, whatever it is that gets you into these positions. It's always something underneath it. And in 30 days, they can really only do the sobriety piece. They can really only, especially if you're on some of the things that, like, it's risky coming off these things. They have to really monitor you, like medically.

It's just tough on your body. So that's when I made the choice, because here I am clear. minded now and I knew that like there was something that had happened that got me in this situation and I was over 18 I could have left and I could have said I'm not saying but I chose to say and that is when I reclaimed my life and that's when I really learned like what it is to live a full life and that's when I really became not fearful to experience true lows that was the first real low that I'd ever felt I'd experience hardships but nothing like that like almost losing your life and as a person that wanted to be a perfect image of everything on the

outside to end up in a treatment center. It was just such a blow to everything that I'd wanted to be. But it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me in my life and something that finally I've decided to share. And I'm really glad that I did because whether somebody's got an issue like that that's a red flag flashing or whether it's just in everyday life you hear a voice in the back of your head being like, I'm in the wrong job or something's not right in this relationship or I just like want for more like choosing a bigger life is something that I've like become obsessed with and now is my whole brand. And so, you know, I wrote the whole book about it. I do podcasts about it. We have merchandise lines that's called the same thing. And I think it's like

my biggest, it's my best work. It's my, it's why I think I was put here to spread this kind of message. Yeah. I think there's so many takeaways from that too. If you think about there's this image or thought process in our head of what we need to be. Maybe it's based on the company we work for. Maybe it's just internally we have to have certain behaviors to show success to our peers or our family, whatever it may be. And I think if you're putting yourself down this alley where you'll do anything to get there and you start taking medication to make sure that you can stay in the lane, is something in my book I talk about too. I asked what prescription because I was taking different prescriptions to make sure that I still could keep the suit on, keep the face, talk way I had to

talk because if I didn't do that, it was a threat to my success. And it sounds like a very similar thing to you. Very similar. You had to use these prescriptions to be, because there were threats that were happening for you to achieve the success. And below that, there's so many things that fundamentally you have to fix. And I think that's amazing that you're telling that story. So when did your book come out again? It's called The Restart Roadmap. I know what it's called. I look it up.

Rewire and reset your career. I love it. So that comes out. It'll be on shelves in April. Awesome. I will be buying that. I will, I'm very excited about that.

I love the title. I'll be doing the same. It sounds like there's a lot of cool overlap. So I'm excited to read your book. But Mallory, one thing you just mentioned on before, you know, we let you go and get your trading secret

is all the things you do have going on since kind of, you've had this wild roller coaster of Miss America, Miss Kentucky, an amazing race, and then putting yourself into rehab and coming out. And like you said, you have everything. If you go to your website, she has a blog, she's got the podcast, she has merchandise, she has a YouTube channel, literally everything. So with all of those, a lot of our listeners are thinking about how they can take their businesses that they've already created or their brand and start moving into those areas. I know you did really cool

things like you had a Joanne fabric set for your YouTube and you've done these like crazy things to say I can build this without putting so much money into it. So amongst all those things, you know, what has been maybe the most lucrative to you and what suggestions would you have for anyone listening as they may want to build a blog or podcast or YouTube or their site? What are some business takeaways there? It's a good question. So I say jump in the deep end of the waters because there is so much room for so many more people. It does not matter how long people have been doing it. How many other people are doing it?

This is such an amazing, lucrative, rewarding space to be in if you're doing what you love in the space. I can only speak to someone that's actually doing what I love in this space. I had absolutely no money at all to work with when I started. So, like you said, I started with this Joanne's Fabric. piece of sequin backdrop and a camera that I had that I'd gone for Christmas a few years earlier. And I started filming YouTube videos and I had to Google how to edit them. It took me like eight or ten hours to edit these videos sometimes. I wasn't making a ton of money. In the beginning, I was just like using affiliate links. So, you know, you're making a couple hundred

dollars here or there. Ad money is not huge because my channel hadn't grown yet. But I took the chance and it started to grow and it grew and it grew and it grew. And it grew. And it grew. And And it did grow rapidly, some things, and some parts are more lucrative than others from year to year. But my merchandise business is a very successful multi-million dollar operation that I am literally only selling on my Instagram stories. Like, I feel like we could go on Shark Tank right now. And I know, like, when they're about to be like, like, when someone's like, here's the sales that we're doing in a year and they take out their paper and they're like, wait, wait, So it's like a, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I've switched merchandise, like the companies that I work with three times in this process because no one can handle my demand.

I always had like a ceiling put on it. Like we, like these sales, like a good sale, you know, we will do a million dollars in sales in five minutes. If you would have asked me when I was starting all these arms of my business, what would be the most lucrative or successful, would not have thought it was going to be the merch business and it is absolutely the merch business. So I think you have to be open in a space to you have to diversify because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. We do not own Instagram or YouTube or we've had funky things happen on our YouTube channel. They took our

comments off for like four years, just some random thing that we couldn't get fixed. Same with Instagram. You know, sometimes things will just happen and I'll lose the ability to do captions or all of a sudden my Instagram story reviews will go from 200,000 to 80,000. And I'm just like, what the heck? Like, you can't control it. I can control, for the most part, a product that I put out, which is the book, merchandise. So I think that, you know, for anybody coming into this space, first off, you just have to start. I started as a beauty YouTuber and influencer.

Now I have written a self-help book and have a lifestyle brand and sweatshirt company. you will see that your audience and the people around you, they'll show you what they like, you'll learn what you like, and you evolve. Don't think you have to have it all figured out when you get started. Just start. Valerie, I just have two questions here. I know we've gone a little bit over. So the two questions that I have to be.

The one is a trading secret. So it's going to be something we can't find in the textbook. It can be related to your financial management, career management, that you can leave us with their viewers. But the second question I have before I get to your trading secret is you said it. So if you give me a little bit, I got to jump on it. So we've talked a lot about on the podcast how big the book deals work. You have to send out. You have to get a publisher to bid on it.

Then you have to negotiate against the publisher and then get the book deal. What information could you give us about the book deal? That my literary agent said that she thought it was the biggest book deal that a first time author had gotten that she had seen in a long time that, like, that wasn't their main thing. And she had a lot of faith in me. And she knew that she knew I did not know that I would have multiple people in my big day. And I remember after we ended up, in the end, people bid until the very end. And then at the end of the book deal, you know, you have to choose who you're going to go with.

And I ended up going to random house. I went with the biggest publisher in the world because I was like, I really want to. Convergent is my imprint. But Penguin Random House is just big. They're awesome. So is Harper Collins and Hachet and everybody else that was in. on bids also. And I even looked at her and I was like, did you think it wouldn't be this big? She shook her and said, no.

That's a lot of six figures? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. I mean, oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right. Last thing we got to end with, Matt. It's been amazing here about your story, your book, your upbringing, where you are today, how you got there. The fact that no matter what we bring in the door, it goes out the door anyway. What trading secret can you leave our viewers with us? They're kind of working to fulfill maybe their entrepreneurship goals, their career navigation goals, their financial goals, they're just overall happiness.

What can you leave us? So something that we were taught when we were young, kind of in these meetings with my family, when they were teaching us how when you make your own money, whether you're a teacher or whether you are an entrepreneur that's making $50 million a year. If you can continue to look at your values and make sure that you're spending habits,

you're saving, you're sharing, align with your values. You will be so much happier in the way that you spend your money in the way that you exist with money or without money. And that's something that I think about every so often Because when I'm making a big decision in my life, financially say, because I know you talk a lot about finances, so we'll say it's a financial decision. I have to think, what are my values? My number one value is my family.

That family has been so just entrenched in my blood, grew up on this farm with this family. I am obsessed with having an amazing family that's just rooted in our family history and legacy and raising good kids and having a good marriage. So that's my value. That's my number one value. So if I'm looking at a financial purchase, and I think, what's my number one value? It's taking care of my family. Is that going to compromise that or is that going to help me move towards that value?

I make that decision like that. And I really try to make every financial decision. I try and think about my values first. And that would be my advice. And I think that that automatically leads to more happiness. Because when you're congruent, if the person that you are on the outside existing in the world is the same is the person that you are on the inside, it's, it's just, it's guaranteed happiness, a lot of

happiness, not Pollyanna happiness, like you're always happy and you don't have anything happen, but just joy, congruence brings joy and knowing your values and making decisions based on that, whether it's financial or not, helps you live a better life, I think. That is, it's brilliant because I think we live in a world that marketing executives at the top, their goal is to drive our decision-making to be instant gratification and or impulsive. I find myself oftentimes making quick, impulsive decisions for quick happiness. And I think to your takeaway and your trading secret, Mallory, is when you have that really thought out and you just have a quick direction based on your values, you can always go back

to that benchmark and question what you're doing, why you're doing, and if it makes sense. And I think it's something that any person here listening should take to the bank because everything you see, the commercials you watch, the ads you listen to, the billboards you drive by are built and drift and spent tons of money to drive that impulsiveness. And going back to number one, for you, Mallory, which is family, we should all have that number one outline. So that's a takeaway, Mallory. It has been an absolute pleasure to have you on. I know you told us earlier, but if people are interested in everything you have going on, where can they get more of Mallory? And Jason, thank you so much for having me on it. And just my website, Malloryover.com,

Instagram is always great, just at Mallory Irvin, M-A-L-L-O-R-Y, E-R-V-I-N. I have a podcast called Living Fully. Merch Lines Living Fully Co. The book is Living Fully. If you do anything, like if you buy this book, it would mean, you know,

because you've written a book, like I poured my heart and my soul into this book and told a story that I didn't have to tell in the hopes that I can help other people live fuller lives. And I'm excited for it to come out. So please buy my book. If you are a reader, I would love to have the opportunity to be in your ears or your eyes,

you know, however you consume books. So, yeah, and Jason, I have to say this about you. too because everyone that so we both live in Nashville and we both have podcasts and we're like the same age both did reality TV so our circles kind of cross over some but I haven't met you I've met Caitlin who is good as gold such a gym and just amazing just so great when I did her podcast

but every single person that knows you tells me what a good guy you are and what just like an amazing person you are and I don't I don't say that to everyone but like I'm that and I've heard it from like 10 people in the last two weeks and that's a real testament to you and compliment to you and everyone just sings your praises and says you are just such a good hearted bright human being Mallor that truly means the world to me I did just get goosebumps when you said that so thank you that's what I try to do day in and day out so the hearing that affirmation is really really appreciate it means a lot made my day I mean it

me making that money and money living that dream making that money money money pay on me making that money money living that dream