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Hello. It has been over two months since I uploaded an episode of Brutally Anna, and for those of you listening to this, I'm sure you're wondering where I've been, or at least I hope you've been wondering. But most likely you've probably just moved on to other forms of entertainment, which is totally fine. But I have taken a little hiatus from podcasting for several reasons and here's the thing. I've sat at my desk for the last 45 minutes hemming and hawing at how I was going to explain this hiatus to you guys and why I'm back, and do it in a diplomatic way that felt PC and and then in the middle of that 45 minutes I got up to make a smoothie because that's what I do when I'm trying to procrastinate doing something I know I have to do. I get myself a little snack. And so I made myself a little pineapple, banana and protein smoothie. It was delicious. I drank that smoothie. And then I realized I still had to record this episode and tell you guys why I left and and why I'm back. So here's the real reason I ghosted you guys. Essentially, I was in a weird place in my career and with my podcast behind the scenes and I just felt like in July I needed to do a little bit of a shakeup. And so I am now working with some new team members behind the scenes that help this operation run. I am really excited about that. And also I had to think about whether podcasting was maybe the best medium for me to convey what I'm trying to tell you all on a weekly basis. And in order to do that, I had to stop. And I didn't necessarily want to quit entirely, which is why I didn't say goodbye and make this whole long winded farewell episode. I just needed a pause. And I took the last 2ish months to launch my substack, which if you guys are not subscribed to that yet, I highly encourage you to do. So it's maybe both.substack.com and I talk about all the hard shit and a lot about my personal life and what's going on there. It's basically the podcast in written form, but a little bit better articulated because I've had time to really marinate over the words instead of just word vomit into a microphone like I'm doing here. But in any case, I returned to podcasting because the lovely network that I worked with to launch this podcast, and who has really been behind the scenes throughout this entire series of brutally Anna, asked me a couple months ago for eight more episodes of the podcast to round out the year. And typically, you guys know that I don't say yes to anything I don't wanna do, but I gotta give credit where credit is due. And they have been incredible partners. And I saw this as an opportunity to kind of maybe challenge myself a little bit because I have this thing in my head where I feel like I'm not good at podcasting, and I don't know what that is. Oh, wait, I do. It's because my podcast did not perform nearly as well as I had hoped with the first launch on the last year. And even though I know some good things take time, that was a huge blow to my confidence for me, because I had spent so much time and so much of my own money investing into this podcast that when the numbers weren't quite where they were supposed to be, I was like, I had a crisis of confidence, essentially. And then I realized, well, you can either kind of give up content creation entirely and crawl into a hole, or you can say, hey, maybe podcasting isn't the best medium for you to convey your message to people, so why don't we pivot a little bit? And so that's why I created the substack. And look, I'm all in on my writing, on my socials, on everything. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to land in the world of podcasting. And I want to be upfront with you guys before we get into today's topic, because we could make eight episodes here. And I realize, hey, I actually really love blabbing once a week into a microphone for you guys. And maybe the only part of podcasting that I really didn't like was the production aspect, because, guys, I was editing all of my own video, all those clips you saw, other than the first edit, which I had my producer kind of of spliced together for me, I was doing everything. And I really have a new admiration for video editors because that to me is like such mind numbing work. So I really didn't enjoy that. And there is something freeing about this being just a microphone and my voice, like I'm literally completely unkempt right now. I did shower today, I hope you guys know that. I showered, but I don't have any makeup on. My hair is completely just air dried and therefore it's in that wavy, wavy, non curly but not straight state that it is whenever it air dries. And I'm just talking to you and there's something really freeing about that. So maybe we'll get to the end of this eight episode series and realize that we might continue this on or we might get to the end and be like this is actually the end. I promise you I will let you know either way when we get to the end of this series. But because we're only at the beginning, I do want to say that I decided with the next eight episodes that I am just going to talk about some of the things that have been top of mind to me most lately and things that I think could be helpful for you. So the topic of today's episode and the title was Everybody's Dying. Here's how it taught me to live. And I want to get into the topic of death. Not in a morbid way, even though I don't know how to talk about it in a non morbid way, but to say that I've gone to a lot of funerals and memorials this year and it really has distilled a lot for me in terms of what I think is a well lived life. I've watched so many extended family members just completely pass at untimely ages this year that it has really crystallized for me how none of us are guaranteed any time on this earth. And that's such bullshit because honestly I look at some of the people that died this year and this was all on Dave's side of the family, but people we were at least somewhat close with or somebody that I just felt like, look, I don't know you that well, but you seem like an amazing person and you deserve to live to a very, very old decrepit age of like 98 and to pass away peacefully in your sleep with your wife by your side and she passes away like five minutes after you like they did in the Notebook. Okay? That's what I want for all the good kind people in this world. And honestly, with all the that are walking around just doing damaging things to people and harming others. Like why does God. Have to take the good ones. That's kind of how I felt this year. So a lot of people died prematurely, in my opinion, this year. And it really made me realize that, more so than ever, that I do not want to spend any time performing for others. And I think maybe that's the difference too, between friendships and relationships in your 30s versus in your 20s, or at least early 20s, is that I had a lot of performative friendships when I was younger. Where you're kind of in a sisterhood or your friends, because it looks good to be friends. It looks good to have, like a gaggle of people around you when you're going out and you can post a recap of the night and you have all these girlfriends, or you have all these people show up to your birthday party to celebrate you. Which, by the way, I was never really into my birthday, and I still am not these days. I think I spent the last five birthdays, no lie, just hanging out with my parents, Dave and Sawyer. And I've come to realize that the reason that I don't like my birthday is because it feels performative. There's all this pressure on me as the birthday girl to throw a really great birthday, so that I guess I feel like ringing in the next year was worth it. Or it feels like I should gather all of my friends, none of whom really talk to each other on a daily basis, because I don't have one group of girlfriends. I have a very disjointed set of girlfriends where it's like two of them talk from one group and like six of them are from high school, but they all live in different states. And like, one girl I know from just being in the neighborhood in Connecticut, and so none of these people have any relation to one another. And so bringing them together for my birthday and forcing to have a great time, like, the time of their lives together just feels very unnatural to me. And maybe if you have a more congruous group of friends, like all of your friends are from college or all your friends are from high school, or some combination of both, and they've all hung out and met and spent time with each other prior to your birthday, maybe your birthday is really fun. Trust me, I know plenty of people that love celebrating their birthdays. But for me, it was always more like, well, it's my birthday. Everybody has a birthday, if they're lucky, the next year. And I don't want to feel pressure to perform or put on a great birthday for anyone else. I also don't want to pressure Anyone else to make it a great birthday for me. That was always something I was extremely uncomfortable with. And so right around Covid, actually Covid, I think 2020 was the first year I started doing like a non birthday essentially just at home with my parents, Dave and Sawyer, eating my mom's good cooking. Sometimes we will go out to a really nice restauran restaurant in Philly and that's it. And that's my favorite way to spend my birthday. And I think what all of this death has really taught me this year is to remove the pomp and circumstance from my life. Look, I think it's great to get dressed up, to go to a fancy event, to have an excuse to make a special occasion special. But. But I think what I'm over at this point in my life is the whole see and be seen type of vibe. I am in a very public facing business and this is my job to be in the public eye. But it's almost ironic, like the more I do this, the more I realize, like I just want to keep my personal life and the things that truly fill up my cup very private. And, and that's why you'll never see any videos of my parents or you know, you don't really see that much of Dave on my social media. You see a lot of Sawyer, but you know what, she's just too cute not to share with all of you. But the reason I keep so much of what I do and what I really love to do under wraps on a day to day basis is because I'm too fucking busy living my life to pull out my camera. It's so counterintuitive. But I am an influencer that despises capturing my life for social media. That's why the majority of my content is very controlled. It's usually me in a split second putting on makeup, making a drink, bitching to you guys about how hard it is to get pregnant while I'm just standing in the mirror. These are messages I want to share with you. But I'm able to share those messages because I actually live my life and I heard a really big influencer the other day say that the reason, and by the way, all the respect to this creator because he has built an incredible business and I absolutely adore him. But he did say, look, the sacrifice I've made in building this career is that I have prioritized showing my life versus living my life. And as somebody who bought in to hustle culture, culture for so long and thinking that I always had to do more and Produce more. I've just realized, like, that's not a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Because when I look at the people that have died this year, one passed away when he was 50 and one passed away at 67. Those are not old ages in this country. We can reasonably expect to live well into our 80s. And so when I look at the lives of those people that were cut short, I think about the fact that if I were to die next week, knock on all the wood, I am a little bit superstitious, but I would not regret not showing more of my life to you guys online. I would regret not chucking my phone into the abyss and spending a Friday night doing absolutely nothing with my family. I would regret all those moments that I could have spent just really enjoying the moment versus filming myself enjoying the moment. And that's really what death has taught me this year, is that I want to live my life. And if that comes at the cost of showing more of my life for the sake of furthering my brand and my business, that's okay. That is a sacrifice I am willing to make. Maybe I won't grow as quickly as other creators, but it makes me happy. And I think we need to re emphasize the things that truly bring us joy versus the things that bring us success more in this life. I think that's why we're all so fucking stressed out, is that we think success equates joy. And what I've realized is I haven't taken a step back, but what I've really done is become more intentional with what I lean into in my work. And that is my writing, and that's creating a certain amount of content for short form every week, but not going overboard and letting go of the results. Honestly, letting go of maybe this is what my career looked like for the first two and a half, three years, but this is what it looks like now, and let's see where it can go. And I'm much happier. And I'm not even on Zoloft anymore, guys. I weaned off of Zoloft two months ago, maybe three at this point, and it's been great. Like, my mood is, I wouldn't say stable, but I would say I have more good days than bad days. I'm still very easily emotionally manipulated by how someone's dog died on Instagram or how they spent their last day with their dying dog, or any number of those sad videos that we all see that we think, oh, you know what? I'm just gonna scroll for five minutes and then you End up sobbing into your phone before bed. That still happens to me, but for the most part, I'm doing pretty good. And I think what really allowed me to get there is a realizing that none of our time is guaranteed. And so if it's not guaranteed, like, yes, of course we all have to do things we don't want to do, and we have to work hard. And part of a meaningful life is feeling like you've achieved what you wanted to achieve. But the other part of that is once you've achieved a certain level, success, which, to be honest, I never thought I'd be here. I never thought I'd even have a fraction of the success I have. But getting here also means enjoying it. And I think for a really long time this year, I was so focused on getting more and more and more and feeling like I was falling behind in that quest for more, that I lost sight of the fact that I have so much more than I ever thought I would have, and that it was important for me not to just build a life, but to enjoy my life. And. And you cannot enjoy the present if you're always looking ahead. I was always thinking about the next rung, the next opportunity, the next big thing. And look, those thoughts still pop up from time to time. But we went home to see my parents a couple weeks ago, and my mom said something great. She was like, anna, I think you need to just enjoy your life. And the way that you're going to enjoy your life is by lowering your expectations for what the future is going to bring you. That might sound counterintuitive, but honestly, that was exactly what I needed to hear in the moment. Just by her saying, you can lower your expectations, and by doing so, you will be happier, I realized I was like, what am I chasing? Like, I got everything I asked for. Obviously, I want more, and I want to continue building. And, you know, there's a lot of bills we have to pay for on a very practical basis. But. But I'm not in some dire position, like I was in my 20s, where just every day was all about survival. And I think that mindset is really hard to undo when all you're used to is looking ahead because the present is such. So if you are kind of caught in this hamster wheel of capitalism that we're all in right now, I would really urge you to take a step back and look around and see, like, am I in a dire position? Do I need to be on the struggle bus? And sometimes the answer is absolutely yes. These are the struggle years. I gotta figure out how to pay the rent, make sure I can actually have a retirement, and so on and so forth. And. But I think for a lot of people, maybe the answer is, I put myself on the struggle bus while I build this life around me. And every time I build more around me, I get on the struggle bus and I leave the home that I've created that's actually beautiful, that's actually enough. And yes, could it use a new kitchen or could it use a pool in the backyard? Yeah, maybe it could use all of those things. But never forget that that house is something that you never thought you could have. One day you got the house with the white picket fence. So what if the kitchen is a little bit dated and there's no pool in the backyard? You'll get there. But you know what's not going to help is you telling yourself that you're not going to be happy until X, Y, Z happens. And it's usually some basis in materialism or some kind of external marker that really has nothing to do with what truly makes you happy. What truly makes me happy is spending time with my family and friends and doing typically very unglamorous things. Like, I don't need to go to Europe with my parents to have a great time with them. My favorite thing to do is just go back to my hometown in Pennsylvania, chill out with them for a weekend with Dave and Sawyer, don't put on any makeup the entire weekend, and just stuff my face with Chinese food. It's very simple. But those are the things I'm gonna miss the most one day. Because nothing is forever. So those are the things I prioritize doing in my life right now. Even though they don't make for good Instagrams and they're not exactly, I would say, like, envy worthy. Like, nobody's gonna look at what I love to do and be like, I really wish I had her life. Or maybe you do. Maybe you would look at what I do on the weekends when I'm not posting and be like, I wish I had her life. But either way, I wish I had my life. And I know I have my life, and that's why I enjoy my life right now. And it's also simple, but it's so hard to grasp when you're in this relentless wheel of what's next. We think we know what our problems are and how our life is going to be better once we solve those problems in the future, that when all of that is stripped away on a very fundamental level, like when someone dies in our life, we realize that none of those were problems, that the biggest problem was that we refused to see how much a gift the present was. That's all for today. Thank you so much you guys for listening. I am back and if you like this episode, please comment. Like subscribe as usual or you can find me over on substack, maybe both dot substack for more unfiltered thoughts and answers to all the questions that none of you would submit to me if it wasn't for the fact that you're completely anonymous on my newsletter. Have an awesome weekend guys, and I'll talk to you next week.