Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to
Speaker 1: What's Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a
Speaker 1: show about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and
Speaker 1: personal journeys. Together, we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors,
Speaker 1: and leaders of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every
Speaker 1: Thursday or join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's
Speaker 1: Her Story Podcast. A gotpy Stas Napolist is best known
Speaker 1: as Arianna Huffington's sister, but she's a star in her
Speaker 1: own right. A gifted orator, a Goppy is a motivational
Speaker 1: speaker and the author of three books, most recently Speaking
Speaker 1: with Spirit fifty two Prayers to guide, inspire and uplift you.
Speaker 1: One of the things about understanding you and your work
Speaker 1: is to really dig into your philosophy on giving and receiving.
Speaker 1: So I learned about the principle of giving and receiving
Speaker 1: from my mother, Ellie, who raised us, me and my
Speaker 1: sister in Athens, Greece, and she had an incredible I
Speaker 1: call it Greek hootspah about asking for help because she
Speaker 1: also had an incredible generosity. And I have a chapter
Speaker 1: in this new book called It's not a trade, It's
Speaker 1: an offering, Darling. Because I just sum it up her philosophy.
Speaker 1: There was a time that we were at a cocktail
Speaker 1: party and in London actually where we studied, and a
Speaker 1: lovely woman said to my mother, Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: love your pearl necklace. It's so beautiful. And my mother
Speaker 1: took it out and said, here, now it's yours. And
Speaker 1: this woman said, oh my god, but you hardly know me.
Speaker 1: What can I do for you? And my mom that
Speaker 1: turned to her and said, it's not a trade, darling,
Speaker 1: it's an offering. And to me, that's the philosophy of
Speaker 1: how I was raised. It's not like I'll do this
Speaker 1: for you, but what you do for me. And it's
Speaker 1: this unconditionality. It's what I think, really, Amy and Sam
Speaker 1: makes us feel very rich because a lot of times we,
Speaker 1: especially women, we don't want to ask because I think
Speaker 1: men are more ruthless about asking. We don't want to
Speaker 1: ask because we feel we should do it ourselves will
Speaker 1: appear needy or weak. But my mother, when she took
Speaker 1: Arianna to Cambridge where she studied economics and I started
Speaker 1: acting at the Royal Academy, she went to everybody and said,
Speaker 1: do you know somebody who has been in the Royal
Speaker 1: Academy of Dramaticas that I can introduce to a gappy.
Speaker 1: And she she asked ten or twelve people till we
Speaker 1: found the person. And we went to meet the person
Speaker 1: soon and with such a Greek hoodspa as I said,
Speaker 1: She said, Reynow, his name was reyn Can you please
Speaker 1: help a gappy get into the Royal Academy? But how
Speaker 1: did you do it? I was sixteen years old. I
Speaker 1: mean this, This man said, sure, I'll tell you, bang
Speaker 1: bang bang. The next thing, you know, five years later
Speaker 1: I was in the Academy. So that hospitality that she
Speaker 1: had gave her um the courage and the confidence to
Speaker 1: ask and to receive. And many times I tell the
Speaker 1: stories because you know, people suffered a lot from fear
Speaker 1: of money and not having money and feeling ashamed if
Speaker 1: you are in debt or you want to get something
Speaker 1: but you don't have the money. And my mother went
Speaker 1: to her brother's, went to friends when she needed money.
Speaker 1: She would ask and then always paid back, but she
Speaker 1: had no shame about it. It's extraordinary to me, and
Speaker 1: to this day, I feel this freedom about money and
Speaker 1: there were many times in my life that I didn't
Speaker 1: have the money, and now friends would ask me out
Speaker 1: and say, I'll take care of you, And now I
Speaker 1: do the same thing for people. So that cycle of
Speaker 1: giving and receiving is what I call fundamentally trust in
Speaker 1: the life and trust into the human spirit. No shame.
Speaker 1: Was there ever a time in your life you felt
Speaker 1: that you couldn't trust any human spirit that things would
Speaker 1: settle or get better and move forward. Yes, I had
Speaker 1: years and years because I started acting, as you know,
Speaker 1: and I have to tell you, and I'm very proud
Speaker 1: and kind of shameless about it. I'm an amazing actress.
Speaker 1: I mean I can blow your way by reciting Shakespeare,
Speaker 1: The Greeks Barnard Show, and if we had more time
Speaker 1: on your podcast, I would be reciting like crazy. And
Speaker 1: I do it at dinner parties. I tell people you
Speaker 1: want me to ask for you, and I do this
Speaker 1: quick trudged de end, you know, emoting Joe Costa, and
Speaker 1: people say, oh my god, you're such a good actor.
Speaker 1: Should change you should what happened? I said, Well, what
Speaker 1: happened is I wasn't getting the parts for years and years.
Speaker 1: I was auditioning in Los Angeles, where I was living.
Speaker 1: After London, I went to LA to do a movie.
Speaker 1: The movie didn't work out, and then I had what
Speaker 1: I called my epic drama of my ulysses of trying
Speaker 1: so many venues and and for years and years, my
Speaker 1: career wasn't happening. It was like wall hitting a wall,
Speaker 1: hitting a wall, hitting a wall, and uh, you know, Amy,
Speaker 1: That's when I really started to doubt myself. I started
Speaker 1: to doubt life, like this isn't happening? And what taught me?
Speaker 1: And what life taught me? Because you know life. Let
Speaker 1: me just say this to our listeners and please tattoo
Speaker 1: this in your forehead. Life is for you. Life is
Speaker 1: for you. People think that life is against you, know
Speaker 1: you might have believes that life is against you, but
Speaker 1: you must reverse and that trust, the fundamental trust that
Speaker 1: no matter what happens. And I'll tell you another experience.
Speaker 1: After this, you go, what am I? And what am
Speaker 1: I here to learn? Am I learning patients? Am I
Speaker 1: learning how to find my confidence? Am I learning how
Speaker 1: to reroute? You know, like the GPS which is rerouting
Speaker 1: this isn't working? And that creativity was awakened in me
Speaker 1: and I said, I had. I was suffocating. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going anywhere, I'm not expressing. I'm a talented woman.
Speaker 1: What is going on? And I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: did a lot of in the work. Let me just
Speaker 1: say that also to our listeners, you got to do
Speaker 1: your inner work. Life does not come easy and does
Speaker 1: not really You don't get happy and fulfilled without the
Speaker 1: inner work. So what does that mean. It means you
Speaker 1: study the teachers, You study with coaches, you study with um,
Speaker 1: writing things down. You find mentors who can teach you
Speaker 1: about yourself, what you know. If you have doubt self doubt,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are plagued by you. You go
Speaker 1: and you go, where did that come from? And you
Speaker 1: look at it in the mirror, and you're ruthless with yourself,
Speaker 1: you know. And and that's what I teach in my
Speaker 1: seminars and in my books. Your story is so powerful,
Speaker 1: and in reading your books, I really loved how you
Speaker 1: married your personal story with your lessons, and I mean
Speaker 1: I found them so riveting and just so inspiring. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that was so interesting to me
Speaker 1: is your childhood. You grew up so modestly but with
Speaker 1: such an abundance of love. Is that what gave you
Speaker 1: your confidence? Yes, definitely. And let me just I'll come
Speaker 1: right back to that sum just to finish how I
Speaker 1: got from the world not giving me what I wanted
Speaker 1: two saying I will find my spark. I will create
Speaker 1: a one woman show for a copy. I started to
Speaker 1: write all the monologues I loved, and I said, I
Speaker 1: am going to do the Greek Goddesses. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: called Conversations to the Goddesses. I'm going to launch it.
Speaker 1: I was living in Santa Barbara at a gallery of
Speaker 1: a friend. I'm gonna have all my friends come. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have my mother made Greek dinner. I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: a party. I'm gonna celebrate life. Excuse me, and f Hollywood.
Speaker 1: You don't want to I don't want to swear in
Speaker 1: your podcast. You can. I mean, I say, fuck it,
Speaker 1: fuck HollyHood. They're not getting a copy. And every speech
Speaker 1: you will hear of that. I've done every speech in
Speaker 1: my YouTube channels. If you go in my wake Up
Speaker 1: to the joy of View dot com, every single speech
Speaker 1: I say. The world didn't give me what I wanted,
Speaker 1: not a career, not the man not the money, because
Speaker 1: I had to get a copy and then give it
Speaker 1: to the world. And once I got me, man, it
Speaker 1: was not stopping. It was like here I am unleashed,
Speaker 1: here's my heart. Whoever, I said, If I've gone through
Speaker 1: this and I broke free, I'm gonna have other people.
Speaker 1: And I have held so many people, my friends through
Speaker 1: saying let's find your spark, let's find your courage, Let's
Speaker 1: not stay in the negativity, the depression and the defeating. Yes, Sam,
Speaker 1: my mother there showed me that my mother and I
Speaker 1: have endless stories about my mother where she was not
Speaker 1: afraid of life. She gave me an Arianna, this permission.
Speaker 1: She created miracles, endless miracles for us and infused us
Speaker 1: with this trust of life. She demonstrated it. Do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And and it wasn't a book,
Speaker 1: it wasn't words. It was like, right in the midst
Speaker 1: of adversity, my mother would rise up. Where do you
Speaker 1: think she got that from? Not everyone is like that? Yes? Uh?
Speaker 1: And finally enough, Actually, I had a friend of mine
Speaker 1: was an actor, said to me, if I had your mother,
Speaker 1: I would have been mirror strip. And I said, no,
Speaker 1: if you had my mother, you would be you and
Speaker 1: totally loved being you because my mother never said to me,
Speaker 1: go be merror strips. She would say to me, you'd
Speaker 1: just be a copy, you know, you'd just be we we.
Speaker 1: I hated math. I was lousy in math, and uh,
Speaker 1: every every day I used to pray my teacher would die,
Speaker 1: as if as if you know, well, if he died,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't bring another one. You know. I hated math.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, have you ever been in face
Speaker 1: with something that you feel an incredibly inadequate? You know?
Speaker 1: I felt, this is crazy? What is algebra about? And
Speaker 1: my mother used to write me notes and let us saying,
Speaker 1: we didn't bring you here for the math. We brought
Speaker 1: you here for the joy. I have them. I still
Speaker 1: have her letters. So that's If you have children, please
Speaker 1: don't compare your children to each other. Don't say, well,
Speaker 1: look at your brother, he's such a good um a student.
Speaker 1: Maybe your son is not an a student, maybe he's
Speaker 1: fabulous at sports, and maybe he's great at art. Not
Speaker 1: find the gift of your child and infuse that. Don't
Speaker 1: ever compare your one child to the other. Arianna was
Speaker 1: an incredibly brilliant student, as you know, I mean, a
Speaker 1: brilliant woman studied economy, said Cambridge with honors. I had
Speaker 1: no idea about all that world. But my world was different.
Speaker 1: It was about connection and love and joy acting. And
Speaker 1: coming back to your question, Amy, where did my mother
Speaker 1: get it? Was that your question? Yes, I I really feel.
Speaker 1: Let me see. I'm going to call on my mother's spirit.
Speaker 1: She's totally here, hi, mom Ah. She said she was
Speaker 1: an advanced soul, doesn't make sense. She was an old soul.
Speaker 1: My mother also, I'm a very old sort old old,
Speaker 1: old old aldso and then their new beasts, you know,
Speaker 1: their new souls who we must love and nurture. My
Speaker 1: mother was a very old soul, and she went through
Speaker 1: very difficult times. You know. She fought as a nurse
Speaker 1: the Second World War where the Nazis came in the
Speaker 1: Red Cross cabins. She was in the mountains in Greece,
Speaker 1: in northern Greece, and she was hiding Jewish people, of course,
Speaker 1: and they marched in with guns with the machine guns,
Speaker 1: and three machine guns burst in and started to shoot,
Speaker 1: and my mother spoke German. She was a very educated woman,
Speaker 1: and she stood up and she said, put down the guns.
Speaker 1: You have no right to shoot with red Cross and
Speaker 1: she saw three machine guns go down, and she faced
Speaker 1: the Nazis face to face and said to me, after that,
Speaker 1: I was never afraid of life again ever, because the
Speaker 1: life force spoke to me. And this is what I
Speaker 1: want to encourage Sam and Amy and our listeners. Whatever
Speaker 1: it is you want to say, say it, whatever it
Speaker 1: is you want to do, do it, whatever it is
Speaker 1: you want to you want to cry, cry, you want
Speaker 1: to shout, shout, find the ways out of your what
Speaker 1: I call your closed doors to yourself, because what causes
Speaker 1: us the down o entery g you know what I
Speaker 1: mean by the down energy when you start to feel down.
Speaker 1: What causes that is the unexpressed. If you want to dance, dance,
Speaker 1: whatever it is you need to do, to write it down.
Speaker 1: I you know. In this new book, as you know,
Speaker 1: I have fifty two prayers on everything for those of
Speaker 1: us on YouTuber watching our YouTube channel. It's called Speaking
Speaker 1: with Spirit. It's a really beautiful book, but it's also
Speaker 1: a gorgeous gift book. Thank you, Thank you, Sam. I'm
Speaker 1: very proud of this book because um fifty two prayers
Speaker 1: to guide inspired and uplift you. Because I wanted to
Speaker 1: bring prayer down from the pedestal to our everyday life.
Speaker 1: You know, prayer has a bit of a stigma. Oh
Speaker 1: I pray, I should go to the temple, to the church.
Speaker 1: I should um, you know, have a priest or a gathering.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to say, prayer is your intimate relationship
Speaker 1: with your spirit. You can pray anywhere, you can pray
Speaker 1: at any time. You can pray well, you're making your coffee,
Speaker 1: when you're getting dressed, when you're driving. It's your communion.
Speaker 1: And my mother taught us that because my mother used
Speaker 1: to say, our church is our home. Our communion is
Speaker 1: eating together right now, and that presence. What prayer really is,
Speaker 1: my friends, is opening that awareness that we are being
Speaker 1: breathed right now right Nobody is making this breath. You
Speaker 1: can't make it, amy, I can't do it. Some can't
Speaker 1: do it. It is freely given to us. So every
Speaker 1: everybody right now, unless you're driving, please take a moment
Speaker 1: and focus on your breath. You can put your heart,
Speaker 1: your hand in your heart, and feel your breath. As
Speaker 1: I'm talking, just feel the rising and the falling of
Speaker 1: your breath and come present. As my yoga teacher used
Speaker 1: to say, be in awe of your breath. Okay, and
Speaker 1: come present with your breath and ask yourself, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I don't even have to take my friend my breath.
Speaker 1: It is really given to me. And allow you know.
Speaker 1: Most of our interrupting that energy is that we live
Speaker 1: in our heads, we live in our thoughts, and we're
Speaker 1: not our thoughts, were not our emotions, we are not
Speaker 1: our circumstances. We are who we are beyond all that.
Speaker 1: So when you come present to that, the spirit in
Speaker 1: you starts to awaken, okay, and starts to come. We
Speaker 1: put the the zoom light on it. We put the
Speaker 1: spotlight on the spirit. Okay. Not the amy story, not
Speaker 1: the sum story, not the gappy story. We've got the spirit.
Speaker 1: And the spirit is the same in all of us.
Speaker 1: And you put the spotlight there and you and you basically,
Speaker 1: if I may say so, you basically shut up, because
Speaker 1: we are going I'm worried about this, and I'm afraid
Speaker 1: about it, what about this? And I didn't do this right?
Speaker 1: And we judge the hell of ourselves. We judge so
Speaker 1: much life, ourselves, each other. And you go, basta enough,
Speaker 1: no more, shut up. And as a beautiful monk said,
Speaker 1: he was praying to God, and he said, what can
Speaker 1: I do to serve you? What can I do to
Speaker 1: serve you? Can I feed the poor? Can I go
Speaker 1: you know, to Tibet and help people? And he heard
Speaker 1: the inner voice of God or whatever you call God,
Speaker 1: inner spirit, intelligence say shut up and let me love you. Okay.
Speaker 1: So in that moment we open our hearts. Prayer is
Speaker 1: a heartfelt experience. We open our heart and you go,
Speaker 1: I want to receive. Now, I want to listen. That's
Speaker 1: what it's called speaking with spirit. It's not thinking with spirit.
Speaker 1: You speak it and you say, show me, show me
Speaker 1: what can I do about this or about my son
Speaker 1: or about my daughter? But my my my business? And
Speaker 1: you be and you are quiet, and you stay present,
Speaker 1: and you start to feel that you are not alone. You.
Speaker 1: If there is one message that I want to communicate
Speaker 1: every single person who is listening, please open the door,
Speaker 1: whatever door you find inside of you, to know that
Speaker 1: you're not alone. Do it in the day, in the moment.
Speaker 1: It's not when you're wearing your Sunday best. It's not
Speaker 1: sitting on ceremony and people say, oh, I don't pray,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't I feel silly when I pray,
Speaker 1: or well, you pray when you're in crisis, of course,
Speaker 1: but pray for everything, and don't pray only asking pray
Speaker 1: to listen, pray for others. And now a quick break.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about your relationship with Arianna, your sister.
Speaker 1: It sounds like your mom lead an incredible foundation for
Speaker 1: that relationship and now you two lived together, which sounds
Speaker 1: so amazing. Her sisters to live together. What is that like?
Speaker 1: It's the Greek tradition. You get married, you get divorced,
Speaker 1: and you moved back with your family. I tell you
Speaker 1: how that came out in London when we lived when
Speaker 1: we were both studying. We all lived together, my mother
Speaker 1: and my sister and I, and then we kind of
Speaker 1: we were this trio, you know, everywhere. We moved from
Speaker 1: London to New York and we lived together, and then
Speaker 1: we moved to Los Angeles and we lived together. And
Speaker 1: at some point my sister got married and she moved
Speaker 1: to Texas as she moved to Washington, but then she
Speaker 1: moved to Santa Barbara where she had her beautiful daughters.
Speaker 1: And uh, I was in and out of Santa Barbara.
Speaker 1: My mother moved in with her to raise the kids.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's a very Greek habit, you know.
Speaker 1: And then there was a period in my life that
Speaker 1: I left I think, yes, I left Santa Barbara and
Speaker 1: went to New York to write my book, my first book,
Speaker 1: Conversation to the Goddesses. And I lived for eight years
Speaker 1: on my own, and Arianna was living with her husband
Speaker 1: and the children and my mother, and I lived on
Speaker 1: my own. And in that time I really formed my
Speaker 1: own confidence in my own self because I was so
Speaker 1: emerged with my mother and my sister. And at some point,
Speaker 1: and I don't remember chronologically how it happened, my mother
Speaker 1: and my father died. My father was in Greece. My
Speaker 1: mother died in Los Angeles. Arianna then got divorced and
Speaker 1: was living in Los Angeles with my mother, and my
Speaker 1: mother died, and about six months later she was in
Speaker 1: l A. I was in New York. We missed each
Speaker 1: other terribly. We missed my mother, we missed my father.
Speaker 1: And Arianna said to me, Darling, where did you come
Speaker 1: and live with me and the children? And uh and
Speaker 1: the children were young, and we need you, we need you, know,
Speaker 1: to be a family again. I was promoting my goddess
Speaker 1: as I was traveling everywhere, and we have a beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful house in l a that has enough room for everybody.
Speaker 1: And so that's how it happened. And then we had
Speaker 1: an amazing, amazing life. You know, I'm very very close
Speaker 1: to my nieces Isabella and Christina. I adored them and
Speaker 1: they called me their second mom. So it was like
Speaker 1: it was never a decision. It was like in the
Speaker 1: flow of life. And then of course Arianna was running
Speaker 1: Huffington Post and we got an apartment here and again
Speaker 1: we were living together. It was like a natural flow.
Speaker 1: The girls were at college and we have our own lives,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, you know, and I'm very very involved
Speaker 1: with Right Global, but you know, we know, we don't
Speaker 1: have dinner together every night, but we are together. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's not like we flow together, like all
Speaker 1: right now, Arianna's in Los Angeles doing some of her things,
Speaker 1: and she's coming back here. Then she's traveling, so it's
Speaker 1: in and out. You know, we are together because we are.
Speaker 1: We have a partnership. I tell you, the most comforting
Speaker 1: thing is that we talk every day. We talk about
Speaker 1: everything about life. But Arianna can call me and say,
Speaker 1: oh this and this just happened. Can you call so
Speaker 1: and so and tell them about this great done you know?
Speaker 1: Or can you make sure that when you go in
Speaker 1: the market you get fetter cheese? You know, it's like
Speaker 1: it's like it's like everything you know. Or she would
Speaker 1: say to me, you know, oh, I just met this person.
Speaker 1: I think they would be wonderful for your book. I'm
Speaker 1: sending an email to them. So we think of each
Speaker 1: other in our lives and that's the most beautiful. And
Speaker 1: and we send each other text about messages and I
Speaker 1: love you. We never finished a text without saying I
Speaker 1: love you. And I tell you the greatest secret that
Speaker 1: Arianna and I have we pray together. So how do
Speaker 1: you resolve context with Arianna, with anyone with your nieces? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: the conflict is there all the time. I mean, disappointment
Speaker 1: is there all the time. First of all, the conflict
Speaker 1: with other people. And you know, there are many situations
Speaker 1: where friends don't react the way you want to, or
Speaker 1: they do something that hurts your feelings, or um, you
Speaker 1: have a disagreement with somebody, And I think the most
Speaker 1: important thing is if you can come to accepting it
Speaker 1: and loving yourself, because the thing we do, we judge
Speaker 1: the hell of ourselves. Because when you're in judgment, you
Speaker 1: can't see the answer, the solution. Okay, and it would
Speaker 1: be I forgive myself for judging myself for this thing
Speaker 1: that just happened. I forgive myself for judging myself for
Speaker 1: this disagreement. I forget of myself for judging myself for
Speaker 1: feeling out of balance. I've forgiven. And then you don't,
Speaker 1: you don't take you to sleep. You kind of release it.
Speaker 1: I have this great phrase, I love I'm letting go
Speaker 1: of this disagreement because you know, the disagreement is mostly
Speaker 1: the ego. Okay, the ego hurts, the ego fights. The
Speaker 1: ego says I don't like this, I hate this, I
Speaker 1: hate you. I am right, you're wrong, you know. So
Speaker 1: if you can work with your ego and and surrender
Speaker 1: your ego, which is not easy, and you bow down,
Speaker 1: and if you have to ask for someone to say
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I yelled, I'm sorry, I was
Speaker 1: out of sorts. I let's bring back the peace and
Speaker 1: the loving and and that's one of the things I
Speaker 1: encourage everybody to do. But for me, you know, before
Speaker 1: before my book was coming out I and I was
Speaker 1: promoting it, and every think I got out of the blue,
Speaker 1: I got singles in my right eye. I mean I
Speaker 1: got I mean it was horrific. It was like right
Speaker 1: in the middle, I just suddenly started to move in
Speaker 1: on me and uh, I mean you can see, as
Speaker 1: you can see, my eyes still not perfect. I'm still
Speaker 1: have my eye is still a bit swollen, but nothing
Speaker 1: like it was. So it was extremely painful. And here
Speaker 1: I am promoting the book about spirit and love and God. Right,
Speaker 1: so I was mad at I was mad at God. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, you know a guppy I once had shingles,
Speaker 1: and shingles is really stress driven, and having a new
Speaker 1: book come out is one of the most stressful possible things.
Speaker 1: It sounds so romantic if you're not an author, but
Speaker 1: having a book come out is incredibly difficult. And so
Speaker 1: I'm sure that it was not a coincidence. It was
Speaker 1: the stress that was induced from it. Yes, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for saying that. And let me just tell
Speaker 1: you it wasn't just that I had just come back
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles. I was like a kid in the
Speaker 1: candy store. I was going to the theater I was
Speaker 1: going to ballet, seeing my friends, having dinner with my friends.
Speaker 1: I was so happy, and suddenly bang Omicron came and
Speaker 1: we couldn't do anything right. So I had Omicron, I
Speaker 1: had the book. I had Christmas, which is stressful and
Speaker 1: you know, just challenges that and I I should have said,
Speaker 1: I should have totally said to myself and to my family, maybe, um,
Speaker 1: I can't handle this great phrase, by the way, everybody,
Speaker 1: I can't handle this right now. I cannot handle another
Speaker 1: person to that. We have to get Christmas. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have a huge Christmas list, you know, and Christmas
Speaker 1: is always a big thing around here. Or I can't
Speaker 1: handle the round. I can't handle it, just accepting that vulnerability,
Speaker 1: and and the book was coming up, and all the
Speaker 1: things we had to set up for the book, and
Speaker 1: my you know, my publishers going I'm gonna do this launcher?
Speaker 1: Who are going to have for the launch? And I
Speaker 1: remember getting up with angst, you know, and I it's
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, come on, a guppy. You know, God,
Speaker 1: you know the light, you know how to go. But
Speaker 1: we are human, you know. The emotions were overwhelming me.
Speaker 1: And the singles came and it was horrible, absolutely horrible.
Speaker 1: I mean, I to cancel things. I felt terrible. But
Speaker 1: let me tell you two months later, now I'm two
Speaker 1: months into it, I feel amazing. I feel so calm,
Speaker 1: I feel I feel exactly what I said to you
Speaker 1: at the beginning. This is so much more about the book.
Speaker 1: This is about this beautiful message that I want to
Speaker 1: share with all of you. This is so heartfelt and
Speaker 1: I have felt. First of all, my vanity went out
Speaker 1: the window. You know, I had to wear glasses. I
Speaker 1: didn't have to look perfect a guppy miss you know,
Speaker 1: you know how we all want to look perfect. I
Speaker 1: didn't care. I mean, I did my launch and my
Speaker 1: eye was very worse than that, and it was amazing
Speaker 1: because what matters is the energy that came through. And
Speaker 1: so that's what I want to share that the conflict
Speaker 1: is what did a guppy learned. I became more patient,
Speaker 1: more loving. I had no energy throughout the day. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I would just sleep and rest. And how many times
Speaker 1: do we feel it's okay to rest and rest and
Speaker 1: rest till you're good? I mean, I know, you know,
Speaker 1: Sam and Amy, you work so hard, you have kids.
Speaker 1: If you ever have a call to push yourself don't you.
Speaker 1: So I became very loving to myself and right now
Speaker 1: I still am not a and uh, I'm still patient
Speaker 1: and loving with myself and said I can't do anything
Speaker 1: about it. I guess I did everything I could. And
Speaker 1: now a quick break, now a copy. I have two
Speaker 1: favorite stories. Oftentimes, when when I've seen you in person,
Speaker 1: you just make me laugh because almost out of nervousness,
Speaker 1: because I don't know that many people who are as
Speaker 1: confident in who they are and as comfortable as you,
Speaker 1: and I'm in awe of it, and I love it.
Speaker 1: And I have two stories about you. One of the
Speaker 1: stories is that we were at an event together. We
Speaker 1: were both speaking at in Newark, New Jersey, at Oprah's conference,
Speaker 1: and it was time for the speakers to meet Oprah.
Speaker 1: And I think you body checked like ten people to
Speaker 1: get to the front of the line because because you're
Speaker 1: got to you right, You're just you go for what
Speaker 1: you want right and and then and then another story
Speaker 1: is um we were both at a wedding. We were
Speaker 1: both guests at a wedding and you came over to
Speaker 1: me and you said, how is your drink? And I said, oh,
Speaker 1: it's it's really good and I start talking about it.
Speaker 1: Before I know it, you grabbed it and you took
Speaker 1: a sip. Yes, because I but like I just I
Speaker 1: admire how comfortably you just kind of are fluid through
Speaker 1: the world. And I think that so many, especially women,
Speaker 1: hold themselves back from being who they're meant to be
Speaker 1: and from from taking up space in the world. And
Speaker 1: one of the stories, you know, one of the stories
Speaker 1: in your book was about how you were raising money
Speaker 1: for that one woman show you did on PBS and
Speaker 1: how you were you would hit a wall in your fundraising.
Speaker 1: And I think that the story, that story, if you
Speaker 1: could share it with our listeners, would be so meaningful
Speaker 1: to them because so many of them are in business
Speaker 1: and they're selling something or they're going for something. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and my god, fundraising can be such hell and pressure
Speaker 1: and everything. I was raising money for the Gods of
Speaker 1: Greece six million dollar p PBS, and I went to
Speaker 1: every single Greek I knew. I mean, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of Greeks, and nobody would give me money in New York.
Speaker 1: I never forget it. Finally I had a French friend
Speaker 1: of mine who gave me money, and then I was
Speaker 1: able to raise the seed money that the project never happened,
Speaker 1: but I learned so much and the experience that I
Speaker 1: had was very much about perseverance, you know. And the
Speaker 1: cut to my one woman show because I was raising
Speaker 1: money for that, and that I just that was you know,
Speaker 1: hundred fifty thou dollars, so there was not a big
Speaker 1: million dollars. And I never forget it. I called a
Speaker 1: wonderful Greek man quants a lots of stores in New York,
Speaker 1: and I must have called him, you know, a dozen times,
Speaker 1: and his secretary would say to me, oh, yes, happy, Yes,
Speaker 1: we're trying to try to get John to you. But
Speaker 1: and I can. I said, oh yes, it's a happy again.
Speaker 1: You know. It was like I became such a pain.
Speaker 1: And finally he picked up the phone and he said, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm sending you five thousand dollars. Okay, I said, amazing.
Speaker 1: And U then I called his best friend and I said,
Speaker 1: John is giving you five thousand? Can you match it?
Speaker 1: And he said yes? And I never forget. Underneath the
Speaker 1: gate the FedEx checks were coming. It was so amazing,
Speaker 1: and I think I broke through the nose, you know,
Speaker 1: and I kept going, but I kept asking with with
Speaker 1: such A. I must say, I kept asking with a
Speaker 1: lot of charm. You know. I realized the key to
Speaker 1: hearing the no was not to get to feel rejected.
Speaker 1: That was and no doesn't mean I'm rejecting you and
Speaker 1: a no, man, we don't want to give you any
Speaker 1: money right now. But I go, Okay, I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: you again, and it became fun and I U is
Speaker 1: the money And that show, you know, was amazing, and
Speaker 1: and what I learned from all that is again the
Speaker 1: courage to ask a guppy before we go to our
Speaker 1: speed round. I realized there's one thing I really wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you about, which is how you're thinking about
Speaker 1: romance today. Are you online meeting people or do you
Speaker 1: have a relationship you're already in No, I don't have
Speaker 1: a relationship. I mean I feel very fulfilled in my life.
Speaker 1: I feel I have wonderful friends, male friends, I have
Speaker 1: um married friends, I have women friends, I have my family,
Speaker 1: and I feel very fulfilled. If someone walked into my
Speaker 1: life without me striving or I'm not looking, I'm not
Speaker 1: looking online. This is not the phase of my life. Remember,
Speaker 1: I am in the laterst of my life right, so
Speaker 1: this is not for everybody, because I have many chapters
Speaker 1: in this book when you want to find love, I mean,
Speaker 1: how to pray about that, and when you're divorced and
Speaker 1: maybe twice and you want to find love again. It's
Speaker 1: all wonderful for me right now, I'm not looking. But
Speaker 1: if somebody walked in and you know, became a partner
Speaker 1: or someone that I was able to have a relationship with,
Speaker 1: I welcome it. But it's not something that I think
Speaker 1: about a coppy. What book are you reading right now? Actually,
Speaker 1: there is a wonderful book that um, I love and
Speaker 1: that's from Lexi's husband Some Yes, I just bought it,
Speaker 1: Connecting the Dots. It is absolutely fabulous. I recommend it
Speaker 1: and it's actually about how life happens when you let
Speaker 1: life happen, and it's his story with Lexi. Is amazing
Speaker 1: how they met, right, incredible. So a gappy you live
Speaker 1: a very big life. So who is the one person
Speaker 1: that leaves you star struck? You've met so many people.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you who the person who leaves me
Speaker 1: star struck is? Is my niece Isabella. She is thirty
Speaker 1: one years old. She's an artist, and about four years
Speaker 1: ago she suffered a concussion she hit by bike crossing
Speaker 1: the street to have a date and bike. One of
Speaker 1: the bikes's hitter and she hit her head on the pavement,
Speaker 1: and we thought it would be you know, four weeks
Speaker 1: later she'll be fine. Everybody said, there's nothing. There's nothing.
Speaker 1: Four years later, she's still managing her concussion and she's
Speaker 1: um finding ways to navigate it. She has a new
Speaker 1: protocol now of a discipline of doing a few things,
Speaker 1: taking a break, doing a few things, and and this
Speaker 1: is gonna make me cry. But one of the practitioners
Speaker 1: who works with a neurologist she's working with, said to her,
Speaker 1: I wish we had met you when when it happened,
Speaker 1: because our doctor and I can say the name of
Speaker 1: the doctor, because she's an amazing doctor, doctor Chatty, who
Speaker 1: would have helped you within the the first three months
Speaker 1: of the critical months to help a concussion. And Isabella
Speaker 1: turned to the practitioner said, but that would have been
Speaker 1: such a waste, because in the four years I have
Speaker 1: learned so much about my spirit and God and and
Speaker 1: and life, and that would have been a waste. Can
Speaker 1: you believe it? She has taken what's going on with
Speaker 1: her and advanced herself to become who she is today.
Speaker 1: Liu male perspective. Amy asked you a question about your mom,
Speaker 1: and as you're answering the question, you kind of like
Speaker 1: channeled your mom's spirit. Yes, yes, that was something that
Speaker 1: was like, what is going on there? You know? Can
Speaker 1: you talk more about that? Absolutely? That because the spirit
Speaker 1: and the souls of who we are, uh and who
Speaker 1: people are, and we have guides and spiritual guides who
Speaker 1: don't see them if they're invisible, but we must evoke them.
Speaker 1: And there are so many I mean, you can actually
Speaker 1: start to commune with your parents, and I have many
Speaker 1: times communed with my mother and my father. You must
Speaker 1: allow that spirit they want to communicate with you. It's
Speaker 1: not woo woo. It's not like, oh woo, this is
Speaker 1: such wool stuff. It's real, my friends. We must be quiet.
Speaker 1: And if you want to communicate with the spirit of Beethoven,
Speaker 1: listen to the Ode to Joy ten Thou people in
Speaker 1: Japan put it on YouTube. If you want to feel joy,
Speaker 1: and then ask the Spirit of Beethoven and you will
Speaker 1: feel it. You will feel it. And we must have
Speaker 1: the courage to know that that is real. That but
Speaker 1: before other spirits and we must call our souls forward
Speaker 1: and our God, because unless we call it forward, they
Speaker 1: won't come. It was so hard to end that conversation
Speaker 1: with a Coppy because she's one of those people you
Speaker 1: feel like you could talk to for five hours. I
Speaker 1: have to say, like there's something about a copy. First
Speaker 1: of all, she makes me giggle because she just has
Speaker 1: this incredible energy. But she just makes me laugh. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, I think her next book should be
Speaker 1: a parenting book, Amy because whatever her mom did, like
Speaker 1: her mom instilled the most incredible confidence in both Ariana
Speaker 1: and a Goppy. And it's magical. No, I mean the
Speaker 1: fact that like when she has a rejection, she's like,
Speaker 1: Guppy is too much for them. They weren't ready for
Speaker 1: a copy. Like she's just amazing. I mean, I want
Speaker 1: my kids to feel that way. I want to feel
Speaker 1: that way all the time. It is seriously remarkable the
Speaker 1: way she handles things. And you know me aim like,
Speaker 1: I am such a skeptic when it comes to like
Speaker 1: woo woo meditation some of it. And I just fell
Speaker 1: in love with her book. I really, I thought it
Speaker 1: was fabulous. No. I was reading to my oldest daughter
Speaker 1: from it over the weekend actually because yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: well it's just you know, like I want my girls
Speaker 1: to know you and I can inspire our children, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that I got the mother inspired her,
Speaker 1: but somehow it got his mother also taught her to
Speaker 1: believe in the world. And I think it's part of
Speaker 1: what it got his mother, how she lived her own life,
Speaker 1: like the story I got be told about, you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of money, like there would always somehow they'll
Speaker 1: be money, somehow it will come our way. And I
Speaker 1: think that like if you because a child can learn
Speaker 1: to tap into the universe like that, you'll go through
Speaker 1: life in a different way. I totally agree. I mean,
Speaker 1: I you know, I have that philosophy pretty much in
Speaker 1: terms of like I used to say to my husband
Speaker 1: when we had nothing, I'd be like, oh, money grows
Speaker 1: on trees and He's like, what are you crazy, Like
Speaker 1: where do you even get this? But I would always say, like,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna all work out. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: what I think in just in general in life. And
Speaker 1: he doesn't have that philosophy, and I have to say,
Speaker 1: it's it's just so interesting, like parenting next to someone
Speaker 1: who doesn't have that philosophy. He's probably more typical or
Speaker 1: normal than I am. With my like it's all going
Speaker 1: to work out, like kind of Pollyannish idea of life.
Speaker 1: But I do think that mindset has such a big
Speaker 1: impact on outcome. I mean, I agree, like, if you're
Speaker 1: afraid before you begin, it's really hard to get to
Speaker 1: the end, right, And I think they're one of the
Speaker 1: ways to be less afraid is to just believe that
Speaker 1: the universe has your back. And I like, I just
Speaker 1: felt so good leaving that conversation with the copy right.
Speaker 1: I just felt good. I love her. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to have dinner with her New York. She's just she's
Speaker 1: the cutest, She's the best. Thanks for listening to What's
Speaker 1: Her Story with Sam and Amy. We would appreciate it
Speaker 1: if you leave her of you wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and of course, connect with us on social media at
Speaker 1: What's Her Story podcast. What's Her Story or with Sam
Speaker 1: and Amy is powered by my company, The Riveter at
Speaker 1: the Riveter dot c O and Sam's company, park Place
Speaker 1: Payments at park place payments dot com. Thanks to our
Speaker 1: producer Stacy Parra and our male perspective Blue Burns h