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 the best-selling author and host the number one Health and Wellness podcast on purpose with Jay Shetty hey everyone welcome back to on 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 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 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 the behind the scenes story and the journey that she's taken to get there I'm speaking about the one and only Mariana Hewitt who's a leading voice in social media and the co-founder of Summer Fridays the Skin Care brand whose iconic jet lag mask became an instant bestseller Mariana is also the host of her own podcast life with Mariana the number one fashion and Beauty podcast I got to be a guest I think right at the beginning you know when the show launched it's been on an incred edible trajectory amazing guess make sure you check it out Marion is a dear friend so I'm loving this opportunity I just said to her 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 Mariana welcome to on purpose thank you for having me 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 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 you're such a respected Voice such a well-known face in the industry which I think's really hard to do when when you've done it from building a brand when 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 ask this often what's your earliest strong memory as a child like can you remember if you could 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 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 and doing puzzles and like keeping me occupied and like getting me ready and then finally when I held my sisters 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 call my sister kid because I see 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 um 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 remember going into school and it really was memories from six on one or I remember a lot at the time my parents got divorced I was sick so this is very early 90s before a lot of families were 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-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 pre-check this is this is how long ago it was where your people 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 kid 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 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 85 my mom is 72 and so I think they were at a 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 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'm like I've been traveling since I was a baby so it's something I'm so used to I love that I was I did not know that and I think it's really interesting I don't live in my past that much and I you don't strike me as someone who lives in your past a lot but I do love going backwards to kind 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 three and they would have been like God my parents got divorced like it was the worst and I had to go back and forth whereas 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 has 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 I thought every time I got on a plane it was I was leaving one parent and going to another one and so she has a really bad time flying now 30 years later because of those experiences again my parents being modern at the time which is more common now my parents actually got me a therapist when they were going through divorce and this is 30 years ago so you have to think I was six years old and my parents said okay we're gonna separate we're going to give you someone to talk to and so at the time I could actually process my emotions not not really remembering like 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 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 yes your parents are super mature this is like Paragould yeah but you have to think then people 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 wow and do you feel that because of the way they handled it you've continued to have a good relationship with 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 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 of 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 holidays she would come back to see me and so my mom was always planning work trips about coming back to where I was 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 if anything I probably parent them a little bit too much but they're just so incredible 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 20s and 30s it might be a little bit too early but I think my mom waited till she was 36 to have me my dad was 49 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 30. 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 parents to me yeah well so not only were your parents open to the therapy yeah yeah getting divorced moving country your dad being the primary caretaker 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 tell me one of the ways that you feel you parent your parents now that they're older and of course you know what's been one of the most beautiful ways that you've got to oh return that I do everything 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 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 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 um I try to do it a little bit less but they're like my dad even texted me that I think okay thanks Mom like so they're cute I love that that's so adorable and so beautiful I think for all of us who who can support our parents in any way it is such a blessing one of the things that you brought up there that that really stuck 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 uh a lot of for example you gave the example that a lot of women feel like Oh by the time I'm 30 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 things so one my dad grew up really poor he was born at the end of the 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 U.S 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 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 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 me Independence 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 and it went overly independent in my life and so um growing up I told my parents I want to 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 to be in front of the camera and so I started working as a TV host and then Instagram and YouTube who came around in 2012 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 start uploading makeup tutorials because I have this place this is very early YouTube Days 10 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 that their own stories but I didn't know at the 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 like 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 I feel the same with my parents like my mom moved to England when she was 16 and they built their life her brothers were like 18 and 19 and they built a life whereas when I was moving to New York at 28 it was like no no no like are you okay my baby I'm like Mom I'm 28 years old like you were 16 but they forget that they forget the pain and the sacrifice and the risk 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 XYZ are doing 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 you 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 down by doing this or did you just yeah never letting them down I was never worried about letting them down I think I just had to prove them so like my 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 phones 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 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 like if I want to do something I know that it's possible 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 to 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 and here we are a decade later I love that that's amazing congrats congrats on having the strength at a time I I think that's undeplayed like how hard it is when something is brand new to kind of bet on it because you 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 suppose some things I was like that's how early it was and I was like you would pay me fifty dollars to post something let's go 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 like a TV anchor right like that that's what you want it to be then you go into PR realize that being behind camera doesn't work then you do makeup tutorials 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 that 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 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 time I would get towards the end and they would be like we're going to give this job to the celebrity like this celebrity host is going to do this job 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 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 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 count owners so growing up with my dad he didn't know how to do my hair on my makeup so he would take me to department stores and he would take me to an Estee Lauder 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 day 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 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 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 11 to 17 public speaking drama school age 11 to 8 7 age 18 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 20 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 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 that do you feel like there were things then that you were like one day like 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 whether you 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 remember this person telling me at a Mac store how to do this step and it's something I still do in my makeup every day today and here we are like 15 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 that pile on to the next job like 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 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 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 I delivered newspapers but then my second job was I worked at Morrisons 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 did you learn then I'm like I learned how to memorize what was in every aisle if anyone asked me where anything was I knew exactly which islet was in uh 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 learn so many basic things and what you just said you learn how to work with different people I was 15 years old and I learned how to have a boss and how to have a good relationship with my boss and all of these techniques and skills that you would never learn in a textbook you never learn at school when you were going through this journey you take this decision to make YouTube videos to make content did you ever get wrapped up in like views how beautiful am I 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 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 worry too much about views 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 10 years ago because I genuinely love these products I was shopping at Sephora I love Prestige Beauty I was 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 fell 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 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 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 Tick Tock first started was I didn't want to create content just for like the sake of virality and so on YouTube I grew a little bit slower but I started working with luxury Beauty 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 Mercier 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 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 regurgitating it into tick tocks but then you're just retelling a news story and there's nothing personal about it with you and sure people are gonna watch it and 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 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 um and then I think you know there's been phases of burnout for me because being a Creator there's no job security there's no hours there's no health benefits we have no teams a lot of times and so it is the scarcity 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 um 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 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 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 it doesn't make 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 or 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 get a lot of views but it's built him a really good business and he's trying to get more views and virality I'm like no like this is building real value because your content's 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 you just mentioned about no benefits no work hours like that's so real I think burnout comes from doing too much of what you don't feel is true to your core it doesn't come from doing too much of what is very aligned with you would you agree with that or uh yes 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 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 um I did go through periods of burnout of over creating and going to too many things and in college I had a stomach ulcer 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 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 hours 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 difficult yeah you've talked about energy drainage and the energy givers before walk us through that because I think everyone feels that whether it's people places projects we all feel that certain people drain us and projects give us Energy walk us through your version of that yeah my energy drainer 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 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 20s to get to where I am today that I have the ability to say no to things but those no's 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 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 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 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 um and then I'm kind of just thinking all day long um other energy drainers um sometimes it's work and people um 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 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 that's okay I can support you from afar but I know that if I'm around you I don't feel my 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 Audrey yeah the person that came to my mind is Audrey I was like Audrey she's amazing we love you 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 notice that after you leave a friend and maybe you're a little bit tired or drained or you're just like whoa and 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 and I think that that's the mindset that you're sharing then I think that's something people struggle with I think we feel guilty because we 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 oh 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 I how do how have 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 that's impressive these are constants in my life like Audrey we met in 2006 so that's like 16 years ago so we've been friends for a very long time so it's like I have this core group of people who are very accorded 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 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 30s was that a smaller circle is fine in my 20s I think you moved 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 prove to them that I'm something and I don't want to do those things like I want to be truly who I am authentically and as I got into my 30s I realized 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 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 friends and you're making the switch to being like I'm going to be a Founder I'm going to create summer Fridays when you're making that transition walk us through some of 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 the energy and everyone thinks like they have to launch something or whatever 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 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 365. so the other 360 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'm I have my own company and that's fine if you don't love some 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 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 um I think it's difficult when you're starting a business because running a company is actually just so difficult the day in day out of like 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 um I think there may 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 it was more important to invest back into the company so if you're thinking about starting a business ask 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 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 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 day-to-day is yeah I think it's just a great way to look at it because often you you end up starting something you put a lot into and then you realize it's not what you wanted like you didn't want your 90 of your life to be operations strategy management HR and people don't realize that often when we see entrepreneurs living their greatest life we look at it and we go oh they just do what they love old day and and it's not true right we 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 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 com 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 yeah to compete with my friends well 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 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 direct to 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 you ever raise or did you choose not to we raise money um so we ended up raising to walk us through the choice of that and then that process so summer Fridays was self-funded and then we ended up raising money in 2019. 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 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 bestseller 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 the brand people started reaching out to us and raising money is a bit like dating so you want 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 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 gonna listen to like what I want and not because they're an investor 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 sand things but it was two females who founded it and they're incredible and they almost serve 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 2 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 so they have a great portfolio Brands I'm including like Westman Atelier Sol de Janeiro in food they have on flyby Jing and bonds of pasta so they focus in like good for you Brands and 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 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 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 our company culture is really important to us and as we interview for the CEO role it was someone who led with kindness who people were excited to work for and so we ended up bringing on a CEO in 2020 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 if 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 these people to be in your marriage with you and that your baby which is your business you guys all have 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 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 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 I'm just that you don't strike me as someone who worries about what other people think of you or what you do where 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 I care that other people think that this is my title but I have to do something every day that I 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 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 talking with myself with like my journal every day so it's like what's important to me how do I want to feel today um 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 that'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 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 stepped down as 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 as CEOs it was that we just never had CEOs we started the company and a CEO is somebody who can help run the business when it gets to that like 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 like so it's like whether you're the founder or the CEO or 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 the uh were these things 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 personal meditation practice uh and then and then anyone other one that you pick that just walk us through it because I think we see this in successful CEOs successful Founders entrepreneurs and just happier healthier people that routine and a commitment to practices are really beneficial in their life what are some of yours that you can walk us through with a bit more 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 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 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 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 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 up best for the day basically once I start working in the day my mind is going at all times and I am always someone who's thinking of 50 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 13 to 20 minute meditation where there's no music there's no guiding I just have like a bell that goes and I'm just sitting and breathing and I'm never in Stillness all day I'm on my phone I'm on the computer and so having that time for myself really just is like a great way to start the day um 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 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 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 actually doing them and checking them off versus I didn't complete this goal for myself um 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 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 number that was out of your control to begin with so those intentions are really important for me and then within the business you 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 um versus like insane goals that you might not get to and then always feeling sad if you if you're not hitting them I love the way you just described the difference between intentions and goals I I hope everyone because you know whenever you're setting New Year's resolutions you're setting goals you're setting new quarterly goals like that language needs to change because goals are what what you want out of something and intentions are what you put into something and you only 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 of 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 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 30s so before I was always you know when you're younger you're like I have to be married and have kids by 30. I have to do this like Forbes 30 under 30. 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 wrote down everything I wanted to accomplish in my life and the age I thought it might happen when I got to 45 I had nothing left there was I had nothing left to reach and I'm like if I accomplish all these things by 45 I'm gonna 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 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 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 30 or 40. it was like 1 45 and it's like you should have achieved everything and life so much longer than that and there's so many more gaps in between I had a friend who recent recently Found 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 he 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 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 they're so interrelated the way you just shared that is spectacular like I hope everyone writes that down takes that away Marietta what are you working on right now I feel like you're someone who because you started therapy at six which is just like that that's another another incredible thing 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 um 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 every day I think a lot of times we're busy in our days in our careers 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 I'm 36 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 the older I get the younger I still feel yeah where when I was in my 20s I was like oh I'm getting so old or like oh 36 is so old but now that I'm 36 so I'm like it's still so young so I think focusing on 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 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 crossword every day he reads books my mom's very independent I think keeping your mind young and so doing things for brain health now that we're getting older I'm like okay brain health our 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 60 70 80 90 I'm still able to do a lot of things that I don't feel stagnant in my body because I let my age catch up with me I'm in the same boat as you I feel like if that is really for that we're like your 20s you still feel like a super person and then in your 30s 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 would I do that damage to my body and I I'm definitely with you on that I'm spending so much time reading about longevity and learning about longevity and 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 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 um 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 are they doing here and how do they how do they live longer healthier happier lives and so um 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 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 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 mind and soul I'm happy for my 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 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 a 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 cortisol levels because you're doing more stressful things right like when 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 what all the best athletes the World Cups 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 stressed when they play at that high level so what are what are some of the things I mean you've given us so many habits but that's just something because it's on my mind too I'm I'm thinking that if I and I'm speaking to anyone who's listening who thinks they're really ambitious they have big goals or big intentions but then at the same time then you have to be even more on top of your cortisol levels because you're naturally going to experience more stress yeah this morning I was talking to someone and she was like what workouts are you doing I was like I love Pilates 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 um I always wear my aura ring which I'm obsessed 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 go to bed taking like my vitamins and supplements um 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 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 I 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 physically show up in my body when I'm like overly stressed about something especially something like that I made it 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 it because stress is going to happen in our lives we are we're gonna 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 how can I control all 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 out more Mariana I've learned so much about you today literally you have I 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 your friend or you interview a parent 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 uh you know this very well Mariana we end every interview with a final five uh these are the Fast Five where you have to answer each question in one word to one sentence maximum uh but before we do that I want to 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 wanna that you feel we didn't touch upon I think all good I think I just this is like a love note to you but like I love your content 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 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 guesses no 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 no not only are you a successful business person but you're 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 be affectionate and kind like you can be courageous but be really sweet and I see that all in you and I really I love people who can like 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 your final five uh the first question is what is the best advice you've ever heard or received don't be afraid of being told no so just asking people for something if they say no don't be offended but you never know who's gonna say yes that's a great piece of advice we've never had that that is very good uh and I do that a lot so I'm with you you okay second question what is the worst piece of advice you've ever heard or received the worst piece of advice was people told us when we launched summer Fridays not to launch with jet lag mask and so I think that was in 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 I love that that's and and I love that example for that as well because it's usually the thing I 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 want you to do this video they didn't give me a an idea they just gave me a vision of like we want it to be about people uh living life on their own terms like that's the 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 well at this very early days I was like whatever it wasn't that much 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 gonna work and I was like I put some I put more money into the production than they were paying me 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 in to 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 of all time it's got 387 million views like it's on Facebook it's one of my biggest videos of all time and I love the video it's it's awesome 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 I love that yeah yeah but really it's like going with your gut like you know what's gonna 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 because look your most watched video our best-selling yeah which and I love those examples because I think we do list 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 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 12 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 do everything you can in 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 hot Fifth and final question if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow what would it be oh a one law it's kind of a little bit we talked about earlier of like saying yes and 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 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 to 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 uh Mariana Hugh everyone the podcast is called life with Mariana you know the brand summer Fridays make sure you go subscribe to the podcast uh do follow Mariano 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 and Mariana both on tick tock on Instagram Twitter whatever platform you're using and let us know what you learned what you're gonna try out what you're testing for a week what habit really stayed 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 12 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 Mariana's journey I see a lot of Applied wisdom and I think applied wisdom has so much more value than knowledge or books read or episodes to listen to and so focus on application Mariana you've been so wonderful today as always uh it's been such a joy having you on I hope we have you on again uh and and keep track in this incredible journey that you're on and thank you for giving us permission to live long healthy uh successful lives that don't have to end by 40 or 45. there's so much life to live thank you for having me thanks Mariana if you love this episode you will also love my interview with Charles duhigg on how to hack your brain change any habit effortlessly and the secret to making better decisions