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AI had the time of my life. A I never felt this way before. From building timelines to assigning the right people, and even spotting risks across dozens of projects, Monday Sidekick knows your business, thinks ahead, and takes action. One click on the star and consider it done. And I owe it all to you. Try Monday Sidekick AI you'll love to use on Monday.com. there are probably a lot of people that don't like me or think I'm a shit person because I ghosted them this year over any other year of my life. And here's why. Because to them, I am a shitty person. Because I did ghost them. And I don't feel sorry for any of that. Because one of the unintended side effects of becoming a social media content creator online, somebody with some form of public, public notoriety, is that you get a lot of people crawling out of the woodwork who may have been a fixture in your life, an everyday human that you communicated with, a friend, even 10, 15, 20 years ago, but who is no longer in your life and who really only comes back into it to gain something from you. And what I started to do is I've started to stop responding. Because here's the thing. This is not me trying to be a hater and saying that if you knew me from 20 years ago, don't talk to me because I'm so important right now. It's more just I've had a lot of instances over the last year where somebody has come back into my life with the sole explicit motive of gaining something from me. And that's really obvious. I've actually reconnected with a lot of really cool people from high school, from college, because of social media, because I came across their algorithm. But there is a very, very fine line between somebody who comes back into your life with genuine intentions and hey, you know what? Look, I reconnected with a girl that I was barely friends with in high school. We were friends with the same people, but we never really hung out together. And we reconnected because now we both live in Connecticut. And that was awesome. We spent four hours over a lunch together the other week. And I was just reminded of how happy I was that Instagram brought me to her and her to me. But guess what? She didn't ask anything from me in the end. And what has happened a lot over the last couple months for me is that I've had a lot of people asking me for favors or just my time. Could I give them some advice on. On how to launch XYZ business and how to approach their social media with, by the way, nothing in return. Like, honey, if you're going to take an hour of my time these days and you're not my friend, you better be paying me in some type of way. I don't do favors for people I don't know, or I don't do favors for people who literally did not care about being my friend before they realized they could use me for information, for my platform, for any type of misguided expertise they think I might have because I have a platform. Guys, just because somebody has a following on social media doesn't mean they know any more than somebody who doesn't have a following, how to grow a following or how to maintain a business. Okay? I'm just winging it as I go out here and I'm shocked it's still working three years later. But you know what? Here we are, all right? And I think what's been really frustrating is especially women, we are taught from a young age to be cherished, to be generous with our time. You know, God, the universe, the fates has bestowed me with the ultimate privilege and blessing of being able to do what I do and being able to earn a living from being a public facing figure. And for a long time, at least for the first few years of doing this, I thought, you know what I want to give back, right? Anybody who asks me for anything, the answer is yes. Okay? My time, my energy. Oh, never mind the fact that you're not offering me anything in return. I don't deserve this. This happened to me accidentally. So now let me help you. And here's the problem with that, is that that line of thinking doesn't really come from a place of confidence and generosity. I think that line of thinking comes from a place of insecurity. I watched a really powerful video with Gabor Mate. I think I'm saying his name right. If I'm not, feel free to let me know. And he talked about his own struggles with workaholism and the early days of his career when he was just never around for his kids. He was a doctor and just throwing his whole life into his private practice. And he was like, this was a symptom and an addiction from my childhood. He grew up during the Holocaust and this feeling of not being wanted as a Jewish kid in Hungary permeated throughout his entire childhood, obviously, because everything around him was telling him that because he is Jewish, he is not wanted. And so he said this incredibly powerful line that really struck a chord in me. And he said, well, when I grew up, and I was no longer that kid in hungary in the 40s. I carried that feeling of being unwanted with me. And so when I went to work, I felt like, you know what, if they don't want me, at least I'll make them need me. And that was so powerful, that simple statement, because it really distilled for me why I feel weird about giving to others when they're not necessarily offering the same generosity back to me. And it's because for a long time I thought my self worth was rooted in making people need me. Because you know what? They've proven they don't want me. And okay, sure, I did not grow up a Jewish kid in war torn Hungary in the 40s. But here's what I did grow up as. All right? I grew up a Chinese immigrant kid in a very homogenous suburban area of Philadelphia. And for most of my primary schooling, I was taught that I was not cool enough. I didn't fit in, people didn't want to be friends with me. And that feeling of being unwanted really has pervaded throughout my entire life. And I'm still trying to undo all of that. I still walk into parties all the time for work, you know, brand events, feeling like I'm not cool enough to be there. And it's not rooted in anything in the present, it's rooted in my past. But I always feel like the unpopular kid, like the kid that nobody wants to hang out with, or the kid that people are only talking to because they feel sorry for them. And so by having this platform and all of a sudden being somebody that people did turn to for some form of expertise or advice felt good to be needed. Until I realized that there is a huge difference between being needed and being wanted. And being wanted may include a smaller group of people, but in the end, those are the people that will pour into your cup rather than take from it. And so I had multiple instances over the last year, particularly where people either came crawling out of the woodwork or people came through friends of friends asking me for favors, for advice, for something related to my social media platform, and they felt entitled to keep asking me for more after I gave them an initial piece of advice or a phone call and I finally realized that I no longer needed to give them a response, that it's okay if they think I'm a shit human because I ghosted them. I think they're kind of a shit human for thinking that they have the right to come back into my life or come into my life at all. And Expect me to give to them because of some very tenuous connection that we once had or we have through a mutual friend. And so there's really no greater joy at this point in my life than feeling like I'm okay being disliked. Like, I'm okay with the fact that somebody is behind closed doors saying, anna's kind of a shit human. She didn't respond to me. I'm so okay with that at this point. Like, it's shocking because as somebody who spent her entire 20s and all of her teen years and even before that being a people pleaser, thinking that other people's opinion of me was going to make or break me, it's actually so gratifying knowing that I don't give a shit what you're saying about me behind closed doors, but you will not have access to me anymore. Because what gives you the right. If you didn't want to be a part of my life before I went viral on social media, then you can stay out of my life afterwards. Because a lot of times people will see you as a resource rather than a relationship to be fostered. And they all come sort of looking the same. They all come with good intentions, they all come with smiles and they're super friendly and they all start with hey, how have you been? Or hey, how are you? Or hey, thank you so much. But then they keep asking and they keep taking and it's up to you to really cut it off. And I don't know how this translates to your life, but I think women get into this a lot, you know, whether it's in our friendships or our relationships or in our jobs. You know, we give more than we're supposed to because it feels like we're not earning our place if we don't do more than what's expected. In your career, maybe you are putting in more overtime, maybe you're putting in more unpaid work because you think that's what you need to do to get to the next level. You need to be better than everyone else. You need to say yes to everything your boss says. And guess what? Sometimes that does work out. So I'm not saying do the bare minimum in the name of self righteousness and in the name of confidence and boundary setting. I'm saying you need to be pragmatic about who you give your energy to because a lot of times you will go to the moon and back for your boss and they will give you nothing in return. Year end will come, you will have spent all of your weekends, worked all of those late nights, to come to find that in the end he didn't really give a shit. He was going to give your male co worker promotion instead. And so really figure out where your time is best planted, all right? You cannot plant a seed in barren soil and expected to bloom. Figure out where the fertile soil is. Just because you plant more seeds and you keep planting it, if the soil is shitty, that seed will never come to bloom. It will never come to fruition for you. I think about this all the time in the context of relationships and situationships because so many of you have said to me, and I've been in this situation myself, like, should I keep letting this guy come back into my life? You know, he leaves when he's strong enough to leave, but then he always comes crawling back when there's a problem and he always says, you were always the one. You're the only one I can turn to. You complete me, whatever, like that. And then all of a sudden, when he's depleted you and sucked out all the energy from you and he's strong now, he leaves you and the cycle continues. Think your lashes have hit their limit? Discover limitless length and full volume with Maybelline Sky High Mascara. The Flextower Brush bends to volumize and extend every single lash from root to tip. And the lightweight bamboo infused formula makes lashes feel weightless now in eight bold shades so you can take your lashes to new heights every day. Visit maybelline.com to shop Skyhigh Mascara now. And you do that because I think women have this nurturing aspect to them. Either we have it or we're taught to have it. I don't know, I'm not a scientist, but there is this part of us that wants to nurse, especially a man, back to health, whether that's mentally, physically, spiritually. And so if there was somebody that we were in love with once or still in love with, and they come back into our lives, it feels like, you know what? This is my moral responsibility or this is my duty to give this guy a second chance and really see if ultimately he can give something back to me. And it never really works out like that. I remember I had this relationship in my 20s where he was really messed up, my ex, and he had a lot of substance abuse issues. And throughout the course of our relationship, I always thought, you know, if I could just get him to stop drinking a bottle of wine every night after dinner, or if I could just get him to stop smoking or doing chewing tobacco or all these terrible things to his body and also made him Into a different person that I didn't really like. Like, if I could just get him to stop disassociating from his life and start connecting with himself better, then we'll be happy. Then he'll finally be the person I know he can become. And then when he left me because I wasn't enabling him and his behaviors enough, I thought, wow, that really sucks, because I was truly, like, the best person that I could be for you, and I gave you everything, and you still left me, oddly enough, because I didn't encourage your bad habits enough. And guess what? That motherfucker came back into my life when he was feeling sad because he got done by the next chick. And I'd be lying if I didn't say I didn't consider it for a second. I mean, I still met up with him. I remember he called me up on a Sunday. This was, like, months after we broke up. And I was like, huh, he's calling me on a Sunday. And I. I instantly knew. I was like, I bet you some other girl broke his heart. Cause why the fuck would your ex be calling you on a Sunday, right? They need something from you. And he did. Because the next woman made him realize how great I had been to him. And, honey, I mean, if you guys are listening to this, you followed my content long enough, hopefully, to know that if you need another woman to make you realize how great of a woman I was, honey, I ain't your woman. And I am so glad I did not go back to him in that moment. And because, tempting as it may be to fantasize doing it right the second time and finally having the relationship that I wanted for so long while we were together the first time, I just realized it's just gonna be the same shit if I go back to you. It's just gonna teach you that you can do this to me again, and actually, you can do it to me more easily. And so I didn't go back to him. And now I'm married to a guy who didn't fuck it up the first time, who didn't need to leave me to realize what a good thing he had at the core of all of this. In any relationship, when you feel like you're being taken advantage of or somebody's only crawling out of the woodwork to use you, is that they don't actually want you. They want what being near you gets them. And I think that's a really important distinction to make. And if you don't make that early on in your life, you're going to spend a lot of time with really nice people feeling very depleted after you're done talking to them or giving them what they wanted. Because you need to be able to differentiate those who come to you with good intentions and those who come to you merely to take from you. And again, like I said before, they all come with smiling faces. They all come super sweet and really nice. Okay, nice. All right. I don't need more nice people in my life. I just need more real people, more honest people in my life. And I've also realized lately that there's this growing discourse on social media and this opinion that we are setting too many boundaries. Boundaries as a society, that social media is teaching us to say no too often because we are all prioritizing our own convenience and our comfort over community. Because community comes at the cost of convenience. And while I understand that and I do believe that there is a balance to everything, I don't think women in our Western civilization need to be taught to champion community and the comfort of others over their own. I think we, for centuries have been way too far in the other direction. We've been taught way too much to be generous, to feel guilty, to give without reserve. So, no, I don't think that we are saying no too much. I think the discomfort comes from us finally saying no and other people realizing, oh, I can't form my community on the basis that you will continue to give to this community without me having to put anything into it. I don't really know how I define my community yet, and to be honest with you, I said this in an earlier episode, but we don't have, like, a huge community of people around us, even after five years of living in Connecticut. And I'm still working on that. But I sure as hell know this. My community is not going to come at the cost of my time and my energy. Two things that I really only give to a very, very small group of people in my life because they've proven to me, and I've proven to them that we deserve to be in each other's lives. Not because we want anything from one another, but because we genuinely enjoy being around each other. And those people include my family and a handful of girlfriends, none of whom know each other. So I think for me, when I hear, hey. People are emphasizing being selfish too much or saying no too much. I think that comes from the fact that women, for the first time in ever, possibly are saying no. And it's so easy to look at that woman and say, hey, she said no to Me? How dare she? How dare she prioritize her own convenience and her own comfort and safety over mine. This is what the community is built out of. The community is built off of self sacrifice. And those people who are making that argument, what are you doing for the community? What are you sacrificing? Why do you. You keep asking shit from me. Why don't you be the example of the community that you want to see? And then if you lead by example, and I want to be part of that community, I will follow. And if I don't, then I don't want to be a part of your community. And again, if community means I have to give my time to every Tom, Dick and Sally that comes into my life, that I don't want a community, I'm good hanging out in my house with Dave and my dog and seeing my parents and Dave's parents. And we're good. We don't need to be friends, okay? I'm never going to call you and ask you for help. And therefore, you don't have to call me and ask me for help. If it sounds like I'm angry, it's because I am. Honestly, I am just tired of people expecting women to just give and give and give without any limitations or barriers. I'm tired of people coming to me and expecting me to give and give and give. Because here's the thing. I know I'm a generous person, and I know I feel good giving to others. My girlfriends who have been in my life for decades know that, okay, if I can pick up the tab, if I can just make things a little bit easier for somebody else who is struggling, I will do that. But those women and those friendships and the people I give to without reserve are not the people that expect me to give them more because I have more. And I'll distill it into one very simple anecdote. There's a huge difference between my girlfriends, who I love to give some of my PR freebies to a lot of those beauty products that, you know, we get so much stuff, it's such a perk of this business, but I can't use all of it. So I love giving these freebies away, these skincare and beauty goodies to my friends and family. But there's a huge difference between those women who are usually very eternally grateful and they almost feel guilty taking this stuff from me. And I'm like, please don't. Okay? I got this for free. And it makes me happy to give you some things that you may not have tried and maybe you'll go and buy it after and, you know, support these brands that I love so much. There is a huge difference between those women and the few relationships I've had over the last few years of people who expect shit from me. You believe the amount of people who actually feel like they're entitled to ask me for free shit just because I get it for my job? Yes, I know I get it for free, but it's also part of my job. And sure, every job has perks, some more than others, but I never feel entitled to go to one of my girlfriends who say, works in financial advising or wealth management. I never feel like I'm entitled to go to one of those friends and say, hey, give me free advice. Because you have access to all these different platforms, you have all these different investment tactics you use, like, tell me how to do what you do or give me the perks of your job for free. Like, I would never think to do that. Or, like, if you work at a restaurant or you own a restaurant, all right, I would never be like, hey, let me come in here and just eat for free forever, because we're friends. And so the moral of this episode is give as generously as possible. It really does make you feel good when you can give to others who a are just people who have really been good to you in your life or be less fortunate than you or any of the above. But there is a difference if. If you ever get to a point where you're like, hey, I just gave to somebody and I actually don't feel any better. I just feel a little bit, like, cheap and taken advantage of. It's because your body knows before your mind does that they came into your life to take advantage of you, to take from you. And to those people, I say, it is time to cut those bitches off. Because at the end of the day, you may be a vending machine full of prizes and lots of goodies locked up inside, but you don't automatically give those prizes away to anybody who pulls a lever without putting in a coin first. There's my weird analogy for the day. Thanks so much, guys. I'll talk to you next week.