Tara Schuster – Former Entertainment Executive at Comedy Central, Best-selling Author and Playwright
Episode 139
Tara Schuster, former executive at Comedy Central and best-selling author of Buy Yourselves the F*ckin Lilies, wants you to nurture yourself. At the age of 25, she hit rock bottom and decided it was up to her to take responsibility to nurture herself. To save her life. Her exciting tale of bravery is one incredible story and one that so many can learn from. Incredibly, she found herself with a book that is currently making people feel less alone. We hope you will listen in and learn at #TheKaraGoldinShow
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Mentioned in the Episode:
Tara Schuster’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/taraschustar?lang=en
Tara Schuster’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taraschuster/
Tara Schuster’s Website: http://www.taraschuster.com/about
Buy Tara Schuster’s Book Here: http://www.taraschuster.com/buy-yourself-the-fcking-lillies-1
Transcript
00:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be, I want to just sort of making sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out. So your only choice should be
Kara Goldin 00:16
go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show. So join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi, everyone. It’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin Show. And I’m so excited to have my next guest here. Tara Schuster. Welcome. Thank
Tara Schuster 00:51
you. I’m so thrilled to be here.
Kara Goldin 00:54
Super excited to have you. So I’m going to give you a little bit of background on the great Tara. So she has a book out that just came out in paperback actually called by yourself that effing lilies that is so so good and so inspiring. The subtitle is and other rituals to fix your life. So you can imagine how inspiring that is. But first of all, Tara is just funny, right, which we all need humor along the way. And she’s she was she served as vice president of talent and development at Comedy Central, where she was executive in charge of key unpeel and midnight and lights out with David Spade who as I was sharing with Tara went to school with me and is awesome. at Arizona State University and her writing has appeared in lots of publications in style Forbes and the New Yorker. And in her late 20s, Tara was an Ivy League graduate and a rising TV executive who had worked for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, who love that show and help launch tnpl to viral superstardom, and on the outside, she had mastered being a grown-up. But beneath that she just stayed funny and 10 years to just keep trying and put a plugin for my book remained undaunted. Along the way, and no one knew that a road to adulthood had been paved with some real challenges around anxiety and shame and she realized she’d hit rock bottom when she dropped dial her therapist pleading for help, which is just wow, on a lot of levels. So, but her new book, yourself the effing lilies is really the story. And like I said, it so inspiring to hear Tara’s path to reading parenting herself, and becoming a ninja of self-love. And just through simple daily rituals, and I just can’t emphasize it enough. I just love loved it. And you should definitely go out and get this book on. It’s on audio as well. Right?
Tara Schuster 03:23
Yeah, it’s audible anywhere books are sold the whole deal.
Kara Goldin 03:27
Awesome. Very, very awesome. So let’s just jump into it. Welcome. Thank you all. Yeah, so so great. So where are you at right now? Where’s your home base in
Tara Schuster 03:39
it from Los Angeles, California, in my apartment that I’ve been cooped up in for a year, like the rest of us a good time. So
Kara Goldin 03:48
in your, in book, you’re covering deep and heartfelt topics about the hardest moments of your life. And so authentic and I just love, love loved it. I think it’s something that people need to hear, especially right now, hopefully coming out of this pandemic. But your book has been described as a candid, hysterically funny, addictive, readable, Practical Guide to growing up. How have you been able to express your emotions and just be so transparent? I mean, it’s just it’s really pretty awesome.
Tara Schuster 04:23
Thank you. Um, yeah, it’s funny. I get asked this question a lot, actually, in different words, but how are you so honest, like you’re so honest in the book, and it never occurred to me to be any other way. Like, afterwards, I was like, wait, should I have been lying? Did I like to say too much? Yeah. Like it made me self-conscious after the fact. But the whole reason I wrote the book, you know, wasn’t to write a book it was to save my life. I grew up in a house where things came to die. I was neglected and psychologically abused as a child. And it kind of left me as this mess wreck disaster of a person. But by the time I was 25, I had zero clues as to how to take care of myself. And I, I just frankly, didn’t think I was worth very much. I mean, I was told that I wasn’t my whole life, you believe what you’re told. So I really thought I was worthless. And as you described, it took bottoming out on my 25th birthday, when I drunk out my therapist threatening to hurt myself, for me to hit rock bottom, and be forced to take a look, look in the mirror and say, if I don’t get better, I’m not going to have much of a life to live. And, and that really contrasted though, with killing it at work. So because I had always found my validation from external sources, other than my parents, I always was moving, moving, moving, you know, got myself into an Ivy League college, got myself up the corporate ladder really quickly, because that was the only thing that made me feel any kind of worth. So you know, on the outside, I looked like I had it all together, I’m just rising executive, killing it. But on the inside, I was imploding. And that implosion at 25 made me stop and think, okay, I didn’t have parents who nurtured me at all. If somebody is going to nurture me, it’s got to be me. How do I do that? And I attacked it like it was a school project or work project, got off the Google Doc, and was just like, what are values? What are principles? What are vegetables? Like, genuinely, what are vegetables? And which one should I be eating? Because that was stuff I had never learned?
Kara Goldin 06:50
never learned?
Tara Schuster 06:50
Yeah. And that sort of made up the book, there’s a long way of answering your question, why beyond you know, how did how was I so honest, or where did that kind of come from? It’s because the work of the book was the work of saving my life. So I did all of that and made this 600 Page, Google Doc, Re parentid, myself, and five years later, felt like a different person. And that’s when I thought, Oh, my God, I have this 600 Page, Google Doc of how I repented myself in five years.
Kara Goldin 07:24
I have to share this. That is awesome. So when you finally got to that point where you were hitting rock bottom, and you were talking about were so you were working? Yeah, at the time, and where were you at? At that point? I was at Comedy Central. Wow. And you were just were you in New York? Or?
Tara Schuster 07:43
Yes. So I started, I interned at The Daily Show. And that got me my first entry-level position at Comedy Central proper in New York. And so when I was 25, I was a rising, Junior Junior baby executive. I’m definitely the on the right track. But early in my career.
Kara Goldin 08:05
Wow. And then did you take a break? I mean, did you actually never go back? You didn’t take a break? You never I’ve
Tara Schuster 08:12
been through it. I worked through it. I mean, I didn’t even take a break to write the book. I wrote the book in the morning before I went to my executive job. Yeah. And that’s sort of the message of this book is you don’t need to take off to the woods. And like, forget about this life in order to heal your traumas, or you’re you know, things that are not as traumatic. And you can integrate these things into your life and even within your current circumstances, really change things. And I know because I didn’t, you know, I didn’t have like an Eat Pray Love Trust Fund. To go, you know, find myself I had to find myself and get to work.
Kara Goldin 09:01
Yeah, it’s so do you think your bosses knew
Tara Schuster 09:04
that? No, I’m so definitely Nobody. Nobody knew.
Kara Goldin 09:07
It’s so interesting. I’ve been thinking a lot about this. So 70% of the workforce today are millennials. And oh, wow. 70 Yeah. 70%. And I really give millennials credit for bringing mental health to the forefront of being okay. Right, and that everybody has something, right. Yeah. And I tell people that it wasn’t okay to sort of talk about things that work like work was for work. And you know, when you’re going through something challenging, and I mean, I feel like as a CEO today, I was just sharing with somebody earlier that I feel like at times, I’ve become the den mother, then sometimes it’s people that you don’t even expect, right, it’s the kids, they’re homeschooling their kids and it’s just like a breaking point where you start to really write and I feel like it’s really liberated A lot of us to know that it’s okay. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad executive.
Tara Schuster 10:05
Oh, no. And, you know, to be clear, when I was going through all of this, I told literally no one, it wasn’t something that I discussed at work or felt comfortable discussing at work. Yeah. And what’s been interesting for me is, as the books been released is to hear how people you know, they tell me, it makes them feel less alone. They feel like, you know, if, if I could do it, they could do it. And a lot of the younger people at work, the millennials, the Gen Z, they’re the ones who are going to change the world, because they actually, it’s inherent to them. They don’t hide who they are. Nobody. But I do think in the corporate world today, I think there’s still a lot of stigma around mental health. Yeah, I think it’s actually I don’t advocate that people openly talk about their mental health struggles in the workplace, because I don’t think we’re there yet. Frankly, you know, so I think if you have like a boss, you know, it sounds like you’re a boss who can be a den mother and is there to be with their employees. I think that’s amazing. But I I’m really sensitive to the fact that that’s not every work environment.
Kara Goldin 11:13
Yeah. No, and it’s, it’s hard. And I think also, as we hopefully start to go back into I don’t think we’ll all go back into offices five days a week, anytime soon. But I think hopefully, there are a lot of millennials who were celebrating, you know, working from home in the beginning, and now they want to go back into an office because of community and what they’re saying, right? Are they brought to people that they, they may not, you know, their office mate that sits next to them might not be the person they go out for cocktails with, but they’re, you know, they like having an espresso with them and joking around and, you know, talking about their dogs, right, if they miss that?
Tara Schuster 11:55
I we I mean, I miss it. I miss intensely the the camaraderie of just even sitting in a boring meeting and being able to be bored with your colleague and say afterwards 10 that suck, like that? I really miss it.
Kara Goldin 12:13
Yeah, no, I totally agree. And it’s, it’s, it’ll be it’s something I think a lot about leadership. But I also think it’s just a, you know, as it relates to mental health, I think it’s just the awareness. And especially during this time, I think you cannot be a leader today and not be aware of mental health for long-only,
Tara Schuster 12:35
you know, for long, absolutely. Yeah,
Kara Goldin 12:37
you can, you can be a leader, but you can’t sit there and shut it down. Because I think it just comes in, you know, right now it’s, I think, coming in spades in so many different directions. So I, I’m super great to hear how authentic you are, and how much you’re helping people because it’s definitely super, super important. So you mentioned a mantra during times of fear or anxiety where you say it’s okay, sweetheart. So talk to me a little bit about that.
Tara Schuster 13:03
Yeah, you know, looking back, I was never really comforted. If something was scary, or unsafe, as a child, there was nobody to hold me and say, Oh, it’s okay, sweetheart. Like, you’re fine or this will get better. I was really told things won’t get better. We you are doomed. This is doomed. A lot of messages about how unsafe I was. And as I’ve grown older, I’ve realized is part of the work of healing myself is giving myself those messages of comfort. So when I’m feeling stressed out, anxious, scared, I literally put my hand on my heart and say out loud, it’s okay, sweetheart, the way you would a young child. And I, you know, I dare anyone to do that. And not feel comforted. It is an instant way to connect to yourself and to ground yourself. Yeah. Which is the wise thing to do when we’re confronted by fear or something we’re not sure if we can accomplish or get through is instead of to be mean to ourselves and say, push, push, push, like you need to get through this is to give ourselves the space and the comfort of feeling okay. In those scary situations.
Kara Goldin 14:27
Yeah, totally. Do you think when you entered the workforce, that it kind of, maybe you started managing people? And maybe do you think that because of your upbringing, you had sort of a different perspective on that versus how you are today?
Tara Schuster 14:42
Yeah, I think I, you know, looking back, I was probably harsher than I would want to be because I was so harsh to myself. Like I was operating and I’m talking about really, really, you know like With my first manage positions, I didn’t know how to be kind to myself. And if you don’t know how to be kind to yourself, it is very hard to be kind to others, if that’s not just a habit of yours. And so now, I actually care a lot more about how I act, than sort of what I achieve. How did I show up for the people in my office? Was I kind to give them the benefit of the doubt? Did I look out for them? That is a really big part of how I think about business. Because ultimately, you want the people around you to feel safe enough to take risks to be productive, to show you what their unique, shiny attributes are. And the only way people reveal the things that they how they’re going to add value is if they feel safe. So now I really try to lead with kindness. You know, there was that time when all the books were like, radical candor, and have this tough conversation. And now I’m like, What about radical kindness? What about we’re humans here on this planet, also. And for me, to be a good leader, one of the things I can do is make it really safe for you to show up with your unique talents, your diverse talents so that this team has a lot of value add not a lot of value fit, but a lot of add. And so that’s a lot different now is I really understand the utter importance of grounding everything in Pinus, maybe not the competition. Maybe they’re not grounding, kind of, but your colleagues,
Kara Goldin 16:50
I feel like you’ve worked around funny people, you know, comedians, for so long. Did you feel like there was a big understanding of what you actually did disclose that you were sort of working through maybe to only a small group initially? Did you feel like that was like they sort of got you?
Tara Schuster 17:10
You know, it’s funny, not on that. Like, I never told anyone, any of this. You know, really, it wasn’t until my book came out that anyone would have any Really? Yeah, I was very private. I am very private, which is so weird because there’s a literal book with over 100,000 copies sold of my life. So how private Can I be? But yeah, I don’t really talk about my personal life, my emotions at work. But with comedians, I think why I always got along with comedians is because I never took myself seriously as an executive. I never was like, this job defines me, my, my identity is wrapped up in this. My only thought was, how can I help your career? You know, you’re a great artist, what you’re doing is vulnerable and scary. How can I bolster you and bolster our audience by getting your story to them in an authentic not watered-down way? And I think because that was sort of how I looked at being executive communion responded to that in a way that they don’t if you’re just like, you know, a suit, who is crunching numbers, you know, obviously, I’m doing that too. But I just did it in a very different kind of way. Yeah,
Kara Goldin 18:34
yeah. But I just think that the authentic pneus of it are welcome. Right. And that’s what people respond to. And yeah,
Tara Schuster 18:41
it’s, it’s funny because I get that comment a lot, you know, and then I get worried that like, what if I, if I’m not authentic? Like, and what is authentic? Like, what
18:52
am I doing? Like, I’m
Tara Schuster 18:53
just kind of being me. So like, what if I think a little worried that it’s gonna, like, go away? And then I remember, no, just keep doing what you’re doing. You’ll be fine.
Kara Goldin 19:03
Yeah, no, you will absolutely be, be fine. So one of the questions I had, so you’re 25. And not, you’re not 25 right now, but when you went started this process, how did you start healing? What was sort of the big kind of steps? And I think this really speaks to somebody who is maybe thinking, Okay, do I, you know, just keep putting on my little lemons today and just go on? Or do I actually just tell everybody that I’m really having a hard time? I mean, you touched on this a little bit like, Yeah, you do.
Tara Schuster 19:40
Yeah, it’s such a good question. Because I think people get overwhelmed, and then don’t start because they think it’s gonna be too hard to do all of the works. And so why even begin, and I think the first step for everyone is finding a way to become a little more self-aware. So that Just even aware of the emotions you’re currently holding and feeling because we have basically no practice doing that, you know, what’s our searcher? What’s our default answer to how are you, I’m fine. I’m good. I’m busy. We just have no practice knowing how we actually feel. So I think the easiest way to build self-awareness is to begin by journaling. Now, some people roll their eyes to level, you know, like, first off, that sounds cheesy journaling is for broken Narcissus, or they think that’s too much of a time commitment, I don’t have time to do it. And what I would challenge is, you don’t have time not to do it, you no longer have time not to know who you are. So even by journaling, an answer to this question, how am I actually feeling even that gives you a modicum of self-awareness. And when you do it over time, like every day, you really start to get to know yourself. So really, any practice where you’re building a little self-awareness into your life, shows you, here’s the path, here’s, here’s where I’m going to need to do the work. And then it’s baby-stepping into the work, you know, if you’re writing in your journal, about an upsetting relationship of something at work, you know, whatever it is, the next question is, what is the first baby step I can take towards healing this? You know, not like, how is it all gonna work out in the end, but just if you were in, you know, a toxic friendship, for example, maybe it’s not being around that person. You know, it’s these little teeny micro-adjustments that I write about in the book that can really change the trajectory of your
Kara Goldin 21:51
life. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I’m smiling, because I, I tweeted last night about this, that my 15-year-old was talking to somebody on the phone, and I over I was in my office and I overheard him say, what did he say exactly said, You don’t always have to be happy. Because there are points along the way, where maybe you aren’t happy. And you need to pay attention to the lessons that you’re learning. And he’s 15. Wow, yeah. And I was just and so I said to him afterwards, I was like, So who are you saying that? Right? Because I thought like, who was on the other end? And he said, I actually thought he was talking to a guy that’s a friend of his that he was playing fortnight with? And he said, No, there was, there was a girl that I’m a friend that I’m friends with. And these girls were being really terrible to her. And she was focusing on it, she wanted to be happy. And he said, but I, you know, went on to tell her that, you know, pay attention to the lessons, and you talked about toxic friendships and yeah, whatever. And it made me just really think about that. And I just said, that’s so like, not what I thought that was at all, and I on so many other levels. I’m proud of you.
Tara Schuster 23:18
And how wise have your son? I mean, that’s a huge part of my book is paying attention to those dark moments. I didn’t learn. I call it sacred rock bottom. Each rock bottom, we go to each terrible experience in Francine, from one light, it’s like, oh, this is terrible. There’s no like, why am I going through this? But in another sense, it’s always an awakening of totally where you need to grow. So it’s really just like, are you going to avail yourself of this opportunity? Or do you shut it out and ignore it? And I would, I would follow your son’s advice.
Kara Goldin 23:57
I don’t see what I could learn from it and see where you can learn from? Well, it’s funny, I think back on life, and I always had this problem when people would say, Oh, forget about that. Like, forget about stuff that happened. And then I started really realizing that all of those sorts of challenges or failures. I mean, this is a lot of what I talked about in my book undaunted is that you know, you’re going to have failures, you’re going to have challenges along the way. And there are lessons and looking back, it helps you realize that the dots eventually connect.
Tara Schuster 24:34
Yeah, attention. And you know, the thing I would add to that is, and I write a lot about this, my book is that what you do not deal with deals with you always. That’s, that’s a promise I can make to anyone and the idea that you should ignore or just blindly move past these things, is ridiculous and has worked for approximately no one So, you know, I sometimes people say to me, oh, this, you know, this really painful thing happened. I just don’t think they can deal with it. And I always say to them, well, it’s dealing with you. Yeah. So whether or not true yeah, I mean, so you have a choice here? You know,
Kara Goldin 25:17
I think it is, it is so true. And I think it’s just a wake-up call to so many people just to go and deal with it. And you’re smiling today, right? Um, yeah.
25:28
I know,
Kara Goldin 25:30
you work through a lot of stuff.
Tara Schuster 25:33
Yes. And, you know, having been on both sides. So how I began was, I’m not grateful, I have a chip on my shoulder, I was dealt these terrible parents. It’s not my fault, blames, blame, blame, I’m going to be miserable forever. I did the work of taking care of myself. I said, Okay, I am going to take responsibility for my life now fully. For everything that happens, I am going to be responsible. And it is such an easier way to live. Because I’m not constantly like, I’m not blaming people. I’m grateful for what I have. I have worked through so many of the issues that were unknown to me at the time. And so if anyone’s listening, who feels like it’s gonna be overwhelming, and they and they quote, unquote, just can’t deal. I mean, I’m just here to say it is a way more joyful path. When you say, Okay, this stuff that happened wasn’t great. But now I own my narrative, I own the story. And I’m going to change the ending, did you end up going back to your family and sort of other people that you felt like you needed to kind of really have a conversation with them about some of these interesting because we have this concept of closure, right, that people want closure. And I think that’s pretty ridiculous. Like, you cannot control the reactions or stories that other people hold, you can only control your own reactions. So my parents, for example, you know, did not set out to neglect me. Nobody says, Let me screw up my kid as much as I possibly can. They did their best. And so for me, really what the journey was, was, instead of needing to have, you know, a big heart to heart with them, I was getting honest with myself that they did their best, they loved me the best they could. And that wasn’t good enough for me, and I was going to have to step in, and how they treated me just was not personal. We think of the relationship with our parents is utterly personal. It’s not. It’s simply how your parent is programmed to treat you, which is exactly how they treat everyone else. So you know, there was no Disney moment of and then, you know, my mom better. Yeah. Like, I don’t speak to my mom. And my relationship with my dad is complicated. And I’m stable, happy, held in love by all of my friends and their parents. So we find our ways, it’s just I think it’s really freeing once you kind of realize, Oh, this wasn’t personal. The way my parents treat me just isn’t that personal?
Kara Goldin 28:33
Yeah, no, it Yeah. Wasn’t against you. It was what they knew. Yeah, it’s what they knew. And it’s, it’s so true. And I think also, the time that they grew up in to, oh, yeah, that’s another piece of it, as well, and what their circumstances were so
Tara Schuster 28:50
and that’s the big thing. And I think in my book, I never, you know, we’re talking about kindness at the beginning. And I really set out to never paint my parents as villains. You know, I never, I don’t pretend to know what happened to them to make them the kinds of parents they were any adults who treat their children like that clearly went through something themselves. And, and I just, I think, giving people a little bit of the benefit of the doubt about why it ended up this way. I mean, of course, I’ve been through extensive therapy in order to feel this way. And I don’t feel this way every day. You know, at Thanksgiving, when my dad says something insane, I can be set off just like anybody else. But, you know, by and large, I, I feel a lot freer of those resentments
Kara Goldin 29:45
well, and probably much more empathetic to who sort of have those, you know, same challenges because it’s, as we always, I always say, you can’t pick your family right now. And it’s somebody said that to me many years ago, and I think we all have our moments for sure,
Tara Schuster 30:05
absolutely. And you know, this book isn’t just for people who had difficult upbringings at all, you know, and I’ve, I’ve just, I’ve noticed this, that there are audiences who they feel like they’re good at work but bad at living. They, you know, they’re hustling, they’re grinding, they’re on the outside doing really well. But they can find themselves crying in their cubicle at work. And they might have had parents who really nurtured them. So then they feel like, Oh, I shouldn’t feel this bad. I should be better. And what I’m trying to say is, no, you can feel however you actually do feel, but it’s time to face that, how do you actually feel, then we can heal from it. And so it’s been interesting to hear from readers who had amazing households growing up and still have a lot of the same issues. I had the same the at the start of the book.
Kara Goldin 31:04
Yeah, no, I think that that’s so true. So one of the quotes that I read about you in a Forbes interview, gonna totally surprise you here. Okay. I don’t ultimately need to know what I want to do. One day when I grow up, I just need to know what I want to change today.
31:22
I love
Kara Goldin 31:24
Yeah. And in today’s age, it’s very common for young people to be told to do what you are passionate about or to follow your heart. Can you expand on the idea of changing just focusing on what you need to change today?
Tara Schuster 31:39
Yes. So that article, you know, part of the context was I graduated college in 2008. And in 2008, every commencement address, if you look online was follow your bliss. Yeah. Well, it was like, there’s a recession, everything’s horrible. follow your bliss. What are you passionate about, and I was like, I’m passionate about puppetry is that like, what a career I should take. And it really annoyed me, because I wasn’t in a place to dream. I was barely surviving. You know, I had deep psychological problems. And there was a recession. And this just, it just felt like the most of like, not in touch with reality thing to say, follow your passion. So what I’ve realized is, you don’t need to know the end goal. I don’t even I don’t know, the end goal. But I do every day, ask what I’m curious about, what’s the little thing that’s gonna move me closer to whatever small-term goal I’m working towards. Even something like writing a book, you know, I wrote this book before work every single day by setting a timer on my iPhone, you know, and that every single day was the commitment I could give. And as long as you’re giving a commitment to yourself, you are going to move forward. You know, I couldn’t know what this book would lead to, I wouldn’t know. I’m currently writing the follow-up book to it. And, you know, doing speaking engagements, and it’s opened up this whole other career for me that I would have never imagined. But I didn’t even need to imagine it. All I needed to do was commit to myself enough to do the task I wanted to do to do the one thing right ahead of me. So that I, you know, and if we break down everything into these smaller goals, everything becomes achievable.
Kara Goldin 33:45
Yeah, I say that all the time. Yeah, it’s so true. I am constantly telling people that I get a lot done in a day, but people always ask me if I’m, do I have huge lists? And I’m like, No, I have a couple of things that I get done every single day. Because if my lists are too long, then I won’t get them all done. And I’ll feel bad about myself that and very get very anxious. And, and so it’s the same theory.
Tara Schuster 34:13
And the key is to, it’s the trick that you’re talking about, is to find ways not to feel bad about yourself. Yeah. Because basic, like that, are not where the good growth that’s not, we’re in a culture that says grind, grind, grind, Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, you know, work yourself to the bone, and that’s how you’re gonna succeed. But it’s not really true. You know, creativity, these, like great ideas don’t necessarily come from. I was the busiest most overworked person in the history of the planet. And that’s how I did it. But just sort of a like, it’s a false narrative.
Kara Goldin 34:51
Yeah, I totally agree. So, what is the strongest message you hope that people will get out of reading your book
Tara Schuster 35:00
one of two things I’m gonna go with the second thing is that life is not a series of crises to Endor. It’s to be enjoyed. I think I and I, it’s so important to me, I grew up thinking my life was just a crisis to crisis to a crisis situation. And that I needed to get through my life that led me to drugs and alcohol because I was just trying to get through and cope with my life. And I finally realized, Oh, wait, I get to live this life, I get to enjoy this life A Why am I if I’m trying to get through my life, then it’s not really set up correctly. And I think, you know, the reason I say this message above, the other one I was thinking of is that we’re all inherently worthwhile. You know, I hope people take that, away from it to that, you know, your worth is not based on achievements, relationships, really anything other than, oh, you’re born cool, you’re worthwhile like you are already a worthwhile person on planet Earth. But I think in the pandemic, in particular, it’s important to remember that even in this crisis, life is not just a series of crises to be endured it is to be enjoyed.
Kara Goldin 36:18
It’s so true. I love it. So the best place to buy your book, buy yourself the effing lilies. Where
Tara Schuster 36:26
would you suggest you can buy it anywhere? Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, your local indie bookstore, anywhere books are sold.
Kara Goldin 36:33
I love it so much, and where are you working today? I mean, we’re I know in Los Angeles, but are you have a full-time job as well.
Tara Schuster 36:42
So, fortunately, the book has allowed me to finally take a break to work awesome. Yeah. So I left Comedy Central. And I’m currently working on the follow-up book and sort of this new career path that opened up to me.
Kara Goldin 36:58
So that’s so great. Yeah, very cool. Well, hopefully, there will be more funniness down the road because you’ve definitely been a part of some amazing opportunities. So that’s really, really great. So well, thank you so much. And thanks, everybody, for listening to Tara today. And, Tara, where’s the best place to find you as well.
Tara Schuster 37:22
So on the gram, Tara Schuster, and I have a newsletter at Tara schuster.com, where we’re growing this really cool community of readers and people who want to bring more kindness to themselves and others. And if you sign up for the newsletter, you get to be a part of it. We all email and it’s really beautiful, I love
Kara Goldin 37:43
it. I love it. It’s so great. Well, thanks everyone have a great rest of the week. before we sign off, I want to talk to you about fear. People like to talk about fearless leaders. But achieving big goals isn’t about fearlessness. successful leaders recognize their fears and decide to deal with them head-on in order to move forward. This is where my new book undaunted comes in. This book is designed for anyone who wants to succeed in the face of fear, overcome doubts and live a little undaunted. Order your copy today at undaunted, the book calm and learn how to look your doubts and doubters in the eye and achieve your dreams. For a limited time. You’ll also receive a free case of hint water. Do you have a question for me or want to nominate an innovator to spotlight send me a tweet at Kara golden and let me know. And if you liked what you heard, please leave me a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also follow along with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn at Kara golden thanks for listening
