Samantha Bee: Your Dream Job Will Suck. Do It Anyway.

"Even your dream job sucks." That's not cynicism — it's the most useful career advice Samantha Bee has. On this episode of The Messy Parts, she tells Maryam what 12 years at “The Daily Show” and running “Full Frontal” actually taught her: that no one hands you management training before you're leading 75 people, that public setbacks feel enormous and matter less than you think, and that the comparison game — "looking in other people's food bowls" — is where careers go to stall. Her rule for anyone under 35: stop worrying what people think of you, because they're too busy worrying about themselves. What's the "dream job" lesson you had to learn the hard way?

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Show Notes: 

00:00 - "Every Part of It Was Messy" 💥 
Samantha Bee kicks off with a raw reality check about landing The Daily Show: even when you’re living out everyone else’s dream, the work can still suck a lot.

03:11 - "Fearlessness Born from Blind Ignorance" 🎭 
Sam recalls trying a theater class just for an "easy A" and discovering that total ignorance gave her the weird confidence to get up on stage while everyone else was throwing up.

04:12 - "You Have to Do the Thing You Like... Just a Little Bit" 🧩 
Sam breaks down her go-to career advice for her kids: finding that tiny kernel of joy in what you do, even when there's no plan B and the path makes zero sense.

09:14 - "F*ck Acting, Acting Sucks" 🎬 
Sam shares how letting go of corporate approval and putting on sketch shows with friends actually saved her career.

12:21 - "Stop Looking in Other People's Food Bowls" 🥣 
A practical masterclass on resisting the urge to compare your career trajectory to everyone else's, especially when navigating a sudden pivot or loss of stability.

15:21 - "Forged in a Fire at The Daily Show" 🌋 
Reflecting on 12 years with Jon Stewart, Sam talks about the brutal schedules, looking terrible on camera, and why working with genius minds makes the suffering worth it.

19:23 - "I Didn't Go to Business School" 👔 
Sam admits her complete failure at managing a team of 75 people when starting Full Frontal, learning the hard way that you can't be everyone's best friend in business.

21:15 - "I Pushed the Doubts Out Like the Kool-Aid Man" 🍹 
A hilarious and honest trick Sam learned for dealing with soul-crushing self-doubt: physically shoving negative thoughts out of your brain and barging forward anyway.

27:32 - "When Is Enough Actually Enough?" 🛑 
Sam rails against modern hustle culture and endless greed, reflecting on why so many successful people struggle to appreciate what they have and pay it forward.

36:33 - "No One Is Thinking About You That Much" 🧘‍♀️ 
Sam drops her ultimate piece of advice for anyone under 35: stop worrying about what others think of you because everyone is way too busy obsessing over themselves.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

So you get the call and you land on the daily show. Yes, yeah. You know, big big stage. Big. Now, when you reflect back, like what was the messiest part of that?

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Every part of it was messy, but great. Like it I keep coming back to this idea. Like, even when you're doing something that is everybody's dream, that is the dream of so many people, you're living your own dream, you're having a dream experience of it. The job still sucks a lot for every single person who's there. Even when you're doing what you love, it sucks a lot.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Today on The Messy Price, we have on Samantha B. You know her from the Daily Show, from her own show, Full Frontal, or from her live show that she's been touring with called How to Survive Menopause. What's interesting about Samantha B is that she actually early on tried a theater class and discovered her calling. And she talks about how it doesn't give her joy all the time, but enough joy that she knew this was really the right answer for her. I think one of the other pieces of advice she has, which we could all learn, is about not caring what other people think about you. Obviously, easier said than done. You're gonna enjoy this episode. Well, Sam, I am so excited to have you on what I now call the famous blue couch, which moves around in the house. I know, I love it. It's very common.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

It's actually very, it's like a good, it's a good sofa. It has good angles.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Well, it's very lived in because of COVID.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Well, I guess all of our sofas took a real beating. Or you know what? Or they just rose to the occasion. Could see it that way. I've never used a piece of furniture as much, is what I'm gonna say. We put a dent in ours. We literally dented our sofa. We still have that much.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

I'm not sure which side, but I I definitely can relate to them. I don't feel that I'm sitting in a pit. I feel very supportive. So I wanted to just start a little bit about like your early childhood. And I kind of like starting there because having listened to you on different podcasts, sure, and there's a lot of them, which is amazing. That's there's just so much content about my childhood. Well, just so much content in general. Because, you know, it's part of what you do. All right. So I want to know just sort of about you as a kid, right? Like, because I know me as a kid who grew up in Iran and revolution, like that was a big part of who I ended up becoming. Of course. Um, what was that like for you? Because you were an only child in Canada.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

In Canada, in Toronto, in a time, I think really, I mean, I know it was similar in other places, but we were all very wild in the 1970s. No one really governed our lives at all. So I feel in some ways raised by television and raised by wolves and just so free and out in the world and so adult at such an early age.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

When you think back to sort of your early childhood, you know, because I often think comedy is like therapy, because you're basically talking a lot about the things that happened to you, but through the lens of humor.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

My start in comedy was very um unexpected, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Because I think you said you wanted to be a serious theater actor.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

That's after you wanted to be a lawyer. I took a just a theater class because I thought it would be such an easy. I think I was naturally funny, but I'm kind of an introvert, which you would not be able to know from our conversation here. So I'm actually very good at turning that off and flipping that switch off, you know, temporarily. But I had a the kind of fearlessness that can only go hand in hand with total blind ignorance. I felt myself on stage and I thought, okay, well, that's that's a sign. Like, I mean, everybody else is really nervous and vomiting. And I can't wait to get out there and feel myself and just have fun.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

For people who are sort of trying to figure out what they should do, you know, and there's so much pressure to take the well-trodden path of course law consulting, banking. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

When you look back and you have kids, like what advice would you give? Oh, I give it to them all the time. And I don't think they're really hearing it yet, but they will one day, they'll understand what I mean. You you have to do something that you like, you have to find something, you have to figure out what you like just a little bit, and then you have to do the thing that is the thing that you like. And it's not going to look the way that you think it's going to look, and it's not even always gonna be fun. In fact, most of the time it's not fun at all. But if you like a little kernel of the thing that you intend to do in your life, you can always come back to that. My husband and I were the same, he was a real theater kid and he always wanted to be an actor. But the two of us, we took a leap into a career that makes no sense to people. It was kind of a stupid decision. It was probably a little reckless. We did not have a plan B at all. But we just kept chugging. We just kept chugging. I don't know why it worked, but I think we just foundationally came back to creating stuff that we liked.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

And you met your husband early.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah, we met pretty early. I was in my late 20s. He's a little, he's a couple of years younger than me. We met kind of early. I mean, doing children, literally doing children's theater. It's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

And we've been together the whole time, which is not that common. Yeah, we met in 1997 and we've been together ever since. And you work together. I this is something that is new to me because now I work with my husband making a podcast and doing things. People always ask me, like, what's it like working with your husband? Yeah, people ask me that too. Are you about to ask me that? Yeah, go ahead. What's the big insight? I can tell you mine. I don't think there's any.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

I think that we both and we don't work together on absolutely everything. We are very actually, we do have very independent careers, but we have worked together. We certainly worked together at the daily show. Um, he came after me, but we shared an office, which was very distressing to everybody else. They were like, we don't want you in the same office fighting. And I was like, No, we're actually very compatible. We like don't fight. We're no, not that we don't, but like we uh can compatibly work together in the same space, no problem.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

You were in Canada when the call came and you ended up on the daily show.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

I guess I was working at an ad agency, being very bad at my job. I actually worked on the technical side, and that was just an accident because the guy running that the print shop just liked me and we had worked together before, and we were just friends, we were just friends, so he did me a huge solid by hiring me there. Health insurance? No, well, you don't really need it, my friend. Oh, right, you're in Canada. How could I make that mistake? A broken arm doesn't bankrupt you and your family. I was so lucky to get a different job, and and believe me, he was too. He was very lucky. And I got yes, I got the call when I was working for him. His name's Patrick, he's great. What was the agency called? It's called Echo Advertising. But um, the day I got hired, I uh I kind of I got the news and I went into his office and I was like, Oh, Patrick, I quit. I just got a job. You're not gonna believe this. And then he was like, We're shutting down. And he closed up shop. We went to the park hyatt, he took me to the rooftop and we had Apple Martinis to celebrate.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Okay, so you start doing not just comedy but political satire. And you were an English major, you weren't a political science major. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

But it was always an in I mean, it was a it was always an interest of mine. I that was the one tradition of my life was that we always, I mean, I know 60 Minutes is clearly an uh a turmoil. It's uh it's actually cracking my heart in half. But that was a longstanding tradition. I think it was the tradition in any family to watch Wonderful World of Disney in 60 Minutes. But just I was always informed, always seeking to be informed, understanding the political landscape. When the Daily Show came or was started airing on a Canadian network, my husband and I were in our first house and we didn't really watch much TV, but that was the one show that we always did watch. I mean, for years and years. Nobody there has gone to School for Political Science. They were coming to Toronto um to look for women, to look for they were trying to because there were so many women on the show. So many. Well, they wanted one, you know, they wanted one of us, one of us female, but they did. They had heard that there were good women at Good Women, good women of the woman in Canada at um, actually at Second City, and one of the agents, like one of the local agents, had persuaded them to come to Toronto for half a day just to check out his roster of talent. And then my agent at the time was like, they don't have enough, was basically like, they don't have enough women to fill out the day, and no one wants to seem unprofessional. So can you just go in and read for this show? And I was like, What? Because you watched the Daily Show. Oh my god, it was my favorite and only show. And so I prepared for it like it was like it was the Olympics, and I thought, well, you know what? This is a great time to leave the industry. This is a great time to leave the acting industry because it wasn't going well. I wasn't working as well.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Oh, because going to comedy was leaving acting.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

At this point, I understand. Yeah, no, no, no. At this point, okay, so at this point in my career, so we're talking like 30s, I'm in my 30s. I do have a house and a mortgage to pay. The acting industry is quite frustrating. I'm doing comedy all the time with the atomic fireballs, this all-female sketch comedy troupe. That was the joy of it. I liked putting on shows with my girlfriends. Like we worked hard and we put on great shows. I was going to continue to do comedy. So this is the time when I'm like, fuck acting. Acting sucks. I can't do that. I can't wait around for people to like me. I'm not gonna do it. But I'm always going to do comedy. I was like, okay, I'm gonna be 55 years old and I'm gonna have a trunk of wigs in my car. I perform at these places, I love it. I'm having fun, I'm creating it.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Wait, and how are you paying your bills with the cars that, you know, wigs in the car?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Well, that's why I was leaving the acting industry. My husband worked a lot. He was working a lot, and I would get jobs. I did a ton of commercials, I mean dozens of commercials. So I was making those do pay. But I'll say this I never really got acting work until I started doing comedy because doing it the way that I liked it, doing exactly what I wanted to do and writing it for myself and putting on shows myself with my friends freed my brain. And I was so much less uptight in auditions, I didn't give a shit about them. I was like, I'm busy. I'm busy because I have a show tonight. Then I started getting hired because I didn't care about getting hired. It makes no sense at all. But still, I was leaving that behind because I thought I need more stability.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

But before we go to the daily show, I want to actually deconstruct that because yesterday I talked to a woman who had left her job. She got fired. And one of the things she said was that the freedom of pausing after she left this big corporate job actually opened up her creativity. Yes. And now, sort of the way you're describing, she was beginning to do things on her own, sort of not in the box that was sort of predestined for her.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

It was enough for me to just be doing comedy with no expectation of anything. I knew that that would remain consistent, and it's true that it has because I've enjoyed I because I really, really love it and because it orders my brain in a way that just because you like doing the live shows, which is similar. I love doing live shows. I don't do stand-up. I do I love live sketch comedy, sketch comedy since I was a child. Again, watching SCTV. That's what really that's what really does it for me. You know, a lot of the business of acting is just like it's so boring. It's so fucking boring. You just sit around like going, what's my hit? What do I look like? I hope you like me. Oh, please like me. Oh, please like me. And I'm not really super built for that. I'm very likable, I think, but like I'm not built for just sitting around going, like, oh, I hope I'm pretty.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

But I I think there's a lesson in that. I think there's a lesson in that, right? Because so many people are pivoting or losing their jobs or deciding they're burnt out or whatever. This idea of giving yourself permission to just do the thing that gives you joy, it's actually very hard for most people.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

It's extremely hard. And I think that my husband and I were just lucky enough to have pulled the trigger on that when we were too dumb to know any better. It's instructive, but very, very difficult to do, to not look into anybody else's food bowl when you're when you're trying to do some work. It's very hard not to compare your career, not to try to follow someone else's trajectory. But it's a discipline, it's a muscle that you have to you have to grow it. You actually have to grow it.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

So if someone's going through a pivot, right? They've lost a job, they've been on sort of a treadmill that you know had a lot of accomplishment and accolades to it. When you reflect on that, what's a piece of advice you would give them? Because I do think that this idea of permission, you know, it's still a thing, giving yourself permission to just do something on your own. Expectations are everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

There are so many bills to pay. Like maybe you have kids in college. That is terrifying. There is like real, legitimate terror involved. And it's not so simple as like, what did you like to do when you were little? Like, who can even remember? The only thing I can say is, and it's easy for me to sit here and say it, is like, what do you like to do when you're not trying to monetize it? What would you be doing if you had all the money in the world and you didn't have to make tuition? What would you be doing if you didn't have to work? I know for me the answer is I'd probably be on a stage somewhere doing something dumb.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Well, it's funny. I find it's sitting here talking to people about their story. Yes, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

And it took me a while to have the courage to do it. And I feel the same way. Boy, I love to interview people so much. It's a real skill that you have to develop over time. It's just stepping into those places where you're like, can I not just go broke doing this thing?

SPEAKER_02 14:30

But we live in a world, right, that is all about how are you gonna monetize it? How are you gonna pay your bills or what is your title? Or I hate it, you know, the the food bowl question. Sucks. And you know, I was in the business world for a long time and I find whether it's the podcast or the longest table, whatever I do, people are like, well, what's your plan? And now I've decided to just say it's an art form. I'm like, you know what? I'm an artist.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

We don't ask that of people who are artists. Yeah, no, no, no, no. No one expects you to be able to like make a living at all. It's very freeing, actually.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

So you get the call and you land on the daily show. Yes, yeah, you know, big big stage. Big. So it was a great ride. Yes. I was there for 12 years, really long time. Now, when you reflect back, like what was the messiest part of that?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Every part of it was messy. Every part of it was messy, but great. Like it I keep coming back to this idea. Like, even when you're doing something that is everybody's dream, that is the dream of so many people. You're living your own dream, you're having a dream experience of it. John's an incredible mentor. You're working with the smartest people in the world. The job still sucks a lot for every single person who's there. Even when you're doing what you love, it sucks a lot hard. You're flying all over the place, you look terrible. The work is impossible. You're coming up against things all the time. It's very, it's very, very, very challenging work and the most incredible work. Some of the best work of my life. It's like being forged in a fire, you know, and we met some of the best friends we'll ever have. It's a really incredible experience to be present in those rooms with all of those fine minds for years and years. It made me, it formed me as a professional, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

There's something about working with people who are at the top of the game, right? Like that team effort where you're sort of all in it. And I agree, it's never easy. There's so many parts of it that are actually quite difficult. There's this myth that somehow everything's gonna be perfect and you're gonna be happy when you get the thing, but really the journey's messy.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

If you really talk to anybody who's like on stage getting an Emmy or whatever, it's usually the worst day of their life. They've never been more stressed. Something's going on in their personal life. Like, I think if you were the type of person who could really like just like stand in your golden light and really experience in real time your victories, you would be such an asshole. Like, who does that? Everybody's miserable. No one's sitting there going, I really appreciate where I am right now. I'm I'm living in the present. Impossible.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

It's funny because I gave a sort of a baccalaureate speech at a college just recently. And it took me two days after to actually appreciate the moment. Of course. Because in the moment I was having a panic attack. Of course. Counting my pages, were they out of order? Was I gonna do a terrible job?

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Is anybody gonna listen to me? Oh, are people gonna be talking? Whoa, it's terrifying. All of it is, all of it is terror. I think it's just human to like hate where you are in the moment and just be like, what did I do?

SPEAKER_02 17:43

So in the process, yes, which is can be very difficult, right? Where do you find the joy? Like, where do you remember to connect to the joy?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

That joy is so deep. When you are in it and you are like, okay, let's say you're filming a field piece, you're out in the world with a producer you like, you've got a camera crew you're very familiar with, or maybe they're new to you and you're just all kind of trying to do something together. Everybody's super focused, you're just trying to make each other laugh. You're just trying to get the work accomplished and you're so focused together. And if you are laughing at yourself and others and laughing with other people, that is such a feeling of incomparable joy. Doing full frontal, I did, you know, full frontal was on for seven years, and I think we could all agree that there's the office, and there's like lots of office stuff and like office dynamics and office policies, and you're just always like having meetings, and it's very, it's a it's a stressful, big it is a business. It is a business, and there's like the business part and the performance, the writing and the performance part, and those are two totally different lanes. But when you're in it and you're performing, it's like literally 15 to 20 percent of what the actual job is, but it is so joyful that it completely colors the rest of it.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

So when you did full frontal, which was you as the primary, right? Versus sort of like the ensemble experience of um the daily show, were you more exposed to the business side of things than you had been on the daily show?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

We were completely um, we were completely siloed from the business on the daily show side. Um, so that it was a real awakening, like a real because that had to have been a shift. Yeah, it was difficult, extremely difficult. Like I did not go to business school. I do not know how offices run. I do not know how you manage a team of 75 people. Absolutely no idea. I don't know how you speak to people. I didn't know that you're not supposed to be everybody's best friend. Like over time, I got better and better. I think you could probably say that I definitely didn't do a good job at first, absolutely failed, stumbled a million times. But I always was keeping an eye on managing well, like trying to understand how to do better, always really in the fight and the day-to-day fight in a way that most people doing the other job that I was doing would not be.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

What made you decide to say yes to that?

SPEAKER_01 20:17

To that opportunity? Yeah, craziness. I'm glad I did. You know, I didn't when they offered me that job, I said immediate yes, because how do you say no? But I was scared, and I definitely remember talking to Jason in the bathroom because he is always very good at just moving forward. I was like, How do you not feel self-doubt? And I think I was begging him actually. I was like, how tell me, like he was in the shower. I was like, do you feel self-doubt? You never seem to. And he was like, Of course I feel it. But I just take those thoughts and I push them out of my brain, like physically. I just have them and then I go, get out. And I like push them out. And I was like, I'm gonna do that too. And that is exactly what I did. Does that work? It works for me.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

So you did that show for a stretch, yeah. And then there was a sale that sort of ended that show.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Sure. We were just like subject to all these different mergers, and we got canceled, I think like maybe six and a half years into it, which was great. I mean, what a run! Like, that's uncommon. And so uh I felt and I knew that it was coming to an end anyway. And I kind of had to think, oh, what do I want to do next? Like, what is there something? Is there anything for you?

SPEAKER_02 21:38

Right? And the kind of career you have, yeah. I mean, it comes up right perpetually. Like, well, where should I go next?

SPEAKER_01 21:44

And that is all really rooted in like, what do I like to do? And then I, as a person who was already doing what I like to do, had to relearn what I like to do. That actually is a really tough set of conversations that just takes time to answer. I don't want to go back into political comedy. No inkling to do that whatsoever. Are you zero desire? I'm so done with it, it's not even. I'm so done with it. Why why? Well, first of all, I'm done with it because the universe of television has no interest in having me come on television and say the things that I would be saying right now. Like it's hard to get sponsorship for a show that will be outrageously biased.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

But as we've seen with late night TV.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

So what's the point of that? There's still things that I have to say politically for sure. Um find a venue for it eventually if I like it. You could do a YouTube channel. Substack. 100%. Substack YouTube channel. There's lots of opportunity for that if I want to do it. I feel that my career won't never end. I'm 56 now. I feel that I can do this, what I'm doing now forever. I love to write. I'm writing constantly. I interview people when I see fit to do so. I'm working on a television project in Canada. I'm really only taking on things that are of are of real interest to me.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

I read that when you did the podcast, you said you loved interviewing people. I love it. And that it also was sort of a great project as you figured out what else was coming.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

There's two things I truly miss from all the those professional television jobs that everybody, people who know me, know me the for them. I miss collaborating with the smartest people you've ever met because the building on those ideas, I love collaboration. It is like, I think it's rooted in sketch comedy. It's collaborative, like completely. There's no ego involved. It's just a big swamp of making each other laugh. It's awesome. And I really miss interviewing people. I love going out in the world with a camera crew and just making hay. I love it. I love storytelling.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

You had a messy part with Full Frontal, right? There was like that crazy Ivanka moment. What did that teach you? Um, and maybe we should describe it because maybe everybody's I hate describing it. I feel like people you can do one line, you can Google it.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

I don't I don't like to bring it up actually. It was really hard for me, if you don't mind. No, that's totally fine. Yeah, it was really hard. What I learned from it is that you have no friends in the in the news. You can know people, you can be friendly with people, you can really like them, they can really like you, but they will kill you if a story comes out. They will dwell on it to monetize it. Um, but it angered me beyond comprehension that people focus on me in that moment and not the story that had enraged me that caused that moment to happen. Because boy oh boy, separating children from their families is a much bigger story than the story of me being insulting to someone. That story rocked my world, and I will never forget that. Their energy was so focused on me, and how could a woman say that? And not on the story that was one of the worst stories that has ever occurred in this country that was such a national and international disgrace. And they should have taken all that attention that they focused on me and they should have directed it right back to the core of the problem, and that is the fucking problem.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

You know, I was in the media business myself for a long time. And now I feel like we live in a world of just clickbait, right? Which is what you're describing. Yeah. But I also think that the way the business has evolved or devolved, I don't know, they're all so focused on modernization.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

It's just a very different listen, everybody's got to pay their mortgage. I don't blame anyone for having to pay their bills. I think it's really there's a lot of risk, um, in my personal opinion. Wow, I'm getting so like fired up right now. I'm like, the people who should be going into journalism right now are rich people because they don't have the same kind of skin in the game. They can say whatever the fuck they want.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Can they?

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yes, of course they can. They have more power to do that than almost anyone. But aren't you in J school right now and you're like, where how am I gonna make a living? Boy, you do have to follow the tide. How are you gonna take risks? The people who could be taking risks now aren't taking them, and that is the problem. They're in their own like silos, living in like a, you know, their own utopian community, sucking all the draining all the aquifers in California. Like whatever they're doing is what they're doing. I'm talking about people with a voice who could be taking risks. I'm talking about political leaders who could be taking risks that they're not taking. They're not taking, who could be standing up to this bullshit, like in a way that they're not doing because they're like, well, my investments are doing well. It's actually revolting to me.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

One of the things that I think about, right, as I talk to people who are pivoting or making changes in their life is this notion of enough. I remember being at a company where we were going public and somebody was describing an experience they had about where they lived. And I was like, Why do you still live in that town? Yeah. Because it didn't sound particularly great. And he said, Oh, the deal flows great. And I said, Well, I mean, you have a private plane, like when is enough enough? Yeah. Because, like, great that the deal flow is great, but you know, if you throw a party and your neighbors don't come, that seems a little tragic to me. You actually seem grounded in the sense that I mean, obviously you're successful, but you have this sense of like something is enough.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

I have a strong sense of enough. I think about it all the time. I actually do, I reflect on that all the time. It's something that comes up for me constantly. I wonder, I can't understand why people can't feel like they have enough. I don't understand that. And maybe it's, I don't know. I grew up in a pragmatic family in Canada. I'm not saying that not all Canadians are like potato farmers who don't want things. I don't want, I don't want to say that. That's just not true. But I I do I come back to that often. And I've gotten so lucky. I've gotten extremely lucky, and I don't take that for granted, but I do have there was there is a cutoff point where I just go, isn't this nice life? Like, isn't this plenty? Doesn't this feel plentiful? Like, I think the mission is to just is to replicate that and help other people also achieve that, and to not think that I'm just like this sucking void of like, give me more all the time. I don't know. It's such a big question for me. I can't even articulate how I feel about it. I just can't believe that people with so much can't sit back, appreciate what they have, try to pay it forward in every possible way because they didn't get there on their own. They didn't get there like because they're such a genius that that's what happened. That's like the cosmos coming in into alignment. They got there because other people helped them get there. So just fucking pay it forward. It's not your job. So actually gesturing wildly. Like it isn't your job to just continuously take more and more from them and like siphon joy from other people so that you can what? You're not actually gonna live forever. It's good news that you're not gonna live forever. Oh, yeah. I definitely there's a time limit. I'm good on not living forever. Yeah, like it's so ridiculous to me that all these idiots are like, how do I optimize my house and live like longevity? I'm like, you're so boring. What the fuck is wrong with you? Go live somewhere else for a little while and you will see how unimportant your life is here. So anyway, anyway, the short form answer is I think about the concept of enough literally constantly.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

It actually brings me to your menopause thing because having listened to the audiobook, I loved sort of the ending of you know, getting rid of people who make you feel small, hanging out with people who make you feel big, saying shit like it actually is. Yes. In some ways, your enough is actually giving voice to 50% of the population who go through menopause.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

And by the way, my menopause show has evolved so much, you know, since the recording of the audio book that you listen to, it has really evolved over time because things have really changed in that space. You know, we kind of went from not talking about menopause at all to uh talking about it nearly constantly in a quite anodyne way, in my personal opinion. The stone that I had left to unturn was this experience of perimenopause and menopause, which I feel is is still given short shrift and is actually now it's almost like we cured it.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

I do find that I'm sort of just at a point where I just say things like they are because I don't care. Yeah. I think that's like actually a gift.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

It's a real gift. It is actually one of the great gifts of menopause is just like the wisdom to just go, oh fuck, life is life is so too short for this bullshit. Life is very much, you know, you're in like this is kind of like you know, you're like the final we're summiting, okay? So you might as well live your most complete life. And for me, the only stone I had left unturned was to speak as truthfully as I could about what my menopause experience was like. So that I don't know, listen, my audience is my audience. I only serve them. I don't care what anybody else thinks of me. Like my experience is very typical of menopause, but it still was difficult. I think it's hard for people. Maybe it's not hard for everybody, but that's pretty much. Pretty sure it's hard for everybody. I I hope it's I hope for it to be easy for people. I really do. Because when I started going through it, my friends are all a little younger than me. I was the first person in my friend group. I was the first person that I ever met who talked about menopause. I didn't even know what it was. I thought I was just like losing my mind. I was like, do I have a brain tumor? Because I'm so I was scared. I was scared for my health. And it was just this natural part of aging that is so typically experienced, but no one ever talked to me about it.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

I think the first time my husband heard me give a like a speech, I must have been in Arizona, and he was in the audience. He said, I could tell when the hot flash started. That's so funny.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

That's really funny. It is so spectacular. I've only ever had one in my whole life. I just wasn't really a hot flesh.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

Well, I didn't. I I'd left a job at the time and I thought, like, oh, I could just wait it out. And so there I was on stage giving a talk. And I love that he was all the way at the back of the room because I could see it coming on. See, that's so funny. All right. Well, so I have a final question for you. You're a mother of three children. Yeah. And there's a lot of things where you feel like the world is out of control. Sure. What is advice that you give to them, uh-huh, about the world that we now find ourselves in?

SPEAKER_01 32:45

I don't really give them any advice about the world because I don't know anything about it, I don't understand the world, and I don't think I have any solutions for this world.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

I'm gonna say my it's not like my children listen to me.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

So there's Yeah, mine and they also don't listen to me, but I do I think the only thing that I can do is just be my authentic self with them and to ask them to do the same. I just want them to do what makes them happy in life. I want them to choose something that they like, even just a little bit, and bring their full self to it. That's all we really do in our family. We bring humor and we feel emotions together, and we don't hide from things, and we just have an honest existence. So it's not actually advice, it's just the lived experience of living without artifice.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

Is that hard? Because you know, they have two parents sort of in a business that's pretty sort of glittery.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Oh, we have never made our jobs glamorous to them. We have never demonstrated some version of ourself that was like, look how good we look. We're famous. I gotta tell you, you will never meet two people who care less about the the glitz of show of of and glamour of show business. We definitely know how to dress up. I consider dressing up and going to something to be a part of my job.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

So um I'm gonna do some rapid fire questions. Sure. You talked about going to write after this. Yeah. Do you have a schedule?

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Like, how do you manage your time? I don't have a strict schedule for for writing. I'm very task-oriented actually, and I do have a task ahead, so and a deadline, which makes it easier for me. My brain is like the container store. Like I go, I will write, I now will write for 60 minutes and and then put an alarm on, and I can get so much done.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

You you you definitely have a drive.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Right? Yes, yes. Well, where do you think that drive comes from? That drive definitely developed over time. John taught me a lot about work ethic. I think it developed by watching my husband, who has an incredible drive to work. It's also derived in part by the kinetic energy of New York. For sure, that's a big part of it. Um, but you leave New York City.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

So does that help you with it?

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Yeah, it helps me to unspool. But when I'm unspooling, I am unspooled. I'm not like sitting at home going like there's so much work to do on Monday. I am gone. Like I'm out. Now I have a very strict, very strict boundaries around time off. I like that. I need to learn that. Strict boundaries.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

I have no boundaries.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Really helpful.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

Okay. Um, what does Jason know about you that no one's ever asked you?

SPEAKER_01 35:33

I think just Jason knows my true nature. My true nature is very boring. I just like to putter around and sit in the garden.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

Like your true nature is a gardener?

SPEAKER_01 35:45

No, he's actually the gardener. When I was like, what should I do with myself? I was like, Jason, you know, when you're trying to like figure yourself. I was like, what do I love? Like, what do I, as you objectively, if you were looking at me, he was like, cats. Like, what do you mean? Like cats. You can't do cats as a job. Like, you can't do cats as a goal in life. He was like, it just should involve cats. Like, cats? I'm like, open a cat farm? He was like, Yes, on like open a cat farm. I was like, okay. So I haven't lived that dream yet. Oh, I think you can have a cat cafe like they do in Tokyo. If you don't think that I have considered opening a cat cafe, you are so wrong. I just don't want all that cat litter. That's the hard part.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Cat hair and litter. Okay. What advice do you have for someone before they're 35?

SPEAKER_01 36:28

First of all, no one's thinking about you as much as you think they're thinking about you. They are so busy thinking about themselves. So don't worry about that part. That's just like off the table. Stop worrying what other people think of you. It is so pointless. You will never please them. You will never make them happy. You will never ever do enough to make them like you forever. So forget about it. You have to do what you like. You have to be guided by your own North Star. And that is very hard to do, but you must.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

When you've experienced a mess, like you know, you're like full frontal, I was fired. Yeah. How do you figure out how to pick yourself back up?

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Because it can be devastating. I don't know. In my personal experience, it it just takes more time than you think it's gonna take. It's okay to like be at the bottom. It's okay to bottom out. To have grief about to have grief. It there is grief. Yeah. I'm glad you said grief because there is grief. And the only way is through, as far as I can tell. Only way is through. That's so funny. I literally wrote that note to myself this morning. Just as a thought starter, I was like, ah, yeah, the only way is is like through pain, through joy, through grief, through risk. There is only one trajectory that you are on, and it is through. You have to barrel through everything like you're the Kool-Aid man.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

Samantha, thank you so much for coming on the blue blue cast.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

This was really fun. I really feel like a jerk. I feel like I talked so too much about myself, but I guess that was the point, right? The point is to interview you. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Okay. So it works out nicely. Okay, all right, good. I know you enjoyed the episode with Samantha B. She's funny and she has a lot of advice to give, even though she's not really sure she's the one to be giving you advice. I hope you tell 10 friends you like it, you write amazing positive reviews because this is how we get to share more messy stories with you.