Melissa Ambrosini - Bestselling Author & Co-Founder of SheLaunch | Reclaim Your Time, Reclaim Your Life

Suffering wasn't the reason we were here on Earth, and they had to be another option. So many people aren't living to their fullest potential, and aren't living their true life. And that's a shame. When you are living your purpose, there is a lot more ease. And when you are not living in alignment with your truth, there is a little bit of force, and then that is what leads to the burnout. Your childhood leads clues. When you blame other people outside of yourself, it keeps you in victim. When you take responsibility, it's quite empowering because then you can make the changes. If you want to grow and evolve and be the best version of yourself, awareness is the first step. Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. Now, HubSpot is the resource that you need to tap into if you are an entrepreneur. It's no secret that starting a business is hard. 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Even as a young person, influences from your family, growing up, what's the origin story and then we can go into things that sort of pointed you on the direction that you're on right now? Hmm, okay. Go for it. I guess the origin story for me started in October 2010, which is when I really woke up and began on this spiritual journey. And before that, so pre-October 2010, I was a professional dancer, I did acting, TV presenting, and modeling, and I was burning the candle at both ends. I was looking outside of myself for internal validation, and partying and basically just running from having to sit with myself. And it wasn't until I moved home from living overseas. I was dancing at the Mulan Rouge in Paris, and then I lived in London for two years, so I lived in Paris for a year, I lived in London for two years. And it might have looked like I was all living the dream, traveling the world, and doing all of these exciting things, but truly on the inside I was not happy. I was dealing with anxiety, depression, and eating disorder, and panic attacks. And I kept on getting all of these warning signs from the universe to stop and slow down, like little things like I would twist my ankle and then I would keep going. You know, I would just mask it with painkillers. And then I would have an allergic reaction where my throat was closing over and end up in emergency. And again, just down it with painkillers and medicine and keep going, and have all of these rashes all over my body, like hives and eczema and acne and cold sores, and I just kept on ignoring all of these warning signs that my body was giving me to stop and to slow down and to look with them. And it wasn't until October 2010 where I ended up in hospital for a week. And it's like the carpet was ripped out from underneath me. It was the only way the universe was going to get me to stop and really look at my life. And I ended up in hospital. I had a whole host of health issues from adrenal fatigue, thyroid issues, hormonal imbalances, chronic fatigue. I had eczema all over my body. I had hives and I got the worst case of the cold sore virus that the doctors had ever seen. I had cold sores all over my face in my mouth and down my throat. And I'd never had a cold sore before in my entire life. So basically my entire immune system was attacking itself. So my immune system was gone and my nervous system was shot. And I ended up in hospital for a week on morphine and a whole lot of antibiotics and antivirals. And I went into hospital on a Saturday. They pumped my drip full of morphine and all of these things and then I woke up on the Wednesday. And it was the Wednesday that I woke up and the hospital room was dark. And I woke up and my mum was sitting in the chair next to me. And also at this time I just moved back from living overseas. And so I had to say goodbye to all of my friends there. So I kind of didn't really have many friends back in Australia. I didn't have a job. I didn't have friends. The guy I was seeing in London dumped me. It is literally like everything was away from me. The whole world at the same time is collapsing. Nothing's working out. This is a shit show, pardon my French. It's not a good point in your life. Definitely not. And I woke up and my beautiful mother was sitting beside me on the chair next to my bed. And I didn't have any friends that came and visited me. I didn't really have many friends at that time because I just moved back from overseas. And she said, how are you feeling, darling? And I was like, you know, not very good and kind of mumbled some words. And she said, I want to go to the bathroom. And she said, okay, well, she helped me kind of get out of bed and wheel my drip with me to the bathroom. And just before I got into the bathroom, she grabbed me and she just said, darling, I don't want you to look in the mirror. And I was like, oh, well, great. Now I'm definitely going to look in the mirror. Thanks for that. And I looked in the mirror and just tears just started streaming down my face because by that time all the antibyros and the antibiotics had kicked in. So all of the cold sores on my face had turned into scabs. So it looked like I had, it looked like more someone said it looked like someone had taken a blowtorch to my face. So from my eyes down was just all a scab. And I couldn't open my mouth. I couldn't eat. I couldn't talk. Any time I opened my mouth too much, the scabs would crack and bleed and it was very painful. And so I was tears streaming down my face. I went back and got into my bed and I thought, yeah, this is the bottom. This is it. Awesome. Okay. And I have this realization whilst I was there. And that was that surely we aren't here to suffer. Surely God or whatever you believe in didn't put us here on earth to suffer. And I have this realization because I was suffering. I was in a lot of pain physically and also emotionally dealing with depression and anxiety. I was in a lot of internal pain as well. And I just had this realization that surely we're not here to suffer. Like that's probably that is not a purpose. Can I just point something out? I want to point something out. Your life you were masking a lot of pain, but how normal comparatively to the lives that most of us live, how normal your life was when you were on the verge of this physical and mental collapse. You were just operating like I'm sure 99% of people operate. This was not like you were doing anything crazy or abnormal or really anything at all. You described a life that is a high performing individual and that's sort of what we all seem to be acceptable and what it takes. And that's what led to this. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And I had a friend at the time who has since passed away and she was kind of like this wellness guru. And I'd recently started following her and I looked at her life and you know she went from the same sort of life that I was living in magazines to now being this wellness guru. And her name was Jess Ainsko and she was known as the wellness warrior. And I looked at her and I thought well she's transitioned from one life to this to this new health and wellness life and she was kind of like an inspiration to me. And I remember reaching out to her in hospital and telling her what was happening and sharing with her that I was in hospital and you know she just emailed me back and just said, babe, I'm so sorry that you're going through this. I'm here for you if you need me and I just in that moment, I realized that the way that I was living my life wasn't actually my true path. It wasn't how I was meant to be living this life. And what I was doing for work was no longer my path. And I didn't know what my path was but I just knew that dancing and acting and TV presenting and modeling. It's a very you know superficial industry. It's it's hard. It's really hard. You get told no a lot. And I share in my book some of the stories about you know being told that I was too fat. I was too skinny. I'm not tall enough. I'm too tall. You know, not the right hair color. My eyes are too close together. My eyes are too far apart. You know, like you get you get torn apart openly and in front of other people. Like I've been in rooms of four auditions and castings where you're standing in a room with 50 other women and a panel of six people. And they're like no, no, no, your your thighs are too big. Like that is literally what has happened. And so it's a real and no matter how much you tell yourself, oh, you know, they wanted a blonde or it wasn't my time for this job or whatever it is. It's still it's a way at you. It's still hurts. And when you're young and impressionable and you don't have that level of self awareness and self confidence that usually comes as you get older, it can eat away at you. And that's what it did for me. And so when I was in hospital, I had this voice that said to me and I didn't know this at the time, but this was my intuition. And it said to me, if you get happy and healthy again, you will leave a life beyond your wildest dreams. And I didn't know where to start. I didn't know what that looked like. But I just knew that suffering wasn't the reason we were here on earth and they had to be another option. And so from there, I asked my mom the next day, I said, can you just bring in a notepad for me and a pen? And she was like, okay. And I just started journaling. I'd never journaled before like this. And I just started journaling. I started writing down all of my thoughts and my feelings and getting everything out. And I realized all of these areas that were in congruent with who I truly was. And just started journaling and journaling. And I filled a whole journal and another friend that I just recently met gave me a book called, you can heal your life by Louise Hay. And I read that book in hospital. And I remember turning to my mom and saying, why do you teach me this? Like why do you teach me that we can live a life beyond our wildest dreams? Like why do you teach me that we can choose love instead of fear? Why do you teach me that we create our own reality? And she just looked at me and said, oh, Melissa, you know, I was doing the best that I could. And they absolutely were. We all are doing the very best that we can. And so I had these full on realizations from reading this book. And I closed that book and made it my mission to get happy and healthy again and live a life that was beyond my wildest dreams. And that is in alignment with who I truly am. And so that was the real rock bottom turning point. That's where it all started for me back in October 2010. How many people do you think live a life of an authentic life, a happy life, a complete life? Fortunately, a very small percentage of the population. And we don't know what we don't know, right? But the beauty of having so much information at our fingertips these days, podcasts, books, the internet is that we can discover how we can truly live our life. Things like your podcast and my podcast, it can plan to seed in someone's mind that there is another way to live. You can unlock your full potential and you can be the best version of yourself. And these seeds get planted and maybe in someone's lifetime, they might not fully realize who they truly are. And that's that soul's journey, I believe, but so many people aren't even aren't living to their fullest potential and aren't living their true life. And that's a shame because that's what we're here for. We're here to unlock our full potential, be the best version of ourselves, whatever that looks like, and to share that with the world. The reason I ask this is because when you went through this shift in your life, you've now built out a personal brand, you've written books, you have an incredible podcast, you teach people internationally. Everything you're doing now, there's a lot of people that have accomplished similar to what you've done through stress and burnout and fatigue and overworking themselves. So when you started to build out this new persona for yourself and you started to do things that eventually will help people understand, I don't incorporate this into their own life, how did you still become that high performer? What's the difference that you did this time to be a high performer without succumbing to the same issues that played you the first time? That's a really good question. I feel like what I'm doing now is my purpose in life. And when you are living your purpose, there is a lot more ease. When you're not living your purpose and you're trying to force that square peg in the round hole and you're trying to push something that isn't actually true for you, I feel like that leads to burnout and that's what I was doing. I feel like I don't regret anything, but you know, my dancing and my acting and my TV presenting, they were all amazing because it gave me the confidence, it gave me the skills to get up on stage and talk in front of thousands of people now. It gave me the confidence to run a podcast, to run my own workshops and events and to do all of the things I do now, I feel like that was all training for what I am truly meant to do here on this earth. So when you are doing your Dharma, when you are living your purpose, there is yes, it takes work a thousand percent, but there is an underlying sense of flow because it is your truth. And when you are not living in an alignment with your truth, there is a little bit of force and then that is what leads to the burnout. Does that make sense? It does 100%. So that little bit of force and I think that's important. And then I'm going to ask you how exactly we find that purpose, but so the little bit of force compounded aggregated over time, then you hit that ceiling and that's what happened to you, you hit that ceiling and your body was like, I don't, your mind is strong, but I'm not letting you go forward with this anymore. We're shutting this, we're shutting this down and that's what forced you, but a lot of people don't have such serious traumatic events in their life. They can learn from you, but some people survive a very long time up until God forbid they die and they're always going against agreeing, they're always going in a more difficult path and you can feel it in the hobbies you pick, the people you date, the job you take on, the business you start, some things seem effortless and some things like they just seem like nothing will ever, ever work. So how do you find that purpose? Because I know I don't have a secret for it because I still do things that are are a lot of high effort things that I feel like I could be doing something differently or something that's more in line with what I should be doing because that's what gives me energy. So how do you find your purpose? How did you find your purpose coming out of the hospital? Because I want to unpack that I want to teach people what to look for so that they can find theirs in their life. I love this and I teach this and my audible original book is called purposeful and I get asked this question a lot and one thing that I'm very passionate about helping people do is find their purpose and live it and share it with the world because I believe that we're all here meant and we're all meant to do that to share that with the world because we all have gifts. Everyone has a gift and our role is to share that with others and that doesn't mean we have to become a best selling author or a podcast or speak on stages. That could literally be in your community. That could be the, you know, being the best mother or the best father or, you know, teaching the local community how to sow or play the piano, whatever it is, we just need to let go of the ideals of what we think it should look like and just come back into our heart. So for me, how you find your purpose is, well, okay, let me just start by saying one other thing first. How I live my life and run my business now, it's all built on intuition. So everything that I do, it has to be a full body hell yeah. So if an opportunity comes to me and it's not a full body hell yeah, it's a no thank you or not right now. And I find that opportunities come to us and they get presented to us and we might take it because our mind is saying this is a really good opportunity. This could be your purpose or what about this or what about this, but if we just took a moment to close our eyes and tune in with ourselves and our intuition and said, is this actually true for me, your body, your whole essence, your whole soul will tell you whether this is right for you. You feel it in your body, you'll go, yes, your body will say yes, I don't know if you've ever had an experience and I'm sure you have where you've just done something and then someone says, well, why did you book that trip to Hawaii? You're like, I don't know, I just did like, I just booked the trip and I just went like something was just telling me I have to go. And I've had that experience many times in my life. Hey guys, Scott here. I just wanted to take a quick moment to say a heartfelt thanks to every single one of you six years of this show and it's really all because of you. Your listens, your support, your shares, it's what keeps this thing going. When I started, I had no idea how big this would get, how many lives we touch, the stories we share, the lessons that we learned together, it's truly humbling. And I believe that we're building something really special here, a community where no one has to reinvent the wheel. We're all in this together, learning and growing. And here's my ask, if you love this show, it's made a difference for you, please share it with somebody who needs it, hella friend, host on social, whatever works, it's the best way to keep this thing going strong, bring on even better guests and share more life, changing wisdom. And you can find us on all the spots so you can go to successstorypodcast.com if you like listening to podcasts, if you like video, you can go to YouTube, it's youtube.com slash c slash Scott Declary or the newsletter newsletter. Scott Declary.com just spread the word. I'm eternally grateful for each and every one of you. Let's keep learning, let's keep growing and let's keep making this world a little bit better together. All right, let's get back to the show. I have to, but I feel like people don't have, I feel like people need help with the self awareness to understand what that feeling is. 100%, so how we tune into that feeling more is we have to get quiet, we have to, this is why a regular meditation practice is so powerful, because if we sit and close our eyes and get really quiet and still for 20 minutes a day, what you do is you allow that intuition to rise to the surface. And the downloads to happen, but if we are just go, go, go, achieve, achieve, run from one thing to the next, there's no quiet time, there's no time to hear that intuition. So this is what most people do is they just go, go, go, they are constantly moving from one thing to the next and any gap that they get, we feel it with social media and our phones and the dinging and the pinging. So there's no gaps throughout our day for stillness and quiet. So this is why I'm such a huge advocate for a regular meditation practice, 20 minutes twice a day is what I do, first thing in the morning and then in the afternoon. And in those moments, that's when I really can hear my intuition and what's bubbling up and what's on my mind and what's maybe causing me a little bit of stress and what's flowing really great in my life. So this piece comes before the purpose piece because if we can't hear our intuition, how are we going to know what the next step is. So I want to encourage everyone listening to sit and to get still and quiet and that might just be 10 minutes. 10 minutes, it doesn't matter, you know, five minutes, first thing in the morning, 10 minutes, first thing in the morning. If you can do twice a day, awesome, but just start there because you will then be able to hear your intuition and feel your intuition so much more. That is the first piece and then people say, okay, I'll do that, right? But then what's the next step? How do I find my purpose in life? I have 10 steps that you can do in the book. Another thing that you can really do is in those meditations at the end of your meditation, ask yourself the question, what really lights you up and what would you do for free for the rest of your life. And if you get really honest and ask yourself those questions, some amazing things will come up. I know school teachers who did this exercise and she realized that she didn't want to be a school teacher, she wanted to teach piano. You know, when she asked herself, what would I do if I wasn't getting paid and something that I could do for the rest of my life that would really light me up, she was like, I want to teach piano, that's what I want to do. And so she did, she quit her job and started teaching piano. So when you have that space, the stillness and you can ask those questions, things drop in really quickly. But like I said, so many people don't even give themselves that opportunity to sit. So that is one of the first things you can do, create that stillness, that space, ask yourself those questions, what would I do if I wasn't getting paid and I could do this forever, what is the answer that comes to you? And if you're still stumped and you have nothing flowing to you, you can go back to your childhood. And I talk about this in purposeful, go back to your childhood, what did you love to do as a child? Was it singing, was it dancing, was it painting, was it making things, your childhood leaves clues. So go back to your childhood and maybe ask your parents as well, what did I love to do as a child because there's going to be clues there as well. So that's just some things that you can do if you are wanting to find your purpose and then you can check out purposeful. I've got 10 other steps that also support that, but they're a great place to start. Talk to me, one thing that I noticed that you reinforced a few times on the work that you put out, it's responsibility. So it speaks to me about responsibility, why it's so important, why you speak about it so often, how it's impacted your life, why it's even a point that you think you have to mention it to people, what's the reason or the rationale behind responsibility and how does it impact you? So the reason why responsibility is so important is because let me first tell you a story. When I back in October 2010, from there, I went on such an inward journey, I started meditating, I started doing yoga, I changed my entire diet, I studied energy work, which is acupuniogenics. I went fully headfirst into the spiritual and personal development world, I attended every seminar that I could, I read every self-help book that I could, I got mentors and coaches and I did kinesiology and all of these things, I became obsessed, healthy obsessed. And what I realized was my relationship with money was not true to me, it was my relationship. My relationship with money was not actually my story, it was my dad's that I was holding onto my relationship with people, partners, they were just stories that my parents had passed on. So I wasn't actually living a life that was true to myself and I started blaming my parents. I'm like this because of you, I have these limiting money beliefs because of you, I have these relationship beliefs because of you, I have these health beliefs and I have these health issues because of you. And that is literally what he said. And it was a really challenging time, it was very hard and I realized that my parents would say to me, we did the best that we could, we did the best that we could, we did the best that we could, with the knowledge and the understanding that we had at that time. And absolutely they did, so who am I to blame them? And that kept me in victim mentality. When you blame other people outside of yourself, it keeps you in victim. But every time you point the finger at someone else, there's three fingers pointing right back at you. And what I realized was I needed to take responsibility for how my life was unfolding. And when you take responsibility, it's quite empowering because then you can make the shifts, you can make the changes that are in alignment with who you truly are. And so I took responsibility, I rewrote my money story, I re-created my money story, I re-created my relationship story, I rewrote my health story, and I took responsibility, I got healthy, I started having abundance in my life, and I started experiencing relationships beyond my wildest dreams when I took responsibility. And so there's no amount of pointing the finger at anyone else, and blaming anyone else that is going to get you where you want to be. So just remember that every time you point the finger at someone else, there's three pointing right back at you. And when you take responsibility, you get out of victim mentality, and you take ownership of your life, and then that is when things can change. That is when you can live in alignment with who you truly are, and have the life that you truly desire. The other things that I want to go into, and they'll be shameless plugs for your books, but I think it's interesting. So when somebody writes a book, there's two in particular. So there was the mastering your mean girl, and then there's comparisonitis, which, and there's also another one called open widening that's more focused on relationships. So the two that I wanted to focus on, they're focused on mindset topics. So you very purposefully chose to write two particular books on different mindset topics, mastering your mean girl. Of course, there's a funny title, but it applies to anybody, but it's about inner critic, right, and that negative self-talk. And then you spoke about comparisonitis, which I'm assuming is keeping up with the Joneses and preparing yourself to everyone else out there. So why are these the two books you wrote? Why are the inner critic, as well as the comparing to yourself to everyone else? Why are those the levers that you feel that people should pull? Why was that the focus for what you wanted to put your time into? Because that inner critic inside your head, that I call the inner mean girl, or you can call it your inner bad boy, whatever you can call it, whatever you want, the inner critic, the ego, Bob, Mary, it doesn't matter. What matters is that every single human being on this earth has an inner critic, every single person, some just a lot louder than others. And me, back in October, 2010, mine was very loud, and prior to that, very, very loud. She would say things like, you're not good enough, you're not smart enough. Who do you think you are? You're too fat, you're too thin, you're never going to get out of debt, you're never going to meet the guy, you're never going to find your soulmate, your worthless, et cetera. That voice, every single person has, right? And what I realized was when I began on my journey, I was doing all of the external things, I was doing all the physical things, I was eating well, so I changed my whole diet, I was eating well. I started hanging around more inspiring people, I changed what I was doing for work, I started meditating, I started doing energy healing work, I did all of the things. Can you explain that by the way, this whole energy healing thing, I don't know nothing about this, I find it fascinating. A little, just go, just go into a rant about what this is, because I don't know anything. Okay, so energy work, like everything is energy, the whole universe is energy. And so we have sharkers, do you know about the sharkers? Yes, yes. Well, basically we have sharkers in our body and different experiences that happen to us in our life. Physical and emotional, they cause blockages in our body, right? So we could, we could fall over and hurt our hip and that causes some trauma in our hip. There's a blockage there, there's an energy flow blockage, so think of like energy, like a freeway, a highway. And when you have a physical trauma or an emotional trauma, it's like a car accident, right? So all the cars get piled up. And so what we do with energy healing work or like rakey things like that is you basically free that freeway, you remove the car accident, you get that freeway flowing, that energy, that meridian line flowing freely again. And so, you know, there's so many things that happen to us physically and emotionally that cause those mini traumas or big traumas or blockages if you want to call them. And so releasing that stagnated energy and that car crash is really important. So that's kind of a little bit of a nutshell of the type of energy work that I've done. But there's so many other things as well. I just want to take a second and thank the HubSpot podcast network for supporting success story. The HubSpot podcast network has incredible podcasts like the product boss hosted by Jacqueline Snyder and Mina Kuhnlo Sithep. If you want to take your physical product sales and strategy to the next level to create your dream life, you need to listen to the product boss. They sit down for an hour. They do a workshop style podcast. They're going to talk about everything that you need to know to up level yourself, social media, marketing. If you're a consumer package goods, if you have any sort of physical widget, you need to tune into the product boss wherever you get your podcasts. No, that's good. No, I just wanted an understanding because if somebody's listening to this and they've never heard of this, I kind of have an idea, but I mean, you're the expert. So it's better for you to explain it. And you feel that that's also very useful for people because I know nothing about I know a lot about meditation. I know nothing about energy work. Yeah, absolutely. It's so useful. Like it's powerful. You know, a lot of people have blockages in their heart and their heart chakra. How are you going to open yourself up to your relationship, to your beloved, if you've got trauma from past relationships in your heart chakra? You know, so releasing that blockage in your heart is really important. So yeah, it's it's really powerful work. Kinesiology is also amazing. There's so many incredible medalities out there. But I think we have to remember that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. And everything in this world is made up of energy. And that's not we were that is truth. Everything is made up of energy. And so we need to work on the physical. Yes, we need to meditate and nourish our body and move our body and drink clean water and get good rest. We all know these things, right? We all know how to take care of our physical body. Maybe we don't all do it every day. But we all know those basic things that we need to do. Get out and fresh air, you know, things like that. But as well as doing the physical work, we need to do the energetic work, the spiritual work, the internal work. Like I said before, we need to sit in meditation and ask these questions so that we can hear our intuition. So yeah, it's really important. And I totally took you off course because you were speaking about your inner mean girl. So I apologize. We can go back to that because we were walking through all the different things that you have to do and energy work was one of them. So sorry, but go ahead. That's totally fine. So yes, I was saying, you know, we all have an inner critic every single one of us. And some people's is just a lot louder than others. Mine was very loud and she was like on a heavy heavy base with a volume 10, you know, she was she was turned right up. And over the years, I've been able to really turn her volume down and you know, she may pop up randomly every now and then and I have the tools. I have a cast process that helps me cast her aside so that my true self can shine through and I did a TED talk on that. So if anyone wants to learn that process, you can just listen to my TED talk or read mastering your mean girl. And the reason why mindset was so important to me is because like I said, I was doing all of these physical things. I was I changed my diet, I started eating fresh whole foods, I was doing yoga, I was meditating, I was getting out and fresh air, I was doing work that I love. I was surrounding myself with inspiring relationships, I was drinking clean water, I was doing all of these things. But no matter how many green smoothies I was drinking, I still had this internal noise going on that was saying, you're not good enough, you're not smart enough. Who do you think you are? You're not good enough. You're not smart enough. Who do you think you are? And that's when I realized that no matter how much external work we do, if we're not doing the internal work, if we're not mastering our inner critic, there's nothing can combat that. So that's why mastering a mean girl was born purely out of my own experience of doing all of these things and not seeing the results because I had a really loud inner critic. And then it wasn't until I learned how to master her, that's my whole life changed. Everything changed in my life when I learned how to master her. And I do that four step cast process whenever she pops up and I still do it. And it's changed my life. So that's how that came about. And then the second piece that you chose to dive into is about comparing yourself to other people. So now you have found peace. You have not silenced but reduced your inner critic a little bit. Why was the second piece that's so important? The comparison piece that I guess disrupts everything you're working towards. It creates implants, all these negative feelings, emotions, ideas in your head. With social, it's virtually impossible to avoid. Basically, you can't avoid it. It's non-stop. It's the Instagram life and whatnot. It's, you know, everybody seems to be doing better. Everybody has more money, you know, better spouse, happier life, like whatever it is. How do we solve for that? Because I don't think people have really people, everybody knows it's an issue. I think people know that it's more of an issue than you're in or self-doubt. I think everybody recognizes that. But to solve for it is difficult. I think we can't and we haven't. And that's why you see like sky high divorce rates and people switching jobs every day. And it's all the negative, right? The reason I wrote this book was because you're exactly right. Like we are exposed to comparison all day every day, you know, with social media. And it's right. Anxiety rates are higher than ever. Depression is higher than ever. Suicide is higher than ever. And comparison is a contributing factor to those increases, right? And when I was doing the research for this book, I like my jaw was on the floor. Girls as young as 10 comparing their bodies to other people and then taking their own life, like it's horrific. And now more than ever, we are exposed to so much more data than ever than just a few years ago. We're exposed to more now than we ever were meant to be exposed to in an entire lifetime. So this is something that we really need to be mindful of. I'm so sorry. Can you hear that banging? No, no, it's okay. Listen, on this podcast, I've had dogs barking. I've had kids in the shot outside of the shot. I've had construction work. I've had alarms going off. This is the world. Don't worry about the banging. It's a little bit of a housework next door. It's all good. My goodness, I'm so sorry about that. So yeah, it's it is a rife. We all know it. Everyone knows it. It's a very easy to look on social media and think that they have a better life. And it's it's too easy. And especially now, you know, children are getting phones as young as like primary school, they're getting phones. Children are know how to use iPads and phones from the age of two. It's wild. It's crazy. Like I have a one year old and my husband and I joke that she won't be getting a phone until she's 18 like I'm literally like I'm I'm not even joking like that is my goal. Like if she can go to 18 to not have a phone like high five to me. So it is something that we really need to look at. It is something that we can't take lightly because of the increase in depression anxiety and suicide. So we need some boundaries. So the reason I wrote this book was because we need boundaries me included. There's four major areas where we compare ourselves to others. One of them being our body and our physical image. Other one being our career money finances that sort of thing next one relationships marriage friendships that sort of thing. And then the final one is parenting, you know, my child's doing this, you know, those sorts of things. And in the book, I give you so many different tools, tips, tricks and strategies to help master your comparison, I just had to stop comparing yourself so that you can be genuinely happy. That's what the whole book is about. Can you go into some can you just go into some for people that are listening, give them like a taste of some things to think about. Absolutely, I've got a technique called the aces technique and aces technique is to help you feel ace again once you've been comparing yourself because we all know when you jump on social media and you start comparing yourself, you feel the complete opposite to ace, you feel really crap about yourself. You get off social media and you feel so down and so flat. I've been there. And this technique is to help you feel ace again. So it's a four step process and ace is an acronym, which I'll tell you what it stands for. The first letter a stands for awareness. We have to become aware of when we are comparing ourselves like what are your triggers. So for me, it's social media. It might be your cousin. It might be your brother. It might be the mother down the street who has five kids and seems to just be crushing it in all areas of her life. So what are your triggers and when do they happen? So become aware, write it down. So you know, I know for me social media is a big trigger. I know maybe it's my third cousin who seems to be crushing it, whatever, write down, become aware because once you are aware of something, you can then change it. Awareness is such a big piece in the growth puzzle. If you want to grow and evolve and be the best version of yourself, awareness is the first step. So that is the first step. Okay. The next step stands for eliminate exit or exhale. The next step, see in the aces technique, see, see stands for choosing a different path. So when you notice yourself comparing yourself to someone else, you've got two options. You can either go down one path and that is there so much better than me. I can't have that. I'm not good enough. They've got the best life. My life sucks that path or you can choose the other door and the other door is to use it as inspiration. You can see what they have and you can say, oh, they look like they have a really beautiful relationship. That's inspiring me to maybe work on my relationship. Oh, they look like they have a really beautiful relationship with their body and food and health. That's inspiring me to work on my relationship with my body and food and health. So you can either go down path A, which is I'm not good enough. They have a better life or the second door, which is using it as inspiration and motivation. So choosing a different path, choosing the second option. So then he stands for eliminate exit or exhale. So when we find ourselves comparing to someone else and then we've chosen the second door, we can then choose to exit the situation. We can choose to eliminate, you know, get off social media or we can choose to exhale. So what I mean by that is say, you know, for me, I share in the book, I really struggled with comparison. I just when I was writing this book because as I was writing it, I really wanted to get pregnant. I really wanted to get pregnant and it wasn't happening and it took a long time. And I had my best friends, two of my best friends, we were trying at the same time and they got pregnant and I didn't. And in that moment when she told me and you know, I could have gone down what's wrong with my body, something's wrong with me. It's never going to happen for me. Of why is it not happening and compare instead I used it as inspiration. But when she told me I couldn't eliminate her out of my life. I didn't want to. I couldn't exit the situation. You know, if there's someone sitting around the table and they're all talking about their relationships and you've just broken up with yours, you don't have to sit there and listen to it. You can just go to the toilet or you can go for a walk and just exit and take some take a few different plans and get some. And for a way in this. Yeah. Yeah. And then so the third thing that you can do is exhale, which is what I did when she told me that she was pregnant. I just took a deep breath and came back into my heart and was able to feel really happy for her. But if I had have opened door A and started comparing myself, I probably would have got up and walked away or left that situation and maybe not even spoken to that girl again. But I was able to use it as inspiration and I was able to just take a deep breath and come back into my body and know that it will happen for me and be happy for her. Right. And so that is the third step exit eliminate or exhale. If you find yourself comparing a lot on social media, just eliminate it from your life for a little while for a day for an hour. Set healthy boundaries for yourself with your phone and with your computer set healthy boundaries. We really need to do this. I have so many that I share in the book, you know, like always having my phone on silent, not touching my phone after six p.m. You know, just putting limits on different apps on my phone. My phone is there's no dinging and pinging. I don't have email on my phone. Like there's so many different things that you can do to set yourself up the success to set yourself with healthy boundaries. So so do that. And if you need to take a little break from social media, because that's a really big area of comparison. It is for you. Then so so be it. Do it. Do what feels right and true for you. And then the fourth step in the aces technique stands for shifting your state. So we all know what it feels like when we compare ourselves to someone else. It feels gross. You get off an Instagram scroll session and you feel really bad about yourself. So the quickest way to move that energy out of your body because like we said before, everything is energy. So if you find yourself comparing you can choose the other door, you can then jump off social media. And then I want you to get up and shake your body dance put on beyond say do whatever you've got to do jump up and down do some push up some star jumps. Shake your entire body. Go dive in the ocean. If you can have a shower do whatever you've got to do to move that energy out of your body that stagnant energy out of your body. And if you do that anytime that you catch yourself comparing yourself to others. If you take yourself through that process. So you find yourself comparing on social media. You choose option B using it as motivation. You then get off social media and then you just shake your body. You are going to quickly remove that comparisonitis out of your body very, very fast and be able to then move on with your day. So that's the aces technique and again it's something that I do whenever it pops up. I love that. Okay, so let's, so let's, I want to get a whole bunch of links and places of people to go to learn more to get the books. Then I want to do a couple rapid fire as well to close this edge to post most insights from you. So some closing words from you, but also where do people go all the social all the website. Okay, so head to Melissa Ambrassini.com and I'm at Melissa Ambrassini on Instagram. My podcast is the Melissa Ambrassini show. And if you go to my website Melissa Ambrassini.com all of my books, my programs, my meditations, you can sign up for my newsletter so that you get all of the insider juice. Whenever I, whenever I send it out, you'll get all of the goodness first, but come and connect with me on social media and tell me what you got out of this conversation. I absolutely love connecting with new people on social media. So please come and tell me what your biggest key takeaway is from this conversation with Scott. I would really love that so much. I'd love to meet you. And my last parting words of wisdom. Coming full circle, I want to remind you that you didn't come here to suffer. You didn't come here to be this half grade version of yourself. You came here to be the best version of you, whatever that looks like for you. And you came here to be the best version of you and to share that with the world or share that with others. And that might be just sharing that with your partner and your kids and your neighborhood. Or it might be sharing it with your outer community or even bigger. It doesn't matter. But the truth is is that you came here to be the best version of yourself and to share that with others. And we all have specialness inside us. Every single person we all have it. Every single one of us. And it's our duty to share that with others, to share that magic inside of us with others, whatever that looks like. Let's do a couple rapid fire to close this out. So you've had a very traumatic point in your life. But you've recovered now. Now you've created an incredible life for yourself. You've business. Everything has sort of obviously like the just exponentially gotten better since you've adopted some of these items and some of the things that you teach over into your own life. But what keeps you up at night now? What are the negative things that you still worry about with your life, your business, your career where you want to go? What's working? What's not? Okay. So what keeps me up at night, personally, is I now have a one year old and I keep you up. Totally. Well, she's not waking me up, but it's more not every night, but sometimes was I fully present with her today. I could have been more present with her or, you know, some I have three peas that are my parenting goals being playful, present, and patient. And I'll, you know, lay in bed at night and I will ask myself, was I those three things today? And if for some reason I wasn't, that keeps me up. And then I turn to my husband, I'm like, am I a bad mom? And he's like, no, babe, you're the best mom ever. So, you know, that plays on my mind. And then in terms of career and business right now for me, I have just come out of a year long maternity leave. And I have so many ideas and projects bubbling away inside me. And so right now it's, which is the next one? Because there's so many and being a mama, like that is my number one goal is to be the best mom that I can be. So, which is the next project? Which is, which is going, what is going to be birthed next? So that's on my mind too. You've mentioned obviously a very low point in your life. I usually ask the question, the biggest challenge you've overcome in your personal life was that was it. But what did you, what was the key learning from that point in your life? Or maybe it wasn't it. I don't know if there's another point. There was also very low and dark. But I, you know, what's the biggest challenge you've overcome and what did you learn from it? Well, definitely that was a very challenging time in my life. And I shared what I learned with you before, like that we didn't come here to suffer. And that we became, we came here to live a life beyond our wildest dreams for sure that that was huge for me. And another one was the 18 month journey to get pregnant. That was a very challenging, extremely hard time in my life. And because I also kept it very private. And that was a very conscious decision. And it won any outside opinions. I didn't want any noise contributing to my experience. So that 18 month process was so challenging. It was dark. It was a really challenging. It forced me to really look at some dark areas in my life. And what I got out of it was so many things, a couple being we cannot control the timeline of things. And everything is always unfolding the way that it is supposed to always. And we need to fully trust that because it's always unfolding exactly the way it's supposed to. I was meant to have that 18 month experience. I was meant to because the person I became in those 18 months is the best version of myself. And I wouldn't be the mother that I am now without that experience. So I'm so, you know, everything's always unfolding the way it's supposed to. It is. Yeah, no, that's very good. If you had to pick one person, obviously, there's been many, but if you had to pick one person has had an incredible impact on your life, who was that person and what did they teach you? My husband for sure, but there have been so many teachers, so many mentors, both in books and then in real life as well, so many. But my husband for sure, he has showed me. He's he allowed me to see the true potential of this life, what we can create together. And just every area of my life, he's showed me what how good it can be with your health, how good it can be in your relationships, how good it can be in business, how good it can be parenting. He's showed me how good it can be in every area of my life. If you had to pick your favorite book or source or something that's impacted your life to somebody to go check out, what would that be? I ask this question on my podcast to every guest, I say, what is the one book that you would choose to put in the school curriculum of every high school around the world? And truly, I would, I would say my books, but let's, I'll give you some other ones as well. Two incredible books that really impacted my life, like I said before, one of the first personal development spiritual self-help books that I ever read was Louise Hayes, you can heal your life. And that's what I read in hospital back in 2010, so that book was huge for me. There's been so many amazing books returned, a return to love by Mary Ann Williamson, conversations with God, by Neil Donald Walsh, and I've had Mary Ann, I've had Neil Donald Walsh on my podcast. So there are three really incredible books as well as my books. Very good. Yes, it's always, it's a de facto your books. I just need to get other ones, but your books already go on the show notes. I need other stuff. Totally. If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be? Don't compare yourself to anyone else. Stay in your own lane and stay true to yourself. Then last question, what is success mean to you? Success is internal happiness and freedom, freedom internally from my thoughts and freedom externally from, you know, everything from being able to travel and being able to make choices. That feel true for me. That's that success. You