Best of 1000 Episodes! Part Two

Summary

The Cathy Heller Podcast – “Best of 1000 Episodes! Part Two”

Date: January 30, 2026
Host: Cathy Heller
Episode Theme: Celebrating 1,000 episodes by sharing transformative, memorable moments from world-class guests and listeners—showcasing the podcast’s core purpose: identity transformation, genuine manifestation, and living aligned with your highest truth.

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Episode Overview

This special “Best Of” episode marks the second part of the Cathy Heller Podcast’s 1,000th episode celebration. Cathy curates powerful clips and interviews from past episodes, spotlighting transformative insights from renowned guests like Dr. Edith Eger, Jason Mraz, Brian Grazer, Marianne Williamson, Christina Perri, Mitch Albom, Barbara Corcoran, listener success stories, and more. Each segment embodies the show’s ethos: real, grounded personal transformation and practical manifestation.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Dr. Edith Eger – Resilience and Choice

[03:17]

• Dr. Eger, Holocaust survivor and psychologist, addresses the ever-present question: Where was God in Auschwitz?
• Her transformative perception: life’s worst tragedies can become “an opportunity for an opportunity” for personal development.
• She powerfully reframes victimhood into agency:

  “If I would hate, I would still be a prisoner. Why give Hitler a mandate? So, not recovery, but discovery that I have strength—whether I’m going to respond or react.”
  (Dr. Edith Eger, 04:26)

• Teaches children (and us): what you think, you create. Anger makes you “bankrupt” because you allow someone else to control your state.

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2. Jason Mraz – Staying True to the Dream

[05:25]

• Jason Mraz recounts his journey from day jobs to performing in coffee shops—emphasizing that the “small” gig was already his dream realized.

  “I didn’t have any expectation or even dream beyond that coffee shop stage. I never did. Everything that’s happened since then has been this freak bonus to the dream.”
  (Jason Mraz, 07:22)

• He stresses that success isn’t about size of stage but authenticity and the relationship with the craft, advice rooted in humility:

  “The real garden of songwriting and entertaining for me was the little coffee shop. The small audience doesn't have room for your big ego—they want to hear the song, they want to see who you are.”
  (Jason Mraz, 09:08)

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3. Brian Grazer – The Power of Curiosity and Win-Win

[09:30]

• Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer built his career by meeting industry leaders not for favors but genuine connection.
• Research, generosity, and true interest caused doors to open repeatedly.

  “If you're trying to meet somebody for a transaction itself, it’s not a win-win. It’s a win-lose… By being attentive and informed and inadvertently giving the person you’re meeting something too… they get to grow along with you. So it’s win-win.”
  (Brian Grazer, 10:50)

• Story of calling out to Ron Howard and building a 40-year creative partnership, emphasizing serendipity rooted in initiative and empathy.

  “You gain so much professionally by not putting your hand in their pocket right away.”
  (Brian Grazer, 11:35)

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4. Marianne Williamson – Oneness Over Separation

[13:25]

• Williamson uses metaphors of sunbeams and waves to express the illusion of separation:

  “You are like a sunbeam thinking you are separate from other sunbeams… There is no place where one wave stops and another begins. We just think we are separate from that which in fact cannot be.”
  (Marianne Williamson via Kathy Heller, 13:28)

• The core of fear is the mistaken belief in separation from the whole; the remedy is remembering our oneness with life itself.

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5. Morgan Harper Nichols – Owning Your Words/Public Identity

[15:15]

• Morgan shares her vulnerable leap—posting her poem, signing her name for the first time, and witnessing unexpected viral spread online.

  “The poem starts with, ‘when you start to feel like things should have been better this year, remember the mountains and valleys that brought you here.’ …It was in that moment I realized maybe this is supposed to have my name on it.”
  (Morgan Harper Nichols, 15:52)

• The impact of her personal story mirrored back by strangers showed her “maybe this is bigger than me.” The episode celebrates the courage to step into visibility.

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6. Barbara Corcoran – Money as Flow & Trust

[20:17]

• Barbara reframes money as energy to be circulated, not hoarded:

  “My attitude toward money is it’s got one purpose only—to be spent. You have to have money. It's meant to be spent… I spend money on whatever I want as long as I feel like it’s worthy. And I have always found it comes back to me.”
  (Barbara Corcoran, 20:19 & 22:16)

• Contrasts scarcity and abundance mindsets, pinpointing how beliefs about money mirror deeper beliefs about life.

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7. Mitch Albom – Purpose Found in Service

[23:02]

• Albom recounts how “Tuesdays with Morrie” was never a careerist move but born from a desire to serve his dying mentor:

  “It was never supposed to be a book… But because it was for somebody else, which is a lesson in and of itself, I pushed harder, and I found a publisher who was interested in it.”
  (Mitch Albom, 27:31)

• The ripple effect of small acts of service; sometimes huge impact comes not from ambition, but care.

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8. Listener Spotlights – Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Courage

Greg “The Cheesecake Ninja” Franklin

[31:56]

• Greg’s story of giving up an unfulfilling job to make and sell cheesecakes full-time after being unexpectedly let go:

  “My supervisor was walking me out the door… [said] now you can sell cheesecakes full time. …I was on my way home and I was pretty terrified because I was gonna have to tell my wife that I got let go from my job. …She kind of looked at me and said, well, you're gonna have to start selling more cheesecakes.”
  (Greg Franklin, 34:32–35:10)

Takti Razak – Entrepreneurship & Self-Belief

[35:37]

• Takti describes how the podcast and manifestation shifted her small business and mindset from scarcity to abundance:

  “Just start with anything and you can make abundance of love and courage and happiness. …You, God shows you the path. I made God my partner, and then once you do that, it’s unlimited resources.”
  (Takti Razak, 38:00–40:00)

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9. Cathy Heller – Overcoming Overthinking & The Courage to Want

[41:07]

• Cathy candidly unpacks why people play small: fear of disappointment and the myth of needing to be “fine.”

  “We don’t think we’re enough. But I’m telling you, with all your bruises and all your scars and all your broken parts, you’re enough. …You have to have the courage to be mediocre sometimes, and then more and more brilliant things are going to come out of you.”
  (Cathy Heller, 47:23–48:45)

• Honest anecdotes about fear, vulnerability, and the power of showing up “unready” but willing.

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10. Christina Perri – The Science and Magic of Manifestation

[50:41]

• Christina describes how a whimsical “Letter to the Universe” manifested her music career quantum leap, including direct contact with Jason Mraz’s manager and rapid success, all after surrendering to guidance.

  “I want to say I also wrote it down, so I definitely believe in manifesting and showing up. I just said yes to everything. I was so scared, said yes to all of that.”
  (Christina Perri, 56:18–56:47)

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11. Alex Banayan – The Third Door Mindset

[56:53]

• Shares his “nightclub” analogy: The greatest barrier to dreams isn’t the work, but leaving the safety of the familiar.

  “The hardest part of achieving a dream is having the courage to leave the line for the first door… The hard part is having the courage to leave behind the life you already have.”
  (Alex Banayan, 58:55)

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12. Bronnie Ware – The Top Regret of the Dying

[60:00]

• Bronnie distills her work as a palliative care nurse:

  “The most common regret was people wishing that they'd lived a life true to themselves, not a life that other people expected of them.”
  (Bronnie Ware, 60:07)

• Touching story of “Grace,” who never got to travel due to prioritizing others’ expectations—and Bronnie’s promise, made in tears, to live courageously herself.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “If I would hate, I would still be a prisoner. Why give Hitler a mandate?”
  — Dr. Edith Eger, [04:26]

• “Everything that’s happened since then has been this freak bonus to the dream.”
  — Jason Mraz, [07:22]

• “By being attentive and informed… people want to open up and share their journey. So it's win-win.”
  — Brian Grazer, [10:50]

• “We just think we are separate from that which in fact cannot be.”
  — Marianne Williamson, [13:28]

• "It’s one thing too, when other people start to talk to you about what you’re doing… That makes you realize, oh wait, this is bigger than me.”
  — Morgan Harper Nichols, [19:13]

• “Money’s meant to be spent… throw money out, and I have always found it comes back to me.”
  — Barbara Corcoran, [22:16]

• "Because it was for somebody else… I pushed harder. That’s a lesson in and of itself.”
  — Mitch Albom, [27:31]

• “You have to have the courage to be mediocre sometimes, and then more and more brilliant things are going to come out of you.”
  — Cathy Heller, [48:45]

• "I just said yes to everything. I was so scared, said yes to all of that.”
  — Christina Perri, [56:47]

• "The hardest part of achieving a dream is having the courage to leave the line for the first door.”
  — Alex Banayan, [58:55]

• “The most common regret was people wishing that they’d lived a life true to themselves, not a life that other people expected of them.”
  — Bronnie Ware, [60:07]

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Key Takeaways

• Our biggest transformations come from reframing suffering as “opportunity for opportunity” (Dr. Eger), following our authentic callings (Jason Mraz, Bronnie Ware), and having the courage to be imperfect (Cathy Heller, Christina Perri).
• Manifestation works when rooted in genuine alignment, service, and stepping outside our comfort zones (Morgan Harper Nichols, Mitch Albom, Alex Banayan).
• Money, creativity, and life are forms of energy—circulate them, don’t hoard them (Barbara Corcoran, Brian Grazer).
• The greatest regrets are not for mistakes made, but for lives unlived according to our true inner call (Bronnie Ware).

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Resources & Further Actions

• Join Cathy’s Abundant Life private membership or community calls: kathyheller.com/gift
• Vote for the new show rebrand/name on Cathy’s Instagram: @cathy.heller
• Listen to the Aquarius Energy masterclass for deeper manifestation insights
• Share your favorite episode or testimonial online to celebrate 1,000+ episodes and spread the transformation

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In Cathy’s spirit:
“You are enough. With all your bruises and all your scars and all your broken parts, you’re enough.”
— Kathy Heller, [47:23]

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Transcript

[Kathy Heller]

Let me ask you something.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

What would shift if you actually trusted.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

How supported you are this week? Only you can join this Abundant Life, my private membership, for just $1. And truly, this is one of the most generous things I offer. This is where we slow down, tune in, and start living from alignment instead of pressure. It's where we take everything we talk about intuition, abundance, purpose and actually integrate it into your everyday life. You remember who you really are, you start creating from that place, you change your energy and your life completely shifts inside. I'll be going live, teaching, welcoming new members on a special call, and we're celebrating in really beautiful ways. You'll also get instant access to my recent Aquarius Energy masterclass about vision, planting seeds and setting the frequency for what you want to grow this spring. This $1 trial is only available this week and it's such a powerful way to step in and feel it for yourself. Just, just go to kathy heller.com gift I would absolutely love to be in.

[Kathy Heller]

This space with you.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

Hey guys, it's Kathy Heller. Welcome back. Today is part two of our 1000th episode celebration. We're continuing the party with a few more epic moments that have shaped the podcast over the years. Today you're going to hear clips from incredible guests like Jason Mraz, Marian Williamson, Brian Grazer, Dr. Edith Eger, Barbara Corcoran, Christina Perry, Mitch Albom, and a few more. And I just can't wait. I'm so grateful to you guys and I have a couple fun announcements. Number one, we have decided that because we've just crossed this thousand episode mark, it's time to give the show a facelift. It's time to spruce things up a little bit. So we are going to do a rebrand and we have a new logo and a new name and if you want to take a look, I I actually asked you guys to vote on which cover and which name you like best. It is pinned to the top of my Instagram grid. If you go to my Instagram Athy Heller, you can take a look and you can vote. So far it looks pretty obvious what the majority vote is, but go ahead and take a look and you will have a sneak peek at what the rebrand is going to look like. Also, we are doing a big celebration. So because of our 1000th episode, we want everyone to get to be a part of the community where we meet every other Tuesday in real life on Zoom. And I get to have time to answer questions and teach and I'm teaching you guys deep, deep stuff to help you truly change your life. Change your energy, change your life. So if you want to join us, go to kathyheller.com gift I'll be doing a call with new members on February 9th. We're doing a celebration of the podcast. It's going to be so, so much fun. You can join us for just a dollar. Go to kathyheller.com gift and because this month is all about Aquarius, you're going to hear the master class that I gave. And we'll be talking more about how you can manifest using the leverage of the energy that's available to us in this time. Okay, so to dive into this episode, we're starting with the incredible Dr. Edith Eger. She's sharing some such a great reminder about resilience and choice and the freedom that comes when we know how to respond to life.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

You know, you've said the word God eight times maybe already, maybe more.

[Kathy Heller]

I love my God Stinker them, the free spirit. I People tell me, where was God in Auschwitz? Right?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

That's what I was going to ask you because it's so easy for people to say, no way, no way.

[Kathy Heller]

So how do you have that? Kant was with me, changing the hatred into pity, feeling sorry for the God that they were wearing that uniform, throwing children in a gas chamber. So I can call Auschwitz what you call many things, an opportunity. It was an opportunity for an opportunity, for an opportunity to develop, that happiness doesn't come from the outside, that no one makes me happy. I developed my inner resources, and the more I suffered, the stronger I became. You turn tragedy into an opportunity, into a victory. If I would hate, I would still be a prisoner. Why give Hitler a Mandarin? So opportunity for an opportunity. Not recovery, but discovery that I have strength, whether I'm going to respond or react. When you react, you don't think I tell children to take that movie called the Karnatekid because breast power is brain power. Yeah. So what you think you create, that's very important, and that's what you're saying. And anger. While you are angry, you're bankrupt because you allowed somebody to get to you.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

Up next is Jason Mraz, and here he's talking about a beautiful perspective on creativity and why the coffee shop stage was already the dream.

[Jason Mraz]

That was my goal when I quit college shortly thereafter and I started focusing on just my music. I worked as a janitor. I worked for the post office because my dad got me a gig there. I worked at a tobacco shop. I worked a lot of different odd jobs, all knowing that one day I'M going to be a musician and I'm not going to have this traditional day job. When I got to the coffee shops three, four years later and I'm working in the coffee shop playing music a couple of nights a week, I had made it. That, to me, was the finish line. I said, oh, my God, I don't have a day job. This is my gig. All I have to do now is book enough gigs to pay my bills. And so I would work 2, 3, 4 coffee shops a week until I was really doing enough business at one or two coffee shops only that I didn't have to bounce around the city so much, you know, and it wasn't Madison Square Garden or anything like that. That didn't matter. What mattered to me was me and music. We are. We are intimately thriving. We're intimately connected. We are doing what we were meant to do. And I didn't have any expectation or even dream beyond that coffee shop stage. I never did. Everything that's happened since then has been this freak bonus to the dream. Yeah, it really has. And I think that that is credit to those influencers I met in that Vegas hotel room. Bill Silva and Marty Diamond. Bill Silva became my manager and he managed me for 18 years. And Marty diamond was my booking agent for just as long. And these guys, once I was really established in the coffee shop, they were able to take that and help me take that to the next level. But in my mind, I was already where I wanted to be. Yeah, I never needed to go any further because the music is the reward. And being challenged to write new songs for the stage, that's. That's the work. And having something to say that's meaningful, that's the work. The getting around from city to city and touring and the venues getting bigger and all that, that's the music business basically just going bananas. And that's managers and agents and lawyers doing all of that stuff. That wasn't really who I am. So I was able to still go through that, go through those motions and play all those different venues because really, they were no different than the coffee shops. I didn't have to believe anything different about myself to play Royal Albert hall vs Java Joe's Coffee Shop. I just had to still do the work, be a great performer, write good songs, etc. And in the back of my mind, I always thought all of this could go away one day. I've seen careers rise and fall. I'm not going to believe that I'm supposed to be in these big, big, big venues. My Whole life. Because at any point, it could go away, and I'm going to have to go back to that coffee shop. And I actually never stopped going to those coffee shops. So when the tour would end, I would go back to those coffee shops and keep playing my coffee shop shows.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Mraz]

Or when I had new music that I was working on, I'd go to the coffee shop first and then test the songs out there. So that really helped me not change, because the real church, the real garden of songwriting and entertaining for me was the little coffee shop. That was really where the small audience doesn't have room for your big ego. You know, they want to hear the song. They want to see who you are. And I think that really helped me stay who I am.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

This next moment comes from Brian Grazer, who's an incredible producer. He's sharing how curiosity, generosity, and a win win mindset shaped his entire creative career.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

For the 18 months. I did every day reach out to meet somebody, and that was, you know, central or principle in the business of making movies or television shows. And I found that almost actually, every person agreed except one person. Wow. And what I learned out of it was by saying I do not want a job was a very essential ingredient.

[Kathy Heller]

Yeah.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

That you want to meet somebody, you're saying in a very short way. I researched you or your boss often. I was always talking to the assistants. I'd research the bosses thoroughly. And people, like. When you do research and people that are accomplished like to talk. If you are informed, if you research them and you're kind and generous and smart and have smart eyes, then people want to open up and. And they want to share their journey. So I realized early on these special ingredients of. I didn't realize this until later about eye contact, but by being attentive and informed and inadvertently giving the person you're meeting something to. If you're informed enough, they get to grow along with you. So it's win win.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

If you're trying to meet somebody for a transaction itself, it's not a win win. It's a win lose.

[Kathy Heller]

Mm.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

And I found that I wasn't a fully really outgoing kid. I'm outgoing now. But what gave me confidence is that I did look myself in the mirror. And, you know, I was an imperfect person, but I was really conscientious about this win win. I taught be informed. Create the best date for them, too.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

And that fortified my sense of confidence and sense of self. It made the journey really valuable on multiple levels without saying, hey, let me put my hand in your pocket.

[Kathy Heller]

Right.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

So.

[Kathy Heller]

Right.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

You gain so much professionally by the way by not doing that right away.

[Kathy Heller]

Yep.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

So that's what those experiences did for me and they gave me a lot of confidence. So now I get fired from Warner Brothers and I get a really crappy job about a year later. And then it's a long story, but I was able to produce some movies for TV when I was 24 and they got very high ratings. And so I was lucky. But it was really a function of that opportunity meets preparation, so that all that ambition kind of worked and funneled into those ingredients. And so therefore these movies are tv, incredibly successful. And I got offered a million jobs. I ended up going to Paramount Studios and I want to continue this journey of meeting people. So now I have an office on the third floor of the director's building. And I look at and I think, I haven't met a new person today. And I see Ron Howard, American icon, star of Happy Days, Richie Cunningham. You know, I don't judge that. I just think that guy would be interesting to meet. So I yell out my window, like across this quad area. And it terrified him that some guy was yelling. Yeah, because he's kind of shy. And then so he ran, ducked away, like he, you know, he just ran away. Ran away from the guy was yelling at him. And I then called his office that I was the guy yelling out the window. And I'm a young guy like Ron and telling his assistant Louisa. And then he gets on the phone and he agrees to meet with me. And that was the beginning of the a 40 year partnership.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

Now here's a clip from the amazing Marian Williamson offering such a good reframe on fear and separation and what it means to remember who we really are.

[Kathy Heller]

The course says, you are like a sunbeam, thinking you are separate from other sunbeams. You're like a wave in the ocean thinking you're separate from other waves. But there's actually no place where one sunbeam stops and another sunbeam starts. There really is no spot where one wave stops and another wave begins. What we have is the thought that we are separate from that which in fact cannot be separate from us. Now think of the different psychological and emotional orientation depending whether I think of myself as one wave separated from all the other waves in the ocean, versus my experience of myself, others and life itself. If I think of myself as a wave that is connected to every other wave. So if I think of myself as a wave, a little wave in this huge ocean separate from all the other waves, how can I not live in constant terror that I will be obliterated by another wave? How can I not live in constant terror that I will be annihilated on some level by the hugeness of the ocean? Now, the other possibility, that which arises from truth, is there's no place where I stop and it starts. I'm part of this ocean. I move. It moves. It moves. I move. I'm part of this whole thing. I'm huge. The power of the ocean is in me, and I'm part of the power of the ocean. And there's nothing to fear in the ocean. It is my identity.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

This next clip is from Morgan Harper Nichols, and she's talking about the quiet, pivotal moment when her words found their way to the world. And it changed everything.

[Morgan Harper Nichols]

One night in 2016, I was sitting at home, and it was just like the weight of feeling like a failure just hit me like a ton of bricks, like it's never hit me before. And it was just something about that night where I was like, I don't know if I'll ever recover from this. Like, maybe I'm never gonna find a pace that makes sense. Maybe I'm always gonna be broke. Maybe this is just my life. And it was in that moment that I sat down at my desk and I picked up a journal that I hadn't opened in who knows how long. And I wrote a poem for the first time in years. And the poem starts with, when you start to feel like things should have been better this year. Remember the mountains and valleys that brought you here. And I just wrote the whole thing down. And then I got ready to close the notebook, and at the last second, I wrote my name at the bottom. And the reason why that's significant for me is because over these years, I've tried to, like, just trying all these different things. I had actually started a blog that was kind of, like, anonymous, and I had started to write there, but I never put my name on it. And it was just something about this one that I was like, you know what? I think that this is supposed to have my name on it. So I wrote my name on it, and then I took a picture of it, and I was like, maybe I'll share it. So I took a picture of it, and then I got ready to share it on Instagram, and I was like, no, too many people over there. I was like, I'm. I'm going to share it on Pinterest because nobody follows me over there. So this is just. This would just be my way of sharing it. I'll just share it on Pinterest and forget about it. So that's what I did. This is in November, in 2016. A few months later, I started getting DMs on Instagram. People were saying, hey, did you see this reality star? She posted your poem. Like there's a poem on her page with your name on it. Did you write that? And I went and looked at. I was like, yes, I did. I don't know how she found it, but that was me. That's kind of interesting. And then a few days later, I got another message from someone else who like, hey, did you see this other reality star? She shared your quote. I was like, I don't know how she found that. I was like, I posted that on Pinterest one time. I was like, oh wait, yeah, Pinterest. And I went and looked at Pinterest and that pin had been pinned over a hundred thousand times.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh my God.

[Morgan Harper Nichols]

Till this day, I don't know where it took off. I don't know how it got to that point. I mean, I had a Pinterest, but it wasn't something I was really like promoting or sharing.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

No, right.

[Morgan Harper Nichols]

And I. Till this day, I have no idea how that happened. And from there, that one poem just started to get shared more and more. And people started to ask me, do you have more of that? And I was like, no, that was just like a one time thing. But people were asking, they're like, do you have more poems about this? Like, can you write more? And I was like, well, okay. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what's ahead anyway, I might as well give it a shot. I might as well try. So honestly, that was the launching pad to where I've been over the past two years of sharing art at the capacity that I'm sharing it. I was still struggling with self doubt and feeling like this is just a thing to buy the time until I figure out what my thing is. I don't really see how this is going to pay any bills. I don't see how this is going to save itself. But I'll just keep doing it because it's something about and what I learned. One of the biggest things I learned from this, it's something too. When other people start to talk to you about what you're doing.

[Kathy Heller]

Yes.

[Morgan Harper Nichols]

It makes you realize like, oh, wait a second, like this is bigger than me. Maybe there is something here. So that's kind of what was happening for me. It's like once I started to read these messages. I'm like, these are real people. These are real people who. I don't know, who are being encouraged by this. I don't know how they're being encouraged by this. I'm like, this was so deeply personal for me, but, you know, maybe there's something to that. And I just kind of had this weird thing. I was like, I don't want to let them down, you know, because I. I would get messages from people who would say things like, I just lost a loved one. And this was really encouraging. And, you know, that's. That really humbled me because it was like, you know, here I am, like, putting all this pressure on myself, making it all about, like, how am I going to make this something? How? And it's like, what if this something was just connecting with one other person one at a time? Like, what if that's what it's about?

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

Now we're going to listen to this candid conversation with Barbara Corcoran about money and freedom and why our relationship with abundance matters more than we think.

[Kathy Heller]

My attitude toward money is it's got one purpose only to be spent. That's my attitude toward money. You have to have money. It's meant to be spent. I inherited that from my mother, who should have worried herself sick over money because my dad was constantly fired for insubordination. He was arrogant. I should have worried herself sick over money. Never worried about money. A day in her life. Never worried about money. That was her magic. She never made us feel stressed about money. And it's not like she's secretly worried. She just had a belief it will all work out. It'll all work out. And it always did work out. Bubsy the grocer floated the family for a few months till we caught back up Marty. Mr. Khan brought the sale dresses in and we got those to wear back to school instead of the usual dresses. Something always worked out. People pitch in. But I think it was her lack of respect for money, actually, that was her best advocate. Now, today with me, I spend money on whatever I want as long as I feel like it's worthy. Worthy. Could be. I'm worth that designer dress. I look a lot better and feel better in it, and I buy it right away, you know, and then, of course, I think if I don't spend it, my kids are going to spend it when I'm dead and they're going to be spoiled rotten, so I better spend it as quick as I can. I just think money is meant to be spent and if that's your philosophy in growing a business, that money is meant to be spent, and you spend it so fast that you never get your hands on the money. It's a receivable coming in, and you already have an earmark for something else. You wind up growing your business very fast. I was out to out compete with my big competitors. I think because of my attitude toward money. They made it, they owned it. A lot of them inherited it, and they had to carefully craft it. Not me. I'm like, throw it to the wind and see if it works, you know? And so while they were protecting, I was spending. And that's how you grow a business. You can't be frugal and grow anything. Frugal is. I don't want to knock people who are frugal, but a lot comes with frugal. From what I've seen, frugal people hold money tight and value it, and they usually value their emotions. Hold it tight. They usually are not sharers. They usually don't like to play in teams. A lot comes with that. Money's a representation of the spirit of the individual in a way. So throw money out. And I have always found it comes back to me. I've never worried a day about money, and I've always had money. Even the worst of times, something will happen. Like my mother said, it always works out, and it's always worked out for me.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

Okay, here's a story that I love. Mitch Albom, who's actually coming back on the show very soon. Here he talks about the unexpected path that led him to creating a contribution and a legacy that he could never have imagined.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

You decide to write this book. Why did you feel like, okay, I need to sit down with him and write this book?

[Mitch Albom]

Tuesdays with Maury.

[Kathy Heller]

Yeah.

[Mitch Albom]

Oh, well, that really wasn't the decision to write the book. I had been very close with Maury when I was in college. I took every class that he offered. We walked around campus together, we ate meals together, went to his home. I mean, he was really more like an uncle, you know, to me. And I spent all four years in his company. And he made me promise when I graduated that I would stay in touch, and I promised I would. And then I broke that promise for 16 years, while I got. First I got tangled in the music business, and then I got into the journalism business, and I advanced very quickly once I got into the journalism business as a sports writer, I had a lot of success early on, and. And I reached 37 without ever having called him. And then one night I happened to be flipping the remote control, and there he was on the Nightline program talking to Ted Koppel about what it was like to die. And that was the only way that I even found out that he was sick. So I called him. It's a funny story, because I had called Maury coach back in college. That was my affectation for hi, Coach, how you doing, Coach? That kind of thing. And when I saw him on Nightline, I decided I would call him up. That was all it was going to be. I was just going to call him up, make a phone call, ease my conscience, and then, I guess, go back to my busy life. And when I called him up, I had long since forgotten this nickname. And the nurse answered the phone, she handed it to him. And I remember exactly what I said. Hello, Professor Schwartz, my name is Mitch Albom. I was just student of yours in the 70s. I don't know if you remember me. And the first thing he said to me after 16 years was, how come you didn't call me Coach? And so, needless to say, by the end of the conversation, I was going to visit him. Because guilt is a very powerful motivator. And still I was going to visit him one time. That was going to be it. But I was just so taken with the way he was handling his dying from Lou Gehrig's disease. And the fact that he couldn't move his legs and could barely move his arms at that point and knew he was going to die. But he was still so vibrant and had so much to say and wasn't at all interested in the things that I was interested in. And I remember going home that night saying, you know, you're 37 years old. You're perfectly healthy. And he's 78 years old and dying. And he seems 10 times more content and happy with his life than you are. And there's something the matter here. And so I began to go back every Tuesday, and one after another after another after another. And it turned out to be all the Tuesdays that he had left in his life. And we kind of did this last class together on what's really important in life once you know you're going to die? And wouldn't it be great to have that knowledge now when you're young enough, as I was, healthy enough, to maybe change your life and do something about it? But it was never supposed to be a book, Kathy. I mean, it was. It was just an experience. The book came about when he told me one day that he was afraid that he was going to die twice. And I said, what does that mean? And he said, well, first I'm going to die when I die, and then I'm going to die when I realize wherever I am next that my family has to sell the house to pay my bills because of all these bills I've accrued for years. And, you know, dying slowly, we don't have the money to pay it. So it was then that I got the idea, well, maybe I could write a book to help him pay his bills. And I didn't tell him that I was going to try to do that because I was afraid, well, if I say that and I go out and then I fail, I'm just going to make his life worse. So I privately went to these different publishers around New York all while this was all going on. And I said to them, this is kind of an amazing experience as an old man talking to a young man about what matters in life. I don't need a lot of money. Here's exactly the amount that I need. This is how much money he needs. That's what I need. And everybody said, no. Everybody said, no. Publishers, Famous publishers, not interested. Boring, depressing. Nobody's going to want to read a book like that. You're a sports writer. One very prestigious publishing house, who I won't mention, told me that I didn't know what a memoir was, and I should come back in 20 years and maybe I would understand what a memoir was. So I really would have given up. To be honest, Kathy, if it was for me, I would have thought, well, this is a terrible idea. Look at how many people are just spitting at it.

[Kathy Heller]

It's.

[Mitch Albom]

Forget it, okay, I'll go on to something else. But because it was for somebody else, which is a lesson in and of itself, I pushed harder, and I found a publisher who was interested in it. And when we were able to come to an agreement, a few weeks or more, and I went to him and told him that, hey, you know, all these conversations we're taping and stuff like that, well, there's a publisher that wants to turn it into a book. And he said, oh, really?

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

Who?

[Mitch Albom]

And I said, doubleday. He said, ooh, I heard of them. I said, well, not only that, but they're going to give us some money. I want you to take all the money and pay off your medical bills so you don't have to die twice, you know. And I always say, Kathy, that for me, that was the end of Tuesdays with Maury, the experience, because I Had kind of, you know, come from a place where I was really just looking out for myself and my own career and those kinds of things to committing to do something that would help somebody else. And at the time had no promise for me. I just wanted to be a sports writer. So for me this was just a like, okay, this is going to take me some time to go off to left field and do this, but it's worth doing because I can help him. I finally did one nice thing for this man who had done so many nice things for me. So, you know, he never read a word of Tuesdays with Maury. I didn't start writing it until after he passed away. I wrote it as simply as I could. I didn't want to embellish it with a lot of heavy duty words and look at me, I can write about death type of thing. I knew that that would be a bad idea, so I just tried to keep it really simple. And in fact, it was supposed to be a 300 page book. That was the contract. But I'd never written a book of that nature before. I had no idea what 300 pages looked like. And, and I was typing it, you know, and so I just turned it in and they called me and they said, well, okay, you know, we'll go over this, but first of all, this is way short. I said, what do you mean way short? And they said, well, it was supposed to be a 300 page book. This is going to be like 175 page book. And I said, well, that's all I got, you know, I mean, I told the story. That's all I had to say. And to their credit, they said, that's okay, we'll make it a small book. And if you've ever seen any of my books, I don't got one line. This is the only one I have here. But you see the size of it. They're small. And the only reason that they're small is because there wasn't enough of Tuesdays with Maury to fit a big book because it would have looked like a comic book. So they made it small. And then unbeknownst to me, Tuesdays with Maury became this, you know, big success. And so then every book I wrote afterwards had to be that size. You know, no matter even if the wrote a big one, there's still that side. So it wasn't supposed to be Kathy. I mean, all this is a long answer to your question, but I didn't decide to write that book. It sort of happened. And then I wasn't planning on that book being anything. They printed 20,000 copies and I thought I'd have them in the trunk of my car for the rest of my life, you know, and I'd be giving them out at Christmas, so. And then a funny thing happened. They just. People began to read it. There's no other explanation for it. It didn't. Came out in August of 1997. Didn't show up on a bestsellers list until November of 1997, nearly four months later. Yeah, almost four months later. And then didn't reach the top of those lists until April of the following year. So it was just this slow sort of people passing it around. I'm not even sure it could happen today. But it did back then. And that changed my life. I've never written a sportsbook since. I've. My whole direction of my interests and outside life and everything has changed as a result of that. But it was never my intention. As John Lennon famously said, life is what happens to you while you're busy making plans. And my plans were something else. And the world had other plans for me.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

So this podcast wouldn't be complete if it wasn't for you and if it wasn't for the people who've listened to the show and who've written me so many letters about how the show is actually changing their life, including the amazing Greg Franklin, AKA the Cheesecake Ninja. And here he shares the inspiring story of how his cheesecake business came to life.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

I was making plastic bags for dog food companies and cat food companies, and. And I did not like that job. So I would work all night for 12 hours, and then I would come home on my last day and I would immediately start making cheesecakes. Or I would make cheesecakes before I would work that rotating shift nights, and then I would work all night, and then I would get in my car as soon as I got off on that last day, and then I would go sell cheesecakes.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh, my God. And you're. What are you just like feeding something into a machine all day?

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

Not even that. Most of the time I'm just sitting that. I was sitting there making sure that it stayed running.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh, my God, I want to cry for you.

[Christina Perry]

I hate this.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh my God.

[Kathy Heller]

And.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And it probably doesn't pay you six figures a year.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

No, no, no. It. It paid decent. It allowed me to do what I wanted to. But I'm like, let's hurry up and get this shift over so I can go home and do what I actually, yeah, want to do. And as soon as I left, it was kind of like the building disappeared and didn't ex. And I didn't have to worry about that for several days. And I could do what I wanted to. Selling cheesecake and being a people person to people that I actually liked because they liked what I was making.

[Kathy Heller]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And then eventually you're doing this. So what happened?

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

The next big thing was I had went into work like I always do, and there was a particularly bad day where there was some mistakes made and it was my fault and I got in a little trouble for it. This was July 24th or 25th.

[Kathy Heller]

Wow.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

And I went throughout the day, then went home. I was off for my normal days. And then I went in on a Monday, which was July 31 and national cheesecake Day. So I was kind of slightly annoyed that I had to work at my full time job because it was National Cheesecake dude. It was like my national. My national holiday, and I didn't get a play in it. So I went to work and I'd been working for a couple hours, and I got called into the office and my supervisor said, we're gonna go ahead and let you go since you made your errors last week. We can't have you work here anymore. And I'm like, I really wasn't upset. I kind of looked at him. I'm like, couldn't you have told me this on Friday? Because today is my national holiday. And I.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Did you say that?

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

I did.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I love it.

[Kathy Heller]

And he.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

He kind of looked at me. I'm like, it's National Cheesecake Day. And it's like, oh, I didn't really think about that. And I said, you wouldn't have because you're not the cheesecake ninja. So my supervisor was walking me out the door and he said, hey, now you can sell cheesecakes full time. And I said, that is not funny, because now I don't have a job at all. And I don't sell enough cheesecakes to warrant doing that. So I was on my way home and I was pretty terrified because I was gonna have to tell my wife that I got let go from my job.

[Kathy Heller]

Yeah.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

I walked in and she kind of looked at me and said, well, you're gonna have to start selling more cheesecakes. I said, I gotta do what I gotta do.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

Another listener I'd love to spotlight is Takti Razak. She's become such a dear friend of mine. She's made such an impact with her beautiful work, who she is in so many ways. And I always love listening to this origin story of her company. Wow, Meme.

[Kathy Heller]

My life and my business has changed just by listening to your podcast. I still remember I had an accident back in October 2020, and I was driving home from the chiropractor in December. I think it was almost near New Year's. And I don't know how I stumbled upon your podcast. And I listened to the two episodes at the end of the year where you highlight all year round like podcasts. So I was listening to it and I was like, oh, my God, this is amazing. So ever since then, I think I have been listening to you almost every day. And if I catch up to the episodes, I go back and then, you know, you cry. But then it just brings so much peace inside you. Because becoming an entrepreneur right before COVID and then going through 2020, and then still you just have this mindset of scarcity that if you made this much today, what are you gonna make tomorrow? Oh, you just got lucky. You just got lucky because you made this much. But I was just looking at my sales excel sheet. It's still messy. And literally when I started listening to your podcast, my average was below 2500. Right now it's above 5000. The monthly average month. Yeah, And I still remember doing. I always, every month at the start of the month, I write down a number that I want the sales. Like I might. I want this many sales. God, just like bring them to me. Like, I want to make this much. So last year my total revenue was 30,000. So this year I wrote down earlier, I was like, oh, I don't. You know, 50 is going to be probably the max, but let's just write 60. And then we just hit 60,000. And at the end of September, when we closed the books, it was 60,000 for the year. The 60k came from just above 300 followers. I just got 350 followers on Instagram. When you look around and you see all these influencers with 10,000, oh, I need the swipe up. You know, I need this. I have, I think a little over 1500 followers on Facebook and then I have 350 some followers on Instagram. So all these new entrepreneurs, or just don't look anywhere else, this would be my advice to you. Believe in yourself and believe in the power of people. There are such great people around this world. Just start with anything and you can make abundance of love and courage and happiness and just changing the world around you. I just wanted to thank you and the love that you have been pouring out to Everyone, especially when, you know, everyone is so broken. Someone is broken somewhere, you know, everything is affecting us. We have lost loved ones. We are seeing incredible amount of hurt and pain around the world and so much division. That just breaks my heart. And, you know, just listening to you, it's so funny because when you introduce the Insider program, I was like, I hardly get time now, so it's okay if I listen to her, you know, two times a week. It's just manifesting abundance that you keep on talking about you. Really, once you start that, you know, you. God shows you the path. I still remember your interview with Alison Prince where she was like, I made God my partner. And then once you do that, you know, it just. It's unlimited amount of resources that just come to you. And then, you know, we were just on a vacation with my son. His birthday, his sixth birthday was on Friday, and we took him to Legoland New York. And I just kept on thinking how much I'm able to just give him with what I am doing and then able to give just that extra tip at restaurants or, like, helping the small businesses. You see around yourself, it just. It's incredible when a woman starts making money, it's just incredible of, like, how many people you can touch. Like, you know, how many people you can help. You know, like Maya Angelou says, become my rainbow in someone's cloud. And you can literally do that every day. Because there's always this concept, if you're a good person, you have no right to make money. You're a good person. Why would you charge? Why are you charging your friends? Why? You know, I don't just, like, give the money for free, but I still remember, like, you know, many of your podcasts stayed the fact that, you know, if good people have the money, then they end up helping so many people, and that's what we need.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

Okay, now you're gonna hear a piece from an episode I did on how to Stop Overthinking, which is still one of our most downloaded episodes of all time.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

One of the things that I think gets in the way, I think the biggest thing is this whole lie that we tell ourselves all the time. And the lie is that we tell people, like, I'm good, I'm fine. Everything's great. Everything's fine. You know, you run into somebody in the grocery store, hey, I haven't seen you in a while. How's everything?

[Kathy Heller]

Good?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Everything's great. Everything's fine. You know, you're messaging with someone on Facebook. How's everything? Great. Everything's Good, Everything's fine. You know, this is what we do. This is what everyone says. If you check and scroll through your text, this is everybody's patented answer, right? So why do we do this? Why do we tell ourselves we're fine? So if you've been on the planet for more than a decade, if you've been on the planet for a little while, you've experienced heartbreak, you've experienced disappointment, you've been through stuff. It's hard, right? We've all been through really big stuff. And so we get this brilliant idea and we tell ourselves, you know what? I know what I'm going to do. If I want to avoid being hurt, if I want to avoid having my heart broken, I know what I'm going to do. I won't want anything, I won't need anything, I won't want something better. And then I won't be hurt if I don't get it. It's really brilliant as a tactic to keep yourself from feeling the pain. It takes so much courage to really let yourself want what you want. I mean, how many of us watched those movies? There's been so many of them. Like, in the 80s, I was watching all these great movies, and I remember in Pretty in Pink, watching how for the first, like, hour and 15 minutes of that movie, you watch painfully, how Jon Cryer, he doesn't want to tell Molly Ringwald that he's in love with her because he's so afraid that if he tells her he's gonna get rejected. And finally, at the end of the movie, he tells her, you know what? I'm in love with you. And she doesn't feel the same way. But he survives it. He survives it. And it takes tremendous courage for him to actually admit that. It takes tremendous bravery to say, I do want this. I do want this. And you know what? I'm gonna step in and I'm gonna go for it. And it might be scary, and I might be overwhelmed, and I might not feel like I've got it all together, but, gosh, that is when you open the door for incredible things to happen. And you, again, you are here for a reason. So if you really, truly wanna show up in this world, you've gotta be willing to step forward. And then you will be led to where you're supposed to be. You know, for some reason in my career, I've always been willing to be vulnerable and really want things and not say, like, rationalize them away or I don't really want it, or I don't really want a Record deal or no, it's okay. I don't really want to do music or no, it's okay. I don't really want to do a podcast. No, I'll put my heart out there and I'll say, I really want this to work. I really want this and I'll go for it. And it's scary, right? It's scary to want what we want. And I think that that's ultimately why people don't go for it, why we don't take the chance with our career, why we don't actually get off the bench. Because what happens if you get off the bench and you go to make the shot and you miss the basket? You think to yourself, I won't be able to bear it. But guess what? If you stand there and you keep making free throws, you're going to nail it. And if you keep making free throws and you put your whole self in it and it doesn't seem to be working out, there might be something along the way where you get this message that, you know what, you should be working on this side of the court. You're really good at this. You're a great scout. Or you'd be so good coaching, or you'd be so good working in marketing for this or whatever it is. But you can only get there if you're willing to want what you want and go ahead and go for it. So it's really important that we don't tell ourselves we're fine and that we actually start and we try, because amazing, amazing things are going to happen. You know, I think sometimes if I had to go back, right, and I had to talk to my younger self, there's one thing that I would tell her. I would say to her, you're enough. You are enough. I feel like ultimately this is the problem. We don't think we're enough. But I'm telling you, with all your bruises and all your scars and all your broken parts, you're enough. Every one of us has this stuff. Every person is self destructive. Every person has so much shame around all the things about them that aren't perfect. And you know what? That's such a waste of time because we all have imperfections. And you're still extraordinary and worthy of taking your seat at the table and sharing what you have to share and offering what you have to offer. So one thing you might want to try when you're busy overthinking things is go get a photo of yourself from when you were a kid and put it next to you. And when you sit down and you start feeling like, you know, what's wrong with me? And you start giving yourself a hard time, just take a glance at that photo and look at that kid. Don't do that to that kid. Don't be so cruel to yourself. And I think one of the big questions to ask yourself, how would my life be different if I could tolerate being uncomfortable? If I was willing to be uncomfortable more? Do you know you are so much braver than you give yourself credit for? And it's okay, you can be uncomfortable. I feel like we have this thing in our world where everyone's like, I gotta avoid being uncomfortable, I gotta avoid being in pain. And so we do all these things that actually cause us tremendous pain as opposed to just being like, yeah, I'm doing this, I'm anxious about it. Yep, it's scary. Yes, it's uncomfortable. It's like, can you get through it? Of course you can get through it. You go to the dentist, right? You don't like that. Can you tolerate it? Yeah, you can tolerate it. You can tolerate it. And then it's incredible how people will rally around you and there'll be so many people cheering and inspired by you. And you just have to have the courage to be mediocre sometimes. And then more and more brilliant things are going to come out of you. This whole overthinking thing, it's just because you're afraid of not being perfect. So what? I think I told you guys that when I first did the first episode of the podcast, I sat in my closet and I re recorded it eight times and the episode was about an hour. So I sat there for eight hours. I was sweating. I lost my voice completely. And I couldn't even record the next episode for two weeks because I couldn't speak. Thankfully, we started recording the episodes a couple months before we actually went live with it. And I couldn't speak. And I said to myself, I cannot do this. I cannot do this because if I overthink this to death, I'll never publish it. I'll never do this once a week. It'll be painful. So I said, you know what? I'm going to have to be okay with it being what it is. I'm going to have to be okay with it not being perfect. And you know what? By not being perfect and having the courage to not be perfect, you get better at things. You get better. And what people do is they compare their behind the scenes mess to other people's highlight reels. They look at someone like Serena Williams or Fred Astaire or Lady Gaga or Steve Jobs. And they say, but look at them. They mastered it. They're incredible. They're the ones who should have that, not me. But you don't see behind the scenes. You don't see the moments when they're hitting a wall, when they're not getting it perfectly, when they lose a game, when they don't know what they're doing, when they get fired from a job. You don't see those moments. You weren't there when I got dropped from a record label, or when I created a TV show that went nowhere after two years of working on it, or when I had an engagement that didn't work out, or when I started this podcast and sat in my closet for eight hours. You have to be willing to say, you know what? Enough is enough. And there comes a moment where you're like, I don't want to talk about this anymore. I want to have a breakthrough. I'm done. I want to have a breakthrough. And I want you to look at your life, and I want you to imagine yourself five years from now and ten years from now. And I want you to ask yourself, where do I want to be? And what will my life look like if I keep holding on to this need to be perfect? What if I know that I'm enough? What if I'm willing to be uncomfortable? What if I. I don't have to have it all figured out and I can just start where I am right now? Wouldn't that be something? Today, my cousin sent me a post on Instagram, and it said, don't be surprised at how quickly the universe will move once you've decided. And it's really true. I mean, I feel like in my life, I get disproportionately rewarded when I'm willing to just go ahead and start and take a risk. It's amazing what happens. And what we wind up doing is we're so afraid that something won't be great or we'll fail or we will look like a fool. So we go ahead and we rob ourselves of all these incredible things that might actually come to pass.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

This next clip is one of my favorite stories from Christina Perry about how she manifested the most incredible quantum leap.

[Christina Perry]

I was in this, like, transitional limbo, and Kelsey was like, I'm going to come to la. You tell your mom and dad. Because my parents loved Kelsey. She's older than me and sort of took care of me. And she was like, you tell your mom and dad I'm going to LA with you and I'm going to manage you. But we're going to write a letter to the universe and we're going to call it the 10. And we're going to make five dreams and wishes for 2010. And I was less magical then. And I was like, rolling my eyes, like, no way. What are you talking about? She's like, get a pen. I'm like, no. And I'm like, I don't want to do this. And she was like, get a pen right now. She's so bossy. So I write this down. And I still have this paper, too. I do Kelty first. And so I'm like, the 10. Kelty line dash. You know, I'm like, okay, what's your wish? And she goes, quit Diet Coke. Stop dating assholes. Get great bangs. These are her huge wishes and dreams. I think she said, write a book, which was great because she ended up doing that, but. And then her last one was give Christina magic motivational moon beams quote. So I'm like, okay. Like, I'm just dying, you know, inside. But I'm like, whatever, I'll do it. So mine.

[Kathy Heller]

All right.

[Christina Perry]

Christina quit smoking. I smoked cigarettes. Mine said, play three shows. Meet and marry Jason Mraz. At this point, I was just with lt. I didn't believe any of this. Make a savings account with $20 a month. Like, I literally, like, had no money. And then my last mom was bask in Kelsey's magic motivational moon beams. So I have to mention that because we write that I come back to LA for New Year's. She comes with me the whole month of January. She's like, please play shows. Please do this. And I'm like, no, I'm tired, I'm working. I'm just trying to survive. She asked me to come over now on January 30th or whatever of 2010. She just broke up with a guy she went on one date with. After match.com. she lit all the candles in her room because. So you think you could dance was very big at this time. And she lit all our candles and she's like, please come over and sing my favorite song, which was a song I wrote called Black and Blue. And I said, no, I'm.

[Kathy Heller]

I just got home.

[Christina Perry]

It's like 10 o' clock at night. Like, I'm already in my pajamas. She's like, no, please just come over in your pajamas. Like, please just sing the song. I already lit my candles. Like, you have to. I just need to dance. And I was like, okay, so Just being a good friend. I was like, whatever. So I go over to her apartment across the street. I'm in my PJs. She sticks a beret on my head, sticks me in the corner in the dark on a stool. I play this song called Black and Blue. She dances like she's on say thank you for dance. But it's contemporary, emotional emo dancing. I'm like, are you done?

[Kathy Heller]

Do you feel better?

[Christina Perry]

You know, can I go to bed now? And she's like, yeah, yeah, I feel so much better.

[Kathy Heller]

Thank you.

[Christina Perry]

And so she walks me out of her apartment. We're on Beechwood Drive in la. We're looking at Capitol Records. We can see it. This is the part in the Disney movie where a shooting star just shoots by. She puts her arm around me. She's like, you know, Chris, she's like, you just need, like, a real manager. Like, someone who knows people. Like, someone who can, like, really guide you. And I'm like, yeah, good night. Like, literally just walk across the street, go to sleep. Not making this up in any way. I wake up in the morning to an email from Jason Mraz, manager. He had found me on Facebook. He says, hey, my name is Tom Gates, manage a guy named Jason Mraz. I just saw a video of you playing a song and this girl dancing. I went and poked around your YouTube. I love all your covers. Can we meet now? I was like. I mean, I think, like, the whole town heard me scream. Like, if this is a movie, this is like, me and Kelsey. I, like, Kelsey runs over. She's in her PJs. We're screaming like, we're literally. She took a picture. I have a picture. This is so cute. I have a picture of me looking at my computer and, like, Kelsey took a picture of me with the email. Because it's like, that's just. How does that happen? Like, that is the lightning in a bottle moment, right? And so we freak out. He says, do you have a bio? And Kelsey and I are like, of course I do. And, like, so we write a bio, we send it to him. I met with him the next day, his partner Ryan, and me and him. And we loved each other instantly. Within five months, everything on that list came true. I had signed a record deal. I had played three shows. I mean, I didn't marry Jason Raz, I have to say. I met him. I went to one of his shows. Within the next two years, we did a duet together, we toured together, we became friends. His manager was my manager. Then all of a sudden, the Twilight. You know, I signed with Atlantic Records. They're like, we put out the Twilight soundtracks. And I'm like, yeah, I care about Aretha Franklin. I saw the Twilight covers on the, you know, records on the wall. They asked me to write a song for the wedding. I write a thousand years. It doesn't get picked for the wedding. People sort of remember it wrong, and they think it was in the wedding. It's really in the credits. But because it's a wedding waltz, people just, like, intuitively knew my songwriting. They got married to it. I mean, my life just continued to be this, like, phenomenal chain of events where it just dragged me. I was like, I was the one going, it's not supposed to be me.

[Kathy Heller]

I'm a writer.

[Christina Perry]

I don't want to be the performer. I'm not. I'm not going to sing. I've never played shows. I never. My very first time I ever played a Show Ever was June 6, 2010, on the CBS Morning Show. I played Jar of Hearts. It was the first time ever in my life. And then the second show I ever played was Jay Leno. And then the third show I ever played was so youo Think youk Can Dance. They had me back after they played my song. So those first three shows that I played that I wrote on my Letter to the Universe worked on television, and I was, like, traumatized. I mean, like, now I can just be like, oh, how cute. I was 23 and scared and threw up constantly, you know, but, like, it was so scary and wonderful. It was a tornado, and it was everything I dreamt of. But I want to say I also wrote it down, so I definitely believe in manifesting and showing up. I just said yes to everything. I was so scared said yes to all of that.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

Up next is Alex Benayan sharing one of my favorite analogies from his book, the Third Door.

[Brian Grazer / Greg Franklin]

The basic premise of the Third Door is after seven years of researching the world's most successful people, trying to figure out what that definitive mindset of success is, what I've realized is every single one of them treats life and business and success the exact same way. And, you know. You know the analogy. It's. It's like getting into a nightclub. There's always three ways in. So there's the first door, the main entrance, where the line curves around the block, where 99% of people wait around hoping to get in. That's the first door. And then there is the second door, the VIP entrance, where the billionaires and celebrities go through, and what school and Society doesn't tell you is that there's always, always a third door. And at the entrance where you have to jump out of line, run down the alley, bang on the door a hundred times, crack open the window, go through the kitchen, there's always a way in. And it doesn't matter if that's how Bill Gates sold his first piece of software or how Lady Gaga got her first record deal. They all took the third door. And what I learned about that analogy, not just through the research of the successful people I talked to, but even just this past year, hearing readers responses and also looking at my own life. The hardest part of achieving a dream, whether you want to be an author, a speaker, a musician, an entrepreneur, the hardest part of achieving a dream. The reason most people don't go after their dreams is not because of the difficulty of running down that alley and banging on the door. It's not on the execution of the dream. Most people are smarter than they know and smarter than they give themselves credit for. They will figure it out. The hardest part of achieving a dream is having the courage to leave the line for the first door, because that's where your friends are, that's where your family expects you to be. That's where you're surviving. You know, if you're able to even listen to this, that means you have access to a smartphone and the Internet. That means you're surviving to some degree. Even if you're going through hardship, you're surviving to some degree. To leave the place that is currently sustaining you emotionally, physically, socially, is against human nature, and that's why most people don't do it. I'm not saying it's good to do it or it's good not to do it. I don't want to be a judge or say what's right or wrong for people, but if you do have that dream, if someone listening to this does have something they really want, they need to have clarity that the hard part is not achieving it. That's doable. It's hard, but it's not the hardest part. The hard part is having the courage to leave behind the life you already have.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

And this final piece is from Ronnie Ware, whose words are such a beautiful reminder why it's so important to live life on your own terms.

[Christina Perry]

Do you mind if we go into these five regrets? Because they're so important?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I feel like this is like the Ten Commandments.

[Kathy Heller]

So, yeah. The most common regret was people wishing that they'd lived a life true to themselves, not a life that other people expected of them. And it's the most common because I, you know, I heard it more than everything else, and to the point that after hearing it two or three times, I thought, I need to start paying attention here. This is a conversation we've had before, but I've had before. And it came from different angles and different situations, but it still came down to that. And the first person who said it to me, who's one of my favorites and is still seems to be one of the reader favorites, as well as the sweet little lady called Grace. And she had lived in a very unhappy marriage for well over 50 years. She came from a generation that never left their marriage. And even when I asked her why not, she said, well, what would the neighbors think? You know, it was very much about that. And she wanted to travel. Her husband didn't want to travel. She called him a tyrant. And the whole family said the same. Her adult children said, oh, he. He treated her very badly, and he was a tyrant. And then he went into a nursing home. And so the next day, she was straight off to the travel agent, picking up brochures for bus tours around Australia. That's all she wanted to do, was travel Australia. And. But within three weeks of him going into the nursing home, she started getting really sick. And it turned out to be stage four lung cancer. She'd never smoked. He'd smoked in the house all his life. And she probably went to the doctors two more times after that. And then. And then I got called in, and she was in palliative care at home. And so she never got anywhere. She didn't even get out of Sydney at the time.

[Christina Perry]

That's where we were.

[Kathy Heller]

All these stories were Sydney or Melbourne. And so she actually squeezed my. I was trying to get going with my music at the time, and I was playing her songs and stuff. I'd take my guitar along to work and in her home, in her bedroom. And she squeezed my hand really tight one day and just said, just promise me, Bronnie. Promise this dying lady that you will have the courage to live the life your heart calls you to. Don't live the life that others expect of you like I have. She's in tears and I'm in tears, and. Yeah, and I do. I promised her and I promised myself at the time, and thank goodness I did, Cathy, because living a life true to yourself takes a lot of guts and a lot of courage. And you've got to break through so much resistance and break free of the opinions of others. And it does take a lot of work and it's easy to quit. But oh my goodness, when you get through the other side of it like I do now, and live completely on my own terms, it's such a gift of freedom to ourselves.

[Kathy Heller (Podcast Narrator)]

So that's a wrap on our 1000th episode celebration. Thank you so much for being with us throughout all these years. I can't believe it's almost a whole decade and I can't wait for what's ahead. If you want to be on this journey with us, please make sure that you keep following along on Apple podcasts or subscribing wherever you listen, like on Spotify. And if you love this episode or if there's any episode that you loved, please spread the word. Share about this Podcast if this podcast has meant anything to you and you want to celebrate our 1000th milestone, please just post about the podcast in your Instagram feed. Or you could do a little video and say why you love this podcast. We would be so appreciative. Here is a review that somebody sent in. It says thank you. I have to start by saying that I've never left a review. Not for a podcast, not on Yelp, not for anything, anywhere. But I had this yearning to reach out and thank you and I knew this is something you would see. It's hard for me to express how much gratitude I feel for you. Your voice is so authentic and real and it's as though I have my wise guru best friend whispering truths and encouragement in my ear. I discovered you when you were interviewed on another podcast and since then I've gone back to listen to almost all your episodes and you have become part of my daily practice of finding my way back to myself. I have a daily meditation and then I have you, Kathy, speaking through my headphones, keeping me connected. I've been reading and learning about spirituality for many years, but you have become the missing link. By connecting all these universal truths to Judaism, it feels most personal and truly speaks to my soul. Listening to you gets me right back into flow in the most powerful way. And that is the greatest gift. You explain deep concepts with humor. You drop musical and film references to make it all relatable, and you share your own life stories to show how real it all can be if we listen to our hearts and and trust the process. I love you and your generous, brilliant heart. Thank you. Oh my gosh. I'm just so blown away. Wow. I don't even know what to say. My heart is so full. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you all for listening. I would love for us all to get together as a community and for this not to just be a podcast that you listen to, but a place where you can then go to ask questions, to gather, to feel supported, to feel seen as, and for us to take this even deeper. So I'd love for you to use this as an opportunity to join the membership. It's a dollar right now, and you can go to kathyheller.com gift and there'll be a couple times where we can get together live on Zoom, and we're gonna have some deep conversations and some beautiful gatherings, and I would love to see you there. Go to kathyheller.com gift love you so much. I'll talk to you soon.