THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Well, hello. This is your host, artist Miriam Schulman, and you’re listening to episode number 111 of The Inspiration Place Podcast. I’m so honored that you’re here. Today, we’re talking all about getting past the approval trap. In this episode, you’ll discover why success and failure are on the same road, but success is a little further along, why it’s a terrible thing to go through life with diamonds in your pockets if you don’t notice them because you’re too focused on the jewelry on other people, and why you should stop comparing your metaphorical lunchbox. Oh, one more thing, why it’s important to get uncomfortable to evolve into the next best version of yourself.
But before I invite today’s guest, I wanted to make sure that you knew I have a free ebook that just came out for those looking to improve their art techniques. If you’ve always wanted to learn how to paint your pets, but don’t know where to start, then you can sign up to get instant access to this free ebook. I’ve included the link in the show notes, schulmanart.com/111, or go to schulmanart.com/ebook. It’s the Painting Pets with Passion, and you’ll learn why painting pets creates an art legacy, two easy tutorials for drawing pets using my shape method, and you’ll be able to print out the complete supply list for successful watercolor portraits. Now back to the show.
Today’s guest is an author and life coach columnist who’s been featured on Oprah and The Today Show, Cosmopolitan, The Wall Street Journal, and Good Morning America. She helps people become more confident by understanding what’s limiting them. Please welcome to The Inspiration Place Susie Moore. Hey, Susie. Welcome to the show.
Susie Moore:
Miriam. Here we are, and episode 111. I see that angel number.
Miriam Schulman:
Is that good? Are you into numerology? Is that auspicious?
Susie Moore:
Well, a little bit, a little bit, and I have to say, I just thought, “This is just perfect timing. I believe that we’re meant to be here right now.”
Miriam Schulman:
We were just discussing how we never actually met, because we were like two ships that kind of passed in the night. We had the same business coach, and I met you at a dinner, but I really had no idea what you’re about and what you do, which is why I have to tell you I was completely blown away when I read your book, Stop Checking Your Likes.
Susie Moore:
Oh, thank you. A lot of people have given me feedback, and they think it’s a social media book. I’m like, “No, no, no.”
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What I really loved about it is how vulnerable you got about your own life story.
Susie Moore:
Yeah. I feel like it’s important. I think it’s an important thing to do, if you’re willing. Not all people want to share their stories, but if you feel called, I always believe it’s a very generous thing to do. That’s why I love helping people become visible and tell their stories confidently, because it’s so healing, it’s in service to others, and it doesn’t have to be heavy.
Miriam Schulman:
No.
Susie Moore:
You can share what it is that you’ve experienced, what you’ve learned, your wisdom in a place that doesn’t require you to get very, very serious or do a lot of backtracking and kind of relive painful things. You can do it in the present moment, and my mantra is always let it be easy and to focus on having fun. I believe we can do all those things at once.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, let’s start with an easier point that I want to discuss with you. So this, I completely related to, and that was about lunchbox shame.
Susie Moore:
Oh, yes. Lunchbox shame.
Miriam Schulman:
So why don’t you start with your story? Then I’ll jump in and share my own trials with that.
Susie Moore:
Yeah. So the lunchbox example that I share in my book is really around comparison and how it’s absolutely wildly unfair, inappropriate, inaccurate, in most cases. When I was a kid, because we grew up on welfare, we would get donations from the church. By the way, if you ever donate to the church, people love what you give. It really goes a long way, especially if you’re giving to children. Every day, me and my sister had the same lunch at school. It was a sandwich half, half of an [inaudible 00:04:41]. That was it. My mum always said, “They have water at school,” which was true, right? But when you’re a kid, you have the whole exchange thing. “What color is your drink? What are your snacks?” We didn’t have any of those.
It’s okay. I’m not complaining. But at one time, the church gave me this pink lunchbox, and it was the coolest. I remember the sound of the snap, when I used to hold it around, carry it around. When I had this lunchbox, of course, it looked pretty cool, right? It looked like everybody else. Maybe mine was even a bit better than other people’s. But I’d always rush to eat my lunch quietly when no one would see me and do it quickly so no one would see that the inside didn’t match the outside, because it was just always the same thing.
I feel like this is just the truth of adulthood in so many ways, too. There are some parts of us that look shiny, some parts that look good, but we never see the full picture. We never know what’s inside the box. We love to compare and make ourselves despair, thinking, “They have it figured out. This looks so glossy and shiny and new.” But we have no idea what’s going on in anyone else’s life.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s what I was saying before. When I saw you at the lunch, I was like, “Oh, hey, pretty, popular girl sitting in the middle of the lunch table.” I had no idea about your backstory. I completely relate to lunchbox shame.
We were on social security because my father passed away when I was very young. But even when we had money, I’m not so sure if it was all just a money thing. I always attribute it to the fact that I felt like my mother just didn’t get it. She was very into health. I’m a bit older than you. We had yogurt way before it was cool, and it didn’t come in a plastic container. So I still am traumatized by the vision of the purple yogurt that had opened up, because those paper Dannon containers, it was opened up. It was the tinfoil leftover from whatever my mother served for dinner the night before. There certainly was no Capri Sun. There was no Little Debbie. I don’t know if these are American brands, but I remember in the book you were mentioning the juice pouch. You didn’t have the juice pouch. I was like, “Oh, yeah, I remember that.”
So my sister and I, we didn’t have cool lunches. When my brother came along, different father, when my brother came along, my sister was in charge of making sure his lunch was cool, that he had these very unhealthy things in his lunchbox.
Susie Moore:
Oh, lucky him.
Miriam Schulman:
Yes and no, right?
Susie Moore:
Yeah, yes and no. You’re right. My mum always says, she’s like, “There’s no shame in that.” She says, “I’m glad I didn’t I didn’t give you Pepsi like all the other mums.”
Miriam Schulman:
Exactly. That’s why I said, I’m not so sure how much of this was really because she couldn’t afford the junk food, because junk food is actually cheap.
Susie Moore:
It is.
Miriam Schulman:
I think she just had a different value system, and I was embarrassed by it.
Susie Moore:
Yeah. I know. It’s funny, the things that we remember, right, that we kind of hold onto. But the emotions were very, very real, and when we kind of look back at our parents and what we’ve experienced, everyone’s just doing their best, right, and trying their hardest. I feel like kind of the forgiveness that you can bring to your family from an adult perspective, which you always get to choose, is really such a blessing for you. It’s easy to hold onto things, right? I mean, in my family, we are all a bit different in how we’ve responded. I feel like choosing forgiveness and choosing love always is always best for everybody.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s a beautiful thought. But I loved how you brought the story of the lunchbox and feeling bad, and then what we basically do now on social media is we’re looking inside everybody else’s lunchbox.
Susie Moore:
Yes, and I can tell you as a coach, I’ve coached many people who look very impressive, and they are impressive, right? But they are having fertility issues, debt issues, not being able to pay back their investors on time, constantly stressed, insomnia, divorce, issues with their children being bullied, the stuff that we never hear about.
Miriam Schulman:
Right.
Susie Moore:
There’s a quote in my book that I love from Regina Brett. She said, “If everyone threw their problems in a pile and we saw everybody else’s problems, we would take ours back.”
Miriam Schulman:
100%. Yeah.
Susie Moore:
Right?
Miriam Schulman:
I heard that before.
Susie Moore:
[crosstalk 00:08:33], right?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. The other thing I always like to tell my own children is that you may look at somebody, and you’re looking at them at a snapshot in time. But you don’t always know, like we said, what their backstory was, and you also don’t know what the rest of their story is going to be.
Susie Moore:
Precisely. Miriam, I tell you, a few years ago, I would always think to myself, “I’m so behind,” because I had a corporate career. I worked in tech, and I saw these 20 somethings with all these incredible online businesses. I was just starting out, and I was figuring it out. I was like, “I’m so behind.” Even just in a few short years, so much has changed, right? we don’t know what the future holds for somebody if they’re winning now, and that’s why it doesn’t ever really matter what anyone else is doing. It’s of no consequence to you.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s so true.
Susie Moore:
Believing in competition is like is it … Compared to what you know, we don’t even know if we’re going to be alive in the next few days. Nobody knows anything. It’s all so uncertain. So I think just staying in your lane brings you peace.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. That’s why I don’t like when people say “uncertain times,” because it’s like, “Really? When was it ever certain?”
Susie Moore:
Precisely.
Miriam Schulman:
In February, we thought we knew what we were doing in October, but we had no idea.
Susie Moore:
Precisely. Yeah, exactly.
Miriam Schulman:
We were certain, but it was wrong.
Susie Moore:
Yeah, and you find that every year, there’s always something new to complain about, right?
Miriam Schulman:
Right.
Susie Moore:
The state of the world is terrible. The state of the world is terrible. Who knows what can happen from here? Maybe we’re in a good place. We don’t know. Being in the present and focusing, I think, truly on what it is you have control over is the only sane thing to do.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. I’m going to put you on the spot, Susie. What advice do you have right now with people who are struggling mentally with the pandemic? Because it was easy to give advice back in March when many of us … I don’t know if you felt this way, but I naively thought we’d be done in a few months.
Susie Moore:
Me, too.
Miriam Schulman:
We’re in October, and the realization is sinking in that, no, we’re halfway through it right now. I’m seeing a lot of people suffering with that. What advice do you have?
Susie Moore:
Yes. Life will always throw things at us, big, small, as we said, unpredictable. Whenever we remember that we have options in any situation, it’s when we feel our almost powerful, and by powerful, I just mean the most calm. Maybe you have a business that requires live events. Maybe you need to travel. Maybe your family is sick. Me, my mum’s alone. She’s 77 in the UK. No one’s seen her this year. I just think, “Okay, what do I still have control over? I can still call my mum. I can make allowances for my business. I was going to have a live event last week. I can still manage kind of my friendships, my life as best I can. It’s not the same. It’s not ideal, but there’s still a lot for me to take ownership of and to appreciate,” and frankly, one day at a time, right? We don’t know. Six months ago, I thought we’d be finished. I’m like, “By the October, our live event will definitely happen.”
Miriam Schulman:
Exactly.
Susie Moore:
I was like, “It’ll be amazing.” We didn’t know. We were just waiting.
Miriam Schulman:
We did not know.
Susie Moore:
Yeah. So always one day at a time. When we future trip, I think that’s where so much anxiety comes, and, I mean, even when we’re struggling, looking for the gifts in the present. There are some. I mean, a friend of mine in New York, he’s been a realtor for 25 years, working six days a week, on the street, on the street. This is the first time he’s had a chance to even think about what he wants. There are gifts always, when we see them, and I think we have to be pretty short-sighted at the moment-
Miriam Schulman:
Right.
Susie Moore:
… just to stay focused.
Miriam Schulman:
When you said that, think about what you can control, my brain went to Victor Frankl, who got through the Holocaust simply by realizing that he’s the only one who thinks in his mind and he controls how he feels. Nobody else can touch him there. If he can get through the Holocaust, we can get through this.
Susie Moore:
It’s true. It’s the ultimate freedom, right, to always be choosing that, always be choosing what our thinking is. Are we giving compassion to others? What is it that we’re offering? I absolutely agree with what my mum said, because I was complaining a couple of months ago, saying, “I’m so bored. I want to go” … She was like, “Darling, people used to have to go to war. You just have to stay at home on the sofa.” I’m like, “Right. It’s not so bad.”
Miriam Schulman:
I love what you said about success and failure on the same road. I would like to dive into that a little bit deeper, because I see the artists who are inside my incubator program, who some of them are further down the road than the others, and it’s so interesting how they will look at each other and think, “Oh, she’s got it all figured out.” They private mail me about each other, and they don’t realize somebody else is talking about you, and they’re looking at you like they think you have it figured out and “Why am I not as successful as her?” So I love what you said, how they’re on the same road, but success is a little further along. Could you elaborate on that?
Susie Moore:
Yes. It’s so funny how we love to give up, right, Miriam?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, it’s easier.
Susie Moore:
I mean, I swear I work with 70 people who are almost … They’re on the cusp of something, but something goes wrong. They get derailed by a mean comment or some negative family feedback. They see somebody else, and they think, “I can never catch up.” So they just park their car. It’s like, “Well, tried that.”
Miriam Schulman:
Right.
Susie Moore:
What do you mean you’re parking your car? We’re about to take off. I didn’t really appreciate patience until the last couple of years, what really does compound over time, that nothing can really replace it. Right now, just out of interest, I just started reading Mariah Carey’s book. She started [inaudible 00:13:58] and singing at the piano with her mother when she was five.
Miriam Schulman:
Wow.
Susie Moore:
It’s was like every day, every day, every free moment, music, music, music. It’s not like, “Oh, someone plucked her out of the crowd, and that was lucky. She was at the right party.” There is so much that goes into what makes a person successful. It does take time. It does require patience, and that’s okay, right? I think even the fact we think, “Well, this is it.” So long as you’re alive and you have desires and you’re capable of doing things, then if there’s breath, there’s more, right? There’s always going to be more. I think there’s so many people just surrender too soon, and they think that other people found a better path or there are multiple paths when there’s just one, right? There’s just one. It’s your live. We’re all on it. No one’s competing, and some people just have the grit to keep going.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s why when I interview people for my Artist Incubator program, so in addition to teaching art techniques, you heard about my little commercial at the beginning, about teaching people how to paint. I also coach artists how to sell their art. One of the questions I have on there that’s very telling on a scale of one to ten, how committed you are. Really, you need to be a ten. I will talk to somebody if they’re not a ten, because it’s arbitrary sometimes what they think a nine or a ten is, but you’re filling out an application. If you’re a seven, it’s probably not going to work out for you, because you really have to be committed.
Susie Moore:
Oh, Miriam, I teach the same thing. In fact, if someone comes to me and they are full of enthusiasm and I just know that even if they are rejected, they’ll just get up, I’m like, “You are a success story already. It’s just a matter of time before that’s revealed.” But if someone’s really brilliantly talented, but unsure, doubting, doesn’t know, doesn’t feel safe, then I’m like, “I probably can’t help you. I can only help you if you’re willing to help you.”
Miriam Schulman:
Right.
Susie Moore:
Then we can really go places. We can go far. But if you’re like, “Hmm, yeah. I don’t know,” then that questioning, it’s exhausting. You’re in this constant place of fatigue and second-guessing. It doesn’t work out so well. If you observe in anybody else, it’s hard to see it ourselves sometimes, but it’s very easy to observe in other people. Just that resilience and commitment, I swear, it’s truly the only thing.
Miriam Schulman:
They don’t know how uncomfortable it’s going to get-
Susie Moore:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
… because we are going to ask them to do very uncomfortable things to move further down that road from where they are now to where they want to go. That’s why I love that you believe in that same thing about having to get uncomfortable. Do you want to share your thoughts on that?
Susie Moore:
Oh, yes. The way that I define confidence, and confidence, I think, is really misunderstood. We always think a confident person is so charismatic, right? Or they can own a stage, and that’s true, right? That those people might be confident, but competence is quieter and simpler than that. It’s simply our willingness to be uncomfortable, your tolerance for discomfort. That’s it. Truly, that’s it.
Think about what can be available to you, Miriam, if you’re willing to be … You’ll ask anybody out. You’ll ask anybody to invest in your business. You’ll ask for the sale. You will ask for a favor. You will ask for collaborations. You’ll ask for a book deal. Whatever it is, you’ll just be like, “I’m willing for them to say no. I’m willing to be rejected, shut down, humiliated, embarrassed, because it’s just a temporary feeling. That’s the worst that’s going to happen to me.”
Even if we don’t think about it that way, in that very linear way, really confident people just know that. They’re like, “I’m going to be okay. Yes or no, I’m going to be okay.” Even just that stepping out, that willingness isn’t very common, right? We will do anything to avoid pain as human beings.
Miriam Schulman:
Do you think, Susie, that you and I exude more confidence because of our painful childhood? I believe that. I think we have so much more resilience, because the worst has already happened, in some-
Susie Moore:
Well, we hope.
Miriam Schulman:
Well …
Susie Moore:
Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
One of those things that people might consider the worst. You know what I’m saying?
Susie Moore:
Yes, of course. Yeah, of course. [crosstalk 00:17:40].
Miriam Schulman:
Losing a parent or, in Susie’s case, you had an alcoholic father, really a really difficult childhood.
Susie Moore:
Yes. It’s like that old expression about rough seas make a great sailor, right? When you can navigate life, I was divorced when I was young, married an addict, I mean, you go through your lessons. I think you start to trust yourself after a while in terms of your own strength, for sure. But I think no matter what your background is, no matter what your history is, it’s always available. It’s like, “Am I willing to step into it?” Truly, most people weren’t. They’re like, “No.” That is good news. Great most people won’t, because that’s excellent news for those of us who will.
Miriam Schulman:
I always said this, but now I found out Jim Rohn said it beautifully first.
Susie Moore:
Yeah, I love him.
Miriam Schulman:
Successful people are willing to do things that unsuccessful people are not willing to do. It’s not exactly those words, but that’s pretty much the idea.
Susie Moore:
I know the quote. I love it. I mean, he’s fantastic. But I say the same thing when it comes to media. People who win media features, so television, magazines, online, whatever, they’re pitching. That’s the only difference. They’re pitching. People pitch or they don’t. They win or they don’t. There’s nothing mystical. There isn’t some magic formula. You want to have a strategy and some ideas, and you want to know how to do it, but if you do it, it’s a matter of time before you win.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. I love that you brought that up. I actually have a client in my program, Dawn Trimble, and she’s getting right now success after success.
Susie Moore:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
She’s in a gallery. She’s featured online. Every week, she’s sharing these wins, and I asked her, “Do you know why you’re getting these opportunities?” She kind of looked at me blankly. I said, “Because you’re asking for them. You’re asking for them,” and the other people who aren’t getting those opportunities, who feel jealous of her, weren’t asking.
Susie Moore:
I’ll tell you, Miriam, it happens all the time, right? We need to be honest with ourselves. Often, we’ll be like, “Yeah, I don’t want that. I’m not going to go for that,” and it’s like, you do want it. You don’t want to go for it, though, in case you don’t get the result that you want and other people will judge you, because as human beings, we are resilient. We know that. Look what we’ve already survived this year.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s true.
Susie Moore:
So we know that we can overcome a lot of things, but the fear of judgment from others over our failure is what gets us, right?
Miriam Schulman:
That’s so true.
Susie Moore:
It’s like it’s okay to fail in private, but as soon as it becomes public, right, where anyone can see you or measure it or have an opinion, then it starts to get really scary. That’s kind of where a lot of the growth comes in, when you can learn to manage being judged and not winning and be okay if other people’s opinions … If other people don’t like you and that’s okay with you, then really, you become unstoppable.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, I love that. Yeah, a lot of it is just also training your brain to recognize when you start to feel fear that your brain will come up with reasons why you shouldn’t do something. That is the brain’s job, because the brain cannot tell the difference between the risky thing that you want to do that’s just maybe asking someone to feature you in their gallery versus swimming out where there may be a shark who’s going to eat you or you’re going to get eaten by a tiger. By the way, I use the shark example because I saw a shark this summer in Cape Cod. It was tremendous.
Susie Moore:
Oh my. I’m glad you lived to tell the tale. That is horrifying.
Miriam Schulman:
I wasn’t in the water, but I was in the water the day before. Then I come back the next day, and no one’s in the water. I said, “What’s the thing?” They said, “Oh, there’s a shark.” I’ve told this story on the air before, but it’s such a fun story.
Susie Moore:
That’s [crosstalk 00:20:54].
Miriam Schulman:
I’m going to assume people don’t hang onto my every word and don’t listen to every episode. There’s a buoy that’s 100 yards out that checks for sonar. So I thought, “Oh,” that was the situation.” But then I realized, “Oh, no, no.” They were pointing, and there was the dorsal fin. There was the shark, just like in Jaws. It’s like, “Okay, well, I’m not going back in there.”
Susie Moore:
Heck, no.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, right? But if you start training your brain to recognize that every time you feel uncomfortable, your brain is just trying to keep you safe in the cave and keep you from taking risks. That’s all it is.
Susie Moore:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
So the more you’re willing to get uncomfortable and process those emotions, the more successful you’ll be.
Susie Moore:
I love what Pema Chödrön says about fear. She says, “Fear is an indicator that you’re getting closer to the truth.” Isn’t that interesting?
Miriam Schulman:
Yes.
Susie Moore:
It’s like, “Oh, I really want this thing, but it scares me.” Ooh, well, what are we getting close to here? Maybe your next ambition. Maybe the next level of your life is being revealed to you.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. I love Pema Chödrön.
Susie Moore:
Yeah, but why would it feel so comfortable, like, “Yep, here it is. Got it”? If you don’t have fear anymore or you feel nothing, you’re either coasting or dead. Fear is so natural, and it’s meant to be part of our life. I think that when you can also just be lighter about things and have a sense of humor, it’s overlooked, but it is magical if you can just be lighter about everything. “I failed. Let’s talk about it. Let’s laugh about it,” versus “My life is over. I am a failure. I am this failure. This is representative of who I am.” We’re all just living different experiences, and when we can be light, not only do we kind of bounce back, but I also think it just keeps us young and keeps us interesting.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. When you brought up Pema Chödrön, it reminded me of another ocean analogy. Assuming there’s no shark in this water, but she talks about failure being like the waves coming in. When you first experience failure, it’s like when you’re in that shallow water, and I know you’re in Miami, so I bet you go to the ocean a lot. So when you’re in that shallow water, the wave can really knock you over. When you go deeper, the waves are actually still coming, but you’re not feeling them the same way. You’re learning how to ride it. It’s not going to knock you over anymore. That was her analogy with how you deal with repetitive risk and failure, that it’s still there.
Susie Moore:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
You just tolerate it differently.
Susie Moore:
Don’t you think that we should have some fear?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Susie Moore:
I mean, imagine if you’re like, “I want these three things,” and they immediately manifested. What would be the point? The point is who we become, right?
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, yeah.
Susie Moore:
I think this might’ve been Jim Rohn, too. Probably, because I love him. He said, “You don’t make a million dollars to make a million dollars. We make a million dollars for the person we have to become to make a million dollars,” right? It’s ourselves that we’re conquering. It’s ourselves. If everything was just so easy, we wouldn’t appreciate anything. We would have nothing to strive for. You know that the joy’s in the busy-ness, right? Even when you’re like, “Ah,” whatever you’re walking on, you’re like, “Oh my gosh. I’m so frantic,” there is joy in that, too.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, I agree with that. It’s part of evolving into your next best version of yourself, because if the point of life were to be happy, that’s always available to us. We can sit around and eat chocolate and be very happy.
Susie Moore:
Yeah, we could. Yeah, we could move to Bali. When did we become so sensitive to a bit of pain or a bit of rejection? Last year or the year before, both, actually, times, I went on, just to push myself, these rock climbing retreats. Extremely fun and different. I remember one of the rock climbing teachers, I was like, “I don’t want to hurt myself,” right? He’s like, “Why do we all get so touchy about getting a little bruise or a little scratch? We’ll be okay.” I started thinking, “Well, that’s true for me mentally, but physically, mm-mm (negative).” I’m like, “I’m going to be easy about it.”
Miriam Schulman:
All right, footnote. Just hearing the story, I’m not interested. I’ll get my nature adventure a different way. We can go down a raft or something.
Susie Moore:
Whatever it takes, though, to feel alive. Why did we ever think that everything had to be really easy? We see this sometimes in very young people. They’re like, “I want my dream job. I want a raise.” It’s like, “No, you’ve got to earn it a little bit. Then you appreciate it. The joy is in that. We forget that.
Miriam Schulman:
I wanted to circle back to something I mentioned at the beginning, which … All those bullets were quotes directly out of Susie’s book, by the way. Why it’s a terrible thing to go through life with diamonds in your pockets. You don’t notice them, because you’re focused on other people’s jewels. Then your description about how people have one thing, and they are not noticing what’s special about themselves, because they’re too busy mesmerizing on something else. You want to give an example of that, Susie?
Susie Moore:
Yes. Often, it kind of falls in three areas. We envy, typically, someone’s relationship, if we are in an unhealthy relationship or we’re single. We envy someone’s money. This might be the most common way. We think that rich people have it figured out, or we envy someone’s body. This is kind of a bit more as a woman. We will kind of think, “She has it all together.” Then if we see a rich, married, thin woman, we love to hate her. We’re like, “What’s going on?” This is just kind of speaking to a lot of our fears around not being enough. When we’re fixating on someone’s great figure or their money in the bank balance, and, by the way, we have no idea what’s going on here.
Miriam Schulman:
No.
Susie Moore:
You don’t know if someone has a healthy relationship with food. Just because someone looks good doesn’t mean they’re healthy. We don’t know that.
Miriam Schulman:
We don’t know if they’re rich or if they’re in debt.
Susie Moore:
There’s a saying in Miami that the people … because there are very fancy cars in Miami. I was very surprised when I first moved here. But there are very, very fancy cars here, but there’s a Miami joke that people are walking dogs to pay for gas for their expensive cars, right? Because it’s so important to have the right car here. I find it fascinating. But what do we know? We don’t know anything. It’s like [inaudible 00:26:23] on credit. We don’t know anything. Then relationships, of course. I mean, how many times do we see a darling celebrity couple get divorced out of the blue?
So when we focus on other people, not only is it often not a full picture … It’s never the whole picture. It’s often not accurate picture, but we’re forgetting everything that we’ve got, right? Maybe you’ve got great relationship or you’re really great with style or you’re a great conversationalist or you bring joy or whatever it is you know that are your own strengths. It’s almost like they’re zero. You may as well not have them when you don’t appreciate them, because your focus is always somewhere else. So I think I’ll bring the focus back to yourself.
I in my book suggest creating a “What I’ve Got” list. It’s amazing. Even the DMs I get, people send me their “What I’ve Got” lists. It’s amazing.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s such a great idea.
Susie Moore:
I love it. I always say, “Tell me more.” I always say, “Tell me more.” There’s always more, and we have to focus on what it is that we have, because we have our unique, special talents, too, in our short lifetime. We want to celebrate them.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s beautiful. I think that’s a great place for us to wrap up this conversation. So if you like what Susie had to say, you’re going to love her book. It’s called Stop Checking Your Likes. Like we said, it’s not a book about social media. It’s really about all the things we talked about here today. It’s about shaking off your need for approval so that you can live your best life. So we’ve included a link to her book in the show notes, and I hope you’ll check it out and then give Susie a shout out at susie.moore-
Susie Moore:
susie-moore.com.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, gosh. Okay. Don’t worry. We’ll put that in the show notes, too. You can let her know that you read the book and what you liked about it. All right. Susie, do you have any last words for our listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Susie Moore:
Yes, Miriam. What I would say is we’re told a lot of things, right? So there’s a lot of advice. There are a lot of hacks, experts, et cetera. First of all, your own inner wisdom is always going to be the ultimate sage for you. Instead of the hustle, work like crazy, go for everything, yes, take action, but most importantly, relax. Everything’s okay. I think when we come to this place of joy, of remembering joy’s our natural state, and when we can relax, we realize how good life really is, that’s also the best place to create.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s wonderful. By the way, the title of this episode is going to be You’re Going to Be Okay, which I don’t know if we talked about that quite enough, but yes. Okay. So we’ve included links to all Susie’s places in the show notes, which you can find at schulmanart.com/111. Beautiful numbers. Don’t forget, if you liked this episode, you have to check out the Artist Incubator Mastermind. It’s my private group coaching program for professional artists who want to take their current art business to the next level. It is by application only. Go to schulmanart.com/biz, as in B-I-Z. You can qualify for a free strategy session that way, and you’ll get my eyes on your art business. We’ll discuss the steps you need to take to reach your goals and thrive. Okay. So thanks so much for joining me here today, Susie.
Susie Moore:
Miriam, this was such a pleasure. 111, angel talk.
Miriam Schulman:
Absolutely. All right, everyone. Thanks so much for being with me here today. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Make it a great one.
Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place Podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart, and, of course, on schulmanart.com.
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