Marianna Hewitt ON: How to Create a Morning Routine that Results in Success & Why Energy-Drainers Are Getting in Your Way

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Everyone talked about a morning routine and meditation, and I'm like,
if all of these really successful people that I admire
do this, there's got to be something to it. I
need to wake up and work out. I need to
wake up and do this. But those things didn't work
for me. So it was trying something for a week,
do I feel better? And I got it to a
routine of the things that feel best for me. Those
five things might not work for you. Hey, everyone, welcome

(00:26):
back to our Purpose, the number one health podcast in
the world. Thanks to each and every one of you
that come back every week to become happier, healthier, and
more healed. And I am so excited to be talking
to you today. I can't believe it. My new book,
Eight Rules of Love is out and I cannot wait
to share it with you. I am so so excited

(00:49):
for you to read this book, for you to listen
to this book. I read the audiobook. If you haven't
got it already, make sure you go to eight Rules
of Love dot com. It's dedicated to anyone who's trying
to find, keep, or let go of love. So if
you've got friends that are dating, broken up, or struggling
with Love. Make sure you grab this book, and I'd

(01:09):
love to invite you to come and see me for
my global tour. Love Rules. Go to Ja shettytour dot
com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences, and more.
I can't wait to see you this year, and you
know that I'm always going to look out for guests
who have different experiences, different walks of life. People have
built and created incredible cultural phenomenons and also at the

(01:33):
same time learned lessons along the way that they can
share with us. Now, I know that you're going to
be really excited for this one because I know a
ton of you already follow our next guest, and I'm
excited for you to learn about behind the scenes story
and the journey that she's taken to get there. I'm
speaking about the one and only Marianna Hewett, who's a
leading voice in social media and the co founder of

(01:54):
Summer Fridays, the skincare brand whose iconic jetlag mask became
an instant bestseller. Marianna is also the host of our
own podcast, Life with Marianna, the number one fashion and
beauty podcast. I got to be a guest, I think
right at the beginning near when the show launched, it's
been on an incredible trajectory. Amazing guest makes you check
it out. Marianna's a dear friend, so I'm loving this opportunity.

(02:17):
I just said to our offline that when a friend
comes on the show, I think I know them a
little bit, and then we interview them, and then I
realized I know them a whole lot better. So I
hope you feel inspired to interview your friends as well. Marianna,
Welcome to Operas. No, it's so great to have you.
I've been looking forward to this, and I loved the
interview we did for your podcast two years ago. Now, yeah,

(02:41):
it was one of my favorite episodes and people loved
it so much, and so I'm so happy you're coming
back again. Yes, yes, I'm excited to come back again.
And you know, you've just been on this incredible journey
with your brands, your work, the community you spend time with,
your such a respected voice, such a well known face
in the industry, which I think is really hard to
do when you've done it from building a brand, when

(03:03):
you've done it from building social media, it's hard to
maintain that. But I want to go backwards today because
as we were researching, we also found that you don't
always share too much about yourself. And that's obviously what
on purpose is built upon. And I wanted to ask you, like,
and I asked this often, what's your earliest strong memory
as a child, Like, can you remember if you could

(03:25):
go back, what's one of your strongest earliest memories and
why is it so important to you? And I'll tell
you mine as I as I let you think on yours.
If I think about my earliest earliest memory, I can
probably remember holding my sister when she was born. So
I was around four and a half going on five,
and I remember her being in my arms and like

(03:48):
it was amazing to have that opportunity to actually hold
this baby. And I remember my parents had been like
preparing me for this moment where they were like, you've
got to pray for a new new little friend to
be in your life, and so like for weeks on
end and months I was praying, so I was prepped.
And then when my mom was going to hospital and everything,
I remember my dad like staying at home with me

(04:08):
and doing puzzles and like keeping me occupied and getting
me ready. And then finally, when I held my sister,
was like such a moment and the reason why. And
I think about how that moment impacted me, and I
feel my parents did a great job at me being excited,
and at the same time, I feel that's been a
big part of why I feel so close to my sister.
And I often called my sister kid because I see

(04:28):
her as my little child, and so there was a
parental aspect. I feel like I became quite fatherly early on.
So anyway, that's my earliest memory of four and a
half years old. I want to know yours. We have
a mutual friend, Audrey, and she was asking me the
other day, like, how far back do you remember? And
I'm like, I remember my first day of kindergarten. She's
like you do, and I was like, yeah, I can
remember waiting in line, I can remember my backpack, I

(04:51):
remember going into school. And it really was memories from
six on where I remember a lot. At the time
my parents got divorced, I was six, so this is
very early nineties before a lot of family we're getting divorced,
and I had grown up in Germany, that's where I
was born, and after my parents divorced, my mom went
back to Germany, and this is very modern of my
parents at the time. But I ended up living with
my dad full time, so my dad was a full

(05:12):
time single parent. They were cross continental co parenting, which
is like it just seems very crazy like thinking back then.
But I think it's a lot to my independence now
because I started flying by myself to Germany to see
my mom when I was six. So my dad used
to take me to the airport. This is before TSA preach.
This is how long ago it was, or your people

(05:33):
could like walk you to the gate. So my dad
would walk me there and then someone would take me
on the plane. I would fly to Germany. I would
meet my mom there on the other end. And I'm
an only child and a youngest child, so I have
two older half sisters, but I was my parents only kids.
So from a really young age, I had this independence
of Okay, I could fly to Germany by myself, like
I can do everything by myself. And I think my

(05:53):
parents always treated me as an adult at a really
young age, and they instilled independence in me, and they
always treated me like I was an adult. So my
parents are much older now. My dad is eighty five.
My mom is seventy two, and so I think they
were out of phase in their life where they were
a little bit more grown up. They had figured things
out themselves, and they said, this is the way I
want a parent. I'm not going to smother you. I'm

(06:14):
going to let you be your own person and figure
things out. And I think that independence has really gotten
me to where I am today. And so when people
are like, how do you travel all the time for work,
I've like, Oh, I've been traveling since I was a baby,
so it's something I'm so used to. I love that
I did not know that, and I think it's really interesting.
I don't live in my past that much, and you
don't strike me as someone who lives in your past
a lot, but I do love going backwards to kind

(06:37):
of connect the dots with those experiences. And what you
just said is a perfect example of how you took that.
Have you found sometimes that you speak to people, but
we all react to things differently, Like for someone else
that going back and forth would have made travel really
scary and they would have been like, God, my parents
got divorced, like it was the worst and I had

(06:58):
to go back and forth where your story is I'm
independent and I travel. Do you think you had to
reflect or did you do any work to get there
or was that just natural for you? Where it was like,
I just felt like it was a good thing, because
I'm always intrigued as to life happening to us versus
us choosing what life does to us. Yeah, I think
there's two scenarios here. So I have a friend who

(07:20):
is really bad flight anxiety, Like she cannot get on
a plane without taking something first, and we talked about
it recently and she's like, I think because my parents
were divorced, and I thought every time I got on
a plane, I was leaving one parent and going to
another one. And so she has a really bad time
flying now thirty years later because of those experiences. Again,
my parents being modern at the time, which is more

(07:41):
common now, my parents actually got me a therapist when
they were going through divorce. And this is thirty years ago,
so you have to think I was six years old
and my parents said, Okay, we're going to separate, We're
going to give you someone to talk to. And so
at the time I could actually process my emotions, not
really remembering what was happening, but they were so cautious
about how to handle the situation that I think it
made me feel like, oh, it's not a bad thing

(08:02):
that they're separated. They're doing these things because they love
me and they want to be happy people independently. And
so the way they handled it then reflected on who
I am as an adult today. So I think as
I think about one day becoming a parent, all those
things from someone being six really does reflect on who
they are as an adult. That's incredible. Yeah, so your
parents are supermature. Yeah, but you to think then people

(08:25):
weren't getting divorced, people were not going to therapy, parents
weren't co parenting. There's not even really cell phones at
this time, so they were trying to co parent in
different continents without Wi Fi, without cell phones. And the
fact that they were able to do it, it's like
if you live in the same city with someone else,
it's definitely possible. If they could do it between countries. Wow,
And do you feel that because of the way they
handled it, you've continued to have a good relationship with

(08:47):
both of them. Yeah, because of how they how did
they What were some of the others, Because I think
there are so many people today who have parents who
got divorced, or a lot of people who actually have
parents who never got divorced, but they feel that could
have benefited them. And then of course their parents who
stayed together, and people are grateful for that. But from
your experience, what else. I'm just so intrigued by how

(09:09):
incredible your parents are, Like, what else do you think
they got right that, despite being in separate countries, you
felt like you had a healthy relationship with both For them,
they always made sure like no matter what this was
the schedule. I spent my summers with my mom in Europe.
I would go see her during holiday, she would come
back to see me, and so my mom was always
planning work trips about coming back to where I was,

(09:30):
and so she would make sure she was present at school.
Even though she didn't live in the same state as me,
she would come to different things, and so that time
is really important, and I remember more the days that
she was there than she wasn't there. And so now
I'm so close to both of them, and they're really
like friends to me. Now at this point, it's not
really like a parental relationship of anything. I probably parent
them a little bit too. Much, but they're just so incredible,

(09:50):
And I think hindsight is that they're older and I
have the gift of age from them. And I think
because they were fully mature adults by the time they
got married and had kids, they realized how to be
a parent more. I think a lot of times, when
you're still trying to figure yourself out in your twenties
and thirties, it might be a little bit too early.
But I think my mom waited till she was thirty

(10:11):
six to have me. My dad was forty nine, and
I think they were in a place where they were
fully ready to become parents, and I think that really
reflected on the way they raised me versus feeling like
I have to do this because of my age, which
I think a lot of women feel that way now,
like oh, I'm thirty, I have to do this thing now,
But they don't feel ready because society keeps telling us
we have to have kids by a certain age. But
I think they waited and that waiting made them better

(10:34):
parents to me. Yeah. Wow, So not only were your
parents over totherapy, yeah, your dad being the primary cat taker,
and then your parents were actually having kids late, which
was so not normal. Then yes, So it sounds like
they were breaking all the rules. They were doing all
the things that I want to do now in life,
but a long time ago before it was like normalized. Yeah,

(10:55):
tell me one of the ways that you feel your
parent your parents now that they're all older, and of course,
you know what's been one of the most beautiful ways
that you've got to Oh, I turn that I do
every I do so much for them now, but it's
like such a blessing to be able to do that
for them. And so my parents are so grateful for
anything if I buy them a flight or book something
for them. But now it's like travel, I want to
make sure that they're like very comfortable. So it's just

(11:17):
making sure that they have everything that they need. So
I have a half sister who's older. She lives in Connecticut,
so my dad wanted to see them for Thanksgiving. So
it's just he's like, oh, thank you so much for
this flight, Like he has so much gratitude for a
flight that I could book for him. And it's like,
if I can work hard to make sure that you
can go see your great grandkids, it makes me so happy.
Or my mom to be able to go on a
trip and do the things that she wants to do.
So now they're probably annoyed with me because I'm like,

(11:39):
don't do this, don't do this, don't go here, remember this,
like wear your face mask. Like I'm telling them all
of these things, but I try to do it a
little bit less. But they're like my dad even texts
me that they're thinking, okay, thanks Mom, Like, so they're cute.
I love that. That's so adorable. It's so beautiful. I
think for all of us who can support our parents
in any way, it is such a blessing. One of
the things that you brought up that they really stuck

(12:01):
with me was this idea that you want to live
your life in the way your parents were living their
life back then. Do you feel like you didn't grow
up with a lot of limitations in your mindset or boundaries,
because I think what you were saying is that a
lot of For example, you gave the example that a
lot of women feel like, oh, by the time I'm thirty,

(12:21):
I should have had kids by now. Well by the
time on this, and I think time and society place
a lot of these boundaries and barriers. Did you feel
more free from them because of how you were parented
or did at any point in your life did these
become a part of your yeah, education as well. There's
a couple of things. So one, my dad grew up
really poor. He was born at the end of the

(12:42):
Great Depression and grew up my grandpa was a preacher.
They had no money, like, very very poor. My dad
only could go to college because he joined the Air
Force and was able to go on a GI bill.
My mom immigrated to the US during the Vietnam War
and came to the America with literally nothing. So between
the two of their stories, I thought, if they come
from nothing, they come from war, they come from the
Great Depression, and they could make this life for themselves.

(13:04):
I can do anything possible because they've given me this
great life that I could have, that anything is possible here.
So if I don't live my life to the fullest,
it's almost a disservice to the sacrifices that they made
for me to be here. My mom is also Vietnamese,
so I grew up with a very much a tiger
mom who was like, you have to do these things.
Go to school, you need to graduate, you need to
get a job. But She also taught to meet independence

(13:26):
and what she told me was never rely on anyone
else for anything. You need to be able to fully
support yourself. So if you're in a relationship or a situation,
you can walk away and not feel like you have
to rely on another person for something, or be in
a scenario you don't want to be in because you
need this person for this thing. And maybe I took
it a little far overly independent in my life. And
so growing up, I told my parents I want to

(13:49):
be a television host. And then my mom was like, Okay,
you need a realistic job, like being on TV is
not realistic. So I said, Okay, my backup job is
going to be PR. So I went to school for journalism.
My backup was PR. I interned in PR in college.
It was my first job out of college. I was
taking celebrities to interviews and I was like, I still
want to be the one interviewing them, like this is
I don't want to be behind the camera. I want

(14:10):
to be in front of the camera. And so I
started working as a TV host and then Instagram and
YouTube came around in twenty twelve, and I had a
reel and to send my real places. I needed to
upload it somewhere, so I uploaded it to YouTube and
I had to send the link to places to go
on interviews, and so I would send them this link.
That was my first YouTube video, and then I had
a channel. So I was like, I may as well

(14:31):
start uploading makeup tutorials because I have this place. This
is very early YouTube days ten years ago. And after
two years I was able to do it full time.
And I told my parents I'm going to quit to
do the internet. And they were like, quit to do
the internet? Like what is this? And so even though
they support me now, I don't think they gave me.
They let me know that all things were possible because
of their own stories, but I didn't know at the

(14:54):
time that I could make it a career for myself,
and they were definitely a little bit skeptical. Now they're
like the most supportive people. But at the beginning, you know,
it's like internet full time, what is this? Parents always
want us to be safe, like parents always want their
kids to be safe, but it's almost like the safest
thing parents can do is let kids take their own risks.

(15:15):
I feel the same with my parents, Like my mom
moved to England when she was sixteen, and they built
their life. Her brothers were like eighteen and nineteen, and
they built a life, Whereas when I was moving to
New York at twenty eight, it was like no, no, no, like,
are you okay, my baby? I'm like, mom, I'm twenty
eight years old. You were sixteen. But they forget that.
They forget the pain and the sacrifice and the risk

(15:38):
they took on, and they want to shelter you away
from it. When you made that decision, were you so
convinced that this is right for me, I know it's
the thing, or was it hard? Because I feel like
when you did that step, it wasn't a thing to
be a YouTuber yet, it wasn't a career path that
someone could say, I want to be a creator, mom
and dad, look at what x y Z are doing.

(16:00):
There weren't any role models at that time, and so
when you did that, it was even a bigger risk
than it is today. But I find so many people
who listen to this show today struggle to break out
of what their parents think of them. So when your parents,
it sounds like you have such a close relationship with
your parents, they love you, You love them. Was there
a part of you that felt you were letting them

(16:20):
down by doing this or did ye never letting them down?
I was never worried about letting them down. I think
I just had to prove them. So Like my dad
is very much like, Okay, go do whatever you want,
like this is great. Like he grew up in a
time there's not even phone, so like to have a
job on the internet seems so insane to him. But
my mom is very much like, show me what you
can do and then I'll support you. And so I

(16:41):
had to show her these opportunities. And I think when
I went on my first brand trip and I could
bring her on the trip, she was like, oh, you
could travel for work, you could go places. I went
to Thailand and I took her with me, and she
couldn't believe that you could have this job on the
internet and create this for yourself. And so I was
never worried about disappointing them because I always believed in myself,
if I want to do something, I know that it's possible.

(17:02):
And now we're in a really great place where you
can see people's careers that you want to emulate or
you look up too. But at that time there was
no one to We were figuring it all out at
the same time. And luckily it was very early days
of like influencers having like managers and teams, and I
happened to get an agency, and I think that helped
legitimize it to my family, and then they saw over
time like, Okay, you can actually like make money doing this,

(17:24):
and here we are a decade later. I love that.
That's amazing. Congrats on having the strength at it. I
think that's underplayed, like how hard it is when something
is brand new to kind of bet on it because
you didn't have the you didn't have the benefit of
hindsight of how successful this thing was going to be
or how big it was going to be, no idea.
At the beginning, people were paypaling me fifty dollars to

(17:47):
pose something like that's how early it was, and I
was like, you would pay me fifty dollars to post something,
let's go. I was so excited. Yeah, that's incredible. And
when you started doing makeup tutorials and everything was that somehow.
And what I love about that story is you set
out to be a TV anchor, right like that, that's
what you wanted to be. Then you go into pr

(18:07):
realized that being behind camera doesn't work. Then you do makeup.
Was doing makeup tutorials fulfilling somewhat of a passion of
being in front of camera like that. Obviously wasn't being
a news anchor, but there was something about it I
was feeling, right, Yeah. I always had a passion for
sharing things that I loved with an audience, and so
at the time, I thought being a TV host was

(18:28):
the only way to do this, because I had to
be on a show to talk about things that I
love to share it with people. When YouTube came around
and I'm like, you can upload videos and talk about
whatever you want and people can watch it. It was
always the things I felt I wanted to do in
my heart when I grew up, but when I grew up,
there was no platform to do that. And then at
the time when I was auditioning, I was going to
a lot of shows to be a host, and every

(18:49):
time I would get towards the end and they would
be like, we're going to give this job to this celebrity,
Like this celebrity host is going to do the job,
and I'm like, well, how am I ever supposed to
be known. If I don't get the opportunity. With the Internet,
We're in such an amazing place where we can take
our careers into our own hands. There's no one to
tell us no. You can create the content and if
the audience is there and people want it, they will
show up, they will watch, they will download, they will follow,
they will listen. And so it was everything I wanted

(19:11):
in this new platform, and it finally gave me a
place where I wasn't getting told no in an audition,
that someone didn't have to say yes to me, and
I could prove and show that I had this audience online.
And so I love it so much and it was
everything I wanted to do. When I grew up, I
just didn't know that's what it was. And I always
had a love for beauty and my dad used to
take me to beauty counters. So growing up with my dad,
he didn't know how to do my hair on my makeup.

(19:33):
So he would take me to department stores and he
would take me to an essay ladder counter and say, Okay,
here's my daughter, like, can you show her how to
use hair and makeup? Can you show her what products
to buy? Because he had no idea what a great
and so that really was my love of beauty from
a really young age. And so I started learning about
beauty from the experts, these people at counters who were

(19:53):
telling me about products, and that was in middle school
and high school. And then I took that love into
creating tutorials for myself and then starting your own brand.
That's such a great story, and I'm so glad we're
doing this, like background journey, because I feel like I
think about this all the time. I went to public
speaking school from eleven to seventeens, public being drama school

(20:15):
age eleven to eight, age eighteen, sorry for seven years,
and I think about it all the time that before
I'd even launched my online career, I probably had around
like twenty years of public speaking experience before I ever
did this professionally or got paid to do it. And
I think that when I hear your story of like

(20:38):
as a little girl, like going to a beauty counter
learning about not just how to put on makeup, but
which brands were doing well and why, and then skin
tone and color and then maybe looking for gaps in
the market, like you get such a real grassroots experience
that no one else can get just by looking at
what we have today. I feel like I feel like
grassroots learning. There's nothing better than Do you feel like

(21:01):
there were things then that you were like one day late? Yeah,
I think at the time. I remember learning how to
contour in high school before it became trendy like years later,
And I remember I was at a Mac counter and
they were like, this is what like drag queens use
on stage. This is where they use in stage makeup.
This is called contouring. You use this brush, you use
this powder, You put it right here so when you're
on stage, your face really stands out. And I can

(21:22):
remember this person telling me at a macstore how to
do this step and it's something I still do in
my makeup every day today. And here we are, like
fifteen years later from when they taught me this, and
so I loved learning from them, and so it was
so great, but you don't know it at the time.
And I think in life, every job and every experience,
whether you end up doing that job long term or not,
you really do learn something from each of those things

(21:44):
that pile onto the next job. In high school, I
used to work at restaurants. I used to be a
hostess at restaurants. And being a hostess, maybe you don't
think it's connected to the job I have now, but
I had to stand in front of a restaurant, I
had to talk to strangers. I stood on my feet
for a long time. I had to have conversations with
people who were angry waiting for their tables or wanted
something really quickly, or making conversation with them walking them

(22:04):
to their tables. And now I have no problem networking
or meeting new people or going up to people when
I see them at events or places because I had
these skills that I learned at a really young age
of how to talk to anyone in these scenarios. If
you feel like you're not living your passion right now,
or you're not living your purpose, or you know, we
talk about these words a lot, I really want you
to go back and look at every job you've ever

(22:25):
done and reflect on what you learned there, because I
promise you that skill is going to be so useful
for your passion and your purpose when it comes along.
I was saying to someone my first ever job was
I delivered newspapers. But then my second job was I
worked at Morrison's, which is our version of like Walmart,
or like a grocery store, but a big one. And
I remember just stacking shelves and everyone's like, well, what

(22:48):
did you learn? Then, I'm like, I learned how to
memorize what was in every aisle if anyone asked me
where anything was, and knew exactly which isislet was in.
I learned how to turn up to work on time
and leave on time. And I learned that over time
you got paid more. Like you'd learned so many basic things,
and what you just said, you learn how to work
with different people. I was fifteen years old, and I

(23:09):
learned how to have a boss and how to have
a good relationship with my boss, and all of these
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(23:54):
no tests or stress, just the enjoyment of learning. Right now,
I'm diving into the program Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Daily Life.
Have you ever found yourself worrying so much that you
wished you could just turn your brain off. It's normal
to worry from time to time, but when worrying disrupts
your everyday life, CBT tools can help you regain control.

(24:18):
Professor Jason Satterfield shares several techniques, from distracting yourself to
scheduling official worry time that can help you redirect your thoughts.
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(24:38):
can better handle stress situations and feel more mentally balanced.
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(25:00):
up through my special U r L. Go to one
drem dot com forward slash J. That's w O N
d r i UM dot com forward slash J onerem
dot com forward slash J. When you are going through
this journey, you take this decision to make YouTube videos,

(25:23):
to make content, did you ever get wrapped up in
like views, how beautiful am my makeup? Because I feel
like that can get so toxic for people, And I
think now what we're seeing so much of his creator burnout.
So there's one side that I want to talk to
you about, which is like likes, views, comments, engagement, Like
how do you deal with the pressure of that, Like

(25:44):
you upload something and it doesn't get views. And the
other side is when you actually get good at it
and now you're like knocking out videos, you're getting views,
everything's going well. But we meet so many creators today
who just say I'm tired of putting stuff out, Like
I'm burnt out of having to upload every day to
three different platforms. I never worried too much about views,

(26:06):
and I know that that's a really hard thing to
say in a world where our job is valued on followers, views, likes, clicks,
and that really is how we're valued. But at the
time on YouTube, I started my very first videos with
products I used today in my skincare routine, and that's
ten years ago. Because I genuinely loved these products. I
was shopping at Sephorah. I love Prestige beauty. I was

(26:27):
a little bit older in the YouTube age. A lot
of the people were in either high school or they
were very young, and what they were sharing was not
genuinely the products that I loved, and so I could
have fall into this trap of I care about virality,
I care about what's trending, and I'm going to use
these products, but it wasn't genuine to who I was.
So I had a slower growth, and I said, I
love these brands and these products. I'm going to create

(26:48):
videos around this content, and I'm not going to be
the fastest growing. And that's okay because it's true to
who I am. And so if I thought about the
longevity of my career, it was more important to me
to create content that I genuinely liked and products that
I genuinely loved, versus chasing views because virality, maybe people
will click on it and watch it because they care
about this trending product or this theme, but they're not

(27:08):
getting to know you and it was more important for
me to people to like me for what I genuinely
wanted to talk about, because I can't really create content
if I don't love it, and I just won't do it.
It's just not something that I like. And I think
that was a problem I had when TikTok first started,
was I didn't want to create content just for the
sake of virality, and so on YouTube, I grew a
little bit slower, but I started working with luxury beauty

(27:30):
brands and at the very beginning, they weren't really spending
money with people, but they saw like, there's only a
handful of girls on YouTube who are creating content around
Armani Beauty and Laura Mercia and these kind of brands,
and then I ended up getting to work with them
because there wasn't a lot of people sharing it. And
so I started working with Sephora at that time and
creating videos for their brand pages because they wanted an
organic type of video that wasn't a sponsored brand video.

(27:52):
And so it was a slower growth for me, but
I think it's helped me be where I am today,
because what you don't want to do is create content
that's just for the sake of being viral, and then
well what happens. Then I have a friend who she
used to be an editor and she left and she's
creating content full time now. And there's this trend of
people kind of taking like editorial, beauty news content and

(28:14):
regurgitating it into TikTok's. But then you're just retelling a
news story and there's nothing personal about it with you,
and sure people are going to watch it. It might
get millions of views, but you're not really building your
personal audience. And so now that we've created more things
for ourselves, I'm so happy that I always kind of
stay true to the kind of content I wanted to create,
because if not, then you're always going to be in
this hamster wheel of creating things for the views, and

(28:36):
you're never going to really feel satisfied by that. It
is frustrating when something doesn't perform well and you want
it to do well, and like it is our job,
and like you know, brands work with us because they
want a certain reach or number, and so that stuff
is important and that will come if you create the
content that your followers really want to see from you.
And then I think, you know, there's been phases of
burnout for me because being a creator, there's no job security,

(28:59):
there's no hour, there's no health benefits, we have no
teams a lot of times, and so it is the
scarce any mentality of every time a job comes in,
you want to say yes to it because you don't
know when the next thing is coming, and so you
want to do all the things that you can. But
I think in time I learned I have to take
a step back and not say yes to everything because
it's better for myself long term and the things will

(29:20):
come and it's but I know it's difficult, especially if
you're just starting out, because you are really based and
judged on a number. Yeah, I think that's so refreshing
to hear that from you, Like I hope that there's
so many people listening to this right now that are going, Mariana,
thank you so much for saying that, because I think
everyone feels that pressure. But you just explain something really
beautifully that you can have a lot of views, but

(29:43):
people are not necessarily watching it for you or understanding
who you are. And therefore every video you post can
get lots of views, but it's not like people are
really interested in your viewpoint or your perspective or your thoughts,
and I think we get those two things mixed up.
We think that virality and followers means influence, and actually

(30:04):
it doesn't mean influence at all, because if people only
see you as entertainment, they're not going to suddenly listen
to your perspective on something you should buy or something
you should use your expert opinion. And so that's what
I'm hearing from you, and I hope that gives people
a lot of confidence because I think it's very easy
to chase the views. I know there's someone I'm thinking
about right now who makes amazing content and it doesn't

(30:27):
get a lot of views, but it's built him a
really good business and he's trying to get more views
and virality, and I'm like, no, Like this is building
real value because your content so awesome. You're actually attracting
real companies who want to work with you privately because
of the value that they see. And that's what your
journey says too. When it gets to burnout and everything

(30:48):
you just mentioned about no benefits, no work hours, like
that's so I think burnout comes from doing too much
of what you feel is true to your core. It
doesn't come from doing too much. What is very aligned
with you. Would you agree with that or oh, yes

(31:08):
and no, because I think there is a balance of
having time off and so yes, we want to do
all of these things, and we want to work really
hard and create this life for ourselves. But I cannot
do those things I need to do if I don't
also take time to rest. And one weekend, I used
to always like work through the weekends. I'm like, Oh,
it doesn't really bother me. If I answer emails on
the weekend, it's not a big deal. But then one
weekend I actually took that weekend off and didn't answer

(31:30):
my emails, and Monday I felt so much better and
more refreshed. And so now it's really important for me
to take those breaks. So I did go through periods
of burnout of over creating and going to too many things.
And in college I had a stomach alcer because I
took on too much, and I physically was burnt out
in my body because I was doing too much. And
so I know that I need those periods of rest.

(31:51):
But I know it's hard when you're freelance. I know
it's hard when you're a creator, and there's so many
jobs who are freelance who don't have you know, certain
hour set for themselves, so it is important for them to,
you know, want to make an income, especially if you're
solely supporting yourself or a family, And so I know
those things are difficulty. You've talked about energy drains and
energy gives before. Walk us through that, because I think

(32:12):
everyone feels that, whether it's people, places, projects, we all
feel that certain people drain us, certain projects give us energy.
Walk us through your version of that. Yeah, my energy
drainers are saying yes to too many things. So saying
no to me is what gives me energy. And I
know that saying no might seem difficult at first, especially
when you have opportunities that come to you and you

(32:34):
want to say yes to everything. But saying yes to
things I absolutely want to do has been so helpful.
I am in a place now where I can say
no because I feel like I worked hard in my
twenties to get to where I am today that I
have the ability to say no to things. But those
nos also are important because it's gotten me to the
jobs I want to do, the brands I want to
work with. I think if you say yes to too

(32:54):
many things, you might dilute yourself doing too many things.
So saying yes to the things that are in alignment
with the content you want to create, the brands you
want to work with, the long term goals, so you
have for yourself personally and professionally. Other energy drainers that
I have are not doing my morning routine, in my
evening routine, So really setting myself up for the day
sets me up for success. I get up in the morning,

(33:16):
I usually meditate a gratitude journal, I do like a
little stretch, I drink my water, and even like just
a few things in the morning set me up because
if I wake up and I just instantly start doing things,
there's no time for me, just like in myself, to
turn off, and then I'm kind of just thinking all
day long. Other energy drainers, sometimes it's work and people.

(33:37):
And I know that that one's a really difficult one
to have boundaries around because you maybe cannot control who
you have to be around with work or people that
you have to spend your time with. So it's creating
boundaries around those people and things to make you feel
your best. So maybe it's at work you don't sit
next to that person or you, you know, focus on
working on yourself when you're at work so you don't
have to be near them too much. Because I know

(33:57):
that we can't always like eliminate energy drainers in our life,
and if it's someone in our life personally, it's difficult.
But as I've gotten older, I realize, Okay, this person
and this friend is draining my energy. When I'm around them,
I don't feel great. I don't feel better after I
left them. I almost feel more drained just being around them.
And so I can love you from a distance. I
still love you, I still like you, but I don't
have to spend a lot of time with you, and

(34:18):
that's okay. I can support you from afar, but I
know that if I'm around you, I don't feel my best.
And I want more of those energy givers in my life,
like who do I hang out with? And I feel
better after I leave them? Like who makes me feel
happier and whole, motivated, energized. And I always love being
around you because whenever I see you, you make us
feel so great. You're such a great friend. Our friend
Audrey is another one of them. Yeah, you guys are

(34:39):
not giving to my mind. With Audrey, I like Audrey.
We love you Audrey, and she really is one of
those people where you want to be around people who
are good like that. You want people who make you
feel your best. And so as I've gotten older, it's
less about quantity of friends, it's quality of friends. And
I choose to spend time with the people in my
life who give me energy and make me feel my best.
Because if you've noticed that after you leave a friend

(35:01):
and maybe you're a little bit tired or drained, or
you're just like whoa when you left them, like, it's
okay to start like phasing out people and love them
from afar. Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that. I
saw this tweet that said my circle is shrunk in
size but increased in value, And I think that that's
the mindset that you're sharing them. I think that's something
people struggle with. I think we feel guilty because we

(35:22):
feel like we're leaving friends behind, or we feel bad
because we feel people are going to think we're better
than them. Like when you move on from a group,
you're often worried about the perception that those group of
people are going to think or Jay or Mariana think
that they're better, and it's like, well, you're not leaving
because you think you're better. You're leaving because you want
to be better and you want to grow. How have

(35:45):
you kind of outgrown groups or do you feel you've
generally had a group that's grown with you, but or
have you had to let go of Yeah, friendships, relationships
and things. I have a core like five people who
have been with me for like over a decade, so
that these are constants in my life. Like Audrey, we
met in two thousand and six, so that's like sixteen

(36:05):
years ago, so we're friends for a very long time.
So it's like I had this core group of people
who are very core to who I am. They know
me in my personal life. This is who I want
to spend my time with. Like it's not about content
or online or anything. It's just like who do I
want to sit on my couch with, like scroll on
my phone or watch TV or just hang out with.
And those people are really important to me. I have
a lot of acquaintances and people that we know just
from work and being around people, and I just know,

(36:29):
like I don't have to be overly close with a
lot of people, and that's okay. And I think a
lesson that I learned now in my thirties was that
a smaller circle is fine. In my twenties, I think,
you move to Los Angeles, you want to make all
these friends, you want to be around all these people,
and then I'm like, wait, I don't feel great when
I'm around them. I don't feel like myself. I feel
like I'm trying to have to be someone i'm not
or proved to them that I'm something. And I don't

(36:50):
want to do those things, Like I want to be
truly who I am authentically. And as I got into
my thirties, I realize it's okay that my circle is smaller,
Like it's okay to have these people who I know
love me and are there for me no matter what,
and then everyone else is a bonus. Yeah. Absolutely, And
I love that you did that. Like I think if
we started seeing our relationships as degrees of connection as

(37:10):
opposed to like friends and not friends, yeah, it becomes
a lot easier to know how much time and how
much energy to give someone When you decide to make
that transition from creating content for amazing brands prestige brands,
and you're making the switch to being like, I'm going
to be a founder. I'm going to create sum of Fridays.
When you're making that transition, walk us through some of

(37:31):
the things you thought about, because today I find that
everyone feels the pressure now, just as we felt the
pressure when we were growing up to work at a
big company or a well known organization. Today the pressure
is everyone should be an entrepreneur and found their own company.
I feel like that's kind of like the energy and
everyone thinks like they have to launch something or whatever.

(37:52):
When you're going from selling other people's things to saying
I'm actually becoming a founder, what are the questions you
think people should be asking. What are the insights they
should be considering, Because I think it's very easy for
everyone today to think, oh, i've got a few followers,
I should launch something, or because I'm connected, I should
do this, And I don't think that that always works out.

(38:16):
Obviously it's worked out for you, So I'm wondering what
were the things you had to think about. I think
if I had to go back and tell myself when
we started the brand, what do I wish that I knew,
and I wish that somebody would have asked me, which
it's all the things that I love now, but like,
do you really want to run a company? Like the
days that we launch a product, Let's say we launch
fry products a year, that's five of three sixty five,

(38:38):
So the other three hundred and sixty days you really
want to work on a business? Do you really want
to work on a company? Do you want to be
a manager of people? Do you want to run the
finances and operations? Like it's all of those not fun
things that you do every day. And so I would
just ask yourself before starting a business, like do I
really want a business because I love running a company?
Or do I just want to say I have my
own company? And that's fine if you don't love some

(39:01):
of the other stuff. And so Lauren, who's my co
founder of Summer Fridays, we have no ego in saying
there's things we either don't want to do or we
don't know how to do. And once we grew a
little bit after our first couple of years, we were
able to hire for the things that we didn't know
how to do because we really wanted to bring the
best people in to run the business who we felt
like could get us to the next level. I think
it's difficult when you're starting a business because running a

(39:23):
company is actually just so difficult. The day and day
out of production of the company, of the items, like
selling the things, getting them online. Those things are not
the sexy fun parts of the job, and you have
to really want to do that because at the very beginning,
you have very small teams. It's basically yourself, maybe a
couple other people, and you're not making a lot of
money for the first few years. I think there may

(39:43):
be a misconception of like, oh, you start a brand
and then all of a sudden, you're rich and you
have all this money, and that's definitely not the case.
It takes a long time because whatever you invested into
the business and you sell stuff, you're just recouping your
money for what you've already invested. And then as you grow,
you make a little bit of money, you put it
back into the business. You hire a person, and then
you hire someone else. And so the first few years
of summer Fridays, we didn't pay ourselves because we thought

(40:03):
it was more important to invest back into the company.
So if you're thinking about starting a business as yourself,
Do I actually want to run a company? And if
you do, great. If you don't, then maybe say, like
what am I good at? Like what am I passionate about?
What do I love so much? Why do I maybe
want to start a company? Is it because you love
the creative? There's so many creative jobs. You could be
a creative director, you could work at an ad agency,

(40:25):
you could consult for brands. If you love creating product,
maybe you help someone with product development. There's so many
skills that we learn as creators. Find what you love
best and then offer that as a service to other brands.
So something I love is like branding and marketing, and
I think in life this is just one of the
first things that I will do, of many, and I
hope in the future I can consult for brands and
work for them on branding and marketing because that's something

(40:48):
I'm passionate about. So I would love to continue to
do that over a portfolio of them. And I know,
like the actual starting of the business is difficult, so
I don't know how many more times I could do
that part of it. Now that we're here, I'm so
grateful but I just wish I would have known going
into it how hard the actual starting of the business
and running of the business data day is. Think about

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It's just a great way to look at it because
often you end up starting something, you put a lot
into it, and then you realize it's not what you wanted,
Like you didn't want your ninety percent of your life
to be operations strategy management HR. And people don't realize that.

(44:22):
Often when we see entrepreneurs living their greatest life, we
look at it and we go, oh, they just do
what they love all day, and it's not true. Right
me included, I there are so many things I have
to do, and there are so many things I want
to do, and I've accepted that that's how my life
is split up. And there's also knowing what to start.
Like when I look at my career, there are things

(44:43):
like this podcast that we started, my Genius community that
we started. But then there were amazing partnerships like me
being chief Purpose Officer at Calm, which was just a
brilliant synergy because I was friends with the founders for
four years. They were already solving a problem that I
deeply believed in, and I would rather join forces than
go and build something to compete with my friends. Well,

(45:06):
it's already an existing, incredible platform. So it's like if
I can plug into what you already have created and
I can make it even better by coming on board,
we can make this really great instead of me having
something that I'm trying to build and takes time. And
so I think you can think about, like what are
you uniquely good at? What skills can I offer someone else?
And go work with a company, go consult for people,
and then see from there. Maybe I do want to

(45:27):
start my own thing, or I can do this with
other people. And so if there's a brand you love,
maybe reach out to them, like let me create a
director shoot for you, Like let me help you with
social and you never know what person will say yes.
Because as creators, I think we wear so many hats
and we can be good at so many things, and
you can take what you love as a creator and
then do that on a larger scale with more budget,
working for brands and people that you love. Exactly did

(45:48):
you ever raise or did you choose not to? We
raise money, so we ended up we'll geus through the
choice of that and then that processes, so Summer Fridays
was self funded and then we ended up raising money
in twenty nineteen. So we had a really great first year,
but we were running everything ourselves. We had the two
of us, an employee, a couple consultants, and we were
on the sales calls, we were running our retail accounts.

(46:09):
But we really didn't know best how to do these things,
and it was almost a disservice to ourselves by trying
to figure it out ourselves. Like we got us to
a really great point, but we saw we have a
best seller, it's working really well. What can we do
to take our brand to the next level and not
lose the momentum that we had. So when we first
launched a brand, people started reaching out to us, and
raising money is a bit like dating, so you want

(46:29):
to date and meet everyone, and we met any and everyone,
and then you kind of see, like who do you like?
Who do you enjoy spending time with? Like do I
really want to talk to these people every day? And
a business is like a marriage, and there's a contract
like sometimes in marriages there are, and so you're getting
into a marriage with now another person into your business,
so you have to ask yourselves, like are these people trustworthy?

(46:51):
Do we have the same end goal? Do I really
trust that they want what's best for my brand and
that if I really want something, they're going to listen
to what I want and not because they're an invest
and they're going to take control of something. And so
we ended up going with a group and they have
a minority investment, which is very small, so it means
like we still own the majority of the business, so
we have the majority of the sad things. But it
was two females who founded it and they're incredible and

(47:13):
they almost served like an intermediate president for us and
helped us with hiring our org, chart what things to
do next, and it really was the right fit for
us and they weren't the biggest place that we went
out to, They didn't have the largest portfolio with the
biggest investment they were making into the brand. But it
was two people we trusted and a lot of our
friends are like, you're the only people we know that
like your investors, and we really do. And they're incredible.

(47:35):
So they have a great portfolio brands including like Westman, Attilier,
Soul Dejanniro. In food, they have fly By Jing and
Bonza Pasta. So they focused in like good for you
brands in food and beauty, and so we are so
grateful to have them. So then after that, after we
raise a little bit of money, we were able to
hire more people and our first big hire was a CEO.

(47:55):
And I know a lot of people when they start
a business, like they have a dream of becoming a
CEO and running a brand, and that was never what
Lauren and I wanted for ourselves. And we have no
ego in saying like I don't want to be the CEO,
like I don't want to run the entire business because one,
I've never done this before, and that's fine if you
haven't and you want to figure it out along the way.
But we knew like what we're good at as product development, marketing, branding,

(48:16):
anything that's consumer facing. And bringing on someone who could
really run the business day to day so that I
can create content, I can be on podcasts, like I
can do the other things with my time was important
to us. And someone whose values really aligned with the
things that we wanted. So a company culture is really
important to us. And as we interviewed for the CEO role,
it was someone who led with kindness, who people were
excited to work for. And so we ended up bringing

(48:37):
on a CEO in twenty twenty, right before the pandemic,
and so grateful for our CEO, and so between them,
it's been really incredible to get the brand where it
is today. And I don't think it's possible without them.
And so I think you are if you have a
business and you're thinking about either partners or raising money,
you really want to make sure that you want this
people to be in your marriage with you and that
your baby, which is your business. You guys all have

(48:59):
the same goals aligned for where you want it to go,
because then all the decisions are easier because you're all
on the same page versus a group wanting one thing,
and then another group wanting something else. It just sounds
like you really know what's important to you, and you're
willing to do what's important to you and what you're
good at and what you value, and then there's all
this other stuff that you realize where we have to
find someone for that. We have to figure this out,

(49:21):
This needs to be shifted. How do you decipher between
what's important to you and what you think is important?
Because I think a lot of people, again, when they
start something, they put the pressure of I have to
be CEO because it's my baby, and if I'm not CEO,
then someone else will think I'm just this or I'm
just that. You don't strike me as someone who worries

(49:42):
about what other people think of you or what you do.
Where does that come from? And how do you define
or decide what's important to you. I live my life
day to day me myself. I'm not living my life
for other people. So if I'm so concerned with being
called CEO, I'm going to take on a role because
care the other people think that this is my title.
But I have to do something every day that I

(50:04):
don't enjoy. That makes no sense. So Why would I
live my life for this title for other people's opinions
when this is what I want to do within the business,
and this is what's important to me. And so I
like to take inventory of my life pretty frequently. So
I usually do like my New Year's goals and intentions.
I like to call them intentions not goals, because it's
what I intend on doing for the year. And then
I'm always checking in myself with like my journal every day.

(50:25):
So it's like what's important to me? How do I
want to feel today? What things do I love? And
so I'll go through and I'll make like a note
on my phone of like what are my energy drainers
right now? Like what do I not like doing? What
of these things can I eliminate? And if it's running
the finances of the business, like I don't want to
do that, So who can we hire eventually to do
this thing? And so it's eventually just like taking less
of those drainers off of my plate and so I

(50:46):
can really focus my time on the things that I'm
good at and I enjoy doing. I think it's difficult
for people, especially women, if you have been calling yourself
a CEO in the company, then you have to make
this announcement like, oh, I step down a CEO because
we hired somebody. We never intended to be the CEOs
of the business, so we didn't call ourselves that in
the first place. So if and when the time came,
we weren't like it wasn't that we were stepping down

(51:06):
to CEOs, was that we just never had CEOs. We
started the company, and a CEO as somebody who can
help run the business when it gets to that phase.
And so I think it's about taking your ego out
of it and like, what do you really want to
spend your time doing every day and just focus on
that and not what other people think about what Most
people probably don't even know what people's titles are anyway.
It's like whether you're the founder or the CEO or

(51:27):
the whatever it is you are, most people don't know.
They just think of it as your business and so
don't so much worry about that, Or you're going to
spend your time every day doing something you don't actually
want to do and you're not going to be happy,
and then the business might suffer because of that. Yeah,
you've talked so much about habits and routines, like you
have a morning routine, an evening routine. You just talked
about your journaling habit, your intentions for with these things

(51:50):
that became a part of your life over time, and
if you could walk us through one of them or
a couple of them in depth of your actual practice.
So I'd love to hear about what is your person
meditation practice, and then anyone other one that you pick
that just woke us through it, because I think we
see this in successful ceo, successful founders, entrepreneurs, and just happier,

(52:11):
healthier people that routine and a commitment to practices are
really beneficial in their life. What are some of yours
that you can woke us through with a bit more?
Yea yeah. So on the podcast, I kept interviewing people
and everyone talked about a morning routine and meditation, and
I'm like, if all of these really successful people that
I admire do this, there's got to be something to it.
So pre pandemic, I was just waking up, working, going

(52:33):
to sleep, working on the weekends. I had no routine
in schedule. That was not great for me. But during
the pandemic, I actually had time for myself to pick
up a meditation habit to figure out how to journal,
to make a morning routine for myself. So I started
doing a morning routine because I thought other people were
doing it, and I think that's where I failed at first,
because I'm like, oh, these people do these things in
their morning routine. I need to wake up and work out.

(52:54):
I need to wake up and do this. But those
things didn't work for me. So it was trying something
for a week, do I better yes or no? What
things should I eliminate and what things should I keep?
And I got it to a routine of the things
that feel best for me. Those five things might not
work for you, but it's the things that work best
for me, and so it's trial and error figuring out
how can I set myself out best for the day. Basically,

(53:15):
once I start working in the day, my mind is
going at all times, and I am always someone who's
thinking of fifty different things. And so meditation is the
only time in my day where I'm actually just sitting
and being and thinking of either the meditation that's happening
if it's guided, or I do like a thirteen to
twenty meditation where there's no music, there's no guiding i
just have like a bell that goes and I'm just

(53:36):
sitting and breathing, and I'm never in stillness all day.
I'm on my phone, the computer, and so having that
time for myself really just is like a great way
to start the day. And then another thing is the intentions.
And I mentioned before I like to call them intentions
instead of goals because I think we might feel like
we didn't meet our goals if we didn't do this
thing that we set out on a piece of paper

(53:57):
to cross off. But if it's my intention to do
my morning routine every day, I'm intending to do it.
But if I don't feel like a failure because I
only did it five days this week, Or if I
intend to live a healthier life and eat well and
work out because I want to fuel my body, that's
my intention instead of being like, oh, I have to
be this weight, or I want to do this thing
or be at this goal. I think it's a lot
kinder with yourself, so then you feel more motivated by

(54:19):
actually doing them and checking them off versus I didn't
complete this goal for myself. I think it's also great
to set actual tangible goals you can do, but also
know that some goals are out of our control. So
if you want to hit a certain number follower or
a subscriber or a download count, you cannot control that.
You can create the best content you can, but you
can't make someone watch the content. You can't make them

(54:41):
download or follow. So what you don't want to do
is say like I have to hit a million followers
by the end of the year, and if you don't
hit it, be upset. You can say I intend to
create the best community this year that I can. I
want the followers that are there to love me and
be happy with the content I create, And then you
can ask yourself are they happy? Am I fulfilled with
the content I'm creating? And then that intention can be
crossed off versus being disappointed that you didn't hit this

(55:04):
number that was out of your control to begin with.
So those intentions are really important for me. And then
within the business, we do set goals for ourselves of
things that we want to do, and then set realistic
expectations for ourselves of like what do we think we
actually can do versus like insaying goals that you might
not get to and then always feeling sad if if
you're not hitting them. I love the way you just

(55:25):
describe the difference between intentions and goals. I hope everyone
because you know, whenever you're setting news resolutions or setting goals,
you're setting new quarterly goals. Like that language needs to
change because goals what you want out of something, and
intentions of what you put into something, and you only

(55:46):
get out what you put in. And I love that.
It's so much better to measure yourself against your intentions.
Measuring yourself against your goals will always make you feel
like a failure. Yeah, And I think something I've learned
recently too is I can have goals and intentions for
myself the things that I'm working towards because I want
great things in life. Like I'm doing all the things
I want because I have these big things that I

(56:08):
think I can accomplish. But I can do that while
still being present and happy with where I am today.
And that's come from really being in my thirties. So
before I was always you know, when you're younger, you're like,
I have to be married and have kids by thirty.
I have to do this, like Forbes thirty under thirty,
I have to do all these things by this age.
But it's like, why when life is long? And one
of the best exercises I did for myself was I

(56:28):
wrote down everything I wanted to accomplish in my life
and the age I thought it might happen. When I
got to forty five, I had nothing left there was,
I had nothing left to reach. And I'm like, if
I accomplish all these things by forty five, I'm going
to live for decades longer. What more do I have
to look forward to in the years to come? That
gave me so much pause to enjoy the journey I'm on.
Enjoy where I'm at today, Be happy because these things

(56:48):
we have today, the things we get to do, the
jobs we get to do, the brands we get to
work with, the opportunities we have, We wished for the
things we have now. So I don't want to rush
through them just trying to get to where I'm trying
to go. I want to be happy where I am today.
I know it's going to come in time, and if
it's a little bit later than I thought, it's fine
because I have so many more years left of my
life to do all these things that I hope to accomplish. Yeah,

(57:09):
that's such a great exercise that if you did write
down everything you wanted to do, most people would put
the end date as like thirty or forty years forty five,
and it's like, you should have achieved everything in life
so much longer than that, and there's so many more
gaps in between. I had a friend who recently found

(57:30):
love and his business and his work took a bit
of a back burner, but he found someone that he
really wants to spend a lot of time with him.
That's what he was doing. And I was saying, you
just won, right, like you could see that as like
two years out in your business journey, and so now
his business is two years behind. But I was like,
you've just saved yourself years because you found a partner

(57:51):
that you're really connected to. And I think often we
think of it as like they're separate, like there's work
and then there's life, and it's like, well, no, no, no,
there's so inter related. The way you just share that
is spectacular. Like I hope everyone writes that down takes
that away. VERA, what are you working on right now?
I feel like you're someone who because you start therapy
at six, which is just like that, that's another incredible thing.

(58:16):
But like, what are you working on right now personally,
what's something that you're grappling with, What's something that you're
wanting to be better at for yourself, for your friends,
your family, whatever, anything around you. I think the presence
is a big thing for me. I think because I
used to focus so much on the future and the
things I wanted for themselves. That exercise really did change
my mindset. So having a gratitude journal and writing down

(58:38):
every day. I think a lot of times we're busy
in our days in our career, it's like, oh, I
have to go do this, I have to do this today.
But it's not I have to do it's I get
to do so I get to go work here, I
get to go to this opportunity, instead of I have
to do these things. And that really changed my mindset
of being grateful for what I get to do every
single day and really focusing on that and not being
so stressed about things happening in a certain year or age.

(59:01):
I'm thirty six now, and I keep feeling like, oh,
I'm still not ready to do all these things, like
I'm still so young. I think the older I get
the younger, I still feel where when I was in
my twenties, I was like, oh, I'm getting so older, Like, oh,
thirty six is so old. But now that I'm thirty six,
so I'm like, it's still so young. So I think
focusing on the present, being happy with where I am today,
the things I have today, and practicing that gratitude each
and every day. And then I think, as I've gotten

(59:22):
older too, because my parents are older, taking care of
my health. It's not about vanity, It's about how do
I feel my best, how do I stay active. My
parents are really young and smart in their minds and
their bodies. They still travel by themselves. They're very independent people,
and I think it's because they've taken care of themselves.
And my dad does the cross word every day, he
reads books. My mom's very independent. I think keeping your

(59:44):
mind young and so doing things for brain health. Now
that we're getting older, I'm like, okay, vrain health, higher health, mobility,
those things are all important of taking care of yourself,
not just for Vanity's sake, but for the health of
yourself so that you can be your best self in
decades to come. Because I hope when I'm sixty seventy
eighty ninety. I'm still able to do a lot of
things that I don't feel stagnant in my body because

(01:00:06):
I let my age catch up with me. I'm in
the same boat as you. I feel like your thirties
are really for that, where like your twenties you still
feel like a super person. And then in your thirties
you're like, oh, wait a minute, there is something known
as getting older physically, I mean, and you start just
becoming aware of how much your body has been through
because you could, and then you go, why would I
want to put my body through that anymore? Like why

(01:00:27):
would I do that damage to my body? And I'm
definitely with you on that. I'm spending so much time
reading about longevity and learning about longevity and because not
because I want to live longer or for vanity, but
I want to live healthier for longer. And I think
that's the difference, right, Yeah. I think health is so
important to us and taking care of ourselves, what we eat,
what we put into our bodies, how we spend our time,

(01:00:48):
our brain, our energy, all of these things, because we
do want to have lower cortisol levels for the rest
of our lives and have quality sleep so that our
brain health is there, so that we feel best in
our mind to function every single day. And so I
do want to live a long, healthy, youthful, smart life
where I can do so many things for decades to come,
and so those things are so important to me. So
it's like watching documentaries around blue zones and like what

(01:01:09):
are they doing here and how do they live longer, healthier,
happier lives, And so those things are so important, especially
our health, because we know, like when you don't feel good,
there's nothing you can do about it. So it's like
the second I got sick recently and like as soon
as I was done, I was like, wow, I'm so
grateful for my body. I'm so grateful for my immune
system and my good health, because when you feel bad,

(01:01:29):
you take for granted the days that you feel good.
So it's really about thinking about your gratitude each day
of feeling good in your body and the days that
you feel good. So one of the things I write
down in my journal is I am grateful for my
body and mind and soul. I'm happy for my physical
and mental health and happiness because that's so important to me.
Because it's not just like my physical health, but like,

(01:01:50):
how do I feel in my mind? Do I feel happy?
And you know, on the days when you don't feel
so happy, you have so much gratitude for the days
that you do feel good mentally absolutely absolutely, And I
feel like you're high performer, you're massively ambitious, you're like
optimal peak performance individual, and I can relate to them.
What that comes with is you naturally have higher quarters
our levels because you're doing more stressful things. Right Like

(01:02:11):
when Kobe Bryant's playing in the final of a game,
it's like he's having to deal with more stress and
then perform but then recover as fast, right, And that's
all the best athletes. The World Cup's going on right now,
and it's the same thing. All the best soccer players
in the world are dealing with more stress. It's not
that they don't feel stress when they play at that
high level. So what are some of the things. I mean,

(01:02:33):
you've given us so many habits, But that's just something
because it's on my mind too. I'm thinking that if
I and I'm speaking to anyone who's listening who thinks
they're really ambitious, they're big goals or big intentions. But
then at the same time, then you have to be
even more on top of your quarters our levels because
you're naturally going to experience more stress. Yeah, this morning,

(01:02:54):
I was talking to someone and she was like, what
workouts are you doing? I was like, I love Plate's.
Like I don't want to go into a workout where
I feel more stressed going through it, because I want
something that makes me feel good and rested. I always
wear my or a ring, which I'm obsessed it. I
love it, and I track my sleep every night and
like quality sleep really does make me feel my best
the next day. I drink magnesium every night before I

(01:03:14):
go to bed, taking like my vitamins and supplements. And
then really not like I don't watch scary movies, Like
I'm not doing things that are gonna make me feel
more excited or like feelings that would make me feel
more anxious. So anything that's going to make me feel
more anxious, because I already have to feel anxious and
stressed in like my job, so I don't want these
added like books or shows that are going to make
me feel a little bit more stressed out. And then

(01:03:35):
I'm someone who it physically manifests in my body. And
so one day I was really stressed out. I was
at the airport. I missed my flight. I was so
stressed because I had to get back for something. The
next day there was no flights out, and instead of
just relaxing and like taking a breath, I woke up
the next day I had a rash on my body
because when I get stressed, So I have to remember, like, Okay,
I can't get stressed out about things I can't control.
I need to take a breath or else it's gonna

(01:03:57):
physically show up in my body when I'm like overly
stressed about something, especially something like that I made at home.
It was fine, it was all good, but I stressed
myself out for no reason. So it's like doing all
these things that can control because stress is going to
happen in our lives. We're going to have stressful days.
Things are out of our control, our job, our personal life.
Those things will make us stressed out. So it's like,

(01:04:17):
how can I control all of the other things in
my day to feel my best. Yeah, I love your
insight on if you get to have a stressful day anyway,
you don't want your workout or your meditation to be
the thing that stresses you more. Marianna. I've learned so
much about you today, literally you have. I'm so happy
I got to do this with you, and I recommend
anyone who's listening or watching please do this with your friends,
because when you interview a friend, or you interview a parent,

(01:04:40):
or you interview a family member, you realize just how
much life experience is stored within this human that you
know you call a friend or a family member. You
know this very well, Marianna. We end every interview with
the final five. These are the fast five, where you
have to answer each question in one word to one
sentence maximum. But before we do that, I want to

(01:05:00):
ask you did I ask Was there something I didn't
ask you that you wish I asked you, or something
you wanted to share that's on your heart that you
want to let you feel We didn't touch your part.
I think all good. I think I just this is
like a love note to you, But like I love
your content and it makes me feel so good. And
what I want to put out in the world is
content that makes people feel either motivated or inspired or
something in their life that adds value and I feel

(01:05:22):
like I always get that from you, and so thank
you for your content because it makes me feel that way.
And that's the things that I want to consume every day,
Like did I take away something that made me feel
better or inspired or motivated? And I feel like you
always bring that out of your guests, so sweet and honestly,
like you've given us such a unique perspective. And this
is why I wanted to talk to you, because I
find you to be not only are you a successful

(01:05:43):
business person, but you're committed to your self care. And
I think that those two things together are really inspiring
to me. And that's the kind of energy I want
my audience to feel. That you can be successful and
do self care. You can be ambitious and affection and kind,
like you can be courageous but be really sweet, and

(01:06:04):
I see that all in you, and I really I
love people who can blend these opposites, because I think
for too long people have been made to believe, well,
if you're bold and brave, then you're strong, or you're
weak and meek, And I'm like, well no, there's this
beautiful harmony in between. And so that's my love note
back to you. As well. I love that. I'm going
to start saying that I like that, but these are

(01:06:25):
your final five. The first question is what is the
best advice you've ever heard or received. Don't be afraid
of being told now, so just asking people for something.
If they say no, don't be offended. But you never
know who's going to say yes. That's a great piece
of advice. We've never had that. That is very good,
and I do that a lot, so I'm with you, okay.
Second question, what is the worst piece of advice you've

(01:06:45):
ever heard or received? The worst piece of advice was
people told us when we launched Summer Fridays not to
launch with jetlag mask, and so I think that was
in our gut and intuition the product we wanted to
launch the brand with. I don't know if it would
be what it is today without that. So if you
have a gut feeling about something you want to do
personally or professionally, even if the experts tell you something else,
go with what you feel is best in your gut.

(01:07:06):
I love that. That's and I love that example for
that as well, because it's usually the thing I remember.
I've never done a lot of brand partnerships or brand
deals because my content was always so open and wide
that it didn't really there weren't really industries that crossed
over as much in the beginning. And I remember one
brand reached out to me and they said, Jay, we

(01:07:28):
want you to do this video. They didn't give me
an idea, they just gave me a vision of like
we wanted to be about people living life on their
own terms. Like that's the spirit of the video. And
I was like, I love that. I can totally vibe
with that. And I can't even remember I had some
like made up fee at the time, like these very
early days. I was like whatever, it wasn't that much,

(01:07:48):
and I went and made this video and I put
my heart and soul into it because it was like
one of my first brand deals, and it was even
though the brand deal was tiny, it was just so
important to me that I got to make this piece
of content and I shared it with them and they
were like, Jay, we don't Yeah, this is not going
to work. And I was like, I put so I
put more money into the production than they were paying me.

(01:08:09):
But I was so passionate about and they're like, yeah,
it's not gonna work. I didn't have a contract, I
wasn't tuned into what I needed. They said, no, we
don't want this, we don't think you're the right fit
for this. I uploaded the video anyway because I really
liked it. To this day, it's my most watched video.
It's got three hundred and eighty seven million views, like
it's on faceboe. It is one of my biggest videos
of all time. And I love the video. It's it's awesome.

(01:08:32):
But they didn't get it. And that's the video that
changed my entire career. And I'm really happy that there's
no brand attached to it because it's true and real
and yeah yeah, but really it's like going with your gut,
like you know what's going to work best totally, and
so even if these experts tell you it's the wrong
thing or don't do this, but you know this is
what you want to create, put it out into the world,

(01:08:53):
because look, your most watched video are best selling. Yeah, which,
And I love those examples because I think we do
listen to the experts, and so love that, love that,
love that. Question Number three, what's something that you used
to value that you don't value as much anymore? Social
a bit, which is weird because it's also our jobs.
But I think I used to value what it was

(01:09:15):
on there so much and now I understand it's a
tool to do my job. It's not my entire identity,
and so I have a really good relationship I think
with it. Now. What's the biggest lesson you've learned in
the last twelve months. I would say just taking care
of my health is really the most important. Like there's
no amount of money or anything in the world that
you can do, Like, your health is the most important
thing you can take care of. Things will come, So

(01:09:37):
do everything you can and your control to be your
best self and feel your best because that way, if
something were to come, you are in your best shape
that you can be. Yeah. Absolutely couldn't agree more. Very
true for my year this year too, So I definitely
take that to fifth and final question. If you could
create one law that everyone in the world had to follow,

(01:09:57):
what would it be? Oh, one law. It's kind of
a little bit we talked about earlier of like saying
yes or no to things. So if you want to
say yes to something, it should be an absolute, full
body yes, I really want to do this. If you
feel any hesitation or any no. There might be something
in your gut and intuition telling you why I want
to say no to this or why I don't want

(01:10:18):
to do this, and then you end up saying yes
and you don't really want to do it anyway. So
say yes to the things you feel full body yes too,
and say no to the things that you don't feel
absolutely truly like aligns with you and your gut and
your intuition. That's great, Marianna. Here everyone, the podcast is
called Life with Marianna. You know the brand Summer Fridays
makes you go subscribe to the podcast. Do follow Marianna

(01:10:40):
on Instagram on all social media platforms that you use,
and please, the biggest thing I want you to do
is tag what you learn from this episode. So take
a screenshot right now, tag me in Marianna both on TikTok,
on Instagram, Twitter, whatever platform you're using, and let us
know what you learned, what you're going to try out,
what you're testing for a week, what habit really stayed

(01:11:01):
with you, a new journal question that you might have gained.
I love knowing the insights that you actually apply to
your life, and that's what I want next year to
be about the next twelve months of your life. Whenever
you're listening to this is not how much can you learn,
not how much can you grow, not how much pressure
you put on yourself, but how much can you apply?
And I think in Marianna's journey, I see a lot

(01:11:21):
of applied wisdom. And I think applied wisdom has so
much more value than knowledge or books read or episodes
listened to, and so focus on application. Marianna, You've been
so wonderful, has always. It's been such a joy having
you on. I hope we have you on again and
keep tracking this incredible journey that you're on. And thank

(01:11:42):
you for giving us permission to live long, healthy, successful
lives that don't have to end by forty or forty five.
There's so much life to live. Thank you for Thanks Maria.
If you love this episode, you will also love my
interview with Charles do Hig on how to hack your brain,
change Jenny habit effortlessly, and the secret to making better decisions.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Marianna Hewitt ON: How to Create a Morning Routine that Results in Success & Why Energy-Drainers Are Getting in Your Way