August 27, 2025 • 16 mins
Welcome back! After a summer hiatus, we’re picking up right where we left off. Pressing pause wasn’t easy, but it was essential. Taking this break gave me the space to rebalance my priorities, protect my mental health, and make sure my “priority jar” is filled with the things that matter most.
In this episode, I share:
- The priority jar concept from my book, The Reset Button
- Why I stepped back from the podcast this summer and how I spent my time
- The reality of post-book launch depression and feeling lost despite success
- Why it’s important to regularly “dump out your jar” to reassess priorities
- How to give yourself permission to release the “shoulds” and focus on what truly matters
What’s ahead: New episodes every Wednesday—solo shows, conversations with my husband/co-host Greg, and interviews with inspiring guests who are also navigating life’s balancing act.
If this conversation resonates with you, please share it with someone who might need the reminder. And, don't forget to subscribe a leave a review to help others find The Cameo Show! Many thanks!
More Cameo - Word up!
Sign up for The Weekly Reset Newsletter!
https://www.cameoelysebraun.com
https://www.instagram.com/cameoelysebraun
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2083952/support
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Cameo Show man.
It feels good to say that again.
The last time we were togetherwas back in May, right before my
book the Reset Button came out.
And then, well, I did somethingvery off-brand and I took the
summer off.
Since we started the podcast,I've taken maybe a couple of
(00:21):
weeks off during a holidayseason.
This was the longest break andI'm so glad to be back with you.
Welcome.
In the last episode I told youyou can be tired and still show
up for what matters, and I stillmean that.
I still believe that to be true.
(00:43):
But here's what else I believeto be true.
I think it's really importantto know when you need to take a
step back and make sure you'reshowing up for the right things.
That last episode I wasliterally recording in the back
of a car at a graduationceremony and it was important to
(01:03):
me to do so, to show up formyself, for you and my son, all
at the same time.
But then we went right intofull on book launch.
I was in the middle of italready and I realized that my
jar, my priority jar, that myjar, my priority jar, which I'm
(01:25):
going to explain what that is injust a second was full and it
wasn't with the right stuff.
And I hadn't really stopped toreevaluate in a while.
I thought it was full of theright stuff, but that's the
sneaky trick.
So let me tell you about thejar In my book.
(01:46):
If you haven't read the ResetButton, it is available on
Amazon.
Shameless plug.
But in my book I take a conceptfrom Stephen Covey, the author
of Seven Habits of HighlyEffective People.
You may have heard of it.
It's a time management concept.
He uses this analogy of havinga jar and larger rocks, pebbles
(02:07):
and sand.
He explains that the largerocks are the important meetings
, the things that you cannotbypass.
They require your time.
And then the pebbles are noturgent, but they're still
essential to business, sothey're important.
And then the sand is kind oflike all the other stuff.
(02:27):
That's like not reallyimportant, it's not really
urgent and it takes up a ton ofyour time.
And I love that because I liketo visually conceptualize this.
But that concept in my book isrepresented as meaningfulness.
The big rocks represent themost meaningful things in my
(02:51):
life Myself, my health, myhusband and marriage, my kids,
other close relationships, mypersonal interests and hobbies.
And then the pebbles representother things that are still
important to me, but maybe playsecond fiddle to those things,
(03:12):
right?
And then the sand is everythingelse, the nice to haves, but
not essential, like signing upfor every snack list for my
kids' activities or going toevery networking meeting on the
planet for my business.
It's not that they're notimportant, it's just that they
take up a lot of time and maybethey aren't as much of a
(03:34):
priority for me as the otherthings.
And that's okay.
Everybody's jar looks different.
That's just an example of maybewhat mine looks like.
Right A decade ago we dumpedthat jar out, each of us and we
said, okay, what big rocks arein the jar and which ones have
been pushed out by all of thesand and other shit that we've
(03:55):
decided along the way to letfill up our jar, sometimes
unknowingly, and we did a greatjob of putting those rocks back
in by size to make sure that itwas full of big rocks and not
full of sand.
Well, here we are a decadelater and, as I was mentioning,
(04:17):
it was time to dump out my jaragain, because some of the stuff
that was in there were thingsthat Maybe I thought should be
important to me.
Maybe I thought should be thethings I need to do for a
successful book launch orpromotion.
Maybe just taking up way toomuch room Not essential,
(04:41):
knocking out my time with mykids, my time with my husband,
my time with myself, my time totrain, my time to play music, my
time to spend on my business,all of the things that are my
big rocks.
And the podcast is important tome.
But I got to be honest pleasedon't take offense to this as my
listener, because I love andappreciate each and every one of
(05:02):
you and want to show up in theway that you need me to to make
your life better.
But the podcast was kind of apebble in the grand scheme of
things.
When I look at my rocks, right,if my family life is in turmoil
or if I'm spread too thin andI'm like literally running on
fumes, something's got to giveand it can't be me, it can't be
(05:27):
my kids, right?
So it had to be the podcast.
And I want to stop right there.
And I want to just remind youagain everyone's jar looks
different and you're the onethat gets to decide what goes in
, and so if it's offensive tosomeone when you start moving
around your jar.
You dump it out and you startmoving around what's inside of
it.
You have to decide if that's inalignment with who you are
(05:49):
Tough truth, harsh reality,difficult conversations.
Maybe I had to make thedifficult decision that I was
going to take time off from thepodcast so that I didn't lose
sight of all of the things thatneeded to be inside the jar
getting the most of my energyand attention.
So here's how it went.
I'll give you a little update.
We kicked off the summer with afamily vacation.
(06:09):
It was amazing.
The kids are 15 and 19.
And so they're amazing littletravel buddies.
We had a blast.
It was the perfect balance ofrecharging, adventure, downtime,
reconnecting, eating, but beingmindful Like it was an amazing
(06:31):
vacation.
I'm so very grateful that wehad that time together,
especially before, of course,life speeds up again, because it
inevitably always does.
I'm a huge advocate side note ofmaking sure that you prioritize
taking your family on avacation once a year, if not
more.
It doesn't have to be elaborate, it doesn't have to be overly
(06:53):
expensive, but what it does dois drills down time that you
won't get back, that you get tospend with your family and make
memories that you won't everforget and that don't have a
price tag.
Looking back, there were timeswhen Greg and I didn't have
enough money to even pay ourbills and we still made it a
(07:13):
point to go on some type of anadventure or carve out the time
to spend with our kids, and I amso glad we did, because now
that they're older, I look backand I realize if we didn't do it
then I would have missed out onall of those opportunities to
create memories, to see thingswith them and experience things
for the first time with them.
(07:34):
So if you haven't made familyvacation a priority, please,
please try to, especially if youhave young kids.
So we get back from vacationand we almost immediately had
family in town for about a weekand it was all of our family on
Greg's side.
So so Greg's mom and dad, hisbrother, sister-in-law and our
two nephews, and it wasbeautiful and we had so much fun
(07:55):
with them and it was time forus to all be together, which we
don't often get, for all of usto get together like that, and
it was chaotic and it wasperfect in all the ways that
family visits can and should be.
Then came this weird in-betweenspace for me and I'm just going
to be like really honest andtransparent.
(08:16):
The book was out and that was ahuge talk about rocks.
That was a huge boulder,emotionally, task wise, it was a
lot just to get the damn thingdone and out and I finally had a
little bit of space, because Ihad been going, going, going
(08:37):
since the book came out and Ifound myself in this kind of
like what now?
Fog, like post-projectdepression, and I'm serious, I
don't want to throw around theword depression loosely, but
I've never really felt like that, if I'm being quite honest, and
it wasn't anything externalthat was making me feel that way
(08:59):
.
I think I was just feelingunsure and that uncertainty made
me go a little bit dark.
Lots of great things werehappening around me, things I
had only in my wildest dreamsconsidered were possible, but I
(09:20):
kind of felt like I don't.
I can't see any of that and Ican't see a way forward right
now.
All I can see are all thesethings that I feel like I should
be doing, and, even though someof them are exciting and are in
alignment with what I know tobe next or desire to be next, I
(09:41):
can't bring myself to face themright now.
So I took some time to juststop and recenter myself and it
looked different than it everhad in the past, all while still
trying to be present for mykids and husband, obviously.
(10:01):
But even they noticed, likeyou're a little off, I'm an
excitable person and I.
I was having a hard time andthen, just as I started to kind
of snap out of it, we got hit bysickness.
Ben got sick, first our son,then Greg and then finally me,
(10:23):
and each of us had it for likealmost two weeks, and then the
next one two weeks and thenfinally me.
It was like we were justpassing around all of this
medicine trying to figure outhow to make everyone feel better
High fevers, lingering cough,razor blade, throat.
It was awful, but finally thatsubsided and I started to feel
humid again.
(10:43):
Then it was back to school timeand I intended to bring this
podcast back at the beginning ofAugust when I kind of found my
footing again and August cameand went with back to school,
because each year I somehow I'mconfused by why it snuck up on
(11:04):
me and how busy we are, kind oflike the holidays, and I gave
myself some grace and I justdecided.
You know what.
It's going to be okay if Iprolong it a little bit longer,
and here we are, and it's okay,and that's how we landed here in
this moment.
Now, if we can go back todumping out the jar, I feel like
I've done that a few times thissummer taking everything the
(11:26):
commitments, theresponsibilities, the
relationships, the projects andpouring them out onto the table
and then only putting back inthe jar what was meaningful to
me right now.
And right now is an importantpart of that sentence, because,
as I said, everyone's jar looksdifferent.
Everybody's rocks representsomething different.
(11:48):
Well, each moment changes,right?
I mean?
We are all in different phasesof life.
Once you feel like you have onefigured out, specifically with
your kids, for example,something else comes up, they
change, and then you're like, ohman, okay, I got to figure this
out.
So keep in mind that thisdumping out the jar to
reestablish your priorities andmake sure that they are in the
(12:11):
right representation is anongoing practice.
The thing that you have to keepin mind each time you do it,
though, is that you have to staytrue to yourself and give
yourself permission to notrefill your jar with all of the
shit that drains you the shoulds, the shame, the guilt, the
(12:33):
regret, the busyness just to bebusy, the keeping up with the
Joneses, no more.
So welcome back.
Thank you for being here.
I encourage you to take a lookat your jar, dump it out, figure
out what's in there, what'staking up space.
That shouldn't be any longer ormaybe you shouldn't have been
(12:55):
to begin with, to make sure thatyour big rocks, the things that
are most important to you andmost meaningful to you, have
room inside the jar.
You can find more about myinterpretation of that concept,
as well as many other things, inmy book.
The Reset Button that I'vementioned.
It is available on Amazon andthere is a link in the show
(13:18):
notes for you to find that.
You can also sign up directlyon my website for my sub stack.
It's called Word Up With Cameoand each Sunday I changed it
from Friday to Sunday I send outan email and post in my sub
stack called the weekly reset,where it's really just
continuation of theconversations that we're having
(13:39):
here and an invitation tocommunicate with other people
who might be experiencing thesame thing and give you a new
perspective and some new ideas.
Thank you for being here, forjoining us.
We have new episodes everyWednesday.
We're going to have episodesjust me and you together.
(13:59):
We're going to have episodeswhere my husband, greg, joins us
.
That's always a new,interesting perspective to
whatever we're talking about.
We're going to have episodeswith bomb guests.
I've already recorded a few ofthose that will drop after we're
back online and you are goingto love each and every single
one of them because they'regoing to make your life better,
provide a new perspective, sharetheir own struggles, triumphs
(14:23):
and help you feel more connectedto yourself.
In doing so, and I do hopeyou'll join us again.
If something landed with you onthis episode, please share it
with someone.
That's how we connect and payit forward.
We're all in the same boat.
We're all juggling a millionthings, trying to figure it all
out, and sometimes we feel veryisolated in doing so, like why
can't I handle it all?
(14:44):
Well, if anything, I hope thisepisode helped you understand
that we're just human and it'snormal to not be able to handle
it all, and we can healourselves and each other by
making sure everyone is veryclear about that Until next time
.
Hello and welcome to the Cameo Show man.
It feels good to say that again.
The last time we were togetherwas back in May, right before my
book the Reset Button came out.
And then, well, I did somethingvery off-brand and I took the
summer off.
Since we started the podcast,I've taken maybe a couple of
(00:21):
weeks off during a holidayseason.
This was the longest break andI'm so glad to be back with you.
Welcome.
In the last episode I told youyou can be tired and still show
up for what matters, and I stillmean that.
I still believe that to be true.
(00:43):
But here's what else I believeto be true.
I think it's really importantto know when you need to take a
step back and make sure you'reshowing up for the right things.
That last episode I wasliterally recording in the back
of a car at a graduationceremony and it was important to
(01:03):
me to do so, to show up formyself, for you and my son, all
at the same time.
But then we went right intofull on book launch.
I was in the middle of italready and I realized that my
jar, my priority jar, that myjar, my priority jar, which I'm
(01:25):
going to explain what that is injust a second was full and it
wasn't with the right stuff.
And I hadn't really stopped toreevaluate in a while.
I thought it was full of theright stuff, but that's the
sneaky trick.
So let me tell you about thejar In my book.
(01:46):
If you haven't read the ResetButton, it is available on
Amazon.
Shameless plug.
But in my book I take a conceptfrom Stephen Covey, the author
of Seven Habits of HighlyEffective People.
You may have heard of it.
It's a time management concept.
He uses this analogy of havinga jar and larger rocks, pebbles
(02:07):
and sand.
He explains that the largerocks are the important meetings
, the things that you cannotbypass.
They require your time.
And then the pebbles are noturgent, but they're still
essential to business, sothey're important.
And then the sand is kind oflike all the other stuff.
(02:27):
That's like not reallyimportant, it's not really
urgent and it takes up a ton ofyour time.
And I love that because I liketo visually conceptualize this.
But that concept in my book isrepresented as meaningfulness.
The big rocks represent themost meaningful things in my
(02:51):
life Myself, my health, myhusband and marriage, my kids,
other close relationships, mypersonal interests and hobbies.
And then the pebbles representother things that are still
important to me, but maybe playsecond fiddle to those things,
(03:12):
right?
And then the sand is everythingelse, the nice to haves, but
not essential, like signing upfor every snack list for my
kids' activities or going toevery networking meeting on the
planet for my business.
It's not that they're notimportant, it's just that they
take up a lot of time and maybethey aren't as much of a
(03:34):
priority for me as the otherthings.
And that's okay.
Everybody's jar looks different.
That's just an example of maybewhat mine looks like.
Right A decade ago we dumpedthat jar out, each of us and we
said, okay, what big rocks arein the jar and which ones have
been pushed out by all of thesand and other shit that we've
(03:55):
decided along the way to letfill up our jar, sometimes
unknowingly, and we did a greatjob of putting those rocks back
in by size to make sure that itwas full of big rocks and not
full of sand.
Well, here we are a decadelater and, as I was mentioning,
(04:17):
it was time to dump out my jaragain, because some of the stuff
that was in there were thingsthat Maybe I thought should be
important to me.
Maybe I thought should be thethings I need to do for a
successful book launch orpromotion.
Maybe just taking up way toomuch room Not essential,
(04:41):
knocking out my time with mykids, my time with my husband,
my time with myself, my time totrain, my time to play music, my
time to spend on my business,all of the things that are my
big rocks.
And the podcast is important tome.
But I got to be honest pleasedon't take offense to this as my
listener, because I love andappreciate each and every one of
(05:02):
you and want to show up in theway that you need me to to make
your life better.
But the podcast was kind of apebble in the grand scheme of
things.
When I look at my rocks, right,if my family life is in turmoil
or if I'm spread too thin andI'm like literally running on
fumes, something's got to giveand it can't be me, it can't be
(05:27):
my kids, right?
So it had to be the podcast.
And I want to stop right there.
And I want to just remind youagain everyone's jar looks
different and you're the onethat gets to decide what goes in
, and so if it's offensive tosomeone when you start moving
around your jar.
You dump it out and you startmoving around what's inside of
it.
You have to decide if that's inalignment with who you are
(05:49):
Tough truth, harsh reality,difficult conversations.
Maybe I had to make thedifficult decision that I was
going to take time off from thepodcast so that I didn't lose
sight of all of the things thatneeded to be inside the jar
getting the most of my energyand attention.
So here's how it went.
I'll give you a little update.
We kicked off the summer with afamily vacation.
(06:09):
It was amazing.
The kids are 15 and 19.
And so they're amazing littletravel buddies.
We had a blast.
It was the perfect balance ofrecharging, adventure, downtime,
reconnecting, eating, but beingmindful Like it was an amazing
(06:31):
vacation.
I'm so very grateful that wehad that time together,
especially before, of course,life speeds up again, because it
inevitably always does.
I'm a huge advocate side note ofmaking sure that you prioritize
taking your family on avacation once a year, if not
more.
It doesn't have to be elaborate, it doesn't have to be overly
(06:53):
expensive, but what it does dois drills down time that you
won't get back, that you get tospend with your family and make
memories that you won't everforget and that don't have a
price tag.
Looking back, there were timeswhen Greg and I didn't have
enough money to even pay ourbills and we still made it a
(07:13):
point to go on some type of anadventure or carve out the time
to spend with our kids, and I amso glad we did, because now
that they're older, I look backand I realize if we didn't do it
then I would have missed out onall of those opportunities to
create memories, to see thingswith them and experience things
for the first time with them.
(07:34):
So if you haven't made familyvacation a priority, please,
please try to, especially if youhave young kids.
So we get back from vacationand we almost immediately had
family in town for about a weekand it was all of our family on
Greg's side.
So so Greg's mom and dad, hisbrother, sister-in-law and our
two nephews, and it wasbeautiful and we had so much fun
(07:55):
with them and it was time forus to all be together, which we
don't often get, for all of usto get together like that, and
it was chaotic and it wasperfect in all the ways that
family visits can and should be.
Then came this weird in-betweenspace for me and I'm just going
to be like really honest andtransparent.
(08:16):
The book was out and that was ahuge talk about rocks.
That was a huge boulder,emotionally, task wise, it was a
lot just to get the damn thingdone and out and I finally had a
little bit of space, because Ihad been going, going, going
(08:37):
since the book came out and Ifound myself in this kind of
like what now?
Fog, like post-projectdepression, and I'm serious, I
don't want to throw around theword depression loosely, but
I've never really felt like that, if I'm being quite honest, and
it wasn't anything externalthat was making me feel that way
(08:59):
.
I think I was just feelingunsure and that uncertainty made
me go a little bit dark.
Lots of great things werehappening around me, things I
had only in my wildest dreamsconsidered were possible, but I
(09:20):
kind of felt like I don't.
I can't see any of that and Ican't see a way forward right
now.
All I can see are all thesethings that I feel like I should
be doing, and, even though someof them are exciting and are in
alignment with what I know tobe next or desire to be next, I
(09:41):
can't bring myself to face themright now.
So I took some time to juststop and recenter myself and it
looked different than it everhad in the past, all while still
trying to be present for mykids and husband, obviously.
(10:01):
But even they noticed, likeyou're a little off, I'm an
excitable person and I.
I was having a hard time andthen, just as I started to kind
of snap out of it, we got hit bysickness.
Ben got sick, first our son,then Greg and then finally me,
(10:23):
and each of us had it for likealmost two weeks, and then the
next one two weeks and thenfinally me.
It was like we were justpassing around all of this
medicine trying to figure outhow to make everyone feel better
High fevers, lingering cough,razor blade, throat.
It was awful, but finally thatsubsided and I started to feel
humid again.
(10:43):
Then it was back to school timeand I intended to bring this
podcast back at the beginning ofAugust when I kind of found my
footing again and August cameand went with back to school,
because each year I somehow I'mconfused by why it snuck up on
(11:04):
me and how busy we are, kind oflike the holidays, and I gave
myself some grace and I justdecided.
You know what.
It's going to be okay if Iprolong it a little bit longer,
and here we are, and it's okay,and that's how we landed here in
this moment.
Now, if we can go back todumping out the jar, I feel like
I've done that a few times thissummer taking everything the
(11:26):
commitments, theresponsibilities, the
relationships, the projects andpouring them out onto the table
and then only putting back inthe jar what was meaningful to
me right now.
And right now is an importantpart of that sentence, because,
as I said, everyone's jar looksdifferent.
Everybody's rocks representsomething different.
(11:48):
Well, each moment changes,right?
I mean?
We are all in different phasesof life.
Once you feel like you have onefigured out, specifically with
your kids, for example,something else comes up, they
change, and then you're like, ohman, okay, I got to figure this
out.
So keep in mind that thisdumping out the jar to
reestablish your priorities andmake sure that they are in the
(12:11):
right representation is anongoing practice.
The thing that you have to keepin mind each time you do it,
though, is that you have to staytrue to yourself and give
yourself permission to notrefill your jar with all of the
shit that drains you the shoulds, the shame, the guilt, the
(12:33):
regret, the busyness just to bebusy, the keeping up with the
Joneses, no more.
So welcome back.
Thank you for being here.
I encourage you to take a lookat your jar, dump it out, figure
out what's in there, what'staking up space.
That shouldn't be any longer ormaybe you shouldn't have been
(12:55):
to begin with, to make sure thatyour big rocks, the things that
are most important to you andmost meaningful to you, have
room inside the jar.
You can find more about myinterpretation of that concept,
as well as many other things, inmy book.
The Reset Button that I'vementioned.
It is available on Amazon andthere is a link in the show
(13:18):
notes for you to find that.
You can also sign up directlyon my website for my sub stack.
It's called Word Up With Cameoand each Sunday I changed it
from Friday to Sunday I send outan email and post in my sub
stack called the weekly reset,where it's really just
continuation of theconversations that we're having
(13:39):
here and an invitation tocommunicate with other people
who might be experiencing thesame thing and give you a new
perspective and some new ideas.
Thank you for being here, forjoining us.
We have new episodes everyWednesday.
We're going to have episodesjust me and you together.
(13:59):
We're going to have episodeswhere my husband, greg, joins us
.
That's always a new,interesting perspective to
whatever we're talking about.
We're going to have episodeswith bomb guests.
I've already recorded a few ofthose that will drop after we're
back online and you are goingto love each and every single
one of them because they'regoing to make your life better,
provide a new perspective, sharetheir own struggles, triumphs
(14:23):
and help you feel more connectedto yourself.
In doing so, and I do hopeyou'll join us again.
If something landed with you onthis episode, please share it
with someone.
That's how we connect and payit forward.
We're all in the same boat.
We're all juggling a millionthings, trying to figure it all
out, and sometimes we feel veryisolated in doing so, like why
can't I handle it all?
(14:44):
Well, if anything, I hope thisepisode helped you understand
that we're just human and it'snormal to not be able to handle
it all, and we can healourselves and each other by
making sure everyone is veryclear about that Until next time
.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.