Well with Arielle Lorre - 332: How to Stop Outsourcing Your Self Esteem, Get Out of a Rut and Build Confidence with Tara Schuster

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Tara Schuster is an accomplished entertainment executive turned bestselling self-help author for people who don’t love self-help. After serving as vice president of talent and development at Comedy Central, she wrote the runaway hit, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies, and this year released Glow in the F*cking Dark: Simple Practices to Heal Your Soul, from Someone Who Learned the Hard Way. She joins the show to discuss why getting what you think you want might not be what you expect and how to build real self confidence, self worth and self esteem instead of relying on external validation. She shares simple tips to get out of a rut, overcome imposter syndrome, feel better about money and be the best version of yourself. Tara brings levity and humor to some heavy topics in this lively, fun conversation!Tara’s latest book: https://amzn.to/3S0hDRbSubscribe to Patreon for exclusive weekly content: patreon.com/ArielleLorreThis episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Go to betterhelp.com/FILES to get 10% off your first monthVisit qualialife.com/BLONDE for 50% off of Qualia Senolytic and code BLONDE at checkout for an additional 15% offGo to fatty15.com/BLONDE or use code BLONDE for an additional 15% off their Starter Kit.Get who gets you, on eHarmony! Sign up today at eharmony.com Use MALK's store locator to find MALK Creamers at a store near youProduced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Auto-hue with Sunny Cars feels as if the children not be made. Giselsramble, sandboard. Actisvercere, verdwined. Vacanty can chaotic

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would auto-hue without your rice-adviseur or sunnycars. The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome to the Blond Files I'm your host, Ariel Lori, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal

health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there's so much information out there, so I'm bringing on expert guests and sharing my own experiences to help you sift through all the wellness stuff without the BS. Enjoy the show. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. I have such an incredible episode for you to today. It's kind of a journey, but I just really adored my guest so much. Obviously, she's so vulnerable, so candid, but she's also really funny. And so in this episode, she really brings a lot of levity and humor to some otherwise kind of tough, heavy topics. It starts out a little bit heavy, and then it kind of lightens up. And we just have really honest, open, candid conversations

about things like money and how to get out of ruts and how to overcome imposter syndrome, how to basically be the best version of yourself. But it's really interesting. Her story is so interesting. So she really kind of talks about these self-help things from a different angle. In fact, she says that she is like a self-help author for people who don't love self-help. This isn't like the two of us sitting there talking about the benefits of journaling and meditation. So Tara Schuster is an accomplished entertainment executive turned bestselling author.

She is the author of the runaway hit By Yourself, The Fucking Lilies. I'm sure you guys know this, which has sold over 250,000 copies. It was selected by Cosmopolitan, Goop, Publishers Weekly, and many more as one of the best books of the year on mental health and self-care. It was also a finalist for Goodread's best nonfiction book of 2020. And in January of this year, she released the paperback edition of her highly anticipated second book, Glow in the Fucking Dark, Simple Practices to heal your soul from someone who learned the hard way. It's a super relatable, easy to follow guide to healing your deepest wounds, getting off your good enough plateau, and finally sitting in the driver's seat of your life. So previously,

served as vice president of talent and development at Comedy Central, where she was the executive in charge of critically acclaimed shows such as the Emmy and Peabody Award winning Key and Peel. She has contributed to InStyle, the New Yorker, Forbes, among others. And she has really interesting insight into mental help from when she was working at Comedy Central. We actually talk about how she kind of had a front row seat to, you know, these people who were stars who had. everything and how that did not fulfill them and how insecure they were, like witnessing celebrity insecurity, which I witnessed too when I was Hollywood adjacent because of being married to Chuck. So that was really fascinating to explore. We also talk in the show about how getting what you think

you want might not be what you expect. And we talk a lot about how to build real self-confidence, real self-worth and real self-esteem instead of relying on external validation. We talk about how outsourcing these things and placing that value on something external is a pretty futile pursuit. So like I said, this turns out to be a really fun, lively conversation. I think you guys are going to get so much out of it. So please enjoy Tara Schuster. Welcome, Tara.

Oh, thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. Really excited to talk to you. I want to start probably where a lot of people start, which is your upbringing, because that really informed the work that you do today and your books and just who you are. So why don't we just start by having you introduce yourself to the audience and tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, it's funny because I never set out to be in the self-help wellness category even a little bit. I was an executive at Comedy Central, like fully working on shows with like David Spade and

Cam Peel, but I had had a pretty unfun, terrible mess wrecked disaster of a childhood. It was very neglectful, very psychologically abusive. It's weird because I at first was like, I didn't have it that bad. And now I'm like, no, no, that was terrible. But the number one thing that I got from my childhood was this sense that there was something inherently wrong with me, because that's basically the only thing a child can do to make meaning of why is nobody hugging me, why is nobody talking to me, why am I being ignored, is like, oh, there's something wrong with me. So I really early got this message, there's something wrong with me. I'm worthless, the end, you know, and so that really caused me to look for external validation. So I was getting all A's in middle

school, like any teacher, I was like, teacher, teacher, or my babysitters, I would tell them, I loved them, you know, like really looking for any adult. And that really, that was a big driver that I didn't even realize in my career, my personal life, everything was I need somebody else to validate me and to tell me I have worth or else I have none. So it was not a good place to grow up. I can relate to that external piece because, you know, I had a really good upbringing, but for whatever reason. I don't know if it's just my brain chemistry or what. From a very early age, I needed external things to self-regulate. And I can look back on it and see, like, when I was young, that meant like a certain toy that, like, I needed on a primal level. I couldn't express why I needed it so

badly. And then it evolved to, like, boys. I was boy crazy. But because they changed how I felt inside. And then, of course, ultimately, like, none of that was sustainable. And I found drugs and alcohol and I was like, yes. Yeah. Found it. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, you did really well in school. You were accomplished professionally.

What was that like when you were kind of getting everything that you thought that you wanted and you had all of this external validation? Did it feel actually validating to you or was it kind of empty? Nope. Okay. All the things you think, if I get this, then I'll be happy. Guess what? none of it works at all. I mean, we all know that on some level and yet we still strive for these

external things. But one thing I really wanted to quickly say is you said you had a good childhood and yet this. And that's something I really like go out of my way to talk about is self-care tools are not just for worst-case scenario childhoods. Our parents, like there's no way they can cater to everything that we, unique person born to earth and need. So, you know, all of these kinds of things, is there for everybody, for every type of childhood. We all have something that needs a little filling in. And for me, I just thought, if I get more money, if I get more status, I'm hanging out with famous people.

Jordan Peel is shouting me out from the stage of the Emmys. Like, what is more glamorous than this? But I was going home and self-medicating. My drug of choice was weed, which I was full on addicted to. And if me saying I'm addicted to it, you're like, you can't be addicted to weed. then I would just say like maybe question your use of weed, but I was using it to blunt, numb myself. I could not feel my emotions. I had no idea what my emotions were. So I'd go to work, hustle, hustle, hustle, like having a panic attack about every single project, go home, wine,

weed, real housewives, repeat. And it might have kept going that way, except on my 25th birthday, I drunk dialed my therapist threatening to hurt myself. And that next morning, I pieced it together, memento style, because my therapist left a bunch of voicemails. And in her voice, I heard that she was scared, you know, and she was like this placid European woman who wore a kerchief and drank a cup of tea. So if she was scared, I realized, I need to get scared.

If I don't save my life, I am not going to have much more of a life to live. So all of those external things, none of them, none of them really. And I really wish it were different because I'm great at getting shiny prizes like A plus. And if it worked, I would be the queen. But it doesn't, sadly. Yeah, there's a few things that I want to unpack there. One of them, though, going back to what you said, like it doesn't have to be worst case scenario. I had a guest on my podcast a few weeks ago, and he was talking about how so much of it is perception, too.

Like, somebody can have a great upbringing like myself, but I perceive certain things as negative, you know, or I perceived certain things as not getting my needs met and whether that was true or not. I mean, we all have kind of revisionist history, but it's something that I've explored a lot in my recovery. It's like, what was really real and what was I perceiving? Yeah. And ultimately it doesn't matter because that's real to you. Exactly. It doesn't matter if you think you should feel this way or not. If you do feel terrible, then you need to work on that. Like how you got there is almost irrelevant. You know, for me, it was very useful to know like the source of my worthlessness, you know, then I could work on it. But really, all you need to know is I feel worthless. This is worth working on.

Yeah. Yeah. And then another piece, of course, is, reaching the pinnacle, right? Getting all the things that you thought that you wanted, that you thought would make you happy. I had that experience in sobriety where it was like, I had everything and more that I thought would make me happy. And it was probably the least happy time in my life. And it's such a mind fuck because then you go, well, shit, now what? Yeah. Where do I go from here? And also, I don't know if you ran this story in your head. I certainly did. I'm so ungrateful. What's, wrong with me. Why can't I just enjoy this? Like, so not only do I feel lonely, miserable, oh shit, success didn't work, but also now I'm going to blame myself and shame myself for feeling this way, which is never Tar Brock, who's another Tara, that she's a psychologist. She studied Buddhism. She calls it the second arrow. It's like the second stab wound. Like you already feel terrible. And then you're like, you know what? Let me feel more terrible. I'm just on myself. Yeah. Yeah, let me add shame to this like emotional wound. And so, you know, I don't know if if you relate at all to that, but I definitely when I was, you know, I'm vice president of talent development of Comedy Central and I'm flying around everywhere. I mean, it was a dream job. And yet I couldn't handle my life.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I feel like my life was never more unmanageable than when I had all of the things and was like flying private and had the big. big life and I still have a big life. Things have just changed a little bit. But God, that shame piece is so real because I think especially being in recovery where I'm supposed to be grateful and I am, but, you know, there's this emphasis on like gratitude as the antidote. And I'm like, why don't I feel grateful? Like, what is wrong with me? And if, and maybe I just need to be like doing more spiritual things. And it's like you can just spiral. Never ending. I'm a self like I am an improvement project. There's something wrong with me. Yeah. almost is never a way to feeling secure in ourselves. If it were, again, that would be great. We'd all be really secure because it's so easy to be ashamed of yourself. Yeah. So you call your therapist, you drunk dial. Drunk dial, my drunk dial of shame.

And when I realized that it occurred to me, I don't want to be the kind of person who's so out of control that she's drunk dialing her therapist. But I didn't have really anyone to turn to, aside from the therapist, I didn't have any mentors. So if anyone's listening and they didn't have any mentors, me neither, by the way. Like, not all of us have mentors. I didn't have parents to go to, to ask what to do.

But I had always been really good at work, like really, really good at work. So I thought, why don't I just do what I do with every work project? I'll start a Google document. I'll make this a project. I'll put all the questions I have, you know, what are values, what are principles, what are vegetables, like genuinely, what are they? Which one should I be eating? You know, I put all these questions into this Google Doc,

and I just attacked it, like, oh, what a work project. So I read memoirs like they were self-help. You know, I'd like look to Steve Martin for, you know, what are the adults I respect? What do they think about the world? I would go to my friends, a friend I had in New York, her family had Sunday night dinner, and I'd go there and just watch.

and take it in, like, oh my God, nobody's screaming at each other. Everyone seems to want to be here. And Swiss chard is not a European band, but actually pretty delicious. Like leafy green, shockingly red root, right? And so I did this for five years. At the end of five years, I had a 600-page Google Doc. And I really felt like a different person. And that was when, and this sounds so earnest,

than like maybe even cliche and dopey. But at the end of that, I realized, wow, I took notes on everything, like how these tools worked. This is an offering. I'm not so special that like I'm the only person who ever felt this way. And I really, really, really wish that somebody else had held my hand giving me practical advice, you know, that was low cost. I really could have used it. And so that's why I ended up writing my first book, Buyer's. myself, am I allowed to curse here? Yeah. My first book, Buy Yourself to Fucking Lily's,

genuinely, truly, with every fiber of my being was an offering to anybody else going through any shade of a situation. And I think the reason it connected was my situation was so absurd. Like, my childhood was so bad that you can kind of like, you know, in the absurdity, we can like read in all the different levels of experience. And it's, it's been interesting to actually get DMs. Now I know like, oh, feeling good about yourself is the exception, not the rule. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why that is like where we have so much grace with other people and then when it comes to ourselves like none zero. Yeah, absolutely. What was that process like over those years because you were essentially like kind of parenting yourself, right?

and learning all of these things and being a sponge. And what was happening to the validation piece of that and your identity going through all of that? It was really tough. You know, I really didn't. I mean, through pieces, I came to know much more who I am, but that was like a much bigger journey. But I would say that the number one core thing that changed for me that fast-tracked every other thing was my head. My brain was a miserable place to hang out. All I could hear was you're unlovable, you're ugly, nobody cares about you.

If you're not successful now, you'll never be. It's too old. You're too late. I was 25, you know, and I'm like convinced my life was already over. And I, you know, I knew on some level I'm miserable. It took me a little while to be like, wow, I think there are other ways to be. I've got to do something about this chatter. And so then I attacked my negative self-chatter.

And it really is possible to completely change your relationship to those limiting negative beliefs. And it's really, really, really important. Like this isn't icing on the cake. There have been so many studies about how the worst we feel about ourselves, the more negative the beliefs, the worst health outcomes we have. Like it's bad for your body, which we all know, because it feels bad. Right? When you think so little of yourself, we all know it's like, uh, anxiety, cortisol is rushing

through our body. It has physical effects on us. And yet I don't remember anybody sitting me down to say, hey, sometimes you're going to think that you're the biggest loser possible and that nobody loves you. Like, that's going to happen. And when it does, here's a useful tool that is not impossible to implement. And so I've spent so much time developing tools around giving myself validation in particular. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Comparison is The Thief of Joy. And it's really easy to envy other people's lives, especially on Instagram, social media. It's such a highlight reel, which we all inherently know.

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helpful with that. But it's also really helpful for learning positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, how to empower yourself to be the best version of yourself. Again, what you want instead of being influenced by all of the noise around you. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. So stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp.com slash files today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelphelp.com slash files. This podcast is brought to you by E-Harmony, the dating app to find someone that you can be

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I'm sure that everybody listening has heard the importance of taking, omega-3s or fish oil. However, omega-3 fish oil supplements often go bad before they even leave the bottle, resulting in supplements that don't improve your health. So there is a much better way, and that is Fatty 15. So Fatty 15 contains C-15. So C-15 is the first essential fatty acid to be found in over 90 years. I did an episode with Dr. Stephanie Ben Watson about the discovery of this, which is really fascinating so you can search that and it will come up wherever you listen to your podcasts. But basically if you want to get sciencey about it, studies show that C-15 works by strengthening our cells, improving our mitochondrial function, and protecting us against damaging

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like I said, deeper sleep, better functioning joints, liver and heart health, improved metabolic health, but also things like healthier hair, skin and nails. I have a lot of followers who swear by this for healthy, bouncy skin. Now that, to me, is essential. It also comes in a gorgeous reusable glass and bamboo jar and refill capsules are shipped to your door quarterly in pouches made from recycled materials. So Fatty 15 is on a mission to replenish your C15 levels and restore your long-term health. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription starter kit by going to Fatty15.com slash blonde and using code blonde at checkout. How do you give yourself validation? Because whenever I do Q&A, it's like one of the most common questions that I get is like,

how do I build self-confidence, self-esteem, self-worth? And I think that so many people are, are used to outsourcing all of that. And for whatever reason, like, we do still live in a time where we strive for these things and place so much importance. And I remember you said, like, if you give someone the keys to your authenticity, like get in your, you're in for a wild ride. I think that was what you said. And I think that we logically know, like, okay, that's not going to make me happy. But, like, it might be nice. And we still put so much weight on those. So do you have tips for the listeners. Absolutely. To find that within themselves. Yeah. First thing is to notice it's happening. Like, hallelujah amen. You just noticed, oh my God, I'm thinking nobody loves me right now.

Or that was my biggest is I'm unlovable or something like more recent. I ended up being laid off from Comedy Central, which was a complete mind fuck and lost my identity, yada, yada, yada. But in that time what I thought is I'll never find a job again. I'll never find a job again. So the very first thing is you notice it. And if you can just say, okay, I notice this. I notice I'm feeling terrible about myself. Because self-awareness is always step one in any of these healing or whatever you want to call it. Self-awareness, step one. Step two, and this is what I do to this day, is I take out a piece of paper. I put three columns in it. Fact, fiction, what else might be true? So in the fiction column, I'll write down a fiction. So let's say, I'm unlovable. I'll never have a job again. The reason I know it's a fiction is because it's just a belief. And this is, if you can get over your beliefs pretty quickly and realize my beliefs actually aren't that important, my values are a completely different thing. But my beliefs actually don't really matter and are ill-informed and are like lies that I've inherited from the culture or my parents or whoever, right? So just put it in the fiction column.

I'm unlovable or I'll never find a job again. So with I'll never find a job again, the moment you start to see absolute words, like never always, you know you're in hot water. Because as adults, absolutes aren't true. Right? It's always shades of gray. So if you can even puncture this balloon of self-hatred with something like, it's possible I'll find a job again.

Like, yeah, never sounds pretty absurd. So, like, something I would say to myself is it's possible I'll find a job before the end of time. You know? Well, and you say it like that. Right? But that's where you got to start. Yeah. Because I felt that bad about myself that I had to start with a statement that's true.

That's why affirmations get a bad rap because if I had said to myself, I'm going to be a millionaire tomorrow and love my career and find my passion. Like, no. Yeah. Definitely wasn't going to happen. Yeah. And your mind in order to do, and I know you've talked about this neuroplasticity in order to change the way your brain actually functions, your brain has to believe what it's being told. It's not going to believe, I'm going to be a million tomorrow.

It is going to believe something like it's possible. I'll find a job before the end of time. So if that was all you did, amazing. And what I did is I would just write that down five times a day in my journal. I was going to say repetition too for neuroplasticity. It's all consistent. Two things. Consistency and repetition.

So it sounds stupid maybe to be writing this phrase over and over again. The science, though, says this is how you do it. So writing it down over and over again, there's actually been some recent research that saying it in the mirror is actually pretty helpful because it's almost like a different person is telling you this. And then if you want to take it a step further, I ask myself, what else could be true? Like, okay, I'm probably going to find a job before the end of time. And am I open to the possibility that I might like my job? Am I open to the possibility? Maybe I'll love my job. Like, maybe. So then I would add that statement, which is, it's possible I'll find a job before the

end of time. And maybe I'll even like it. And little by little, it's called scaffolding, little by little, we get ourselves out of these ruts. And yes, it takes some time, but I'm, I like want to scream it from the rooftops because my life was so miserable. And all I heard was this distrack. It was terrible. And now I don't feel that way at all. And when a thought comes up, because they still do, right? I'm single and like something like, I'll never be.

with anybody. I heard you say this. Like all that someone said, all the good men are taken. You know, I'll say, hey, hang out. Like one moment,

sweetheart. Okay, all of the good men are taken? Is it possible that there is one, like good person in the city of L.A.? Yes, it's possible. There's,

you know, so you just, you keep doing this and my resiliency is just so much higher. Like, I can come back from a negative thought. It won't ruin my day. it won't even ruin my drive.

It's not that it doesn't happen. And the more you repeat these tools, the easier and easier it becomes. And that builds self-confidence. Not having a, I call it your phantom you within, like constantly brating you, build self-confidence.

Could I give another tool on the self-confidence? Okay, this is another one of my favorites, is a values filter. And what that is, in my experience, in my childhood, the only value was make money. If you didn't have money, you weren't a good person. You weren't a good father. You weren't a good mother. Money was everything. And so when I was reparenting myself, which is what I called that Google Doc, a curriculum of reparenting myself,

there was a central thing was there's got to be more than my value is just money. So I really investigated it. I googled what are values, which ones should I have? You know? I love that. Yeah, Google comes in handy for these kinds of things. And then I just saw, if you were to Google that today, you'll see lists and lists and lists. Like, okay, is generosity of value of mine? Is health a value of mind? Like, what do I value? And another way to think about values, what do I want to prioritize?

You know, like, what do I want to be important to myself? And with time, right, so you're doing all this work, you're clearing your mind. There's a little more room within yourself. picking four values that are your values ends up filtering how you act in the world, how you show up. So if you made like a cross, like four boxes, and so let's say health, relationships, love spirituality. Let's say those are the foremost important things to you. When obstacles come up, like, I'm in a fight with so-and-so, what should I do? I want to stay in, but my friends are all going to this party.

what should I do, you just go to your values filter and see, does this align? You know, people talk a lot about alignment. It's actually pretty simple. Write down what your values are and then notice, do my choices align with this? And it really, the more you do it, I feel so much less friction in my life because I know what I value. And so when things like imposter syndrome come up or I feel bad about something, I can always go back to my values and realize, is no, like, these are the things I value. This is outside of my value system. I'm showing up as the version of myself that I want to be. And there's so much confidence in showing up as the person you want to be. Yeah, I really think that that is kind of where confidence derives from. Yeah. You know,

it's kind of cliche, but you hear a lot of people talk about like keeping your word with yourself. Yes. But ultimately, like, for me, at least, that is where, much of my confidence and my self-worth, I think, comes from. And also, like, being, how do I phrase this? My actions, right? Like, are my actions backing up what I say I'm going to do? Am I the person that I am saying I'm going to be or am I saying I'm going to do things and then I'm not? Like, because that's not who I am. Like, my behavior is who I am. I'm so glad you said that. Thinking is one thing. And I, and I, I basically throw thinking away.

Yeah. Because if it's not true in the real world as an action, it doesn't exist. It's just a thought. It really doesn't matter. So even something like the fact fiction is this true, you're getting it into the physical world and you're taking a real action. You're reclaiming your agency and doing something about the critic in your mind. Because it's not enough to just be sad that you have a critic in your mind.

You've got to do something about it. And the same thing with the values filter. It's not enough to say, and I'll freely admit this, I was not born a generous person at all. I was like, mind, mind, mind, give me, give me, give me. One of my first memories was the school principal was giving like a stack of Oreos. Like he came up to me like, oh, Tara, you want some Oreos? And I took the whole stack instead of one. It was like very shaming actually because he was very upset.

But my inclination is not to give people anything. And so over the past 10 years, generosity has been a value I want, right? So what does that mean? That means last night. I was out to dinner with a friend. She was having a little off. I was like, why don't I get the bill? This is not going to affect my life and it might just make her night.

I always challenge myself. Like, how could I be generous in this situation? And now I think my friends would say, I'm very generous, you know? Yeah. But it wasn't inherent to me. It wasn't something I was born with. It wasn't saying I was taught any value or characteristic you want in your life. I promise you can get. It's just consistency and repetition. Yeah. That reminds me a lot of something that I've had to do in the last 10 years as well in recovery, which is try to be selfless and put other people first. Think about them to take the

self-centeredness off of myself. And that is not. my baseline. I don't want to help. I don't want to talk on the phone about your problems. I don't want to go meet you somewhere for coffee and talk. Like, I am selfish at my core. And I've been taught that that's kind of like the root of my alcoholism. Some people agree with that or not. But, you know, for me, like taking that attention off of myself has been such a relief because that's what I was doing with the drugs and the alcohol was it was self-abandonment. I forgot about myself and that negative person in my head and all of the chatter of what you think about me and what I think and I'm a piece of shit and you're better than all of that. Drugs and alcohol took that away.

Right. So in sobriety, I need things that are going to do that. And if I'm thinking about someone else, I'm not thinking about myself. Right. That's my mechanism of action for that. But it is not my baseline. But I think over the course of 10 years, like it has become kind of part of me. Like a habit, it's how you act because you have trained yourself to act. act that way and I would even be willing to guess that sometimes it feels really good. Yes, always, but I still never want to do it, but I do. Yeah. And that's so important to know about ourselves.

Yeah. I dread doing anything, basically. Same. Yeah. I don't want to do it. I don't want to go. Whatever cool party you're having, no thank you. Yes.

So I do have, but like relationships are really important to me. That's one of my values. So I have to get in my car and drive to Venice to be at your Shabbat dinner. Yeah. I absolutely didn't want to go to. Yeah. Yeah. No, I always say that.

I'm like, I don't want to do anything. But then I do the thing and then I feel great. And then the next day, I'm like, I don't want to do it. Like, still, I forget. Totally. Amnesia. And it's good to be playful about ourselves. Like, that's hilarious.

That's funny. That's like a funny thing about ourselves instead of, this is a problem. This is so serious. It's like, oh, hey, I noticed this thing about myself weird. I don't need to understand it. I know what happens. with my actions though I can overcome it. So that book for you was wildly successful.

And I would imagine you were getting a lot of external validation. So what was that experience like that time around having done all of that work and that like exploration? For a while it was great. So my book, nobody had any expectations. I was a full like adult in a corporation. VP at Comedy Central. I thought this was like a hobby. Some people would, yeah, I would have written this book for free.

Don't tell my publisher that. But like that's how I thought of it. And I think because it came out in the pandemic and it has a really beautiful cover and I feel very comfortable saying that, it's a beautiful cover. It's black and it has all these florals on it. It's a great artist made it. People gave it a chance. And then they bought it for their friends.

And so the word of mouth that ended up selling something like 250,000 copies which, especially if you're not a celebrity and I had no platform, nothing. So what I realized was, wow, this is really striking a chord. And when people would tell me, this helped me, this tool helped me. I had felt that way at one point. That felt amazing. That felt like a relief to my soul. But all the other stuff was awful.

And I'll even give an example that I've never told anyone before. I'm kind of nervous. Honored. So my second book, Glow in the Fucking Dark, starts with this layoff. Like, I've done all this work and la, la, la, I'm the adult I want to be. And then I get laid off and I'm like, oh, shit. I didn't realize this, but my identity was tied to my status at work. Now what?

And it's a book about getting right with your authentic self in a not cliche way in a this is possible kind of way. And that book was about to come out. And the number one biggest thing you could get as an author would be a New York Times bestseller. Every other. I don't care who you are. It is not real if you say, I don't want to be a New York Times bestseller. You definitely do. And because my first book had done so well, there was all this expectation now.

There had been zero expectation on the first book, wild expectation. And I had told myself going into it, don't get obsessed with being a bestseller. Do not get obsessed. But the moment someone fancy was like, I think you could be a bestseller. I was like, oh my God, I want to be a bestseller. That seat is planted. Yeah. And then I attacked it in such a not like a desperate way.

And it felt bad was completely against what I knew to be true, which is external validation, can never do it for you. And the first week of book sales were huge. It was like a big book. My category is the category that has atomic habits in it. It's impossible to get on that list. So even though I had sold, and you don't know, you don't know until it's published what list you're going to be on. Oh. So even though, and I thought it was going to be a different list. Uh-huh.

Even though it sold really, like a lot, I felt devastated because everything had been about this external prize of the New York Times and I didn't get it. And then I felt ashamed because what author would like really do all this? And isn't that gross that I wanted this thing? And and I've really had to just say, you know what? It's once again the universe saying, hey, Tara, remember what you learned like over and over again? It's still true. External validation is never going to work and had handed the keys to my self-esteem to the New York Times. I'd been like, hey, you drive. You tell me who I am. And that just, it doesn't work. I feel like it's a constant kind of tug of war where we learn these things and then we relinquish whatever it is back to something external. And then we take it back. Yeah. And then we give it away again.

Yeah. And I mean, was there ever a point where you felt like I got this? It is coming from within. I have arrived at this place. Not quite that, but a different mindset about it. Which is it's not a problem to get lost. It wasn't a problem that I wanted this thing. It just happened.

It's fine. I'm still a good person. The book still has its message. It didn't, like, infect everything. And I'm not going to be ashamed of myself. You know, I'm not going to, like, add to this. And the quicker you can kind of move off of self-blame, the quicker you can come back to, I got this.

Like, this is fine. So I still get caught sometimes. I really pray to God, I'll never get caught at that level. And I do in this moment feel, you know, really what matters to me is that the book connects to readers. But even more than that, what matters to me is I tell the truth. That is the thing I have to do. And that's the thing in my control. So as long as I'm telling the truth, I feel good about me.

You know? So I've got that core self-esteem. and then when these shiny prizes come along, I can resist them a lot easier. And if I get lost, I can get myself found again, which is meditation, by the way. It's like a life meditation.

It's like, I got so lost. I'm thinking about other things. And then whoop, here I'm back to myself, you know? Yeah. And I would imagine, I mean, unfortunately, we learn more from those moments rather than like if you had made the New York Times best seller list, you know.

I've been like, great. Desperately seeking external validation actually works. Yeah. Oh my God. Yes. It would reinforce something totally different for you. And then what's next? You know, it's like you keep moving the goal post.

Yeah. If you want to make it like over there, there just moves. It's never. And I think I was really lucky to work with such big artists at Comedy Central because I saw it in them. Interesting. If they tied their self-esteem to ratings, critical acclaim,

even I had one artist who was checking the comments on YouTube, I was like, dude, you're like a genius. Why do you care what, like, Harry 5, 6, 7 has to say about this? You know?

Like, and I really learned from watching them that the ones who seem to be the most grounded, doing well, also like in their power. and excellent were the ones who mostly resisted being so concerned with what everyone else thought and the ones who were really concerned with external validation. It just, it wasn't nice to live in their heads.

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episode. I've had so many interactions in the last eight years being adjacent to that world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Through my ex where just seeing people behind the scenes or after performance or something that's like insane insecurity and that need for validation. Was it good? Do you like it? Like this kind of manic thing almost. It was really crazy to me. But even like the striving for more and if you get the thing, then you just move the goalpost. I forgot. out how you just phrased it. But I see that and I saw that like not naming not my ex-husband specifically, but like not only with success and accolades, but with money too. And I think that

that's such a big thing. We all think if I just had X amount, then I would feel okay. Yeah. And we're not going to deny that it can, you know, money can provide security in certain way. And yes, it can help. But I mean, I found that with myself too. Like it's never going to be enough. Until we decide what is enough. Yeah. And I call it money sickness, which is we're all, and I'm just going to use all. I know it's an absolute. Yeah.

But I do think many of us are kind of addicted to wealth. And I'll just speak from my own experience. I think it was like Kim Kardashian had a room where she had sprinkles. Like for ice cream. And I was like, oh, no. was I supposed to have a room with sprinkles? Like, where have I gone wrong? Oh, my God, I don't have enough money.

The beige. I'm sure it's beige. Oh, yes. Bege streamlined. Shades of an oatmeal. Exactly, exactly. And it really was a wake-up call to like, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, sprinkle room is not a thing.

You don't, how many times are you using sprinkles anyway? Like, let me investigate. And I came up with a number that actually is enough for myself. because I don't want to be in a relentless cycle of trying to make money to prove some point to somebody who even is that. And again, it is a privileged thing to say, obviously. You know, you have to reach a baseline in order to have food security, a roof over your head. And I think a lot of us could benefit from deciding where are we trying to go exactly? You know, and it's a little cliche at this point that there have been so many studies about happiness and that over a certain point, it actually doesn't move the needle. And it's much lower than you would think it would be. Yeah. But it's not like getting more money, even scientifically makes you any happier, if anything, more money, more problems is we all so famously know. Yeah. So really deciding what's enough, what do I value? And I basically unfollow any social media.

account that makes me feel bad about me, I had a friend say, well, isn't that like mean to who? Yeah. Like, who am I being mean to? I'm admitting, I have a problem. I'm money sick. If I see extreme wealth, I'm just going to want it. Therefore, I don't need to see it.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I alluded to this before. I was with somebody who had extreme wealth. And so by proxy, like, I was in that world. And that was when I was like, this is not what I. I thought it was going to feel like, you know, it's fun for a minute, like having no financial constraints and then what? Like, it's not.

Yeah. There are not sustainable returns from that lifestyle. No. You need to find it somewhere else. Money is not a solution to self-esteem. It's really not even a solution to safety, I realized, because I had grown up very money and secure. It was like a boom and bust economy.

We'd go to Hawaii on a big elaborate trip, but then I couldn't go to the dentist because we can't afford it. It was really disorienting. I ended up having, like, being unable to spend money. I was an executive and I was like stealing toilet paper from a restaurant. It was extreme. It was like I could look at it and say, oh, there's a root here. I was stealing toilet paper from restaurants, even though I had a good income.

And what I realized, I thought money was going to buy me safety. If only I have enough money, then I'll be safe on my own little island. But what I realized is actually my relationships would give me safety. Because I had, due to all that money trauma, here's what I thought would happen. First off, I was going to be executive because that's who you get a 401K. That's how you make money. I was not going to be a writer, which is the thing I always actually secretly wanted to do. But I wasn't going to be a writer because writer's struggle and I'd be poor and then I'd be on the streets and then I die.

And that's how it went in my brain, the story. But I realized, wait a minute. I think on that slide into downward descent, my best friend, Fisci, would probably say, hey, come live in our garage. My friends would actually not let me, you know, and that's a privileged thing too. But it wasn't going to happen. And by the way, I could get a job. Maybe it wouldn't be like the best job. But I really had to look at the ration because I was so in money sickness world and realize, hold on a second, safety is how you feel about yourself.

Like, how safe is it to be in your head on a daily basis? Safety is friends and family who will help you. It's not just money. Very powerful. And I think that people can hear that message. I know. And it's hard to really, I don't know, it's almost hard to believe it until you, experience it yourself. It's true. And maybe if I had heard this conversation, they're so privileged,

they have no idea. I'm sure. We're going to get hairy, whatever, on YouTube. Exactly. They don't know anything. They're so privileged. Coming from a place of not being privileged and really like struggling when I was a kid, I can say a certain amount of money is really, really important and does open doors for you. And all I'm suggesting is that the tired of relentless pursuit of more money might not be amazing for us. That's all I'm saying, might, maybe is not amazing. I don't know if you've had this experience, but I always say that like I'm not the best judge of like what's good for me and what's bad for me because I've gotten things that this whole conversation that I thought would be the best things for me and they

were not. And then things have happened to me that I thought would be the worst things for me. And they were the best things for me. Would you say that that's an experience that you've had throughout this whole process? Yeah. You know, I didn't trust my gut. And I thought, first off, my gut is so fucked up that it's messed up. First off, it's not trustworthy. How do I trust my gut? What is my gut? Why is everyone talking about that? Fuck them. They don't know. They don't understand. And what over time I've realized is the more I lean in to my values, how do I want to show up? And, you know, we each get a life experience. And ideally it's a life experience you want. And not that somebody else told you to have or the culture infiltrated your mind and now all of a sudden,

you're in this endless hamster wheel. You know, when I just do things in the real world that are more aligned with what I want, over time, I've learned to trust my gut. And I've learned that if I make a quote-unquote mistake, it's a-okay, right? Like, I'm sure you would say that through some of these decisions you made in the long run, they ended up being the most powerful, wonderful things that ever happened to you. So really was that a bad choice? You know, and also we're here to learn lessons. Life is not easy. I think that's like important to say. Yeah. It's a struggle. Everyone's struggling. don't compare yourself. Like, I'm telling you these people who look perfect are not.

They're miserable. They're suffering. You know, just because it looks good on the gram does not mean it's good in real life. Yeah. So we need to stop comparing ourselves to, well, if I did that, then I would feel happy all the time. Like, look at them. No, it's do you live your life the way you want to live your life?

And then people say, oh, but isn't that selfish? isn't self-care selfish? And it's only selfish if you believe yourself to be an island who has no effect on anybody else. But if you are a part of any community, then taking care of yourself is essential to that community.

You know, you're not stranded somewhere far away. You really impact the people around you. As we know from, you know, if you have like a toxic person in your life, you know exactly what I'm talking about. They ruin everything. So it really is on us to start with us. And that's why I say self-care, when done authentically, we're talking about healing your

self-esteem issues, showing up as the person you want to be not vacation to Touloum. Touloum is great. If you want to go, if you got a private jet, then you take us a gym. Like, I am there. But that's not self-care. That's really, really fun. That's like a celebration. Authentic self-care is about doing a real inventory of where am I hurting, then taking

action to heal yourself so that you show up in the world the way you want to, which is always healing for all of us. You know, at first off, then other people see, oh shit, Tara doesn't hate her life anymore. Huh? I wonder what she did. Maybe I could try some of that. It's more pleasant for you. And you just show up as a more pleasant person with everyone you interact with. So self-care, if you need that. Because obviously taking care of yourself, you just should like ideally think that's valuable. But if you don't, if you're in the This is Selfish bubble, which I totally was and I know a lot of people are, think about it as community care. So true. It has such a ripple effect. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Well, that's such a powerful message. Tell everybody where they can find you

and where they can buy your books. Yeah. If any of this was bagly Interesting. My new book, Glow in the Fucking Dark, really goes into all of these tools. And you can get that anywhere. And then I have a newsletter, which if you Google Tara Schuster newsletter or go to tarashooster.com and click newsletter every week I give. It's called a little thing that helps. And it's just one bite size, practical, easy. I'm not telling you to go on a retreat somewhere. But again, I'll go with you. Like self-care tip, right? And then, of course, Instagram. where I'm doing the same, they're all the same message of, oh, my God, we need to reclaim ourselves for. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that episode.

And if you liked it, and if you liked the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way. And it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. Instagram. You can go to areaallory.com. And I'm always posting about each episode over on my personal page at Ariel Laurie. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.