Maybe It's You

Hey everybody it's Dr. Mark Hyman. I'm here with an extraordinary woman, a life-changing woman, a woman who I've known for a long time and full disclosure is a very close friend and has helped me transform my life in the time I've known her. It's Lauren Zander and welcome Lauren.

Hi everybody.

So let me tell you a little about Lauren so you kind of get the context of who she is and we're gonna talk about really how to get out of your own way in your life and have the life you want and dream of. And it's actually possible. And Lauren yelled at me for years because in some areas of my life, I have everything I dream of. In some areas, I don't. And the areas I don't were big areas, namely love. And she helped me actually believe in love and find love. And I actually just got married and it's awesome. So, you know, it's pretty amazing. So this is the real deal. Now, Lauren is a life coach. But I don't think that really describes who she is. I think she's really more of a, I don't know, spiritual, emotional, transformational kind of human that just shows up and sees how people are wired and how their minds actually get in their own way and how they actually aren't telling the truth and how they're, you know, like the title of her new book, maybe it's you. Well, it's actually true. Not like maybe it's you in a good way, but maybe it's you in a way that's like you're getting in your own way. So she's a university lecturer, Stanford, MIT, she's a public speaker, she co-founded the chairwoman of the Handel Group, which is a life coaching company, international corporate consulting, private coaching. It's pretty awesome. And they're in New York, but they work with people all over the world. And she just wrote a new book, which is awesome. And I wrote the forward to it called, maybe It's yous. Cut the Crap, Face youe Fears, and Love youe Life. So you want to love your life. And if you have areas of your life that aren't working, you got a deal. so it's an awesome book. It's just coming out. It's no nonsense, practical. It really gets you through the steps. It's like having a coach with you. But I was, I always joke. I say, you know, when you get a book of mine or whatever, it's like having Mark in a box. Well, you know, this is like having Lauren in a box where you take her home with you, and she's actually helping guide you through the process of healing yourself. So she, she basically teaches people not just what they want out of life. Like, people don't actually dream or believe they can dream the dreams that they want. They believe that they can't have what they want, but actually it's not true. And how to get what they want in life and how to get there. She spent 20 years coaching thousands of private clients, entrepreneurs, couples. She's helped my family. For my birthday last year, I had my son and my daughter and Lauren sit in a room for six hours and just heal. Just unpack and heal all the things that happen in families that, you know, just get brushed over. It's powerful. I was the best birthday present ever. And she works with families, with professors, with politicians, with Academy Awarding artists, Grammy Awarding musicians, Fortune 500 company CEOs. She's worked with Sony, BMG, New York Times, News Corp, you know, Walter Thompson, Citibank, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Unilever, you know, pretty much everybody who matters. Even Vogue. So, you know, I was pretty excited to get to write the foreword for your book. Maybe it's you because you know, this is personal for me. You know, I'm very successful in my work. I have a happy life mostly, but I had areas where things weren't working. Relationships, you know, issues I had with my family, my parents, and, you know, even with my kids and I really struggled because I didn't have the tools, the insight, the knowledge to actually fix it. And working with Lauren has really been the biggest thing that's happened in my life to help me get to where I want to be. And I'm pretty damn close. I'm pretty damn close. Not perfect, but pretty damn close. And Lauren was a really big part of that. So tell. Tell us about your journey as an author. How did you get here? Talk to me about the title of the book. Maybe it's you. Is this good news? Sounds like bad news, right? Maybe it's you.

You're kind of screwed up. Like, what? What's the deal? Well, the first thing is. that I did all the work before I ever wrote the book. So the book is the conclusion of having done 20 years worth of work. I actually could sit down now and write the 10 books because I've done enough work so that I really do know how to condense it. And don't worry, I make it funny. I tell on myself, I make jokes all the time. So it's entertaining as you face yourself. And so the line, maybe it's you, is still my favorite line of when anything's not working on my, like in my life, it's like ding, you know, maybe it's me. And the answer always is, sure it is. I mean, like anything that's not working in my life is because me. And that is, you know, it's a pill to swallow at first, but it is the quickest road To, oh, well if I got myself here, then hey.

Well, it's easy to blame everybody else for all your problems, right? Like that's what we do. Like, oh, it's because of my boss, it's because my wife is a bitch, it's because whatever, you know. But it's not. It's actually the choices you make, right?

Oh, it's so deep and critical to think you can create your life. fundamentally and that you did. And I can prove it to you.

Yeah.

And the minute you get that, like, I think that's what consciousness is. That's what self-awareness is. You got yourself here so then you can get yourself out of here.

That's good news. It's like my favorite tagline. It's sort of like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, right? You got this Ruby slippers. You just click your heels three times and it's actually... Yeah.

Yeah, so even though I've been your coach, here you are madly in love and happy and I have nothing but clapping for you, right? Like, you're great, this is great, right? You did it. Maybe it's you, right? So the maybe it's you works when it's positive or when you need to fix something.

It's true.

All right, so now I want people to get what this is because it's.

Sort of abstract, right? So the structure of the book is broken down in about 10 sessions, right? 10 sessions with assignments, so it's homework. which is like, you got to do work. It's not going to happen to you. So why don't you kind of walk us through the methodology that you use in universities, corporations with 20,000 clients. What are the brushstrokes of the method that you present in the book?

So it starts out breaking life out into 12 different areas and then asking you for a vision or a dream in each of the 12 areas and really to how, you know, because your job's going great, you know, so what your sex life is boring, right? Like, so what happens is because certain things are great in people's lives, you don't actually make sure you're dreaming in all areas of your life. And so the first thing I do is I get a person to break life out into 12 different areas and rate your current life against that vision. And what happens is for the first, like, oh, welcome to your life, right? And everyone may go, yes, I know dreaming is the right thing to do. Yeah, when was last time you sat down and wrote all 12 dreams out and had a vision for each area of your life? Everyone may know it, that doesn't mean anybody's doing it.

Right.

Then I have you rate your life, and I give you a funny rating scale, and have you rate your life against that dream, and then explain to me why you gave that rating, right? I can't have that sex life because I'm in my 50s, right? I can't have that because of this. All the logic and explanation for why you're not fulfilling on that dream or you don't believe in that dream lands on the page, right? So before you even like get to chapter two or three, right? You are right at the precipice of dealing with your life. That's a whole part of it. The next part is really there is how we... So in that part, you discover all your excuses, your beliefs, your theories, everything you really do say to yourself. that really believes it can't happen. And then you start to figure out, maybe it's you. Maybe you came up with that theory. Maybe? No, you did. So it starts to go, and then the book really uses other people's examples of real ones, not like ones on TV, but like real ones. And so listen, it took me 20 years to get this right, so that it rings right off the page. And so it rings right off the page on how we do it.

That.

So what are the 20? What are the 12 areas? People like probably wondering.

Okay, so it's fun and adventure, right? Fun and adventure. Love, like your relationship, your career, money, your body, your health, right? Your. Right. Your spirituality, your family, your friendships. your community, right, your relationship to yourself. And now I would need a list, right? Like I could start to pretend I said all 12. They're 12.

Okay, good. Well, I know, right? So, you know, people are looking for a way, you talk about body, right? and that's important because if you're unhealthy and as a doctor, I believe that if you don't take care of your body, that you can't be fully manifested in your life, that you can't be present in your relationships, that you can't feel good and do the work you want to do, that you can't be inspired because you're in a food coma or your body isn't working properly. So it's the most important thing from my perspective to get people to actually be able to dream the other dreams because how do you have fun and adventure if you feel like crap and want to sit on the couch all day? So I think that, how do you have a great sex life if you just feel icky all the time and tired?

So.

People are looking in the book, I think, for how do we get that? And a lot of times for me, I know what to do. I can cure most illnesses. I can get people to lose tons of weight and I have. But then people's lives creep in and they start to actually sabotage themselves, they fall off, they don't know how to be in integrity with their choices. And I do too sometimes. I eat cake sometimes. But how do you manage that? So people are wondering in the book, how does this book actually help them get and stay healthy? And how, with this wellness and booming, people are still so sick in America. to people have some chronic disease, 70% of Americans are overweight. Like, why is this book different and how is it going to help those people? Because I write diet books, but like people don't always do them.

So I think one of the reasons I love working with you is because you have the right answer for what people should be doing. And then the part that I teach is the inner dialogue and your hand on the cookie, right? Like your hand and how it lives in your head and how it repeats, right? And so what I teach is one's relationship to one's inner dialogue and personal integrity, learning how to keep a promise to yourself in honor of yourself and then really why you don't. So there's enough in the book that also gets you connected to your family's lineage, to the history you came from that may that explains, let us not pretend, that explains a lot of where you got your behaviors from. So what happens is because I bring it all together and I make you meet yourself and your dreams and start to learn what's called personal integrity and ability to keep a promise to yourself in honor of the dreams.

Right.

And then you go after your own inner dialogue, and I teach you how to do that. Right? Like that's not being done. That's the problem. So I think I really go to the culprit.

Well, it's like the root root cause. It's the root cause. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the sort of most helpful things you've taught me is listen to inner dialogue. What are you telling yourself about your life, about whatever? Like I had an inner dialogue that, you know, had a real bunch of bad relationships, you know, a couple of good ones, but like mostly not great. and I didn't really know how to actually find that and I didn't believe in it and my inner dialogue was it doesn't exist, it's not possible. I see most people have bad marriages, most people are unhappy relationships, there's mostly conflict. I mean basically you and your family are the only ones I've seen that have happy healthy relationships that work and that elevate you. There are people out there, there's a few I've met over the five decades or almost six decades I'm alive but like It's a rarity. So like, I'm like, oh, it's never happening to me. So I had this inner story and I was telling myself a story that was controlling my life. And you taught me how to like get rid of that story. But it was hard work. Like I had to write thing every day and I had like, it was not easy. But it really, it was like as soon as I went through that process, it was like all of a sudden it was possible. And that's what I... -Well, it's, yeah.

It'S, you know, if we go back through our history together, we'll find that there were the simple promises. Like they're simple, not easy, simple. Like don't eat sugar is simple.

Yeah.

It's not easy.

Pain in the butt, right? Like nobody happy right at the next line. It isn't that it isn't doable, right? And then what I teach is that, you know, if I gave you $10,000 if you didn't eat sugar today and every day you didn't eat sugar, you collect your money.

Yeah.

Everybody signed right up, right? Everybody would all of a sudden it would all change.

Yes, I mean, for a million dollars for every day you're known sugar, nobody would be eating sugar, right?

We forget it, right? And we forget how powerful we are, right? We forget that we're create, like, because your inner dialogue is dark and light, and we pretend we like, I would never be a, you know, liar, right? I would never do that, right? Like, so when we finally came after you about not selling out on telling the truth, With whatever woman you were with or really admitting what was going on in that head of yours about why you weren't gonna say the truth.

Right.

So when the rubber meets the road, it's the donut in the mouth. When it comes to the right promises in other areas, there really is what you do that doesn't work about you, that if you didn't do that, it would change it. Everything and so this book is about getting very clear that we're much smarter.

Than we're behaving much yeah, it's powerful. It's really you know, it's pretty unique like I you know, there's psychologists and they have a role There's different kinds of coaches, but this is not that like I actually I said this to you before, but I don't like the word life coach because it's it's not exactly it like you think of life coach you just help you know, you get your life organized and support you, but like this is really about radical spiritual, physical, emotional life transformation. I don't know how you put that in a word, but that's kind of what it is. It's what it's been.

There was a new one. There was a new one. I can't say who said it, but a very famous person told me that I was a spiritual architect.

There you go.

I'm teaching spiritual architecture.

Yeah, where do you put that?

Right.

One's ability to design oneself.

It's amazing. It's great. All right, so let's talk about some real stories. In the book, maybe it's you, you share a bunch of stories, four stories. And one of them was Katie who basically transformed her life. And I actually know Katie and it's pretty remarkable to see what's happened to.

Her over the years.

Like, she lost 80 pounds. Okay, great. But like, there was a lot more that happened to her. She wanted to get a relationship sorted out, get a career sorted out. Yes. You know, so think about it. Like, how many people want to lose weight, change jobs, find the love of their life, How do you help people get sorted out and what to do first?

You know, this is not like, you did not just bait me, but I always deal with the body first.

Yeah.

Because when you figure out you have real power, because your mind and what you want to eat is my greatest nickname for what happens right there is that you're a brat. In the moment you have to pick breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and only one cocktail or when to go to bed. All of a sudden, what you have is we all are bratty. We want to do what we want to do and we don't want any consequences. Thank you.

Who wants to go to sleep on time?

So what happened especially with Katie is we started with her body. Could she keep a promise just with food? and I got her to get that it's like the building block of personal integrity is your ability to, I'm not like you. I'm like, you,'re not starving. We are not gonna starve you. This is not a diet that you don't eat, right? This is Mark Hyman's diet, right? You get to eat plenty. As a matter of fact, you're full, right? You're stuffed with healthy things that, like, kill the appetite. What are you gonna do now?

Right?

So, Katie was a brilliant example of someone who literally had to follow instructions and deal with her mind. And then we start. So I start with that area, and then I usually go to the next emergency area, which is for her and her situation was money.

Right.

And her career and getting divorced.

Right.

She found me when she was in a Kind of very large, not happily, like getting divorced, love mess. And then she also didn't realize how she was responsible for all of it. So as you go through the book, you start to go, oh my God, the story you don't tell that was always sitting right there.

That's powerful. That's powerful. All right, so you're somebody who believes in the power of dreaming. In the book you say, Dreaming wakes us up to ourselves. But what do you say to someone who's really struggling with real stuff? They got a single parent, they work 10 hours a day, maybe two jobs, they commute, they're struggling to get their kids to school and back, they're trying to sleep enough and eat healthy. How can they, someone like that, even start to think about dreaming?

I have never met a person who doesn't have the dream. Your dream is not a fantasy. It's not like something pie in the sky. Every day of someone's life they really like, I want that person's job. That's a better deal. they look good, right? Like everyone has the commentary going on in their minds and hearts of roads out, visions out. So, yes, it is, it's the, I have never met a person who can't dream, right? I met many people who don't dream and don't believe in dreams and refuse to dream, but the minute you start to open yourself up to what's your vision, you're not gonna make a vision I go back to when I was 13 years old, right? No, you're right here and everything's possible. It really is.

It's so great. Yeah, I mean, you know, people have struggles, but the truth is that if you actually start to look at yourself differently and put a different frame around it, it's really empowering, you know? It's powerful.

Human potential has not even begun. Love potential, human potential, fix things that aren't working, what's possible. We're so inundated in what's wrong and what's wrong with ourselves and what's really what's wrong with everybody else. That if you actually tapped into that inner dialogue of yours, you would really discover how sad you are, but not taking over the control.

Yeah, it's like not believing all the stupid thoughts you have and looking at them differently. Alright, so now I want to talk about one of the big things that you've taught me is that I'm a liar. And I hate to admit it. I hate to admit it. And I didn't even realize I was a liar. I wasn't like lying in the way people normally think of lying. like saying I went to the movies and went on a date with somebody else. It's the lies you tell yourself that you don't even know you're telling about your life. And whether it was about love, whether it was about work, I mean, whether it was about what I could deserve, I mean, there are all sorts of different kinds of lies. And the most beautiful thing you do is come after people's lies in a way that isn't threatening or abusive or mean. It's just funny and you go, oh yeah, fuck, you know, like damn, like I, that's true, I can't deny it. And it's, it's really freeing because then you go, wait a minute, you know, because we're afraid if we lie, if we don't lie, then people are gonna get hurt or you're gonna get in trouble or, you know, you're not gonna get what you want. And it's actually the opposite. And if you're walking around managing all these secrets and things that you don't say or things you exaggerate about or things you avoid, it's like, it just messes up your life and you can't actually be free because you're managing all this nonsense. And you know, it's something that we all do as humans. And you come after that like a bulldog in a way that helps people to like get free of it and actually be able to have authentic real relationships and authentically like live the life they want to live. So tell us why you're so powerfully adamant and passionate about people telling the truth and why is truth telling so critical to happiness? Why is that important?

So I think self-love and telling the truth are synonymous. I will not lie for anyone. I would rather you know what I really think and what I really did and who I really am, like self-love, even self-reflection, right? If you had to tell everybody what you did last night, you wouldn't be able to do it, right? So, you know, anything I've ever done, I have to go, can I tell anyone, including my children, including my husband? Transparency is the most brilliant helper of being present and designing your life.

Right?

And then lying is the glue that keeps you connected to that past, to everything you don't think is possible. Like every way you lie, every way you hide your truth, every way you're adjusting what's real for you, for someone else, for your boss, for this. Every time you don't speak up, you squish the TR, your. Your truth, your life. You could even say you're squishing your life. Right, because you really do have something to say. Even if what you would say would get you in trouble.

Right?

You'll, it's like when you stick your hand in fire, you don't do that again, right? Like that's terrible, right? The amount we get away with our lies never teaches us not to lie, right? It teaches us to hide better.

Yeah.

But we don't realize the consequence of like suffocating ourselves, suffocating what's real, suffocating following your heart. The suffocation from lying to the self, to the soul, to the happiness, to your own inner compass. Yeah, you have no access to that. You only have access to this fake you.

Yeah.

And then really? And then even when you're happy, like, oh my god, I got this bonus, right? A fake you got the bonus.

Yeah. Right?

Like you don't even like that guy. He keeps you trapped back here.

Right?

So there's this whole dynamic of lying kills you.

Yeah, that's so true. And I mean, it's so connected to one of the main themes of your work, which is integrity. Because my experience is if you're not in truth, then you're not in integrity with yourself. And that creates unhappiness and suffering. so it's like, how do you, and.

Makes the inner dialogue so valid, right? Like there's a world of validity. Like they, it's all connected. As you read the book, you'll find out that it's, you know, it's all connected. The way you speak about your dreams, the way you don't believe in your dreams, the way you came from, where you came from with your family, the way you lie, the way you masquerade, the way you pick. Everyone you pick, your best friend, to your wife, to the food you ate last night, is all coming from this model of being. And the book is all about getting you to see your own model so you can direct.

Yeah.

That's sort of what you told me, that happiness doesn't come from getting the dream you've always wanted. It actually comes from when you behave with integrity on the way there.

Yes. Because then you don't have to care if you ever get there.

And it's hard. Like, I don't like conflict. So, like, if people are messing with me at work or I'm not being treated properly or I don't think someone's doing a good job, I won't say anything. And then it creates more unhappiness in me, more dysfunction in my life. And when I switch to actually telling people what I think in a loving way, not like mean, but like, you know, But just loving and kind, but like being authentic with what I'm feeling, like magic happens. Like it's just unbelievable. And so, yeah. People are not trained.

Like no one's trained themselves to tell the truth.

So how do you, you know, you have this way of building integrity as part of the method, using promises and consequences. So talk to me a little bit about this technique and how it works, why it works.

Okay. So first of all, if you ask me, Lauren, do you still have promises and consequences 20 years later?

The answer is, Yeah.

The day I don't need them is the day I'm dead.

You have that little bad girl part of you, right?

What?

You have that little bad girl part of you that pops up.

Oh my God, I like my bad girl. I finally use my bad girl for good.

It's true. It's true.

I really do, right? So I believe in integrating the dark and the light, right? Like the dark side and the light side and coming up with compromises. It's like how many, you know, you're not, you're, you have a cookie or two cookies a week, right? There really is It's not about being.

In integrity with yourself.

It's about being in integrity with yourself.

Yeah.

So true.

Okay, so I teach your dream, right? There is no dream that doesn't have the right promises to achieve that dream, right? So you wanna, you know, you want, you can't eat sugar if you want to be at this weight, right? Or this, and you have to exercise if you want that, or if you want to get a new job, you're gonna have to fix your resume. You're gonna like, there's all the actions that go with the new dream. And then what happens is, is we either have fear or temper getting in a way. Let moody, right? Oh, moody. Or fear. No, they'll never say yes.

Right?

So we chicken out, or we have a temper, and we have theories that are like, well, i'm too old for that.

Right?

Like, it'll never work for me. I read yesterday in the paper. Right, so we're always lessening the risk of following our dreams. So promises and consequences, once you've written your dream, tell you exactly what you know. You even know what you need to do, right? And you won't do it. So the game is, right, so perfect, perfect. If I don't keep my promise.

I.

Don'T get one of the vices that I love.

Like you like to watch some TV shows and you don't get to watch those, right?

Right.

My love of sitting in bed with Netflix this close to my face is hysterical, right? Like I would give up most things for, you know, David should be sleeping right next to me. Hi, honey.

Right.

And I'm thrilled to be watching television.

Right.

All you have to do is, you know, tell me any promise that I owe based, and then I would lose my 10 o'clock start time. Yeah, I'll keep any props. So, no problem, right? You can even get world peace to happen if I gave up my Netflix. It's like that joke, it's a joke.

Powerful. All right, so this is amazing, Lauren. I'm so excited about your book. It's really, I think, groundbreaking. It's different. It's fun, it's funny, it's enlightening, and it's life-changing for people. if they do it. But there's also a lot more work you have. Tell us how do people learn more about your work, where do they go, and tell us more about how they find you and your group.

So first of all, go to maybe it's you. It's order it on Amazon. It's for pre-order now, and then it launches on April 4th. And it'll be in bookstores and on Amazon. Okay, so that's really the main thing. Go read that book. It's the cheapest way to start.

So maybe it's maybe it's you.com maybe.

It'S you.com, maybe it's you.com. But besides that, if you go to handelgroup.com, there is.

Resources for personal coaches.

I have 20 years worth of work. I have the best coaches ever. all different price points, groups, like I really care about serving humanity. And if you want what I'm teaching, oh, I make it very available in lots of different forms for like cheap to fancy pants expensive, all the way, all ranges, but really just out to make people, like help people fulfill on their lives.

That's so great. So great, Lauren. Well, everybody go to Amazon, go to Barnes & Noble's, get the book, try it, it'll change your life. Thank you, Lauren.

Thank you.