Everybody.
This is Melissa would health uh, Melissa would Tepperberg. I know Melissa. My recollection of you, Melissa is being at Marquis, I think on Halloween in a costume and just like saying I had a good costume.
That one year. That was my Marilyn Monroe year.
So I feel like, and I've known Noah, I can't your husband. I don't know how long i've known him. I have to have known him for thirty years easily, there's yeah, it has to be thirty years. But so I was there, which was also rare because I don't go out that much even back then. And I was at Marquis and I was wearing a marily mon Roe costume, and I definitely feel like I looked good and I saw Noah, and I feel like that's the first time
he reduced me to you in a formal way. I could be wrong, but I feel like that's when you and I really like met and talked for a minute, and you were maybe cocktail waitressing.
We weren't dating when I was cocktail waitressing, so then maybe I'm mixing stories. Were you cocktail waitressing when I met you? I feel like I met you as a waitress, because he wouldn't have told me you were a waitress.
So I feel like I met you as a waitress.
I don't think so. No, you could have, because I literally met everyone when I was cocktail waitressing. But I would remember. I think what he was saying is she used to cocktail waitress here. That's how we met. But when we started dating, I was no longer cocktail waitressing or working for him.
So you were working for him as a cocktail waitress. And then what did you go to do when you got together?
Like, how did that?
I don't remember how that all happened, but I do, Yes, I do think I met you as someone with him, but it didn't seem like serious serious when I met you.
It was probably like the very very beginning.
Okay, great, So what happened You were working there and tell me the.
Story from your perspective.
Well, I was working there for years. I was working four nights a week, cockta waitressing at night, and then during the day I would get up early go to casting. It was like my days were insane. I like, think back, and I really don't know how I did it because I was just burning the candle at both ends. And exactly right. Isn't it amazing? Like how you.
Were young, this is what it was. Yeah, and you had work ethics right.
And I would also wake up before I even had castings and work out for an hour, like it was just unreal the lifestyle that I lived. But it just got to the point where I started making real money modeling, and I just, you know, cocktail waitressing and working in night life for a very long time can just it's really hard. It's so hard on you, not just physically but mentally. And I so I left and I started
modeling full time. And that was like, you know, I had a boyfriend, like I was dating someone at the time, and Noah and I were always just friendly, but we weren't even really friends. It was more just I looked at him as my boss, you know. And then I, you know, my ex and I broke up. And you know how Noah is, he invites you to all the things event and it's great. You know, I knew a lot of people, so it was so comfortable and it
was never anything. And then I think, just slowly over time, when you stop saying things like I would never you know, because I for me, I just you see people one way, and I think that stands in a lot of people's way of keeping options open because you just never know. But we're so quick to judge a situation on what we think we know. Someone asks, and I can own that one hundred percent that I did that, and that's true. It just blocked anything, you know that.
I was a cocktail waitress also, and this is interesting, I'm realizing this in real time. So I was a cocktail waitress in Boston at M eighty working for Seth Greenberg, who, if I'm not mistaken, was one of Noah and his partner Jason's mentors.
Because did Noah go to school in.
Boston or no no j Okay, So this guy, Seth Greenberg, who was sort of the king of Boston the way that Noah and Jason have been like the king of New York in nightlife in many ways and now in other cities.
That guy I.
Worked for him. So you and I went through the same right of passage. Interestingly enough, I was a cocktail waitress too, and I have a wine brand called Forever Young because the last song that Seth would play every night at M eighty and Paradise was Forever Young. So it has runic. Yeah, so there's like a lot of
funny stories back then. But yes, so okay, so I have met you and then I met you other times and we know each other not like friends, but we're friendly and I respect Noah and his work ethic and so it must be a very I don't want to say intense, but like that house has two people in it that are really like going for it at all times.
I would say, you.
Know what I mean, Like you have two you have two peacocks in your house, which is interesting.
Right, we do, and both we're all fire signs in my house and my kids are fire signs, so we're Wow, there's a lot of heat heat. And yes, you know, we're very much both very strong personalities. We're both bosses. But I think the thing that works so well is that we have so much respect and love and admiration for each other and we really let each other do our thing where that's the only way that it can work for us. You know.
Yeah, And well, your husband is he likes entrepreneurial spirit in other people. He respects it, he nods it, he feeds off of it, he wants to hear from it, like you know, there's never been a time that he
would not return a phone call of mine. Not because he doesn't like me, and I know he likes me, but I just mean, like he knows that I'm a hustler too, Like we come from the same sort of breed of animal, and so he always wants to hear whatever the hell I'm saying, pitching or just like pick up the phone, just because you never know what you're gonna get, so always Yeah, so you, I but you're
at a different stage in your career. I mean, he's still always hustling, but you you were in a late bloomer in your age, but a late bloomer in our sphere. So tell me how that all went down. I didn't know you were modeling.
It makes sense.
You're beautiful, so you were modeling, you were casting, you were trying to make a living in New York. Where were you from? Did you come from any means or no?
I mean I grew up. I grew up in a broken home in Syracuse. My parents' divorce when I was really young, and it was just a constant, you know. I lived with the survival energy of just trying to make ends meet. So I think just that energy. Growing up with that and being I have four sisters, so being the middle child of the five of us, I really stepped in young to help bring as much more like peace into my home. I recognize. I mean I literally remember being seven years old and seeing that my
mom was really overwhelmed. So I really took I took it under my own way to just do everything that I could. Like I was always cleaning, I was always telling my sisters what to do. I was really bossy, and they couldn't stand me, to be honest, And it's funny because I think back at that time, I look at what I'm doing now, and I never thought that this was possible for me. I grew up with that mentality that you know, the car that you are handed
is that's it. And some are lucky, some are not lucky, but like you do whatever you can to stay afloat. And I think just growing up and knowing that so young, that always lived with me. So I mean, since I can remember, I've I've had a job. It was like this second someone would hire for me. I worked at a farm picking strawberries, and then I worked in a pizza shop, and then the second I was old enough to work in a department store. I was hired and
I worked in the hardware department of all things. They didn't know anything, and then they brought me over to the cosmetic counter because they were like, we feel like this is a better fit for you. And I've just always had it in me to take care of myself, but not just for myself, for my siblings and to
help my mom. And I mean to this day that never leaves you, right, And I think that that is the thing that really gave me this fire inside that whenever I start to doubt myself or just feel like it's too much, which happens right, Like it's right, I can get so heavy and you're just like, why am I doing this? What am I doing? Like? Can I can I make my life easier and just not be
so ambitious? Right, Like there's a part of me that sometimes is like I need to just take a step back and be okay with what is right now and not always look for the next thing. But you know, my spirit really thrives, and I think we as humans thrive off the evolution of our soul and who we really are and who we came here to be.
But you're still also in the climb. You will hit a point. You will hit a point, and you will know when you hit the precipice. And based on what you're saying now, because I recognize it and recognizing that you had money noise and it's just in your body, it doesn't matter that Noah was successful, like you were going to do what you were going to do, which is also more admirable because when you get with somebody who's successful and you're a beautiful woman, like you could
have just chilled and you went harder. But based on everything you're saying, I know that feeling like you want to get off the ride sometimes, like you just like want to get off the ride and the ride's going and the machine's too big, and you owe yourself to so many people and the obligations. But there will be a time when you start to like think that you want to kind of exit or semi retire. You want to only take all you want to take everything off.
That's not something you really want to do. And I mean even like Tuesday, No I don't want to go there. No, I don't want to do that photoshoot.
I don't.
It's either giving me philanthropy, or it's giving me so much money I can't turn it down, or it's something so different, or I'm laughing, but like it will get more honed, and then that's really the sweet spot because that's when everything will flood in in a way that is so upside down, because that's when like more opportunities will come because you have hit the financial precipice though like I did it precipice, and then you're really literally
living completely only doing what you want and then everything will fly and it's very strange, but it will happen to someone like you for sure, and you're probably not that far away from it.
But it's good to know that that will happen.
I mean, it's I feel it now right, I've gotten So it's just you know, when you're doing things that are just not aligned, it's like this something that you feel where you're like, oh, before stretch, I'm so dune doing that like those things. I'm but listen, I stretch myself with certain things. With work. I'm very passionate. I'm passionate about what I do. I love what I do. But that doesn't mean that when it's coming in from all of these different directions. It's still like I'm still
really learning how to manage it all. It's yes, it's so much, and I and and to also, I think just piggyback off what you mentioned of. You know, I understand how people make assumptions about me and believe that the reason I am in the position I am is because of my husband. And oh dude, well, I don't know that everybody even knows your whole story. So let's before we get into that, because it's fair that I don't know that everybody knows exactly who you are and
what you do. So to me, you are a woman who really popped off in the pandemic, but you had started before then, but at home, working out was really critical, and you stopped drinking. Health became more and more important to you, and you wanted to communicate and convey that, and you just hit and struck and you ran with it and now have created a real business and become you know, publicly relevant and sports illustrated and like you have subscribers and you have a cult following, and so
that's how I see it. And yeah, you happen to have a partner who's successful in an entirely different industry. But everybody that I know that's in the club business that Mary's a model. She's not doing what you're doing respectfully. And you know, I don't think he would have probably cared either way, but he probably is a cheerleader.
That's how I see it from the outside end. So you can correct me if any of that's wrong or off all of it's wrong.
No, I think it's important. Like you said to maybe no one, I mean, that's that, that's the truth. And I you know, I got into this work because I had a horrible relationship with myself, all of those feelings of trying to keep everything together in your home at a young age and then bringing that energy into you know, adulthood. Moving to New York when I was in my early twenties on my own, drove a U haul here with a friend on a whim. I literally walked into Bloomingdale's
one weekend. When I came to New York for the first time. I've never been to the city. My friend was off interviewing for jobs, so I was learning the city. I knew nothing. I mean, we didn't travel much. We went to Canada for family a couple family trips. We couldn't ford to like get on a plane and go
see the world. So for me, it was like coming to New York for the first time was like my eyes opened and saw things in a way like it was like this electricity a life and I was like, what is this is insane and I just was vibrating on a different frequency the second my feet hit the floor when I got out of the car and I walked into blooming Dills and this is I was such
a small town girl. I mean. One of the makeup artists asked me if they could do my makeup, and I was like, I work at Chanelle and Sarah c was like, this is so funny that you're like literally like ask everyone to do their makeup. I said that he did my makeup and then he was like, we're interviewing for a position, and I was like, I'll interview, Like I mean, I was so it was just like so green, you know, that's so good though, That's such a good excitement. I was so excited, and I went
to Marquis that night. I didn't know Noah at this point. I went to Marquis that night, stayed out until like four in the morning. I had an interview hours later. I had no idea, Like it was like, what did I think I was doing interviewing? I had no idea how it was going to move to New York. I had three jobs back home, my family, and I didn't know anyone here, and I did. I got the job.
I went home. I was dating someone at the time, and I was like, I'm moving to New York and I just I don't know how, but somehow, some way, I moved here. I drove two weeks later, stayed in someone's apartment, and then got a tiny little apartment and it it's I think the interesting thing is like once you move away from it all, and I remember so vividly, just like getting into my bedroom that was definitely a closet.
There is no way these differentions, like I could fit like a cop bed in there, and I just remember it all like everything I had pushed down for all of these years like hit me. And it was like this wave of I didn't know it was anxiety or that I had really been anxious my whole life, but it was really heavy and really strong. So I made up my mission to run from that feeling and to
do anything and everything to cover it. Up to mask it so I didn't have to feel that, and you know, which led to eventually getting a job at Marquee and then I started modeling, and just the mode of comparison in that world is so intense when you were insecure,
it just swallows you. And it deeply did that for me, and I, you know, thought the only way that I could possibly be enough or book all the jobs was to make being skinny my goal in life and just fitting into the size and the mold of being a model. And at that time when I was modeling, it was, you know, models were very very thin. You were asked to lose weight by your agents if you were a certain even I mean I was like a four to six and they said to me, like, you could go
on the plus side, spoort. I swear to you, I would say small for six. And you know that tears away you when you don't have the foundation and the bones within yourself to stand up against that. And I didn't.
Most don't.
I had Aaron Spelling's casting director Tony tell me I need those like six to eight pounds in la just to be try to be an actress for an Aaron Spelling show, and that was shocking. Like that just was like it's just like someone was It doesn't matter the number, but someone decided a number to tell you how not good enough you were. And it's not even acceptable in modeling. But at least they have some framework they think they're working off of from sample size.
This is like to act. It was like, what the hell you know? So I get it.
Yeah, someone who's in an authority position is telling you that you're not going to be successful because there's so many other girls. So you were like obsessed with your weight and what partying and doing drugs or like what was that?
So?
I was you know, I was counting every calorie I would write. I would write down everything I ate. I was working out in a very tortuous way. I thought the only way that I could see results was with at least an hour of cardioon an hour of strength training. And was just like beating myself into the ground and then binge drinking at night and starving, binge cheating after. Yeah, it was just like the cycle.
Yep, I was living the same cycle. I remember.
I'd go to Marquis, I'd come home drunk and single and alone. I'd go down to the deli, shovel everything in. Then I just wouldn't eat for days. You know, I get that the cycle of that, and it is emotional. It's an emotional time. It's you're a young woman, you broke, you don't know what the hell is going to happen to you. You don't really have a safety net, and you're just sort of like on some bizarre habitrail with not really a big support system.
Exactly, yeah, exactly.
And it just got to the point where I I hit my rock bottom.
And how old did you hit rock bottom?
I was mid twenties and.
What so what was rock bottom? Where did you go after rock bottom?
I mean I had been like up all night drinking, sun was coming up, binging. I was bollimic, so exact cycle of you know, going to a deli or the pizza shop next to me that was open, and even basking robins, just literally anything I could get my hands on, and I just I remember it was like when you're trying to force yourself to do that, it's painful and it just broke me. And I remember just looking myself in the mirror and just thinking how disgusting I was,
and like this way, like just everything was discussing. I hated myself and I was so done living this way where I just felt like I can't do this anymore. But I mean I was on my knees literally praying like please help me, like show me any signs. And you know you hear these stories all the time, but it was so vivid for me where I saw this. It was like this road and it was there were there were two roads, and it's like you can carry
down this way of life. I know. And it's so crazy because I saw no one and I were staying in Vegas in a hotel room and there was this picture. I took a picture. I posted it because I was like, that is what I saw. It was like a tree with two roads, and I just it was like you can carry on down this path of mass destruction, just
tearing everything apart in your path. And I also had, you know, I very quick on the tongue, could just say things to boyfriends and people in my life that I'm not proud of.
But I had know you saying you were a little mean.
I was really reactive.
Well I'm going somewhere with this because I don't know if you heard me talk about this. My mother passed away recently, so I think I was seven years old the first time I caught my mother throwing up and she and it would happen repeatedly, and she would always say to me, don't tell your stepfather because he'll be worried.
I just don't feel well. He'll be scared.
And that incided with a massive caddy, a plastic caddy with drawers that had like every version of every U supository, laxative, everything, And it was a lifestyle to be in the car with her and her have to like stop the car and say it was because of the coffee, and she had to go use the bathroom.
And my entire life, her entire life, I don't know what. I think it's heart.
When she was sixteen, moved to New York from Long Island from Massapequa to be an actress. And she was stunningly beautiful and fucked up house. What way more like crazy abuse? Now what you're describing in your house, I'm not comparing. I'm saying like insane, like her brother held a shock gun to his father get his father from beating his mother. But her whole entire life, she was
a beliemic, never once. I mean, my whole life was every single meal, her being in the bathroom for two hours and me never wanting her to go to a friend's house or go to a school or go anywhere, like me walking on eggshells because of the throwing up and the panic and like what the bathroom's gonna be like and her eyes are gonna be like and you know, it's a very self loathing, self destructive disease because of
what you're discussing. And so this was think about this for seventy plus years, sixty years and never admitted it, to the point where we'd be on vacation together and I would be like this beliem mea cop up until I was in my teens in high school and college and like following her like a crazy person, and like you could never get her to admit it, and it
would never. She would she would like, I mean, in the bathroom for two hours, and she would yell at every waiter for things not being exactly runny and the way they're supposed to be, and she would yell at everybody, and she would smash the entire house.
And she was also an alcoholic and so like.
The slice of like I have seen the road that you did not take like I have lived the road as like that was my mother's child. Yeah, so it's insane because you chose something that's extremely self loathing that you were doing, and then you could to get out of it is impossible because it's not like you're taking away alcohol what you've done in your life. You're taking away something that's in your life all the time.
It's food.
You have to have a relationship with food, which you now do. And you talk about health and we can get into that, but I'm just saying it's very it's a different type of thing because it is there and it's tempting and you're emotional and you want to eat something, and then you can eat more. You know, you have the tools to get rid of it. And so it's really a sick, crazy thing.
It is. It really is. And I like, I feel your pain so deeply because I was, you know, a product of that in different forms growing up, but then I was becoming that too, and I saw it like I saw it so clearly, and I just knew in that moment or there's this other road you can take
that's scary as hell. I don't know, but I can choose different like I can choose different things to cope, because I think I started to just see like these were coping mechanisms, these were the tools that I had adapted over the years because I was living in survival mode, and I it was like, just like that moment, I was like, I'm asking for help because I didn't know what to do, truly, And I remember calling a friend
asking for her therapist information. And I think the moment you surrender to thinking that it's your strength that's going to get you through every and like that was me my whole life, Like I'm like, I've got this, I can do this. I can work at the farm, and I can get the money for the supplies my sister needs for school. And it was like that was my whole life feeling that way. And I think I always thought I could handle everything and I could take care of everything that's.
From the outside. Though that's like attacking a problem that's not like from the inside, you know what I mean. I get that too, And you're right, I was going down the same role. I wasn't going down the same road because I never made myself throw up, but controlling by like going out being mad at myself, drinking, eating, feeling gross and then not eating for a couple of
days and starting all over again. I didn't have a good relationship with food, which was how I wrote my book Naturally Thin and became a natural food chef.
So we have some similarities.
So you intervene and you get into therapy, and how does that morph into fitness and not drinking and these healthy concoctions and this lifestyle that you now.
Live in.
And does it ever get tiring to be working out regularly? Like for that to be your business, that people expect for you to always be exercising, that seems like challenging to me. I think I've met Tracy Anderson and she used to say, like people should be working at six days a week. And I think I got into like a very friendly argument or on my talk show, I
was like, what you know so? And I sometimes think about you or think about her, and I'm like, what is she just decide She's like doesn't want to work out anymore. It's just wants to like walk.
You know.
I just think about it because it's like a lot to get on the mat every day do with the stuff you do. I don't do that ever I walk maximum. So I want to hear about like that whole journey and all and the pressure and all that.
I'm so glad you asked about it and and your perspective because it's really important. So after like really doing the work, and like when I say that, I mean getting really honest with myself, which is really hard to do. And I think people think they're doing that, but they're not.
And I feel as if just this entire journey is I'm so radically transparent with myself and that's what has helped me continue to just I think, stay on this path of internal growth because I you know, stay with therapy because that has really helped me just let it all out in a safe space where you're not dumping
on every single person in your life. But also, you know, I had a horrible relationship to food, but over time healing my relationship to myself, I really realized it was never the food, it was how I felt about me. I looked at the mirror and it all really really shifted when I started meditating. That was when it was everything slowly, very very slowly. I started to see everything differently.
The most important thing I saw differently was myself. I became so much more compassionate and loving and kind and empathetic towards everything I had gone through, towards who I was you know today, And that shifted the way that I started doing everything, the way that I was moving my body. I started moving like I love myself like. It's really amazing what happens when you're not beating yourself up or going through a workout because of what you
ate the night before, torturing yourself. Fear based I call that fear based exercise. Yes, fear based exercise. I did it for years, and the crazy thing is I didn't get to a happy place within myself. I actually gained weight same living That weight was fight or flight, No, one hundred percent.
That's what I tried to explain to people because it's the same thing I was trying to explain to you about business before. When you're white knuckling and holding onto everything. Yes, when people are broke, they have to work their asses off and you have to get there. And I used to have a five hundred dollars car with the crack windshield and I was up twenty four hours and that was that. But once you hit, if you're still white knuckling and you're like desperate about work.
It won't work.
You have to like sort of allow for things not to happen and like let the blood flow in it. And it's the same thing with relationship to food. I feel the exact same way when when I was on a diet and everything I.
Had to be steamed and we had all these rules.
That's when you were, you know, twenty thirty pounds heavier because you just had a terrible relationship with it. It's like something toxic. You're holding onto it. It won't your body, your energy, it won't allow you to just have a normal relationship with food. And exercise, by the way, people have a bad People go exercise like crazy so they can eat, and then you're on another version of a treadmill. I'm exercising or I have to go exercise because quote unquote.
I was bad.
You're not bad, you weren't good. It's just it's not your best friend or your enemy.
It is food.
So I think that part of exercise people have to have a good relationship with it and they have to be able to just like do it because it's working for them if they can. But if they can't you know, some people are obsessed and running, obsessed about they're gonna go on vacation because of their workouts.
They're not gonna enjoy it. They don't want to go to this.
Office, this hotel in a business hotel because they're not gonna have a gym, Like people get crazy. So I feel like that can also be very noisy for people if not managed to food.
The food and the exercise, I.
Mean, it just increases your cortisol, like your stress levels are through the roof. And I was that person, so I know how that way of life feels to live, and it is heavy and it's daunting, and it's not enjoyable. It's just not So Once I started meditating, and then I started moving and combining the two forms of exercise that I liked, but there were to me, there were things within both of them that I wanted different, Like I wanted yoga to have way more flow, and I
wanted pilates to feel less like here's this move. Stop.
Yes, that's what I don't like about pilates. Yeah, calisthenics to me, So I.
Started blending them and literally moving in a way that my body had never really moved before with the combination of the two, and I started setting up my phone like I had an iPod or a tripod from Amazon.
I had no lighting, no sound, but I started sharing these little things, like what it was like to wake up in the morning and not reach for your phone first thing, or have coffee first thing in the morning, and actually take a moment to be with your breath, to be with what is in your life, which we're all running from. We're running from ourselves, running from our feelings and our thoughts and the things and the list
that we have to manage because it's a lot. But I started to really understand and learn that when I could actually bring myself into a place where I could tap into my parasympathetic nervous system, which helps us. I think of it as like the peaceful state where you can rest and digest. And by the way, I had cystoic acnea all over my face while I started this journey, which was a massquest to get to the bottom of that.
Because I had tried accutate. I saw every single doctor, top dermatologist and was just told I needed to do a second round. Meanwhile knowing that what that pill was doing to destroy the microbiome and was horrible for my enter system. Like I was just like, not adding up.
There has to be a different way. And I slowly started to discover through my practice there was a different way, and I started to feel really good and I was living in a state of contentment and joy within myself that I was like, it was so contagious that I had no idea how or what I was doing when I was sharing it, but I knew there was something greater than me that said you have to share this, You have to share the simplicity. So to go back to what you were saying about, does it ever feel heavy?
Do I feel like it's too much to exercise? Truly consistently? Not one day have I ever felt that from doing this for almost a decade. And I'll tell you why. Because the way that I started sharing this work was using what you have available to you, no longer feeling like you need all of the things to get something in, and taking the time that you have and using that getting something in. It was more about just squeezing it in.
You know, I had had Benjamin at this time and would have him in the bouncy chair, and I you know, he'd be like sleeping in the chair and I would get like a fifteen minute full body in and I
was great for the day. And I started to realize that my connection to exercise was physically focused for all of those years, But what I didn't really connect to until I started meditating was that this was strength my mind in ways I didn't connect the two, and in return, like the icing and the bonus on the cake, was physically being in the best shape of my entire freaking life.
So I mean, I did all those things that you were saying the hour of this the six seven, feeling like it needs to be this heavy thing in order to see results, and I'm here to tell you and why I am. So it's like this gets me out of bed in the morning because I'm like, no, it doesn't have to be that way. And it's not about I have to exercise today. It's that I get to I get to move my body in this way. And I know damn well what it feels like to hate myself, to feel like shit, to not want to get out
of bed, to not want to carry on. So exercise is something that has given me life, and it's shown me my own beauty and help me see things in life that I've never been able to see, so I don't look at it in that way anymore. And this is this is medicine for my mind and my body, and it has given me so much strength to do
all of the things that I'm doing. And it's it's just revealed something to me that I think is so important to just emphasize for all of these, you know, the generations to come, all of the younger generations, the ones before us, that there's a different way of doing things and it doesn't have to fit into this mold that we've been told for so many years by some of the you know, the most thought after professionals in the space of fitness. And that's how I was able to,
you know, slowly start sharing on Instagram. And then it just got to the point where I was like, I need a home base, like I need somewhere people can go to. And I, you know, I built my first site. I built a subscription business. I built a paywall behind the website. It was janky, it wasn't great, but I
did it. And I just started building this community. And it was through the connection of really listening and understanding what people wanted to really be broken down in how to way for not just like me showing my life in the way. I was like, how can you do that too?
Well, that's what I'm picking up the most. I used to I had a part of I think it was naturally thin when it started. Use what you have when you can, like do what you can when you can use what you have, meaning if it's cooking, it's like
what's around. And if you're exercising, and like you said, if you can only do fifteen minutes or you can do ten minutes, or you're stretching, or you're breathing, you're taking a walk, that's what you have available to you, versus saying, let me just not do anything, which I really do Like I.
Like that and I get that.
And are you did you start out meditating like on an app? Did you go to one of these gurus? What do you and how long do you do it for?
I started. I learned through transcendental meditation. I took a weekend workshop and I practiced that way for a very long time, but to the point where it started to feel because in that model it's very much or philosophy, I should say, it's twenty minutes in the morning and it's twenty minutes later in the day. That's forty minutes. And I think when you hear that, most people run
check out. It's hard to stay consistent with that. So I had discovered through having kids and still knowing that this was so important and just being truly devoted to this practice because for me it was it was like that daily medication and that I was filling my mind and my body with. I started to blend different styles, and I mean it's still this constant evolution of integrating
different things. Breathwork, mantra, a little bit of meditative movement, and I was blending things in my own way, which is kind of I mean what I've always enjoyed, right, It's like learning something making it your Yeah, there's no rule.
And people get intimidated. And you could take I've taken those beaded necklaces where it is all these different colored beads and they have a tassel for anyone listening, like at a yoga class.
They sell them. You can just take any necklace of yours.
You could take a rosary bead and like you go one bead at a time, like you touch one bead and then you take a breath in and out in your nose, and then you go to the next bead, and then when you hit the tassel like you know, and then next time you could go all the way around. Or just breathing in and out is meditation. Just breathing in and out. And you don't have to be sitting up if it's uncomfortable, you can lay down like.
You could do what you need to do. You could be on a bench outside.
I think people get intimidated by the word meditation when it really is just being still present and breathing, and you will get distracted, you will think of other things. Just do your best to get back to center. I think that that's that's the thing exactly.
That's I think a lot of people, and myself included, I used to judge my practice. I would say I didn't know that wasn't a good meditation. Oh I didn't meditate today, or it wasn't deep enough. And every single day is so different. I mean, somebodys are right. That's why I have walking meditation, lights up the wall, meditation, lying down meditations. I mean I have meditated, and I mean airplanes, benches, taxis any bathrooms, Like I before speaking or something, I always go into the bathroom.
I do a little moment.
But it's just bringing that awareness and that consciousness right that we spend a lot of time and energy scrolling on Instagram, so instead of doing that right, taking that active choice and coming back and just it's like watching that inflow and that outflow of breath even for one minute.
I agree, and it changes.
Like you could have a delay at an airport and you'll notice you react differently based on you're just generally how you deal with things. You'll see how your kids like, ah, mom, why wait what? And you're just like it is what it is, like you're more of just you know, because to your point, if you're about to do a speech, or if you're going into something, or if you're seeing your in laws, or if there's a holiday dinner or some.
Shit show you've got to deal with.
It's like taking a steak out of a freezer and sticking it out in the sun. Otherwise, like you just you sometimes need like to get some equilibrium in between things going on, and breathing is a good way to do that. Like and yes, sometime at the end of the night before you your own a bed, like to try to breathe in and out fifteen times. You'll probably
be asleep by the time you finish. And in the morning to try and breathe out, breathe in and out fifteen to twenty five times, so it doesn't have to be so daunting. I agree with that, and I don't always do what I love yoga, but it's just nice to know that it's something there that is like a nice glass of water when you're thirsty, you could just pick it up and like it's right there for you because it's in your body.
So I think that's amazing.
And does your fam does your family ever feel what does Noah ever feel?
Like?
Is he fully quote unquote on board? Like if he wakes up in the morning and he's always connected and he picks up his phone, do you care what he's doing? Does it trigger you like does he have to be part of this way of life completely?
Or does he have his own way of life?
Like you know what I mean, because I'm sure he's I've seen him drink your smoothies and like do some of it, But I can't imagine he's fully you know, Noah would health now, so what is he like about this?
You know, Noah? He well, I will I will fully admit that I tried to control that aspect of him and just like, don't do this, do that, and that doesn't work. And for anyone listening, the more push and
pull and force, it's like just rubbing sandpaper together. So for me, I think a lot of it was just the acceptance of everyone around me, even family life, right, Like you want to go home and share all these things that help crack you open, and I think, you know, people only want to move towards what they're as far as they want to. So there was a lot of work that had to go into me just letting things be. And you know, Noah has really made so many incredible
changes and shifts on his own. He has his own habits that he loves. I mean, are there things he still does, of course, But I've learned to nag less because I can be a nagger and want things the way I want them. It's something I'm always working on, but I'm very aware of and just letting him be. And he's drinking the green juice, he's doing the things he works out regularly, and he's changed he's very different.
Yeah, probably because he sees it. He's inspired. But we don't fix them. We fix you know, we work on ourselves. We don't work on others. It's very hard. I get that, Like you want to be like when you see something clearly, you know, it happens with our kids too. It'll happen as your kids get older. So the current state of your business is it's obviously thriving. You have this subscription model, you work, you do a lot of different brand deals, and you're in demand. And so what else is coming up?
What are you excited about? Like, what what is what's the next phase of this?
What is the next phase of this? You know, it's it's a lot of just continuing to tap in do that feeling, like you talked about in the beginning of like the things I really really love to do is what I've just been focusing on more and I've been doing more speaking, more motivational speaking, which I have always wanted to do. And even through having a podcast and doing these incredible like member events with hundreds of people, when I walk away from them, I'm like, it is insane.
I'm so high off life. But it's not just about you know, starting with the meditation, moving everyone. It's the talking.
It's you're good at it. I can tell and you're right.
And it's a different animal to go travel somewhere, to stand up, to talk to people who want to hear, and to educate people who don't, and it's just a good interaction. It's like being in a live theater. It's it's definitely different. It's so different, and I love it.
So I've been I've been doing more of that, which has been really exciting. But I am very much in this place right now as talking about this last night, where I feel like they're you know, in our lives and being i think, very motivated, independent, ambitious, strong women. There's this need where it's like okay, well I've done that, like what else? And I'm learning to just soften into like being with what is instead of just going for everything if that makes any sense, Like just it.
Makes all the sense. It's noisy. It's noisy, and if it quiets down, you can sit. If you always thinking about what you're going, Like, we're in this world offe be productive and we're Americans and there's no lunch and pros play herd and money never sleep. You know, the most creative times I've ever had are between sleep and wake. And everybody thinks I'm like an animal because I'm always working, and I'm really not. I just my mind is always working.
That's hard for me. But I define my entire life by how much time I have off and how much free time and have a little I actually have to do.
I don't like to be tethered.
I don't like to have to go, and it's very hard for people around me because people are constantly throwing opportunities and money and covers and things at me. And I'm always saying no, walked away from millions of dollars on television, walked right out. But when I did and
kept doing that, so many more things come. So like things will show up at your door, but you wouldn't have been able to see them, and you wouldn't have been able to think of them in the same way if your mind is so crowded with noisiness of what you're supposed to be doing, and finding the white noise will just it's something that you have that's a process you actually have to trust.
It's like the ocean.
There are gonna be sets that are crazy and you're gonna ride those waves. You're not gonna not ride the waves. The wave is right there, You're gonna take the wave. But then there's gonna be the com set. You're not supposed to be rushing out in between, because we rush out in between, you get caught and the riptide, then you miss the good waves, then you miss the calm,
and then it's a total shit show. So you have to have that patience and trust in the ocean and its cycle, because that is really where the sweet spot is. And I definitely have found that because for me to be having more opportunities and making more money doing eighty percent less than I ever did now is nuts.
It doesn't.
It's because I really honestly was like, I kind of want to retire. I just want to be with my daughter, I want to do philanthropy, I don't want all this stuff anymore. And then just amazing things came, but you can work them differently. So I think that that's why I said that to you in the beginning, because I'm very like I pick up on people and I feel like you're doing incredibly well, and you're not going to walk away from the tables while they're hot.
No one would do that.
But if you're willing to walk away from the tables when they start going cold, they're never going to really go cold. It's just going to be a different type of tables. Not desperation. Now that you're desperate, Yeah, I know that feeling of hunger. There's just a line between it.
There is and the more space that I give myself. I am the queen at saying no to ninety ninety five percent of everything that comes in because I really look at how I spend my time and I'm I preserve my energy. I know what it takes to film the way that I film, you know, like I record workouts. I mean I strive to a good three four days a week on top of doing the podcast two days a week with sometimes two guests each day. It's a lot of it's a lot of energy. I love. I
love it. I feel like there's people who are born to do it or it's a struggle, and for me it's it's very natural. I love it. But then on top of that, I also have a team of people, we have creators on the It's those elements where I'm like, Okay, I can't do all the things and have the time to make sure I'm there for my kids in the way that I want to show up as a mother. So I take so much off my plate and I'm all about preserving my piece.
And it's hard to manage people to managing a team and a business is the hardest, and it's the biggest time suck because it's hardest, the biggest, the worst. It's the pieces are moving. And also if you try to please everybody, you please nobody. And the worst is when I remember being pregnant and moody and like I had too much going on, and it all sounds good on that little qute calendar and on an email. Sure, that
sounds amazing. Oh my god, it's so adorable, and then it's there, and then you hate everyone around you that it's and then you're moody and you're then if you're present, which you are, you're moody, and you're like, this won't work. I have to be happy and everything I'm doing otherwise, what the hell?
What are we doing?
Like no one forced me to do any of this, And it's when it affects your personality and then the wheels start to come off where you have to like be like, no, I won't do anything if I'm not doing it well and if I can't be kind and happy doing it. And I've seen both sides of that for myself for sure.
The same. I'm laughing so hard because it's so true. I think we are just a culture who thrives off back to backs and we're going all day. And by the way, I am a slur, like I got a machine you stacked? No, me too, stack things? Yeah, I know in a day that would take people a month. I'm not it's not I'm not bragging. It is just in my bones. I got fud of what I can handle. I know I'm speaking to someone who knows no.
But then you also have a recover and it becomes this ebb and flow. It's almost like a work binge. To be honest, if I'm being honest with myself, it's almost like because your I called stacking, which is great, But if I'm really gonna get really in touch with the truth, it's not that unlike like eating so much and then starving because I find that I am a roller coaster.
I am.
I will stack it be so ultimately productive, but then get the fuck away from me.
For a couple of days. Yeah, so that you know.
No, I'm doing that. I don't just anymore. I mean I have there are still these moments where I have to, you know, level set and be like okay that day, drain the life to not do that again. But I am very different now, Like I know, I am a machine, but I also take care of myself in a way and I really try to. I don't love the word. I mean it's like, of course you try to balance things, but what is balance when you're.
Trying to prep and post and hydri Yeah, and also just like cushing yourself for the blow, because it's not going to always be a perfect situation. And it happens with your kids, it happens with the lacrosse game, it happens with screwing something up. I mean, it happens with everything, not just work. I get it, And I think the ultimate goal is to be able to be present a lot of my present in both and not in a
cheesy way. I just mean like, if you're with your kids and you're on your phone the whole time, then you're not really with your kids. If you're working and you're calling your kids all day because you're feeling guilty, you're not really working like you got to. Just if you commit to whatever it is, it's being parent on that day going to that game, you're there, you're not on the game on your phone the whole time, and if you're at work, you're not on the phone with your kids.
Like that's the thing. Otherwise, don't do it.
Sometimes I commit to one out of two of my daughter's games a week because otherwise it becomes this thing where I'm just stripped and I'm just checking the boxes and doing. Yeah, I'd just go to the game, be the mom, get the crossbody, water purse and the chair on my back and bring the snacks and the dogs and show up and be super mom. And the other day, you know, the expectations aren't there, so you're doing amazing.
I think it's great. And now talking to you really like getting more textual with it has been really interesting, and I just think it's wonderful.
I think it's I'm really happy for you.
I'm proud of you, and I'm happy that you found this place in your life and I'm happy you're sharing it.
It's it is contagious. I think it's beautiful.
Thank you so much, Bethany. Thank you, Cea. You've always just been so inspiring to me. A woman who's never been afraid to just share her voice in the way that she wants to share it. And I think that we need more women who are not afraid to be who they are and to use their voice in ways that can change the way people see things themselves and just create a movement in this world of goodness, like we just need people who care and are doing things for the better, good for all of us.
So well, likewise, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you for coming. I'm so excited.
Was wonderful. The girl we're gonna be Oh my god, I loved her. That was amazing.
Oh well, thank you, Melissa. It was really wonderful. So let's get together in the Hamptons. We're starting soon. I'm so excited.
Amazing. I know I know where your old house was because Noah had shown me when we're driving around.
So I'm gonna say it this out loud.
Maybe I'll do you.
I'm in my adventure era and I'm kind of on the verge besides my hair today, I'm kind of on the verge of a glow up just so you know, I started nature walking every day but most days if it's nice out, and I started doing my yoga at home with this app that I like. So usually once I get started, I do my beach walk. I'm gonna be on the beach now, and I'm just about to start a glow up. So I feel like you could take credit for.
Part of that. I feel like I want to do.
If I I used to go, like I said to Tracy Anderson, if I would go twice a week, I would have been on the cover of Sports all straight. I would have been the president of the United States. If you work out with me twice in a week in the summer, we could do it before and after, and the results will be remarkable, remarkable.
I know they will. And listen, let's talk, because I would seriously do something with you.
We'll come to you. Let's do something.
I'm going to show you like this is what I always say, because I don't typically do privates, right, But of course there's certain things I love to do it. I love the class energy.
But I'm on the verge of a glow up, though, Melissa.
So I'm ready to It's also just to show how less is more and the art of like you will be amazed. Give me twenty minutes, and.
I want you to create something from me with my workouts online every day after Okay, that's all right. What I want to do is come to your house and just take off my clothes and sleep with you. No, I want to come to your house and take off my clothes and show you my body, which is like thinner fifty three year old woman needs a little tightness, needs a little like.
I've seen you in a bikini in Miami and you are a babe. Please listen, I rock a bikini. That's what I'm saying.
We are so close, like if I tighten it up a little, like the butt is a little in pancakey.
It's like that, you know. I mean, yes, I pull it.
It's good.
It's good, but it could be great, and this is the summer for it. So I want to come over and I want to like be in like a Dove campaign, just like wear normal like you know, I want to wear a bra and I want to show you and we'll take a picture, and I want you to give me a prescription. I can tell you what I'm already doing, and I will take the X number of time, and then we will come back and we will regroup and we will see how the glow up looks.
I will guide you, and I feel very confident that you are going to well because you're going to see how it fits into your life and you don't believe. And it's like you can do it at home and your daughter, I mean the amount of mother daughters that that is the part that I mean, if anyone can get me, it's when the moms come up and they're like, you help my daughter through the heart, and she's like, can I do it with her?
And I'm just like, right, brain would love it too. It's cute, right the mom You're like, yes, okay, no, you have the moms. The moms are the back yeah, the book. But I want to see results, Melissa, what help? Okay, Okay, I want to see results. Otherwise I'll just go to Marquis with Noah and dance on a speaker and get in shape that way. But something's got to give, So I'm ready for.
My glow up.
Okay, Okay, amazing, I awesome, have a good day. Thank you so much. Thank