Transcript of Episode

Leah Gervais: Hey visionaries. Welcome back to the Your Biggest Vision show. I’m your host, Leah and I could not be more excited to have today’s guest, Nicole Lapin. Hi Nicole. 

Nicole Lapin: Oh My Gosh. Hello Leah. Thank you so much. I’m the visionary? Thank you. First of all, I’m flattered and honored. 

Leah Gervais: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I’m going to read your little fancy bio here and then we’re going to dive into your amazing new books. So Nicole is the New York Times bestselling author of Rich Bitch, A Simple 12 Step Plan for Getting Your Financial Life Together, Finally and Boss Bitch, A Simple 12 Step Plan to Take Charge of Your Career. Nicole is no stranger to breaking down complex business principles for all to understand, utilizing for signature at sassy style from anchoring business shows on network television, including CNBC, Bloomberg and CNN to contributing money reports to Today and MSNBC. Nicole has a long history with speaking the language of money fluently and using that language to empower an entire generation of women to take control of their lives. 

And I just want to tell everyone listening how Nicole jumped started my own business and a story that I don’t think I’ve ever told publicly. And you probably don’t even know this Nicole, but here’s the quick tidbit. So I read Rich Bitch and I already had known who Nicole was because I loved her story having been one of the, or I think the youngest female anchor at CNN and stuff. And she just always like did her thing. And I always really looked up to her, I loved rich bitch. And then when you wrote Boss Bitch Nicole, you did a little call to action for some ambassadors. And I had just started my now six figure business, but at the time, my sort of for fun blog and I was like, oh my God, maybe I’ll meet her one day. I’m going to be an ambassador and I’ll write about it. 

And you ended up having a Webinar for your Boss Bitch ambassadors, I think it was on your birthday. I remember this so clearly. And I remember that week I had run for the first time Facebook ads to my blog and I was so like nervous and excited and I had no idea what I was doing and some girl commented on my ads and said, this is the stupidest site I’ve ever seen. And I went into like this total like not even depression but weird analytical state where I was like writing down the dumb things on my site. I was like, maybe she’s right, maybe, maybe I’m not really cut out for this, blah, blah blah. Anyway, long story short, I get on Nicole’s Webinar and she’s like taking Q and A. So I write the whole story. I write like how this girl commented. I don’t really know if my blog is a good idea, blah, blah, blah. And I thought, Nicole, you were given to like kind of give me some things to think about, but oh, you said before you could finish it was basically fuck her and I was like, wow, that’s exactly what I needed to hear and it kept me going. 

Nicole Lapin: I totally stand by that advice.

Leah Gervais: Thank you. It was like exactly the reality check I needed to get out of my own way. 

Nicole Lapin: You know, I, it reminds me of a story of when I was signing books after boss bitch came out and when you go to different bookstores, when you write your many bestselling books, yeah, you will find this out. You go to different cities and you’ll sign stock at the Barnes and Noble or whatever. Um, because for a few reasons and they’ll give it better placement if it’s signed by the author and it’s not returnable, so you can’t have somebody bring it back, which will eat into your sales. So there are a lot of good reasons to do that. The Barnes and noble in Union Square in New York happened to always have a lot of my books. And so I was sending a huge stack of them and going really quickly and during the thick of book tour time, you’re delirious and I’m signing, signing, signing and I see one book that has my face crossed out. Like you could see that a person has seen the book and taken a ballpoint pen. Do this $27 book by the way, and fucking crossed my face out and I paused and my heart totally sunk and I was like, all of a sudden, you know, all of these things rushed into my mind. Maybe the cover is bad. I mean the book had already been out, like I had been all over it, you know, all of the things. And I was just overwhelmed by a ton of insecurity. Just seeing that for a second. And then I thought back to my former self who was on CNN and I would get, you know, 99 let’s say nice notes in the viewer email box, which you should never read by the way. And then one like asshole comment, like you can land a 747 on Nicole’s forehead, which prompted me to then get bangs.  So that happened. And so I then looked at that cover and I was like, I am not that girl anymore, so fuck whoever did this, you empower me. And I would have never done this 10 years ago. I took a picture of it. I put it on Instagram. I thought I was gonna like I was thinking in my head, oh my God, I need to buy this copy. I need to hide it. Nobody can see it. There was like, you know what? No. I’m going to put it on Instagram and I was going to say, whoever did this, thank you. You inspire me and I can’t wait to get your application for a job one day. 

Leah Gervais: That is the best response you could have because it’s so true. You know it’s, it’s a phrase worth repeating that people that are criticizing you are always, always one more time, always doing less than you. So you just have to remind yourself of that. 

Nicole Lapin: That’s right. There is no one who’s above you that’s going to be criticizing it. 

Leah Gervais: They don’t have time to 

Nicole Lapin: Totally, 100 percent. So I do stand by that advice. And how were you feeling about it now? How are you feeling about your website? Sorry this is your interview, by the way…

Leah Gervais: Oh no, no, no. Well, you know, I’m glad it happened because it prepared me for the inevitable mean comments that or the unsolicited advice or whatever you want to call it that come into my inbox. And I think it, you know, the earlier you’re exposed to criticism, the sooner you learn that entrepreneurship or any pursuit of your own dream or vision, which is what the show’s all about, makes it new. You need to be really confident in who you are. That’s the work. It’s not the sales or whatever. It’s really being competent so that you’re not shaken by other people’s insecurities. You already have enough of your own. You can’t carry theirs. 

Nicole Lapin: Totally. You know, you can’t let them live rent free in your head. You got to keep those bitches out. And there’s sometimes the biggest enemy is between our ears and we talk to ourselves so meanly. I mean, when we go through, like issues or if we mess something up, we’re just like, you’re the worst. You are never going to get another job again. You sound like you’re ugly or fat, like whatever. We see all of these crazy things to ourselves. And we would never say that to a best friend. Like imagine, Leah your best friend came over to your house and was like, Hey, I’m like, I totally messed this thing up. I’m at work. Or this person told me that I had a bad blog and my blog was stupid on my Facebook ads. What would they say? Yeah. You know what? You’re right. Your blog is stupid. Would they? No way they would Leah fuck her, first of all. You’re amazing. You’re awesome. I love you. You’re so pretty. Whatever. And so we don’t talk to ourselves like we talked to our best friends. And that’s, I think a big point in my new book is that you should treat yourself like your best friend because if you, well, I literally put a ring on it for myself. Like I’ve gotten this hindered wedding ring and I, you know, you’re the only person that’s literally going to be with you til death do you part. You might as well start loving on yourself. 

Leah Gervais: Oh, I, I totally agree. And I, I mean, I loved your new book and, um, I want to ask you some specific things about it. But first, before we just, I feel like I could talk to you about this stuff forever, but I want to hear a little bit about, I always like to ask my guests about what they thought they’d be when they grow up. And I know your childhood was intense to say the least, but what would you like to share about that with us?

Nicole Lapin: What’s so interesting is that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. Um, but I wanted it to be a creative writer. Like I want it to be a poet. And so, when I started, I wanted to be an English major and like sit under a tree and write and read poetry all day long. And, you know, I, you alluded to it, but I grew up in a super broken home. Um, you know, my father died of a drug overdose when I was 11. Like I needed to work. And, um, and I didn’t have a backup plan. Like it didn’t have a family’s couch to go crash on. Like failure wasn’t an option for me. And so I was like, Oh shit, you know what, poets don’t make that much money. I don’t think I can pay the bill. And so I switched into something that felt similar. But I thought made way more money. Like the people on TV I thought made a lot of money. Newsflash, they do not your first job in TV news, you make like $17,000 a year. Um, they didn’t tell me that part. And so I transitioned into being a journalist and I got these jobs as you know, in business news, which I totally hated at the time. Like I knew nothing about business use. My parents were immigrants and like criminals and we used cash and did all sorts of weird stuff with money. And like the last thing I wanted to do was actually learn about stocks and bonds and stuff like that. But I needed a job. And so I figured it out. And then fast forward about a decade later, the first time I was on business news was I when I was 18 and then when rich bitch came out, I was, what, 28 or so? 

So about a decade later, or now, I mean maybe I was a little bit older, but I started around then and I became a writer. Just not the kind I expected. And so what that taught me is that a lot of entrepreneurial experts will go until you go and do what you love, just Yolo, whatever, you know, go after your passion. And the truth is not everybody has the luxury to go after their passion and some people have to pay the bills. And so I ended up figuring out how to love what I do, not do what I love. 

Leah Gervais: So do you now, I mean, you’ve had rich bitch and boss bitch and now becoming super women, a woman. I have no doubt. They’ve all been huge successes. So do you feel at this point that, and when you were writing them that you were more passionate about the content or actually writing or a little bit of both? 

Nicole Lapin: It was both. So I thought at first that I was gonna write a book, I was a TV person, check the box, send it for Hanukkah, call it a day. Um, and I, and I hired a ghost writer and I was like, okay, I have a lot of other stuff to do. Um, I’ll just hire somebody and I’ll promote it and be done. And then I fired the ghost writer. I hired another person, I hired them. I went through like three manuscripts and was like, this is terrible. I actually really like writing. And I hadn’t written like that in a long time. And so I sat down and I wrote every single word, of all the books. And so I did enjoy the process. There’s something very exciting to me about making a turn of phrase work and I love that part of it. So I loved figuring out how to write sonnets and pin tunes and all sorts of different kinds of poems and with [inaudible] like pentameter and different couplets and stuff like that. 

And somehow I really got into, even though this is a mainstream book about business and typically nobody ever thinks about the musicality of it. I really care about the cadence of it. Like what it sounds like, how does it read? Is it, does that sound like me? And, and truthfully, the only person that could have written a book that sounds like me, which I think a lot of people feel like I’ve actually been talking to them, um, was if I did it. And so I did enjoy the process and also the content and I felt like in order to do it well, in order to democratize financial business, wonky content and, and what Becoming Superwoman as focusing on, which is around productivity and time management, and I’m working smarter, not harder, and actually how to do that with brass tacks, not woo woo stuff. The only person that could do that was me. And, and so I enjoyed both the process and the content. 

Leah Gervais: Well that certainly shows in your writing. I was so grateful when I was reading becoming super woman that you were really deliberate about having actionable steps that we should take with each chapter because otherwise your writing was so engaging. And so, I mean, you could just like eat it up. I could, I would just read through the whole thing and not even really put it down. So it was the perfect balance of being so engaging but then making sure it’s actionable. And I, I love the book, but um, one thing I want to back up that a little bit just because my audience is almost all entrepreneurs and we talk a lot about leaving your nine to five job. What was it like? Were you at CNN when you left to become your, to work for yourself or where were you at the end? 

Nicole Lapin: Yeah, I was at CNBC and I left mid contract and I, yeah, then started writing. I ended up doing other shows on different networks. But yeah, that’s where I was. There’s 27 

Leah Gevrais: Was it scary? 

Nicole Lapin: Yeah. And so, I mean, here’s the thing, it was less scary than the idea of being my own boss was 10 years before that in Boston ish. I talk about how I was on the floor of the Chicago Merc knowing nothing about business news, doing these ridiculous stories that I felt like had a really actionable verbs because as you know, I’m a language person and so I would care a lot about making these active burbs really saying. And so I was doing yesterday about Gillette one day and I didn’t know really why we were doing a story about a razor. I was like, this sounds bizarre, but whatever. I’m going to make this the best resource story ever. And I was like, the reason was so sharp that the hairs, you know, the blades whack off the hair as close to the skin as ever before, something like that. And I was like, oh, that’s really cool and action will. And My boss called me in and was like, hey Lapin watch this tape. And I was like, oh great. You like my actionable, you know, sexy burbs. And he was like, um, you just said whack off to an audience of men. 

And I was like, oh my God, I didn’t even think about it. Like that’s the point you didn’t think. And I was like, you’re right, you’re the boss. And yeah, he said to me something I’ll never forget. He’s like, actually, you’re the boss of you. I’m not there with you holding your hand, picking your verbs on the floor of the Merck, you are the boss of you. And at that point I was terrified, but when I actually left my job, I was empowered because I had had a run in with my actual boss then who was, you know, less of a mentor as my first one who really came down hard about me listening to him because he’s the boss and I need to, you know, sit in front of the teleprompter and read and not come up with entrepreneurial stories and not do extra stuff. And I was like, no, I’m the boss of me. And, and it felt more empowering than ever before. 

Leah Gervais: Amazing. 

Nicole Lapin: But it’s also scary as, fuck, don’t get me wrong. 

Leah Gervais: That’s okay. I mean, I appreciate you being so open with it because I, one of my goals of this show is for everyone to understand that every successful person you look up to has just as many, if not more fears that they deal with every day than you. And so fear is not always fun and it’s not always comfortable, but it is never a reason alone. I mean, there can be other reasons not to move forward, but with fear alone, it can’t be an excuse because we all deal with it and it’s just about managing it. And, um, so you leave, you go write rich bitch. It’s a huge success. Boston is a huge success and the first chapter of Becoming Super Woman is pretty heartbreaking about where you started that journey and where you were, um, you know, in not such a great place. So what do you want to share about what happened in between? In between boss bitch and ending up in the hospital? 

Nicole Lapin: Yeah. So I am happy to share everything. That’s my, that’s my jam. Um, and the only way I know how to tell a story is to tell it really honestly. And after, like I said, I didn’t expect to write a second book. I certainly didn’t expect to write a third book. Um, it just happened really quickly. The success of Rich Bitch. I barely even had time to think about it. I was like, of course I’m doing Boss Bitch, it just like came out and you know, we got it together really quickly. It came out two years after. Okay and I went on this insane press tour, which, you know, I could never complain about because I was so lucky and fortunate that many people wanted to talk to me. And so I was like the people that complain like, Oh, this is the worst. 

I just have so many then since so much press that I’m doing, I was like, no, I was so grateful and my whole team works so hard on this and I needed to Show up and do my part of it. We were just running so hard and I had had a really traumatic upbringing. Um, and you know, that is a whole memoir that may come at some point in my life or a lifetime movie that I never dealt with. And I always self prescribed work and I just worked all the time. I got to my dreams job’s way earlier than I expected, not because I had a lot of friends or a good balance in my life is because I just worked, I loved working and I worked all day, every day, Monday to Sunday.  And I hid from a lot of what had been going on with me. And the more I did that more I achieved and then the more I worked and it became the cycle that really came to my head after Boss Bitch came out. I often say, and I think I say this exact line in the book that I had a full mental, physical, emotional breakdown after that tour. And I say that it wasn’t because of the tour and it wasn’t because of one particular event that I think it wasn’t a spontaneous combustion precipitated by a single event, but a lifetime of smoldering embers that finally caught fire and incinerated everything in its past. And it was just a build up that got me to a place of burnout and eventually a breakdown that led to an emergency hospitalization where I had to rethink everything. 

Leah Gervais: Wow. So, you get back from your tour and did this, I know that you, you, you said it wasn’t one event that triggered it, but did this sort of breakdown to you rather than being in the hospital? Was that like a week time frame or kind of a month of you feeling like, oh my gosh, I’m not okay. And then you’re in the hospital. 

Nicole Lapin: You know, I wasn’t in the actual psych ward for very long. I went through a long outpatient program and you know, months and, and now years of, of my own recovery process. But I realized that nothing affects your career. You can go to all the networking things, you can listen to all the podcasts. Yeah. So you can do all the, all the things that all the business books tell you to do. And even that I did in Boss Bitch and nothing is going to affect it more than if you’re okay. Like being in the psych ward affects your career more than anything else cause everything then had to be canceled. And so I realized that the biggest thesis of my new book is self care, is the biggest asset or liability in your career, which as you know, the business terminology after my own heart. But when it’s on point, it can help you achieve more success than you ever imagined. And when it’s not, it can bring you to rock bottom, which is where it took me. 

Leah Gervais: So I think you do, you know, you really, um, are empathetic about this in your book. But I think one of the reasons that so many women get to burnout or don’t put themselves in the equation of their success is because they are afraid that if they let go of hustling ways or he workaholic ways, even that they won’t achieve their goals. Um, because a lot of them are convinced that those are the exact things that have gotten them as far as they have gotten. And so how can they expect to get any further by dropping those things. Um, and so how do we begin to correlate other traits about our own talents and our own knowledge and our own sense of self worth as reasons that we can be successful instead of just these really harmful habits? 

Nicole Lapin: Well, I think what got you, you here won’t get you there. It’s one of my favorite memes. I didn’t come up with that, so I’m not gonna take credit for it. But you, you realize at some point, hopefully, and you don’t go through what I did in order to figure it out, um, that you can no longer really measure your success by somebody else’s ruler. And, and I say that because for so long I have thought success would make me happy or success when I got to a certain level of success, then I would be balanced then I wouldn’t take care of myself, but only when I got a certain salary or only when I got a certain job. And then I would get there and immediately the goal posts would change and I would up the bar and it would be another salary. 

Or then I will be like this other thing. Like it’s not when I get one bestselling book, it’s when it gets to two best selling books. And then it’s like, when does it actually end? Never get your brain to the other side of happiness or balanced that way. And that’s when I realized you have to change the equation that success and money and all of that is not gonna make you happy, but rather happiness will bring you more success than you ever imagined. And I quote in the book, and I don’t often quote him ever, Jim Carrey, but he said something that really resonated with me because he said like, I hope everyone becomes rich and famous and gets everything they always thought they wanted only to realize that that’s not the answer. And, and, and you really get to a place, I think, um, where you sit with yourself and you find your own truth and not what your parents tell you or society tells you or what Instagram tries to tell you is what having it all is. It’s you defining them for yourself, what having it all is. And if you don’t do that, you’ll never get it. So I think you can have it all, but only if you define what having it all means to you. 

Leah Gervais: Yeah. I love that. It only does come from your own definition and the exciting part is you do get to make that up. It’s only from you. Um, and in that chapter where you talk about having your cake and eating it too, one of the really powerful things you mentioned is something I think about all the time and I never know what to do with it. So I just like kinda think about it. And then it, and that’s this concept of what it means for women to have it all versus men. And I’m not trying to do this whole like victimizing of women, but you know, you talk about how for women we want to have this, the SeeSuite or the really successful career and wear Louboutin’s while doing it and all of those things. And also be mothers and be wives and have a social life and go to soul cycle four times a week. Like we, that’s what it means to having it all for us. But for men, they’ve never really, I mean this is kind of a harsh statement and I know there are exceptions, but for men, they haven’t really ever redefine having an offer them as being more hands on at home or you know, having all these other sort of, uh, traditionally thought of as female responsibilities successful in their own life too. So in an attempt for women to find equality, it seems like we have just set ourselves up for more exhaustion. And do you think that’s kind of the way you described it in the book and what do we do about that? 

Nicole Lapin: Well, I think it’s really unfortunate that we, he compare what somebody focuses on solely to a portion of what we’re focusing on. So oftentimes you compare how we are as mother to like what a blogger who stays at home and homeschools our kids and makes like homemade bread is as a mother or are we compare our success in our career to the success of some business [inaudible] and, and then, you know, we’re trying to live up to the best of each of those when in fact nobody actually has the same set of circumstances, you do. And so that’s why I go back to not measuring success by somebody else’s ruler and it’s really figuring out what that is for and holding yourself accountable to that and not raising the bar constantly on yourself. And so I think it’s really important. That’s why I’m coming out with a journal that comes out with the book, The superwoman journal that comes up with the points system, kind of like weight watchers that you can allocate points for what you’re doing in different times of your life and forgive yourself for what you’re not focusing on and prioritize yourself in terms of what actually helps you achieve your goals. 

Like connecting those dots and not just indiscriminately crossing off your to do lists because we often get into that trap that we’re just like busy, busy, busy and we have as busy badge of honor. But being busy as not necessarily being productive. And I actually think that thoughtfully procrastinating things is actually quite valuable. And realizing that a date with yourself is a date or meeting. And so I used to cancel my workouts all the time. If I had a call or a meeting that would show up and then I started thinking, no, I have a meeting I’m already booked at that time. Right. Even if it’s a soul cycle class or what, whatever. If it’s a meeting with, you know, an executive you would think a thousand times before canceling that, why are we treating ourselves differently? Why are we canceling on ourselves so quickly where we would think a thousand times before we did it on our friend or on a work thing. And so I think getting out of that mindset will help us with that pressure that we think we have to be superwoman. This is why I named the book this it’s super space woman and this is based makes all the difference. The space allows for you, the woman to put your oxygen mask on first before helping others. They don’t say that on a plane, just their full time before take off. 

Leah Gervais: I love everything you said about a year ago. I tried to make a really conscious decision to cut out the word busy from my vocabulary because no one, you know, you don’t want to talk to your friend and they’re like, how are you? And you just, I’m so busy. Like what is, what are people supposed to do with that? It sounds like you don’t have control over your life. It doesn’t really mean anything. And so I’m like, how can I reframe it to put a word in there that describes how I’m doing in a more positive way than just busy, which I don’t even really think means anything. Okay. I have a couple questions for you about this book as it pertains to entrepreneurship in particular because as I mentioned, us who is listening, so you have a great chapter in here about boundaries, boundaries bitch. 

And what I love about this is that I feel like so many people talk about boundaries these days and they say that you really need them, but they don’t actually talk about how difficult the conversations can be with people like your family or your very good friends who maybe you haven’t seen in two months because you just haven’t. And you know how you really practically set boundaries with and boundaries is one of the things I see my clients struggle the most with as they’re building businesses. So I know you’re very entrepreneurial, Nicole, you’ve built several businesses and initiatives on your own and what specific challenges to you have you experienced and what advice you have for entrepreneurs that can feel like they’re at the mercy of their clients when they’re trying to get started and that they won’t get paid if they don’t sort of do whatever these people are asking them to. In the beginning especially. 

Nicole Lapin: Yeah, you know and I’ve had this conversation with Ariana who was like, you should sleep and all of the stuff, which I totally agree with obviously, but there are different points in your okay for life where you don’t sleep like that. I mean this is not advice actually for somebody in their twenties who’s actually hustling hard and trying to get to a good place in their career. You know, I want to be super clear about that. I think it would be delusional of me to say there’s, you know, all the time you should… You know, I said to her, I was like, you know, if you slept during that time, you wouldn’t be Ariana. And I have, I didn’t, if I didn’t wear that busy badge of honor, I’ve already didn’t like, feel breathless and work all the time. You know, I could’ve struck a better balance than I probably would’ve had a similar platform, but I wouldn’t be able to even be speaking to you today. And so I think you have to get to a certain place in your career, um, at a certain level in order to really have the power to say no. And as Shonda Rhimes says, no is a complete sentence. I know that it’s, you can say no at any stage of course in your career. I know it’s intimidating, especially when it comes to clients or your boss or work stuff. But my best advice there is to really think of what it’s like for the receiver. If you say yes to something, you’re going to do a shitty job. You’re just going to let that person down or you’re not gonna show up in the way that you want to show up. 

And so I would say really just be upfront and honest about whether or not you can do a good job at that. And you don’t want to do a bad job, obviously you’re a boss bitch. And so really thinking like, Hey, can I take this on and crush it? Am I actually gonna have the bandwidth to do that? And by the way, if you want to make time, you will make time there. I hate when people say like I have to find time for them. Like where the fuck is tying behind the couch? Like the game of hide and seek, where are we fine being time, hours in the day, right? I’m going to find it to be more, we have the same number of hours in the day as Michelle Obama or Beyonce and I started swapping out. I don’t have time for that, that’s not a priority. So when somebody would say like, why are you working out? I was like, I don’t have time for that. It’s like, okay, that’s not a priority. And it’s like, actually, is that a priority? And or in scrolling Instagram both three hours, that’s clearly what’s sucking my time. Um, and so I really think when you’re trying to say no in work situations or taking on new clients, if you’re not going to do well and that point, it’s not going to hire you again and you’re just gonna phone it in or whatever. Then it’s gonna behoove you in the long run to, to thoughtfully, you can say it in a kind way. You can say it in, in a way that, you know, shows that you have integrity and respect for yourself and for the project. 

Leah Gervais: Right. Well, I love it. I mean, I love how honest you just were because I do think it’s important for every entrepreneur especially, but everyone to recognize that your journey is full of different steps, you know, I guess like steps up a ladder and so you have to recognize if you are in one where you do need to hustle more than, than that’s part of the deal, you know? But at the same time you can keep the bigger picture in mind while you do it and not become a slave. 

Nicole Lapin: Yeah. I think the people who say [inaudible], you know, the balance looks a certain way. It really doesn’t is, you know, balance is not this idea that we have of lady justice with two bowls and everything thing that’s perfectly balanced and that’s what we’re trying to achieve. It’s not, that’s like a ridiculous expectation to have. If you look at a girl who was at her desk working her ass off, you know, 15 hours a day and, you know, barely seeing her friends or whatever. Do you automatically think that she’s not balanced? I don’t, I don’t know what her priorities are. You know, maybe her priorities are 70% work, you know, 10% self care, which should always be in there because otherwise if it’s not at least a little bit, um, it will become everything as I found out. That’s where that girl’s not imbalanced. You know, you just don’t know what she’s focusing on right now. Maybe she will in five years or 10 years be focusing on being the mom or focusing on something else or whatever. Like that’s, that’s her life. That’s not your life. And so I don’t think it looks the same for everybody. 

Leah Gervais: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, one of the things I feel like you’ve always talked a lot about and has really helped me obviously for that’s why this conversation started, but I appreciated you bringing up in this book again is um, you know, imposter syndrome in general, which I think women struggle with more than men. And you were really honest in the beginning of your book. And I thought really brave to say, you know, I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a doctor. I’m a therapist. I am a woman who is burnt out and I want to share my story and what works for me. And you know, in my eyes, reading from your point of view was so much more helpful for me than if I read something by a traditional, you know, white male, 50 year old professor of therapy or a psychologist, I’m sorry. Um, you know, or something like that because I relate to your story so much and I relate to you a lot and I just think you, you share it in a really transparent and actionable way. So how did you see past that? Because one of the things, again I hear from entrepreneurs all the time is that they have this idea they want to write a health blog or they want to write about travel, but they aren’t a nutritionist by certification or you know, they just don’t know if they have the quote qualifications to do something like this. And I would love to hear your words of encouragement about that. 

Nicole Lapin: I struggled with that a lot. Um, around the launch of Rich Bitch in particular. Um, I thought, well, I didn’t go get my MBA. I didn’t work for a bank like I don’t have any expertise. I mean, I went on to get certifications and stuff like that, but really those certifications didn’t help me very much. So I had some alphabet soup after my name because I was so nervous about that. I thought, oh my gosh, how is somebody gonna buy a finance book from somebody who doesn’t have like some of those letters after their name. And so I went out and I got those letters and, and I was like, this is ridiculous. I took like income taxation and estate planning and all sorts of stuff that I’m like, if you want to know this stuff, you don’t need to memorize it and have these in super intense tests. And Oh my gosh, that the books were insanity. I mean, you could look that stuff up so easily, anyway. And so I, I found that the best annadote for imposter syndrome from me was to just call it out. And it was to say really upfront, I’m not… I didn’t get my MBA, I didn’t work in a bank and just to call out what I feared was going to be called out about me and do it first. 

And say, Hey, I got my MBA at the school of hard knocks. You know, I know that I’m not a traditional expert. Like those were all my fears, but you know what, I have the self awareness to get to a place where I’m just going to own it. Like people can’t criticize you if you just own what that story is. I mean, they can, I mean, people do all the time, but like it shouldn’t, you know, it shouldn’t be as much of a thing is if you own it and, and you’re like, um, I’m not, I think that that’s where the imposter syndrome starts brewing is where you think somebody is going to call you out for something. And then you just have to really reframe that. It’s like, I will just honestly tell you, and at this point in my career, I give negative fucks. So I just say the super, super, super honest, everything to a fault because, you know, um, I just don’t even ask permission. When like in boss Bitch, I wrote my salaries and, uh, how much I made as an advance and I didn’t ask permission. My lawyer was like, I think the, in your contracts for these networks, like there was a confidentiality and stuff like that. I’m like, no, but the ends justify the means so they can, they can see me. I think it’s important if somebody is reading a book about money and some woman telling them to talk about their salary. So of course they’re gonna think, well, what is she making? What does she make? I would think that I’m like, I’m just gonna call it out. I’m just gonna say it. So when I say to a fault, I say really [inaudible]. But you know, I just, so that’s my, my best advice is to just stay at first. 

Leah Gervais: Amazing. Awesome. Well, I think the best advice I can give to you entrepreneurs listening is to pick up this book, especially you women out there. It is hugely actionable. And like Nicole said at the beginning, it doesn’t have this sort of woo woo that can come with self care. And while I love some woo woo here and there, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if it’s not actually being implemented in your life. And Nicole does a really great job of showing you literally today how you can take steps, uh, and, and change this and it’s broken up into 12 steps like her two other books. So if there’s a particular section in there that you think you need more than anything else right now, then you can go right to that and get help and start finding more balance today. So thank you for writing this book, Nicole. 

Nicole Lapin: Thank you so much for having me.

Leah Gervais: Oh my God, it was my pleasure and I just, um, would love for you to tell people when the book’s coming out, where they can find it, where they can find out more about you. 

Nicole Lapin: Okay. The book is out September 17th. I think the journal is out, I believe October 8th, you can find it on wherever books are sold. Amazon and all the places. Hopefully somebody’s not going to cross my face out out of Barnes and Nobu, but you’ll find it on that, on my Instagram, which is @NicoleLapin. And you can find, I think it’s @NicoleLapin on all the social places. 

Leah Gervais: Amazing. Well, I just want to close with my favorite quote from your book, Nicole. This is an affirmation for you all to really embrace today. She says, “I am a work in progress and I am a masterpiece all at the same time.” So if that isn’t visionary gold, I don’t know what it is. Thank you so, so much Nicole and congratulations. 

Nicole Lapin: Thank you, Leah. I’ll talk to you soon. 

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