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AMY PORTERFIELD: Do you want to be your own PR agent and land big profile interviews and features? And are you sick of being overwhelmed and exhausted by your to-do list? Well, my guest today has landed herself in over three hundred media publications, including Oprah, Marie Claire, Forbes, and the Today show. And the thing is, she knows how to get her mindset right so that these opportunities easily come her way. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. She's going to be sharing her secrets for getting the things that you want in your life and appreciating the things you already have.
INTRO: I'm Amy Porterfield, and this is Online Marketing Made Easy.
AMY: You most likely know her name because, as I said at the beginning, she's been featured in a ton of our favorite publications and shows. Her name is Susie Moore, and she's hanging out with me today on the podcast.
Now, this former Silicon Valley sales director turned life coach, advice columnist, and author is a force to be reckoned with, especially when it comes to being your own PR agent. She knows the best strategies, she knows the best techniques, and she's actually going to share a few of them on the episode today. So if you've ever said, “How do you get noticed in a noisy world online?” well, we are answering that question.
But more importantly, I want to talk about this concept that she has written about in her book Let It Be Easy: Simple Ways to Stop Stressing & Start Living. She talks about letting go of overwhelm and finding the ease in the things in front of you. And I promise you, when you walk away from this episode, you are going to be looking at your life differently, in a way that doesn’t feel so hard, doesn't feel so stressful, and definitely doesn't feel so overwhelming. I think we could all use a little shot of that right now, so that's why we're talking about it on this episode.
Also, if you've been loving these episodes, can you please do me a favor? Can you send or just share this episode with a friend? Send it to them via text if you want, link up to it, and just let them know, “Hey, if you’re dealing with overwhelm, you’re dealing with stress, you want things to be easier, this is the episode to listen to.” It’s the biggest way you can support Online Marketing Made Easy and make an impact in the lives of other entrepreneurs that you know. So, shoot them a little text with a link to the episode or a previous one that you’ve loved. And thank you so much in advance from the bottom of my heart.
All right. Please help me welcome my sweet, dear friend, Susie Moore.
Well, well, well, welcome to the show, Susie. I'm so glad to have you here.
SUSIE MOORE: Oh, my gosh, Amy. What a thrill to be on your very fancy podcast. Thank you so much for having me.
AMY: I feel like this is a long time coming, and I'm just so glad we finally got here. So, I got to have lunch with you and Julie Solomon—
SUSIE: Yeah.
AMY: —and that was my first experience getting to sit at a table with you. Here's the truth. Everyone tells me, “Oh, my gosh. You got to meet Susie. Oh, my gosh. You got to meet Susie.” And they use a word for you, Susie that you probably know this, but I've heard it more than once, they'll say, “She's magic.”
SUSIE: Aww.
AMY: Isn’t that a great word for someone to explain or say who you are? “She’s magic.” And I didn't get what they meant until I sat down with you. And you are. I just need to know, literally, are you always happy? This is a very honest question, because I can't imagine you having a bad day.
SUSIE: You know, this question does come up for me sometimes, and the answer is not always. I'm human, but I am happy most of the time because I know how to control my mind, and that for me is the most important thing because if I can't control my mind, my beliefs, where I direct my energy, I don't have anything. And so me being consciously in control of my thinking, where I direct my intention and my focus, that allows me to just realize how much I have and how much possibility there is and how much joy that almost always is in the present moment, even if you don't necessarily think so.
AMY: Oh, that’s so good. It's exactly what I've been taught about really mining your mindset and really paying attention to what thoughts are coming up. And we're going to get into that even more, but let me back up just a little bit.
When people have met you for the first time and they'll say, “Oh, tell me about yourself,”—so, I can see you right now at a cocktail party. You've got champagne in your hand, you've got a great blowout, and a really great outfit on. That's how I always see you, just for the record. You know how to live. You know how to live—and so someone comes up to you and they're like, “Tell me about yourself.” What do you say you do?
SUSIE: Mmm. Ooh, what a good question. Well, it's changed over the years as my career and business has changed. But essentially, now, I say that I'm obsessed with helping people become more confident and confident in an authentic, easy way, which is simply just coming back to who you actually are, the truth of who you are.
And you know, I've had a lot of ups and downs. If you have followed my work and you have read my books, you'll know that I started out in life with a really shaky start, a very chaotic start. I lived in domestic-abuse shelters, I lived on welfare, moved around a lot as a child, lots and lots of chaos, unpredictability. And when I was a kid, I was like, oh, when I grow up, I'm going to have a really amazing life, right? I saw my mom struggle. I'm like, I'm going to be happy, I'm going to marry a normal person, I'm going to have one of those important jobs with the ladies that I see on TV, and everything's going to be easy. Once I become an adult and escape this, everything's going to be fun and easy.
And then, kind of coming from that background, growing up, moving to America in my twenties, I managed to achieve a lot of that, right? So I became a Silicon Valley executive in the tech world by the age of thirty, I was making half a million dollars a year, and my life was still hard, Amy. I was like, oh, so I've had the hard part. This is going to be the easy part.
And then, when I kind of created the career, worked hard to get there, I was like, well, when does the ease come in? Like, when does this full confidence in myself? When does the low-level anxiety go away? It turns out it was hard back then and then it felt hard even when I thought I did everything I needed for my life to be easy and for me to be fully confident.
So that's why I'm now obsessed with ease, with joy, with letting myself be myself, and really helping others unlock this too, because ease is a skill just like any other. And to me, it's the most important thing because if we can't allow it in, then we're missing the point of our life, and we're really setting ourselves up for a lot of regret.
AMY: I love that you just said “ease is a skill.” I have never thought of it that way. I am one that makes everything a little bit more difficult than it needs to be. That is me, and that's why I love spending time with you because I know that it's not necessary.
So, talk to me about living in a state of constant overwhelm. We call this the other O word in our world because so many of my students are always overwhelmed. They use that word like it's just a normal word in the vocabulary that they use daily, multiple times, and I found myself doing the same, so it's not just them, and making everything more complicated than it needs to be. So why do we do this to ourselves? And there's got to be another way, so please talk about that.
SUSIE: There is another way. And even this word overwhelm, it's interesting, right? When we picture overwhelm, I almost imagine someone, like, with her hands in the air, everything coming at her, and it all feels like too much. Overwhelm alone, if you just even really identify it, study it for a moment, it can often—not always—but it can often be a stress response to a lot of things actually going right. Like, when you think about it, overwhelm—so, okay, you got a book to write, a launch to kick off next month, you've got podcast interviews to do, you’ve got clients to serve. These are things that we want. This is what we've wanted for a long time. And what is the alternative? Not having the podcast, not having the book, not having the clients to serve. That's not wanted, right?
So often, even just understanding, okay, overwhelm, what's happening right now? Like, looking at it, pausing for a moment, and realizing—I've coached so many people on this, who are overwhelmed—a lot of things are coming to fruition that we've wanted for a long time, and that can be a pretty gorgeous thing. Even that slight shift in looking at a current stressful situation, hey, a lot of good things are happening. When nothing's happening, that's not great, right? We don't like it when there's nothing going on. A lot going on often means a lot going right is happening.
But then I also, in a situation where you feel stress arising in the body, because the way that the body works and the brain works is when we feel stress, we perceive it as an actual physical threat. That's how the brain interprets it, because it's set up to survival is its number one job. So we have these somatic symptoms, right? We have, like, if you notice our heart beating fast, we have tunnel vision, we have all of these. We can feel the stress in our body.
I have three questions that I love to, like, stop, drop, and ask—
AMY: Ooh.
SUSIE: —if I feel that coming, because we know that feeling, and it's horrible.
AMY: Okay. I want these questions.
SUSIE: It can feel scary. Like, you see a mean comment or you see an email come in with some bad news and perceive the bad news. Whatever it may be coming at you, you want to catch this early, right? You don't want this to go on for an hour or two hours and you're in this spiral of stress. In the moment, you can feel the negative charge in your body, that stressful emotion. You can say, first of all, like, this is an immediate interrupt question. How serious is this, really?
AMY: Ooh. That's good. That’s good, because I'm pretty much always going to say not as serious as I'm making it.
SUSIE: Right. But until you actually pause and notice that, until you make that unconscious truth conscious, your body will believe that you're under threat, and you'll just continue to freak out and then attract more thoughts, which are scary thoughts, future-tripping thoughts. This one thing isn't so great, so seven other bad things can happen today. That's kind of how the mind goes. So it really interrupts that fight-flight-freeze response, right? So how serious is this, really? Three deep breaths. Already you can come back from a place of panic to a place of just neutrality and calm. This is like being like a Buddha, right, in your business. How serious is this, really? Part one.
Part two—this is really good—what's essential here, right? Because often, and you see this a lot in high-achieving women. We want to add everything, right? We want all the bells and whistles. Everything has to be perfect. We need all the elements, so many moving parts. Often, you just need the basics, just the very kind of simple basics.
For example, a while back, someone emailed me saying, “Can we have your slides for tomorrow?” And I, first of all, didn't have a meeting in my calendar for tomorrow, and I certainly did not have any slides. That's a horrible email to receive, when people are expecting you. And it’s very unlike me to miss something. So I remember thinking to myself, okay, how serious is this, really? Like, it's important. I've made a commitment. I respect my commitments. What's essential here? Okay, I don't have slides, and I'm not going to create them within twenty-four hours. So I thought the most essential thing is just that I show up. All I promised is my presence.
So I’m like—this moves into part three. Part three, the question, how can I let this be easy? So I contacted the person whose group I was speaking with, and I said, “Look, why don't we make this a Q&A. Could we do a Q&A instead? It's more intimate. People really get to the questions that they want answered. It's juicier.” And that was it, right? So how serious was it? Look, it’s not life and death, but it was a commitment. What’s essential? Me just showing up and telling the truth and being available with an open heart. And then, letting it be easy is switching it from a presentation mode to a Q&A.
AMY: Okay. This concept of letting it be easy. Okay.
SUSIE: Yeah.
AMY: We got to talk about this.
SUSIE: Yes.
AMY: You have a book coming out. It's called Let It Be Easy. Is that the exact title?
SUSIE: Yes.
AMY: Yes. And we’ll get into that. But when I knew you had this book coming out, I was like, this is a tattoo. If I got tattoos, this is a tattoo that I would want—
SUSIE: Me, too.
AMY: —because it’s something I need to be reminded of all the time. So, how can we use this idea of letting things be easy as an entrepreneur? Because especially, an online entrepreneur, who sometimes feels like we're the only people who don't have it all figured out, like when you're just starting your business, and you're like, “Wait a minute. Am I missing something? Why does this feel so hard?” So talk to me about that.
SUSIE: Yes. This is where we have to employ our mind consciously, because it's very easy to buy into imagined stress. So there is real stress that happens when we have something urgent to deal with or there is a problem to solve. But so much of our stress is imaginary. It's like, what if this happens? What if that happens? What if this person rejects me? What if this doesn't go through? What if no one buys my stuff? This is so much of the stress in our body, and nothing's even happened.
I love what Mark Twain said, Amy. He said it best. He said, “I've been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”
AMY: Oh, story of my life.
SUSIE: And I would almost dare anyone to look back at their freak-out moments and just, like, give yourself a loving hug and maybe a bit of a chuckle, because we can freak out so often over nothing. So I like to say, is this problem real or imagined? Is there something for me to solve here? And if so, it's those three questions. How serious is it? What's essential here? How can I let it be easy? Or am I just future tripping about some possibility that is also pretty unlikely to happen, if I'm honest?
So, when that stress bubbles up and we feel like we're alone and everyone else has it figured out—and no one does, by the way. No one. One of my favorite quotes is from the comedian, the English comedian, Ricky Gervais. He says, “Don't worry. No one else knows what they're doing, either.”
AMY: I love it. I love it.
SUSIE: It's so freeing, right? So freeing because it's true. We just, we're learning as we go, and we're doing our best. And some people are consistent, and some people are not so consistent. So, questioning imaginary versus real stress. That’s so critical in terms of being able to let it be easier, part one.
And then also, part two, acknowledge your options. We feel stuck, and we feel scared, and we feel like there's really something that's a problem when we don't realize there are always options. Always. Like, just say something bombed. You launched something, and it bombed. It's like, okay, what could I do next time?
Actually, another great question I love to ask is instead of asking what's wrong?, which is our default question if something doesn't work out the way we want, instead of saying what's wrong?, it's far more helpful as a prompt to the brain to say, what's missing?
AMY: What's missing?
SUSIE: Yeah. So, just say you had a launch that bombed, and no one bought it, and something went wrong, and this happened, and you had some bad feedback. Okay. What was missing? Maybe it was missing a payment plan. Maybe it was missing some copy clarity. Maybe it was missing a really good name. Like, there are so many options here, but we don't even see them when we're stressed, because stress shuts down our creative center.
So we need to get into a place of feeling okay, not even feeling good, but just feeling neutral to understand what our options are and to ask the question of what's missing, because that really allows us to open up our minds, see possibilities, and then take good action, the right action, not negative action, just throw our hands in the air and say we can't do it.
AMY: Ah, I love that.
SUSIE: It's certainly really helpful. If you think, what are my options here? what could be missing?, you’ll realize that there's a lot that you can do. And as you know, Amy, there’s no one right or wrong way to run a business. There's no one right or wrong way to do anything. So there are always options, and you just have to figure out which are right for you, what feels good, and not take it all too seriously. This is a big part of it, too.
AMY: Ah. Okay. That is important because I take things really seriously, especially when I shouldn’t, so I'm very aware of these things. But that's why I am so obsessed with you and your book because I feel like you wrote it for me, but then I think you wrote it for a lot of my students as well and my listeners.
So, let's keep going with this topic because I want to make sure we talk about a really important point. I've heard you say that moving away from complicating things, making things more complicated, and just letting them be is what we want to do. And you said that that's not toxic positivity or an unhealthy denial of real pain. But I want to talk about that. So moving away from making things more complicated.
SUSIE: Yes. Yeah, so, sometimes if you are a person like me, who's very optimistic—I'm like an Olympian-level optimist, right? I will find the positive in anything—people think, first, we've had it really easy or things always work out for you. And that's certainly not true, right? But they'll also go, oh, well, it's toxic just to be like everything's fine, or just say something's not going well, and you’re getting a lot of unwanted outcomes. For you to say, “I feel great. I feel great. Life is great. All is well,” like, you can repeat that a hundred times, it won’t be helpful. It simply will not be helpful, because we’re too intelligent. We know what’s truth, and we know what isn’t truth. So whatever the perceived problem is or the area that’s causing us stress, whatever it is that isn’t working out, we want to shine a spotlight on it and look at it.
So, truly, whatever it may be—and in fact, this just happened, for a non-business example, for me recently. A friend of mine—she’s my old coworker from the tech world—she moved from San Francisco to Austin, and that was a big move for her, and she’s from California. And she was like, “I don't like Austin. I can't settle in here.” And so I asked, what's missing? instead of what's wrong? Let's talk about all the things that are wrong with Austin, and let's talk about all of the things that we can look at that could complicate your situation right now because you're in it with a twelve-month lease, et cetera. It's like, you know, what's missing here? And she's like, of course, her best friends. You can't move them, right? I get it. There are always some things you can't control. But there are things that you can look at and you can go, really, is it true that I'm really in a pickle here? I'm really in an unhappy situation?
And that question, what's missing?, what came up for her was she was part of a big salsa community, like the salsa dancing in San Francisco, and it took her a while to find that community on the West Coast. And so she thought she couldn't find that in Austin. She’s like, “Well, it took me a while. I don't know, and Austin doesn't seem like the kind of place where they salsa,” whatever that even means. And so I'm like, “Why don’t you just give it a whirl? Just give it a whirl. You have nothing to lose.” And then she researched and found two salsa studios, I think they’re called. And already, there’s a problem. Even a small problem. Not being happy with a relocation. It can feel really big and feel really big and permanent, and what have I done there? Oh-heck moment. And then, what's missing? Let's look at it, right? That's really look at it. What's changeable? What isn't? Okay. What are the changeable parts we have control over? Ooh, let's play around with that a little bit. What options are there here? Whenever you have the most options, you’ll always feel the most free.
AMY: Whenever you have the most options, you'll always feel the most free. And do you agree? You get to create your options.
SUSIE: Oh, there are so many options. If we even just think about it, it's so easy to go through life, with a narrow, like, this is where I live, even just living in the same country, and this is the work that I do. We have capacity, like, as human beings, we could reinvent. We could do—like, you could go work in real estate, Amy, if you wanted. You could work in fashion. There are so many… You could go live in London. We're not tied to things, right? We sometimes think that we are because they're familiar. But there is so much possibility before us all the time, and it's so easy to forget.
So when we complicate things, think that we're stuck, we think, ooh, I'm just going to deny it and say I feel great when I don't, that won't be helpful. But if you look at your options truly and think no limits here, open mind, what’s available to me?, you’ll realize the fact that there is a lot available to you in those cases. And no one tells us this.
AMY: No. It’s really true. We haven't had this kind of conversation on the podcast yet. And although so many people, I hope, are just shaking their heads, like, yes, I needed to hear that. I needed that reminder.
So I think that—okay. So, speaking of reminders, you've got another great one that I have talked about this on the show, but it's been so long. So you know that I am a big fan of the to-do list. Like, I’m a to-do list kind of girl.
SUSIE: Yeah.
AMY: So are you—I don't know this part about you—are you a to-do list kind of girl? Like, if I came to your house right now, it's a Monday afternoon, do you have a to-do list for today somewhere?
SUSIE: I have some things to kind of, you know, complete that day, but I always put at the top of my to-do list “get-to-do list.”
AMY: There we go. Get-to-do list.
SUSIE: Get to do. It's such a subtle addition, like, one word, but it changes everything. Get to do.
AMY: And why do you think it changes everything? Talk to me about this one.
SUSIE: Okay. So could you just share with me maybe three things on an average to-do list for you? And it can be personal, business, whatever.
AMY: Okay. So I'm going to say, so for personal, I’m going to say one that I don't want to do. I got to call this guy who keeps saying he's going to show up to my house to fix my air conditioner, and he still hasn't been here. So, in my opinion, I have to call this air-conditioner guy.
SUSIE: Okay.
AMY: And then, another thing I need to do is I need to record some solo podcast episodes today. And then, in addition to that, I have to review a script that I'm recording tomorrow with a video crew.
SUSIE: Okay. So those three things you get to do. So the first one, the A/C guy, right? You get to call the A/C guy because you have a home.
AMY: Yeah. Oh, I was like, where is she—how is she going to find the positive in this? Because I have a home. And you’re so right about that.
SUSIE: You have a home that I'm guessing that you own if it's not a—
AMY: Yes.
SUSIE: —a guy who's coming from the landlord. Or maybe it is.
AMY: No, I own it. Yep.
SUSIE: Yes, you own a home, and you have access to air conditioning. I thought that myself the other day, when I had to get my birth control renewed. And I'm like, ooh, I've got to go to the OBGYN. And I'm like, yeah, because I have access to health care as a woman. That's not true for everybody. So if you've got the A/C guy coming, it means you've got a house, it means you’ve got access to air conditioning, and that's a blessing.
AMY: So fantastic.
SUSIE: That is a blessing. You have the means for it. I mean, what a blessing.
Then, two, solo podcasts. Yeah, because you have this bomb podcast that people love listening to, and they can't get enough of it, because you have an audience who want more of you. They want more Amy, and so you show up for them. That’s what you want, right?
AMY: Yes.
SUSIE: Yeah.
AMY: So true.
SUSIE: And then, a script that you have for some content tomorrow. I’m not sure if it’s in your program or something—
AMY: It’s for my book! I get to do a sales video for my book that the publisher wants! I mean, I can’t complain.
SUSIE: Ooh-ooh! So because you have a book, you have a book deal. I'm guessing you have a book coming out into the world, which is a dream for millions of people. And again, want it. You want the A/C, you want the podcast, you want the book. Say you're overwhelmed with things. All good things here. All good things here. So look at you with your air conditioning, your fancy solo podcast, your fancy video book. Like, yes! I mean, probably Amy, ten years ago, might be like, “Wow, maybe one day I'll have a house.”
AMY: Yeah, you’re right. It’s true. I remember walking into people's houses, when Cade was in junior high, and these people—or he might have been in grade school, like fourth or fifth grade—and these people had these houses that felt like mansions to me. Now, looking back, they were probably not anything close, but I was living in a condo in Carlsbad, and it felt tiny when I got married and the boys moved in. So I was always like, what do these people do to have these houses? I remember it like it was yesterday. But, yeah, having a house is a big deal to me.
SUSIE: And now you've got your A/C guy coming over—
AMY: Yeah! [unclear 25:53]
SUSIE: —just for you. Just for you, for your nice house.
AMY: It’s so true, because in my condo, I didn't even have air conditioning.
SUSIE: Exactly, exactly. So, we lose perspective so readily, right? We can lose the macro view of our blessings, right? And so when people like, are you so happy? I'm like, I'm very conscious of the macro view of my life. You know, I know my blessings. I also know where I've come from. I know that, you know, when I was a kid, I always dreamed that I could support my mom financially, which I do. For me to be an author, to have my third book coming out, I'm like, this is a dream. I'm not going to complain about this for a second. I'm going to show up for this in the most authentic, real, fun, happy-me way because this is what I've always wanted.
So I could be like, oh, I've got duh, duh, duh, and my manuscript. And look, there are all those moments, right, when things feel like, you know, there is a tight deadline or maybe have a disagreement with your editor. Those things will happen. But overall, if we zoom out, we take ourselves out of the minutia and we zoom out, we're like, this is pretty great. And I've never done this exercise with someone when they haven't felt so much better after realizing all of these truths.
It's the same, often, with kids. It's like, got to do this for the kids, got to do that for the home. It's like, yeah, you've got to cook chicken for your spouse who—isn't that wonderful, you have a spouse?—who you get to cook for. You’ve got healthy kids to pick up from school or from sports. Whatever it may be. The macro level, it's so important.
AMY: So important. I needed that reminder because my husband will often tell me, “You get to.” But sometimes I'm just like, really? Because this is really a lot of hard work, or this feels really uncomfortable, or whatever. But at the end of the day, you are one million percent, right. We can always find—again, it's finding the opportunity in that. Where's the opportunity that I get to be a homeowner, or whatever it might be? I love that.
SUSIE: Yes! And then you start to realize because our attention is so powerful, when you're tuned into the frequency of blessings and you come back to that truth—and look. And you are just like, “I don't know about that,” test it. Just test it. See for yourself. Come back to that. Come back to the truth, right? We're not giving you ideas here that could be lies, right? It's like, look at it for yourself. Look at your own blessings objectively, calmly. You come back to the truth here.
And when it comes to getting things done and duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, you want to remember that there is no place in the future that's better than now. It's really easy—I saw a famous footballer say this, and I loved it. He said, “When you're at the bottom, no one respects you. When you're in the middle, everyone ignores you. When you're at the top, you really worry about maintaining it, being number one. And then when you're the top top, everyone comes at you. Everyone comes after you.”
AMY: Oh.
SUSIE: So I'm like, where's the good part? Like, when does the ease kick in?
AMY: Yes.
SUSIE: Every single step, it has to be there. Otherwise, from the bottom to the top top, there's always a stress. So the joke’s on us if we’re not enjoying it. Like, if every stage in anything in our lives, if we're like, “Oh, this will be better in the future. That’ll be better,” people say it all the time about all things, Amy. I mean, this is why I'm obsessed with ease. People say, “Oh, it's really hard to run a business.” It's also hard to have an employer. “It's hard to make money.” It's hard when you don't have money. “It's hard to have kids.” It's hard not to have kids. Like, where is the ease?
AMY: Yes. So when you say, “Where's the ease?” how do you answer that?
SUSIE: Right now, where you are, it’s there. It is there. You're just not tuned in. It is always there. It is always available. And if you don't think that's true for your life, I would beseech you to look at areas of your life where you don't struggle. And we all have them. So maybe financially you are having some struggle, but our health is good, or our family relationships are good, or our ability to even sleep through the night is good, right?
There is already ease that surrounds us. We just tend to focus on the stuff that's not going so well. We take score too soon, and we zoom in so much when we could just zoom out a little. Like, realize the bigger picture and remind ourselves, too, that everything is temporary. Whatever worries we have now, whatever challenges, they’ll be different in six months, and probably, we don't even remember our challenges from six months ago, even three months ago.
AMY: I was watching Kristen Bell, and she was getting interviewed, and she said one time Cher told her, if you're not going to worry about it in five years from now, it might not be that important. And I loved that. I mean, getting any advice from Cher would be cool—
SUSIE: Yes.
AMY: —but it is true. Putting it into perspective, like you said. And this is why, when I asked you at the very beginning, do you ever have bad days? and you said, of course, but I know how to manage my mind, and these are all the ways that you do so. Would you agree?
SUSIE: Oh, yeah. This is it. There's nothing more sophisticated than this.
AMY: This is it.
SUSIE: This is it.
AMY: Ah, such great reminders, I can't even handle it.
But we're not done, because I want to talk about confidence. At the very beginning, I said, “If you're at a cocktail party and someone says, ‘What do you do?’” and you said, “I'm obsessed with helping people be more confident.” And I want to talk about that because there's this thing about being confident and being uncomfortable. You've said that confidence is simply a willingness to feel uncomfortable. And this one speaks to my soul because I have to remind myself every day that it's okay to get uncomfortable and be uncomfortable, but it's not necessarily fun. So why does confidence and being uncomfortable have to go hand in hand?
SUSIE: The Latin origin of the word confidence is confida, meaning to trust. So when we're putting ourselves in an uncomfortable situation, and we are if we're really about expansion and growth and achieving our dreams, there has to be some type of trust there, right? Maybe not even in ourselves, but in just the universe and in there being something that's going to work out from this or at least the truth that something terrible is very unlikely to happen. So I find this a real relief, that confidence is just trust, this feeling of trust, by being willing to be uncomfortable.
And if you look at anybody who’s successful in any field, you’ll see them putting themselves in new situations all the time, where they're not experienced and where they don't even necessarily expect to be perfect. They try hard, they do their best, but they're willing to say yes. I mean, even think about it, you know, from different situations in life. Like, the person who's willing to go out on dates or to approach somebody new and say you like them. Or to, for me for example, to pitch myself to the media so consistently or ask for a collaboration, whatever it may be, I'm completely willing to be rejected, like 100 percent willing. And it's not because I'm extra special, I have special secrets, I have a special education. I have zero college degree, which I always love to talk about. Nothing fancy or special, but I'm very willing. And it's amazing because anyone can be willing.
AMY: Okay. I love this perspective. And I think that just to think about the fact that this idea when you said you are totally okay—did you say you're okay with being rejected?
SUSIE: Oh, yes. Mm-hmm.
AMY: Okay. Talk to me about that, because I don't know if I'm 100 percent okay with being rejected. Like, talk to me about that.
SUSIE: Well, if you want to—so, you know, I love the way that I've grown my email list, my presence, etc. has been through traditional media, so television, magazines, large websites, etc. And that involves a pitching process, right? So saying, why me?, why now?, and the goods that I've got essentially and a few audience? And I rejected a lot. People think that, oh, because I've reached a certain level of media success that it's all easy, and it's always a yes for me now. That’s just simply not true.
But what is true is that it's 100 percent okay with me. I don't take rejection personally. I consider it an illusion. Like, rejection itself. Like, what is it, really? Is someone rejecting me as a human being? Or is it often just not the right timing? Or maybe there was something missing, to go back to that again. You know, what's missing? Something missing about my pitch or my idea? I know that success is volume, right? So if I'm willing to put myself out there, be rejected a certain amount of times, there is going to be—I'll get some yeses.
AMY: Yes. I do love that. I do love that.
SUSIE: It's just true. Like, look at it, really, in any life situation. And I also kind of don't take no for an answer. I will just keep going forward. Keep forging ahead. Really unmoved by the discomfort, which I don't even feel anymore, of rejection, of someone saying no, of someone not responding to me. That's okay with me because it's not a reflection of my worth. I don't even think it's about me at all.
So my willingness to just have those, say, temporary negative emotions, rejection, humiliation—this is how some people interpret it—feeling like I'm not seen, I'm not visible, that just means nothing to me. Like, nothing. And well, no wonder I have a lot of wins, right? No wonder I have big wins. The best meter in the world, right? Because I'm just willing, and anyone can be willing. You don't have to be special; you just have to be willing. I find this a tremendous relief. There's nothing special that you need to have. There's nothing in your possession or not in your possession. It’s just are you willing? And that willingness is magic.
AMY: “You don't have to be special; you just have to be willing.” So, wow. Because, okay, so many times I get the question, how do I stand out in such a noisy world? How can I get noticed? How can I grow my audience when so many people are doing what I'm doing, and it's so noisy? If anyone asking that question said, “I don't have to be special. I don't have to stand out more than other people. I just have to be willing over and over and over again, and have no care in the world when it doesn't work out or I get a no, because I know I'm just going to keep showing up,” that's a whole different ballgame.
SUSIE: Would you mess with that person? because I wouldn't.
AMY: Never!
SUSIE: I can tell you, Amy, if I’m working with somebody or I’m even just speaking to somebody and they're like, “I'm just going to keep going. I'm going to forge ahead. They said no. I don't care,” I'm like, whoa, this person’s going places.
AMY: Yes! You’re so right. If one of my girlfriends is like, “Yeah, they said, no, but I'm just going to do it my way over here,” I'd have so much respect for her. And so if we feel that way about our girlfriends, then why can't we feel that way about ourselves?
SUSIE: It's really—I mean, think about it, right? So there are a few different people who I love to follow, whose work I love, and they're willing to put up a YouTube video and have ugly comments. They're willing to withstand all the stuff that comes with that. And look, it will come with that, right? That's just part of success, right? And some people are not willing to get a single bad comment, and then, like, what happens to that person? Like, what happens to the person who’s not willing to receive a refund request, an unhappy client, mean comments, even a chain of meanness dedicated to you? We’ve seen this happen. Are you willing? Are you willing? And I'm like, why, I am, actually. Thank you very much. Yes, I am. And I mean, that itself is like this unstoppable force. If someone's will, the will of a person, to do it again, to stay at it, to withstand the discomfort, to withstand the shadow part of it, I mean, I consider that's my only job, to keep going. And if it was so easy and if it didn't require willingness or faith, then nothing in this world would be worthwhile.
AMY: Oh, so true.
Okay. So, that actually—you set me up perfectly for a question I wanted to ask, because I know today we're talking about confidence and letting it be easy and be willing to show up. But one of the things, and you mentioned this earlier, you have a background in public relations, and this question I get asked all the time, which is how do I get noticed in a noisy world? How do I get the exposure? How do I grow my audience? So I can't have you on the show and not talk about this for a minute.
SUSIE: Yeah.
AMY: So give me a strategy or two, with your PR-agent hat on, especially for an online-business owner. What do you see that online-business owners need to do more of in order to get known, to get that exposure, to get themselves out there, and as an example of willing to just keep showing up?
SUSIE: Oh my. I love talking about this because I know that if someone has something that they've created or if they're helpful to their clients, customers, in some way, and you must be if you’re in business, you are media worthy. So if you have a blog, if you even have an email maybe that you write, maybe a podcast, you've even done some Lives, the content that you've created can have a microphone. It can have such a larger audience if you're willing to be seen in a bigger way.
So the media needs content, my friends, right? The media needs content. I mean, how does the Today show become the Today show? How does The Kelly Clarkson Show become The Kelly Clarkson Show? Or WebMD or Cosmo, whatever it may be? How do they survive? It's because experts are creating content all the time. People are creating content daily. A couple of my editors have to get ten pieces of content up a day to reach their traffic goals. So you're doing the media a favor if you're willing to create content on their behalf, to give them information, a story, something that's informative, educational, even entertaining. So if you want to be in the media, and if you think, “Gosh, am I ready?” yes, you are.
My very first media feature actually came around when I was still in my tech career. I was in my cubicle, reading mindbodygreen, a site that I love. I still love it. And I was like, hey, I read all this content about wellness and productivity and decision making, and I've got a few things to say about that. You know, I could maybe throw my hat in the ring. Again, just a simple willingness. Nothing else. And that was the very first time, in 2014, I submitted five hundred or six hundred words to mindbodygreen. And then two weeks later, I had an author page and a published article on a huge site.
AMY: Oh, my gosh.
SUSIE: I know! It’s like, I’m famous. I posted it everywhere. And I was like, oh, my gosh. What if my boss sees it? Ha, ha, ha. But I was, like—and I didn’t have a website. I didn’t have anything. I only had a Twitter account. I had nothing back then. The only thing I had was willingness to go for it and to be seen and to be rejected. And looking back at that piece now, I'm like, oh, gosh. That's a terrible piece, terribly written. But, hey, it got me started, you know? And it kind of set off a chain from there.
But the media needs content. You know what? Even if you're like me, if you’re a side hustler—shout out to side hustlers, by the way. Huge respect—but no matter your stage, from the very beginning, if you've got something that can help one person, like one person in a one-on-one setting—advice for your dog, advice to grow tomatoes, advice for getting out of debt, whatever it may be—that can potentially help thousands, millions of people, so why restrict it? It's generous to show up and share what you know. That's always how I look at it, which I think is why it's easy for me because I'm like, I'm being so generous, sharing what I know, and the media needs content. Already, that way of looking at it puts you in a powerful position.
And then, if you want to go for it, there are just four things, essentially, you need to cover when you're presenting yourself to the media. Four simple things, which is the first question, who's interested? So who's interested in my content? Do you speak to women at a certain age? If you focus on menopause, for example, where are those women? If you focus on men who love golf, who is your audience? Knowing that, you already know that, right? But then, just thinking, where are they online? or what media do they pay attention to? That's part one, knowing who's interested.
Part two is knowing what goods have I got? What is it that I can tell these golfers or these women going through menopause? What is it that I have to share with them that's going to be helpful, informative, or even entertaining?
And then, you want to share, why you? And remember, you don't need— just like me—you don't need to be fancy, qualified, PhD, anything like that. You just need to have a piece of information that's going to be useful somehow. That’s enough. Like, if that is enough to [unclear 42:36] letting it be easy, one piece of information that's going to be useful.
And then, part four, sharing—this is, like, a bonus tip. If you want to get pitches accepted more quickly is sharing, why now? So all of my content is evergreen because I really am in this confident space, but I will tie it to something happening in the news as often as I can. One of my students, for example, she focuses on breathwork. And so breathwork, of course, is evergreen. We breathe all the time. But her most recent piece that I remember was, how should Harry and Meghan breathe before their big Oprah interview? So that is, like, a why now? part four.
But that’s it. Who's interested? What goods have I got to share? Why me? And you can just talk about your own experience. And then, why now? That fourth bit is really likely to get you accepted quickly.
AMY: Why now? Oh, my goodness. I knew you were going to deliver with this topic. You are the public-relations queen to me, and I love everything you share.
But something I want to go back to, which I think your book really will help with this, and that is if you’re willing to be seen and you’re willing to be rejected,—
SUSIE: Mm-hmm.
AMY: —then you are going to be able to put yourself out there and, in my opinion, be incredibly successful. And willing to be seen, meaning you're willing to keep showing up even when people say no, and, or, well, wait. You're willing to be seen, you're willing to put yourself out there, but you're also willing to keep going even when people say no, like when you get rejected.
SUSIE: Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.
AMY: And I think that’s so important. So you mentioned that as you were going through the PR strategies, and I think that's so incredibly important.
So, I want to talk about this book of yours. So, first of all, congratulations. It must feel so amazing.
SUSIE: Thank you. I do feel very happy with this. I mean, ease has been my—cracking the code of ease has been such a fascination of mine for so long, and this book, each chapter is fewer than two pages. It's even easy how you read it. You don’t even need to read it in order, although early readers say that they land on the page that they need.
I talk about so much in the book, I speak about intimacy, forgiveness, getting ready, making a great first impression. I mean, it's really a huge breadth of content in terms of how you can just let ease in in lots of practical ways, like real, practical ways. And I know that if you apply one or two of these things in areas where your life feels hard or you feel like there's a block or a barrier or you have resistance, it's like, here's another way. Like, here’s just another way to try, and you can try it on, see how it fits, and I’m guessing, at least in some cases, you'll probably want to stick with it, because easy is delicious.
AMY: So you said at the very beginning that ease is a skill set. And for anyone who picks up this book, if you want that to be a skill set you have. So let's say you're working on the skill set of consistency. You want to be consistent. You want to keep showing up. Equally important is that skill set of ease. You want to let things be easy. You don't want to overcomplicate. You don't want to look at overwhelm as something negative that keeps dragging you down. That's why I think this book is so important.
So, when you sat down to write this book, who did you write it for?
SUSIE: Oh, my. Well, I know that feeling of stress that we can live with personally. The way that I imagine it, the way that I picture it in my mind is you can have two people going through the same exact situation, whatever it is—any business situation, any personal situation—and if you have an attitude of ease—so what's essential here? How can I let it be easy?—versus an attitude of, oh, I could mess up. This could go wrong. What am I doing wrong? Like, why hasn't this thing happened yet? We're taking score too soon, all of those things; you could take all the right actions, go through all of the same motions but with ease, not only will you enjoy yourself and you'll be quite magnetic, you will also get there faster.
So we often think, oh, I've got to sweat. I’ve got to struggle for that good thing. Really got to just sit here and pump it out. And don't worry about me. I’m just going to be, oh, I’ll get through it. Poor me, but okay. That isn’t creative.
Shawn Achor, the happiness expert at Harvard, he says that success orbits around happiness, not the other way around. We get it wrong. So often we think, when I get there, when I hustle, when that point’s reached, then the happiness comes. Uh-uh. We go through the motions with more ease, with this lightness, and we notice that success just comes to find us. You notice there's a different energy that you're emitting in the world and that the world always matches us.
So when you have—and the reason I created the book with so many different chapters covering different life areas is to speak about divorce in a way that can be simpler, to speak about getting started in a way that’s simpler, to speak about even being on time in a way that's simpler. These things we make hard.
And so what if we just kind of lost the illusion that there had to be a struggle with what the world teaches us requires a struggle? What if there's another way? It's kind of rebellious and lovely, and I find that once you kind of tune into this, there's really no going back, because you realize so much of what you believed before and lived before just simply isn't real. One of my favorite yoga teachers would always say, once you realize the snake in the street is a rope, you can't go back. Right?
AMY: Ah, yes.
SUSIE: So, if I’m like, this is big and scary, and I'm like, actually, maybe it's not so big and scary, then it actually can't scare me anymore.
AMY: Oh, my goodness. I just—this is so powerful to me. I hope that others are feeling the same way. I needed to hear this.
And one of the things I want to reiterate what you said about the book. You can literally pick up the book, open to any page, and you're not missing out on the chapter before. And you're right. It's like, I believe that wherever I turned, I needed to hear that. And so it's a really good pick me up or mindset shift to start your day. So I think everybody should have this book on their desk. And when you get ready to work, maybe pick it up, read a few pages, get ready for the day, let it be easy. I mean, beautiful topic but beautiful title for a book as well.
So, where can my listeners grab a copy?
SUSIE: It's available everywhere books are sold. But there are a couple of extra goodies if you head over to letitbeeasybook.com.
AMY: Letitbeeasybook.com. Go check it out, get all the extra goodies, you’ll definitely want anything extra that Susie’s adding to the mix, because what she shares is golden.
Susie, I so adore you, I value our friendship, and I absolutely love your book. So, thank you so much for coming on the show.
SUSIE: Thank you so much, Amy. I love you. Muah
AMY: I love you. I love you. I'll talk to you soon.
SUSIE: Bye-bye for now.
AMY: I hope you loved every minute of this episode. Susie doesn't beat around the bush. She really gets to the heart of the matter, and she gives real-life strategies and tips, and she doesn't shy away from sharing what's absolutely worked for her. Because I've gotten to spend a little time with Susie in the real world, this woman walks the talk. She is constantly focused on the good, and she absolutely lets her life be easy.
So, here's what I want you to do. I want you to choose just one thing that you've learned here with Susie and I today, and I want you to run with it. So maybe it's this concept that you are going to start to believe that ease is a skill set, and you're going to pick up Susie’s book, and you're going to teach yourself how to live with more ease. That's certainly something I'm going to do. Or maybe you're going to be committed to—or you're going to be willing to show up and willing to get rejected because there is beauty waiting on the other side of that. Or anything else that you want to take away from today's episode, please take action with it to make it real. Take the time to use it, implement it, and just try it on for size to see how it works for you, your life, your business. I think you're going to love what you discover. And, of course, get your hands on her book, Let It Be Easy. It's a beautiful book, and I know you're going to devour it and go back to it again and again.
Thank you so much for joining me here today. I'll see you next week, same time, same place. Bye for now.
