Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / The Cost of Perfectionism with Coveteur Founding Member Stacie Brockman

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The Cost of Perfectionism with Coveteur Founding Member Stacie Brockman · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that.
0:13
Speaker 2: Put a new spin on pretty. This is pretty smart.
0:20
Speaker 1: Burnout is on the rise worldwide, and reports say that
0:23
Speaker 1: there are two groups that are the most burnt out.
0:26
Speaker 1: One is gen Z and young millennials, and the second
0:30
Speaker 1: is women.
0:31
Speaker 2: I think that's why last.
0:32
Speaker 1: Week's episode about burnout really resonated with you. Most of
0:36
Speaker 1: us feel a bit of it, whether it's full out
0:39
Speaker 1: burnout or bits of it throughout our weeks and months.
0:43
Speaker 1: So last week we heard from Rainsford Stauffer, a journalist,
0:46
Speaker 1: about the cultural and societal expectations around ambition that are
0:51
Speaker 1: driving the global burnout epidemic. We talked a lot about
0:55
Speaker 1: systemic and structural failings. This week, we're hearing one woman's
1:00
Speaker 1: personal story with burnout, and it's heartbreaking. Stacy Brockman is
1:09
Speaker 1: no stranger to ambition. She earned her stripes working with
1:13
Speaker 1: industry giants like Chanelle, Tiffany and Co Disney Dior, and
1:18
Speaker 1: even collaborating with the iconic Lauren Hill. But beneath the success,
1:23
Speaker 1: there's a story of burnout, a tale of ambition, perfectionism,
1:28
Speaker 1: and the pursuit of excellence that took a toll on
1:31
Speaker 1: Stacy's well being.
1:33
Speaker 2: Before Stacey tells.
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Speaker 1: Her whole story in this episode, I want to give
1:36
Speaker 1: you a little preview. Stacy Brockman is a serial entrepreneur,
1:41
Speaker 1: a brand builder, an investor. She began her career at
1:45
Speaker 1: the age of twenty one as a founding member of
1:47
Speaker 1: the Covetour, a content to commerce media company. You may
1:51
Speaker 1: remember the site known for its chic, aesthetic and celebrity interviews,
1:55
Speaker 1: in which they roam freely through the closets of celebrities
1:58
Speaker 1: like Drake Courtney Herd and Jessica Alba, Kaylee Quoco.
2:03
Speaker 3: It was really a peak inside behind the most exclusive places,
2:08
Speaker 3: which started with people's closets and eventually moved backstage at
2:12
Speaker 3: a fashion show to inside Coco Chanelle's apartment, inside the
2:16
Speaker 3: atlier at Cartier. It was all these places that had
2:19
Speaker 3: never been revealed or exposed to the public, and it
2:23
Speaker 3: became really the pinnacle of content to commerce. It was
2:27
Speaker 3: pre Instagram.
2:29
Speaker 1: Because many of you know, when you are part of
2:31
Speaker 1: a startup, you don't just have one job title. Stacy
2:34
Speaker 1: oversaw all branded advertorial content, casting styling, and she grew
2:39
Speaker 1: all of the cove towards social media channels to over
2:41
Speaker 1: three million in just a few years. And then in
2:44
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, at the age of twenty five, she co
2:47
Speaker 1: founded Metier Creative, an award winning advertising and branding agency.
2:53
Speaker 1: Among many of her accomplishments with Metier, Stacey was the
2:57
Speaker 1: youngest person featured on WWD Beauty Inc. Fifty Beauty Execs
3:01
Speaker 1: under forty Driving Innovation List, alongside Jessica Alba for Honest Company,
3:06
Speaker 1: Jen Atkin for Way Hair Care, Cassandra Gray for Violet Gray.
3:11
Speaker 1: And then in August of twenty nineteen, Stacy sold her
3:15
Speaker 1: equity stake and exited Metia to focus on her mental health.
3:19
Speaker 1: On the outside, she was crushing it and on the
3:23
Speaker 1: inside she was crumbling.
3:25
Speaker 3: I really literally had to give myself a time out
3:28
Speaker 3: in the form of a medical lead, because I didn't
3:31
Speaker 3: realize how much my anxiety had escalated into a general
3:35
Speaker 3: anxieting disorder, into diagnosed depression, into OCD, and I was
3:39
Speaker 3: having all these ongoing issues that were compounding one another,
3:44
Speaker 3: but really started I think as a result of my
3:47
Speaker 3: obsession with just perfection and wanting to be everything to
3:50
Speaker 3: everybody when I wasn't really cut out to be, nor
3:54
Speaker 3: is anybody cut out to be.
3:56
Speaker 1: Here's the thing I've learned about perfectionism. It's about external validity.
4:01
Speaker 1: Healthy striving is about internal drive. You've probably heard the
4:06
Speaker 1: phrase perfect is the enemy of good. People have told
4:09
Speaker 1: me that a few times, But sometimes perfect is the
4:13
Speaker 1: enemy of it all. Stacy learned that firsthand.
4:17
Speaker 3: I was so humiliated and so embarrassed because of the
4:22
Speaker 3: perception of you, like you're fine, you're doing amazing, You're
4:27
Speaker 3: on this podcast, and you're doing this, and your company's
4:29
Speaker 3: grown to X and you just find X client. But
4:32
Speaker 3: all that surface value stuff was only tiding all of
4:36
Speaker 3: these like DSM diagnoses that I was continuously getting that
4:39
Speaker 3: I was so ashamed to even tell people I had,
4:42
Speaker 3: like I didn't want anyone to know.
4:44
Speaker 2: A quick aside.
4:45
Speaker 1: I learned from Stacy that DSM is the book of
4:47
Speaker 1: classifications for mental health diagnoses. So today we are hearing
4:52
Speaker 1: about Stacy's experience building Covetoure from the ground up, how
4:56
Speaker 1: her perfectionism led to a mental health crisis, and how
5:00
Speaker 1: she worked through it. She's really raw, and she shares
5:04
Speaker 1: the tools she used, the time it took, and ultimately
5:07
Speaker 1: where she landed. She's still a highly ambitious woman. She
5:11
Speaker 1: actually just launched a new project that I'll share more
5:14
Speaker 1: about at the end of the episode. But this whole
5:16
Speaker 1: experience led her to reformulating what the true meaning of
5:19
Speaker 1: legacy is, and Stacy says, if you're too busy being busy,
5:25
Speaker 1: you're probably missing a lot of other things.
5:30
Speaker 2: Stacy Brockman, where did you grow up?
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Speaker 3: I am so proudly Canadian. I will always be proud
5:36
Speaker 3: to be a Canadian. And I believe it holds true
5:39
Speaker 3: that Canadians really are the nicest people. And I grew
5:42
Speaker 3: up in Toronto, and I'm so happy to be a
5:46
Speaker 3: Canadian girl living in the States.
5:48
Speaker 2: What prompted the New York move.
5:51
Speaker 3: I had been working at this website, the Covetour, that
5:55
Speaker 3: I was part of the founding team of, and I
5:59
Speaker 3: was twenty four and I was the editorial director, and
6:01
Speaker 3: I was like, holy shit. I went to school for journalism.
6:06
Speaker 3: I never thought i'd have the title editorial director at
6:09
Speaker 3: twenty four, So I must be killing it. I must
6:12
Speaker 3: be this like greater than great, you know, person of
6:17
Speaker 3: the world. And had all the confidence to jump ship,
6:21
Speaker 3: and I was poached to go to a few different
6:23
Speaker 3: luxury brands and somehow ended up in an ad agency.
6:28
Speaker 3: And I had never even seen mad Men before, so
6:30
Speaker 3: I didn't actually know what an ad agency was. I
6:33
Speaker 3: was super naive, and I think that was probably the
6:36
Speaker 3: best place to be because I was completely underqualified, completely overcompensated,
6:41
Speaker 3: and completely overconfident. And they were like, well, sponsor your
6:46
Speaker 3: visa and I was like, that's it, that's my dream,
6:49
Speaker 3: so why Like why not? And I moved for this
6:53
Speaker 3: job and did it for a year before starting my
6:55
Speaker 3: own ad agency, which is just crazy to even think about.
6:59
Speaker 3: But I think that that was, you know, diving all
7:02
Speaker 3: in head first and learning everything on the ground without
7:06
Speaker 3: any you know, safety net to fall on because I
7:10
Speaker 3: was just so ignorant, blissfully ignorant, but in the best
7:14
Speaker 3: way possible. So it made me move to New York.
7:17
Speaker 3: It made me grow up really fast, It made me
7:20
Speaker 3: get burned really fast, and I learned a lot really fast.
7:23
Speaker 2: I think we sort of glossed over Covetour.
7:26
Speaker 1: So for anybody who hasn't heard of what it is,
7:30
Speaker 1: how would you describe Covetour?
7:33
Speaker 3: Covetour was a cultural zeitgeist of the time. I think
7:37
Speaker 3: it launched at the perfect pinnacle of the internet obsession
7:42
Speaker 3: with street style and coveting people and their style and
7:47
Speaker 3: their lives and wanting to look deeper and further than
7:50
Speaker 3: what the street style photographers could give us. And it
7:54
Speaker 3: was really a peak inside behind the most exclusive places,
7:59
Speaker 3: which started with people closet that eventually moved backstage at
8:02
Speaker 3: you know, a fashion show, to inside Coco Chanelle's apartment,
8:06
Speaker 3: inside the atlier at Cartier. It was all these places
8:09
Speaker 3: that had never been revealed or exposed to the public,
8:14
Speaker 3: and it became really the pinnacle of content to commerce.
8:18
Speaker 3: It was pre Instagram. It was really at that sort
8:22
Speaker 3: of like Pinterest moment of people wanting to figure out
8:26
Speaker 3: how do you consume and then obtain and shop it?
8:31
Speaker 3: And so we kind of pioneered this version of advertorial,
8:35
Speaker 3: of blending editorial content that was actually disguised advertising. So
8:39
Speaker 3: the first advertiser we worked with were the Chanelle Do
8:42
Speaker 3: You or Bulgarie, all these amazing luxury brands who had
8:45
Speaker 3: really never worked with an online platform. But we had
8:49
Speaker 3: this unbelievable access into places and spaces and people that
8:54
Speaker 3: nobody had access to and I think being Canadian was
8:57
Speaker 3: a big factor. I think they saw these kids who
9:00
Speaker 3: were young, hungry, ambitious, but really sweet, really humble and
9:04
Speaker 3: trustworthy and to let us go through their underwear drawers
9:08
Speaker 3: and aside spaces that you're probably not supposed to see,
9:12
Speaker 3: you know. They launched in January twenty eleven. I started
9:14
Speaker 3: as an intern in March twenty eleven, and we raised
9:18
Speaker 3: funding after about a year, and so I learned that
9:21
Speaker 3: whole process with them in real time of what do
9:24
Speaker 3: you do to go to angel investors? How do you
9:26
Speaker 3: pitch a business? We were really fortunate that Drake was
9:30
Speaker 3: another Toronto kid who had mutual friends with some of
9:34
Speaker 3: the people, some of my partners, and he got into
9:38
Speaker 3: the business and invested capital, and we were really you know,
9:42
Speaker 3: kids running kids, trying to figure this all out in
9:45
Speaker 3: real time. We tried to sort of formalize and have
9:48
Speaker 3: a proper CEO and CFO and really turn this sort
9:52
Speaker 3: of passion project that really exploded into a real business
9:56
Speaker 3: into something more corporate and real and legitimized. You know.
10:00
Speaker 3: I personally went inside I think probably four or five
10:03
Speaker 3: hundred people's homes and closets from KIU Hefner at the
10:07
Speaker 3: Playboy mansion to a Kardashian's home and Asap Rocky and
10:13
Speaker 3: anyone in between. And you know, I had this amazing
10:17
Speaker 3: privilege of doing something that hadn't really been charted. It
10:22
Speaker 3: was very unprecedented, And I was getting to do interviews
10:26
Speaker 3: with celebrities and styling and learning business and everything that
10:31
Speaker 3: I couldn't have ever done in school. I could have
10:34
Speaker 3: never worked my way up that way at a magazine.
10:37
Speaker 3: But I think because we created the path, I got
10:40
Speaker 3: to kind of pave the path and structure the path
10:42
Speaker 3: and build the path. And you know, I think the
10:46
Speaker 3: other thing was that it was such a social first,
10:51
Speaker 3: community first entity that we really sort of put together
10:55
Speaker 3: the playbook of how do you build an online audience?
10:58
Speaker 3: And for me, it was just being a kid of
11:00
Speaker 3: the Internet. I was always a kid who was obsessed
11:03
Speaker 3: with online communities. I was obsessed with live journal in
11:06
Speaker 3: MySpace and understanding why and how and you know, just
11:11
Speaker 3: the entire process around what makes people want to be
11:15
Speaker 3: a part of something bigger than themselves. And I think
11:19
Speaker 3: that that really became the curiosity that fostered why I
11:23
Speaker 3: ended up going into starting an ad agency. Because that's
11:26
Speaker 3: what makes a brand, that's what builds success, that's what
11:28
Speaker 3: builds long term success. It's like, how do you get
11:31
Speaker 3: people so obsessed with what you're doing that they can't
11:36
Speaker 3: imagine not being part of it? And I think that
11:38
Speaker 3: the Covetour was like, I couldn't have asked for a
11:42
Speaker 3: better learning experience than that. I don't think they'll ever
11:45
Speaker 3: be a better learning experience than that.
11:47
Speaker 1: So much of that feels innate to you because you're
11:50
Speaker 1: way more like low key, You're in a different space.
11:53
Speaker 1: But huge names are hiring you to do the exact
11:56
Speaker 1: same thing for their brands.
11:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think I think that that truly is
12:02
Speaker 3: for me where I shine. I think that's probably why
12:05
Speaker 3: I feel the most comfortable being behind the scenes. You
12:08
Speaker 3: kind of just hit it on the head where it's
12:10
Speaker 3: like I have become a go to for a lot
12:14
Speaker 3: of celebrities and VC companies who are basically saying, want
12:18
Speaker 3: to know what's the white space, how do I build it?
12:23
Speaker 3: And what's going to make them come? And I think
12:26
Speaker 3: it's incredibly exciting for people to think about having a
12:31
Speaker 3: brand because what better way to make money while you sleep?
12:36
Speaker 3: It really is, I mean, it's why every celebrity wants
12:39
Speaker 3: extensions of their brand. It's how you sprinkle your magic
12:43
Speaker 3: into different places. Everyone could be an ideator, an innovator,
12:48
Speaker 3: an entrepreneur. Not everyone is meant to be an operator
12:52
Speaker 3: or a boss or a CEO. And I think that
12:55
Speaker 3: was the biggest learning with myself. I learned firsthand. I'm
13:00
Speaker 3: a great strategist, I'm a great creative mind, I'm a
13:03
Speaker 3: great innovator. I'm a horrible boss. You don't need to
13:07
Speaker 3: be the CEO of the company, And a lot of
13:09
Speaker 3: people don't want to admit that.
13:11
Speaker 1: They don't because I think nowadays you're almost supposed to be.
13:15
Speaker 1: And I see a lot of celebrity founded companies that
13:18
Speaker 1: are like co CEO now. But there's no shame in
13:23
Speaker 1: saying this is what I'm good at.
13:24
Speaker 2: And this is what I don't want to do totally.
13:27
Speaker 3: And I think that's the biggest strength you can have,
13:30
Speaker 3: is admitting all your flaws and finding those people, because
13:34
Speaker 3: you know, I think it took me probably a solid
13:36
Speaker 3: decade to be okay with the fact that I wasn't
13:38
Speaker 3: good at things and it was so humbling.
13:42
Speaker 2: Is that rooted in childhood stuff?
13:44
Speaker 3: Oh? For sure, I was always such a perfectionist. I
13:47
Speaker 3: think I was the youngest of three, and I felt
13:50
Speaker 3: like I had this like torch to carry of being
13:54
Speaker 3: an incredibly talented, overachieving perfectionist, that everything I did had
14:01
Speaker 3: to be above and beyond and supersede expectations. Even though
14:05
Speaker 3: my parents didn't have high expectations, and I wouldn't say
14:08
Speaker 3: that in a negative way. I think they just expected
14:10
Speaker 3: us to be who we were and be happy with
14:12
Speaker 3: what we could achieve. And there was nothing ever good
14:15
Speaker 3: enough for what I felt like I could achieve. It
14:17
Speaker 3: had to be better. And you know, it's interesting how
14:21
Speaker 3: everything comes full circle because from all those insights that
14:26
Speaker 3: I've gathered as I went along through my professional career,
14:29
Speaker 3: it led me to a lot of personal realizations and
14:31
Speaker 3: having to deal with a lot of mental health issues
14:34
Speaker 3: around that feeling of perfectionism, which to me kind of
14:38
Speaker 3: trumbled my professional career. It was sort of the wow
14:43
Speaker 3: crux of what made me have to stop being this
14:46
Speaker 3: superhuman because ultimately I couldn't be a human of the world.
14:50
Speaker 3: I couldn't function, and it was so tough being like
14:54
Speaker 3: I am not existing because I'm trying so hard to
14:59
Speaker 3: exist in such perfect form and I'm not doing a
15:03
Speaker 3: good job of any of it.
15:05
Speaker 1: That is hard for me to hear. Yeah, so you're
15:08
Speaker 1: at Covetoure and how many hours a week are you working?
15:12
Speaker 3: It wasn't quantifiable and it wasn't sustainable, so I couldn't
15:16
Speaker 3: tell you because we were completely maniacal human beings who
15:23
Speaker 3: had all the energy and all the zest in the
15:27
Speaker 3: world to do whatever it was to make it happen.
15:30
Speaker 3: And if X person told us that they could shoot
15:34
Speaker 3: tomorrow morning in la we were on a red eye
15:37
Speaker 3: that night from Toronto or from New York, and we
15:40
Speaker 3: lived at a hotel room. So there was nothing sustainable
15:44
Speaker 3: to what we were doing that if I had to
15:45
Speaker 3: quantify it one hundred hours, I don't know, because we
15:49
Speaker 3: did anywhere from two to four shoots a day. So
15:53
Speaker 3: most magazines, by contrast, spend weeks planning to go into
15:58
Speaker 3: a production. On a photo shoot, we didn't have a
16:01
Speaker 3: production team. There wasn't hair makeup, the creative director, the
16:04
Speaker 3: prop master, the retoucher, the assist. It wasn't that. It
16:08
Speaker 3: was like sometimes only two of us went and you
16:11
Speaker 3: had to be the stylist, the journalist, the schmoozer, the caretaker,
16:16
Speaker 3: the help, the photographer, the photograph, I mean, everything in
16:20
Speaker 3: one but it led to burnout.
16:23
Speaker 1: You're going into all of these people's houses and then closets,
16:26
Speaker 1: and I know you mentioned underwear drawers, and I think
16:29
Speaker 1: you say that as a euphemism for like the the
16:34
Speaker 1: intimacy of the shoots that you were having. They weren't like,
16:38
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't like come to the studio, and
16:41
Speaker 1: it was a very different kind of shoot. Drake Courtney Kardashian.
16:46
Speaker 1: You mentioned Hugh Hefner asap Rocky. You're very young, you're
16:50
Speaker 1: in all of these people's houses. In reflection, however, many
16:55
Speaker 1: years later, what did you garner from those very large,
17:01
Speaker 1: sort of larger than life experiences.
17:04
Speaker 3: That they're all normal humans. And I think it's the
17:08
Speaker 3: biggest takeaway that anyone could ever have is that they
17:14
Speaker 3: are people. They have the same issues and ups and
17:18
Speaker 3: downs as all of us. We'd be at their house
17:21
Speaker 3: and their kid is screaming, or the nanny didn't show
17:24
Speaker 3: up and they need one of us to hold their
17:26
Speaker 3: baby while they're taking up a photograph. Like their agent
17:30
Speaker 3: called they lost the job, and they were like down
17:33
Speaker 3: on it. They were having marital troubles. I mean it
17:36
Speaker 3: was intimate on a whole other level because there was
17:39
Speaker 3: nobody else around in the formal sense of like there
17:43
Speaker 3: weren't even publicists usually on set, or agents or it
17:47
Speaker 3: was literally like just hanging out with people who happened
17:51
Speaker 3: to have an unbelievable skill set and an unbelievable platform
17:56
Speaker 3: to share it on. And maybe they'd won a Grammy
17:58
Speaker 3: or an Oscar or an Emmy or you know, a
18:01
Speaker 3: CFDA award, but they were people.
18:04
Speaker 2: When did you.
18:04
Speaker 1: Start feeling a change in your attitude, in your emotional wellbeing,
18:11
Speaker 1: in your mental health.
18:13
Speaker 3: It took me a long time to pinpoint when it happened,
18:17
Speaker 3: and then it parallels probably a lot of the Gidelic
18:23
Speaker 3: assistant psychotherapy work that I did with ketemine assistant psychotherapy,
18:27
Speaker 3: and it took me a long time to go back
18:29
Speaker 3: to figuring out when it really started. But I had
18:32
Speaker 3: my first panic attack on my first trip to LA
18:35
Speaker 3: with the cover tour, and I remember being at dinner
18:40
Speaker 3: and I was actually only an intern at this time,
18:43
Speaker 3: an unpaid intern, and thank god, the treatment and the
18:50
Speaker 3: rules and the regulations and everything around interning. I'm sure
18:53
Speaker 3: you probably can remember from like early days of TV
18:57
Speaker 3: and whatever is it's changed. You know, there's a lot
19:00
Speaker 3: more formality, there's a lot more respect. And I treated
19:06
Speaker 3: my internship as a presidency, like it was the only
19:12
Speaker 3: thing that mattered in the world to me. And in
19:16
Speaker 3: the worst way possible, I put it above everything. I
19:20
Speaker 3: put it above family, I put it about friends, I
19:21
Speaker 3: put it about my health. And I was actually going
19:25
Speaker 3: to meet my grandmother and my cousins in Vegas for
19:29
Speaker 3: my twenty first birthday present, which was a trip to Vegas,
19:32
Speaker 3: which was something I'd asked for since I was a kid,
19:34
Speaker 3: because it was my grandmother's favorite place in the world
19:37
Speaker 3: and I always wanted to go to the casino with her,
19:38
Speaker 3: and I always thought it was so amazing and we
19:41
Speaker 3: were in a way so much. She was my best friend,
19:45
Speaker 3: and so my dream for my twenty first birthday was
19:48
Speaker 3: to go to her favorite place in the world, which
19:50
Speaker 3: was Vegas. And the plan was I paid my own
19:53
Speaker 3: ticket to La to go and intern and go do
19:56
Speaker 3: all these closet shoots with the Covetouur, and we happened
19:59
Speaker 3: to be at dinner and I was getting on a
20:01
Speaker 3: flight the next day, and my role was so all
20:05
Speaker 3: encompassing with interning, because I was there from the beginning,
20:10
Speaker 3: and I had immersed myself in such a pivotal way
20:12
Speaker 3: that not only was I doing all the interviews and
20:15
Speaker 3: doing all the credits and writing all the bios for
20:18
Speaker 3: the website, but I was running all the social media channels,
20:22
Speaker 3: growing it all by myself, you know. And again, I
20:26
Speaker 3: was actually still in school when we started the website,
20:28
Speaker 3: so I was in my last year of college while
20:30
Speaker 3: doing all of this, And I was getting on a
20:32
Speaker 3: flight to Vegas the next day, and they kind of
20:36
Speaker 3: made it me feel really bad about the fact that
20:38
Speaker 3: I was leaving them in the middle of this La
20:40
Speaker 3: trip to go to Vegas and spend time with my
20:42
Speaker 3: grandmother or my cousins. And again it just sort of
20:47
Speaker 3: punctured this perfectionism, like how could I let somebody down?
20:50
Speaker 3: How could I do this to them when really, like
20:54
Speaker 3: what more could you expect of somebody? And I went
20:57
Speaker 3: back to our hotel room we would always share rooms,
21:00
Speaker 3: like we were really you know, doing it the scrappy
21:03
Speaker 3: startup way, and I went in the shower and I
21:05
Speaker 3: just remember hyperventilating and not being able to breathe and thinking, like,
21:09
Speaker 3: am I dying And that was my first real panic attack,
21:14
Speaker 3: and I'll never forget it because I thought I was
21:16
Speaker 3: going to have to go to Cedar Sinai and everything
21:21
Speaker 3: just blacked out. I was like, how is it possible?
21:24
Speaker 3: But I could be such a failure and I'm working
21:26
Speaker 3: so hard and I'm trying so hard and I'm still
21:28
Speaker 3: letting them down. And about a few months later, heading
21:33
Speaker 3: to the office, our office for Covator in Toronto, and
21:37
Speaker 3: I blacked out on the subway. I woke up. I
21:39
Speaker 3: was in the hospital. I found out I had another
21:41
Speaker 3: panic attack. My parents were like, at what point is
21:43
Speaker 3: this worth it? You're not even being paid, and I
21:47
Speaker 3: was like, you don't understand, Like this is everything, this
21:50
Speaker 3: is my life, this is my future, this is my reputation.
21:53
Speaker 3: They were like, there's no amount of work that is
21:58
Speaker 3: ever going to equate to how you feel and how
22:02
Speaker 3: it's going to make you feel. And I remember my
22:05
Speaker 3: dad just looking at me being like this is completely asinine,
22:08
Speaker 3: Like you are not an owner of this company, you
22:12
Speaker 3: don't have equity, you're not on the board of this company,
22:15
Speaker 3: You're an intern, and at what point are you going
22:18
Speaker 3: to realize like this isn't worth it, and unfortunately I
22:23
Speaker 3: have kept I kept up that same level of passion
22:26
Speaker 3: and dedication of loyalty, of hard work at the expense
22:31
Speaker 3: of my mental health for almost a decade after that
22:34
Speaker 3: wo until I finally had like I'm done, you know,
22:40
Speaker 3: like I neaed a timeout, and I really literally had
22:42
Speaker 3: to give myself a timeout in the form of a
22:44
Speaker 3: medical lead because I didn't realize how much my anxiety
22:48
Speaker 3: had escalated into a general anxiety and disorder, into a
22:52
Speaker 3: diagnosed depression, into OCD, and I was having all these
22:55
Speaker 3: ongoing issues that were compounding one another, but really started
23:00
Speaker 3: I think as a result of my obsession with just
23:04
Speaker 3: perfection and wanting to be everything to everybody when I
23:08
Speaker 3: wasn't really cut out to be, nor is anybody cut
23:10
Speaker 3: out to be when.
23:11
Speaker 1: You look back, was there anybody in your life besides
23:15
Speaker 1: your parents who was sort of waving the red flag like, Stacy,
23:19
Speaker 1: you're not acting like yourself? Or did everyone kind of
23:22
Speaker 1: like see your professional success and go along with it.
23:26
Speaker 3: I think I've had the same group of best friends
23:29
Speaker 3: since kindergarten, and I think my best friends would constantly
23:32
Speaker 3: tell me because I would come home from Toronto all
23:33
Speaker 3: the time and they'd be like, who are you? Like
23:36
Speaker 3: there were definitely things where they were like, you're so bougie,
23:39
Speaker 3: you are so jaded, But I think it was more
23:44
Speaker 3: the latter where people will blow so much smoke up
23:47
Speaker 3: your ass and you believe the height. It's hard not
23:51
Speaker 3: to be like, holy shit, like I'm fucking crushing it.
23:54
Speaker 3: But at the same time, you don't really know who
23:58
Speaker 3: you are. I know who you are based on your title,
24:02
Speaker 3: and I think I became obsessed with Stacy the female entrepreneur,
24:07
Speaker 3: Stacy the boss, or Stacy the CEO or I was
24:10
Speaker 3: so obsessed with this image, and I think everyone else
24:13
Speaker 3: around me was enamored with it in a way that
24:16
Speaker 3: I had to keep it up. It's like, you you
24:19
Speaker 3: need people to give you that validation and you live
24:24
Speaker 3: for it.
24:25
Speaker 1: When work is the centerpiece of your life. What kind
24:28
Speaker 1: of conversation are we really having? I know you mentioned perfectionism,
24:31
Speaker 1: is it self worth? Is it insecurity? Like?
24:34
Speaker 2: What's the root? Cause?
24:37
Speaker 3: There was an episode of The Kardashians and Courtney's grilling
24:40
Speaker 3: her on why are you working? Why do you do this?
24:43
Speaker 3: What's your what's your why? And She's like going to
24:46
Speaker 3: town and Kim's like I feel like I have something
24:48
Speaker 3: to prove. I want to prove people have one more
24:50
Speaker 3: thing in me. I want to approve people. I still
24:52
Speaker 3: have one another trick, you know. And I look, I
24:56
Speaker 3: saw that episode and I was like, that was me,
24:59
Speaker 3: and I thought that wow, I it was like it
25:03
Speaker 3: was so spot on. I wanted to like say I
25:06
Speaker 3: had another It wasn't like a one trick pony. I
25:08
Speaker 3: didn't want people to think like covetur could be my
25:11
Speaker 3: only accolade, or signing Chanel as a client with METYE
25:15
Speaker 3: could be my only accolade, or getting Disney as a
25:17
Speaker 3: client from METYE would be my only accolade, or surpassing
25:21
Speaker 3: ten employees, surpassing twenty employees, like there never was a
25:25
Speaker 3: bar high enough. And I watched this episode the other
25:28
Speaker 3: day and I was like, I get it, Like I
25:30
Speaker 3: totally have that feeling of like proving people wrong, but
25:35
Speaker 3: again it's totally self imposed. There's like I don't have
25:40
Speaker 3: billions of people watching me hoping to see me fail
25:43
Speaker 3: in the same way she does. But there is that
25:45
Speaker 3: like inner sense of competition that Kim talked about where
25:48
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, I wanted to feel that way
25:51
Speaker 3: and something completely switched in me the second I pause,
25:55
Speaker 3: and I was like, who the fuck cares if I
25:58
Speaker 3: never did anything else ever again. All I could say
26:03
Speaker 3: is that I became an advocate for myself, for mental health,
26:07
Speaker 3: for things that I genuinely believe in and care about,
26:11
Speaker 3: for being a mom. Like everything all of a sudden
26:15
Speaker 3: stopped the second I took myself out of it. It
26:17
Speaker 3: was like I was living in a microcosm, fake reality
26:21
Speaker 3: that I had this like I've been in like a
26:24
Speaker 3: video game, and all of a sudden, like I pulled
26:26
Speaker 3: the plug on the video game and it was like, oh,
26:28
Speaker 3: oh there's a world out here, and like none of
26:31
Speaker 3: this shit really matters.
26:33
Speaker 2: What do you attribute pulling the plug to.
26:36
Speaker 3: It's sad, But it was being put on a medical leave,
26:38
Speaker 3: you know. I had this very real, visceral, unfortunate demise
26:47
Speaker 3: is what I would explain to people as And it
26:48
Speaker 3: was getting so sick. I was having chronic migraines. I
26:53
Speaker 3: thought I was having a stroke. On a red eye
26:55
Speaker 3: to LA for a meeting with We had Disney as
26:59
Speaker 3: a c we had just signed Playboy as a client.
27:01
Speaker 3: We had all this stuff going on. I had just
27:05
Speaker 3: lost my grandmother I had flown to Toronto to shiva,
27:09
Speaker 3: which is something we do in the Jewish religion when
27:10
Speaker 3: someone passes away. My brother had just been diagnosed with cancer.
27:15
Speaker 3: He survived, thankfully. My uncle had been diagnosed with cancer.
27:18
Speaker 3: He passed away tragically. There was so much going on,
27:22
Speaker 3: and I eventually just sort of hit the wall of like,
27:24
Speaker 3: how can anyone pretend that this isn't happening? Like how
27:27
Speaker 3: can I possibly ignore the signs that are telling me that,
27:31
Speaker 3: like nobody is super human enough to deal with this.
27:35
Speaker 1: So I had a friend who Kim Kardashian did Jay
27:38
Speaker 1: Shetty's podcast and I love him. So the interview came
27:43
Speaker 1: out and she texted me and she goes, her life
27:48
Speaker 1: sounds exhausting. Ugh, And I was like, everybody that I've
27:54
Speaker 1: ever talked to said has said her life sounds ideal.
28:00
Speaker 1: For this woman to say her and this woman has
28:02
Speaker 1: a big job, she's a busy, exhausted person herself. For
28:06
Speaker 1: her to say Kim's life sounds exhausting with such an
28:10
Speaker 1: interesting perspective, and it was like, oh, maybe, like all
28:14
Speaker 1: that glitters is not gold all the time.
28:16
Speaker 3: Totally totally. Jenna Akin wrote about something in her book
28:20
Speaker 3: and it resonated with me also on a really deep level.
28:24
Speaker 3: And it was this really simple paragraph about if you're
28:28
Speaker 3: too busy being busy, you're probably missing a lot of
28:33
Speaker 3: other things. And I texted her and I was in
28:37
Speaker 3: tears because I was like, it's so true. I've missed
28:41
Speaker 3: so much. I missed friends' weddings and bridal showers and
28:47
Speaker 3: birthdays and my parents. Thanks for my parents, and thanks
28:51
Speaker 3: for myself because I was so fixated on prolific productivity,
28:59
Speaker 3: this idea of like the more, the better, more enviable,
29:05
Speaker 3: more accolades like. But the reality for me was like
29:08
Speaker 3: more only equaled less, and the more and more I achieved,
29:12
Speaker 3: the more emptier and emptier I felt. And I could
29:14
Speaker 3: not admit it. And it took me doing you know,
29:18
Speaker 3: psychedelicas as a psychotherapy and a lot of reading I
29:22
Speaker 3: like read like The Body Keeps the Score and a
29:23
Speaker 3: lot of this other stuff that like really made me
29:25
Speaker 3: realize like there's no amount of more that's ever going
29:28
Speaker 3: to equal more for me. It's actually doing less. And
29:32
Speaker 3: I scaled everything back and I couldn't take back on
29:36
Speaker 3: my job as a co founder of the company I started,
29:39
Speaker 3: and it was really tough to admit, but after a while,
29:43
Speaker 3: it became so gratifying just to have less. And I
29:46
Speaker 3: think everything changed less. I moved out of New York,
29:50
Speaker 3: and I had just a much less, lower, easier life,
29:55
Speaker 3: and everything became more enjoyable that in a ways I
30:01
Speaker 3: couldn't imagine because I was so used to the idea
30:03
Speaker 3: that more was better and more was going to be
30:07
Speaker 3: more fulfilling.
30:09
Speaker 2: Have you felt like you've gotten some of the time back.
30:12
Speaker 3: I don't think you get the time back. And also
30:15
Speaker 3: I'm not bitter about the time that I spent because
30:20
Speaker 3: I always go back to this thought that like, the
30:23
Speaker 3: more you learn, the more you get burned, and the
30:25
Speaker 3: more you burn the more you're going to learn. And
30:27
Speaker 3: I had to burn a lot. I burned a lot
30:30
Speaker 3: of time, and I burned out a lot. But I've
30:32
Speaker 3: learned so much that like, I'm like, holy shit, I
30:35
Speaker 3: totally burned out in my twenties, so I could probably
30:38
Speaker 3: live my best life in my thirties and I'm so
30:41
Speaker 3: grateful for that.
30:43
Speaker 2: How much of this ended up being boundary holding?
30:47
Speaker 3: Oh all of it. I had no boundaries between personal life,
30:52
Speaker 3: work life, friendship, business relationships. I put everything in one
30:58
Speaker 3: world at the expense of myself, and I didn't protect anything,
31:05
Speaker 3: and I lost everything, and I lost what I thought
31:09
Speaker 3: was the job of my dreams. I lost the company
31:12
Speaker 3: that I built, I lost what I thought was the
31:15
Speaker 3: most important friendship in my life. I lost my business partner.
31:19
Speaker 3: I lost all of it because I had no boundaries,
31:23
Speaker 3: because I was so set on people pleasing and making
31:27
Speaker 3: sure that everything else looked and felt and seemed amazing
31:32
Speaker 3: to investors, to friends to family. But that's that was
31:37
Speaker 3: the lesson I had to learn. And I think that
31:40
Speaker 3: now because I've set so many very firm boundaries, I
31:42
Speaker 3: don't take on a lot of jobs in the same way.
31:45
Speaker 3: I don't work with a lot of clients in the
31:47
Speaker 3: same way. I'd say no to a lot of stuff
31:49
Speaker 3: in the same way. Yeah, because I just have so
31:52
Speaker 3: much more boundaries about being like you're not worth it,
31:55
Speaker 3: like it's just not worth it for me. And then
31:58
Speaker 3: before I cared way too much, and now I just
32:01
Speaker 3: don't give a shit at all.
32:03
Speaker 1: I'm so obsessed with how people decide they say yes
32:06
Speaker 1: or no to something. Is it sort of this gut
32:08
Speaker 1: instinct for you or do you have like pillars that
32:11
Speaker 1: you go through to try and make decisions on what
32:13
Speaker 1: you're going to take on or not.
32:15
Speaker 3: Oh, I have a full on checklist.
32:17
Speaker 1: Now wait, are you willing to share this because I'm
32:21
Speaker 1: fascinating totally?
32:22
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, I mean, so how do.
32:24
Speaker 2: You go about it?
32:26
Speaker 3: Is the person who I have to work with? A
32:29
Speaker 3: good person Like it comes to like nice is so
32:33
Speaker 3: key to me. Now me too, I don't want to
32:36
Speaker 3: work with an asshole like people first, it's a people
32:39
Speaker 3: business most likely, and do you got to work with
32:42
Speaker 3: them and you got to like their personality and you
32:44
Speaker 3: gotta jive and if you don't, it's not worth it.
32:48
Speaker 1: One thing I've noticed about you is you don't do
32:50
Speaker 1: anything with a lukewarm spirit.
32:52
Speaker 3: So that's really nice.
32:54
Speaker 1: It's true, Like if you are going to take on
32:58
Speaker 1: a project, you believe in that mission because you're going
33:01
Speaker 1: to shout it from the rooftop and every meeting you have,
33:03
Speaker 1: at every dinner you go totally. And if it's not
33:06
Speaker 1: for you, if you're lukewarm, you're like pass it on
33:09
Speaker 1: to somebody else.
33:10
Speaker 3: Totally. I was gonna say that's probably my second point.
33:12
Speaker 3: It's like it's got to be the shit, Like if
33:15
Speaker 3: I don't think something is a game, changer. I don't
33:18
Speaker 3: really give a I can't get behind.
33:20
Speaker 2: It after having gone through this journey.
33:22
Speaker 1: If there are people listening who are resonating with what
33:26
Speaker 1: you're saying and thinking, Hmmm, maybe I am working too
33:31
Speaker 1: many hours, maybe I'm feeling exhausted, maybe my mental health
33:34
Speaker 1: is suffering. What do you wish somebody would have told you?
33:39
Speaker 3: Like?
33:39
Speaker 2: What can you impart on them?
33:42
Speaker 3: I think there's some really important lessons in realizing that
33:47
Speaker 3: you are not your job. I think being a human
33:52
Speaker 3: is the most important title'll ever have in your life.
33:55
Speaker 3: It's not being the boss, it's not being executive director
33:57
Speaker 3: of this, it's not having you know, a more suit
34:00
Speaker 3: senior title. I think being a human is truly the
34:04
Speaker 3: most important title and role we can have. And if
34:12
Speaker 3: you're not getting to be present as a human because
34:15
Speaker 3: your life has basically become everything you are, then you're
34:20
Speaker 3: not really getting to enjoy it. And I think you
34:24
Speaker 3: need to know your why. Finding the why really clears
34:28
Speaker 3: everything up in terms of like what are you killing
34:31
Speaker 3: yourself for? Like at what point is it ever enough?
34:36
Speaker 3: And I think for me before there was no enough.
34:39
Speaker 3: There was never going to be in enough because I
34:42
Speaker 3: didn't know what enough was Yeah, And the idea that
34:50
Speaker 3: you are that you believe you are leaving a legacy
34:55
Speaker 3: or something larger than yourself is totally fine. Leave a
35:00
Speaker 3: lot of people feel that way, But to me, I
35:03
Speaker 3: think legacy comes with people remembering you for the things
35:08
Speaker 3: you made them feel versus the things you put out
35:12
Speaker 3: in the world.
35:13
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a quote that I love
35:15
Speaker 1: that legacy is not what you leave for people, but
35:18
Speaker 1: what you leave in them.
35:20
Speaker 3: I love that. I mean, it's so spot on.
35:22
Speaker 1: Okay, we have to do a rapid fire. Okay, what
35:25
Speaker 1: is a movie you watch when you're sad?
35:28
Speaker 3: Parent Trap Number one?
35:31
Speaker 1: Do you eat oreos of peanut butter? Because of that movie?
35:36
Speaker 3: And I get to have my second baby on October eleventh?
35:41
Speaker 3: And I literally almost cried of tears. That's amazing. I
35:44
Speaker 3: get to share a birthday with Hallie and Nanny. Eleven.
35:49
Speaker 3: Eleven is my lucky number.
35:51
Speaker 2: What does she say, your paush and I'm not no?
35:54
Speaker 2: What does she say?
35:56
Speaker 3: No? She says, your birthday's on October eleventh? My birthday October.
36:01
Speaker 3: You've never met your mom and I've never met my dad.
36:04
Speaker 3: You only have one picture of your mom and I
36:06
Speaker 3: only have one picture of my dad, so it's probably
36:09
Speaker 3: a whole picture of mine's this mother one right down
36:11
Speaker 3: the middle. And then she like goes together and she's like, oh,
36:13
Speaker 3: right right down the middle, and she's like right down
36:17
Speaker 3: the middle, and then they put it together.
36:20
Speaker 2: You really have watched this movie a ton of times.
36:23
Speaker 3: All my friends now. It's literally my favorite movie. I
36:26
Speaker 3: can recite it from the first line when they get
36:29
Speaker 3: it says camp Walden yep. And there she's like, oh.
36:32
Speaker 2: My god, we're camping.
36:34
Speaker 3: Does not work. My phone just does not work out here.
36:37
Speaker 3: And she's like, oh my god, how are we ever
36:38
Speaker 3: gonna live? Mind you, it came out in nineteen ninety eight, Like,
36:44
Speaker 3: come on, like, there's real phones to camp. And then
36:47
Speaker 3: she starts pulling her Duffel bag and she's like, you
36:50
Speaker 3: didn't know how to pull your dfel Like it's everything
36:53
Speaker 3: about why I love camp. And that's also another thing, like.
36:56
Speaker 1: What's a book you've read that changed your life, something
36:59
Speaker 1: you think everybody you should read.
37:02
Speaker 3: Well, I have to say that Matt Higgins book recently
37:04
Speaker 3: just totally shook me to the core. It's everything and more.
37:10
Speaker 3: I think the last thing that I read that really
37:13
Speaker 3: has always, always, always stuck with me. The body keeps
37:16
Speaker 3: the score to me, it's great. It remains number one
37:20
Speaker 3: on the chart for a reason, and it is true
37:23
Speaker 3: and true through and through, and there's nothing you can
37:26
Speaker 3: do to say otherwise. There's a reason we feel what
37:29
Speaker 3: we feel, and the people we are is you know,
37:32
Speaker 3: it's ingrained in us.
37:34
Speaker 2: Tell me what.
37:36
Speaker 3: Now?
37:38
Speaker 2: This is a great one. What do you need help
37:40
Speaker 2: with the most? Right now?
37:42
Speaker 3: I think I have a natural ability to brand anyone
37:46
Speaker 3: or anything, or pinpoint someone's story or their narrative and
37:49
Speaker 3: their positioning and what it should look like and sound like,
37:52
Speaker 3: and explain someone like, here's your personal brand. I can't
37:55
Speaker 3: do it for myself, and it's because I have a deep,
37:58
Speaker 3: deep insecurity around my talent, around my skills. I have
38:06
Speaker 3: this natural weird insecurity now about sounding like somebody who's
38:10
Speaker 3: still focused on past accolades. It hasn't done new things since,
38:15
Speaker 3: and I kind of have a hard time mediating that
38:20
Speaker 3: with my future and what it means looking forward. I
38:24
Speaker 3: never want to be someone who's still not creating. I
38:27
Speaker 3: always still want to be doing something, not in a
38:32
Speaker 3: way that I need praise, but in a way that
38:35
Speaker 3: still feels like, I still got it. You know, you
38:39
Speaker 3: never want to feel washed up.
38:41
Speaker 1: You still got it. Space, What is the smartest decision
38:44
Speaker 1: you've ever made?
38:46
Speaker 3: Leaving my job, leaving my company. It's so crazy to say.
38:52
Speaker 3: I would never think I ever would say it. It's
38:54
Speaker 3: the smartest, best thing I ever did. It was the saddest, hardest,
39:00
Speaker 3: darkest time in my life. I would say leaving my
39:03
Speaker 3: job and going into therapy, that's a big one.
39:12
Speaker 1: Stacy is a person who really holds a special place
39:14
Speaker 1: in my heart. It's not easy to pivot, it's not
39:18
Speaker 1: easy to crumble, and it's certainly not easy to share
39:21
Speaker 1: the honest story of it all publicly. The original interview
39:25
Speaker 1: was nearly two hours. And Stacy's just a person who
39:28
Speaker 1: bears it all for others benefit.
39:31
Speaker 2: And I really value people like that.
39:34
Speaker 3: You know.
39:34
Speaker 1: As an interviewer, I can tell when people are media
39:36
Speaker 1: trained or share bits and pieces of their story instead
39:39
Speaker 1: of just laying it all out there. If we don't
39:42
Speaker 1: share the hard stuff, it's just not all that helpful.
39:46
Speaker 2: And I think Stacy really does. She shares it all.
39:50
Speaker 1: So she's launching a new company. It's called Please and
39:52
Speaker 1: Thanks And in case she can help any of you founders,
39:56
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs or brand builders.
39:58
Speaker 2: I just want to share a little bit more.
40:00
Speaker 1: Please and Thanks is a new age brand incubator and accelerator.
40:04
Speaker 1: Stacy has an innate ability to scout and support and
40:07
Speaker 1: strategize on building best in class brands and just advising
40:12
Speaker 1: founders on how to build their brand into a class
40:14
Speaker 1: of its own. The best part, Please and Thanks primarily
40:18
Speaker 1: invest in female founders, women who are change makers, category disruptors,
40:24
Speaker 1: and cultural innovators, people like you all. She has a
40:28
Speaker 1: specialty in finding the white space for startups and helping
40:31
Speaker 1: them grow to be Fortune five hundred status. So I've
40:35
Speaker 1: shared her new website on the podcast show Notes and
40:38
Speaker 1: her Instagram of course, so if you want to reach
40:41
Speaker 1: out to her connect with her, feel free to do so.
40:44
Speaker 3: Now.
40:44
Speaker 1: We have one more episode before the New year, and
40:48
Speaker 1: next week is going to be about manifesting our desires
40:53
Speaker 1: about how the universe rewards us for acts of courage.
41:00
Speaker 1: And I don't want to totally give it away, but
41:01
Speaker 1: it's with one of many people's favorite social.
41:06
Speaker 2: Media content creators. I'll give you one hint.
41:10
Speaker 1: She graduated from law school and quit to do what
41:14
Speaker 1: she's doing now, Okay, today's a good day to have
41:18
Speaker 1: a good day, and it's a good week to have
41:21
Speaker 1: a good week. I'm sending you all a lot of
41:24
Speaker 1: love and I'll see you here next Thursday.