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EXCUSE 1:

THAT’S NOT WHAT OTHER WOMEN DO

I used to have shark teeth.

No, truly. I was one of those unfortunate children whose baby teeth wouldn’t give up the ghost. Rather than shuffle out the door like any self-respecting incisor, they held on for dear life. Simultaneously, my adult teeth were having none of it. They came barreling into town like an aggressive in-law and took up residency. I had two rows of teeth. Shark teeth.

Around this same time, I decided to cut my own bangs with my dad’s mustache scissors. Now, to give myself a little credit, I did recognize that this wasn’t the smartest course of action. I was—and still am—a stringent rule follower, and cutting my own hair at age eleven was on par with performing open-heart surgery with Mema’s mismatched silverware. Not advisable. But in this instance the bangs were hanging in my eyes and driving me crazy. As much as I was a rule follower, I was also—and still am—a woman of action. I decided to handle it myself. When my dad discovered the results of my pro-action, he attempted to rectify the uneven bang line. Unfortunately, he wasn’t any better at barbery than I was. And he has terrible OCD . . . which means he’s a stickler for a straight line. He kept cutting my bangs shorter and shorter, trying to get the edge neat, until they were barely longer than an eyelash. My fifth-grade pictures were a sight to behold.

Did I mention that I shaved my eyebrows in those days too? I didn’t know how to pluck them yet. I only knew that I didn’t want a unibrow any longer, and sliding my big sister’s razor down the middle of my forehead seemed like the right choice.

I was also chubby.

And I played fifth-chair clarinet.

I was awkward and my hair was frizzy, and I was always twice the size of the cheerleaders and dressed in Goodwill clothes that rarely fit at all. All I wanted in the whole world was to be popular and pretty and to fit in with everyone else. And I didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.

When you’re little you have no control over the way you look or what you have access to or whether you fit in with the crowd. But you’re absolutely aware of what’s missing, what’s lacking, what should be there. All you have to do is look in the direction of the people who do seem to fit in, who do seem to have it all figured out, to see your lack. In a perfect world, right about the time you notice your differences, someone older and wiser comes along and teaches you to value your unique and innate weirdness. They walk with you and speak truth into your life and, maybe, show you the best way to keep your hair from looking like that one episode of Friends where Monica visited Barbados. In a perfect world, they’d encourage you to be yourself while also helping you figure out how to improve in the ways that grow your self-confidence.

But most of us didn’t grow up in that perfect world.

Most of us grew up identifying from a very early age all the things that were wrong with us. We believed we were too fat, too ugly, too awkward to be loved and accepted without making some big changes. Some women handle it by sinking further and further into themselves. Other women handle it by rebelling. The world doesn’t like my weird? Fine! I’ll be so hugely other that I’ll repel you before you get close! Or, if you’re like me, you decide right around the time of the shark teeth and the inch-long bangs that being this awkward and weird and tragic looking, frankly, sucks. So you, in all your prepubescent glory, start paying attention to what other girls are doing, and, like that scene in The Little Mermaid where she gets super fired up about finally having a chance to walk on dry land, you decide you, too, are going to be part of their world. You are going to do whatever it takes: act, dress, look, and speak in a way that offers you the most acceptance.

It wasn’t a fast process, but eventually I got braces and learned to flat iron my hair. And by the time I was in my midtwenties, I’d gotten very good at playing a part. In fact, I’d gotten so good at being just like every other woman that it didn’t even occur to me to question whether I enjoyed the choices I was making. By the time I started wondering whether I liked the road I’d put myself on, I felt too far gone to turn back.

And so I lived a double life.

Not like “paralegal by day and sleeper cell/international spy by night.” More like I used to live my life—very publicly, it’s worth saying—pretending to be one kind of person when I was actually someone else entirely.

In the public eye and on every social media platform, I was a wife and a mother, an avid home cook and food lover, a DIY queen with a blog and a penchant for Facebook posts. Behind the scenes I was a working mother, an entrepreneur, and a hustler of the highest order.

I had an office.

I had a full-time staff of five.

I worked sixty-plus hours a week.

And here’s the important part—I loved every second of it.

I loved every second of it, but I never mentioned any of it. Not publicly on social media. Not privately at family parties. Not at business functions for my husband or even business meetings with potential clients. I downplayed it all. I waved the truth away like I was batting at a fly. Oh, it’s just this little thing I do. I buried every accomplishment and didn’t admit my biggest dreams even to myself. I worried about what others might think of me. I worried what you might think of me if you knew what was really inside my heart.

The truth was, there were so many things I was dreaming of. I had ideas to share with the world about how women could change their mind-sets, their mental health, their self-esteem, and, yes, the way they color in their eyebrows (because that matters to me almost as much as all the rest combined). I figured if I could build enough of a platform I could speak to women all over the world, and I could encourage them and lift them up and make them laugh. I believed that if other people could fill social media feeds with cat videos and latte pictures and workout posts, then I could add motivational quotes and positive affirmations into the mix. I believed I could change my whole business with the idea. I believed I could change the world.

I mean, who says that?

I do. Now, anyway.

Would I have five years ago, or ten? Absolutely not. I kept these secret dreams locked up nice and tight where nobody could consider them weird or judge me for them, and where, by the way, they’d never truly see the light of day or have a chance to manifest. Talents and skills are like any other living thing—they can’t grow in the dark.

Perhaps what I did doesn’t make sense to you. If it seems an odd thing to hide from your dreams, I’m going to assume you’ve never worked in my industry . . . or had trolls rip apart your character within the boundaries of a Facebook post. Let me tell you, it takes incredibly thick skin to ignore the mean things people say on the internet and, like a callus, that thick skin only develops when it’s been ripped open a few times and healed tougher than before.

It took me years to have the courage to speak openly about my dreams.

I first began blogging when I was four years into running a successful event-planning firm in Los Angeles, producing fancy parties and elaborate weddings on my own. I was utterly burned out. Million-dollar events are glamorous to attend, but they’re brutal to produce. At the end of my fourth year I was unsure whether I wanted to continue, but I had started this blog. At the time, blogging was exploding and everyone and their mother was into it, so I decided to try.

It was atrocious.

I literally wrote about what I ate for dinner the night before. My pictures looked like I had shot them in a dark room with a disposable camera—which wasn’t far from the truth—and, honestly, nobody cared to read it. Like almost every part of my entrepreneurial career, I had no idea what I was doing. But, sister, let me tell you right now, in the absence of experience or knowledge, determination makes the difference between where you are and where you want to be!

As I started to narrow my focus and get more consistent with my content, a theme for my blog—and ultimately my business—began to emerge. I wanted to focus on the pursuit of a more beautiful life and a happier existence. I started to gain a small following and garner some attention. Then I received a few offers. Could I talk about decorating for Thanksgiving on the local morning news? Of course I could! Would I consider incorporating this brand of eggs into a recipe on my site for $250? You’re darn right, I would! Could I wear those shoes in an upcoming Instagram post in exchange for a $100 Visa gift card? Absolutely!

The offers came in steadily, and even though they were nowhere near what I was making as an event planner, there was gold in them there hills! Brands had money to spend, and they were looking to spend it with people like me. Slowly but surely, over the next nineteen months, I grew the revenue stream for the blog and took on fewer and fewer event clients until I could make the transition completely. By then I had scaled back to a part-time intern as my only source of help, and when I decided to focus on the blog completely, I knew I needed some professionals. My goals for myself have always been lofty, even if I didn’t feel comfortable telling people what they were. I have no idea how to play small at anything. An excessive imagination plus a lifelong desire to prove my worth through achievement means I’m always aiming for the sun.

You know that expression “Go big or go home”? I never go home.

If you give me a wiener dog puppy for my birthday, I’m going to . . . well, number one, I’m going to be surprised. I’ve never asked for a wiener dog so I’m not sure what this gift even means, but I’ll embrace it wholeheartedly. I’ll name him something elegant, like Reginald Wadsworth, the eighth Duke of Hartford, and it won’t be long until I’m imagining building a small farm outside Phoenix where I can raise my championship dachshunds for competition.

The point is . . .

As soon as I decided to grow the blog side of the business, I knew I needed staff to help me do it. I hired editors to help me write and photographers to take gorgeous photos and an assistant to run my office. As our content grew, so did the fan base. We worked hard and paid attention to trends, and as the audience grew so did the revenue. It was fantastic. It was a company built on my reputation and, ultimately, the ideal that these fans had created about me.

Allow me to take a side step here and explain something about celebrities or social influencers that I didn’t understand at the time. Right now, while I’m writing this book, I have just over a million fans on social media. But at that earlier point in my business history I probably had ten thousand fans on Facebook, and Instagram didn’t exist yet. Regardless, the deal with any sort of fame is just as true today as it was back then, and here it is: You don’t know me. You only know your perception of me. The same is true for The Rock or Oprah or a Kardashian or the president. Even when someone is as transparent as possible—and I would argue that, between pictures of my stretch marks going viral and my last book where I admitted everything from abusing alcohol to being bad at sex, I lead a very transparent public life—even then you don’t know the actual person. Not because they’re necessarily secretive, but because you perceive them through the lens you’ve created.

So, for instance, if you first started following me on Instagram because of a picture of me looking extra stylish, you might think of me as stylish and on-trend. If you came on board during the aforementioned stretch-marks photo explosion, then you might identify with me as a mother or someone who has battled with body-image issues. Whatever you perceive about me (or anyone you don’t truly know) has way more to do with the box you’ve put us in than who we actually are. This is all totally natural and fine, unless that person you admire steps outside the lane you put them into.

For me, that lane was motherhood. And here’s where the whole double-life thing I mentioned earlier comes into play.

I had a legion of fans who were moms (and I still do to this day), but at the time I hadn’t publicly talked about my company. It wasn’t that I was ashamed; I was simply so focused on creating content that I never stopped to explain how it had all come into the world. I assumed everyone would realize I must have had help. I was creating six intricately produced blog posts every single week, and I had two small children. Of course I had help! But for whatever reason, that wasn’t apparent to most people, and when they realized the truth, some of them were pissed. And ruthless. I don’t even recall what it was for, but I know it was a Facebook post where I talked about being a mom. In the comments someone asked when I had time to “do it all.” It didn’t even occur to me to lie.

“Oh, I don’t do it all,” I blithely typed back. “My husband is really involved, and we have a nanny who helps with the boys while I’m at work.”

The internet exploded.

“What kind of mother lets someone else raise her children?”

“Only a selfish bitch would choose work over family!”

“Must be nice to lay around all day while some other woman raises your kids.”

The vitriol was immediate and intense. Some fans were disheartened to learn that I had help in producing the content. Many women were very upset that I had a job outside the home. Others were apoplectic that I had a nanny. I can understand in retrospect that they had perceived me to be a stay-at-home mom, likely because that’s who they were. We tend to see people not as they are but as we are. When I stepped outside the lane they had built for me, they felt cheated or lied to.

I was devastated.

I could not handle that people were so upset with me. Never mind that they were absolute strangers. Never mind that it was in the comments of a Facebook post. I was gutted. Remember little girl me? Remember Shark Teeth? Well, she still desperately wanted to belong, and she hated the idea that anyone might be upset with her.

It honestly seems stupid in retrospect, because I’m so far removed from that insecure young woman (thank you, therapy!). But it made me second-guess everything I did and said publicly. There were a handful of topics I knew would make people angry, so I stopped mentioning them altogether. Working, entrepreneurialism, my team, having a nanny, having a housekeeper, business trips—it all quickly became taboo. I focused on what people loved. Pinterest-worthy photos on how to get organized, parenting advice, exercise tips, and cupcake recipes ruled the day. I worked my butt off for years to grow and scale my company, but if you asked me at the time what I did for a living, I would demurely tell you that I had “a little blog.” That “little blog” was read by millions of people every month and had a six-figure revenue stream, but I understood that the business behind the blog was upsetting to certain people, so I never mentioned it. And it wasn’t like I just kept certain aspects of my life quiet. The very nature of keeping it a secret started to reinforce the idea that what I was doing—and who I was—was something to be ashamed of. This fed my mommy guilt. This fed my insecurities about the right way to be a wife. When anyone said anything negative about my choices, either online or in person at a family function, I didn’t question it. I came to believe that they were right, that I was doing all this wrong, that a good woman or wife or mother would live totally for her family.

Only I couldn’t give it up. I loved my business, and I loved trying to solve the puzzle of entrepreneurship. It made me happy. It lit my heart on fire. It made me feel alive. But, simultaneously, I didn’t want anyone to be inconvenienced by the thing that gave me joy.

How many of you do that? How many of you reading this are living half lives or, worse, are a shadow of who you were truly meant to be because someone in your life doesn’t fully appreciate or understand you?

I didn’t want to give up on my dream of a successful business, but I also didn’t want anyone to disapprove of me. I lived this double life for nearly five years and suffered from constant anxiety attacks. It took a ton of personal work and some big realizations for me to get to the root of why I felt the need to live this way, but the gist of it is this: I cared more about being loved by others than I cared about loving myself.

So while I continued growing my business, I stopped mentioning it publicly. And when members of our family questioned why I would work rather than stay at home with our children—constantly and with increasing frustration—I learned not to mention it privately either.

Brené Brown says, “Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. . . . Guilt: I’m sorry. I made a mistake. Shame: I’m sorry. I am a mistake.”1 I didn’t understand it at the time, but I felt extremely ashamed of being a working mom. And I felt ashamed for years. Years of beating myself up, years of trying to please everyone else, years of trying to be exceptional at producing family dinners and toddler birthday party designs in order to prove that my children weren’t missing out on anything. So many years I wasted knotted up inside about other people’s expectations for my life. So many years being distracted from my core mission to motivate and help other women, because I was so worried about everyone else’s perception.

So many years I spent apologizing for who I was.

Oh, not verbally apologizing. My apologies were so much more hurtful because I didn’t say I’m sorry with my words. I apologized with the way I lived my life. Every time I felt ashamed for taking a business trip. Every time I swallowed the lie of mommy guilt. Every time I dressed a certain way or spoke a certain way in order to be better received was an apology for who I really was, a lie of omission. And every single time I lied about who I was, I reinforced the belief in my own mind that there was something wrong with me. I honestly believed I was the only woman who felt this way.

Then, in 2015, I went to a conference that would change my life forever. I talked about it in detail in my last book, and I swear I won’t be that author who just repeats all her old stories in the sequel, but the gist of that experience was, we were doing some work on limiting beliefs and the lies that hold us back. I began to dig into my childhood and what I might have learned or accepted back then that was still affecting me today.

Spoiler alert: most of the things you learned in childhood are still affecting you today. I was no exception.

I grew up in a home with a traditional structure. Dad worked, and Mom took care of the house . . . even when she also worked. Somehow I still found my way into being a proud feminist—which means, in its totality, that I believe men and women should be treated equally. I went into marriage believing my husband and I would equally share the load, but it was so easy to slip back into the structure I’d grown up with that told me what a woman should be like and how she should act and what her value was.

Let me step to the side for a moment and unpack the idea of living into what a “woman is supposed to be.” If I only get to give you one thought to chew on in this book, it would be this: Most of us have been raised with a massive disparity between the way women should be and the way men should be. This isn’t a question of masculine versus feminine. I’m typing this out right now while wearing full makeup—with contouring! This is a question of who little boys are raised to be versus who little girls are raised to be. Like I mentioned earlier, most women, regardless of where they grew up or what their cultural background is, have been taught essentially that to be a good woman is to be good for other people. The problem with this is that it means you’re letting other people determine your worth. Is it any wonder that half the women I know suffer from anxiety and depression, drowning underneath the wave of what other people think? We’ve been taught that we don’t have any value without the good opinions of others.

But I digress. I went to this conference and had a life-changing epiphany. I had been taught to play small, but I had been born with a heart that only dreamed big. That heart and all it encompassed had been built into me while I was still forming. My dreams weren’t just a part of me; they were the core of who I was. They were a gift from God, and if my creator endowed me with something, how could it be wrong? I dug deeper and realized that my desire for growth and work only really felt wrong when I started to worry what other people might think of it. Staying at home can be a beautiful personal choice and life calling—but it wasn’t mine. It was what other people wanted for my life. It was culturally what we knew, but that didn’t make it right for me. So I started to wonder, What if what was right was truly believing in myself enough to be honest about my life? What if what was right was being proud of who I was made to be? What if what was right was to find pride in my hard work and accomplishments and to stop playing small?

I left that conference on fire! I came home a completely different woman—or actually, I should say, I came home fully living into myself for the first time in my life. The years since then have been the happiest, most fulfilled, and most rewarding of my entire existence, and they’ve also made me aware of something important. I didn’t corner the market on feeling ashamed because I didn’t fit into the mold of the other women around me. I’m not the only one who has ever carried around those feelings. But the catalyst that propelled me into the dreams I’m so privileged to be living today is that I accepted the challenge to actively get past those feelings and, in doing so, massively changed my life.

If you’ve been affected by my work, if you enjoyed the last book or had a life-changing weekend at one of our conferences or found nuggets of wisdom in my podcast, remember that none of that would have happened if I hadn’t stopped listening to that little voice inside my head that says, “This is not what other women are like. This is too bold, too weird, too obnoxious. Sit down. Be quiet.” Fighting the instinct to listen to that voice is one of the hardest things I’ve ever worked through, but because I did, my life—and maybe yours too?—changed for the better.