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Chelsea Handler
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Chelsea Handler
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Katherine
Morning brings a fresh new energy. And no matter what the day holds, we come to the Today show for all of it.
Chelsea
We get the best start to the day because we started together. Watch the Today show weekdays at 7am on NBC.
Chelsea Handler
Hi Katherine.
Katherine
Hi Chelsea. How are you?
Chelsea
Hi.
Chelsea Handler
I'm just slowly recuperating from my shoulder invasion. Basically my day consists of waking up, getting into a hyperbaric chamber for two hours, going to physical therapy, then trying to do some sort of exercise, then icing my arm about 15 times a day. Do I sound like I'm complaining? Because I am. I'm fucking complaining.
Katherine
When you feel like shit, you know.
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, some days I feel really good and then I on Saturday I really overdid it. I was like feeling really good. My doctor took out my stitches. I Went to pt, then I went for lunch, and then I went for a walk. And then I was like, oh, I'll go to this dinner party. And then I was at this dinner party and like 30 minutes into it I was like, I was in pain. Agony. I'm like, oh, no, I fucked something up, but I just overdid it. I always overdo it.
Katherine
Yeah, yeah, Gotta rest, gotta rest.
Chelsea Handler
Yeah. And then I have a nice little nurse that comes to my house every night and gives me an injection, an infusion for my arm to cut my infection. And.
Katherine
Yeah, that's a lot.
Chelsea Handler
It's a lot. It is. I feel like I'm in a nursing home.
Katherine
Your own home is a nursing home now? Well, I have a response from one of our episodes and then we have a quick caller.
Chelsea Handler
Okay, great, let's do it.
Katherine
So I just thought this was a cute email. Margie says, just listening to your show with Hunter McGrady and I think everyone spoke about having a piece of pencil lead, graphite stuck in their skin. Did you have one as well?
Chelsea Handler
No, my sister did.
Katherine
Oh, Brad definitely does. I just so happen to have watched an episode of Dr. Pimple Popper and there was a woman on her show who had a piece of pencil in her hand for 40 plus years apparently. I'm guessing it's gone now. It was amazing. Check it out. Are you into that stuff? Like the doctor Pimple Popper stuff?
Chelsea Handler
I don't like that.
Katherine
I can't watch that stuff.
Chelsea Handler
No, I've seen it. I know what you're talking about.
Katherine
Yeah, but this was the part I thought was very nice. Margie says, keep doing what you're doing. It has changed my life, perspective about myself and how I relate to the world. Listening to you speak truth and strength with no apologies about your place on this planet as a woman is infectious. No more making myself smaller. I've always felt that I was actually 6ft tall and ripped. Stuck in my petite 5 foot 1 inch frame. Now I know I am and I'm gonna love my truth. Keep kicking ass, Marky.
Chelsea Handler
Is this. What do you mean she got a pencil removed because of our episode? Is this what she's talking about?
Katherine
No, I think she's just inspired by you. Like, just in general. I'm like, does this have to do with the pencil?
Chelsea Handler
What?
Katherine
There was a bit of a shift in there. Oh, okay.
Chelsea Handler
Well, great. Yes. Yes. Live out loud, everybody. Live out loud.
Katherine
And we have some call as well. We have a couple calling in.
Chelsea Handler
Oh, a couple that I met.
Katherine
That you met at The Chelsea. When you were performing at the Cosmo, My Vegas residency.
Chelsea Handler
Everybody. My next date is March 21st.
Katherine
Well, they're Brad and Leslie, and Leslie is actually the one writing, but both of them will be joining us. So she says. Hey, Chelsea, I'm Leslie and my husband Brad and I met you recently when you performed at the Chelsea in Las Vegas. We got to say hi after the show. I'm a second generation Pilates instructor, meaning my teacher studied directly with Joe. Pilates. I've been teaching since 2008. I started traveling the world teaching Pilates about the same time that I met my husband. A few years later, he convinced me to start online pilates classes.com, we just call it OPC, and then joined me full time to run the company in 2019. For so many years, OPC was me doing my thing. Everything was my responsibility. They were my clients and my problems. I've always answered my own DMs, done my own socials, basically all the marketing. And I still do. I've been the face of the company even as it's grown beyond only me doing the teaching because I still do the marketing. It often feels like I'm on the front line of customer service or on bad days dealing with Internet trolls. I know you know how that goes. I'm really lucky. I love working with my husband. Brad is an amazing CEO and has built an incredible team. I'll admit that during the first couple years, going from me and my business to we and our business was tricky. When something wouldn't go as planned, I tended to default to shouldering the burden and not sharing it. It's gotten easier, but sometimes I still struggle with this. And I know it's frustrating for Brad. How do you lean more on your team so that the business issues, obstacles, and trolls don't feel so personal? Leslie and Brad.
Chelsea Handler
Hi, guys.
Leslie
Hi.
Katherine
Hello.
Leslie
Hi.
Chelsea Handler
Did we meet at the Cosmo?
Leslie
We did meet at the Cosmo. What a great memory.
Chelsea Handler
Oh, good.
Leslie
I think I grabbed your butt too long though, for our selfie, but.
Chelsea Handler
Oh, that's okay. People are always grabbing me. I'm not somebody who takes offense to that, but I would not recommend grabbing other women's butts. Native Teflon. So are you guys talking about your dynamic? This sounds like a you question, Katherine. Katherine, my ex producer, has a very similar dynamic with her husband. He does our sound on our podcast and she's the producer on our podcast. So they work closely together. And not just on this podcast, on other podcasts.
Katherine
Right, right.
Brad
I heard he's got a cool name.
Katherine
Yeah, he does. His name is also Brad.
Chelsea Handler
I'm not gonna dignify that with laughter.
Katherine
So, I mean, for us, I think it's really about division of labor. Because this was your personal Instagram before it was the business Instagram, correct?
Leslie
Yeah. Yeah. And it was always me as the. Just the person teaching. And then several years ago, brought other teachers on, and we brought more team on, and it's been amazing and wonderful. And I think the hard part is that even when I know that the customer service team is amazing, even when I know I can submit this, I'm like, here. Here's where you go. Just chat to them over here. Sometimes it feels like I'm letting people down. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's not that the business is letting them down. I take it personally. Which is not probably not the healthiest thing.
Katherine
Right? Right. When you're a business owner, you set up systems for yourself so that you can offload a lot of the burden. And I think that that maybe is like, part of what's difficult here. Tell me, Brad, when you read stuff that's like, let's say it's from a troll, something nasty. When you read stuff that's about Leslie, does that still feel like a personal attack? Does it get to you personally?
Brad
Oh, sometimes. Like one. One time we had somebody particularly, you know, out there, and that was really difficult for everybody, and the whole team was also aware of it, and we had to make, like, a team announcement, like, hey, if this person contacts you. But more often than not, it's.
Chelsea Handler
What are they saying? I mean, about Pilates.
Leslie
I know, girl. I mean, it's not really about the Pilates. It's really funny. You know, we got one in last week, which I just laughed at because I had a birthday and I decided I have no Fs to give anymore. Like, I'm just go with it. But, like, I wrote an email about, like, ways to work around what's going on with social media if you don't like what's going on. I didn't even get specific. And someone's like, so you're with censorship then? And I was like, okay. I just told the team. I said, we're not even responding. Just block and blast. Like, that didn't.
Chelsea Handler
Yeah, you really have to, like, have a little bit of a thicker skin in general for life. It doesn't do you any good to, like, actually pay heed to any of those comments, regardless of whether they're about you personally or about the business. Like you really, it's, it's kind of like an necessary thing to be able to have a thicker skin, not only for you, for your company, for the other people that are working with you and together with you to demonstrate to them because you are a leader. And that requires leadership. And leadership is not somebody who's going through their comments and getting upset about it. Like, that's just not, that's not part of the equation. You can't.
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Leslie
It's cool.
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Chelsea Handler
A mother's love deserves a gift like no other. Celebrate her love, strength and style with heartfelt jewelry from Pandora. From iconic charms to sparkling necklaces, rings, earrings and more, there are so many ways to say thank you, Mom. Pandora even has in store engraving so you can treat your mom to a trip to the store and have your pieces engraved together with your own handwriting. So on Mother's Day and every day, tell her how much she means to you with a gift from Pandora. Visit Pandora in store or online@pandora.net Every.
Katherine
Morning brings a fresh new energy.
Chelsea
This is TODAY with.
Katherine
And no matter what the day holds, we come to the Today show for all of it.
Chelsea
When things are tough, we talk about it. When there's something to figure out, we dig into it. And when there's joy, we celebrate it.
Katherine
Because Today is where it's all happening. We get the best start to every morning because we start it together.
Chelsea
Watch the Today show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin. Weekdays at 7am on NBC.
Chelsea Handler
You really have to like have a little bit of a thicker skin. And can't you just block certain people? Like, why are you not doing that?
Leslie
Yeah, you can. And then they get so this particular person just got an army together, small community.
Brad
So it, it's not like, it's not like they just disappear, you know, they're still very much connected to the rest of the community too. So you know, in that kind of case it was delicate.
Leslie
But I think you, I like that the idea of a thicker skin. So I just guess like, were you born with a thick skin? Like, how did you get a thick skin? Because you do do things all the time that I'm sure piss a lot of people off, even though I think they're hilarious. And you know, like, how did you just start to go, I'm not gonn.
Chelsea Handler
I mean it's a practice. You have to like practice it. You're wasting your time on someone. It's negative energy. So you kind of have to look at it like even if you're looking at it in a business sense, like this does not help us succeed any further. This does not help us move the ball any further or closer to where we're going. So therefore it's not, it's not helpful. And treat it as something that is just so such a, like a business problem. Not even a personal thing. You know what I mean? Just remove your emotions from, from the whole subject. Cause these people have nothing to do. They're sitting at home writing negative comments on people's Instagram page. I've never once sat and wrote a negative comment on anyone's Instagram page because that's not how I spend my time. So don't give people who spend their time like that any credit or credence or anything. Just like you have to practice not giving a shit about what people are saying about you, whether it's good or bad. You know what I mean?
Katherine
Yeah, yeah. Because for example, like when we do these episodes, like minisodes or regular episodes or whatever, we all have some people. Like I didn't really like that episode. And then I'll have 10 people email in and be like, that episode was life changing. I loved what that person had to say. I loved what Chelsea said about xyz. Like you do have to remember that like just cuz one person is like maybe a crazy person or maybe just like something wasn't for them. Like, that's fine. People feel like they need to give you feedback, but like you don't actually need that.
Chelsea Handler
And then there's me, who pays zero attention to any of the feedback that we ever get on the podcast at all. And we're in our fifth season, so there you go.
Katherine
Cause you know what you like and you know how you want to operate and you're doing that the way you're doing.
Chelsea Handler
And I'm not just, you know, you have to be successful. Like the podcast has to be successful to go on. It doesn't just continue because I'm a celebrity or whatever. Like, we actually have to get listeners. But I also don't ever get consumed with what other people's thoughts like. And it's a good practice in life. Like start practicing it in your business and start letting it bleed through, through in your personal life. And it, it just, there's a sense of freedom that people are missing by, by paying such close attention to other people's think thoughts about them.
Katherine
I will also say, like, because you can't ever avoid the trolls and the noise completely. Like, yes, you have to get a thicker skin. But also maybe there's a system that you set up where Brad, if you're affected by this stuff, like, maybe it's not you, maybe it's somebody on your team goes through your inbox before you're going through it and is like, here are the ones that you can respond to personally. I already went through and blocked, you know, any trolls, any whatever. You're not going to be able to avoid it completely. But like, maybe there is a system in there where it's just like, okay, cool. I know like on the daily I have a team member and they're just like getting rid of the trash, getting rid of the junk mail, you know.
Chelsea Handler
That'S a good idea too.
Katherine
Yeah. Because you don't need to read mean things about yourself if you don't have to.
Leslie
No. Yeah. It's really funny. We joke that, like, I love my YouTube because the comments are either just actual questions or, you know, wonderful feedback or just people who are obsessed with like my feed or whatever. And so at least it's all complimentary. Like they're weird but like I'm good with it. And so, so. But it is interesting like how on the social platforms there it is like there's someone has to clean up the trash and if it's going to distract me, then outsourcing that until I can have a Thicker skin or until. Or never come back again because I have other things to do that might be the next step so that we can continue grow because we have so much fun doing what we're doing.
Katherine
Yeah. I think it's really important to remember that, like, we used to use our Instagram accounts like a journal. You know, it's like what you ate today and like, what you did last weekend. But especially because you're running a business on this specific account now that's no longer what it is. So I think you have to treat it like what it is, a business tool, which is how you've been using it the last few years. And it's time to outsource that $20 an hour work of sorting through DMs, sending some stuff to you customer service, deleting the trolls to one of your team members so you can free up headspace to focus on the big picture stuff in your business and run your business.
Chelsea Handler
Good, good.
Katherine
All right. Is that helpful?
Brad
Yeah, absolutely.
Leslie
I think so.
Chelsea Handler
And just remember the thought, like, go move forward with this thought. I'm a leader. Like, we're leaders. Think about the responsibility that that entails.
Leslie
Yeah, that one that. I think I'm going to keep putting that on replay.
Chelsea Handler
What would a leader do?
Leslie
Yeah, it just gets you out of the actual feeling of it and takes you outside of it. So I'm so grateful. This is really fun. This is really. I'm so. We're thankful. And I think this is a way to think about things moving forward.
Chelsea Handler
Great. Thanks for calling in, guys.
Brad
Thank you.
Katherine
They're very sweet. Yeah, I do think it's like, now, nowadays, like, normal people have to deal with this kind of stuff too. Like, it used to be just relegated to celebrities and even celebrities, like, okay, you might get something in the mail that's not very nice, but you didn't have this inundation daily of just like.
Chelsea Handler
Even more of the reason to just completely block it out. What a waste of time. Seriously. Imagine sitting in front of the mirror and being like, you're ugly, you're ugly. You're ugly to yourself for 15 minutes a day. That's what it's like reading comments.
Katherine
Yeah, I've been hearing this phrase around, but that's like, look, but don't stare. So it's like, okay, I can see that. I don't need to, like, take that on myself. You know?
Chelsea Handler
I like that.
Katherine
Yeah. All right.
Chelsea Handler
Okay, minisodes. This is our minisode, Minnie. Goodbye to you.
Katherine
Bye.
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Leslie
It's cool.
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Chelsea Handler
Mother'S love deserves a gift like no other. Celebrate her love, strength and style with heartfelt jewelry from Pandora. From iconic charms to sparkling necklaces, rings, earrings and more, there are so many ways to say thank you Mom. Pandora even has in store engraving so you can treat your mom to a trip to the store and have your pieces engraved together with your own handwriting. So on Mother's Day and every day, tell her how much she means to you with a gift from Pandora. Visit Pandora in store or online@pandora.net Lights.
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Dear Chelsea Minisode Summary: "Thick Skin with Chelsea + Catherine"
Episode Release Date: February 21, 2025
In this engaging minisode of Dear Chelsea, host Chelsea Handler teams up with co-host Catherine Law to delve into the often challenging topic of developing a thick skin, especially in the face of negative feedback and online trolls. Joined by callers Leslie and Brad, who run an online Pilates business, the conversation navigates personal struggles, business management, and strategies for maintaining resilience in a digital age.
The episode begins with Chelsea candidly sharing her ongoing battle with a shoulder infection. She humorously describes her rigorous daily routine, which includes hyperbaric chamber sessions, physical therapy, exercise attempts, and frequent icing of her arm.
Chelsea Handler [02:00]: "Do I sound like I'm complaining? Because I am. I'm fucking complaining."
Catherine empathizes, acknowledging the universal feeling of being overwhelmed when physically unwell.
Katherine introduces feedback from a listener named Margie, who finds inspiration in Chelsea's unapologetic approach to life and self-acceptance. Margie's message highlights how Chelsea's authenticity has empowered her to embrace her true self.
Margie (via Catherine) [03:24]: "Listening to you speak truth and strength with no apologies... Now I know I am [6ft tall] and I'm gonna love my truth. Keep kicking ass, Margie."
Chelsea seeks clarification but recognizes that Margie's message is a testament to the positive impact of their discussions.
Leslie and Brad, a couple who met Chelsea during her Las Vegas residency, join the conversation to discuss the challenges they face running their online Pilates business, OPC (Online Pilates Classes). Leslie outlines the difficulties of transitioning from a solo venture to a team-oriented business, particularly in managing customer interactions and negative comments.
Leslie [05:00]: "When something wouldn't go as planned, I tended to default to shouldering the burden and not sharing it. It's gotten easier, but sometimes I still struggle with this."
Brad adds perspective from the operational side, sharing experiences with handling trolls and negative feedback that can feel personal despite being professionally addressed.
Brad [07:51]: "It's not like they just disappear... so in that case it was delicate."
Chelsea emphasizes the importance of separating personal emotions from business challenges. She advocates for viewing negative comments and trolling as business problems rather than personal attacks, thereby fostering a resilient mindset.
Chelsea Handler [08:07]: "You really have to have a thicker skin in general for life. It doesn't do you any good to, like, actually pay heed to any of those comments..."
Katherine echoes this sentiment, suggesting practical solutions such as delegating the management of negative interactions to team members to prevent personal burnout.
Katherine [14:04]: "Maybe there's a system where Brad goes through the inbox before you're going through it and is like, here are the ones that you can respond to personally."
Leslie and Brad discuss implementing these strategies, recognizing the value of leadership in demonstrating resilience to their team.
Leslie [15:30]: "We joke that, like, I love my YouTube because the comments are either just actual questions or wonderful feedback... But it is interesting like how on the social platforms there it is like there's someone has to clean up the trash."
The conversation pivots to the broader role of leadership in managing negativity. Chelsea stresses that leaders must model thick-skinned behavior to inspire their teams and maintain a positive work environment.
Chelsea Handler [09:16]: "Leadership is not somebody who's going through their comments and getting upset about it. Like, that's just not part of the equation."
Katherine proposes establishing a systematic approach to handle online negativity, ensuring that business owners like Leslie can focus on growth without being bogged down by harmful comments.
Katherine [14:12]: "It's time to outsource that $20 an hour work of sorting through DMs... so you can free up headspace to focus on the big picture stuff in your business."
Leslie acknowledges the effectiveness of these strategies, expressing gratitude for the actionable advice.
Leslie [16:27]: "I think I'm going to keep putting that on replay... And I think this is a way to think about things moving forward."
As the minisode wraps up, Chelsea reinforces the necessity of adopting a thick skin both personally and professionally. She encourages leaders to detach emotionally from negative feedback and focus on progressive, positive actions.
Chelsea Handler [12:05]: "It's a practice. You have to like practice it... Just remove your emotions from the whole subject."
Katherine summarizes the importance of treating social media as a business tool and delegating tasks to maintain mental well-being and business efficacy.
Katherine [15:30]: "Treat it like what it is, a business tool... outsourcing that until I can have a thicker skin or until..."
Leslie and Brad express their appreciation, highlighting how the discussion provided them with new perspectives and strategies to implement in their business operations.
Leslie [16:40]: "This is really fun. This is really... And I think this is a way to think about things moving forward."
In "Thick Skin with Chelsea + Catherine," the minisode offers a profound exploration of resilience in both personal and professional realms. Through candid dialogue and real-life examples, Chelsea and Catherine provide listeners with practical strategies to manage negativity and lead effectively. The episode underscores the importance of emotional detachment from harmful feedback, systematic delegation, and the cultivation of a resilient mindset to navigate the complexities of modern social interactions and business challenges.
Notable Quotes:
These quotes encapsulate the episode's core messages about resilience, leadership, and personal growth.