327 Stacy London on Styling the Life of Your Dreams

"Style is about an individual . . . It starts with self-awareness." - Stacy London If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/327 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 327 with Stacy London.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to this very special interview with the one and only Stacy London. I'm super excited about this episode and I hope you'll share it out with your friends and let them know that you're listening to it by sending out the link, lewishouse.com/327. That's where they can listen to it right now. And you can also watch the full video interview back at lewishouse.com/327. And check out the full show notes that we cover from today's episode. Now Stacy London has become a good friend of mine over the last year. And she started her career as a fashion editor at Vogue and transitioned into being a stylist for celebrities and designers. She moved into television by co-hosting What Not to Wear on TLC with Clinton Kelly

• 1:18Lewis Howes?

  and doing fashion reporting for Access Hollywood, The Early Show, and The Today Show. And now she's on The View. And we talked about a lot of different things in this episode, including the difference between style and fashion and what that actually means. We also talked about her struggles with body image pre-TV and what she went through as a child with different eating disorders. We also talked about how long it took for her to get casted on her TV show and that entire process. And how she actually almost didn't get casted for the show. We also talk about how she got that gray streak in her hair and how she turned essentially a trauma into what is now considered her trademark. We talk about the challenges she faced from switching from print to television in the fashion world.

• 2:03Lewis Howes?

  And so much more in this episode with the one, the only Stacy London.

• 2:11Lewis Howes?

  Well, welcome everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. I'm very excited about our guest today. We have Stacy London in the house.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Hello. It's so good to be here.

• 2:20Lewis Howes?

  Thanks so much. We're here at Nick Onkin's studio.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Yes, we are.

• 2:23Lewis Howes?

  Hanging out. And I'm very excited because I met you through Nick. When was this, like eight months ago or something?

• 2:29Speaker 03

  No, it was almost a year ago.

• 2:30Lewis Howes?

  Was it a year ago?

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:32Lewis Howes?

  It was springtime at Soho House outside.

• 2:34Speaker 03

  It was springtime at Soho House outside. I met you.

• 2:36Lewis Howes?

  Was it a year ago?

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was almost, it was June.

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, almost a year ago. It feels like so much longer.

• 2:42Lewis Howes?

  Right? But we finally got to do this interview. I've been wanting to interview for a while, so I'm glad we got to make it happen.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Well, I feel very honored. You have very fancy, important people on your podcast. You do. Nick Onkin's been on it. Tony Robbins has been on it. I mean, you know.

• 2:59Lewis Howes?

  No pressure.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  No pressure. I feel like I'm in good company.

• 3:02Lewis Howes?

  You're in great company, yes.

• 3:05Lewis Howes?

  Well, I'm glad that we're here, and I wanted to ask you the first question. We had a really intimate dinner about a few months ago that a lot of things were uncovered. We don't have to go that far.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  It wasn't even a few months ago.

• 3:16Lewis Howes?

  When was it?

• 3:17Speaker 03

  It was like a month ago or two months ago.

• 3:19Lewis Howes?

  About two months ago, yeah.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. I would just like to tell everybody at home, if you don't know Louis, Satya, has she been on your podcast? Satya Twina is a hat designer that we are all friendly with. And Satya and I came to the conclusion that you are like this truth seeker. You're like a missile. You're like this missile bomb. And one of the things that's so interesting is this dinner that you're referring to. Like, within half an hour of like sitting down to eat sausage, I was like basically in a pool of tears. But like, not for any bad reason. You were just like, you like to get to the heart of things. In a way that most people don't do. I mean, you're very intense.

• 4:03Lewis Howes?

  Am I? Hopefully it's not too intense.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  No, I didn't say too intense. I said intense. Just use it.

• 4:08Lewis Howes?

  Intense.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I didn't say too.

• 4:09Lewis Howes?

  Okay, got you.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:11Lewis Howes?

  Got you. Okay, cool. Well, we were talking about this, my intent word, which is grace. Which is a mutual friend of ours makes these.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 4:20Lewis Howes?

  Chris. And you said you have a word. What's your word, your intention word right now?

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, the one that I had made, and that was just a few months ago when I was in LA. Interesting, because also that's when I broke three toes.

• 4:33Lewis Howes?

  I remember this.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  Right, in a car door. I was supposed to go kickboxing with that dude.

• 4:37Lewis Howes?

  He's a machine.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Who I'm still gonna take lessons with, because he...

• 4:40Lewis Howes?

  He's a machine.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  That we need to film. But anyway. So my word, and it's a word that, I'm actually, I wear a lot of words. If you haven't know, I have a lot of necklaces and rings on that have words on them. I love words. I love them painted, I love them in jewelry. And I have no tattoos, so I guess I just like to be able to take things on and off.

• 5:01Lewis Howes?

  It's your form of expression.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Exactly. So my intention word was "almost." And a lot of people see that as something sort of defeatist. Like, "Almost, you almost got there."

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  Almost.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  Almost, you know, "Almost first place."

• 5:16Lewis Howes?

  Good try.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  Good try. Bronze medal, you know, silver. But I don't look at it that way at all. I look at "almost" as something totally hopeful. "Almost" means that there's still more. There's still more out there to do, to see, to experience, to love, to have. In any way that you think about your life, that there's this sense that you don't get to finish until you're really at the end. And "almost" kind of motivates me to keep going. Because I can't rest on my laurels if I know there's more out there.

• 5:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So you're not like, you're not saying to yourself, "Well, I've been successful on TV for many years, so I'm just gonna live off of this, experience and talk about that. You gotta keep going towards something else."

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I would say that now is actually like a huge period of transformation for me. It's something where I started to realize that the 10 years that I was on TLC's What Not To Wear, I kind of didn't really recognize, A, that it had like such an impact in terms of pop culture, and B, that it was sort of gonna be the thing that I got saddled with afterwards is, "Oh, I got to do the girl for this now!" Right? Which, whether they know me or not, is sort of how I get represented.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  That was your identity for a long time.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  For a long time. My field, my profession, has always been fashion. And I started off in magazines. My first job-

• 6:40Lewis Howes?

  Vogue, right?

• 6:41Speaker 03

  Yes, my first job after Vassar was Vogue. So I went from Vassar, where I studied philosophy and literature and psychology, to Vogue, because that makes all the sense in the world. And, you know, rapidly decided that I shouldn't have bothered with college, because then I could have been an editor in chief by that time. But then, later on, was really happy that I went to college to learn. rudimentary things like how to read and write and think critically, which basically are the skills to get you anywhere.

• 7:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  So, you know, I worked at Vogue for two years. I was an assistant overall for many different editors and stylists for about five and a half years.

• 7:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  And then when I was 26, I became an editor at Mademoiselle. And I was there until I was fired when I was 30 by a new editor in chief. And meanwhile, they closed the magazine because of her. So wherever you are, Mandy, keep going. And then I freelanced for about a year. And during that year, I started styling men, kids, women. I did commercials, all styling. And then I got asked to audition for this show. And it really was this turning point because I went from being behind the camera to in front of the camera full time. And that was 15 years ago.

• 8:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And what gave you the confidence to say, okay, now I can be on TV? And did you ever think that you were going to be this TV personality or expert that was giving advice in front of the camera?

• 8:12Speaker 03

  Well, I've always been really good at giving advice, even when I don't know what I'm talking about.

• 8:15Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  But what I do think was that my stepmother is who I hold responsible for getting me the job, really. Because I did about eight months of screen tests. Every freelance stylist in New York City said they were auditioning. Half of them said they'd already gotten the job. I had no idea what was happening. And when I was in Marbella with my family, we get a phone call from my agent saying, my styling agent, saying, "You've got to come back. You're like in the top 27, and they're going to do a cocktail party with all of you." And I was like, "Top 27? It's not even like the top 10. That's not even the top 15."

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  That's a lot of people.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  "Top 27. They want to meet all of you. They want to see you interact." And I was like, "Look, I am in Marbella, okay? Prince has a house here." And like, it was really lovely seafood. I said, "They have me on tape. I've done it like four screen tests."

• 9:08Lewis Howes?

  For eight months.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:10Lewis Howes?

  They don't know me by now.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  Right? If they don't know me by now. And my agent was like, "Okay, I'll tell them." I was like, you know, she said to me, "That's probably going to kick you out of the running."

• 9:19Lewis Howes?

  Costly, yeah, yeah.

• 9:19Speaker 03

  And I said, "Fine, because it doesn't sound to me like I have it anyway." I get off the phone and my stepmother is like, "Mm-mm." She was like, "We're gonna put you on a plane tomorrow. You gotta go back." Yeah, she was like, "You need to go back. You need to go back and you need to go to that party because you're gonna get the job and it's gonna change your life."

• 9:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So without her saying that.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  I probably would not have come back. Yeah, no, she was pretty like, you know, when you see people who are sort of in the zone, they have that vision for you, or you just feel what they're saying is like, "Wait, maybe she's really on to something." She felt it so strongly and I didn't wanna disappoint her. I didn't wanna disappoint my dad. So I thought, "Well, maybe I should give it a shot."

• 10:04Lewis Howes?

  You didn't wanna regret it either. At least if you go back, you're like, "Well, I didn't get it, but I gave it everything I had," right?

• 10:08Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 10:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  So I did, I went back.

• 10:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  And PS, they hired me.

• 10:14Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Was it right after that, or was it like?

• 10:16Speaker 03

  No, there were weeks.

• 10:17Lewis Howes?

  Seven more months of like?

• 10:18Speaker 03

  It wasn't seven more months, but there were weeks that went by and I remember getting the phone call. I think I might've had a flip phone at the time. And I was in an elevator on my way to see one of my mentors who owns an advertising agency, or PR agency. And I was in the elevator on my way to her office and I got a phone call and they said, "Yeah, congratulations, you got it. You know, we'll call your agent to iron out the details." And I remember being like in this elevator by myself, thinking like, "Oh my God, this is such a big deal." And even then, I thought, "Well, it's 11 episodes. I'll do 11 episodes. I can charge my clients more money because I can say I was on television."

• 11:03Speaker 03

  And I guess the bigger story of that was that that first season, I had a different co-host than my, the co-host that most people know, Clinton Kelly. And he was fired and they decided to keep me after the first season, which was also sort of like a big deal and a shock.

• 11:21Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to just recasting both people, right?

• 11:23Speaker 03

  Right, which is what I thought they would do. So they kept me, I did sort of 80 chemistry tests, which are...

• 11:31Lewis Howes?

  80?

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Yes, like with, you know, cameras like this, where you meet and you're like, "Hi, hi," and you see whether or not anybody likes you together on camera. Here in New York and in LA, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then Clinton showed up one day and he put his hand on my knee and he was like, "I'm so sorry, I never do that." We both started laughing and that was it. And he got asked the same question by the executive producer at that time that I got asked, like, "How do you feel about growing your hair?" Because we both had really short hair. So we did, we both grew it. And PS, 10 seasons later.

• 12:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow, and they wanted more. Didn't you tell me they like, they wanted to do more, it was so successful?

• 12:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, it was definitely a tent peg show for the channel. To be honest with you, I think when I decided to leave, they decided to cancel the show irrespective of me. I had to leave because I had a lot of health issues that I had to figure out and deal with. And I was not coping with anything.

• 12:33Lewis Howes?

  What are you coping with what?

• 12:35Speaker 03

  Well, one of the things that I realized is that being in television, you're really at the mercy of the network and the process of making television.

• 12:46Lewis Howes?

  It's a lot of work, right?

• 12:48Speaker 03

  Reality TV, for every minute you see, it probably takes an hour to shoot.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  So it was constant. And I went from that first season that was 11 episodes to a second season that was 60.

• 13:01Lewis Howes?

  6-0.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:02Lewis Howes?

  Oh my god.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  I mean, that's more than a show a week, obviously, that we were shooting. There was not a lot of rest. And as the show, we were airing, we started airing after The Swan. I don't know if you guys remember that makeover show where they like, you know, gave people plastic surgery, new teeth and hair extensions. But we launched it around the same time as Queer Eye. And Queer Eye, they were the-

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  That was a big show.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, they were the Fab Five.

• 13:27Lewis Howes?

  I remember that show.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  They were Cinderella and-

• 13:30Lewis Howes?

  It was amazing.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  We were the stepsisters, yeah. They got a lot of play, whereas our show was a much slower build. And I would say it was probably- Four seasons, three seasons in, that we started to get more and more and more attention. And I joined the Today Show team to be a style correspondent. And then I started working for Access Hollywood, and then Oprah called. And when Oprah calls, you don't say, "Bye." Even the television network made time for me to style Oprah.

• 14:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so what happened with that? She should have come on the show and style, like, make her over.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  No, she asked me to come on the show and talk about denim. And she wanted me to take four different women, who are all size 10, all different heights, all different body shapes, and find the perfect jeans for them. And then she wanted to be the fifth. So, and I wore a zillion different kinds of jeans, you know, everything from bell bottoms to like skinny peg jeans. Like, I was like, "I'll display everything." And dressing these four women was actually really interesting to me, because they all were a size 10, but they all were so different, different ages, and they carried their weight differently. So, that was like real education.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  I thought it was a very smart way to show how to wear jeans well. But in the time that I had to fit Oprah in jeans, which was about half an hour, in between her shooting shows, I had hundreds of pairs of jeans. And I was wearing a leather jacket that was almost sopping wet by the time I was done shooting with her, and I had the driest, like, I had no skin left. Because I was so like...

• 15:24Lewis Howes?

  You wanted her to look great.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  Well, I was like, "If I don't get her in the right jeans, I don't have a career." I mean, I will be off the planet Earth, pretty much. But it all worked out pretty well. Yeah, that one did a lot for me.

• 15:37Lewis Howes?

  What was the biggest thing you learned about that experience?

• 15:41Speaker 03

  What was the biggest thing I learned about working with Oprah? Because I got to work with her a few times after that as well. I think the thing that I most admire about her, and I definitely admired about that show, was the leadership that she showed to that entire team. The Harpo team, I've never seen a more organized, more well-oiled machine. Really? Everybody understood their position, and everybody stayed however late they needed to be there. To make it great. To make it great. There was no such thing as mediocre. Even when it came to the styling, Oprah was like, "If you don't get that aha, that aha moment where people's eyes start to sparkle,

• 16:25Speaker 03

  and they look at themselves and you can see how much they're feeling themselves, we're not putting it on air." Wow. And it was something that taught me that that's what I have to look for Every time. In clients, in other people that we had on What Not to Wear, when I did Love, Lust or Run. All of those shows require the same thing. It's all transformation, right? It's transformation, but even more than that, it's realization. And it's recognition. It's about somebody being able to see themselves differently in such a quick and visceral way that they believe something different about themselves. And that- That's power. That's huge power. That's power that you don't expect from fashion,

• 17:08Speaker 03

  but that's why I try always to distinguish fashion from style. What's the difference? Well, fashion is an industry. It's an industry that's built on insecurity. It runs on insecurity. It makes its money based on telling you that you're not good enough and you need a better mascara. Interesting. But style is about an individual. It's about an individual wanting to express who they are, and it really starts with an individual's self-awareness. The more self-awareness you have, the better your style is going to be a true representation of what you want others to see about you.

• 17:41Lewis Howes?

  What if you don't know what your style is? Or you're like, "I'm not sure. I'm not into fashion. I don't get it."

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, you don't have to get fashion to have style. So that's the first thing.

• 17:52Lewis Howes?

  You're talking to a guy that just wore sneakers my whole life until like two years ago.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. Okay, fair. And now you're talking to a girl who always wore high heels and now only wears sneakers. So one of the things that I would say about that, how do you get into it? Well, the first thing that I tell people to do is the most uncomfortable thing you could possibly think of, which is to stand, or sit if you feel lightheaded, naked in front of a mirror. And you gotta take it all in. And it's sort of like watching yourself watch yourself. In other words, a lot of women in particular, we are socio-biologically wired, this is lizard brain, to care more about what we look like than men. Right? It's part of how we... It's mating. It's everything. It's like, you know, finding the right mate.

• 18:40Lewis Howes?

  Attracting.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. So, women, just generally speaking, have a lot more emotion attached to the way that they look. So, the first thing that I ask women to do specifically is to really look at at what the raw material is that they're dealing with. And you can look at it and say, "God, my boobs are awesome." "And my ass is the worst." You can use all the pejoratives. You can say how much you hate parts of your body, how much you love parts of your body. But you have to keep doing it until the emotion associated with it burns away.

• 19:19Lewis Howes?

  Until you know, no matter, it doesn't matter anymore?

• 19:21Speaker 03

  Doesn't matter. So you can say, "Oh, okay, I love my boobs and I hate my ass." Which means, I'm gonna start wearing clothes that showcase my boobs. And instead of hiding my ass, which implies shame and I don't believe in hiding, you consciously camouflage the things you don't love. But if you don't know what you love and hate about your body, you're never gonna address it, right? Because you'll be, if you, you know, avoid all the things that you don't like, I guarantee you, you will dress in a way that shows people that's exactly what you don't like about yourself.

• 19:52Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, yeah.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  You have to manage your own self-loathing in order for it to be something other than what people see.

• 20:04Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Wow, I love it. Now, I'm curious, here's some facts I learned about you.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  Oh, boy.

• 20:11Lewis Howes?

  You suffered with psoriasis as a kid, right?

• 20:14Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I got psoriasis. It's an autoimmune skin disease. I got it when I was four. It was just like little bumps behind my ears. It felt like chicken skin. And it wasn't until I had strep throat, like something, some insane amount of times. It was like 18 times in one year. And of course, this was like back in the Stone Age. When they had no idea that strep throat had such an impact on autoimmune diseases. I, I literally woke up one morning, like completely covered.

• 20:41Lewis Howes?

  Psoriasis.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Psoriasis, from my neck down, all over my scalp.

• 20:46Lewis Howes?

  How old were you?

• 20:46Speaker 03

  And my entire body. I was 11.

• 20:48Lewis Howes?

  Now, I dated a girl about five, six years ago, who has severe psoriasis. One of the most beautiful women I've ever dated, but she would have these breakouts.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  And it would be all over her back, all over her face, you know, everywhere. And I saw it affect her emotionally, it affected her confidence, you know. She was so beautiful, like her skin was so amazing, but it was also would break out when she would have like these, any sickness or anything like that.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:14Lewis Howes?

  Or any stress, it would come out.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Well, the interesting thing about autoimmune diseases and psoriasis in particular is that you can only inherit a genetic predisposition to the disease. You don't inherit the disease. Something emotionally or literally physically traumatic has to happen in order for it to cause it.

• 21:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:34Speaker 03

  So, that could be you're in an auto accident, you get a terrible cut, or your grandfather dies. It could be any, any one of those things that would create the perfect storm.

• 21:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  So to speak. So, when I was 11, that perfect storm really happened.

• 21:52Lewis Howes?

  18 times a strep throat will cause that, I guess, huh?

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, and anybody in the medical industry, you know, you would think they would be like, geez, maybe we should just take out her tonsils. But nobody came to that conclusion. And so, I wound up doing a lot of different things to combat the psoriasis. I did light treatments, I did cold, tar, bath treatments.

• 22:14Lewis Howes?

  Did you do the steroid creams?

• 22:15Speaker 03

  I did tons of steroid creams. That's where it finally started to work, was when I was like slathering steroids all over my skin. In about three months, it finally started to clear up. It was amazing. Except that then my skin started to thin, because nobody told me that that's what steroids do. So then my skin started splitting like a zipper.

• 22:33Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  So, I have these... Deep scars because I didn't know what was happening. I mean, I didn't know how to fix it or stop it. And because I was so afraid that the psoriasis would come back if I stopped using the steroids.

• 22:47Lewis Howes?

  She just kept using it.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  And then I wound up having to go to a neurologist to make sure that that amount of steroids hadn't affected my brain. So far, nobody's been able to come up with any like conclusive evidence. Yeah, exactly.

• 23:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so you had psoriasis as a kid, but you also struggled with binge eating, anorexia, and weight issues, right?

• 23:07Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 23:07Lewis Howes?

  Until when?

• 23:08Speaker 03

  Well, they're all related.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 23:11Speaker 03

  One of the things, there are a lot of comorbidities associated with a disease like psoriasis.

• 23:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  I really, like, I really feel for the woman that you dated.

• 23:20Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  And I've been a spokesperson for psoriasis for a very long time because it is so emotionally damaging.

• 23:27Lewis Howes?

  It sucks.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  With no real physical ramifications, except the embarrassment of it. So I say this all the time, that it's a disease that you can't die from, but you sometimes wish you could. Because the emotional pain.

• 23:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  So a lot of people who wind up with psoriasis are shut-ins. They don't go out a lot. They're not very social. They have heart problems. They don't move a lot. Obesity is a comorbidity because they just are depressed. Depression is a huge, huge comorbidity of psoriasis. And so I pretty much suffered from all of those things. I think my self-image and my ability to see myself was so marked by having a skin disease that it sort of, even after the disease was gone, there was no way for me to see myself differently.

• 24:21Lewis Howes?

  Right. Still felt a part of it.

• 24:23Speaker 03

  Right. It took me a long time to be able to wear a t-shirt, or shorts, or a skirt, because I was just so afraid of what would happen.

• 24:32Lewis Howes?

  I get it. I get it because like, you know, I used to not be able to read and write when I was in middle school and high school. And every time the teacher would ask me to read in front of the class, I couldn't do it. And so, you know, still today, sometimes when someone's like, "Read aloud," I'm like, uh, you know, I kind of don't want to, even though I'm able to now, but it's like...

• 24:48Speaker 03

  No, you have all of it. Right. I don't believe that those kind of scars go away. I believe that you learn to live alongside of them.

• 24:57Lewis Howes?

  You embrace it.

• 24:58Speaker 03

  You embrace them and you kind of, you're like, hey, you're there. You know, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote that book, Big Magic, and I've been reading it. And one of the things that she says is, you know, she talks to fear. Like, alright, you can come with me, but you're not allowed to drive. Maybe you can touch the radio, but you're never going to steer.

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  It's about having a conversation with, I love how she talks about that too, about like talking to fear and saying, okay, I need you in this situation because there's a tiger chasing you.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Right, it's good for me.

• 25:24Lewis Howes?

  Or it's a dark alley and maybe I should listen to you, but I'm giving a presentation. I've done this a million times, like, I don't need you right now.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:32Lewis Howes?

  I've got this, you know what I mean?

• 25:34Speaker 03

  Right, and being able to, I think, sort out the difference.

• 25:37Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  I think for me, there was a lot of struggle between being, feeling like absolutely buried with insecurity and just unable to claw my way out of it. And then overcompensating by being, you know, somewhat egotistical and narcissistic and, you know, I would even say a bully to make up for it. And one of the things you kind of learn as a grown up, I think, is that a lot of the defense mechanisms that you needed to survive as a child psychologically no longer suit the person that you are. And yet, it's very hard to shed them.

• 26:14Lewis Howes?

  So how were you able to shed them?

• 26:15Speaker 03

  Well, I think I still am. I mean, I, you know, almost.

• 26:19Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  I think that, you know, I try, I had to learn a lot of things about myself in order to kind of see, you know, be able to connect the dots backwards for myself. I think the biggest thing was that I took my insecurity and for whatever reason, I just, I poured all of it into fashion because fashion was fancy and perfect and sparkly. And if I could be in fashion, I could be beautiful and cool. And I got there and you know, I mean, aside from the fact that by that time I was, I had, when I was hired for Vogue, I was severely anorexic. I was, I'm 5'7", I was about 90 pounds.

• 27:02Lewis Howes?

  Whoa.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  And then, um, I, in a year at Vogue, I doubled my weight. So I was 180.

• 27:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  And a size 16, and thank God, that's when grunge came in. So I could just wear oversized plaid shirts and I was good.

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  I looked good, yeah.

• 27:16Speaker 03

  I looked great. But it was like, there was like this kind of self sabotage involved. That I didn't really believe that I deserved to be there. And I learned from all these incredible photographers, all these great editors and stylists. I learned how to style people, other people in pictures and make them look fantastic. Like, that was the skill set I learned.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  When I was an editor at Mademoiselle, I think that was probably when I'd finally lost weight. You know, I was like rocking out some pretty hard fashion and I have never been more narcissistic or materialistic than I was in that time period. And I thought that was what I was supposed to be. I thought that was part of the job.

• 28:00Lewis Howes?

  You've probably seen other people in that position be the same way, right?

• 28:03Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:04Lewis Howes?

  Or mimicking other people who were successful in those positions.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  And who were super skinny.

• 28:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  And always super skinny and there was a lot of rich people who work in fashion. The it girls. Exactly. So I guess I was kind of mimicking, you know, to fit in, in a way. But when I got fired, it was interesting. I started styling all sorts of people, more for commercials, even like, you know, for banks. And I did a high C commercial and, you know, all sorts of things.

• 28:33Lewis Howes?

  High C, what is that?

• 28:34Speaker 03

  High C was, oh God, you're so young.

• 28:36Lewis Howes?

  Is this the, uh?

• 28:36Speaker 03

  It was a fruit drink.

• 28:38Lewis Howes?

  I know, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember this.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 28:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, the commercial.

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm pretty sure it went out of business a while ago.

• 28:43Lewis Howes?

  It did, yeah.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  But anyway, uh, age is also something I don't have a problem with. But, um, but, uh, what I wound up realizing was that I was getting really bored of styling. And I guess maybe because of that, you know, you sort of put that out in the universe and something is bound to come back to you if you're looking for it.

• 29:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  And What Not To Wear is what became sort of boomeranging back. And the reason that that show wound up being so important, I think, is because every skill that I had, including my own emotional insecurity skillset, came into play when I went to work to dress other people on camera.

• 29:25Lewis Howes?

  Because you're able to work with their emotions, with their insecurities. Because you've been there, done that, and you know how to guide them through the process, right?

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Well, no, it was more that I had to learn how to do that on air. I had to learn to be more compassionate with people that I saw loathing themselves. And what wound up happening along the way was that I had to learn to be more compassionate with myself. If I was really going to be, you know, a truth talker to other people. You kind of can't talk the talk and then not walk the walk.

• 29:54Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:55Speaker 03

  Although there have been many times where I have felt like I'm a fraud because I can't give advice without saying I'm still in the trenches and I...

• 30:02Lewis Howes?

  Almost there.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  Almost. But then I had this great tai chi instructor once named DJ, who's like a skinny Sidney Poitier. And we were doing a tai chi class together and he was like, "You're not in flow." You know, "All of your moves, you're fighting the universe. You're fighting." And I think I broke down in tears and I was about to go on a book tour and I'd gained weight. And here I'd been telling people, like, "Don't care about your size. If you don't like being a 12, get a Sharpie and cross out the 1 and you're a 2." Ta-da. You know, and here I was like, "I don't want to be a 12. I want to be a 2. I got a 1 Sharpie." And he said, "We teach what we need to learn."

• 30:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  And so, being able to do that, being able to have that kind of affirmation allows me to do what I do and be very sincere with the people that I'm working with. And at the same time, know that, like, you know, I'm still working on myself.

• 31:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So what are some things that you do and that you also recommend others do? Who maybe have some insecurities about whatever, their weight, their style, just themselves as a person, to feel more confident every day, to feel more sexy, to feel more whole and complete?

• 31:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:18Lewis Howes?

  What are some things you do, plus what would you recommend others do? On a daily basis, like, what would you do?

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Well, okay, so there's a couple of things that I would say about that. I mean, it's very funny that you bring this up because last night... I had dental surgery and I was in a lot of pain and I had sort of like ice packs all over my face and I was kind of lying there waiting for the Met Gala to start so I could criticize other people's outfits. But I was watching this movie, I don't know if you ever saw it, called Trans America. Felicity Huffman plays a man who is transitioning to be a woman. And what was so amazing about the film, I forgot how absolutely amazing she is in it, but one of the things that she does before she actually has the operation, and she's

• 32:06Speaker 03

  still dressing like a woman, she's taken all the hormones, she's had all of the reconstructive surgery except for, you know, the blow bits. And this is about her journey to get to that operation. But she wears this like pink silk nightgown and has long pink nails and looks at herself in the mirror every night before she goes to bed and goes, "Goodnight, pretty." And it really struck me because she didn't have a family that accepted her in this film. She didn't have friends. She had, she was close to her therapist, which doesn't even count, right? I mean, if you're not close to your therapist, then your therapist isn't really a good therapist.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  But, you know, she was really the only person fighting for her identity, for her truth. And so to be able to say "goodnight" or "good morning, pretty" to yourself, really, all of a sudden, it really hit me last night how important that is to do. And it's important to treat yourself as well as possible.

• 33:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  Self-care is very hard for somebody like me. I've had all of these-

• 33:14Lewis Howes?

  What does self-care include? Getting massages?

• 33:17Speaker 03

  Absolutely. It includes getting massages, eating well, working out, and that's not because you should be anorexic, it's to be healthy and happy and get your endorphins going or-

• 33:28Lewis Howes?

  And clear stress and the gold things, yeah.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly. And also learn to manage stress. It's why I learned to meditate. Which I found really very helpful, not only in sort of managing stress, but also in my ability to sort of understand my own roadblocks and to be able to communicate them better.

• 33:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  That like takes a little bit of time and thought.

• 33:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  So I do believe in that, but I also believe in wearing like bright clothes instead of black when you're having a fat day. And I believe in wearing sparkles. And I believe in, you know, buying yourself a cheap, awesome red lipstick if that's what it's gonna take to put you in a better mood. I believe in treating yourself, but that's with the kindness that for me, I was always able to eventually show others, right? It's much harder to do, I think, on ourselves. I think we are much harder on ourselves than we are on other people.

• 34:27Lewis Howes?

  Why is that, you think? From all the experiences you've had with people, why do you think it is that way?

• 34:33Speaker 03

  If you're me, maybe I should just speak from my experience. I always felt like an alien. I always felt like I'm not like other people, right? There's something wrong with me. I have a skin disease. I am double-jointed pretty much everywhere. I have lashes in my tear ducts.

• 34:52Lewis Howes?

  You have a gray streak.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  I have a gray streak that came from, you know, the same time that I got severe psoriasis when I was 11.

• 35:00Lewis Howes?

  Huh.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  And so I always felt different. I always felt, um, this is a weird way to describe it, but I felt very hollow as a person and that I was always putting on masks, that I was always sort of adapting to my environment and trying to be whatever I thought everybody wanted me to be.

• 35:20Lewis Howes?

  What was the mask you showed?

• 35:21Speaker 03

  It depended on where I was. I mean, literally, like a chameleon. I could go from like that color of the wall to, you know, this color coaster.

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  And I did that, and it's funny because it's why I don't have a lot of memories of my twenties, I'm pretty sure.

• 35:34Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 35:35Speaker 03

  I was so busy trying to be somebody else that it was really hard for me to be me. Now, there's a lot of reasons for that, and I don't know that everybody relates to that on the level that I've experienced it. That's probably like my own family history and some of the ways that I was brought up. And but I do think that most people have an inverse sense of narcissism, which is that I'm not good enough. I'm never gonna be good enough. I'm not like everybody else. Instead of thinking, I'm the best, I'm so great. Everybody's like, I'm the best, I'm so great. I'm faking it, right? But it's it's the opposite.

• 36:14Speaker 03

  We have this incredible ability to focus on ourselves in the most negative terms possible. And and I think, you know, look, I think the part of that is based on the the culture in which we live. You know, part of what's happened to that lizard brain, which was about, are you fit? Oh, I'll mate with you because you can run away from a saber-toothed tiger, is now about, oh, how expensive are your pants? Like, do you have money? Do you have a G5? Is that why I'm gonna date you? You know, I mean, it's the same, the same mechanism in our brain is at work. But now we're surrounded by advertising and distractions everywhere.

• 36:56Speaker 03

  And and so many people trying to make money selling us things we may or may not need. You know, that our perception of ourselves changes. And when we have a culture that prizes youth and wealth and beauty more than anything else, that that's gonna fuck a lot of people up, excuse me.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What do you think's the best way to go about it then? Should we be talking to ourselves in a way that is negative to ourselves, positive to ourselves? Like, you say most people are saying the negative ego as opposed to the overly egotistical.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 37:30Lewis Howes?

  But is that positive if you're like, I'm the greatest in the world?

• 37:33Speaker 03

  No, I mean, it's because it's ludicrous. You know what I mean? It's like, nobody's the greatest in the world and nobody's the worst in the world, as it turns out. It took me a long time to realize that. I took, when I sort of went out to where I was so self-conscious about being on camera. I was like, what am I doing here? But I was like, don't make fun, okay? I'm the expert, don't make fun of me. I would not joke around. I took my job so seriously. And every time somebody would like take a jab at me and try and be funny, I got like really rigid.

• 38:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  And it took me a long time to laugh at myself. I didn't realize that that was such a Applause. That I would actually enjoy like so much more if I wasn't trying to like, I was like, I have to be perceived as an expert. Experts like, don't make fun of an expert, right? Who doesn't make fun of experts?

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  And I guess maybe it's because I was worried that I didn't have enough experience. Or when I started in television, you know, the entire fashion industry really looked down on TV. You know, my leaving print.

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  Like the magazine world was the prestigious.

• 38:36Speaker 03

  Yes, upper echelons.

• 38:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh, you're just like a TV snob now or something.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  Well, no, not even. They were like.

• 38:41Lewis Howes?

  They're below us.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, poor you. You failed. Yeah.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  So, you know, here I took a chance on an industry that really wasn't about fashion.

• 38:49Lewis Howes?

  And now the print is almost like obsolete.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, print is dead, but television's almost obsolete.

• 38:54Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  You know, now it's all about digital. And digital has created a very different relationship than the one that I had with my audience. You know, my audience doesn't really know what to do with a how-to show anymore of what not to wear variety. Nobody needs to see an hour worth of process. You can go online and type into Google. How many, you have 50 ways to tie a scarf. You don't need me to tell you. So in that regard, I think that things have changed a lot. And then bloggers are sort of the babies of reality television stars, right? They're the ones who changed culture.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  I like to say that the change in culture went from a how-to culture to a me-too culture. We all want to be reaffirmed in the notion that our experience is something that we can share with someone else. That somebody relates to us. Not that somebody is teaching us, but that somebody understands the way we feel. And that's, I think, the way millennials communicate.

• 40:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I love it. A few more questions. I'm curious about, who do you believe was the one that raised you when you were growing up? You mentioned your stepmom.

• 40:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:10Lewis Howes?

  But who was the one who you feel like raised you? And you also learned the most from?

• 40:15Speaker 03

  Um, I'm gonna go with my mom. I mean, you know, technically, um, I, my parents got divorced right around the time I got psoriasis. I'm not saying they're related.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  But technically, my mom had custody of us, even though I did see my father very regularly. And for better or for worse, my mom was quite the personality herself. Uh, so I would say being raised by her was a little bit tricky for me. Um, only in that I was very intimidated by her growing up. She, she, I would say that she, she is the closest thing to true genius I've ever seen.

• 40:55Lewis Howes?

  Really? She was a venture capitalist, right?

• 40:57Speaker 03

  She was a venture capitalist, but not, not when, when she, when she got divorced. She had a master's in community health. That's what she had going for her. And she parlayed that into a job in magazines. And then parlayed that into a job into venture capital. She taught herself the Harvard Law curriculum. She could play piano the first time she sat down in front of the instrument. I mean, she was, um, kind of a savant. And also kind of a bitch. And like really scary sometimes. She, she was like a real yeller. And, um, she was scary. And there's this very funny part of me that wanted, when I was little, I just, I wanted to be just like her.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  I just, I wanted to be a badass like her. I wanted to be good at everything like her. She could draw Alaska freehand. I remember when I was doing a report on Alaska. She just drew it.

• 41:56Lewis Howes?

  I can't even imagine what Alaska looks like in my head right now.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  It was really hard. I mean, I don't know how she did it. So, you know, she was all these kind of wonderful, amazing, larger-than-life, incredible things. And at the same time, you know, uh, there's a lot about my mom that as a child I couldn't understand. And, you know, she was angry, I think, and she was unhappy. And I don't know that, you know, divorce was, was the best situation for her. I don't know that trying to raise two girls by herself was so easy. I think there was a lot going on with her during that time. And, um, And so, you know, there was a huge part of me that wanted to be just like her. And then I got to an age where I was like, ooh, I don't want to be like her. I don't want to be anything like her. I want to be like me.

• 42:41Speaker 03

  And by that time, it was a little late and I was already a lot like her. So, there's a lot of like re-navigation that had to happen.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  You're already a genius and a bitch, is what you're saying, then?

• 42:51Speaker 03

  Well, yeah.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  No, I mean, I know. Well, I mean, I've never been called a genius.

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  What's something you're really proud of that most people don't know about you?

• 43:06Lewis Howes?

  Or something you've done or something you're proud of that? You're only a handful of friends now.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Well, you know what? The thing that comes to mind is, it was a realization that I had. I was having a super hard time about five years into What Not To Wear. I was really unhappy. I was unhappy on set. I didn't like anybody on the team. I was like always bitching about, you know, having to go to work. And I remember we were going back to, maybe it was even season seven. And I was in the shower and I was just like, I can't go back. I don't want to go back. It's so monotonous.

• 43:42Lewis Howes?

  To the show?

• 43:42Speaker 03

  To the show. We're about to start a new season.

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  And you're like, I'm done.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I was like mentally, I was just like, and I was like listing in my head all the people that I didn't want to see. And how many people I didn't like on the set. And then I was like, oh my god. And this hit me so hard that I had to sit down in the bathtub of the shower. Because I was like, the reason that this is so awful and the reason that this whole environment is so terrible is because I've made it a toxic environment.

• 44:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So you're essentially listing everyone there, but you were the common denominator of... Interesting.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  So, that was a big, that was like a heavy blow. I mean, seriously, like physically shook me. I wrote a lot of apology letters.

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  And I changed my environment. I changed the way I saw my job. I changed the way I acted towards people. I realized that when I was unhappy, I would forget that my reactions or the way that I would behave would have an effect on somebody else. Cause I didn't even think I was being seen.

• 44:53Lewis Howes?

  You were on the camera.

• 44:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I know. I just kinda thought, well, you know, I'm here. But the minute that I changed my attitude, that I became a lot more positive and a lot more supportive, the entire game changed.

• 45:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What did it think it took for you to get to that realization?

• 45:10Speaker 03

  I don't know. A really warm shower at the beginning of season seven. I'm not, I don't know. Sometimes I think you come to things when you come to them. You know, I think I had been through a romantic relationship where I had taken a lot of the blame that wasn't mine to own. And I started being able to understand the difference between, you know, keeping your side of the street clean and expecting somebody else to keep their side of the street clean. And all of a sudden, I realized that that applies generally in life to everything. You know, you have talked a lot about giving your best and what that means and doing the best that you can at any given time.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  What I realized is that my best sometimes isn't about a big action or something super charitable or kind. It's about being quiet and observant and, and maybe, maybe great in smaller ways.

• 46:06Lewis Howes?

  Being present or just being joyful. Yeah, I like that.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Neither one of those things, being present or being joyful, is easy.

• 46:13Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  It really isn't. I mean, life is not set up to be... A walk in the park.

• 46:19Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's probably not fun if it is. There's no challenge, right?

• 46:22Speaker 03

  Well, I don't know.

• 46:23Lewis Howes?

  If you're already...

• 46:24Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't, we would have no way of knowing. It's never been a walk in the park as far as I can tell, historically speaking.

• 46:30Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  But I do think that, you know, we are, in so many ways, the world is so screwed up right now, right? And then in so many ways, I think there's all this kind of beauty coming to the fore because you have an entire generation of people who are starting to think differently about the world and about themselves. And that starting with an individual actually does have a ripple effect into a community, and communities have a ripple effect into organizations, and organizations have a ripple effect into, you know, places all over the world. And it's the first time that we're sort of connecting those dots.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  So as far as we've come technologically, I think in a lot of ways, we're finally spiritually kind of connecting. And I don't mean that in a religious sense. I mean that in a...

• 47:21Lewis Howes?

  Consciously.

• 47:21Speaker 03

  Humanist sense.

• 47:23Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. If I was able to give you enough money to solve one challenge or one problem in the world, that was like, here's a lump sum, however much it takes, it's gonna solve and cure something.

• 47:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:36Lewis Howes?

  What would you put that money towards?

• 47:37Speaker 03

  Low self-esteem.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  I mean, I could say I'd love to cure cancer, but I think that...

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  Low self-esteem maybe causes a lot of cancer for people too.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  Exactly. It also causes depression and suicide and all sorts of things. But I just, forget about the extremes of all of that, right?

• 47:56Speaker 03

  Low self-esteem, if somebody felt just that little bit better about themselves every day, like imagine what they could do. Imagine the things that people don't do because they're afraid or they're ashamed. And if you could get rid of fear and shame in someone and make them value themselves more, I feel like they would be unstoppable.

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  How can we do that ourselves without the money?

• 48:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a really good question.

• 48:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, we'll have to figure it out.

• 48:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I'm hoping you come up with a book that, you know, School of...

• 48:33Lewis Howes?

  How to increase your self-esteem.

• 48:35Speaker 03

  Right, School of Fear and Shame.

• 48:37Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 48:39Speaker 03

  But, you know, I do, I do think...

• 48:40Lewis Howes?

  Do you think style helps with increasing self-esteem, or are there other elements to this?

• 48:44Speaker 03

  Yes, I do, and I think, I would like to say that I am one of the pioneers of at least talking about it in that way.

• 48:51Lewis Howes?

  It's the mechanism for helping the process.

• 48:54Speaker 03

  Right, it's, I'm not a psychologist.

• 48:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  I can only lend my experience, my life experience, to, you know, what I know to be true, and the conversations that I've had with people about how they feel. What I love about style is that it is the quickest, fastest, easiest way for somebody to see themselves differently, because it's based on what you see, right? And that triggers the brain in a really funny way.

• 49:22Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't take months to transform, like health or something else, you could do it in 10 minutes.

• 49:27Speaker 03

  Exactly, whereas like, changing your diet and starting an exercise regime, a lot of the time feels punishing, right?

• 49:35Lewis Howes?

  Saunting.

• 49:36Speaker 03

  Right, style doesn't have to feel that way. That, that's, it's a quick fix. I like to think of it not as a quick fix, like, I'm just gonna have this shot of heroin and then, you know, I'm going down the wrong path and not, and not doing anything. I like to think of it as a shortcut to believing that you can do other things. I mean, I can't tell you, there are so many stories from What Not to Wear, that it was never about what happened on the show, it's what happened to these people after.

• 50:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  You know, they would leave bad marriages, they would have better relationships with their kids, they would get promoted, they would leave bad jobs, they thought so differently about what they were able to accomplish, based on the fact that they just didn't think they could even rock a short haircut.

• 50:20Lewis Howes?

  Right, that's cool. Couple final questions, I'm curious, what are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Oh, God, I'm grateful for so many things in my life recently. Ah, that's a really hard one. I mean, I'm, I'm...

• 50:36Lewis Howes?

  It's hard, but you're grateful for?

• 50:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:38Lewis Howes?

  What's a few things?

• 50:39Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I'm grateful for where I am in my life. I don't know if that makes any sense. I feel like I just finished shooting Love, Lust, or Run. It was canceled, three seasons. And it's not like I'm surprised by that. But every time I leave a show, or a show gets canceled, or something else happens, I feel like it means that the next phase is coming. And I'm not done. And I don't know whether it's the almost thing again. I don't know whether I'm not done means television. I don't know what it means. I don't know whether it's a book, or a speech, or I don't know what it is. But it makes me feel like I'm at the beginning of a cycle.

• 51:24Speaker 03

  And I'm very grateful for that. Because there's a lot of fear that surrounds that, that you have to kind of face head on. And then there's a lot of anticipation. And I can now, I even feel myself glowing.

• 51:36Lewis Howes?

  It's glowing.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  So I guess there's a couple of things. You know, I think there's still more for me to do. But now I'm feeling, I do feel this incredible, the weight of responsibility that does come with age. There's a couple of things that I feel really strongly about. Is that I hate that our society is ageist in a lot of ways. I hate that that applies more for women than for men. And that we're somehow, if we're not having kids, we're somehow not useful. Because like, you know, biologically, we're not useful.

• 52:13Lewis Howes?

  Because you don't have any kids?

• 52:15Speaker 03

  I don't have any kids. I did have a lot of cats, who were all raised very well, albeit codependent. And I'm trying, I'm trying now not to have pets and do more things. I think having cats in particular made me an introvert.

• 52:32Lewis Howes?

  Just want to snuggle at home and be with your cats.

• 52:34Speaker 03

  Right, and cats don't really go out.

• 52:35Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  So I found myself home a lot. And now I try, now that I don't have cats, I try and be a little bit more adventurous. Do things more on a whim. And I don't feel like this pull, or this, you know, guilt about leaving my little furby's behind. So that's a big thing. But I also, I do feel like there is this, I do feel a certain responsibility in terms of... Figuring out why our society is so ageist when age is revered around the world. Right. Even. Wisdom. Wisdom, experience. Knowledge, yes. Why that, why we've taken that so for granted? Why we raise our kids to think they know better than us?

• 53:19Speaker 03

  You know, I mean, granted, obviously, you have tectonic shifts like digital. And now every generation going forward is not going to understand like what a rotary phone was. But, but still, you know. For those rotary phone? Yeah, exactly. Okay, then. Anyway, I still remember my rotary phone from, from my childhood. It was yellow, it was on the wall. I still remember that phone number. It's very weird. Anyway, my point is that I, I want, I want age to be revered in the same kind of context that we revere youth and wealth and beauty. Yes. So I very much like to do like a public pro aging campaign of some kind.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  That, that's something that's super important to me. And then I do also feel a huge responsibility to lift other women up, younger women, who I can either help mentor or support or executive produce something for. Because I didn't feel that way. When I was growing up, you know, I was raised by a frontline feminist, but it was very much this, you know, very combative sense of only one of you can win. You know, you were, I was always competing with my girlfriends rather than like, you know, all ships rise together. Yeah, collaborating. Yes. And so I feel very, very strongly about collaboration in a way that I never did as

• 54:48Speaker 03

  growing up. And, you know, that's paying it forward, I think. That's cool.

• 54:55Lewis Howes?

  This is one of the final questions I ask everyone. It's the three truths.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  Oh shit.

• 54:59Lewis Howes?

  So this is a not, no prep for you.

• 55:01Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no pressure.

• 55:03Lewis Howes?

  So it's the end of, it's many, many years from now. It's the last day for you. And everything, every video you've ever put out there, TV show, book, has all been erased.

• 55:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 55:12Lewis Howes?

  And everyone's there and they ask you, well, we want to know what your three truths are. Here's a piece of paper and a pen. Write down the three things that you know to be true about everything you've experienced. It'll kind of be like our lesson book for remembering your wisdom. So what would you say your three truths are about what you've experienced in life?

• 55:31Speaker 03

  Um, I would say, I think the first thing I would say is that life has no meaning unless you infuse it with meaning. And that is sort of the purpose of life, is that it, it exists, this energy, you know, whether we're here being animated by it or it's out in the universe. Um, it's, it's objective. You know, part of having consciousness is to, is to give meaning to what that, what we can do with it.

• 56:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  Um, I, I know I told Nick this, that when I was like eight years old, I said to my mom, like, I don't get it. I don't get it. Like, why, what's, how do we make meaning? Why is life supposed to be meaningful? And she was like, you have to decide that it is. And so for me, it was this sense, like, I really felt like, I was like, oh, I have to like inject myself with meaning. You know, like, I don't know why that image came to mind. That's weird, but, um, it wasn't like swallow a pill. It was like, no, definitely use a hypodermic needle, but maybe it hits the bloodstream faster. That's probably what it is. But that you, and that you do have to find that meaning for yourself, that it's different for every person. Um, and that is, that, that's the quest of living.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Um, I think besides that, I would say, I've also learned, um, give as much love as you can. And the reason is really a selfish one, is that the more love you give, um, the less possible it is to isolate. And it really is hard to be great or your best self in a vacuum. You know, there's no one around to hear you fall if you're a tree.

• 57:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 57:16Speaker 03

  And the third thing I think is to be kind even to people that you don't like.

• 57:22Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful. I like those three. Those are great. Before I ask the final question, where can we connect with you online? Where do you hang out the most?

• 57:32Speaker 03

  I don't, you know, I mean, I'm old. It's not like, I mean, I'm on Instagram and I'm on Snapchat. I'm on Twitter and I do, I try to answer questions on Twitter, but more like, should I wear this shirt or that shirt? Cause it's only 140 characters. I am active on my Facebook page now more than I have been before and I'd like to start doing Facebook Lives so that I can really answer questions. I've been told I should do that on Periscope too.

• 58:00Lewis Howes?

  You should do more on Facebook Live. Get her on there.

• 58:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, you should.

• 58:03Lewis Howes?

  Get her on there.

• 58:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, off camera, I'm being, Nick is being told that he should do more Facebook Live with me.

• 58:10Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 58:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:11Lewis Howes?

  So Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, like, yeah. I mean, you're not, I'm not on Periscope.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 58:18Speaker 03

  But I mean, has that, has that panned out really? Has Periscope?

• 58:21Lewis Howes?

  It hasn't.

• 58:21Speaker 03

  Okay, so.

• 58:22Lewis Howes?

  For some, but it's kind of dying, yeah. And then your website?

• 58:26Speaker 03

  Right, and I'm not on Vine and I don't have a website.

• 58:28Lewis Howes?

  No website. But you have a book?

• 58:30Speaker 03

  I do. I have two books. I have Dress Your Best that I co-wrote with Clinton Kelly, which is basically color forms for body types. It's just what shapes, it's geometry.

• 58:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  What shapes look great on what body type? All different heights, all different shapes. That is a primer. And you had asked me this before and somehow I got away from this question. What do you do when you don't know what your style is? Start with your body type.

• 58:55Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 58:55Speaker 03

  That's what looking at yourself naked is about. Once you can get rid of the judgment and say, okay, I'm a pear or whatever it is, I carry all my weight in my hips, go buy Dress Your Best and look up what to do about carrying your weight in your bottom half and you'll see what kind of shapes you will look good in.

• 59:12Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 59:13Speaker 03

  And then you can start experimenting with what colors you like. And, you know, the idea isn't to feel like there's this pressure to look like somebody else. Comparison is the thief of joy and it is definitely the thief of confidence. So I like to think of style as self-exploration. And you should take as much time as you need to figure out what makes you look and feel your best.

• 59:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:39Speaker 03

  And also to be aware, again, self-aware, what's appropriate in a given situation. What's age-appropriate, you know? All of the things that sort of do come to bear on the way other people see you.

• 59:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  Because your style is sort of like a business card.

• 59:55Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 59:55Speaker 03

  It's the first thing people will make a judgment about you in the first three seconds that they meet you.

• 1:00:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  So I think that's very important. Then I wrote a book about the psychology of style, which is called The Truth About Style. And that's more what I talked about with you today.

• 1:00:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  And the reasons that people get in their own way when it comes to dressing their best and feeling their best. The fear and the shame, the stuff that, you know, is really what we encounter every day. And sometimes we think it and we don't even recognize

• 1:00:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  what disservice we do to ourselves.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm, yeah, okay.

• 1:00:33Speaker 03

  You know, somebody said to me when I was doing The Truth About Style, how could I? She was a plus-size African-American woman who wanted to be a fashion blogger. And she said, "I'm not white and I'm not size zero. I don't fit in at any of these conventions." And I said, "Well, why can't you be the first? Why can't you be the first editor-in-chief of Vogue? Why can't you be the first to do something that's never been done before?" So, you know, it's something to keep in mind. If you feel like you can't or you're not like everybody else and there's no way for you to fit in, maybe the whole point is you don't have to.

• 1:01:14Lewis Howes?

  Mm, zing, that's good. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Stacey, for your beautiful soul.

• 1:01:22Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 1:01:23Lewis Howes?

  I think your soul is so beautiful and how you constantly make people feel great. Even when you're not talking about style, but when you show up, you show up with so much love and joy that people, their self-esteem gets higher. So just you being in the world is really powerful for everyone else that you're around. So I want to acknowledge you for that.

• 1:01:41Speaker 03

  Thank you, Liz.

• 1:01:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Speaker 03

  I don't know if Nick always agrees because sometimes I'm grumpy with him.

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  But you know, it's more like I'm whiny. Not grumpy, I'm whiny.

• 1:01:52Lewis Howes?

  And I also want to acknowledge you for-

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  Aggro, he calls me aggro muffin.

• 1:01:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I also want to acknowledge you for your youthful soul.

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:01:59Lewis Howes?

  And that you're not letting like age or whatever like hold you back from really experiencing the world at its fullest.

• 1:02:05Speaker 03

  I feel like I've seen too many people, too many women do that and I just, I just refuse.

• 1:02:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  You know, it is interesting and I know we really do probably need to wrap it up, but in the last three months or something, I have had like a lot of physical ailments. I broke toes, I had to get my toes operated on, I had dental surgery like up the wazoo. You know, every, like my arthritis kicked in, like all of this stuff. And I realized in a conversation with somebody a couple of days ago, how exhausting pain can be. But I do not want to be one of those people who's like old before their time. I just don't. And when I'm old, I still want to be young.

• 1:02:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  You know, I still, like when I'm really old.

• 1:02:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  And now that we're all going to live to be 150 anyway.

• 1:02:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:02:57Speaker 03

  I'm relatively young.

• 1:02:58Lewis Howes?

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:02:59Speaker 03

  So, there's that. And I don't, you know, it's funny, I, because I didn't get married and because I don't have kids, I don't hang out with a lot of my friends consistently who are my age, who are married and have kids, because there's only so many times I can watch them do gymnastics or whatever.

• 1:03:15Lewis Howes?

  Right, because soccer practice.

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  So, a lot of my friends who are single are younger.

• 1:03:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  And in a lot of ways, I think that that just keeps me younger to begin with.

• 1:03:25Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, awesome. So, final question, Stacy, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:03:30Speaker 03

  That's, that's, that's a really hard question. I, I, I think that the definition of greatness-

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  Is living your life to its best potential. I mean, whatever potential you have inside yourself is realizing it. And that doesn't mean you have to do everything, or fix everything, or anyone. But I feel like each individual is so special. We're this like, you know, amazing arrangement of atoms. And there's nobody like you else in the world. And there will never be anybody like you else in the world. So whatever potential you can realize of yourself,

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  that is greatness. That is making the most of everything that has been given to you. You know, that expression, "Much has been given to you, much is expected of you." I think the universe expects us to be great, to recognize our potential and be as great as we can be.

• 1:04:26Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Stacy London, make sure you guys go check out her book. Is it in the shot here? Make sure to check this out. The Truth About Style.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I look like the Duchess of Windsor here, which is sort of unintentional.

• 1:04:37Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Check it out. Stacy, I love you.

• 1:04:42Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Again, Stacy's become a great friend of mine. So if you enjoyed this, make sure to let her know by tweeting her, sending her a message over on Snapchat or on Instagram. And you can connect with her and find out all of her links back at lewishouse.com/327. And if you enjoyed this, please share this with your friends. Post it on Twitter, on Facebook. Let them know about this interview. And also, check out the full video on YouTube or going back to lewishouse.com/327 to watch it there. And let me know what you thought about this interview. What's the biggest thing you learned about yourself during this interview? The biggest thing you learned about fashion and style?

• 1:05:25Lewis Howes?

  And share that in the comment section below on the blog post or on the YouTube channel. Thank you, guys, so much for all that you do to support the School of Greatness podcast. You are incredible, and we could not do this without you. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.