Think Differently. Solve the Impossible.

Show Notes

Website: https://clarissaburt.com

The Self-Esteem Regime: An Action Plan for Becoming the Confident Person You Were Meant to Be
On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/153815269X

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Transcript

My guest today is Dame Clarissa Burt.

Clarissa is an award-winning actress, producer, director, author, and a supermodel, with hundreds of television and film credits to her name.

She has over 30 years of experience in the entertainment industry, including being a winner of The Celebrity Survivor Show and the first American to present Russian television at the Kremlin.

Applying that experience to help others, Clarissa is the founder and CEO of In the Limelight Media, a service which helps clients to brand themselves as experts and grow their businesses.

In 2022, Clarissa was knighted by the Royal Order of Constantine and the Great and Saint Helen.

Constantine the Great and Saint Helen, right.

She's helped African women win the Noble Peace Prize and has had private meetings with Pope John Paul II, honoring her social work.

Her new book is The Self-Esteem Regime.

Welcome to my show, Dame Clarissa Burt.

Well, people say, God, you've done so much in your lifetime.

I said, well, you got to be as old as I am to put all that stuff in.

You know, it takes a minute to do a lot of stuff, but I just wouldn't have it any other way.

People along the way have said to me on more than one occasion, Daniel, they said, well, you really just need to pick one thing and stick with it.

Like, do you want to act?

Do you want to produce?

Do you want to direct?

Do you want to sing?

Yep.

I just kept going.

Yep.

That's right.

I want to do it all.

Do it all.

And I did.

No, maybe I was a jack of all trades and a master of none.

You know, I mean, you can't say I became...

Actually, I stop you there because people tell me the same thing.

You can't rock climb, be a musician, a songwriter, be a rocket scientist.

And they say the same thing.

You can't be a jack of all trades.

I'm like, I'm an expert at all these trades.

I'm not.

You know, I don't want to sound so presumptuous, but I'm like, that kind of did all right.

Well, think about...

So the other day when I'm practicing my guitar for a gig, I'm like, this is a waste of my time.

I'm not a rock star.

I mean, I do okay.

And then it occurred to me, what if Da Vinci had said, I'm not going to do the Mona Lisa, I'm not going to finish the Mona Lisa.

And maybe that's why some people think is it finished or is it strange.

I don't know what they look at it.

They're like, this is not what I do.

I design helicopters.

I'm an engineer.

Yeah.

Well, it's funny.

Here's another thing.

Yeah, I used to say, guys, stop calling me a supermodel.

I haven't done that in like 40 years.

I'm 66 now.

So I finished modeling when I was like 28, 29.

But I had a great career.

It was all cool.

And it goes on the curriculum, right?

It goes on your bio.

I can say, guys, please stop saying that because I feel embarrassed because like people are expecting to see this like super hot, super-

Is she going to be wearing a swimsuit on this?

You know, down there, Victoria, you know, the secret runway.

And somebody said to me, well, Buzz Aldrin is an astronaut and he hasn't been on the moon since 1967.

Okay, point well taken.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

69, forgive me, 1969.

And so it was 69.

Anyway, and I remember that because I watched television that night.

I watched them do that whole move thing.

That's how old I am.

So it was a point well taken and I said, all right, well, I was a supermodel, let's keep it in there.

I'm going to look to poo poo it, but gee whiz, I've moved on and done other things.

Well, it's not like there's a time when, okay, today I'm a supermodel and what tomorrow I'm not, like the magazine or the TV or wherever you were on, the films.

That's not how I make my living.

Let's put it in there.

Right.

You always have to be kind of be prepared for what's going to be next.

After modeling, I did the acting.

If you have never seen The Never Ending Story Part 2, you would have seen me as the mean queen, Zayida, and I had a ball net.

So there's some acting involved.

Then boom, I went into on camera talent with Italian television, where I had lived for 30 years and I had learned the language and all those things.

Lovely.

Did lots of movies here and then I started my own production company for Italian television.

But my first love really is live television.

It's live.

The movies were great, but there's a lot of sitting around, a lot of memorizing.

I don't memorize well.

Just ask me a question, let me answer it.

That's where I want to be.

I love medium.

I just hold my beer, give me a microphone and let me go.

So all this stuff you're doing, you've done all this stuff, which is amazing.

They say you need to teach what you need to learn.

Self-esteem is something you specialize in, but yet you say you didn't have self-esteem to start with.

How did you, what's your story on?

Take us back in time to when you didn't have self-esteem and then you're doing all this stuff anyhow.

How did you do it?

That's a good point.

When I was a kid, it was a tough household.

Both of my parents had been brought up through the Catholic schooling system for 12 years.

So dad, 12 years to the priests, mom, 12 years to the nuns.

My grandfather is one of 16 Irish Catholic children.

I'm just giving you an idea.

An Irish Catholic was really stern.

It was the children that would be seen and not heard.

There was a lot of rules and regulations.

Then as a child, I was the first born, not unwanted, but the first born child back in 1959, when girls that were knocked up were not looked upon real kindly.

So my poor mother really went through the wringer just to be able to have me.

What do you mean?

She wasn't married yet?

Well, she had to get married.

Yeah, that's what they did then.

They got married.

And unfortunately, as an 18-year-old girl, you don't know what love is, you don't know what love isn't, you don't know what your life choices are.

It was just one of those shotgun wedding things that had to happen.

And it was just not a good result.

You're not growing up in the ideal household.

A little bit traumatic, it sounds like.

Little house on the prairie.

Yeah.

So anyway, it was just a rough start because there was a lot of yelling and screaming.

There was some alcoholism involved on my mother's part, but on my father's part, my mom could get a little Irish, get her Irish gander up as well.

But it was kind of a really tough place to start as a kid.

So as the oldest, I was in the middle between my parents where I had to try to manage, and then the two children that came after me, sorry that I had to manage and take care of.

I just want to make sure I navigate, learn how to navigate almost right away, keep everybody happy, nobody needs to be upset.

Then of course, there was always a good amount of upset, but it was never really the kid's fault.

What is self-esteem?

What define it?

To get to the point, who does a little girl look to?

She looks to her mom, she looks to her grandma.

My mother was obviously in a very unhappy predicament.

She was a beautiful woman.

She never thought she was, never wanted her picture taken.

Oh, don't take my picture and was terrified of gaining weight.

It was all very funny that I would choose to become a model and live in front of a camera lens.

Completely different there from my mom.

Back in the day, there were still a lot of slinging of, I want to call them racial slurs, if you will.

Back in the 50s, it was still okay.

I don't know if you ever saw, there was a movie called, oh, God, the movie.

The Racial Slur Against.

Everybody was, the Polish were Polocks, and the Irish were Micks, and it were Waps and Dagos, and there was all these words, these words for all of the different, not very kind words, so for all the different national.

For groups of people, almost.

Yeah, national, different national.

So my father really had it in for the Italians.

He didn't like them at all.

I don't know what happened.

I just happened to live in Italy for 30 years.

So I became a model in Italy where it was complete.

It wasn't planned that way.

It was just kind of really funny how that all happened.

But anyway, long story short, as I watched, my mom not want to have her picture taken, was worried about her weight.

She just didn't, you couldn't give a compliment to my mother.

She just did not accept it well.

My grandmother was another beautiful woman.

And she one day in her 40s, late 40s, thought she was very thin and thought she needed to lose weight.

So she took two diet pills one day, choked on them, perforated herself, I guess, and spent the next six weeks in the hospital.

So now you can imagine as an eight-year-old child, as a nine-year-old child, I'm looking at these women.

And my perception of them is that they are gloriously gorgeous women.

They are just the cat's meow, when their perception of self themselves was really harsh.

And so that's where I kind of learned that there was something about this thing called self-esteem and the perception of self that we needed to take a look at.

And I wasn't given any of those tools.

I had to go learn about them.

So Daniel, back in the day, there were three bookstores and they were Walden Books, Ford Books and Barnes and Noble in the United States.

And I used to live in those because this is pre-computer, pre-cell phones, all the things.

And we used to live in bookstores and there was a little teeny-tiny section in the back.

It was called Self-Help.

And on those shelves, two or three shelves, not many, maybe 40 to 50 books, not a big deal at all.

But that's where I went to find solace and support and assistance and the reason why and my way out.

And that's where I started.

It's really kind of wild that now today, I can tell that my book is on the shelves at Barnes & Noble in the personal development section that is a billion-dollar industry.

And it's rows upon rows upon rows upon rows upon rows of books that talk about personal development.

Self-improvement.

And to me also, I mean, everybody knows this who's reading these self-esteem, these self-help books.

A lot of them don't work because otherwise you go on the other one.

You have to do the work.

You have to do the work.

And here's why.

I call the book Self-Esteem Regime.

And I like esteem and regime.

It was a little kitschy and a little catchy.

And regime, if you look it up, is an organized way of doing things.

So I set my book up almost as though it was a manual.

So for me, self-esteem is, the Self-Esteem Regime is a manual, but it's a mission and it's a movement.

And it's who I am and what I'm about.

And so you can't talk badly or poorly about yourself on my watch.

It's just not gonna happen.

And I'd like to think, most people said to me, somebody asked me the other day, what would you like to see as your epitaph, like on your tombstone?

I was everybody's cheerleader.

Like she was everybody's cheerleader.

She wanted to see everybody do really, really well and believe in themselves and love themselves.

And so that's kind of the backstory as to why I wrote the book that I wrote, where those first seeds were planted.

It was mom and grandmom, really.

And then of course-

And you're trying to help other women now.

You're trying to help-

Yeah, there's men too.

And men.

Yeah.

I think your website mentions women a lot and you have your-

It does.

But as a man, I want to run my show so that I can build my own self-esteem too.

Like I'm curious.

Here's a very funny deal.

I'll bring you to a couple of lovely stats about that.

First of all, when I got the cover back from my book, it was pink, yellow, and orange.

They're triangles.

You might have seen the book.

There are different triangles.

The only thing I have a New York City publisher and you're not allowed, you send in a manuscript.

You can't talk to them.

And I asked my agent, I said, please, Gary, get on your knees and just ask him to change that book to blue.

Three different iterations, three different shades of blue, so that men will pick it up.

And they do, and they have, and when I dropped the book here in Italy, half of the room was all, two years ago, by the way, it's still in the bookstores here.

I actually had half of the room were men, because men, they are the fastest growing group.

Well, you mean you have your women who, I'm just making this up, but I assume as a woman, some of your self-esteem is in your parents, right?

Yeah.

Well, that's why, unless it-

Yeah, they're foreign pillars of self-esteem.

But then on the men, is we're all in this together.

We both got our problems.

The men, you got to be a tough guy.

You got to be like Arnold.

You got to be aggressive and assertive.

You got to be a leader.

All these got to's, I think.

Yes.

All those things.

Yes, absolutely.

But especially after COVID, and especially after the financial strain and losing jobs and all of that sort of thing going on, men came under, they came out there.

Now, the latest and the fastest growing group of suicides.

Well, you got to be the breadwinner.

You got to support your family, and there's some honest truth to behind that.

Well, I'm not good enough.

I got fired from my job and someone else got to stay.

A lot of people can handle it because they know that life is triggering and it's going to bring some...

Life's going to happen.

It's not always going to be happy and healthy.

But people that really are feeling that bad and that down need a good support system.

It's one of the first things I also talk about in the book, is a good support system sent all the time.

That could be you only have five people.

That's great.

If you have five fine people in your lifetime, that are your ride or dies and they're there for you at three o'clock in the morning with that phone call, mate, and you are really truly a rich man.

So in terms of self-esteem, let's do one man and one woman.

Let's stay with the man who didn't get to promotion feels he's not good enough.

What's the first thing he could do today to build the self-esteem where he realizes, maybe it's not about me, I'm going to find a better job.

I'm perfect for a better job.

I just, it wasn't for me.

It wasn't meant to be.

Right.

Well, I think one of the first things that I would go back to that support group, like who do you have in your life you know you can talk to?

You guys have really, I would really invite you to step up to the plate in sharing more, more information and more openly with one another.

Women, I can be on a plane.

I go from Los Angeles to New York, sit next to some chick and I swear to you, I know her life story by that time we land.

I know her name, I know her shoe size, I know her boyfriends, I know her all the things, right?

Guys really don't do that as much.

They don't feel as comfortable opening up.

Now I will tell you also this, you know, there's really, I find there's less excuse today because there's more ways of finding the help.

Back in my day, we didn't have that, right?

We didn't have, we had that bookstore in the back corner with a few books on the shelves, right?

Today you've got documentaries, you've got videos, you've got YouTube, you've got meetups, you've got all the different ways to get out and meet people.

When people today say, I feel lonely, you know, I'm alone and I'm lonely.

I always go back to, gee whiz, okay, but there are 8 billion people on the face of the planet.

And, you know, I get that you're having a bad day and I'll give you two of them.

Go have yourself two bad days.

Then go find the stuff you need to have, like books like mine that will walk you through the process.

I have 12 chapters.

We walk you from, you know, be in ground zero to fly and hire in a kite.

The thing about the books though, you can get stuck in them like, here's that wrong thing, Clarissa.

I've seen people in that situation, in the bookstore, and they're reading the book because they don't want to buy it, and they're sitting down, and now they're still stuck in the little world.

The way I break, a men's group, you've got to find a mastermind, you've got to find somebody, you've got to find a book review group or whatever it is, start it.

Well, the way I break the loneliness myself is when I see people like that, I try to break into their bubble as I feel it's the kind thing to do if I can see that they're that serious.

Of course.

And I will literally say something like, is that a good book?

Yeah.

Just to get inside their head, break their, break their, their, their, you know, isolation.

And, and then.

Nation thing, isn't it?

Right.

It's rumination thinking, thinking, because the more you think about your problems, the more they grow.

There's just no way in the loneliness to break the loneliness.

Because they're still lonely.

Like you said, there's millions of people.

Now they're in a bookstore with a hundred people.

They still haven't talked to anybody yet at all about anything.

I feel I will come, and this is Chapter 3, is responsibility.

Every chapter begins with a re-word from regime.

Take responsibility for your own emotional pain.

You have to learn how to take responsibility.

And again, take yourself, take a couple of days, do what you got to do.

You know, you got to cry.

That's great.

You know, bring it up, bring it out.

But know that if you're feeling this way, there's always a way out.

There's always a different way.

No matter how dark the time's getting, God knows I've been through mine.

I'm sure you've been through yours.

And we probably haven't seen the last of it because that's this thing called life.

You know, I talk about, I talk about, excuse me, I talk about the triggers, right?

Here in the storm, here comes a storm.

And there's another trigger coming along.

It's a storm and it's a hurricane and here it comes.

And, but you know, we that have done the work, we that are starting to accrue the tools in the shed that we will need anytime another storm is coming through our life.

And it could be a death, a separation, a betrayal, it could be many different things, but it will happen.

It could happen tomorrow.

You know, like, works.

What you will wait to do is when that storm comes through, as I said, if you're standing really strong in your stead, just like a well-rooted tree, right?

Now here comes a storm, here comes a storm.

And so maybe you're going to lose a leaf.

You're going to lose a branch.

You're not going to be uprooted by the storm and transported away because you had the tools in the shed that you needed to navigate better this time than you did the last time.

So if you're a, say a woman, or women or a man, but let's pick one woman, how do you respond to the criticism and judgment?

Like if you're a woman and like it could be, you get the perception, whether it's true or not, that somebody thinks you're overweight, you're not pretty enough.

Yeah, but here's the deal, one that what other people think of you is none of your business.

I know, but you still can't help it like in that moment.

Yeah.

I know that, I can't.

Well, of course, of course.

But you know, I get my, they're the daily demons that come up and do the thing, and sometimes they won't go away unless, hang on for a couple of days, deal with your daily demons, you'll read about them in the book as well.

But you also have to know that, you know what?

I know how powerful I am, I know how strong I am.

Let me implement some of the exercises that are in my book or any other book, and let me find the way, the resources that I need to make sure that I remind myself that kind of hurt.

I'm not going to lie, I did take a little thing there from Suzy Q when she said I was a little overweight, or that those jeans did make my butt look fat.

Whatever the thing is, you have to know and understand that you bring so much more to the table in your physical self.

That is just one aspect.

Let's get to the four pillars of self-esteem.

Look good, feel good, be good, and greater good.

So we are talking about look good right now.

You know, I also, I was a supermodel.

I'm not anymore.

I used to weigh 20 pounds less.

I don't now.

You know, I have been through menopause, gained the weight.

You know, all the things, I'm not a supermodel anymore.

Oh, well, it was great.

And it was a good time in my life.

And it was nice to have that kind of attention.

And it was really nice to be considered that physically attractive, right?

That's not everything.

And I will tell you that if you start basing your life, your self, your soul, your essence, and your trajectory, right, in life, on what you look like, it's nice to look nice.

Surely, pull yourself together.

You want that lilt in your step when you leave in the morning.

I wouldn't base my entire life on that.

And I certainly wouldn't base my entire self-esteem on that.

I like how you, the example, somebody says, your girlfriend, your butt looks fat in those jeans.

And then even if it was a joke, you're stuck on it.

You're like, oh my gosh.

And you could tell yourself, oh, you know, but there's, I'm a bigger person than that.

How do you, but that seems to me doesn't, that mind talk doesn't work.

You have to keep, what, because you have to keep working on it.

Look, you can either conform or you can transform one of the two.

You know, you're the one that chooses.

What do you want to do?

Do you really want change in your life?

Do you really want to be living happier, healthier, with ease, joy and glory and grace?

Well, then you have to, I think I learned this overnight.

Heck no, I didn't have anybody teach it to me.

I just knew that I wanted to be a better person tomorrow than I am today.

And if you keep that as one of your first mantras that you take away from this conversation, if you're listening in, make sure that that is your mantra, how, you know, universe, source, divine, God, Buddha, Krishna, whatever you believe in, help me be a better person tomorrow than I am today.

What do I need to know?

Show me that way.

And if you continue to be mindful about that, I guarantee you, you're going to be moving in that direction.

You'll also be taught, you'll also at least read about mirror therapy in the book.

Mirror therapy, I read for the first time in some of Louise Hayes' works, and then Jack Canfield used it in-

Mirror, like looking in the mirror, look at yourself in the mirror.

Mirror therapy.

And when you start to talk to yourself in the mirror, which is going to look weird, sound weird, feel weird.

I was working with an intern one time and I was walking through the process with her and she couldn't do it.

She could look at herself.

She couldn't talk it, she couldn't talk it through.

And when you stand in front of me and say, hey, Clarissa, just want to let you know, cool, you're doing a great job, looking really good today.

I want to know, you know what?

I really like you.

I like you as a person and let me tell you why.

Wait a minute, let me take it one step closer, farther.

I really love you and I love the way you love on people and I love that you're misshipping in life and I love the direction you're moving toward.

And, you know, it doesn't matter if my butt's a little bit bigger than it was because I love me a whole lot more now than I did when I was in Israel, I promise you that.

So the mirror therapy, it helps do this for 21 days.

Well, actually, I don't literally say I love you into the mirror, but I look in the mirror and I've stick them notes on the side of the mirror.

Yes, I do too.

With my mission, why am I here?

What am I doing?

My purpose?

What skills do I have that I am?

Like I'm an engineer, I'm smart, I'm sensitive, and so forth.

I have those so that is I get the bad days, and I'm like, what am I doing?

I'm not good enough.

That's a great story.

You either freaking post it.

This is a fact.

You've already thought about this.

That's your skill.

This is your plan, and to understand who you are.

Yeah.

And I've lived like you, Daniel.

I've lived many a year with posted notes from the Mirror as well.

I know they can also help you as you're doing this Mirror therapy talk with yourself.

You know, it's not going to feel the same for everybody, Mirror therapy, but come back to me in 21 days after you've done at least a minute a day.

I advocate for more, but if you can get through a minute of just getting in there, be in your own raw session and tell yourself all the lovely things you want to hear.

So thinking about this, Clarissa, you and me, it seems like we've been through the room and somehow we were strong enough to wring it out.

I'm guessing that people that as simple as this sounds, they haven't problems.

How can we help them get started doing this?

Because I'm imagining they go look in the mirror like you're suggesting and then they freak out.

They're like, they see I'm in the jeans, they're wearing the jeans and they look fat and they're like, this is not working, I can't do this.

How can we?

Yeah.

So, and put yourself up, there's a plan that you'll see in the book.

There's a plan, look good, feel good, be good, great or good and do an assessment on, okay, where am I from one to 10?

Now, the way I look in the mirror and how do I feel about myself?

What can I do about that?

And so find out what you can do about that.

There are books and meetings and-

Well, sticking with the jeans make me look fat, questions come to mind.

Who says I look fat?

Because that's relative.

But who cares?

I wasn't asking anybody else, I was asking myself.

And really, who cares?

Right.

Is this why I'm here?

To make people, I'm not a supermodel, so it's not affecting my job, my career.

I think I'm just trying to work this out for myself right now, because I'm not that far in the gutter, but I know there are people who are.

Here's another thing I want to read with, let me tell you this, we were talking about the sticking notes, and nice quotes that we can continually tell ourselves, which are really important because people say, ah, you know, the idea, that's all silly, it's really not, it works.

But okay, so when I was looking up, when I was doing the work on the book, you know, we always hear about, I am enough, him enough, you are enough, we are enough, everybody's enough.

And then I took it by myself to take a look at the definition of enough one day, Daniel.

And it goes like this, only as much as is required.

So just by definition, the word enough isn't enough.

I'm still processing that only enough.

Only as much, enough means only as much as is required.

By what's required by who?

That's the definition of it.

No, I'm saying.

I am enough means by the definition of in the dictionary means, I am enough and I am only as much as is required.

Of course, the question comes as it required by who or when.

Yes, we can go deeper.

But the definition is that.

So the new mantra that I created is, I am so much more than enough.

I don't know about you, I am so much more than enough.

And that's where we need to stay.

That's where we need to stick.

I kind of, I'm not sure I completely follow because I'm just thinking this through right now on the fly.

You say, I'm only enough as required.

So say beautiful.

I'm only as beautiful as required.

I'd say by who for what?

I'm not a supermodel.

So therefore, I actually am enough if I'm not a supermodel because it's not required that I look like a supermodel.

So the question is, is this required word still sticking with me when I think it's good that she broke the definition down because I'm only, am I good enough?

Right.

Well, as you only-

As required by yourself.

By who?

Right.

As required by yourself.

It doesn't matter what anybody else is thinking.

Well, it could be, if you're an NFL player, it could be, am I strong enough?

I've got a $10 million, guys, $50 million, $100 million contract these days.

Right.

You're not good enough.

You're not good enough, actually.

You are not good enough as required if you're not fast enough.

So I like it, but I think it's the required parts going to help.

It's the definition, Daniel.

I'm not going to call it a conversation.

It's the definition that was given to me or through the different dictionaries.

And I found it to be really a curious thing to say, Wow, just like you have.

It's real, wow, as required.

Wow, that's really weird.

And so, you know, to be really, really mindful about, I am a lot more than enough because enough is not the proper word, right, that I'm looking for in this case scenario, right?

I'm a lot more than enough.

I am much more than probably what I even see in myself.

And that's what we want to continue to move forward.

So the new mantra, again, being that the other thing about self-esteem is when we're continuing to, I'm sorry about my nose when I told you I'm just really not well.

The other thing is the comparison part.

You know, we compare ourselves to everybody else.

Social media has been pretty devastating for a lot of people because we're continually doing that thing that we do, which is comparing ourselves to others, which we should never do.

And so when we remember we said the grass is always greener on the other side, you know, keeping up with Jones' kind of thing.

Is the grass really greener on the other side?

It also gets us back to am I enough?

Because now you're comparing am I enough?

Good enough relative to that comparison.

Yeah.

Is the grass always greener on the other side or is it always greener where I water?

Is the grass always greener on the other side or is it astroturf?

So is it not real?

Is it fake?

Is it perception?

Is it plastic?

So there are a lot of things about perception we need to be really careful about.

And what we need to really do when we're talking about comparing, is to compare ourselves to who we were yesterday.

Like, am I a better person today than I was yesterday?

Let's compare that instead of worrying about what everybody else is doing, because I guarantee you that whoever it was, Source, Divine, Jesus, God, Buddha, all the things that are, they knew exactly what they were doing when they created you.

Whatever it was, you can call it whatever you will, you know exactly what they were doing.

With the comparison, I like that.

I like you bring that up.

What I realize often when I do the comparison, you say it's somebody more successful or more beautiful than you, and yes, they have more money and they're more beautiful than you.

But you're basing that comparison that you're not as good as they are on that one criteria, and if you dig deep enough, you'll find that they might be drinking and alcoholic, be on drugs, be there.

You're still comparing and it doesn't matter.

You're still comparing yourself to someone else, and that's not what we're talking about.

Good point.

You're comparing yourself to somebody else.

Yeah.

I mean, having weaker self-esteem doesn't mean that you're destined to live in the shadows of self-doubt for God's sake.

You, that's why we're here, that's why we do the work, that's why we get the books, that's why we read the books.

Sometimes you're going to get uncomfortable reading, and you're going to put it down, and I want to even think about it for a bit.

Because the work that you will do is not going to be easy.

What do you think stops people then from doing the work?

The fear.

The fear of what?

The fear of feelings, the fear of inadequacy, the fear of not feeling good enough, the fear of having to deal with childhood trauma, or the fear of the natal tribe, the familial tribe, the fear of moving on.

Because it's a lot easier for a lot of people to stay comfortable and cushy where they are with what they know, with what they were taught, with by whom they were taught, then kind of to break away a little bit, go out on your own, learn all these things for yourself, and know that there's a certain point in all of this, that your skill set, your emotional intelligence is going to be different than those that you spent the first 18 years with, potentially, right?

And so, and that's okay.

And they deserve grace because they taught you what they could and they taught you what they know.

And that, for that, we thank them.

When we do interact with them now, that we have gone out and learned all these lovely things for ourselves.

You're talking about your parents?

Family.

Family.

We now meet them where they're at.

We've grown our personal growth, our self-confidence, our self-worth, our self-esteem.

We now have a whole different mindset, and we have all kinds of different tools now that we work with.

Well, if you're talking about, I grew up in Catholic, Roman Catholic, in Byzantine Roman Catholic as well, in Cleveland, Ohio, another group as we call it.

We've come to understand our parents were in a worse position than we were in terms of trauma.

Yeah.

In terms of trauma and in terms of the information that was available to them in order for them to be able to learn what we are now able to learn.

So this is why when I talk about, you know, I talk about taking the high road, I talk about honor, intelligence, gratitude and honesty, intelligence, gratitude and honor.

And when we talk about honor, it's honoring your parents, no matter what kind of parents they were.

Well, just understanding, I don't really, I don't say that honor my parents, I just understand that they didn't, not only did they not, were not taught parent skills, they were thrown into parenthood, coming right off the bus of the trauma from their parents, which was worse.

Yeah, so it's a little bit messed.

So that's another thing with a really great point is, I decided at a certain point that the toxic stopped here.

All of that was behind me, it was a part of me, it was a part of what I was taking out into the world, and from that, I made a really conscious decision that that wasn't going to come forward with me, that I was going to make all the changes I could possibly do and possibly make.

So being very mindful and careful about toxic relationships, so when I say, I'm near parents, I will be really forthcoming and say, I don't have a relationship with my father, and I haven't since I was 18.

Millions of different reasons there, that kind of energy cannot be in my life in order for me to be able to grow the way I would like to grow.

We won't get into that.

But there are other ways that now we can grow and be really happy and live in a healthy self-esteem, which is really what we all, because when we come to the table with any relationship now, you know whether you're a love relationship, a family relationship, a work relationship, an interview, you know that you are going to get honesty, integrity, gratitude, and honor from every word I speak.

And a picture of someone who has low self-esteem or the average person, because the word self-esteem, you can define it, but I'd like to get a visualization.

Like, what's an example of someone who would do it?

Yeah.

A lot of people are depressed.

So you know that usually we've got a lot of self-esteem is coming, low self-esteem leads into depression.

So that's kind of an idea, not always, but kind of.

And another really cool point is that 85% of adults are unhappy with their appearance in their body.

So going back to what we were talking about before, it's a big number, 85% of adults.

Perfect.

So they feel they're being judged and they know technically, if I compare myself to a supermodel, I'm not.

Because you're comparing.

And you're comparing to the social standards as well.

You're comparing to social media, comparing to.

Yeah.

So what's the solution?

We talked about mirror work.

About that already.

We've talked about all this already.

And that solution is to not worry about what everybody else is thinking, to have your own parameters, to look at yourself in the mirror and to say, you know what, maybe I could use, you know, lose an extra 10 pounds.

I know I do.

I'm just being a little length.

Oh, get to the gym.

Get out to take your walk.

Buy a new pair of walking shoes.

Dig, you know, buy the fit.

Well, you know, the to not care what other people think is a great topic by itself because I do this all the time, every day, 100 times after my myself.

Say I go outside, so I'm actually in pretty good shape.

But let's I'm going to pretend I'm a little overweight.

Just for this example, I'll pretend even I'm a woman a little overweight.

And I'm so conscious about my weight.

And that's probably part of the problem.

I start the day worrying about that.

I walk out the front door and and I see my neighbor.

They don't speak at first.

And I think it's because, oh, I look fat.

Yeah.

Oh, no.

Now, somebody else would tell you, Clarissa, don't worry about what other people think.

I don't know what they're thinking.

On your business.

No, I don't.

They could be looking at me just thinking, oh, those are cool jeans.

I like your jeans.

Now, look at my butt.

But you don't know what they're thinking.

So the people that tell you don't worry about what other people are thinking, I say, say hello.

But I continue to come back to it.

It's really not a thing to be worried about what other people are thinking.

Well, I'm saying you don't know what, I'm saying you don't know what other people are thinking.

You can't care about something that you don't know about.

On your business to know, I keep coming back to the same point.

To know, go outside with your jeans, whatever you're doing, say hello, take them up some banana bread when you make an extra bit, whatever, just be.

When you live in happy self, happy self-esteem, you have high self-confidence.

Confidence broken down in Latin is confidere, confidens, confidere.

That means with trust.

Let's go back to self-confidence, self with trust, trust in self.

You know that if you bought those jeans and you put them on, and you bought them and you brought them home, and you looked at yourself and you're feeling good about it, that's all you need to know.

As long as you are the kind of person that, and I do this all the time, say hello to everybody, ask them what their name is, make them a nice compliment, move on, come back.

I know that I've got people, I'm in Rome in the moment, so I'm in the middle of the city.

I got the restaurant downstairs, I know everybody's name.

I got the little mini market next door.

They're from Pakistan, I know everybody's name.

Every morning, I walk in, it's like a little bit of a party.

Well, how are you doing?

It's not easy for everybody to do this, and I understand that.

No, I was just thinking how great it is, the way describing it, and I can picture myself there.

Then I just came back though to the person who were really trying to help Clarissa, who is depressed and suicidal.

I don't think they can jump that far in the radio station.

Well, you don't have to jump that far right away, of course.

I mean, I said this before, and I'll say it again.

When you get to that point, you need to reach out to all kinds of hotlines.

If you don't have a support group, family, friends, or whatever, or maybe sometimes you don't even want them to know because you're feeling a little embarrassed and uncomfortable with it all, make sure you get onto a hotline.

Well, what comes to mind also is as I'm picturing myself as you described it, and as not to care what other people think because you don't even care what people think, none of their business, great.

But yet, I guarantee you, for most people, including myself, as many times I say that, subconsciously, I'm going to walk out the door, and when I see and hear, and I interact with the real world, I'm going to get beat up really fast.

I think there's also something to be said about overthinking every situation.

Just, I've been depressed in my life, I know exactly what it is, and I know that I have to ride the wave a little bit, and then there's a certain way I said, take the two, three days, take a week, take two weeks if you need it, take the time that you need for self-care, because that's really important.

But at the same time, you know this can't go on for a lifetime.

Sometimes, and I'm not ashamed to say, and I'm advocating, but you do whatever it is you feel like you need to do.

It took me a little bit longer in life to figure it out when I was younger, but because I went through the first couple of depressions, I went through them, no help at all.

You didn't mention those.

Oh, yeah.

I can't write about self-esteem if I haven't been through it.

I've been through the ringer a million times.

The whole thing about the depressions are, first of all, you have to understand that that's what it is.

I didn't know that at the time.

I found out what it is and it was so uncomfortable and so painful, I couldn't wait to find out what I could do about it.

You're a supermodel and yet you're depressed or were.

You've been with Hope John Paul II in a private meeting and yet you're still, you don't think you did enough.

Yeah.

My depressions were long before that.

Yes.

I was working toward these things.

The first thing I had to understand is, what is it that I have?

Then start to understand, how can I get out of that?

Because the pain was so excruciating.

Then the third phase is finding out and realizing how I even got there in the first place.

It's kind of a backtrack a little bit, because you don't want to go back there.

You won't understand how you got there, you never go back there again.

I.e.

the self-help books.

That's how that all happened.

Maybe I missed that point.

But that's how that all happened, it didn't happen.

So, you don't want to overthink it.

Know that this is what, you know, it potentially you have.

Reach out.

And when I say reach out, do it for yourself.

Again, sport groups, family, friends, it's church, faith, whatever.

If that doesn't work, if you don't like that, there are hotlines.

And if you don't like that, get the books, get the courses, get the classes, get into a meetup group.

There's a meetup group for everything.

Find a hobby, find people that are there.

There are people that talk about mental health and personal growth on meetup at meetup.com.

And it's not easy.

Look, I'm not sitting here saying, oh, you know, is this just an easy one?

It's a tough go.

It's gonna not, but you must do the work.

You've got to love yourself enough to do the work, right?

And so that was where my sticking point was.

I knew that I had to figure it all out.

And I did it without doctors, and I did it without psychiatrists and psychologists.

There was a time or two that I did take a SSRI.

An SSRI?

Or a ZAC or whatever.

So let me ask you, Clarissa, because part of the reason that I do my podcast is I'm trying to provide tools like this for people to find their purpose, do what they want to do, because I think that's the way out of all this.

You're not doing what, you don't think big purpose like you have to be Mother Teresa.

You're not doing the thing you want to do.

So let me ask you, do you find that you're doing all these things?

I mean, you were knighted, you've been a supermodel.

What, I'm going back to the list of things.

Oh, you're a director, an author, then you write books.

Do you find that each of these things brings you out of the gutter, not because of how great you are doing them, but just because you're doing something you want to do?

Also, and that's why I said to you before, I really prefer the person I am today, and I was saying the fact that I don't look the way I used to do, my body's not the way I used to do, all that doesn't matter.

I love who I am today because I know what my mission is.

I know why I had to go through the things that I went through in life, because now I can sit here as a very confident person, as someone who has done the work, who someone has cried buckets, as someone who has put her big girl britches on over and over and over again, someone who has always had a way forward, someone who has always had, okay, what can I do now that I've gone through all of this and it's-

But you've done it too.

What can I do with that pain?

But I mean, back to being depressed, you did something like to get yourself, I don't mean like to get off your butt and do something just for the sake of getting off the bed.

You followed some idea like, I feel called to do this, let me do that.

You can't be depressed if you're doing something new and exciting or different or trying.

You'll see something in the book called The Clarion Call, by the way, it's in every chapter.

Yeah, absolutely called to do this.

I know how many people this book, I mean, this book is changing lives one chapter at a time, I can promise you that.

The first chapter is release, rebuild, responsibility, reimagine.

We end with the 12th, I think is reciprocal, another one of universal laws.

So, it's a powerful book, it's an impactful book, the exercise is do the work, you know, do the people, you know, I'm in the fourth chapter and I just, okay, then if you want to say at the fourth chapter, that's on you.

What happens when people, because it happens a lot in it.

And I think that what happens is you kind of find yourself kind of in the same place back where you were.

And so, you know, fostering again, those feelings of, well, my good friend, Joe Schmo, and, you know, he seems to be moving forward and do a lot.

Don't, again, don't compare, but you do these things, like, we do those things.

And again, social media is killer.

Yeah.

So taking that example, because the moment you said that, I've been there, okay?

Yeah.

I see.

I see.

I will give you an example.

So I'm doing my own thing.

I've got my own business.

And I used to be a rocket scientist.

And my brother goes, yeah, the neighbors, they're killing it.

Look, you know, they just moved in this nice house.

And what are they doing?

Oh, they're doing the programming, the Python.

I'm like, what do I do?

I compare myself.

I'm going to go learn Python.

I spend all this time learning it.

And I'm because I'm like, you know, I'm smart and being an engineer because I'm comparing myself and looking at my Here, you're you're a speaker.

You're an author.

You are smart.

This is what's on my mirror.

But that's not your path.

And so I actually got two offers, $300,000 because I tweaked my profile LinkedIn.

I know how it works.

Take out all the speaking, take out all the rock climbing, what you're programming back in.

And then I got to, you know, just close to job off, like, you know, just those like come visit us, like we like you.

I'm like, gosh, if I go down that path, I'm going to die.

I've been there before.

All started from a comparison to the neighbors who were killing it, you know, meaning making money successful, doing that, I'll do that.

You got to be authentic is what I think.

Stay on your authenticity and it'll get, it'll happen for a moment.

Compare them and go, well, that's cool.

Well, I'm going to be successful doing this because I believe everybody out there has something unique to offer and they're not doing it and they need to do that, I think is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So lots of ways out and, you know, you're talking to me about, you know, the worst-case scenarios when somebody's really, really bad and really, really depressed.

Yeah, go, you know, do the things we talked about before.

Most of the people that, you know, that are, you know, we call it stuck.

We're just stuck.

We're not in a good place.

We're not really happy.

You know, it's the same for everyone.

You know, just get out there, find what your passion is, what lights you up.

There's something lights everybody up.

There's just no way around that.

My light up is when I'm on stage, when I'm on a microphone, when I'm on TV and when I'm doing what I'm doing with you, which is sharing what I know because I've been there and I know what I've done to get out of some situations.

And so I wrote a book about it.

You know, I wrote a book.

It's been on the shelves in Barnes and Noble for three years, my book.

And I don't know if you know anything about trying to get real estate in Barnes and Noble.

I'm not saying that to impress.

I'm saying-

No, it is.

It's, yeah, it's not.

People think I'll be self-published.

You won't get on the, to get on the actual bookshelf is what-

Yeah, I'm on the actual bookshelf.

Yeah.

I'm on the actual bookshelf nationwide.

Everywhere I go, it's there.

And it's on the same shelf.

We've got Britt A.

Brown, Clarissa Burt, Dr.

Deepak Chopra and Dr.

Joe Dispenza on the same line.

Like I am with the titans of the personal development industry.

So, I've been doing this a long time.

And I finally was able to get into a book, three years ago, into Barnes and Noble, which was my first book and that was extraordinary.

And the field because I am the PhD in this material.

I didn't sit in a college classroom for 900 years to learn what I'm talking about.

I just went through it step by step and it hurt a lot.

And I had to pull myself out of all the negative self-talk and the lack of self-confidence and apologizing often and focusing on the negative and having bad, even bad image, body image when I was a kid.

I always want people, please, living in self-doubt.

The greatest procrastinator that ever lived.

Hello, here I am.

Well, I like how you're diversifying too, not just to diversify.

You do whatever you want to do.

Because on your website, you also have the non-toxic beauty regime.

Like you make your own beauty product.

You also have a cookbook.

Yes, I do.

It's eating gluten-free.

Because I have to eat gluten-free.

I live in Italy.

I lived in Italy.

So I have a pizza, pasta, and pane, which is bread.

It's like 98 percent gluten.

I couldn't understand why I kept breaking out, being rushed to the hospital, rushed to the hospital.

I was having anaphylactic shocks once a week until we figured it out.

So I wrote a book about how to eat Italian, but gluten-free.

I got that, yeah, too.

I don't buy any cookbooks, but I totally saw that.

And gluten-free, she's in Rome, she's Italian.

Saying Daniel is living a toxic-free life.

Whether it be by looking good, now I'm coming out the wig line, a synthetic wig line for women that have cancer and alopecia, and have lost a lot of hair due to COVID.

So we're working on that now.

So that's a look-good piece.

The cosmetics is a look-good piece, because that's all non-toxic that I make at home.

The cookbook is Feel Good, because Feel Good is diet, exercise, nutrition, wellness.

Be Good is The Self-Esteem Regime.

There we are.

Yeah.

So back to self-esteem, it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that part of the way you stay out of low self-esteem is, like we were talking about, don't care what other people think, you do whatever you want to do.

You make it happen.

You follow the call and whatever little birdie tells you in your ear.

That's right.

You got this.

And you know what?

You never, you just, we're always a work in progress, right?

And fear, we know what fear is.

It's, what do they say?

It's fear, false elements appearing real or something like that.

False evidence appearing real.

And then the other one that I really like a lot is failure, right?

What the heck was failure?

I forget.

It was-

It's a lot of letters.

Your first attempt in learning, failing, right?

So what if I fail?

Oh my God, the fear of failure, the fear of failure.

It's your first attempt in learning.

And if you don't try, you're not going to know what works or doesn't work.

So guess what?

Yeah, you failed.

Next.

You will.

Let's put it this way.

You like, you are likely to fail.

And like Edison invented the light bulb, a thousand times.

And if you don't expect to fail, you're kidding yourself, like why get started?

Most of my rock climbs, I failed on 10 times before I was successful.

The ones that hadn't been climbed before.

And that's why the best climbers in the world, the North Face Climbing Team, people you read about, they failed, but they only tried once.

Right.

And then they gave up.

I was like, you know what?

I like that.

I'm going to do that again and failed again.

Why are you wasting your time?

Yeah.

I'm not because I know more now than the last people did and I'm going to get there.

This saying by John Maxwell says, sometimes you win and sometimes you learn.

Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn.

Like if you didn't get the rock climbing the first time, you learned what to do the next time.

I did.

I learned a different way to go up and down.

I learned where there was water.

I learned more about, you know, this is not going to work in the winter.

It's too cold or it's too hot in the summer.

Absolutely every little thing.

And then one day I get to the top and people like, that was too easy.

You couldn't been the first person to climb that.

I'm like, look at the history books and like, well, how could you do it?

You just keep trying.

And it's what I wanted to do.

More importantly, do what you're called to do.

You feel like you're called to do.

Like if you had written a cookbook instead of on Italian gluten-free on, on bacon chocolate chip cookies.

I do very well by the way.

Okay.

Well, something really gluten-heavy or just like, because you were comparing yourself to the other cookbooks on the shelves at Barnes and Noble, it was selling a lot.

And only because you thought you could get in there and sell cookbooks, not because you had a passion for your objective, which was, it wouldn't do as well, I don't think.

You got to do what you feel is your heart, right?

Exactly.

So, is there anything we haven't talked about you want to add?

I think we did.

I mean, we really did talk about you, and that's really, it's great.

It's just, it is what it is.

And unfortunately, as we said before, people do get, they get stuck in that fear, they get stuck in the, who am I to think I could ever?

Well, let me tell you, you are.

You're one magical being again, because all that is knew exactly what they were doing when they put you here.

So, you know, let's make sure that we understand that that's really an important thing to be remembering all the time.

And, and then, you know, just go out and do the work, make your plans.

Sometimes, you know, plans don't always work out the way we want to, but get a list.

I love running lists, you know.

Just make a list.

What do you want to do?

What do you want to become?

How are you going to get there?

Implement a plan.

You know, make sure that you're, you know, you're working on yourself every day, even if it's just a little bit.

And, you know, don't, don't give up on yourself.

Just don't do that.

Her book is The Self-Esteem Regime, An Action Plan for Becoming the Confident Person You Were Meant To Be.

And it's available anywhere Amazon.

I know I love to go to bookstores like Barnes and Noble.

Yeah, me too, me too.

But a lot of people like to buy on Amazon still.

So I'm sure you can buy it there and it'll be in the show notes.

Yeah.

You know, I'm thinking, I like to close with this.

It's really, really important.

A lot of times we will, you know, we ask ourselves, why am I this way?

And well, some of it is, you know, a lot of it's genetic, you know.

So remember those kinds of things, right?

And so a lot of that.

But, you know, but but remember also that hurt people hurt people.

So remembering that, you know, what what all of that generational trauma comes forward lots of times in who we are and how we react.

What we're taught by mom and dad, grandparents, great grandparents, and then behind them is a lot of generational trauma to be we worked out sometimes.

And so that, you know, some of us may have to deal a little more with that.

There's another book that I really love by Mark Walling called Shake the Family Tree.

It didn't start with you.

So a lot of times we think it's us and it's like, well, what's wrong with me?

And, oh, I'm such a horrible person and it didn't start with you.

But the toxic stops here.

There's the great news, you know.

So do the work and have fun doing it, try to have fun doing it.

It's not always easy.

I get it.

But, you know, what's on the other side of that tunnel?

I always talk about the extra mile, Daniel, and walking the extra mile.

That extra mile, we talk about, we hear about a lot, that extra mile is right.

The extra mile is always colder, it's darker, it's blusty, it's blustery, it's raining, it's windy, it's an awful place to go, that extra mile.

It's dark.

And man, I will tell you, you're scared, you're really, like, nervous as I'll get out.

But you look around because you're like, hey, tribe, come on, let's go.

And when you turn around, nobody's there.

So here's the deal, you can turn around and be real, real safe, or you can see that light way at the end of the tunnel and it's down there, there's a light.

And you want to go for that light.

That's the point that when you get closer to that light, you get to that light, it's going to be bigger, bolder, brighter, and more beautiful than you ever imagined.

So please keep going.

Amen.

Aho.

Thanks, Clarissa.

It's been great speaking with you.

Have a great day.

Bye.