Samantha Ettus, THE PIE LIFE: A Guilt-Free Recipe for Success and Satisfaction

Summary

Episode Summary: Samantha Eddis on "The Pie Life: A Guilt-Free Recipe for Success and Satisfaction"

In this heartfelt and insightful episode of Totally Booked with Zibby, host Zibby Owens converses with Samantha Eddis, a distinguished author, entrepreneur, and advocate for women's financial independence. Samantha shares her transformative philosophy encapsulated in her book, The Pie Life: A Guilt-Free Recipe for Success and Satisfaction, offering listeners a roadmap to balance professional aspirations with personal fulfillment without succumbing to societal pressures or guilt.

Introduction to Samantha Eddis

Samantha Eddis is a prolific author and entrepreneur dedicated to empowering women to achieve financial independence and personal satisfaction. With a background that includes co-founding the Los Angeles Women's Collective and contributing to Forbes for eight years, Samantha brings a wealth of experience in guiding women through the complexities of balancing career and family life. Her book, The Pie Life, presents a positive framework for women to thrive both professionally and personally.

Understanding "The Pie Life" Philosophy

Samantha introduces the core concept of her book, which revolves around dividing life into seven essential slices: career, family, romance, friends, hobbies, health, and community. This metaphorical pie represents the various facets of a woman's life, emphasizing that each slice deserves attention and intentionality.

“We all have things that fall into seven slices. And those seven slices are our careers, our families, our romance, or our quest to find one, our friends, our hobbies, our health and our community.” [05:57]

By categorizing life into these segments, Samantha encourages women to set goals within each area, ensuring a holistic approach to personal and professional growth. This method allows for flexibility and adaptation, recognizing that perfect balance is neither attainable nor necessary.

Reframing Guilt in Parenting and Personal Pursuits

A significant theme in the conversation is the pervasive guilt that many working mothers experience when trying to juggle multiple roles. Samantha challenges the notion that pursuing personal passions or maintaining friendships is selfish, arguing instead that these activities are essential for overall happiness and effectiveness in other areas of life.

“It’s not selfish to have friends when you’re a busy working parent. It’s essential.” [05:13]

Zibby Owens echoes this sentiment, sharing how Samantha’s advice helped her prioritize without feeling guilty, highlighting the practical application of The Pie Life in real-life scenarios.

Quality Over Quantity: Undivided Attention with Children

Samantha emphasizes the importance of providing children with undivided, focused attention, even if it's limited in time. In an age dominated by digital distractions, genuine interaction becomes a precious commodity.

“If you have a child who gets 20 minutes of my undivided attention with them talking to me, that’s awesome.” [15:09]

She underscores that the quality of interactions holds more value than the sheer quantity of time spent, advocating for meaningful moments that foster strong, emotionally secure relationships between parents and children.

Navigating Work-from-Home Challenges

With the increasing prevalence of remote work, Samantha addresses the difficulties parents face in setting boundaries to ensure dedicated family time. She offers practical strategies, such as designating specific hours for work and family and using visual cues like signs to signal when she needs uninterrupted time.

“These are the two hours. So, like, six to eight are the hours I’m with my family and, like, unless it’s an emergency, probably not going to be checking email.” [18:35]

This approach helps in managing expectations both at home and in the workplace, fostering a balanced environment where professional responsibilities do not overshadow personal life.

Partnership and Relationship Dynamics

Samantha discusses the importance of equitable partnerships in maintaining a balanced life. She shares her personal experience of partnering with someone who shares household and parenting responsibilities equally, challenging the traditional gender roles that often place an unfair burden on women.

“I wouldn’t have partnered with someone who wouldn’t want to do 50% of the load at home.” [19:38]

By advocating for high expectations and mutual support, Samantha highlights how strong partnerships contribute significantly to overall life satisfaction and success.

Personal Resilience: Overcoming Family Tragedy

In a deeply personal segment, Samantha opens up about a challenging period when her mother was diagnosed with sudden lung cancer and subsequently passed away. This traumatic experience coincided with other family health issues, including her husband's bladder cancer and her child's pneumonia. Despite these hardships, Samantha maintained her commitment to her family and professional life, demonstrating remarkable resilience.

“There is no perfect day. There is no perfect year.” [21:57]

She shares how building a strong community and maintaining planned engagements, like taking her daughter on a planned trip, helped her navigate through the crisis. Samantha’s story serves as a powerful testament to the Pie Life philosophy, illustrating how embracing life’s unpredictability can lead to strength and growth.

Empowering Women Through Financial Independence

Beyond her book, Samantha is passionate about empowering women to achieve financial independence. She discusses her company, Park Place Payments, which supports women in generating supplemental income through payment processing sales. This initiative provides women with the flexibility to pursue their professional goals while maintaining financial security.

“I spend all day thinking about how I can make tons of women financially independent. And that is so meaningful to me, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.” [27:14]

Samantha also mentions her podcast, What’s Her Story?, which focuses on sharing extraordinary women’s stories, furthering her mission to uplift and inspire women across various fields.

Embracing Life’s Messiness

Throughout the conversation, Samantha advocates for embracing the messiness of life rather than striving for unrealistic perfection. She encourages listeners to reframe their perspectives, finding joy and humor in the imperfections that make life uniquely their own.

“The most delicious pies are not the store bought, perfect looking ones. Right? They’re the messy, gooey dripping over the side ones.” [13:08]

This outlook not only alleviates unnecessary pressure but also fosters a more authentic and fulfilling approach to living.

Conclusion: A Roadmap to Fulfillment

Zibby Owens concludes the episode by expressing profound gratitude for Samantha's insights and friendship. She emphasizes the transformative impact of The Pie Life on her own life and encourages listeners to adopt Samantha’s strategies to navigate their personal and professional lives with confidence and joy.

“This is a coping mechanism that everybody desperately needs.” [26:47]

Listeners are left with a comprehensive understanding of how to balance various life aspects without guilt, fostering a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction through intentional living.

Where to Connect with Samantha Eddis

For those inspired by Samantha’s message, she can be followed on Instagram @samanthaeddis, Twitter, and Facebook for updates on her work, speaking engagements, and ongoing projects. Her continued efforts in empowering women and sharing extraordinary stories make her a valuable resource for anyone seeking to enrich their personal and professional lives.

---

This episode serves as a beacon for women striving to achieve a harmonious balance between work, family, and personal passions. Samantha Eddis’s The Pie Life provides tangible strategies and heartfelt encouragement, making it an essential listen for those navigating the complexities of modern life.

Transcript

[Zibby Owens]

Hi, this is Zibby Owens and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. In my daily show I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to stay in the know, get insider insights and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com and follow me on Instagram Ibbeowens hi everybody, this is one of the Replay bonus episodes to get you through the holiday season. Maybe you missed some. There have been over 2000 episodes. We are going into a rebrand where we're going to be changing the name of the podcast from Moms don't have Time to Read Books to Zibby's Podcast. So that is happening in the new year. In the meantime, have a listen, enjoy and let me know what you think.

[Samantha Eddis]

Bye.

Samantha Eddis is the author of the Pie A Guilt Free Recipe for Success and Satisfaction. Sam, who by the way has become a close friend of mine, is an entrepreneur who has devoted her career to guiding women to financial independence. Hundreds of thousands, from C level leaders to administrative assistants have benefited from her unique guidance. Sam was named one of 2021's 100 Women of Impact by Entrepreneur Magazine. Sam is a best selling author of five books, a renowned speaker and co host of iHeart's Leading Women in Business podcast. What's Her Story with Sam and Amy? Her most recent book is the Pie A Guilt Free Recipe for Success and Satisfaction, featuring Sam's positive and comprehensive take on living a thriving professional and personal life. At the same time, Sam spent eight years as a contributor to Forbes and now writes a popular weekly Work Life newsletter. She hosted 75 episodes of leading Internet talk show Obsessed TV, which she created and produced with Gary Vaynerchuk. She makes regular appearances on shows including the Today Show, Access Hollywood, NBC News, Dr. Phil, the doctors and Good Morning America. She has been featured and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, Inc. Entrepreneur and Fast Company, and has spoken on hundreds of stages across America from TedX to Fortune 500 companies. Sam Co founded the Los Angeles Women's Collective aimed at supporting women to run for office and win. She currently serves on the Advisory board of the Forbes School of Business and Technology, Sparks and Honey and Inspiro Tequila. She is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Sam lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.

Welcome, Sam.

[Zibby Owens]

Thank you so much for coming on. Moms don't have time to read books. This is so exciting.

[Samantha Eddis]

I know this is a long time coming. I'm so excited to be here.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, it's so nice because I feel like we were introduced through mutual friends, and of course I have your books, but it took until now for me to read it, and I'm really sorry. But in the meantime, we've become friends, which has been so much fun, and you've helped me so much with so many things, including prioritizing and all this stuff. And now that I read your book, I'm like, oh, you like, coached people. This is, like, what you did. This is why you gave me such good advice.

[Samantha Eddis]

Yes. I'm the queen of unsolicited advice. I think I gave you a ton of advice on a walk when you weren't even looking for it.

[Zibby Owens]

Yeah. But it totally helped. Okay. The Pie Life is your book. It came out out in 2016, but is completely relevant today. And like, literally in my head, I was, like, thinking of four people I had to send it to immediately who must read it right away because so many of the things you touch on, and it's really your. Well, actually, I should let you explain what is the book. You explain the book, and then I'll.

[Samantha Eddis]

That makes me so happy because I think in the book world, we get so obsessed with what's the newest book. And even with my own book, I sometimes, like, get worried because it came out a few years ago. Is it still relevant? So that. That's really good to hear. Thank you. So I actually wrote the book because felt like we were in an era of so much negativity about how women were talking about managing their professional and personal lives. It was in the age of Anne Marie Slaughter, whose cover article in the Atlantic Monthly made such waves. And it was, you know, women can't have it all. And it was so much negativity. And I felt like there were three frameworks. Women kept being sort of sent. One was the idea of juggling. And anyone who's ever tried to have a conference call with, like, a baby or dog in the room that's knows it's not possible. You know, one was having it all, and we actually can't think of any man or woman who technically has it all. And then the other was the work life balance scale. Right. And anyone who has A full time job or a real career knows that you can spend equal time, amount of work and at home and be successful. So it just was, it was all these really negative frameworks. And I, I had been managing my professional and personal life successfully. I had a lot of women friends who had been doing it and were really happy at that point. I'd worked with thousand of women and I knew that the happiest and most fulfilled were those that allowed themselves to participate in their own professional goals. And so I decided I needed to write a book on how to thrive in both areas.

[Zibby Owens]

Amazing. You have a quote where you say it's not selfish to have friends when you're a busy working parent. It's essential you have advice where you're not aiming to win the FaceTime game. In parenting, the best parenting comes through in the quality moments. You have all these, you systematically go through all the parts of your life and talk about like why it's okay and why it's imperative for women to work to own their passions, how to be great parents along the way and how to use hobbies and relationships and sex and like everything, everything in your life to create this pie where you slice it up and like have a better life. I didn't explain that very well, but maybe you should talk about your system.

[Samantha Eddis]

Yeah. So, you know, I, when I grew up, I had a very unusual childhood. I was almost like, had a full time job as a tennis player. So you know, I would go to school. I grew up in New York City. There was really no competitive tennis players in New York City. So I had to drive outside of New York every day for an hour to go to tennis after school. And I still went to a very competitive school where there was three hours of homework a day. And so I didn't, I didn't really go to parties, I was always playing tennis. And on the weekends I had tournaments every weekend. So I had to be very disciplined. I still had friends, I still had some semblance of a social life. But I remember lying in bed at night and thinking about my life in categories. So I would think, I think the categories at the time were tennis, school, boys, you know, relationship with my parents, family and, and friends. And my friends were really important to me. And I would be very, very deliberate and disciplined about how I organized my day so that I had a couple of hours or an hour to talk to my friends at night after I did my homework. So I always thought of my life in those categories. And when I was managing my own very crazy professional and personal life with three kids and a husband and a career and all sorts of other things, I started putting my life into slices. And when I did all this work with all of these women who were managing a ton of things, I realized that we all have things that fall into seven slices. And those seven slices are our careers, our families, our romance, or our quest to find one, our friends, our hobbies, our health and our community. And everything kind of falls into one of those categories. And the idea is not to beat yourself up on how much time you're spending in each slice. The idea is to be very. You're probably pretty logical and pretty rational about how you're dividing your time right now. The idea is to make goals for each slice so that they exist. So even if you are a new mom and you're so busy and you're sleepless and you have a career and you have a partner, you can still make time for a hobby, even two hours, month, because that will really make you happy. Or you can still go out for that margarita with a friend. Like, those are the kinds of things that actually make you better at your job as a mom, make you a better partner, make you better at your work. And I think so often, especially as women, we talk about things in a suffering kind of way. And, you know, the more I suffer, the better off my kids will be. But it's actually quite the opposite. The more you feed your soul, the happier you are, the happier kids will be, and the more you can give to the other people that you love in your life.

[Zibby Owens]

It's so true. Well, in terms of timeliness, I feel like this whole pivoting moment, right, where women have the ability to really pursue what they love, especially if their kids are empty nesting or even if they're going to kindergarten and they suddenly have all this time and they're like, okay, now what? I mean, I had coffee with a really, really smart, amazing girlfriend who was like, well, it's been so long, I've lost my confidence in the work world. Like, maybe I can't go back. And I'm like, of course you can do. She's one of the many people I want to give this book to. But give everybody a roadmap where you have to start looking into yourself, like, what are my goals? What do I want to achieve? And little quizzes and how am I going to. What is meaningful to me in my life? Which I think is such a great way to ground the reader and the person and figure out, okay, well, what is next? What do I Love, what am I passionate about? Where do I get in my flow state? And I know other people and books come at this, but there's something about you sharing your story the whole time and all these little anecdotes from your love life and your friends lives and co founder and people you've coached that makes it like, oh, this woman is like talking to me and giving me advice. And particularly because I know you, I'm like, oh my gosh, thank you. This is so great.

[Samantha Eddis]

Thank you. I mean, I think that, you know, obviously one of my sort of goals is I can, if I can reach someone before they've made that choice of leaving completely, I'd like to save them from that decision. Because 90% of women who leave the workforce at some point want to get back in and only 50% of women are able to ever get a full time position again after they leave for just two years. And that's a really scary stat that we don't share with women. You know, we never look at a man who's going to have a baby with his wife and say, are you going to, you know, focus on your baby's feeding and sleeping schedule and take a couple years off? Are you going to go back to work? We don't say that to men. And it's really unfair to put that guilt when a woman is pregnant immediately into her head. And you know, there's so many ways to keep that pilot light on and to, to keep your foot in the workforce and it leads to a much more fulfilling future. And economically, by the way, most people can't afford to be in a situation where they don't eventually get a full time job again. And it puts your family, in most people's cases, in a really risky financial position to leave completely. But what ends up happening, and I see this all the time, is because the cost of childcare in America is so exorbitant and outrageous that we don't have universal childcare. It makes it so that often couples do what I call faulty math and they will look at the lesser earning spouse's income for one year and say, oh my gosh, that's like the same as the nanny or same as daycare. So you leave your job and you'll go back to it later. And the problem is you really need to compare those like five years where you really need intense childcare until your child's in full time kindergarten to your future earnings, because that's really what it's about. But I really deeply believe that we've somehow along the way, lost the idea that our lives are supposed to be fun and exciting. And I know that you, Zibby and I share that. That wanting to say yes. You know, we say yes. I mean, many people in our lives probably think we say yes to too many things. But I would also say that we have really fun, fun, full lives. And I think that that is more important than all of the rhetoric around say no more. Often, you know, cancel your plans, limit the things you do. Because really, when you think about the most fulfilled people in the world and the ones who you're idolizing or the ones that you admire, they're out there doing things and living every day, and they really spend very little time feeling guilty about it.

[Zibby Owens]

Yeah, there was a girlfriend I had a few years ago, and we had coffee one day or lunch or something, and I'm like, well, what's new with you? And she's like, well, I've decided not to feel guilty anymore. She was a working mom. She was commuting in from Westchester somewhere. She's like, yeah, my kids are great. They're so lucky.

[Samantha Eddis]

I'm done.

[Zibby Owens]

I'm not feeling guilt. And I'm like, what? That's an option? But you put it in your book so well too. A, how we're supposed to think about guilt in general, and B, that each scenario where we are in trouble does not mean we should feel guilty about our past decisions. Your whole concept of, okay, this is a messy moment. This doesn't mean that I shouldn't be working. This doesn't mean I'm not being a good mom. This means that it's just a messy moment in my life that, like, this event is on this day or I met this.

[Samantha Eddis]

It's just a.

[Zibby Owens]

It's a way of reframing life, which I find incredibly helpful.

[Samantha Eddis]

Yeah, I mean, the reason I love the analogy of the pie is because the most delicious pies are not the store bought, perfect looking ones. Right? They're the messy, gooey dripping over the side ones. And I believe that that's what our lives are supposed to look like. I mean, my morning, this morning was a shit show. I don't know about yours, but, like, I'm sure in social media it doesn't look like a shit show. And it look perfect. And everyone's like, oh, my God, how does she do it? And then how does she do it? She does it with, like such a mess, you know, like my leg is fully scratched from this other dog this morning because my dog got a thing with its other Dog. And I mean, it was, you know, and I had like three kids. My husband's out of town, I had to walk the dog. I have someone coming in from out of town. I have a crate that's at work. I mean, that's how all of our lives are. And I think sometimes, you know, we'll see another mom at drop off and we'll say, how are you? And she'll be like, great. And you're like, why are they all great? And I'm feeling like crap. And it's because. Because no one's telling the truth, you know. And so I think it's actually much better to sort of be like turning your sort of bad moments into stories. That's kind of how I think about life. And I think that if you expect it to be a little bit messy, you can laugh at it. But if you expect it to be perfect, you're gonna be endlessly disappointed and angry with yourself.

[Zibby Owens]

There was another piece of the book. Well, there were so many, but one piece that I can't stop thinking about. So you had one of the people you coached when you did your radio show was upset because she only spent 10 hours a week with her kids because she was working all the rest of it. And you got her to reframe that and think, wow, you spend 10 hours uninterrupted with complete focused attention. That's actually really good. And it got me thinking because I'm like, well, I'm certainly with my kids way more than 10 hours a week. I'm with them a lot when they're not in school, especially in the summer. But how often am I with them completely focused on them without getting distracted or doing something else or checking my emails or. Hold on, I just have to do this. Could you build in 10 uninterrupted hours a week on your schedule? I mean, maybe that sounds bad, but like, that's a lot of time to not have any distractions.

[Samantha Eddis]

I mean, think of how many moms or dads can say that when they're with their kids. Even if they're with them for an entire day. How much of that day were they not checking their phone? Were they literally looking into their kids eyes and listening to what they said? It is so rare. And by the way, that's rare for all of us these days, right? Like, you know, I feel like in many ways, like my oldest child was so lucky and even my two oldest were so lucky because they didn't grow up in, in the era when we were strolling them with Smartphones in our hands, you know, but like, how rare is it to see a parent of a young kid without putting a device in their hands to calm them down or to shut them up or whatever. It's a very different world than we all grew up in. And if you think about the time you spent with your spouse, if they were always a little bit distracted, you'd never feel seen and heard. And when you're with your friend, if they're checking their phone every five seconds, you don't feel like you actually had dinner with your friend. You felt like you had dinner with their phone or a shadow of who they were. And so I think so often, even when I see, I always say I hate going to Disney World or Disneyland because I hate how people treat their own children. And it breaks my heart. And so often you'll see someone get frustrated with their kid because they're tugging on them, right? They're like, okay, enough, stop trying to get my attention. But they're trying to get their attention because they're not getting enough attention. And so I think when you turn it around and say, like, how can I make my child feel seen every day? And the bottom line is, like, you have four kids, I have three kids. If I have a child who gets 20 minutes of my undivided attention with them talking to me, that's awesome. And I feel great about that. And I think that that doesn't mean that's all the time we're spending together, but it's hard to get one on one time with a kid. It's hard to make someone feel heard and loved. And so I think that if that becomes the parenting goal, rather than they have to eat every single organic thing and they have to be at this practice and they have to, you know, if you can make your kid feel awesome inside, that's pretty much all of all that matters.

[Zibby Owens]

Although, you know, there are times where I am trying, I have to finish something. Like they're tugging on me. But I'm like, you know, I think this is also the danger of trying to work from home or trying, you know, when the kids are not in school or like, you do have to finish things sometimes.

[Samantha Eddis]

Well, you bring up. Because, I mean, especially in this new world where there are no offices practically anymore and everyone is working from home. I mean, it sounds like a parenting dream. It's actually for many parents, a nightmare because there's people at home that want your attention. When I was, my kids were really little, I had my radio show and I used to have A sign that they made. I purposely had them make the sign and they would put on the door and I would say, okay, here's the sign. It's going up on the door because Mommy's busy for the next hour. And they respected it because they've been invested in making the sign. And it was like they knew what the sign was about. But even now, I think if your kids hear like, okay, I am busy now, but it's 7:00. We're going to do something fun together. Like, they can then withstand that, you know, that time where they have to be patient and wait for you. I think it's all about, when are you going to be done? If, you know, if you say that I'm not going to be done in a half hour, it's a lot easier for them to stomach it.

[Zibby Owens]

Yeah, the trick is not like. I mean, I do that too with my podcasts, right? I'm like, recording in progress, you know, goodbye. And they get it. But it's the harder thing is the constant emails and texts and DMS and, you know, this has to be done and this is due and where is that logo and da, da, da, da, all that stuff.

[Samantha Eddis]

Well, I like to say the world is not flat, right? And it's sometimes when we get really overwhelmed or busy, it seems like everything is urgent, everything needs to be done yesterday. But at the end of the day, like, you know, I always recommend to people that work with a lot of other people to say, like, these are the two hours. So, like, six to eight are the hours I'm with my family and, like, unless it's an emergency, probably not going to be checking email, but I'll be back online after 8 or whatever it is. Like, figure out what works for your family and do it that way. You know, it's definitely difficult and it's. It's a constant battle.

[Zibby Owens]

But then you also say, like, stop apologizing to your kids, which I love, because I feel like I'm always like, I'm sorry, I just have to do this one thing. I'm sorry I did it. But you're like, okay, like, mom, like, we're working, we're doing this, and we'll be there soon. And I don't know. I think you have great parenting advice, but you also have great partnership advice. And I love your whole idea of, like, this partner shift. And you talk a lot about different relationships and unsupportive parents and what you can do to really partner with somebody and take care of your own relationship, which so many people are willing to, you know, put on the back burner.

[Samantha Eddis]

Well, I think so many women. Like when we went to our new preschool in California from New York. From the very beginning, my husband's. We've always been 50, 50 partners. We both work full time. We're both very, very passionate about our kids. From the beginning, we used to divide everything, and he has these things. I have these things. And so I remember in the beginning of one of the years, he was making the lunchboxes or something or taking our kids to school with the lunch, and all these parent moms were like, oh, my God, you are so lucky. And I was thinking to myself, it's not luck. I wouldn't have partnered with someone who wouldn't want to do 50% of the load at home. That's what I grew up with. I grew up with a really involved dad who would sew the buttons and iron the shirts and cook dinner, even though he worked full time. And so that was always my expectation. And so I think that many of us suffer from low expectations of our partner. And people tend to, you know, if you assume someone's going to mess something up, they're much more likely to mess it up. And so I think that we often talk to our partners as though they will be buffoons if they change a diaper or if they cook a dinner. And that's just not true and not fair. In fact, it's funny that we're doing this interview today because there was an incredible article today that I cannot stop thinking about in the near times, about the fact that the idea of mothers being nurturing and having a maternal instinct is totally false, and then it's not scientifically proven. It was actually created by Darwin. It's the craziest thing. It's all a myth. That myth has created so much guilt and pain for so many parents.

[Zibby Owens]

Wow. Okay. So, as I mentioned, you weave in a lot of your own story here. And towards the end of the book, you start talking about a season that was a little harder for you personally and how everything sort of raised its head, or that's not the right expression, but your dad had bladder cancer and you had shingles and your kid had pneumonia, and then you end with your mother passing away really suddenly. And I just. My heart was breaking for you. I'm so sorry. Can you just like, what was that whole. How did you get through that sort of season of really, really difficult, difficult times there?

[Samantha Eddis]

Wow. I've done so many interviews about this book, and no one's ever Asked me that question. I was certainly caught off guard by my mom getting sick. She got sick and then passed away. Within a five week period. Start to finish, she was perfectly healthy, or so we thought. And then just one night, I had this mini stroke and it turned out to be lung cancer. And it was just super sudden. She was living in New York with my dad. I was, of course, with my little kids in California. And there were so many other things going on, right, like the shingles and the. And I think these things just happen. Like we're all so stressed and busy and then something like that happens. And you know, I'd had this funny experience when I moved where I had received this thing from school that said, who's your emergency contact? And we moved to Los Angeles with zero friends and zero family here. Like, I literally had no friends. And so my emergency contact was like thousands of miles away. And I thought to myself, okay, for the sake of my family, like for our safety, I need to go out and make friends. Which is kind of like the last thing you want to be doing when you have a one year old, a three year old and five year old and you're not sleeping, you know. But I was like, I just have to put myself out there for their sake. Not even for me. So I really had built a really strong community here out of necessity. I mean, I totally put myself out there in the beginning. And I remember for the Jewish holidays, like we weren't invited anywhere the first year. And so the second year I decided to have this Yom Kippur breakfast. And I invited all the Jewish people I knew in the community and even people who were interested who might want to come. And like 30 people came. And then now we do the same breakfast every year and it's over a hundred people. And we just keep inviting the same people every year and keep adding to the list. And I created that. It wasn't like I was sitting around the next year waiting for an invitation, you know, I was like, all right, well if I don't get an invitation, I have to create one for other people. Cause I'm sure there's other people in the same boat as I am. So anyway, when my mom got sick, I had a very nice community here that could chip in, you know, and help my husband with the drop offs and the pickups and the meals and all that stuff. And just to give an example, you know, and some people might disagree with, with this, but in those five weeks. So I have this tradition where I take each of my kids on A one week trip internationally to the country of their Choice, just the two of us when they hit age 10. And so when Ella, my oldest, was 10, she and I planned this trip to London because that's where she wanted to go. And I had already planned out the entire trip and it was for one of the five weeks between my mom's getting sick and dying. And we still went on that London trip and I was totally present with her, totally engaged with her. And then when I came back and dropped her off in la, went back to New York, but I didn't cancel that trip. And I think that most people would have probably canceled that trip. But it was very important to me that like, life can't stop, right? Like, there's always shitty things happening. And it's one of the reasons that I'm like so against when people are like, oh my God, thank God the book that 2021 is over. Oh, that was the worst year. Or, you know, I had the worst week. You know, this is going to be the worst week. Or, you know, this is going to be the worst day because my kid's in a bad mood at 10am like, these are all moments. Life is a series of moments. And one moment might be awful and the next moment is going to be awesome. But there is no perfect day, There is no perfect year. And so the same year my book came out is the year my mom died, right? And so I think I didn't decide, like, this is going to be the worst year because this is the year my mom died. Like we're not alive for that many years. So if I like, you know, throw the towel on an entire year, it's just, it's not fair to the rest of the people in my life. So I think going on that trip with my daughter, she was super close to my mom. And then when my mom passed away, it was very hard for her. And I look back and think like, you know, part of the strength she had was that she'd had all this attention for one week, just a couple of weeks before my mom died. So anyway, I don't mean to sound cold and obviously like dead. Death and illness is such a serious thing. And it crushed me in many ways. But I just think that life is so complicated and all of our lives are complicated. And I was able to come back and show my mom all the pictures from London before she passed away. And that's how I managed it. There's no perfect way.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh my gosh, I love that so much. And I'm so Sorry you went through that. I'm so glad you had the moments with Ella and that she had what she needed, because you're really giving her that gift. And I also love that people do so quickly say, you know, even, like, this morning, I got off to a bad start, and I'm like, oh, it's just gonna be one of those days, you know? But it's not like I'm having a wonderful moment right now. I've had already many wonderful moments today. You know, you can get stuck in that narrative, well, today's a wash, or this year's a wash, or because of this, this is gonna be a wash. And it's a reframe on how you live every day of your life, which is, like, incredibly, incredibly valuable. I don't think that's sounding flippant at all. I think it's a coping mechanism that everybody desperately needs.

[Samantha Eddis]

Yeah, that's a great way to put it.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh. So, Sam, I know you're already an entrepreneur. You have this amazing company that you're running, and all of this, like, you're doing Park Place payments, but you also have this women leader guru coaching. Are you doing any more of that? Is there any way to scale what you started? Because so many people need that, too. Like, how do you keep up with both pieces of that?

[Samantha Eddis]

So I was always obsessed with financial independence. Again, that was, like, a legacy of my mom. And she was, like, very crass in her lessons to me, and she'd be like, you can't sleep with money. Like, she was always giving, like, very crass but very meaningful lessons. And she would point out women in our apartment building and be like, yeah, she hates her husband, but she has no money of her own, and she can never leave him. So never be like her. So because of that, I was always obsessed with financial independence. And when I was on my book tour, where I met so many women who got stuck in situations because they had no money of their own or they had no ability to get back into the workforce. And that was actually what drove me to start my company. So people are like, well, I don't understand how you were this, like, work life balance guru, and then you became a payments expert. And I'm like, I am not a payments expert. I spend all day thinking about how I can make tons of women financially independent. And that is so meaningful to me, and it's the best thing I've ever done. So we now have 1300 account executives in all 50 states who sell to their local businesses. So they sell payment processing which is a really boring product by the way to their, you know, hair salon and their kids, pediatrician and all the business owners they already know. And it makes them supplemental income if they just want to, you know, have a stash for new shoes every month or it allows them to pay for their kids education based on how much they want to work. It's all part of the gig economy. So that is my full time thing. As part of that, I have a podcast that I co host host about extraordinary women. You've been on the podcast, it's called what's her Story? Because I've always been obsessed with women's stories and it frustrates me that we don't hear more women's stories or more of a variety of women's stories in terms of, you know, I still do a ton of public speaking and speak to a ton of big groups of women. I have a speaking agent coming up in a week or two to a group of thousands of women. What's really hard for me. And it's so funny because Zivi, you and I feel like have gotten to know each other super well in a very short period of time. But this part of me, like even just talking to Valerie advice and stuff, like I love talking about this stuff and I feel like I can help so many people and it frustrates me that I can't do more of it. And I was just telling my kids the other day because I hosted this call in radio show for so many years where people call me with their problems and like I loved it. You know, if I could have done that 24 hours a day, like that was like my jam. And definitely that part of me is not as fulfilled anymore. But you know, in five years when I sell my company or whatever, I will probably return a little more to that stuff.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh my gosh. Amazing. So where can everybody find you? Let's say like, where should they go? Who, where should they follow you? How do they find out about your speaking engagements and all that?

[Samantha Eddis]

They can follow me on Instagram, amanthaeddis and Twitter. Same thing. Facebook, Same thing.

[Zibby Owens]

Amazing. Thank you. Thank you for your book and your friendship and all the rest of it. It's inspiring and really awesome and I know and hopefully this episode will help people out there who may be at a crossroads or may just need like a fine tuning of their life hacks or whatever it is. I know it really helped me. So thank you.

[Samantha Eddis]

Thank you. Zibby.

[Zibby Owens]

Thanks.

Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram ibbeowens and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.