Life Implosion Can Be A Fresh Start with Lauren Maillian

Lauren, how's it going today?

I'm doing great. How are you, Terry?

I'm getting through it. I'm glad we're chatting. And we spoke yesterday briefly about my brother passing. So thanks, thanks for that, first of all, for the conversation and the support. But I'm glad that we're chatting today because as I talked about, the goal of the podcast is to help people overcome setbacks and also seize opportunities. And, and I never thought I would be part of the audience when I first started this show who needs help overcoming some setbacks. So I need this. The listening audience needs this too. But first of all, let's just start with you. Do you mind sharing some background on who you are.

Before I share background? If I am, I want to say thank you for having me and that I've known you now, I don't know how many years, seven, six, eight, seven somewhere on there, or six, seven, eight, I suppose if I'm putting them in order of the range. And you have just always, you've always shown up with the utmost level of like, calm and professionalism. And so when I called you yesterday, it was to say, like, hey man, you don't have to be Superman. So like, if you, if you don't want to do this, we don't have to do this. But in Terry Rice's true form, you said, no, the show shall go on and you shared the reasons why it was important to you. So I just want to thank you for creating the space and time in your professional agenda to make space, for showing more of who you are as a person. So thank you and thank you for including me on this part of your journey as life continues to throw curveballs and you continue to evolve through them. So there's that for the audience. I'm Lauren Milan. I am a three time entrepreneur, investor, board director and currently serving as president of digital innovation at Hero Media, a black owned media and ad tech company. And I'm really excited to be here with you and to catch your curveball questions and hopefully provide some, some good juju and energy and insights to your audience.

Well, I'm not going to throw you a curve ball just yet, but let's go a bit deeper into your background because you've done so much. I know it's hard to summarize in 30 seconds, but what were you doing before all that as well? Just for more context here.

Goodness gracious. I mean, immediately before the role I'm in now, I was leading a nonprofit organization where I used to serve as the chair of the board of directors for many years. Then I was unanimously appointed CEO. I transformed that nonprofit. We come in and picked up, you know, more than the slack. He's come in and been, you know, the figure and the influence that we all hoped for, my parents included, like myself, my kids, my parents included. But those years in between, those eight and a half years in between when I was full on single mom, were insanely difficult because I was doing all of the parenting. I was doing all of the at home parenting, all of the at school, all of the, you know, read the books, do the sight words, all, all the things. Plus I was entirely financially responsible for my children. And so what a lot of people don't know is that I've never gotten child support, never had a dime of financial support, ever. And, you know, I realize now that I have to tell that part of the story, especially for women who see me and think that maybe there has been some support in the background that I didn't share. Nope, it's never existed. So when you see me, when you see Lauren Mylan, you see someone who has created everything for themselves. No silver spoon, no trust fund. I didn't inherit bank accounts, I didn't inherit real estate. I didn't inherit anything. Nobody handed me a thing. You know, it was all by sheer grit and determination and, and a lot of the times.

Now it's interesting because you've described quite a few things and I know there's more. I'm going to say a few more things because what I want people to realize is outside looking in. Clearly, you know, you've, you've lived a wonderful life. I mean, you're traveling internationally as a model. Before that, you also own a winery, I think at like 19 years old. So you've done a lot. And for someone outside looking in, they might think, oh, her life is perfect. You know, she's had all this stuff handed to her. She hasn't had any challenges. And that's what this show's about, is unpacking the challenges that you actually have encountered and showing people how you navigated that to both provide them with inspiration and direction should they encounter something similar going forward as well. So let's get into it. Let's get into the meat of this. What's the most challenging personal or professional experience that you feel comfortable sharing and how did you navigate your way through that situation?

I don't know if I feel comfortable sharing it, but I'm going to just share it anyway. I've actually never shared it. It's not a secret. I think it's certainly a data point on who I am that people know. But I haven't shared probably the details of what made it most difficult beyond what one would see or understand on the face of the problem itself. And the reason that I'm going to share it, even though I haven't before. And I'm working on another book right now where I'm going to share more of the lessons from this in greater depth and detail. But the reason that I'm going to share it with you today is because you've gone through something harrowing that you've chosen to share with your following. And if I'm going to and we've been in conversation before, so if there's anyone that I'm comfortable sharing it with, it's certainly you. But also recognizing the importance for women, women of color and people of color to know and understand the setbacks that someone like myself has gone through that we maybe don't share. And also understanding that as a person of color and as a woman of color, it is normally very, very difficult to, if not impossible to share the difficulties that you're going through. And it's the same reason that I have not shared publicly a lot of the difficulties that I've gone through, because unfortunately, the world will decide for you what they think you can or can't handle. And it's something that I wrote about in my book. I wrote in the Path Redefine extensively about how I kept a lot of the most difficult, private and challenging parts of my life deeply private because I didn't want anyone in the outside world to determine if I was or wasn't going to get the call if I was or wasn't going to get the offer. I didn't want anyone to have that kind of power over my destiny or the direction in which my career could or should track. And it was important for my career to track in the right direction because I was a single mom and I had kids to feed. So with that preamble and context for the audience who's listening, the hardest and most difficult thing I have ever gone through in my life life was my divorce. And that part is not a shock. I think I've spoken pretty openly about the fact that I was divorced young, married young, divorced young, and became a single mom to two kids under two by the time I was 24 years old. But I kind of leave it there. And I leave it there, and it's always made me uncomfortable because I know that when I leave it there, people see Whatever they see of me on social or on the Internet and they're like, oh, that sounded terrible X years ago. But wow, look at her now. Everything must have been a cakewalk in between. And the part that I don't share and that I've finally gotten more comfortable speaking about or even processing with the support of my children who are now 14 and 16 today, in the 9th and 11th grade, both of them brilliant, amazing children and individuals, is that I, when I say I was a single mom, you know, a lot of people assume like, oh, there's some child support there, there's some support, support in general. And there was no support, there was no parental support, there was no, you know, involvement at all from my ex husband. As you know, I'm married to an awesome guy now today who has absolutely come in and picked up, you know, more than the slack. He's come in and been, you know, the figure and the influence that we all hoped for, my parents included, like myself, my kids, my parents included. But those years in between, those eight and a half years in between when I was full on single mom were insanely difficult because I was doing all of the parenting, I was doing all of the at home parenting, all of the at school, all of the, you know, read the books, do the sight words, all, all the things. Plus I was entirely financially responsible for my children. And so what a lot of people don't know is that I've never gotten child support, never had a dime of financial support ever. And you know, I realize now that I have to tell that part of the story, especially for women who see me and think that maybe there has been some support in the background that I didn't share. Nope, it's never existed. So when you see me, when you see Lauren Milan, you see someone who has created everything for themselves. No silver spoon, no trust fund. I didn't inherit bank accounts, I didn't inherit real estate, I didn't inherit anything. Nobody handed me a thing. You know, it was all by sheer grit and determination. And a lot of the times now when I meet people, I say to them, especially when they look at me as though in their eyes I've accomplished something so magnanimous. I find myself looking at a lot of those people because their response to me will often be like, oh, but I'm not where you are yet. And I look at them and I'm like, what does that mean? Like, what on earth does that mean? And I realize that for a lot of people, when they don't know the backstory, they Assume that it just wasn't that difficult. And I realized that that's partially my fault for maybe not sharing all the difficulties, but I also realized that the way in which the world is designed and the business world is designed especially for women to participate at the levels at which I've been able to participate and succeed in business, you can't show up and share your darkest, deepest, most harrowing moments because people will count you out. But I do realize that now when you come on the other side of that, it's important for people to know that how you navigated it, because there are a lot of people who look like me, who look like you, who look like folks who are listening to this podcast that are going through something themselves, that don't know how they could or should share it or how they can grow through it or learn from it. And when people ask me, you know, well, what was your. What was your greatest motivation? The answer was, has always been my kids. Now, I leave it at that. But the reality is, it was feeding my kids and providing for my kids. It wasn't just my kids. It was. I really had to learn to show up. I had to learn to work. You know, we say that on face value. Black people have to work, you know, twice as hard as everybody else to get, like, half the outcome, right? But, yeah, imagine you're young, you're a single mom, and you gotta. You gotta also make up for an extra income that you don't have or child support that you're not getting. And I feel that in so many respects, I've had to work four and five times harder than everyone else to make up for the fact that I'm a woman, a black woman, single mom, you know, all these other boxes that I checked, yet I still somehow defied the stereotype. But I can't let anyone think that looking at me and saying that I've defied the stereotype. I mean, even you said it yesterday, like, yeah, you know, Lauren, you got a good life. It's like, yeah, Terry, but you just don't know how much dirt I've eaten, okay? You just don't know how many times Lauren has, like, skinned her knee and, like, fallen flat on her face, metaphorically. And I think it's important. It's really, really important that people know that you can fall and you can get back up. And whether you fall because you tripped or you fall because somebody pushed you in the back and you weren't expecting it, there is. And I feel like I've had my fair share of all of that, there is absolutely a way to turn things around in your favor.

I'll admit that I, I assumed that you had some kind of support from your ex. I just assumed for whatever reason, so I'll call myself out on that. But I'm wondering during that time when you weren't getting any financial support, but never have.

Never have, even till this day, never have.

And you're not. Let's kind of double click on that. You're not, you're not bitter about that for any reason or you're just like. Like, how do you, how do you avoid being bitter, especially knowing that that's the, you know, the father of your kids. Children. Because my, my parents got divorced when they were younger and you know, the rules are supposed to. The rules are supposed to be like, you don't talk about bad about the other parent in front of like, your kids. My mom never read that rule book. So, like, even after my dad, like, passed away, like, she was like joking around, like, I don't know, you know, but he's like, he's still ugly, I'm sure. And I look just like my dad. So I'm like, thanks, Mom. You know, she was joking around or whatever, but that's just kind of how it went. So I'm wondering, how do you not have any kind of bitterness towards your ex, knowing that, you know, that's your kid's father still. Maybe you do. Maybe.

You know what, it's not bitterness. Like, I used to have a lot of bitterness. I think the first thing is that I, I acknowledge him as like a biological contributor. You know, I literally think of him as a sperm donor. Even though he was my ex husband, I don't give him any more than that. And, and I don't. And my children now, which is actually why I feel comfortable talking about these things, they have shared with me their own feelings of someone that they don't know. So to them, he's a ghost. They. My daughter was 6 weeks old when he left. My son was 22 months old and has vague recollection. My daughter doesn't know him at all. And so in that regard, there wasn't like a bond that had been created or established. And we also don't see or speak to his family. So, you know, it's not as though there are other tentacles and connections that make them yearn or feel some sort of an allegiance or connection or influence or anything to who he is or what he represents. And that to me is a very positive thing. I remember when everything imploded in my life. There were so many people that said, oh, I feel sorry for you. I'm so sorry. And then I had, like, two girlfriends that were much older. So that said, actually, I'm not going to say to you I feel sorry for you, because I think this is the greatest blessing in disguise. And you just haven't seen the silver lining yet. And it really turned out to be the silver lining because I wouldn't have, you know, I wouldn't have grown up into the woman that I've become today because he was not someone that was going to nurture my ambitions and support my dreams. And when I was younger, you think that that might be love, you think that that kind of control is healthy, and you don't realize how stifling it is. So there's that. And the second piece is, I'm not. I've been bitter over the years, I suppose, but at this point, I feel sorry for him. Wherever he is, whatever he's doing, he has a miserable existence. And that in itself just honestly makes me feel better. You know, I think anyone who has been in an abusive relationship or had somebody look at them and demean them, degrade them, talk down to them, you know, beat them down physically, metaphorically, whatever that might be, emotionally, mentally, the mind games, all those sorts of things, it either breaks you or it absolutely makes you shine. And, like, you have that power and control. To say, like, I'm going to let somebody win, I'm going to let them kick me and stay down, or I'm going to let them kick me, and when I get back up, I'm going to make sure I'm strong enough so that you, A, never kick me like that again, and B, I at least know how to kick back or fight back. Right. And so just taking that as, like a mantra to kind of working back from everything that has been really difficult has probably been my saving grace. But I remember very distinctly the last time that I saw him in my face, like, close in my face, and the words were, don't bite the hand that feeds you. And so to have had that hand never feed me again from that day forward and to now be in a position where I can not just feed myself, but I can feed several, many other mouths, kind of speaks for itself, I think, you know, and if anyone else has overcome that kind of a challenge, I hope that you find, you know, your strength and your purpose in your ability to persevere. And I think that also seeing. Seeing what my children have learned from watching me persevere and they've seen me be mommy and work and achieve and succeed and try and work hard and work late and travel and all these sorts of things. But now that they are older, they're able to put the pieces together themselves. And I allow them to asked me the questions that they deemed to be important. And I will also say that having, you know, remarried an amazing man that I've been with now for seven years, who was also the product of single parenthood, they now know for the last seven years, which is we were talking about this. This weekend, my husband and I rob exactly half of my daughter's life. Now she's 14 and he's been with us seven years. And next year we'll be together eight years. And my son is 16. And on behalf of his life, they now know what, what fatherhood should feel like, what parenthood and partnership should look like, what family dinners should feel like, what family dinner conversations should be like. So they have a very, very like, strong example of. They have their strong recollection of what it was like, just the three of us, but they also have these very strong influential experiences and memories of what it feels like to be a cohesive unit and to be a nuclear family and to feel love and to feel appreciation and to feel support and to have somebody cheering for you in real life on the sidelines at their games and, you know, at their important moments. And that shapes their own opinion. And I've realized that as an adult, seeing and listening to them today in the 9th and 11th grade, and both of my children have skipped a grade. So they're both wise beyond their years in many respects. Yet they're, of course, still children. Has been, has been honestly the greatest reward in the last couple of months of us having more and more like emotionally aware conversations, my kids and I, that. That has shown me that I've done a darn good job at being a parent, right? Just at how they process what's important to them and the observations that they make of other families or other family constructs or other family engagements relative to ours or how things could have been and how I built and created our life to be something else. And I think when you let it come out of the mouths of babes like out of your own offspring or out of, like young people, you learn so much by their own observation. And their own observation is what stops me from being bitter. Their own observation and their own feeling and their own sense of confidence and being self aware and self confident in who they are as young black children. Black. I have a 16 year old black boy and I have a 14 year old black daughter. You know, in this world. To see the way that they walk out of the door to go to school every day, to see how they approach the car when they're picked up from school every day, to see how they shake hands and look people in the eye. That is a result of how nourished and supported they feel at home and in their life. And that to me is like my wildest dream.

As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about my kids. And if the way they behave is a measuring stick, I am still messing up. But my kids are.

You have young children, Terry. You're very young children. And they're still supposed to. My kids did all those things. They draw on the wall, they talk back. It's okay. They have to develop some rebellion somewhere, right? You want them to have some backbone. So, you know, but you'll see and you'll. You'll be really pleasantly surprised. And I know you give your kids also an inside view to what your life as an entrepreneur and a working dad is like. And I hope and pray that they remember those instances and those moments, including this one, where you went through something difficult, but you kept, you kept going and you kept showing up and you kept doing your recordings and you kept sharing your stories and getting stories out of other people that can be valuable to the work that you do and the audiences that you have cultivated and created around you. And you'll see when they're older, time will tell you. But let's just hope that they remember these stories and that they are impactful to them in some way as well.

Yeah, fingers crossed. So on your end, this is the first time that you've publicly spoken about this. How does it feel to release that to the world in regards to your ex not giving you any support and how you struggled? How does that feel as a result of that?

I mean, it feels. Feels honest. It feels honest. It feels like the missing piece. Like I actually really don't like knowing the assumptions that other people make. It makes me very uncomfortable. And I think the more and more I accomplish, I become less and less willing for the outside world to think that anyone helped me get here other than the people who deserve the credit and actually helping me get here. And those have been like business people and colleagues and other folks that have given me opportunities and allowed me to invest in their companies and to advise their businesses and have invited me along new parts and frontiers of my investing journey. There are A lot of people to who I owe thanks and gratitude for creating space for me and opening doors for me, but my ex husband is just absolutely not one of them for any reason whatsoever. And so it actually just doesn't seem sit well with me that folks could think or assume that there was a support, a cushion, a free ride, a bus ticket, like anything that got me where I am today. And so I think that honesty feels really good to me. It feels liberating. It feels freeing. It feels, feels like the thing that I want people to know because I want my credit for what I've done on my own.

And I'm bringing this up because a lot of our listeners, I know they have painful experiences that they're not willing to share for one reason or another. But once I started sharing that, especially about my son and most recently about my brother passing away, I felt more understood because then people are like, oh, that's why he's so disciplined. That's why he's so this, that's why he's so bad. It's because of experiences I've had. And I, I don't feel like I was like phony before. But when you're hiding something, that that's central to your life, I think some people might pick up on it and it might make you less trustworthy. But when you are more honest and you're saying, look, I'm not holding these things back, people would admire you even for your flaws and. But in your case, for just like your determination to be successful without any kind of success. So that's why I was without any kind of support. So that's what I was wondering. But is that the topic of your latest book too? Do you speak about that as well in the book?

I talk about all of it in the book. And the book is really about creating flywheels within your life that allow you to achieve your dreams and your goals. But I can't talk about creating flywheels for achieving dreams and hopes and goals without talking about the crap that goes on in the middle. But also I think there are ways that you can redesign your life to take the crap that you're dealt and to make sure that that is like literally the wind beneath your wings that keeps you going, keeps you moving, it keeps you pushing, it keeps you wanting more. And you know, it's interesting that you say this about the transparency. And I think it's perplexing and sometimes disappointing to me that other people feel that they deserve so much insight or rationale as to why other people do what they do. That just has never really sat well with me. But when you said that, it reminds me of the folks who messaged me in social for the last umpteen years saying, oh, why do you work out all the time? You already look slim enough. Like, what now? What more do you want as an example? Right, right. And it's like, well, why can't I want to work out? Like, why is it a problem for you that I'm working out, first of all, and you're choosing to follow me so, like, don't watch the story if you don't like the story. Right. But it also was interesting to me, and I started responding back to people several years ago saying, hey. And now sometimes I put it up in my social and I'll just say, like, hey, this is why I work out. Occasionally I'll still share that. And when I tell people the why, they're like, oh, wow, thanks for sharing. That makes total sense now. But it also just makes you sit back and say, why do I have to tell you that heart health and heart disease runs in my family and that my father has had angioplasties and that I hereditarily have high cholesterol and that I don't want to be on a statin and that this is my way of my own naturopathic homeopathic remedy to hereditary issues in my family and I don't want to be a lab rat for a whole bunch of, you know, medicines and things. And so this is how I choose to take control of my life. Why do I have to tell somebody that? Why do you have to even, you know, share on your social why you work out and that it helps your mental health and your anxiety and that you drink a gallon of water a day and that these things help your mental health? Why do you need. Why can't we just be happy for Terry Rice? Because Terry Rice wants to have muscles and wants to go to the gym and it makes you happy. Like, you know, at a certain point, I don't think that we need to validate why we make our personal life decisions, especially when they are for us. So when I'm doing my workouts, I'm not doing them for anybody else other than me, me, my kids, because I want to live as long as possible for them. My husband, my parents, and my doctor. Because I want to impress them with my stats. I want to impress them with my ability to defy the odds and, you know, make my own tonics and tinctures and workout and just be Their case study for, you know, the path redefined. Pun intended. Right. Plugging my book there. But I just think that that's always been something. I don't know. It's like. And I see it with artists, too. It's like, people like, oh, I like your art. And then when someone says, oh, well, I. I paint with this. This technique because, yeah, yeah, yeah. Happened to me. And then someone's like, oh, my God, that's magnificent. Why wasn't it magnificent before? Like, why did you need the validation for somebody else's process, whatever that reason is, in order for somebody else to feel that it's acceptable to them when the work. The intentionality was never for them anyway?

I think that's the. That's the downside with being transparent or even creating content in the first place. You're like, look, I just want to express something. And then when you get all the questions, it's like, look, I don't want to have to go into why this is the best workout because of this. Like, I'm just trying to show something. Like, if you want to work out too, if you don't want to do this kind of exercise, go do something else. I'm just showing my lifestyle and demonstrating that you should exercise. But I don't have a conversation around it. So I think boundaries are really important too. And that's what I'm experiencing. Even with talking about my brother on social media, I have a lot of people chiming in, talking about their own experiences, and I'm like, that's. That's unfortunate, too. But how I can't go as deep into that conversation as I would want to because I'm not like, a trained professional. Like, some were telling me, like, they literally don't want to get out of bed. I'm like, you need to get up and talk to a psychiatrist. Like, I. You know, like, I want to help you. But to your point, I can't go that deep. Would actually be dangerous for me to do so.

Well, then I think you can also admit that maybe you don't want to help those people. Like, I think it might sound nice. It sounds nice. It's like, I want to help you, but reality of it is, like, if you're not equipped to help them, do you really want to help them in the first place, or do you just feel bad for them? And I think we also have to say and feel comfortable saying, like, you know what? That's really unfortunate. I feel terrible for you. I feel awful for you. I wish I could help you. But I'm not the right one. Why don't you go in this direction? You know, I think that's also something that I personally grapple with is seeing so many people feeling as though they have to be the answer to somebody else's issues and, and somebody else's predicament. And that's also not the case. It's just not, you know, So I kind of want to give you that permission to be selectively selfish, I suppose, or intentionally selfish, I suppose. You know, it's no different than that analogy of like applying your own oxygen mask before you help others. It's like, you know, I don't, I don't. I think that the expectation or the desire for the Internet and influencers and thought leaders to solve everyone's intractable life problem is, is a recipe for a disaster. My own opinion.

You gave your opinion before about a business and how do you know if like you're really passionate about it? And you said there's a difference between being passionate and finding a purpose in it. And you said, like, pretend you want to be a hairdresser. If you showed up the next day and a hundred people want to get their hair done, would you be excited or would you be like, oh man, it's a lot of people need their hair done. So in regards to your question about people asking me questions, I am excited to help people and help them at scale and that's what this product is about. But when it's going so deep, where someone's like looking at me like I'm some kind of guru who's going to guide them towards this path, like, no, I can give you the tools that I'm using. You should discover others as well. But that I'd be a phony or a fraud to say, okay, I can fix every problem. And that's where it gets a little. I have to be careful there because I want to help people at scale, but I'm not necessarily the person to deliver the in depth help they might need going forward. I just want them to be aware that there is a way out. There are solutions. Here's what's working for me. But you also have to discover what's working for you too. And you have to want to get better because some people, they just make that their identity being a little bit stuck. Whereas if your identity is that of resilience, then you can move forward even during a challenging situation.

Well, I can only speak for myself then. So I'm going to give your audience my own opinion, which is that Lauren Myelin wants to be a catalyst for other people's growth, rejuvenation, renewal, and success. But I cannot be other people's solution for their growth, their catalyst, and their success. I just can't be. And I think that is a real conundrum and one that I have found peace in saying. Like, I want to inspire people. I want to be the catalyst. I want to be, you know, I want to, in many ways, be a metaphoric roadmap. I can't be your actual roadmap. I can't be your actual driver, your actual strategist, your actual cheerleader, your actual mentor. I can't do all those things for everybody. And the older and older my kids get, also, I realize I am very clear and unapologetic about the fact that my resources, my energy, my intellectual capacity, that that is going to my kids. That is absolutely going to my children. Before it. Before I have a line of, like, you know, 10 mentees, I'm. My kids are now at the age where they can take two mentee spots. Okay? Like, they can. They can literally, you know, when they're younger. No, they don't need my mentorship, per se, in that same way. But my kids are now getting to that point where, whether it's about college, high school, their entrepreneurial endeavors, and they have investments that they want to make, things that they want to do. Like, I have slapped my kids into some of those positions where I have given my time and energy to, you know, a slate of mentees in the past as well. But I also realized that sharing. Right. And so my version of helping people at scale is doing podcast interviews like this where I can share some of my stories, some of my backstory, some of my struggles, some of my triumphs, and hopefully there is something that resonates with someone else. I mean, I look at, like, churches a lot recently, and, you know, I look at my book the Path Redefined. I look at TD Jakes. When the Path Redefined came out, TD Jakes had a book that had just come out called Instinct. And I swear to you, I read his book, and I'm like, this sounds a lot like the Path Redefined to me. But we had different stories, right? The principles were very similar. The principles were very similar, but we had different stories. And so everyone has to find the story, the person, the situation that best mimics and mirrors what they're going through so that they can rewrite and recraft their own narrative and their own story from their vantage point as well. And so, you know, we all have different ways. I suppose that we want to help people at scale, but I've just also realized that to help people with really, really big challenges means that you need more information than we're ever going to get in a podcast question, a social media DM. I don't care if the DM is, you know, max word count and 10 messages. Like, there's only so much you can get if you're trying to help somebody solve something that goes 5, 10, 15, 20 years deep. If we're talking about childhood traumas, if we're talking about divorces, you know, like, these are really deep things that take therapists years to do. So how on earth, you know, to your point, untrained, like, do you think, or I think that we're going to be the ones able to solve it for everybody? No, but what I can tell you is the tools I used and then how you can identify similar tools in your life, and then we can keep in touch and hopefully it works.

I feel like we're saying the same thing. But, but I love that you gave the background initially of how you struggle to raise your kids and you're like, look, that's why you got to find your own way, too. I did. And it just, it gives more, more context to it, which is, it even helps me understand even better. So. So I dig it. But where can people learn more about you? Because you have, you have the path redefined. Obviously you have a new book coming out. You didn't mention the title. It's okay if you can't yet, but where can they find all the stuff?

I'm on social at Lauren Mylan L A U R E N M A I L L I A N online, everywhere. On social everywhere. Laurenmylan.com is my website. I have a bi weekly LinkedIn newsletter. It's also LinkedIn.com laurenmylan so Lauren Myelin everywhere. If you forget how to spell Mylan, you can put in mai. And hopefully you see my little face somewhere on the Internet. It should pop up. And thank you for having me. This has been a great conversation and I hope it's been helpful to the audience. I really hope that it's been helpful to the audience. I've just met so many women, especially recently in airports, that have been following me. So shout out to all the women that, like, fly through New York and Atlanta and like all the others kind of hubs that I'm often in and out of because I have met so many women there or gotten messages from women that say, I think I saw you in the airport. I saw you in the airport. Or next time I want to say hi. But it's. It's also just reminding me of how many women are. And I know there's folks that are listening that are men, too, so shout out to the guys. But reminding me of how many people, but especially how many women are really trying to. You know, when they say that they are, like, carrying a lot on their back, they are literally trying to make money.