697: Listen to This the Next Time You Want to Give Up! AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast The Rachel Hollis Podcast

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (697: Listen to This the Next Time You Want to Give Up!) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Go to PodExtra AI's podcast page (The Rachel Hollis Podcast) to view the AI-processed content of all episodes of this podcast.

The Rachel Hollis Podcast episodes list: view full AI transcripts and summaries of this podcast on the blog

Episode: 697: Listen to This the Next Time You Want to Give Up!

Author: Three Percent Chance
Duration: 00:42:43

Episode Shownotes

Did you pre-order Rach's NEW book? Get all your FREEBIES here!Pre-order your audiobook of ‘What if YOU Are the Answer’ narrated by Rachel on Audible today! You can also pre-order your e-book or hard copy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble (they have signed copies!), Books-A-Millon, Bookshop.org, or wherever books are

sold!In this motivational episode of the Rachel Hollis podcast, Rachel encourages listeners to find the willpower to take the next right step towards their dreams rather than waiting for a future version of themselves to become more capable. She emphasizes that everyone has what they need right now to make progress and shares personal insights on overcoming obstacles, criticism, and internal doubt.00:00 Finding Motivation to Pursue Your Dreams00:46 Introduction to the Rachel Hollis Podcast01:20 The Importance of Not Giving Up03:14 Understanding the Challenges of Pursuing Dreams06:36 The Power of Habit and Pushing Through Discomfort16:12 Reflecting on Progress and the Messy Middle25:55 Dealing with Criticism and Haters38:48 The Fear of Regret and Staying Motivated42:05 Conclusion and Final Encouragement Sign up for Rachel’s weekly email: https://msrachelhollis.com/insider/Call the podcast hotline and leave a voicemail! Call (737) 400-4626Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RachelHollisMotivation/videosFollow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MsRachelHollis To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices.

Summary

In episode 697 of The Rachel Hollis Podcast, titled "Listen to This the Next Time You Want to Give Up!", Rachel Hollis emphasizes the importance of finding motivation in the present to pursue dreams and handle obstacles effectively. She discusses the normalcy of wanting to give up when facing challenges, the necessity of perseverance and developing grit over time. Hollis encourages reflection on one’s progress during the difficult 'messy middle' phase, stresses the significance of filtering out negativity and criticism from others, and highlights the role of resilience in pursuing aspirations to avoid future regrets and achieve personal goals.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (697: Listen to This the Next Time You Want to Give Up!) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:01 Speaker_00
Trust me in this, it is better to find the motivation to keep going now than it is to fast forward in the future and hope that some future version of you is going to be more capable of accomplishing the dream.

00:00:17 Speaker_00
You have everything you need to pursue this dream. You maybe don't have everything you need to cross the finish line, but you absolutely, right now, today, wherever you are, you have everything that you need to take the next right step.

00:00:34 Speaker_00
And that is the only thing I am asking you to do in this conversation, is can you find the willpower to take the next right step? Hi, I'm Rachel, and in this show, we talk about everything.

00:00:52 Speaker_00
Life and work, health and healing, relationships with others and with ourself. These are stories for the seekers. These are conversations for the curious. This is The Rachel Hollis Podcast. Hey guys, it's Rach.

00:01:20 Speaker_00
Welcome to your Monday episode of the podcast and some straight motivation. I hope. I hope some motivation and some inspiration and specifically a little kick in the butt that you need to keep pursuing the dream.

00:01:37 Speaker_00
Now, based on the title of this episode, I'm assuming you're here because you are feeling like, oh my gosh, is this ever going to go anywhere?

00:01:47 Speaker_00
You're on the edge of giving up on your dream or letting go of the goal, or you just Googled, why do I want to cry all the time? And this podcast popped up. Either way, you are in the right place.

00:02:00 Speaker_00
Because my goodness, if there is one thing that I know how to do, it is motivate myself through really hard seasons, through times where I feel like I'm never going to see the dream come true.

00:02:13 Speaker_00
through grief, through loss, through pain, through trauma, through all the things, if I'm really good at one thing, it's standing back up and going again.

00:02:24 Speaker_00
And something that I have relied on so many times over the years is a podcast just like this one, or a YouTube video, or finding some piece of typically audio that I can listen to to hype me up when I'm feeling low.

00:02:39 Speaker_00
And that is what I hope you and I can do today. I would love to present you with a bunch of different reasons why you definitely should not give up on the goal. And the only thing I'm going to ask in return

00:02:51 Speaker_00
for this time, for the ideas, is that if you are inspired by this episode and you know someone else, maybe it's someone on your team, maybe it's your partner in this business you're building, or maybe it's your spouse, you guys are going through a hard season.

00:03:05 Speaker_00
If you know someone else that this would be helpful for, could you pass this along to them as well? Let's go. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about this insidious voice that tells us it would be so much easier just to quit.

00:03:23 Speaker_00
It's a completely universal feeling wanting to give up, especially when you're pursuing something that feels really personal to you, that feels really exciting to you. that feels like other people are watching you pursue it.

00:03:38 Speaker_00
Like, we can come up with all of these reasons why we should definitely just let it go. Or we tell ourselves the myth, well, I'll just not do it now. Maybe in a decade. Maybe when the kids are older.

00:03:52 Speaker_00
Maybe when I have more money or have more resources or have more time. Maybe then I'll be able to pursue this thing. But the truth is, you're going to encounter obstacles 10 years in the future just like you are today.

00:04:07 Speaker_00
Even if you had more money, more resources, more connections, more of whatever you tell yourself you need, even then you would encounter hard times.

00:04:17 Speaker_00
So you may as well keep going right now at the age that you are, with the drive that you have, with the vision in your heart, rather than give up.

00:04:26 Speaker_00
Because let me tell you something that you don't realize until you have given up on something and tried to restart the dream.

00:04:34 Speaker_00
If you've never done that before, then you don't understand that when you fast forward to whatever time period you feel more ready, when you fast forward to that time period, now you have the baggage of quitting.

00:04:48 Speaker_00
Now you've got a whole other party of people in the back of your mind being like, yeah, but remember, you couldn't do it last time. Why do you think you could do it this time?

00:04:57 Speaker_00
Maybe some of those people and some of those voices are actually real life people that you know, which makes it so much worse.

00:05:05 Speaker_00
So trust me in this, it is better to find the motivation to keep going now than it is to fast forward in the future and hope that some future version of you is going to be more capable of accomplishing the dream.

00:05:22 Speaker_00
You have everything you need to pursue this dream. You maybe don't have everything you need to cross the finish line, but you absolutely, right now, today, wherever you are, you have everything that you need to take the next right step.

00:05:39 Speaker_00
And that is the only thing I am asking you to do in this conversation, is can you find the willpower to take the next right step? Because you and I both know what it feels like to be all pumped up on something.

00:05:51 Speaker_00
Maybe you had enough espresso that you feel totally alive and you have hope-based espresso running through your veins. You're like, I can do all the things. Or maybe it's the new year when you're listening to this, or you just passed a big birthday.

00:06:04 Speaker_00
You're feeling really excited and really motivated. And then you can sprint. In those beautiful, empowered seasons, we can sprint and we can make incredible traction in a short amount of time. But the dream isn't accomplished in the sprint.

00:06:19 Speaker_00
The dream is accomplished in the willingness to stay in the marathon even when it gets hard. So today, I hope that by the end of this conversation, you're going to walk away feeling recharged and inspired and ready to keep going. So let's jump in.

00:06:36 Speaker_00
The first thing you need to understand about wanting to give up is that it is totally normal and proof that you are doing something hard. Wanting to give up on eating a bowl of Cheetos is not a problem that I have.

00:06:57 Speaker_00
Wanting to give up on laying on my sofa watching a Disney movie is not a problem that I have. I want to give up on the stuff that seems impossible.

00:07:11 Speaker_00
I want to give up on the stuff that meets with opposition, that other people don't understand, that other people think is ridiculous, that other people look at me funny for. I want to give up on the hard stuff.

00:07:23 Speaker_00
We never want to give up inside the comfort zone. Inside the comfort zone, we are fat and happy and doing well. We're like a little hog on slop. We're feeling really good inside that comfort zone.

00:07:36 Speaker_00
We might know on some deeper level that we should be living life a bit differently. But for the most part, everything in us is going to settle into that feeling. We don't need to give up on anything.

00:07:48 Speaker_00
So you have to understand that when you are pushing yourself outside of a space that feels normal to you, Everything in your body is going to retaliate. Everything, your nervous system, your mind, everything is going to push back.

00:08:05 Speaker_00
It's going to push back because your body is this incredible machine that has learned to function in a way that has one central goal. Your body, your mind, your nervous system has one goal, dude. And that goal is to keep you alive.

00:08:23 Speaker_00
And your body knows that one thing keeps you alive. And that is living life exactly how I've been living it. Because living life exactly how you've been living it has kept you alive.

00:08:38 Speaker_00
So anything that you do to push yourself outside of the norm is going to freak your system the hell out. And the only way to get past the discomfort of your system freaking out is to keep doing the thing.

00:08:56 Speaker_00
You have to keep doing the thing long enough that your system is like, oh, this is how we are now. We jog for 20 minutes every day and we don't die. And now this is the new way that we keep ourselves alive. Habit is incredibly powerful.

00:09:14 Speaker_00
Two favorite books on the subject if you want to take a deep dive on the power of habit, Atomic Habits, obviously, and The Power of Habit. Both are great books on this.

00:09:25 Speaker_00
What I want you to get out of that quick biology lesson is that it is supposed to feel uncomfortable to push into an area you haven't pushed into. Hear me, even if you've been pushing for three years or 10.

00:09:39 Speaker_00
Now, certainly if you've been doing the same thing for 10 years and you are not seeing results, buddy, that is a sign that we need to change up our approach. Doesn't mean you need to quit. It means that the way you are doing the thing is not working.

00:09:55 Speaker_00
But pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone into unknown areas in any way, in your health, in your relationship, with your business, with your life, when you push into a new space, your body freaks out.

00:10:09 Speaker_00
And your body will do everything it can to calm you back down, and it will calm you back down into a state that is what you were doing before. And when you do the thing you were doing before, your body goes, oh, this is what's right.

00:10:26 Speaker_00
I feel really good. This is what's right. It's not what's right. It's what's known. So understand it's supposed to feel hard because it matters. The thing you are doing matters.

00:10:42 Speaker_00
So wanting to give up is totally normal, but here's the thing, and I'm gonna say something so obvious you're gonna be like that you're an idiot, Rach, but hear me out and sit with this for a second.

00:10:56 Speaker_00
If you keep pursuing the dream, you are going to achieve the dream Or at some point, you'll be 120 years old and you will die.

00:11:08 Speaker_00
And if you are 120 years old and you did not achieve the dream, and you have gone on to whatever comes next after this lifetime, you will not care that you didn't achieve the dream. The ghost of you will be like, good for me.

00:11:24 Speaker_00
I spent my entire life in pursuit of something that lit my heart on fire. And you know what? I never became a professional tap dancer who made a fortune on the Broadway stage doing tap.

00:11:40 Speaker_00
But by God, I had a freaking fantastic time taking tap dancing lessons and meeting tap friends and starting my website taptaptap.com and selling tap shoes. Man, I just lived a beautiful life in pursuit of something that I was excited about.

00:11:59 Speaker_00
Those are the options. You keep pursuing the dream and you figure it out, yay you, congratulations, or you keep pursuing the dream and you live a better life in pursuit of something that you actually want to accomplish.

00:12:16 Speaker_00
If you keep going, that's what happens. Or you quit. Or you quit. You got three options. You quit and you regret it, I guarantee, Or you keep trying. Every day you wake up and you realize what a privilege it is that you get to keep trying.

00:12:38 Speaker_00
And you can't always try in the same energy and you can't always try with the same resources. And yes, we have seasons of our lives that slow us down. I am sitting recording this episode for you in my daughter's bedroom.

00:12:53 Speaker_00
because she's here and it's the quietest space in the house. It's funny because you would think she might be in here playing and I'm like sitting. No, no, no, no. Come on. She's seven and a half. She's a holy terror.

00:13:05 Speaker_00
She's the apple of my eye and the star of my nightmare. She is both. But is there a season in my life, maybe when she's older, that it's easier to do these podcast episodes for you? Absolutely.

00:13:18 Speaker_00
We can't always pursue the dream with the same energy throughout our life. But if we keep pursuing the dream, we're either going to achieve it or we're going to live a life in pursuit of a dream. Instead of what?

00:13:33 Speaker_00
Being like Aunt Carol, who's like bitter and mean and only likes her dogs. We still invite her to the holidays parties, but it's stressful. What is the alternative?

00:13:44 Speaker_00
What is better than getting out of bed in the morning and pursuing something that makes you feel passionate?

00:13:52 Speaker_00
And I don't mean like grand passion, capital T, truth for the rest of your life, but like you get up and you go, okay, we're going to keep trying at this thing. And I'd also like to say that the goal, the dream, they morph.

00:14:09 Speaker_00
They evolve with you as you evolve. I wanted to be a zoologist when I was a little kid. Can you even imagine me trying to take care of a zoo animal? You can't maintain a proper manicure in that environment. Come on, guys.

00:14:27 Speaker_00
The goal, the dream, it will evolve with you. I just want you to keep coming back to this idea. You do not have to figure out everything. You just have to take the next step.

00:14:37 Speaker_00
And I want to mention another book if you haven't read it, which might be really good for you in this season, which is Grit by Angela Duckworth. Have you read Grit? I hope you have. It was so popular when it came out.

00:14:49 Speaker_00
She talks about the power of grit, perseverance, and getting back up and going again, and she says that people with grit, meaning passion and perseverance over the long term, are more likely to succeed than those relying on talent alone.

00:15:09 Speaker_00
And here's the beauty of grit, and please go read the book, or she'll tell you all about it. Grit can be developed. Even when your motivation feels off, even when you're totally not inspired, grit can be developed just like a muscle.

00:15:25 Speaker_00
You work it out every day. You stand back up even though you don't feel like it. You do the thing again. You go and you go and you go until it is more normal for you to keep standing up than it is to stay down.

00:15:38 Speaker_00
Winston Churchill said that success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. And, you know, clearly my buddy Winston never had to deal with trying to pursue a dream and raise kids and doing all the things wherever you're at.

00:15:59 Speaker_00
I know not everybody has the same reality that I have, but wherever you're at, you've got your own version of hard. Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. Amen.

00:16:12 Speaker_00
The second thing that you need to know about why you should not quit is that you are closer than you think. If you were taking stock more regularly, if you were looking backwards at the path and thinking, God, how far have I come? How far have I come?

00:16:31 Speaker_00
If I look at the last

00:16:33 Speaker_00
couple of years it's so easy for the hustler that is still inside of me the like hustle mentality to be like you could have written more like you could have written another book by now and you could have done this i know that i sound insane right now because the next book comes out in january but y'all Enneagram 3 okay yes i go to therapy like i know i can push myself too hard this part of me used to be the captain of the ship it's not the captain of the ship anymore but it's riding shotgun

00:17:03 Speaker_00
It's riding shoddy and it's tapping the calmer, more centered, more grounded driver of the ship to be like, hey, Rach, we could do more. So it's so easy for that version of me to try and tell me that I need to go harder.

00:17:22 Speaker_00
And then I think of all that I have lived through in the last couple of years. Like I think of how hard it was to navigate the kids through the grief of losing their dad, how absolutely impossible that was. I mean, you can use your imagination.

00:17:38 Speaker_00
Just like so brutal and so hard. And they're doing really well. The kids are doing so well. They are thriving. And that really took... This is my opinion. Obviously, I'm the only one. I don't know who else would know why, but

00:18:03 Speaker_00
I really think that was because I became even more bananas crazy about routine, and this is what we're doing, and everything was so consistent, and the same thing over and over, and they can count on me, and I'm at the things, and we are a family, and we're doing all the ... I quadrupled down.

00:18:27 Speaker_00
on being a mom and showing up for them and doing everything and will continue to do that, obviously. But shifting gears, them losing their other parent means that I had to become more in that realm.

00:18:46 Speaker_00
And becoming more in that realm means that I didn't have the capacity and the bandwidth to work as hard as I might have been able to in the past. and I have absolute faith that my little hustler in the shotgun seat, she'll get her moment again.

00:19:02 Speaker_00
It might be, I don't know, sometime in the future when they're older and they don't need me quite as much.

00:19:10 Speaker_00
But the reason I tell you that story is that the part of our brain that tells us we should have done more is not the part of our brain that looks back and goes, holy crap, Think of where you were two years ago. Think of where you were 18 months ago.

00:19:28 Speaker_00
Maybe for some of you, it's think of where you were five years ago. It's so easy to think we should have made more progress because we're only looking at one lane of our life. You know, maybe we're only looking at the business lane.

00:19:44 Speaker_00
We're like, I should have made more progress this year in the business lane. Or we're looking at just the personal side. We're like, I should have made more progress on the personal side. Like, why don't I have a partner? Why don't we have this?

00:19:55 Speaker_00
Or you know what you need to think of? Think of Andy in the Devil Wears Prada.

00:20:01 Speaker_00
Remember how like her personal life is falling apart, but she's thriving at business, and I'm not saying that we all need to live like Andy, but I think we all would like to live like Andy for, I mean, at least six months.

00:20:13 Speaker_00
We'd like to wear those outfits and work for Meryl Streep. That's neither here nor there. The point is, it's not always going to be even. In fact, it's rarely going to be even.

00:20:23 Speaker_00
So if you took a more accurate perspective check to see how far you've come, you would realize like, oh my gosh, I'm actually making great progress.

00:20:36 Speaker_00
If you are working on the dream every day, you're putting in the time, even if the only thing you were able to do today is think about and focus on the dream, and this is what I wanna do, and when I get a chance to work on my marketing plan, this is what it's gonna look like, and when I get this moment, this is what it's gonna look like.

00:20:53 Speaker_00
If you're focused on it and you're putting energy into that thing every day, not into why isn't it here, but into this is where I'm going, this is my North Star, I am totally focused, I promise you, you are making progress.

00:21:12 Speaker_00
And my instinct is that the reason you feel like you're not making progress has more to do with you not giving yourself real credit. So you're closer than you think.

00:21:23 Speaker_00
But you're also probably in the hardest part of the journey, which is the messy middle. The middle is where you cannot see progress.

00:21:35 Speaker_00
You know, you're like a duck, like your legs are like flipping, flapping, spinning, swimming under the water, but above the water, the duck's just chilling. You're not seeing progress, so it feels so much easier to walk away.

00:21:52 Speaker_00
Being in that messy middle is like being in the middle of Ikea. Have you ever been to an Ikea? It's massive. And you have to follow this very specific trail. You can't just like go in, get a throw pillow and leave.

00:22:05 Speaker_00
You have to like follow these breadcrumbs and there's like arrows. It's a whole thing. And you get lost and you're hungry and you're questioning your life choices. But I swear, if you just keep following the path, you will get to the end of it.

00:22:21 Speaker_00
You will get to the end where there are Swedish meatballs for like a dollar. And three of you who've ever been to Ikea just laughed at that joke, I hope. Just keep going.

00:22:34 Speaker_00
Yes, the middle is hard, and nobody, freaking nobody is applauding in the middle. In fact, it is just like a marathon, if you've ever done a marathon, or a half marathon, or even a 5K.

00:22:46 Speaker_00
People line up to cheer at the beginning, they line up to cheer at the end. They are not cheering for you at mile 18 when you feel like you are about to die. You are not about to die. You are about to evolve, so keep freaking going.

00:23:02 Speaker_00
Also, if you need it, sometimes I arm myself with other people's successes to keep me motivated. Look up stories about people who had to try so many times before they succeeded. Look up someone who succeeded after they almost quit.

00:23:20 Speaker_00
My most successful book is called Girl, Wash Your Face. That book has sold millions. I don't even know the count. Let's say, I don't know, 6 million copies. Just massive. All over the world. Bananas. I'm so thankful that I wrote it.

00:23:39 Speaker_00
I don't know how that happened. I don't think I will ever repeat it again. Yay. Thank you, universe. That was awesome. All of that to say this massively successful book was turned down by all but two publishers. All but two.

00:23:57 Speaker_00
And this went to 40 different publishers, one of which was my existing publisher. So something happens when you have a book contract, you sign something that says that the publisher who publishes your book has first right of refusal.

00:24:14 Speaker_00
That means that the next project you make, you have to send to them and then they tell you if they want it or not. And that publisher turned down Girl, Wash Your Face. The editor literally said, I don't get this. She literally said, I don't get it.

00:24:30 Speaker_00
Like you start the book talking about how you pee your pants, like I don't understand. And I was like, okay. And I remember thinking, oh Lord, if my existing publisher doesn't want this, this idea is insane. And two publishers came back and wanted it.

00:24:47 Speaker_00
And truly one of them was like, we want it, but it needs to be changed a lot. And the publisher that ended up taking it, bless them. Thank you. I don't think they took it because they thought it was going to be this massive success.

00:25:01 Speaker_00
They took it because they were like, well, we'll try. I am telling you guys, so many things that you are pursuing in this life are held by gatekeepers.

00:25:13 Speaker_00
There are people standing in front of the gate that are trying to keep a lot of people out of what's inside. And the gatekeepers end up becoming the authority figure on what works and what doesn't. And it is all opinion. It is their passing opinion.

00:25:30 Speaker_00
I am confident that you and I could do some research and find so many stories. Harry Potter books were passed on a million times. I was talking to Seth Godin the other day and he said, oh gosh, what was it?

00:25:44 Speaker_00
Hundreds of rejection letters he got from people who didn't understand why his books would be successful. There's so many examples of this Don't give up. The third reason that you might want to give up, we have to talk about it, is criticism.

00:26:02 Speaker_00
It's haters. It's naysayers. It's all of the adversity that rises up, either loving or hateful, when we are trying to pursue something. Because rarely are we able to pursue something in a vacuum.

00:26:15 Speaker_00
Meaning that it's pretty hard to pursue this big exciting dream that you have without other people in your life knowing that you want to do it. And when other people know that we want to do something, it's really common that someone expresses doubt.

00:26:32 Speaker_00
Or worse, they tell you outright that you can't do it or you shouldn't do it. Sometimes those voices come from people who are super close to us. It's our parents, it's our spouse, it's our sister, it's people we love.

00:26:45 Speaker_00
And sometimes it comes from complete strangers who think they know what's best. Also real talk, sometimes the loudest hater is your own voice in the back of your head. Okay.

00:27:00 Speaker_00
I got a few ideas for why people criticize, and this is what I lean on when I get people who are criticizing what I'm working on. Number one, they cannot see what you can see. Period. Point blank.

00:27:17 Speaker_00
I spent the better part of the beginning of my career trying to convince people to see what I could see. In a lot of ways, I still feel like I do that.

00:27:28 Speaker_00
I still feel like I am trying to convince the world and media and publishing that humans are real and we are flawed and we are imperfect and we need to talk about it all. We need to talk about the parts that are beautiful.

00:27:44 Speaker_00
We need to talk about the parts that are gross. We need to talk about bitterness and rage and

00:27:49 Speaker_00
yes, maybe how to do a smoky eye and cover up the pimple on your chin, but also we need to talk about periods and hormone health and depression and anxiety and all of it. I am

00:28:07 Speaker_00
amazed that I am still trying to convince people that women especially want to have conversations that are real.

00:28:15 Speaker_00
I couldn't find anyone to see what I could see before I wrote Girl, Wash Your Face, and I really thought we had evolved so much since then.

00:28:23 Speaker_00
But I know that we haven't, because I know the pushback that I got on the new book for talking about things that, oh, well, this is gross, or people don't want to hear about your period. They don't want to hear about my period.

00:28:38 Speaker_00
We want to have a conversation about this. This is affecting millions and millions and millions and millions of females, and we are not talking about it enough.

00:28:50 Speaker_00
I know it's real because we're in the midst of doing press for this book and one of the cool things that can happen for a book is you can get an article or they'll take an excerpt from your book or they'll do things in print or newspapers or whatever.

00:29:07 Speaker_00
Even that is like, oh, well, it's a pretty conservative publishing thing, so they probably don't want you to write about your period. I'm like, what?

00:29:18 Speaker_00
I don't understand how something that affects so many people in this world is still this thing we're not supposed to talk about. But whatever, I am digressing. The point is, I know that there is an audience who wants to have conversations like this.

00:29:35 Speaker_00
I know that there is. Because y'all show up every week. Because y'all buy the book. Because some of us, me and you, going back to my blogger days, have been in communication for 15 years. So I know this is a thing.

00:29:50 Speaker_00
But we will spend so much time and energy trying to convince people who cannot see what we can see, what the vision is. Y'all, stop trying to convince people who are imaginatively blind to see. They can't.

00:30:10 Speaker_00
So instead, put your time and energy and resources into making that vision so vivid for yourself so it can be the light at the end of your tunnel. The haters can't see what you can see.

00:30:25 Speaker_00
The second reason that haters exist, I hate to say this because it sounds mean and it feels argumentative, which I am not. I'm not a confrontation kind of gal, but this is real.

00:30:44 Speaker_00
There is a certain amount of jealousy inside of anyone who spends their time talking crap about other people's creation. Full stop. There is no way that you feel totally secure in yourself

00:31:01 Speaker_00
and simultaneously spend your time ripping apart what someone else created if you don't have some jealousy.

00:31:08 Speaker_00
And the beautiful gift of jealousy is that if we are honest, if we really are honest with ourselves, we will see that that jealousy is shining a light on something that we want. Oh, I wish I could do the thing like he does it.

00:31:23 Speaker_00
I wish I could take photos that are that beautiful. I wish I could put together outfits that are that gorgeous. I wish I could have a big company like she does. I wish I could do this thing or that thing.

00:31:33 Speaker_00
The jealousy is shining a light on our own dreams and our own desires. but it is impossible for someone to hate on you if they don't want some part of what you have. And this is not even something you need to take a deep dive on.

00:31:48 Speaker_00
You don't need to try and understand the hater. You don't need to, oh, what did I do? No, don't give it any energy. Don't give it any energy. Have you heard that thing? It was going around social media for a minute about the snake.

00:32:02 Speaker_00
Like imagine a snake comes up and bites you and the snake is venomous and the poison is surging through your veins and rather than immediately go and have the snake bite treated and get the venom sucked out so that you can live, you follow the snake and ask it why it bit you.

00:32:20 Speaker_00
Tell the snake that it was unfair that it bit you and ask it why it doesn't like you and wonder how you could have done it better next time so that the snake won't bite you in the future. You chase after the thing.

00:32:30 Speaker_00
You give energy to the thing that is literally running through your veins and killing you rather than moving on. Haters are always going to exist if you are doing anything, and I mean anything, in this world that is putting yourself out there.

00:32:47 Speaker_00
anything, it's just gonna show up.

00:32:51 Speaker_00
And honestly, if you don't have people that dislike what you're doing, like if you're creating content and you don't have a couple people that are like, I don't get this, I don't like this, well, you're probably not making any waves.

00:33:05 Speaker_00
You're probably not doing anything to change the culture or shift perception or shake up the ground or make it better for future generations.

00:33:15 Speaker_00
If you're just going along with the flow, you're doing everything that you're supposed to do, you're not saying anything, you're not doing anything, you're not being anything, I guarantee you don't have haters then.

00:33:27 Speaker_00
There's no way you have made it to this point in this podcast if you are someone who wants that kind of life. You want a life with impact. You want a life with legacy. You want something more than the generations who came before you.

00:33:42 Speaker_00
Your ancestors did not work that hard so that you could get here and give up because some troll on the internet said that they didn't like your photo. because they didn't like the way you baked that cake.

00:33:58 Speaker_00
My God, if it is that easy to knock you off this path to the dream, you don't want the dream badly enough. The haters are gonna hate that is what they do.

00:34:11 Speaker_00
And the more energy you give to them, the bigger the wall you build in between where you are and where you wanna be. Because imagine this for a minute.

00:34:22 Speaker_00
Imagine that your dream is a path you're walking and at one end of it could be miles down the road, this is your dream come true, this is the life you've always wanted to have.

00:34:33 Speaker_00
And over here on the left-hand side, that's the path where the haters are lined up. You understand those are two completely different directions.

00:34:45 Speaker_00
You can try and take on the naysayers, whether that's people on the internet or your mama in real life, or you can just keep moving in the direction of where you need to go.

00:34:54 Speaker_00
When people discourage us from a dream, it says more about their limitations than ours. And remember my favorite quote on this subject. Mediocre will always try and drag you back down to mediocre with them. Mediocre doesn't want you to do better.

00:35:14 Speaker_00
Mediocre doesn't want you to leave your small town. Mediocre doesn't want you to sell more of your product. Mediocre people want you to be mediocre because when you stand tall, you shine a light on all the ways they're not showing up in their life.

00:35:29 Speaker_00
And with love and respect to whoever that represents in your life, it is not your job to stay small so that they get to be the big man. It is not your job to stay small so that mama still feels like she's your superior.

00:35:46 Speaker_00
It is not your job to stay small. Your birthright is to stand solidly on this ground. Your birthright is to move forward with purpose. You don't have to have certainty, but you can move forward with purpose.

00:36:02 Speaker_00
Understand, too, that the adversity you face is a test of your commitment. Let me say it again. The adversity you face is a test of your commitment. Do you want this thing or not?

00:36:18 Speaker_00
Because my guess is if you are facing significant adversity, this thing that you want must be pretty big. If all you're trying to do is throw the local 5K in your community, that's a beautiful, amazing thing.

00:36:35 Speaker_00
But you're probably not going to come up against that much hate from people outside your community, right?

00:36:44 Speaker_00
But if you decide that you want to throw a marathon for women only that raises money for healthcare and that travels all around the world and I don't know, something that would stir up the patriarchy, you better believe that if you're trying to pursue something big and incredible like that, you're gonna come up against some pretty heavy resistance.

00:37:14 Speaker_00
The resistance is a test of your commitment. So see those challenges and criticism as a sign not to quit. They are tests of how much you truly want something. Adversity can be incredible fuel if you let it.

00:37:34 Speaker_00
Instead of like moaning like, oh, why don't people like me? Why don't they get this? Why is everyone stacked against me? Prove them wrong. Prove them wrong. Show them that you're not what they say that you are. Show them that you're bigger.

00:37:47 Speaker_00
Show them what the dream looks like. Show them that the product works. Show them that the business will succeed. Show them that the nonprofit actually does what you want it to do. Prove them wrong. Because the alternative is you give up and they win.

00:38:01 Speaker_00
And they win. And you know what? They're not gonna sit at the top of some evil overlord tower and like tap their fingers together and laugh maniacally and be like, ha ha ha, I got Becky. I got her. I knocked her off her perch.

00:38:17 Speaker_00
I knocked her off the journey. She's never pursuing that dream again. No. You think the haters care about you, Becky? They don't. They are simultaneously hating on 50 or 100 other people at the same time. The haters hate themselves.

00:38:36 Speaker_00
They hate themselves and they take it out on as many people as they possibly can. So you giving up on your dream, it solves nothing. You want to shut them up? Prove them wrong.

00:38:48 Speaker_00
We're coming to the end of this conversation, and I want to leave you on a strong note. And so I have to leave you on the thing that motivates me when nothing else will, and that is regret. I don't want to regret things.

00:39:02 Speaker_00
I do not want to get to the end of this life and know I could have given more."

00:39:06 Speaker_00
Ed Milet has this incredible quote I've always loved where he tells a story of like, imagine that at the end of your life, you go up to heaven and you meet the person that you could have become.

00:39:21 Speaker_00
Imagine it's the end of your life and you meet the person, like all the potential fulfilled, like you did everything that you could have done in this lifetime. Imagine that you get to meet them at the end of your life.

00:39:33 Speaker_00
Ed says, when I meet that person, I want to be shaking hands with myself. I want to be a mirror image of them. It is worth you doing a gut check right now and asking, if you are walking in pursuit of who you know you can be.

00:39:54 Speaker_00
Because when I get to the end of this life, I don't know when that will be. None of us know when it's all done. But by God, I do not want the ghost of 120-year-old me to be like, dang it, Rachel, you could have done something more.

00:40:11 Speaker_00
You could have done something more, but you played it safe. You could have done something more, but you were worried about trolls on the internet. You could have done something more. Don't have regrets.

00:40:25 Speaker_00
Use the motivation of like, be the person that your 10 year old self needed when you were 10 years old. Be that person now. Or imagine that you are on your deathbed. You're an old lady, you're an old man, you're on your deathbed.

00:40:42 Speaker_00
What are you going to regret not doing? If you live every freaking day in pursuit of who you know you might be, you will get to that version of you without regrets.

00:40:55 Speaker_00
I'm not saying you will achieve every single thing you set out to achieve, but by God, you will live a fulfilled life.

00:41:03 Speaker_00
You will live a life that is unique and exciting and different than billions of other people who are just going through the same routine and doing the same thing day after day. Stand back up and go again.

00:41:17 Speaker_00
And if you feel like you fall, stand back up and go again. Keep going. Keep going.

00:41:25 Speaker_00
I wish that every single person who was in pursuit of a dream could be surrounded by thousands of cheering fans who kept telling them like, go, and they're like holding up posters and you can do it and like high five, power up.

00:41:38 Speaker_00
Like, I wish everybody could have that. We don't. We have to be our own hype squad. We have to be our own cheerleaders. We have to do it ourself. So do it yourself. Don't give up. I promise you that moving forward, even if you do it so slowly,

00:41:59 Speaker_00
is a million times better than telling yourself you can quit and start again later. I hope that this conversation was helpful. I hope that you found it inspiring.

00:42:09 Speaker_00
It gave you the kick that you needed to go into this week and do great and incredible things. I will be back soon with more conversation, but as always, until I talk to you again, I love you and I'm rooting for you.

00:42:30 Speaker_00
The Rachel Hollis Podcast is produced by me, Rachel Hollis. It's edited by Andrew Weller and Jack Noble.