Rachel Hollis: Brave Dreamer, Hard Lessons and The Questions That Change Everything

Today in the Coop, we’ve got the queen of keepin’ it real herself—Rachel Hollis.

She’s a bestselling author, powerhouse speaker, and your no-BS friend who’ll tell you to chase those big, scary dreams with everything you’ve got. 

Known for Girl, Wash Your Face and Girl, Stop Apologizing, Rachel’s here to talk about grit, growth, and getting out of your own way. Lucky for all of us she has her 10th book coming out, What if YOU are the Answer. And today she is teaching us exactly how to ask ourselves the right questions. 

She’s built an empire on owning your story, flaws and all, and today, she's dropping some true wisdom you won’t want to miss. 

Buckle up—Rachel Hollis is in the Coop y’all!

If you pre-order Rachel's book right now, you get access to a bunch of free awesome gifts from Rachel!  Go here for details. Follow Rachel at Instagram here.
Or visit her website for all the ways you can soak up Rachel's wisdom.

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This episode was produced by Kit Hoover and Harper McDonald. Business Development by Casey Ladd.

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Transcript

Kit: Please welcome my guest, Rachel Hollis. And I just want to brag for a minute. You were the very first person that had me on a podcast, your wildly popular podcast.

Do you remember the advice you gave me? 

Rachel: Just do it. don't know. It feels like it would have been like something along the lines of do it consistently. Just, you know, get to a bunch of episodes. It's just like, go for it, but don't stop. 

Kit: Don't stop. But how sweet, because you're so on the other side with your build.

And you already have this wildly popular base. And I joined at a time where everybody in the brother, sister, cousin, and neighbor have a podcast. And you were so encouraging. And you said, Kit, focus on what you love and just keep doing it. So I actually, I talk about it a lot with my Coop crew here. I say, Rachel says, it's hard.

It 

Rachel: is hard. And 

Kit: to just keep doing it. 

Rachel: Yeah. But I honestly think you'll be surprised at how quickly, The people that started alongside you begin to fall away because the consistency of showing up every time, every time, continuing to do it, get a little bit better, get a new guest, keep doing this thing, it [00:01:00] really does compound.

Consistency compounds, but most people never get to the place that it compounds because they give up. They 

Kit: give up. Yeah. You, my friend, have never given up and I am fascinated with the Hand of cards that you were dealt, and we're going to get into all of this. But we start the coupe with one word to describe where you are in your life right now, Rachel.

Rachel: Launching. Ooh. Launching. Tell me. Yeah. this is my first book in five years, which Wild, and awesome, and scary, and a lot of different emotions. It's your 

Kit: first book in five years, but your tenth book. My tenth book. Best seller. Continue. 

Rachel: so, I'm very much in launch mode.

Which is this space of having worked really hard on something for two years to bring it into the world. But it's not enough to just create the thing. You actually have to make sure that you properly usher it across the finish line, and knowing that I did everything I possibly could to tell this story in the best possible [00:02:00] way, that I supported it, that I believed in it, and then I just let the universe do whatever it's gonna do, but I want to make sure that I rise up to meet it.

 Which I honestly think, I don't know if you have felt like this in your life, but I think a lot of women struggle with that. 

Kit: Which part? 

Rachel: Well, probably both, but 

it's easier to create the thing than it is to tell people about what you created.

Kit: Why are we like that? 

Rachel: Because we feel like we don't want to be prideful. You know, it's tall poppy syndrome. It's if I, talk about it too much, does that mean that I have an ego or that I'm asking you to buy this thing that I worked on or you know, it just like makes people feel icky. But my gosh, like whatever it is you're doing, whether it's a podcast or you launched your photography business or you started a nonprofit, like you've killed yourself to bring this out here.

But then you're not going to tell anybody that it exists. it really is a, it's two parts of this thing, I think. And the promotion part is my least favorite part. [00:03:00] I much rather would be in a room kind of just writing and trying to figure out how to tell a story well. But it's not enough to do that.

One half without doing the other. 

Kit: By the way, it took you two hours to get here and I really appreciate you showing up for me. You're the type, you show up for everybody in your life. But you said a word a minute ago, or two words. You said you gotta rise up. And when I was on your podcast, one thing I was fascinated by that you and I talked a lot about is, I grew up on third base, right?

Unbelievable mom and dad, brother, so much support. 

Your childhood was not easy, Rachel. Is it true? So you left home at 17. Let's talk about little Rachel. What was that like? 

Rachel: I grew up in a really chaotic. Is a nice way to say the house that I grew up in. So a lot of, childhood trauma in a lot of different ways.

And most of my teenage years were spent imagining how I could get myself out of it. And I actually find it so interesting now that I understand a bit more about how people manifest things into [00:04:00] existence, which is about focusing your energy and your thought process. I didn't have words for what I was doing as a little girl and a teenager, but that is 100 percent what I was doing.

Wow, 

Kit: like in what ways? What would you say to yourself when you were little? I 

Rachel: just, my imagination is my strongest asset. As a writer, that's real. But simultaneously, all I did was, if my parents were screaming at each other, or if, you know, things were getting violent, I would go into my room a lot and take myself out of the situation by, you know, Imagining something different and the world that I imagined was LA because I grew up two hours north of here.

So I would just daydream, Oh, what would it be like to live in LA and what would my apartment look like? And where would I work? And what will it be like when Matt Damon sees me on the street and asked me to marry him? Like, and it's like funny, but it's real cause I was a little girl and Good Will Hunting was very attractive.

Yes. So I would just daydream, daydream, daydream. There was no other alternative for me [00:05:00] so that by the second I sort of got the ability to realize that I could graduate high school early, then it was like, okay, there's only one place I'm going. It was L. A. because I had imagined it a million times before.

When we focus our thoughts like that, then it's kind of like all you can see are opportunities related to the thing you've been thinking about.

So it was just one thing stacked on top of another. So when 

Kit: you left home after high school and came to L. A., what was that like for you? 

Rachel: Well, honestly, I wish, like, me at 41, I think, God, what an opportunity I had.

I was living in LA, I moved here at 17, still took a few more months for me to turn 18 and actually be a legal adult, but I did have my big sister's ID. That's 

Kit: nice. 

Rachel: So I could get into bars, but I actually had a lot of fear. At that age, like I was such a country mouse and then I hadn't seen any part of the world.

I'd seen Bakersfield where I grew up and Los Angeles where I moved to. I think if I could go back in time, I would encourage that version of me to be a little bit more like go [00:06:00] exploring, meet people, go to parties. Rachel, you 

Kit: did this by yourself. The fact that you even took that leap is beyond brave.

Rachel: Yeah, I just honestly, I got a job. I got a part time job to go with that job. I started working, which became my safety net, and I essentially just worked until I am sitting here in front of you today. 

Kit: And tell me about your brother. I know there was tragedy there. Yeah. That happened to you. 

Were you 14 years old when you lost your brother?

Yeah, 

Rachel: I was 14. Ryan was 17. And I didn't understand it at the time, he was my big brother, three years older than me. So he had struggled with mental health for a very long time. I understand now he was paranoid schizophrenic, but I didn't know that then. my parents understood how dire the situation was, but again, I was a 14 year old girl, I didn't know.

and yeah, he, lost his battle with mental illness when he was 17. And, that in itself would have been tragic enough, because that was sort of the thing that broke, an already very, you know, fragile family broke us apart, but, I found him after he [00:07:00] took his own life. And the trauma of that experience, as you can imagine at that age, was, destructive in a lot of ways.

And also was sort of my first experience going to therapy, trying to um, Um, heal the parts of me that had been damaged in that experience. And as much as I hated it, cause I remember hating, hating 

Kit: therapy, cause 

Rachel: I'd never, so uncomfortable and I didn't want to think about what I had gone through. I just thought, well, if I ignore this thing that has happened, then it will go away.

And I actually, I am grateful to that therapist to this day because he taught me how to control the thought process and to work through what I had gone through and I don't think I'd be sitting here with you if it wasn't for the first therapist that I went to after Ryan died. 

Kit: You mentioned Good Will Hunting, that's your Robin Williams.

Yeah, 

Rachel: totally my Robin Williams. Not as cool or as funny. But [00:08:00] he saw, 

Kit: was it a man or a woman? It was a man, yeah. And he saw you. What did you learn at that time in your life? Wow, I just can't even imagine at 14 years old. Tool wise that could help our listeners that you, maybe it took you a long time to come to but in that process to sort of help move through all those emotions you were feeling.

Rachel: I don't know if this will resonate with anyone else but He taught me something profound that I think is incredible for dealing with trauma. Which was, I felt like, As the more that I said to myself, I don't want to think about what I went through. I don't want to think about what I saw. I don't like I would try and push it away, push it away.

All that did was sort of make it grow stronger. And he gave me this incredible gift, which was you are in control of your thoughts, they are not in control of you. And it felt very opposite at the time. So I, um, was like, that's not a thing. And he said, you know what I want you to do? I want you to pick a time of day.

every single day at the same time, and you're going to think about what you saw for 10 [00:09:00] minutes. Which was the craziest advice I'd ever heard. In my life, I'm a 14 year old kid and you're telling me to go relive this traumatic event. But he said, I want you to pick a time, what's your time, Rachel? And I said, you know, 2.

30 p. m. after I get home from school. And he's like, okay, 2. 30 p. m. every day for 10 minutes you think about what you saw. And it sounds so wild, but because my brain knew that it had an appointment to process what it had seen, I All of the obsessive thoughts that were intruding all day long during class and waking me up at night went away.

Kit: And the time limit of it, like just 10 minutes. Just 10 minutes. Just 10 minutes. Yes, 

Rachel: and it really was such an informative thing to learn at that age that I could give my brain direction, and it would listen to me. And in allowing myself to have that space, I was able to start to heal.

Yeah, it was incredible. For anybody 

Kit: listening that's had trauma, what a wonderful tool. And that's going to my best friend from 5th grade, Cameron Goodsell. You will [00:10:00] start that today. She's had a very similar life to you. I like tangible things that I can learn from. Anything else that this Goodwill hunting therapist taught you?

Rachel: There was one of our later therapy sessions where it was sort of at the end of our time together. Because 

it's worth saying, you're not supposed to be in therapy forever. I don't think enough people talk about this.

I like 

Kit: this. 

Rachel: You've 

Kit: got to take the tools and at some point you've got to jump back into life. Yes, 

Rachel: exactly. And you also might, take a break and then you'll come back or maybe you've learned all that you can from that teacher for this season of your life. And maybe you'll need therapy again later, but you'll find someone who's better suited to where you are now.

There's too many people I think that just keep going to the same thing and nothing's getting better, 

but sorry. So it was the end of our time together. And I was talking about my parents and really struggling with how they parent and I, even at that age, I just thought [00:11:00] like I can never be a mom, like I could never have kids.

I have no idea how I would do this if this is my example. I 

Kit: have no roadmap. 

Rachel: Right. And he said, your parents are an incredible example for you. Some people have parents who are an example of exactly the type of parent that you want to be. And some people have parents that are example of what you do not ever want to repeat.

So you get to decide what this is for you. there was like something empowering of that of like, well, either way, there's a lesson for me here. Instead of believing that this is all just sort of. A 

Kit: wash. I want to get into parenting, but anything with grief that you learned at that time? Because I feel like that is such a subject that's coming up in the coop all the time now.

Rachel: Yeah. I mean, I don't think I learned this then, but I have continued to learn this over the last, you know, 30 unfortunately, is that the stuff that hurts us most are the things we don't anticipate. And I think that's an important [00:12:00] piece to point out because if anyone listening struggles with anxiety like I have in my life, we can often be debilitated by the fear of all the things we imagine in our mind.

And it's rarely that thing that's going to hurt us. It's the stuff that we don't imagine. It's the shock. It's the surprise. It's what we never planned for. and I hope this doesn't sound too fatalistic. Bad stuff's going to show up. 

Kit: Yep. 

Rachel: Hard things are going to happen. To 

Kit: everybody. 

Rachel: To everybody. It is going to occur.

So if you're living your life, staying in your comfort zone, trying to stay safe, like if I just don't make waves, if I just stay here, if I don't do anything, then I'll be safe and my family will be safe. That's not how life works. You hopefully will never have to encounter something that is really awful and hard.

Right? Right. But you trust that if you get to the place where you do, you will have whatever you need to walk through it. And that by walking through it, you will [00:13:00] be better able to handle something the next time or maybe help someone else who is walking down a similar path that you once walked. But just know that, like, grief is a part of your life.

Every, sorry, I'm going to get really excited for a second because this is, I'm passionate about this idea. That people think when it's really good, like, oh, this is living. I'm This is the good life. My kid got into the dream college or I'm having a good hair day or I'm on vacation. This is the good life.

But your life is all of it. Yes. Your life is the good stuff and the crap. Your life is the. Best day ever, the day your baby was born, and the day someone you love dies. Yeah. Like, it's all your life. Totally. And if you only think that the good stuff is your life, you live in fear of the pendulum swinging the other direction.

If we could just hold a little bit more space for all of it I feel like we would be calmer. I feel like we would be less fearful. [00:14:00] And we would be able to move forward with more grace. 

Kit: That's sort of what your new book is about, which is asking the right questions to sort of feel all of that.

But I want to go back when you talked about with the therapist talking about wanting to be a mom. So did you always want to be a mom? 

Rachel: I wouldn't have used those words culturally. I grew up, my family's from Oklahoma on both sides. Culturally, it wasn't even a question.

That is just what you would do. I actually think if I was born into a different family, I probably, no, I for sure would have waited longer. I would have waited longer to get married. I got married at 18. No, sorry, that was a lie. I met my husband at 18. 

Kit: Still a baby. Yeah, I got 

Rachel: married at 20. Like, it was wild.

I 

Kit: couldn't find my socks at 20. I 

Rachel: married the first person I ever went on a date with, which is also very culturally, uh, like my family, had my first baby when I was 24, and I just, I would have done things with a little bit more pace. 

Kit: Breathing room. Yes. I would have paced 

Rachel: a bit. but yeah, I [00:15:00] always knew that I would be a mom.

Always knew that I would be a mom. 

Kit: For children. For children. What's your favorite thing about being a mom? 

Rachel: I thought you were going to say, what's your favorite kid? I was like, Whoa, Rachel, just between you and me.

My favorite thing about being a mom is. Well, oh gosh, so many, I, I know this sounds cheesy, but it's, them. It's the kids. It's who they are as individuals. And I really struggled with being a mom to babies and toddlers. I had a really hard time with those ages and stages. And I always tell that story because when I was a younger mom, I thought I was, Cause I was like, why don't I love this?

Kit: Well, that baby stage is so hard. 

Rachel: So hard. But all of these moms I was seeing or like knew, they would be like, Oh my God, isn't it bliss? And I was like, what am I doing wrong? You're like, 

Kit: I haven't slept in 12 days. 

Rachel: Like I'm, my nipples are cracked. Like, I don't know what you're talking about. And [00:16:00] the older the kids got.

The better it got. So my oldest is gonna be 18 in January. 

But I am obsessed with them. I just really love them as humans. 

Kit: Do you feel weird things creeping in? As you're leading your life with your children from your childhood, like any new traditions or things you're like, hang on, like this is the way I do this now back to the therapist. Like you're going to choose the way you want to be as a mom, but you didn't have the roadmap.

Rachel: Everything about my family is different than how I was raised. I definitely have traditions and things I pulled in from childhood, but far and above, I feel like I have completely broken generational cycles. That's 

Kit: cool for any listener to hear that maybe went through the same thing. Like you can break the pattern.

Rachel: Yeah. 

So, what that has looked like a lot is in my parenting, admitting when I get it wrong. Telling them that I did it wrong, and then allowing them to see me try and get it right. Because, [00:17:00] you know, when I was earlier as a parent, I would open my mouth and my daddy would fall out. I'd scream, I'd get really upset, I'd, you know, sort of throw a fit as an adult, but that is what I knew.

So to get to the place where I can stay calm, where we can talk about it rationally, where I could go in to my teenager and say, Hey, you know what? I'm really sorry that I got frustrated. That is not how I wanted. Let me better explain myself. My parents never apologized to me. I never saw that behavior modeled.

And I really want all of my kids, but especially my boys, to see what it looks like to have humility as a leader. 

Kit: You guys have been through so much as a family. I'm trying to think when I was on your podcast that this had just happened. How many, years have you been divorced now? 

Rachel: I got divorced in, we split up at the beginning of 2020. 

Kit: 2020. 

When did you know I need to get out of this? That's one of the questions asked, you ask in your book, right?

Like, when did you know something? Yeah, when did 

Rachel: you know something was wrong? Something 

Kit: was wrong. Yeah, 

Rachel: because I think for so many of [00:18:00] us, if we will gut check ourselves, in fact, I would ask your listeners to do this right now, to think of something in your life in the last five years. where it went really wrong.

A business partnership, a new friend that ended up being crazy, an ex that was a narcissist, like you name it. Think of that experience and then think of the moment when you got confirmation that this wasn't gonna work out. Confirmation. And then my follow up question is now think of the moment when something inside of you told you This is not okay.

Kit: But then why do a lot of us not do anything? 

Rachel: Because we are usually getting that instinct that something is not okay at the very beginning. And nobody wants to listen to something at the very beginning when all signs are pointing to the fact that this might be fabulous and this could be the love of my life and oh, maybe this is the dream job.

And who on earth would listen to their gut feeling funny when you have so much opportunity in front of you? 

Kit: So right. 

Rachel: Yeah. So, in fact, I think in a lot of ways, my [00:19:00] intention with the book was to just have you keep going back to your intuition over and over again. But for me, I mean, I had known there were problems for a really long time, but I did not know what they were.

And I can't even really explain that, and I've never really heard someone else talk about that. 

Kit: So it wasn't a tangible point to think, it was an internal feeling and meanwhile you've got the four kids. Four 

Rachel: kids and everybody that I would talk to when I would take people into my confidence or friends or whatever, they'd be like, you guys are the perfect couple.

What are you talking about? And I would be like, I don't know, but something is not right. And of course, later, post breakup. There was a lot of information that I found out that now I look back and I actually feel so much compassion for a younger version of myself who did not have the courage to stand up for that intuition that was telling me something was not okay.

 So the answer was [00:20:00] years, years and years I had known something was wrong. 

Kit: But I love what we're learning, and again, this is all in Rachel's new book.

We're not asking the right questions, or we're asking them, but we're not listening to our answers, or we don't know how to answer what's popping up. 

Rachel: Right. So, an example of this is, let's say someone's listening right now, and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm having that right now. Right now. So then the question you might ask yourself is like, Oh, well, what am I feeling?

Why am I feeling that? Instead of a question that will actually help you get to a solution. So Tony Robbins is the one that said the quality of your life is based on the quality of the questions that you ask. So ask better questions. So instead of going, what am I feeling?

Go, when did I start feeling this way? Okay. Was it a person? Was it something someone said? Can you harness what your intuition was picking up on? Can you at least start there? Is it when I go around this particular group of family members that I, get this instinct? 

Or should I ask my partner [00:21:00] more in depth questions? What would it look like if They weren't telling the truth. Like just, I can think of 50 things that might have helped me understand more and better. Did you ask 

Kit: any of the questions when you felt this? 

Rachel: No, no, no. That's not how I was raised. I was raised to be a good girl, and to be a good wife, and like whatever.

I was raised in a very patriarchal, religious culture that said, whatever your husband says is right. You don't question it, and you don't dig deeper, and I didn't, and I do not live my life regretting any choice that I made, because if I had realized anything earlier, I wouldn't have my two younger children.

So, like, I started to experience all of this. issues with my body. Your body will tell you when your mind, when you don't listen, the score, it does. But it's so bizarre how connected that 

Kit: is to your point. You feel that internal saying, you're like, I don't know what it is.

If you're not asking the right questions, it'll keep bubbling up until [00:22:00] finally your body will physically react. 

Rachel: Something weird happens, something, like, for me, I got, Bell's palsy. I had nerve damage. I had vertigo for a year. I'm so much more of a hippie now and I'm like, Oh my God, why did I not understand that energetically something was off, but I just didn't have the tools yet.

So just listening to what is going on inside of you will help you understand if something's right or wrong outside of you. 

Kit: Well, you listened to everything. You ended up getting divorced. Then you actually lost your ex husband. We touched on grief when we came in. Share with our listeners the tools you learned for not only you, but for your children, for anybody that's going through this.

Rachel: Oh my gosh. It's such an impossible. Impossible. It's such an impossible. I can't even explain. I think this goes back to what I said earlier about the things that are the most painful are the things that you don't expect. Do 

Kit: you do the 10 minute thing No. Your ex husband's passing? 

Rachel: No.

With that one it was so, much more about my [00:23:00] children. It was really about being a container for their grief. How do I help them through this process and how do I walk through this thing with them? And in a lot of ways, because we had been separated for so long, , I think I ended up playing this role for both the kids and for his family and his parents, where I could be the one that.

Handled everything I can plan it all I can manage it all I I can do all of these things To allow you guys the space to grieve in a way that I don't know. I think probably because I've walked through trauma so had it before. I was like, I can do this. I can take this on. That's a lot. It's just, yeah.

It's 

Kit: just. Anything for anybody listening to help their children. You said put them in that, sort of the safety container. Anything that you could share that might be helpful there. So 

Rachel: an interesting thing for my kids, and maybe this would be true for everybody, is they all had a different relationship with their dad.

And so they all had different kinds of grief. Our family rule was you were allowed to feel [00:24:00] however you wanted to feel, and you were allowed to say whatever you wanted to say, so long as your feelings or what you were saying wasn't hurtful to someone else. And so that meant that there would be days where one of the kids might, you know, maybe it's, nine months in the future and one of them just had a great day and they got the part in the play that they want and they're having a great day but their brother's having a really hard day because he's missing dad and he's really low and someone else is really high and the instinct of the person who's really low would be something like How can you be happy today when this has happened to us?

And so what I tried to do is guide them through this process of like, no, we're allowed to feel and grief has stages. And on someday someone might be really angry. And someone else might be really, trying to not think about it. But whatever stage you were at, that was fair, and that was okay. I think having, therapists and doctors they could speak to, I think having other adults that were not [00:25:00] family members, whether it was coaches or teachers they were very close to, that they felt comfortable to talk allow, you know, space to be held to talk about their feelings and understanding that this is a process. We're still in it. We're, you know, two years removed from the experience and for the rest of their lives. They will miss their dad for the rest of their lives. They will process his loss. That's grief and it ebbs and it flows.

And I just tried my very best to not have preconceived notions of how they were supposed to feel about it. 

Kit: Rachel, I'm so upset that you've been through so much that you're so well equipped to deal with this. I'm going to go ahead and say you've been through enough in your life.

Okay. To the universe. Rachel gets a hall pass girl for any other. I'm not kidding. I literally, 

Rachel: I'm like. Guys, I've learned, I have learned. 

Kit: Please, you can handle it all, but we're just here at the coop. We're going to go and make a statement, a manifest. And so I just want to get in a little of your backstory to again, point out how remarkable you are, because through all of this, and we really just scratched the [00:26:00] surface, but through this all now, let's talk to the work side.

You have created a unbelievable. Enterprise, business, all from scratch, all just you plugging along with this belief. And again, I'm always trying to help it for anybody listening that doesn't know, like, did you always know you're going to be successful? With whatever you were going to do in your life because you started was it catering or you started in 

Rachel: oh my gosh I mean I started in so many things.

I started selling copiers. We've come a long way my friend I mean my first job was at 16 years old working at the substation downtown I did my first real job was as an assistant at Miramax Which is a good one. Which is a good one and a hell of a place to get an education. If you guys can imagine. Uh huh.

but is that Harvey? That was Harvey. That's Harvey Weinstein. 

I think that anybody who worked there, Nobody was surprised by the information that came out about him. Nobody. it was my first job.

It was a lot of our first [00:27:00] jobs. So, you didn't know what an environment was supposed to be. So, if you were thrust into a very toxic one, you were just like, Well, this is the way it is. This is Hollywood, baby. This is what you do. I hate that. Yeah, it was wild. But I think most people who worked in that kind of like fast paced Hollywood don't take no for an answer.

You're going to work 15 hours every single day and you're going to say thank you for it and not get paid any money. There was some really good lessons that came out of that environment. Look 

Kit: at my optimistic brain. I am. I 

Rachel: really am a like, how is this for me? If I'm going to have to live through something, I want to understand how it can be for me.

And I really did learn a lot about how to get a job done. How to hustle, how to figure out a solution, how to get a reservation at a table that you shouldn't be at. Like, I learned all of those things. That experience wasn't entirely the worst. 

Kit: Tell me about the first book. I love the title of it.

What year did it come out, and what did that What does that specifically mean to you? 

Rachel: So actually my first book was called [00:28:00] Party Girl and it was fiction. That's right. I actually started in the fiction space. I read 

Kit: it by the way. I loved it. Oh my God. 

Rachel: And it was based on my years as an assistant. So again, that's another way that that get made into a show?

No, no, no. No, it, no, it was very similar. It was very similar to like Devil Wears Prada vibes. Yeah. Which I think a lot of us have. We have a lot of stories like that as, assistants. But, yeah, my first books were fiction. I'm a huge reader, constantly reading. And so I had dreamed of being a writer, wrote this book, put it out in the 

world.

My fifth book Is the one that most people will know me for, which is called Girl, Wash Your Face. 

Kit: Just the title alone is so great. We were talking about it on the drive in. Like, it's just fantastic. 

Rachel: Well, I'll tell you how that came to be, because I actually did not come up with that title. So, I, um, I got the opportunity to meet a non fiction author named Jen Hatmaker, who I was a huge fan of, and She sat down beside me and said, tell me about your next book.

And I was like, Oh my gosh. Okay. And I just told her this whole crazy story about a fiction book I was [00:29:00] writing that involved like superheroes. It was a thing. And she's, you know, Texan and very straightforward. And she was like, Oh no, that's a terrible idea. That is, don't do that. That's She's like,

you tell me. Okay. What's the book of your heart? You tell me. Did she know your backstory with everything? No. She says you tell me if you could say anything to women and they'd actually believe you. What would you tell them? And I didn't even know it was in me. And I was like, oh, I would tell them that they're so strong, and they're so powerful, and that even if you get knocked down, you could stand up and go again, and I would say, you know, girl, like, take responsibility for your life, and girl, you could do anything, and girl, just, like, believe in yourself, and girl, stop crying, and she said, and girl, wash your face!

Yes! And I just stopped and it was like a bolt of light and I was like, that is a really good title. And I left that conversation with her and wrote the first [00:30:00] chapter. 

Kit: I feel like that changed your life because you've helped so many people with your words and your wisdom and your work that you've done on yourself.

So this lovely Texan, we got to give her a round of applause too for that. 

Rachel: The book is dedicated to her 

because I really, love that story because so often women, can be very competitive with each other and there's a scarcity mindset, particularly when you are someone who has had success in a certain area, and here comes this younger woman.

There are many times in my life where someone that I would love to be my mentor Actually sort of stomped on my spirit and for Jen and I'm not the only person she's done this for For Jen to do that and just be like no no no I see something in you that you don't see I don't think I would ever have written, non fiction, if she hadn't asked me that question.

By the 

Kit: way, what did the book mean to you to be so vulnerable like that? I feel like that was the start of something beautiful.

Rachel: Well, it's so funny, I had a blog, I had a blog for a very long time, so I started my [00:31:00] blog in 2008, and, to give you a frame of reference, Girl, Wash Your Face came out in 2018, so for a decade, I had been writing every day to women, and it started with two women, one of which was my mom, and then slowly grew over time to this fan base, but if you had been reading my work for a long time, I, that's the only way I ever wrote because it would be so weird to me to not just tell you really what's going on and I learned years later, I think it's C.

S. Lewis has this incredible quote that says, the most powerful words in the English language are me too. So when you tell your story and someone else hears it and goes, Oh, Me too. It makes both of you feel less alone. 

Kit: Oh, I'd love that. 

Rachel: And so I had just grown up doing this blog and always said like, Hey, I have postpartum depression.

Hey, I went to therapy for my anxiety and here are three things that really helped me. And I just constantly was trying stuff and then sharing it on the blog. And I remember My [00:32:00] husband at the time reading it and just being sick to his stomach, like just so terrified of that book coming out.

I mean, he was a big executive at Disney, you know, it was a very much like you don't talk about your personal life. And I talked about everything. I talked about sex. I talked about, you know, back fat. I talked about my period. I talked, I just said everything. And he was like, you, You can't, like you can't put, and I was like, no, I think this will be helpful.

And if I'm experiencing it, I'm pretty sure other women are experiencing it too. 

He ended up writing a book later and, shared the story. But the day, we had gone to Hawaii with the family to celebrate.

I'd gotten through writing this book and I had the finished manuscript and it was already like bought by a publisher and it was going to come out and. , he had the manuscript, he wanted to read it while we were on vacation, and, he read it and got sick.

Wildly drunk. Wildly drunk, because he was just like, I can't. I cannot. You know, and I felt very [00:33:00] strongly, like, it's gotta go out. And it ended up, it didn't just change my life, it changed his life, it changed the kid's life. It was something I never could have anticipated. 

Kit: Look at you once again. Listening to your gut.

It was in there like this has to get out everything else is telling me No, the outside world my husband all of this. There's that feeling again Rachel. Yeah, you listen. Yeah, I 

Rachel: think I don't know I've not always done a perfect job of listening to guidance. I won't listen to anything you tell me. You tell me, I'm doing it.

But when I do, it always works out the way that You said something 

Kit: else too when you started the blog, that it was your friend and your mom. Yeah. So do you have a good relationship with her? Is she okay with sharing any of stories about your childhood? Yeah, 

Rachel: so this sounds so wild, but when I wrote Girl, Wash Your Face, I told some hard stories about my childhood and the publisher made me have my dad sign a contract 

Kit: that 

Rachel: gave permission to tell the stories.

And I was really nervous about that and I gave him the chapters and he read them [00:34:00] and he said, I'm really sad that this is here, but this is true. And so he signed the contract and he's a writer and he's a writer and he is who encouraged me to write when I was little. So I think sort of the creativity in that he would never kind of shut down another writer, even if it was about him.

and I've since written more about my mom, wrote about her in the last, book that had come out, which was a pretty hard truths in that. And she had very, a very similar response, which was, I'm really sad that this is here, but this is true.

Kit: I appreciate that they at least followed it up with the end and it went out. 

Rachel: Yeah. All 

Kit: right, let's talk about your new book. Yes. This is so exciting. Why now? Why this book? 

Rachel: So, So this to me feels like the perfect bookend to Girl, Wash Your Face. This is where I am today, meaning when I wrote Girl, Wash Your Face, I thought I had to have the answers for everybody.

 I was so passionate about. This [00:35:00] idea that if I shared my own stories, that maybe it would help you too. And I carried a lot of weight on myself that, you know, I can figure this out for everybody.

And now here I am at 41, I'll be 42 when the book comes out, and now I'm just like, oh sweet girl, like, what do you think you're talking about? I can't possibly have the answers for anyone else. I barely have the answers for myself. And I realized that even the answers I have sitting here with you today might not be what I think six months from now.

So I thought, well, I can't write another book filled with advice because my advice is going to change and evolve as much as I change and evolve. But maybe I could write chapters that helped you figure out your own answer. So I thought, well how do you, get an answer? Well you get an answer with a really good question.

So I set about trying to think of the questions someone had asked me in the course of my life, or maybe I heard on a show or a podcast or read in a book. But that helped me to make change. And I started writing with that kind of [00:36:00] direction in mind, and the book is, What If You Are the Answer? Because you are the answer to your life, to your problems, to your solutions.

You are the answer to everything. And it's 26 different questions that when someone asks them of me, and hopefully you will ask them of yourself, they helped me to make change. Good and lasting change and 

Kit: is 26. Is that a metaphor for running like a marathon? Oh god girl 

Rachel: I didn't even think of that.

You're a runner. 

Kit: I'm a runner your therapy put that in your interviews It's the marathon of life. Oh my god, and it's the question. It was better. It was a hundred percent your idea I'm not kidding. I love but I thought about that the point to yeah, but right like why the 26 I was like you got to use the marathon.

Rachel: Yeah, that's such a good point. What 

Kit: is running done for you? 

Rachel: Oh my gosh everything I know you have a similar experience with this. It is therapy, it is exercise, it is meditation, it is, this space that I can come back to again and again. It was the first thing that I ever took on as a big challenge for [00:37:00] myself, because I came to running much later in life.

it's the first thing I ever took on and actually did. Completed. Like when I did my first 5k I was like, I am a miracle. Like I can literally do anything. I'm an iron woman. Oh my gosh. I've told this story so many times of the first time I crossed the finish line at my first marathon. I will use that emotion of that moment for the rest of my life.

I count that beside the birth of my first baby as the most profound moment. Because, I mean, I feel like you are this queen runner who could like run forever and ever. No, it's 

Kit: the same. I'm so there with you. It's so 

Rachel: hard. And the first time I did it was here in LA. And it was this freak temperature thing.

It was 92 degrees in February and I had not trained in heat at all and I spent, you know, five and a half hours thinking I was going to die and I just told myself, I don't care what happens. You cannot walk. Cause I knew if I walked one time I was out. [00:38:00] So there were times that girl, I was like jog. I like old people are walking by me and I'm jogging slower than they are.

But Oh, I got to the last, you know, everyone tells you when you train for a marathon, you don't train all 26 miles. So you train like 22 and they say, don't worry. The marathon will carry you the last four miles. No, no, not that day. I was carried entirely by Miley Cyrus singing the climb on repeat and just weeping and like I could almost see it.

Like just crying. Hit me again, Miley. So powerful though. So powerful. You know what 

Kit: I love though? I started running, I think at six years old with my dad. My dad had a really crappy childhood, just terrible, terrible things. . It reminds me a little of you. He didn't have the tools back then.

He's now 90. But I think running set him free and let him in his mind with his endorphins and he became an incredible father. And again, he's like, you reinvented how he wanted to be as [00:39:00] that. But for anybody listening, I am telling you, run a song, walk a song. Your run can look like a walk. it is free.

Therapy, endorphins, I know it's hard on your knees, you can go as slow as you want, but there's something about that movement, and if you can do it outdoors, which is my thing, it's a happy pill. 

 Okay. we have got some viewer questions. Okay. Are we ready?

Here we go. okay. People are so excited for your free therapy advice right here. Okay, first one. 

I'm an empty nester, still married, I gave up my career when the kids were small, have devoted my entire life to my kids at home, and now I feel no purpose in my day to day life. I feel stuck. How can I find purpose and get back into the world?

Please don't tell me to find my passion because that always feels very daunting to me. It's not my reality. 

Rachel: Okay, I love this question. I do too. I love this. And I want to say like 50 things to them. First of all, I literally have a question in the book. It's called, What Isn't Your Passion? Because the idea that we have to find our passion and find our ultimate purpose feels [00:40:00] so overwhelming.

So I'm like, figure out what isn't your passion by trying a bunch of things and seeing what's interesting. So I just feel like that chapter's for you. But here are my other thoughts. Number one, who were you before you were theirs? Who were you before you were his wife? Great question. Who were you before you were their mama?

Who were you then? So go back and tap into what that younger woman loved and It's really important that you don't judge what she loved. Was she into soccer? Was she part of a glee club? Did she like to do her hair and makeup? But you don't do that anymore because you were a mama for 25 years You can't even deal like go back and tap into some of that childhood joy.

Was it roller skating? Yeah, but it doesn't is. It matters that you feel that spark inside of you. And I think a lot of women, especially, there are things that they really like or find interesting. But they feel like, well, people are going to judge me for this, or I'll feel silly if I try and learn how to do my eye makeup by watching a YouTube video.

[00:41:00] But girl, who cares? Life is hard, and if you can find something that brings you a little joy, you don't have to tell other people, you don't have to share it around. But just start with tapping into the younger version of you and what they were into. And be willing to try things. There's a chance you'll try, you know, you go to Zumba with your sister and you end up hating it.

And then you go to like, one of those gyms where they scream at you like a drill sergeant and you surprise yourself by really loving boot camp. 

Kit: What question should you ask yourself if you're this woman? Let's think about your book. 

Rachel: My instinct was What did I used to love? I like that. What did I used to love?

What used to bring me joy? Because if you think through the lens of who you are today, you try and ask yourself what the appropriate passion would be instead of what the real passion actually is. 

Kit: Oh, that's good. Okay, here we go.

second question. 

Friends are everything to me. I divorced my husband three years ago.

My girlfriends keep me sane and we still have a blast, but I've found that I've held on to one friendship for decades that most would call toxic. Every time I'm with her, I [00:42:00] leave feeling worse about myself and drain. She triangulates friendships, boxes people out. I always feel like I'm on the outside of my friend group, wondering where I stand.

I am loyal and don't know where to begin, and honestly, I feel like I'm too old for this bleep.

This is a funny one. Female friendships are so interesting to me. Yeah, 

Rachel: well this feels more like, and I get this a lot actually, women will come up to me at the airport or they'll ask me when I'm doing a keynote or something. What The answer is she already knows. What she wants is permission. 

Kit: You're totally right.

This is that thing, that feeling. You already know this is not a healthy friendship. Yes, you know. You feel it. It doesn't make you feel good. Like, this 

Rachel: is not the person for you. This is not the partnership for you. What you are asking for is permission to break up with this person. So 

Kit: true. Why do we do that, Rachel?

Because I 

Rachel: want to be a good girl. I'm projecting because that's why I have done. But I think 

Kit: everybody has that and it's like you just want to go with it or whatever. Right, it's just easier. Yes, 

Rachel: there is an incredible writer and [00:43:00] podcaster named Tim Ferriss who has this quote I use all the time, which is, the quality of your life is often determined by your willingness to have hard conversations.

Wow. And we build up these hard conversations. So like, Oh my gosh, and what will happen if I just say the thing, if I just break up with the person, if I quit this job, we make it way bigger than it needs to be. My teenagers would say, mom, it's really not that deep. If you just find the courage to say to this person, I think our friendship has run its course.

I wish you well. But, I am no longer interested in engaging in this thing. And then allow them to think of you whatever they are going to think of you. There's this, incredible older man whose name I don't know who shows up in my Instagram feed sometimes. He's just sort of like hiking and saying wise things.

We'll call him Hank. Hank hikes and says wise things. one time I saw him say. Peace is letting them be wrong about you. And I thought that was so good. So it's [00:44:00] like, oh, we don't want them to be mad at us, and we don't want them to think that we're mean, and what are you doing? Being around people with toxic energy, you absorb it.

There's no way that you can't take that in. Your energy, your vitality, your mood, all of these things are going to grow in such a positive way when you stop allowing yourself to be pulled down by this person. 

Kit: I need Hank in my life. We're going to find out something about him. Funny, that makes me think, I am such a people pleaser.

I'm now 54 working on it. By the way, on the 50s, Rachel, as you say, you're 41 right now? 

Rachel: 41. 

Kit: 41. The best is yet to come, my friend. Oh, I believe it. I believe. No, I swear to you 

, I look at your growth and how evolved you already are you oh my gosh You're 50s wait, not that you're a smoker, but I just picture you like high heels Yes, I love 

Rachel: this 

Have you seen Martha Stewart's documentary? Wait, I've 

Kit: only seen half.

Oh my god. I need more pressed What she did to pave the way for women like you and [00:45:00] me and all of us Nobody gave her a playbook. 

Rachel: No, and Her life, and she's in her 80s, I'm like, she's living my dream life. Living on a farm, taking care of turkeys, wearing that cute puffer vest, I'm like. Posting 

Kit: sexy selfies, unapologetically 

Rachel: souffle.

Hanging with Snoop. You are who I want to be. Yeah, we're going to get there. That's what I'm aiming at. Oh, 

Kit: it's coming. Okay, here we go. Third question. 

a world that seems to demand perfection, how can I become more comfortable with my own flaws? That's a great one, especially I feel like with social media, it's like Again, to that thing, we hide the stuff that maybe the imperfections are the great stuff.

Rachel: Okay, lots of thoughts here. so, So, the first thing that popped into my brain is this word, perfection, that really like stuck out for me. The people in my life who are perfectionists, are people who are trying as hard as they can to control all of the variables so that they stay safe.

Kit: Which is probably from their childhood, something that happened. Exactly 

Rachel: right. So, I think that if we can understand the root cause of why we're [00:46:00] doing something, it will really help us to combat it. It, like, gives us more energy to fight against the instinct to be perfect. So, if you are a perfectionist and you're trying to, like, this is how it needs to be.

I have a family member who is this way, and she told me once, She's like, I'm such a perfectionist. I would rather you didn't get me a gift than get me the wrong gift. And I was like, sweetheart. Oh my word. Okay. But again, she's trying to control it so that she is not disappointed by you giving her the wrong thing.

Kit: Appreciate her honesty. 

Rachel: Appreciate her honesty. We love those Enneagram ones. But yeah, so my first thought is just understanding that this may be you trying to control variables to stay safe. The second thing I would say is if the perfectionist is showing up in you judging yourself, meaning how you look or your weight or your hair or anything, to make sure that you edit your media.

It's like the simplest thing that nobody thinks about, but if you are [00:47:00] having issues with body image or feeling like you're not pretty enough or you don't have the right clothes or whatever. Look at what you're looking at on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, like be mindful of what's coming up in your scroll.

Because if all you're seeing are women, for instance, like I'm curvy, if all I was following was models who are six foot two and have a zero body fat percentage. I'm going to start to get ideas in my head that that's what a woman's body looks like. So you want to make sure that you edit your media and remove things that make you feel like crap.

Kit: Yeah. 

Rachel: And be really conscious of adding things that are reflective of you, that look like you, that are people your age, that have your body, that are doing things you are interested in doing. 

Kit: That you're inspired by. Yes. You feel good. 

Rachel: And that isn't related to looks. That's like, Oh my gosh, I've always wanted to run Ironman, and so I'm gonna follow a bunch of triathletes, and that's gonna inspire me, as opposed to, I'm gonna follow you know, no [00:48:00] offense to the Kardashians, but like none of us are ever going to look like that.

So be mindful of what you're consuming. 

Kit: I just learned I'm really bad on social media, but what I follow, I get more of. Yes. So recently I love inspirational quotes. So I wake up like, hello, you spicy little taco. It's going to be a great day. And I'm like, I like it. And then the next day. Next one, like I literally just get inspirational quotes sent to me all day long.

And so I'm like, I don't know what feed I'm on Rachel, but I'm a spicy little taco. Yeah. 

Rachel: You really are. 

Kit: okay. Let's get random here. Rachel, fill in the blank. Wouldn't it be fun to dot, dot, dot. 

Rachel: Wouldn't it be fun to. Us right now? Just you. I'm trying to think 

Kit: in your life.

Rachel: Wouldn't it be fun I think you already said it 

Kit: with the Martha. Oh my gosh. Wouldn't it be fun to A million 

Rachel: percent. Wouldn't it be fun to This is a fantasy of mine. Thank you. Wouldn't it be fun to buy a rundown farmhouse in Santa Barbara County and spend like a decade turning it into something amazing and then [00:49:00] that's where my family celebrates every Christmas.

And you're gonna have 

Kit: llamas? 

Rachel: Of course I am, and horses. And horses. Yeah. 

Kit: favorite curse word? Fuck. 

Rachel: Absolutely. 

Kit: My sweet Rachel. No, no, no. I love a cuss word. Bleep it out. Bleep it out. who has been your consistent mentor because you've become a lot of people's mentor. 

Rachel: My mentors have always been found in books.

You know, I could cry thinking of how grateful I am for the written word. I'm genuinely so who I am because I had access to a library as a favorite book? 

Kit: Of all time. Of all time? 

Rachel: Maybe 

Kit: not. That's hard. 

Rachel: That is so hard. oh wow. I probably do, but I, it's like thinking about my favorite kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kit: See here, I'm not putting you on the spot again. But you 

Rachel: know, what's popping into my head because I feel like it could be most helpful for your readers, it's not my favorite. But when people say that they want to start a personal development journey or work on spirituality, they're like, what should I start with?

Louise Hay is one of my favorite like sort of beginning authors. and her book, You Can Heal Your [00:50:00] Life is just absolutely beautiful. I probably read it once a year. I also love Dr. Wayne Dyer. both were just beautiful spiritual teachers who taught you about life they've since passed on, but they are absolutely incredible.

And, Did 

Kit: what makes you laugh at yourself? 

Rachel: Everything. Oh my God. How I try and dress. I was literally adorable. Thank you. But I tend to wear by like baggy things. I have that same shirt. Monica. Oh, nice. No, the black one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. and I, was in London last week and, I will do Instagram stories where I tell people what I'm wearing and I swear it was so cute in person, but in the, Mirror, I just looked like an oompa loompa and I couldn't stop laughing and I was like, well, this is a video guys So I laugh at myself a lot.

Kit: It's one of my favorite qualities, especially for my daughters to have I think the ability Just don't take yourself so seriously sometimes to be able to laugh I think you win and not in a way that's harmful, but I just love that gift you win Yeah, weirdest thing in your purse 

Rachel: I honestly don't really carry a purse.

Just your phone. but weirdest thing in my [00:51:00] purse is probably I have a quartz crystal, sort of pebble with a hole in it so that you can hold it and kind of rub your thumb on it and it calms you down. Oh, 

Kit: that's cool. Yeah, I 

Rachel: don't even remember where I got it, but it's been in there forever. 

Kit: Maybe Hank on the mountain gave probably 

Rachel: was from Hank.

Yeah. 

Kit: you're too young to ask this, but I'm asking you, aging is what? 

Rachel: Aging is beautiful. 

Kit: Beautiful. A gift. 

Rachel: Yeah, absolutely a gift. It's a gift that's not afforded to everybody. 

Kit: Last question we ask everybody in the coop. What makes you happy? 

Rachel: My family. 

Kit: Yeah. 

Rachel: Yeah. I'm really, really blessed with my children and my partner and, We have a really good family and we've worked really hard to have a really good family.

Kit: I saw your ski trip pictures. Oh! Everybody's doing well. We 

Rachel: are, yeah. I'm so 

Kit: happy. I cannot thank you enough. Oh my gosh. For having me on your podcast. Yeah, anytime. For all your words of encouragement. And then for driving this way and coming on the coop. Oh my gosh, yeah. This is a lot of because of your words.

I'm like, I'm just gonna do this. Good, I'm so glad. So, keep inspiring. Congrats on your book. You're just getting started, my friend. And I'm so happy we're gonna be on this journey together. Yeah.

Thank you. Love you, [00:52:00] sweet. Love you, too. 

Harper, our first time in our new studio.

that you set up and our first guest live. What a great guest to go with first. How impressed were you with Rachel? 

Harper: So we've known about Rachel for a very, very, very long time. I mean, girl, wash your face. Everyone read, listened, highlighted, put the pages down. Yeah. real notes attached to that one. and she to this day still has such, amazing advice to offer.

Kit: When, Harper and I were on a walk one day talking about Rachel and I marvel, I say it all the time, Harper. I was born on third base, right? I have my mom, my dad, my brother, all my family that will always catch me to not have that and that she learned the tools to get herself where she wants to be.

I am blown away. by people like her. I just think she's remarkable. 

Harper: Well, and, you and I also had talked all that she has been through in her life and to have her speak of it again. And at 17 to leave home and all she knew, she called herself a country girl and she goes to the [00:53:00] big city and gets a job at Miramax.

I mean, holy moly. With Harvey Weinstein. what an introduction to Hollywood. 

Kit: I didn't know whether to go deeper on that or let it lie. I don't, we don't need to go any deeper on that topic. We are maxed out on that. What about what she said, you talk about 17, what about 14, finding her brother, no one should have to go through that.

But I love the lesson that she learned from that goodwill hunting therapist, that she says, yeah, yeah, Ten minutes a day, I want you to focus on, set a time, on the trauma that happened to you. And for that ten minutes, I want you to relive it and feel it. And what that did was allow her to grow from it and move on.

I like tangible things. Right. And that really resonated. Well, 

Harper: I've actually used a very similar tactic in my house. with my kids at different times, and we called it worry time. 

Kit: I 

Harper: love that. Yeah. And it was when they were younger, and it just truly allowed you to control your worries, control your anxiety, and when you only designate one time of day to be able to sit with those worries for her, it was obviously a much more traumatic and unthinkable [00:54:00] situation.

But you are then controlling when you're thinking about those things. And it, it's insanely powerful when she talked about it. I It's something that we've truly used as a tool and to know that you could use it in that way was incredible. 

Kit: And I want to thank all of our listeners that wrote in with really, really great questions.

That first one I love because so many women come up to me and say, kid, I want to get back in the workforce. Like I gave it all up. Her answer was so beautiful. So great about passion. I hate when people say Find your passion. Find your passion. 

Harper: It's bullshit, . and I love that she agreed, and when she said, what isn't your passion?

Mm-Hmm. . So truly identifying the things that you don't love because there's so many things in the world and passion's just kind of a whatever thing. And yes, people find it and they do it and they're in it and it's awesome, but it's hard to find. Yeah. So to be able to knock stuff out, I just absolutely love that.

And she talked about. Who you were before and I think for women who at whatever stage in their life, when either they've had children, they've been married, they are looking for the new thing and sometimes we just have to tap [00:55:00] back into whoever that magical person was. That's 

Kit: such a cool thing that I don't think we do.

We look where we are now and everything we're struggling or thinking about as opposed to go back who you were then and what you want to tap into. God, that's powerful. I also love, we talked about girlfriends being toxic. Harper knows I will step in a pile of, you know what, a mile away and I'm a hard time getting out of things.

Harper: Yes, though. I will Let's say your friendships in your life are, your lifeblood as well. I don't know about a lot of toxic ones that you have, but, the friendships that you have are so critical. But there are a lot of women who, you know, we've read about that you have different seasons in life, right?

And so you have a season in life where friendships serve a certain role and they're important. It's either maybe high school, college, when you have young children and you have those, moms in your life. So for her to talk about, women, that they come and ask about it, that they just want 

Kit: permission.

Permission. That was so interesting. And you can kind of apply that to anything in your life. You know in your gut when something doesn't feel right. [00:56:00] It could be something at work. It could be something in your marriage. It could be something with your friendship. But women especially, you want permission to say it's okay to get out of this situation.

Yeah, that just found that fascinating, that it's run its course. Mm hmm. You are very good at being direct, Harper. You're very good with this. I've seen it with things and I really want to learn from that and get better. 

Harper: Well, I love that she quoted Tim Ferriss, who is also one of my favorite people in the world.

He's an extraordinary, thinker and, just is so, so curious about life and, spoke about having those hard conversations is what feeds the quality of your life because probably it just allows you to break stuff open and clear things that you don't need. Right. 

Kit: Just remarkable. I hope y'all liked that. The Coupon got a lot better.

Out of it. And I think we have to leave Harper on the note that we got to find Hank on Instagram. 

Harper: Oh, yeah. 

Kit: Who's Hank? well, I don't, it's not his name. We named Hank the hiker. 

Harper: Well, I'm surprised Hank hasn't showed up in your Instagram because you're like big on, I don't know, inspirational quotes. I get more inspirational quotes, Harper.

you text me them often and I actually love them. But I'm, happy that [00:57:00] they're all in your Instagram feed right now. I get one every once in a while. I love them. But Harper is 

Kit: so good to put up with me. Oh my gosh. Well that was quite something I'm going to marinate on that interview for a while.

And it was a beautiful one to have as our first one. It really was.. I hope y'all liked it. We'll see you next time in the coop. 

Harper: That was so fun.