#126: Embracing Change And Accepting Worst Case Scenarios with Tanya Memme

for you.

That was so great. It rhymes with Emmy. So, Tania Memi is an Emmy-nominated TV host, lifestyle expert, actress, speaker. And I'm just going to read something from her bio and then we're going to get into a little bit of a different exploration with her. She's an actress, a speaker, and an international on-camera, video, onstage coach for executives. She is the founder of Life Masters, a talk show, podcast, web-based platform where visionaries, mentors, healers, life coaches, and speakers share life-changing stories, inspiration, and wisdom. Tanya is most famous for her role as the host of the Emmy-nominated show Sell This House on A&E for 15 years. Tanya is a big giveback person. In fact, she makes trips to Guatemala with her dad to help Wells of Hope build schools, bring clean water to remote communities. And she has a 7-year-old daughter, Ava, who also appeared on the Hallmark Channel's Home and Family for 4 years. So, Tanya. Yes, Adam. Welcome.

Yes.

Welcome to the show today. Thanks so much for making the time and being with us.

Oh, for sure. I'm glad that we could make this happen. I'm excited.

So that wasn't exactly a mouthful, but it was a mouthful for me today.

It was

perfect. Listen, your credits are long. In fact, I didn't even read the entire bio and intro and all that. But what I really want to know, and I know our people love this, is what's not written in your bio, what's not in the introduction that you would love for people to know about you? Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

I love motorcycles. So I love— I grew up on a farm, on a sod farm. So not an animal farm with pigs and cows and everything. No, no, no. Grass. Grass. 400 acres of grass in the middle of nowhere in a tiny town in Canada. So the only thing that we could do is drive our motorcycles in the summer and our, our snowmobiles in the winter. And that's what I did. Total tomboy at heart.

Nice. And do you still ride a bike?

I love dirt bikes. So I do when I can, but I have not ridden one in a long time.

You got to be prepared to get

dirty. Yeah, of course. Right?

So you need time to get dirty and then you got time to clean up.

Exactly.

There's a couple of moving parts involved in that.

There is.

All right, so you're gonna make a commitment right here that you're gonna do, get on that dirt bike soon?

Yes, okay, I'll do it. Why not? I'll send you some videos and pictures.

I tell you what, do that, all right? And you gotta be safe though.

I'll be safe. I'll wear all the protection.

All right, do that. This, well, look, you learned this when you were a kid. So for you, this is a little bit like Just getting on a bicycle, 'cause it's something you do early on, right? That's right. All right, so nothing too big.

I did it for many, many years. For about 10 years I rode bikes, yeah.

All right, so look, this is The Conscious Pivot, and the essence of that is a show about change, people who are reinventing themselves. Now, you being in the entertainment space, you must have reinvented yourself, I would say more times than I have hair on my head, but we all know. Or people watching this are laughing, those of you that have never actually seen a picture of me, Then you could laugh because I don't have any hair.

He has no hair.

But hey, Tanya has a lot of hair, long dark hair.

I have a lot of hair, yes. I

was going to say my wife has hair just like yours. So lots of hair, lots of changes, I'm guessing.

Lots of changes.

So why don't we dig into something really juicy? So lots of people are dealing with change these days because there's disruption all around us in the business space, in their career space, in the entrepreneurial space. And then you add to that politics or you add to that relationships and health. There's a lot, a lot of shit people

are

working through. So it would be helpful if you shared maybe a time in your life or even a couple if you want where you didn't have exactly the easy solution to the pivot. And what was that like for you? How ugly did it get? What did you do about it? Any place you want to go there would be terrific. We like to get dirty.

Well, there is the one that everybody asks me about and I know you know which one I'm I know what you're talking about, Adam. So I've been on television for 25 years. And I was, like you said, on the A&E channel for 15. And I did 4 shows for them and Entertainment Tonight, whatever, whatever. But I ended up on a show called Home and Family on the Hallmark Channel. It's still on. And I loved my job. I was on it with my daughter. And I was on it for 4 years. And at the time, I will say that it's different now because of, I'm sure, people like myself or other people that got involved to change the environment. But I was in a situation where I felt like there was no other way that I could get out of being so unhappy on set and on my job than to leave the show. It broke my heart. It was very, very difficult. I had left my marriage 8 months before that. So, and my show on A&E was sort of winding down. It had winded down. And I wasn't on that show for probably about a year. So I saw my career kind of winding down a little bit, but I'm on this other show and there was a lot of toxicity in the environment, things that I, I just couldn't get around it emotionally and mentally. And, you know, so I was dealing with that and going home to a marriage that wasn't very good for me and coming to work for a situation that wasn't good for me. And so it's funny, I believe, like, I don't know what you guys believe out there, but like, I really believe the universe kind of gives you massive, massive signs to show you The direction that sometimes you need to go in life. And they're not— sometimes it's no matter how much you fight it, no matter, no matter how much control you have. Like, I believe that all of that happened because I was supposed to go in another direction. So I promised myself that I ever— if I ever got completely yelled at one more time and obliterated at work one more time by my executive producer, that I would quit. And again, after 4 years of dealing with it, it happened another time and I quit the show. And, you know, I'm a single mom and I don't get much support from my ex. So because it was my decision to take less, to have an amicable relationship, and so I kind of just sort of did whatever, you know, he was happy with so that I could have a good relationship with him and therefore my child would have a good relationship with us.

Right.

And so that was a choice. That's a whole thing. But then, um, yeah, I walked off the show and it was very, very difficult and scary. And it still is. You know, I was supposed to screen test for a couple of shows and you wonder how the ripple effect happens in Hollywood, but it was a very tough decision. I don't know how else to put it. And then on the other end, I just said to myself, okay, if you do this, You're up for a really tough few years. Like, if you prepare yourself and say, look, it's not gonna be peaches and cream on the other end, right? It's gonna be hard. And, you know, going through divorce is hard enough, and then putting your job on top of it is difficult as well. We all know how hard it is to get jobs in this town, especially as a host, because, you know, we're kind of a craft of the past now, right? Yes. Unless you're an expert or a social media, you know, have over 3 million followers, it's hard to get a hosting gig anymore. But, you know, it's just, you just have to decide what's right for you. And I guess that I knew deep down inside that I, I could do more. I think that people that want to do more in life, I think it kind of comes to them fairly early in their life.

Hmm.

And it happened to me when I was 11. And I just knew that I was going to do more and what I was doing with my life at that time wasn't enough. So I was like, all right, No matter what happens financially, no matter what happens in my career, I'm willing to weather the storm. And if you're willing to weather it, then walk forward and go through it.

It's an interesting thing, right? Because, well, first of all, we're not taught early on in our lives how to handle change. That's not a course.

No.

That's not a course in elementary or high school or college or any of that. And it's certainly not something that we're even necessarily taught at home from our parents because a lot of the ways that they weathered the storms of life Were, you know, with heart attack or cancer or other things that showed up, or anger that preceded the cancer or the heart attack or things like that, right? Where people just weren't necessarily their shining highest selves when the shit was hitting the fan. And what's interesting to me as I'm listening to this and I'm thinking about the loops that we're opening and the ones that we'll be able to close on the show, because these are deep topics. Both personally for you, of course, and also the topics that everybody else is— how this is relatable to other people. But you chose more of an— I would call it an elegant expression or path to express how it is that you were going to deal with those situations, right? Because in divorce, for certain, you can resist, you can object, you can oppose. And I was a lawyer for 18 years, so I know what opposition looks like. Yeah. It's not. From the lawyer's perspective. Lawyer's perspective is opposition means money in my bank. I'm saying that in a way that's kind of not honoring, I suppose, to the fact that as lawyers, I don't normally talk about this, but we didn't create the problems. People came with the problems and so there's an ethical, I believe there's an ethical obligation to at least walk this fine line between having a conversation with your client that says, hey, there might be a graceful way out of this. Correct. And a graceful way out might be that you actually don't get as much as you could get and maybe you, you know, because you're not going to destroy the other person in the process of getting what you think you ought to get, what you feel is justifiable and all that. So, it's like, you know, taking it from DEF CON whatever, you know, down a notch or two. You know, there are clients that would be like, you're not my lawyer then because what I want is somebody that's going to just come in and scorch the earth for me, be my advocate and get in that ring and just knock the other person out unconscious. So, a lot of the time, the lawyer is like the way they say dogs sometimes look like their parents.

Or their owners.

Or their owners, right? Their owners look like their dogs. The lawyer and the client relationship is very similar to that. But so, you took an elegant approach.

It wasn't easy though. It was very difficult. It really was. You mean with my divorce or with—

I meant in that regard to begin with. And then I'm thinking about just recently, did you see Ellen had her comedy special come out? Did you check that out?

No, I'm dying to see it.

So you got to watch it. I think it's on Netflix. And one of the things she discusses in the way that Ellen— now I won't say only Ellen, but she's so great at discussing serious things in a very funny way, especially including things that are really deep and personal to her. decided to come out at a time when that was not nearly as accepted or honored even as it is today.

I remember that.

In fact, it was the opposite of that. And you probably remember she lost her show. She lost her sponsors, lost her show, lost her support, lost her friends, you know, all the pseudo-friends, people who hang around when you, when you're a rising star or whatever it is.

Oh, I know what that feels like. Yes.

Yeah. And so those people disappear and here she is left 2 years, I think it is, without a show and worrying that she's going to somehow maybe lose her house, not have enough money to even just pay bills right here. And then along comes somebody and The Ellen Show puts her back on the map, right? But for that new opportunity, she was in a pretty serious downward spiral from making a stand, taking a stand for something. Yeah. She didn't have to come out. She didn't have to say anything, but she chose to. And it sounds like you came to a point where you just drew a boundary line and that's—

Well, I did and I also wanted to set an example for other people on the show at the time that were going through the same thing. I mean, it was really difficult. It was a very toxic environment. But it's interesting, I have a whole other perspective on it now. Like, I did a lot of self-healing, self— I mean, the first thing that we all go to is like, oh, well, it's not my fault, it's theirs. Is we blame, blame, blame, blame. Well, he did it to me. That person did it to me. Network did it to me. They didn't do this. They didn't do that. Now, there were things like at the time there was no HR department. We couldn't really go to the heads of the network or else we knew that our job was— we were going to get fired anyway, right? So there was like a lot of that going on. But, you know, Hallmark has really come a long way now to change, to create a different environment now, which I'm happy to hear about. I'm still friends with some of the people on the show that still want to be my friends. I'm on the sidelines now, you know, being, you know, a big cheerleader for all— a cheerleader for the show. And when they get nominated for Emmys, I couldn't be happier. So, but it took me about like a good 3 years to come to peace with the fact that it was my decision to leave and the reasons why I left. Like, that person that caused a lot of the toxicity on set, I mean, I'm sure that he's battling his own You know, demons himself. For whatever reason he treated people that way is the reason that he treated— I have really forgiven the entire experience. I had to really work hard to do that, and I had to go and find myself and figure out why this was, you know, what I did to contribute to this happening in my life. Like, a big part of it is taking your own responsibility, I think, path to healing. When you're so angry and so bitter towards the things that have happened, or this person took this away from me. I mean, I haven't worked as a— until I started this new show, Life Masters. But I mean, I started a subscription box business that didn't work because I partnered with, you know, the wrong people.

Yep.

I started an Amazon business, partnered with the wrong people, that didn't work. I was flailing like for 3 years trying to figure out because I didn't even want to host anymore. It was so traumatic for me that I started panicking on set.

Yeah.

So whenever that camera would go on— this is back then, right after I quit. I got a job on HSN, I got another job with endorsement deals for companies, and every time, I mean, it really psychologically affected me. So I put up, you know, the little white flag and I was like, all right, I'm— I need to surrender here and not be afraid I'm gonna lose all my money. Not, you know, I started waking up in the middle of the night with, you know, panic attacks and What am I going to do? And now I'm on my own. I mean, it's hard. And I know that there are a lot of people out there going through this and they don't know where to go and they don't even know what their passion is anymore or what any of it means. You just kind of don't know what to do or who to go to.

Let's go to the middle of the night thing. This is not a place that I think gets spoken about enough. And there's a reason for that because it sucks. The middle of the night wake-up, that moment of anxiety or panic or the repetitiveness of those thoughts of shit's about to hit the fan or burn up.

Or it is hitting the fan. Or it

is.

Yeah, I went through that for probably 2 and a half years where every single night I woke up in a panic attack and just like, because I was on television for 25 years, I've always had a show. When one ended, I started another one, right? Yeah. That never happens, right? So in a way, I've been very spoiled, but I also worked so hard to create that. And when you're in it, you think, wow, this is gonna last forever. I'm always gonna be on TV, right? And then life happens. And so in the middle of the night, like this is really the first time in my life where I'm single, I'm a mom. If I was on my own, it would be different. But when you have another little being to take care of,

Yep.

And I'm also a go-getter and I'm used to having success. And so when it's not going your way and you go to the worst-case scenario, I just, as a human being, we all think about, okay, well, what is the worst? I'm going to lose everything. I'll be homeless. I'm never going to— we naturally go there and it's awful. And in the middle of the night, for some reason, I guess it's a hormone imbalance at night. What I've discovered, everything just seems so—

Much more intense.

Much more intense. And you're just— yeah. And I used to wake up every night at 2:30 in the morning. Or the morning, and just total panic, sweating, not healthy at all.

No.

And then finally, I guess about a year ago, I just said I need to just stop. I need to just stop.

Stop what?

Everything. To stop trying so hard to control life. I was trying to do this business and that business and that. I was trying to do this. Well, I got to do like everything was. In a panic, you know, and I just, I came to the point where I just had to just stop and feel again and rediscover me and what I wanted to do and what resonated with me. And I mean, it was like, you can't be afraid of the worst case scenario. You have to try to embrace it and then set little goals on how to move away from this, right? Without putting too much pressure. Like, you got to forgive yourself too, right? And forgive people in, in your whole world that you have anger and bitterness towards, because it doesn't help.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of All of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So, go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

But

yeah, embracing is counterintuitive. In fact,

the

working title for our next book was Embrace. It's actually changed. It's changed. But the fact of the matter As far as there's a core element of it that we have this choice all the time how we handle that feedback that we're getting in the middle of the night or in the morning or whenever it is. Yeah. And we can push it away, resist it. We can accept it. Acceptance is something that's interesting because I think acceptance is important. The Serenity Prayer has a lot to do with acceptance. And then there's something that's sort of acceptance on steroids. Which is this embracing piece, because you can still accept and be resentful. You can still accept and be gritting your teeth the whole way through. And how— what kind of a life— what does it feel like to live accepting things that, that have hurt you? What any of the— and, and the energy is still one of like, I'm a victim versus something you embrace. You have an element of control that you've taken back or take,

you know,

you're in your power in the moment that you embrace something like embracing forgiveness or embracing Letting go of the past, embracing people that have hurt you, but still you have a way to compassionately embrace just the humanity. Like, yeah, somebody who is causing you harm is probably in a great deal of harm themselves. Like, they're in pain themselves. It's tough to get to that place when someone's— but there's an element of that when you have—

And just give it time. Like, time heals so much too. And I was constantly— I'm a very, you know, I consider myself— I have a lot of layers. People think I'm not very complicated on the outside, but I really kind of am complicated. And I'm always on a self-discovery path. And, you know, really everybody that was involved that I feel contributed to me leaving, I have completely found forgiveness within it. But it took me almost 4 years. You know, I even called one of the executives on the show now last week, and I was like, how you doing?

Yep.

And she was so happy that I called and it was just nice to be on the other end and I just shared with her, look, time heals and I just want you to know that I'm really happy for everything that's going on and she's like, good, and this and that and so yeah, it's all good, but it doesn't happen overnight and it happens with constantly forcing yourself to find the forgiveness and to find it because it is not hard. It goes against every ounce of your being, what you naturally want to do is just lay in the bitterness and lay in the unhappiness of it all and lay in bed for hours at a time, which I did. I did all of that. Because for me, it's like when you're on television for 25 years, what I discovered is that I equated my self-identity to my success on television.

Sure.

A lot of it. So when this happened, I had to really rediscover who I am, you know, and I mean, even just going on social media and being vulnerable like this, I have never been this open before because I'm a TV host. Right. I mean, my entire world has been, here's your lines, this is what you say, this is how you feel, this is where you sit, that's where you get your hair done, there's your makeup artist, there's your script, there's the director, there's the teleprompter guy, and go, right? So this has been the first time in my life where I'm thinking, okay, now it's up to me to show up on time and have a schedule. And what do I do? And oh my God, and I don't know how to do this. And I don't know how to be a business person. And I don't know what I'm doing.

And it's you unscripted.

It's totally me unscripted.

Yes.

And yeah, so this is how my new show Life Masters all came about, was that I was searching and I couldn't find myself. And I was on the internet and I'm like, I want to get a coach, some kind of a coach. Let's see someone who I can trust and work with. And There's so many out there, but there's not really one place to go to find one, except for, you know, the Tony Robbins of them all and the, and the, uh, you know, the more prominent ones. They're all over the place, but I can't afford to hire one of them. Neither can any— most of us can't. And so I decided to start Life Masters because I wanted to interview the people that changed lives for people like me that were where I was at. Mm-hmm. And I wanted to take in and learn, like, what they've been through in life, some kind of commonality. And I wanted to learn how they got themselves from the hardest, most difficult moments of their life to the success that they have now. So I interviewed, like, Willie Gault was on my show, NFL football champion. I've had Blake Leeper was on my show 2 weeks ago. He was born with no legs and, like, he's qualifying now for the Olympics. Running against men with legs. So, and when you talk to people that have gone through stories that can only inspire you, it's changed my life. And then also one of the things that, you know, all of the Life Masters have said is like, do what you're good at. Do what you're good at. So here I was trying to start like a subscription business. I was trying to start this and that. And I was making— I don't know how to choose a business partner. I know now. But you learn, right?

You learn.

I'm learning.

Don't make me show you my scars on that one. But yeah, choosing the wrong business partners can be a very interesting series of life lessons, right?

Yeah. I mean, beyond. Yes. It hit over the head so many times.

I'm going to turn— I want to turn the tables on you. This is going to be funny. So I'm just literally going to push the microphone. And you now, for the next couple of minutes, I want you to interview yourself. You've been with these life masters and you yourself are a life master because how you've been resilient in the face of all that stuff that was going on and all those pivots and the adversity of it. And mostly, like you say, the adversity isn't necessarily something that's on the outside working against us. That's the perception that we legitimately feel at times, but—

All the time.

With time, what we realize is that that adversity is on the inside. That we've both— we're in our way, we're our worst enemy at times, and in some cases we've even attracted the shit that's shown up, which is tough to take, tough to swallow that too. So yeah, interview yourself now for just a couple of minutes. So ask yourself the toughest question and then go ahead and just answer it for us.

The toughest question would be— oh my goodness, okay.

Because you're not a soft interviewer, come on. I know you're going to put— like if I was on your show, you'd put the screws to me, wouldn't you?

Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't really— I think some of the questions that come up organically end up having that effect.

I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

But it's just because I want to know, like—

You're not going to shy away though, right? You're going to go too hard. I mean, because vulnerability, as we said right before we turned the recorder on, and it's even— it's transparency. Do you have the ability to stand in the light of full transparency and be good with it? Because I think that's when other people get to really learn something. And when we do that,

so you want me to like talk about something that I have never mentioned before on, on, in any podcast ever before or TV? Is that, is that what you're asking for, Adam?

If you want to. No, there's no requirements here. I just want you to interview yourself because this is going to be fun.

Okay. Um, let me see. Well, so how did Life Masters come about? Right? Like when you were in your— and I mean, I touched on it. This is going to sound so crazy, but here's the truth. So

you're feeding me the line. So I'm going to say to you, so Tanya, how did Life Masters come about? Is that the question you want me to ask you?

I don't know. I guess I think that—

I want to know what's the most significant lesson that you've learned. Like if you were going to— you have a daughter and we model for so many people. We model for our kids and we model for other people. And so let's say One essential thing that in the midst of 2 and a half years of waking up at 2:30 AM that you learned that you'd want your daughter to know so that God forbid, or not even God forbid, because the truth is she's going to have her challenges. You count on it. Like our kids, we have 4 kids.

Yeah.

So it's like, what do you want her to know in the face of those kinds of challenges?

So I guess what really comes through for me Which I don't think I ever really embraced all these years in my life is, and you may not, people may look at it and say, well, you've had this much success and blah, blah, blah, but know your self-worth because it was that that pulled me through that day when I was being obliterated on, you know, at work one more time. And the things that were said constantly to me and the emotional and psychological damage that was done. At the time, the only shed of light, especially, you know, walking home, going home to like a marriage that wasn't right for me, and then work, everything was just wrong. And, um, it was that little thing inside of me, deep down inside, that was like, I'm worth more than this. And it was really hard to find that little tiny little thing in there because it's something I think I've always never really embraced. And so, you know, 4 years later, really, it'll be May 15th will be 4 years from the day I left the show. It's like, I cannot have people in my life that don't know my value, what I bring to the table as a friend, as a lover, as a girlfriend, as whatever that might be. But if they don't understand my self-worth and what I bring, because I'm the kind of person where I'm always looking and I always see what other people have to offer.

Hmm.

And I'm always there for other people, but I always compliment them too and make them feel like— make them see what they have too. Because sometimes we don't really embrace our own self-worth, but I see it so much in other people. And, you know, I've just— I've ended relationships recently. I've ended friendships. I— there are certain even family members I don't talk to so much anymore. And it's just— it It all comes down to me owning my self-worth and I cannot surround myself with people that don't see what I bring to the table.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's a mic drop for me. And I say that because truthfully, when I think about what the name of the show, the name of this show is really embracing self-worth. I mean, that's the fun part about this. There's a collapsing of time and space. Yeah. But, you know, people are going to be listening to this and watching this, watching this on YouTube and listening to it on iTunes and all these platforms and things. And they'll be listening to it 6 months, a year later, 5 years from the moment that we spent talking about this live for us. And it's no— there's just no distance between those 2 time and space moments. They collapse in that moment. It's happening for the first time for people right now. This is an embracing self-worth moment. I mean, that's—

Yeah, and I had to hit— I literally had to hit rock bottom to somehow find that little thing inside to dig me out. Because if you're— if anyone out there is listening and they have hit that place or they're in that place, like, you're worth it. You're so freaking worth it. And find that— that doesn't even have to be a big piece.

It's that mustard seed.

That mustard seed, just find it. And get the people out of your life that you feel are not there for you in the way that you need, in any way. Because that has a lot to do with it. It's the people you surround yourself with, um, at work, in your family, in your friends, your relationships. And it's also like where you decide to be. Like, for example, now if I have a whole day where I know I'm gonna be on the computer, I'm not just gonna go to like a rundown coffee shop. I'm gonna go to a Hotel lobby where I feel good and inspired. Totally. Put yourself in an environment that inspires you. That helps so much. Why? Because you're worth it. You're worth it.

Exactly. Yeah. Yogananda said environment is stronger than will. So you can have the will to succeed and still be in an environment for failure like that. That's your environment. for struggle, for scarcity, for worry, for fear, that that could be the environment that you're in. Whereas, so I use our oldest daughter Chelsea as an example, who's a millennial and she's all about curating environment for herself. Like she wants to be in these beautiful environments for everything she's doing, including the work that she's putting out in the world. She wants that to be—

Right.

Have a beautiful impact. So when she's working virtually, as a lot of people do these days, yeah, she'll go over to La Costa to this beautiful Omni resort we've got 5 minutes from our house.

I've been there. Love it there.

And she'll chill there. And yeah, and it's a different environment than hitting up the local corner cup of joe place or whatever, right? So the last thing I want to really ask you about, and I've just loved this conversation, is really about your rituals, about the practices that you've got, because I believe that the quality of our lives equal to 2 things primarily, the quality of our relationships and the quality of the things that we do on a habit basis, but not unconsciously the way we drive home in a certain path every time or whatever, but the conscious habits we create that we call rituals. It's a way to look at what are you doing intentionally to support everything you've learned through this whole process because now you're on the It's not like we're ever out the other end because there's always a new challenge or thing, but you're in a very different state physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, maybe out of 3 years of coming out of abuse. So the other side of abuse and—

Yes.

Yeah. What's a ritual for you to help you?

Um, I think, you know, for me, I'm constantly a self-seeker of positive stuff, especially when I am not doing okay. And so like right now I'm reading a book called The Surrender Experiment. Have you read it?

Oh, you can't— it's on my book of permanent favorites. Michael Singer, just bomb diggity, right?

Yes. Now mind you, he didn't have any kids and he didn't have like, you know, a lot of them. You have 4 kids, so you know, but still we can all surrender to an extent, right?

Yeah. Well, it started for me with him as his first book, which is called— and it's escaping me now— The Untethered Soul. Sorry.

Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. That came out years ago, but amazing book.

Just ridiculous. And yeah, you're right. I mean, like a different lifestyle, but the way he manifested from a place of surrender. So anyway, this is your ritual. Please share. So you got to put yourself

Yeah, like when I'm doing my makeup in the morning or like any time that I have where I get excited to put— I love Mel Robbins too. Mel Robbins, I just, I'm her biggest fan. She helped me. One day I want to have her on. I'm going to grow my show. I'm going to put it out there, Life Masters, to a point where I'm going to have Mel Robbins on my show. And that will be the day I know I made it with the show. You know what I mean? Yeah. The show will have made it if I have Mel Robbins on the show. But, um, I listen to people like that and, uh, they really, really have a way of putting things in perspective. And so that's a massive ritual for me is I'm constantly listening to videos that resonate with me while I'm doing my makeup, while I'm driving in the car on the way to work, anytime where I could just be listening to something. I'm just a wealth of information that way. So that's like a big thing that I do, especially when I'm not doing okay. I will just put on some kind of something to fill my brain, to switch what my ways of thinking and to snap me out of that. Because the truth is the future doesn't exist. The present exists and the past does not exist. So it's like, it makes no rational sense at all to think about the future and to think that you're going to lose this. You're not going to be that or this because you don't know what's going to happen. You can get a call tomorrow. It can change your life. And that's usually what happens. And a lot of the more epic things that have ever happened in my life have come totally out of the blue.

Yes.

It was never a plan. It was never a, I'm going to plan A, B, C, D, D, and then I'm going to get this. I got that because of like so many other reasons and not that plan that I— life never goes as you plan. You might think you're going to be— I thought I was going to be a movie star. I thought I was going to be the next Catherine Zeta-Jones. But I ended up being a TV host, and there's a reason why I went down that path.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all All the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com/resilience. Yeah. I think—

I don't know. I could go on, Adam.

Dr. King, he had a great description for what we're talking about, which is that he said, it's like life is a bit of a dark staircase. And it's really difficult when you're looking up and seeing that there's very little you can see. But when you climb that stairs and you get to some other place where you look backwards, you can see that all the stairs lined up perfectly. That there's nothing but pure perfection in all of that, but yet it was dark and fearful and you had no clue where you'd end up and all that sort of thing. So as we're winding this down, I'll share the ritual that our community has come to, I think, expect. But if you're new to the community, then maybe you're hearing it for the first time, which is the waking ritual. I believe that the most powerful moment for me in my life is the first few thoughts of the day. It sets— my grandmother used to say, Leave the house on the right foot. And I miss her dearly every day and she had great wisdom. And that's one of those things that when I'm leaving the house to go pretty much for almost anything, but often if it's a business thing and I'm on a speaking engagement or a tour of some kind, I want to always leave intentionally with my right foot. And the equivalent of that is what are the first things you're doing? The first thoughts or the things you're doing in the morning when you wake up, you're lying in bed. Your mind gets filled with some thoughts about the day. It could be what you got to do, or maybe you're behind time already, or it's the craving for coffee, or whatever is going to hit you first thing. You got to run to the bathroom. In many ways, that first step, those are the seeds that you're planting, using a different analogy for it. So the TED Talk I gave recently was all about the embracing of change. And our ability to love ourselves unconditionally, which is

a

path of, I think, great magnitude for me and for all of us, really. And a 10-second waking practice that would simply put you in the right state to lead with your right foot. And so, I'm going to ask you the question. So, Tanya, did you wake up today?

I did.

Yes, you did. Sometimes people say, I don't know. I'm not so sure. I'm still waking up. Give me more coffee. So you did. You definitely did. I clearly got that as a yes. Was it guaranteed when you went to sleep last night that you would wake up today?

Yes.

Was it guaranteed?

Well, not in my mind it was, but not in reality. No. In reality, no.

So in that moment, and it wasn't for me or any of us. So today when we woke up, it was unexpected and it was, it was a gift in a big way. And if you don't believe that you're waking up today was a gift, just know that as you took your first breath this morning, There were people taking their last breath in that very same moment.

Very true. Just

even as we're taking our breath in this moment, there are people who are taking their last breath right now. So regardless of whether it's an easy path at this moment, the place you are in the present is easy or it's difficult, it's a blessing and it's—

You're right.

Something we can't take for granted or be too flippant about the fact that it's not guaranteed. So the hope and the prayer I've got is that we all get to wake up again tomorrow. So you will— are you willing to wake up tomorrow?

I am willing to wake up tomorrow, yes.

So cool.

That's a better way of putting it.

And that's our spiritually waking up or our just waking ourselves up to being something more forgiving tomorrow, maybe waking up to the assignment that we've got. As you said, we don't even know what that is. It could be that we get a great pivot. Something miraculous is going to happen tomorrow. So tomorrow when you all wake up, As I wake up as well, that first conscious breath, we can feel gratitude and appreciation in that moment knowing that it's special. And then from your bed or when your feet hit the floor, you can even declare out loud if you'd like to say these words because they're powerful. I love my life. I love my life. What are those words, Tanya?

I love my life.

I can see that.

How's that?

Yeah, that was— oh, you—

Was that a good one?

It was all good. So, for everybody out there, we hope you've loved this conversation and we love your feedback. So, feel free to go to adamarkel.com/podcast and leave a comment and we'll respond. Or, you can leave a review on iTunes, which we absolutely love when you do that as well. Our Facebook group and that community is growing and we love all the interaction among people who are pivoting and being really vulnerable, honest with their communications. So, you can go to startmypivot.com. And get to the front of the Facebook page door. And it's just been a blessing. So until we come together again, I would say ciao for now.

Thank you, Adam.

Thank you.

Bye. Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.