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i wanted to be powerful and have

influence because i wanted to prove

people wrong you can't start the

internet for very long without stumbling

upon lily's sink lily

i was born into the reality of being a

disappointment right away there were

rules about being a woman my mom did not

grow up with queer culture so for me to

expect her to operate from a place of my

lived experience how is that math ever

going to add up

welcome to the first episode of a little

late with lilly singh you got given a

late night show when i said that you

said i'm so sorry tell me why you said

that because i don't think the thing was

good

the community that i did this show for

is pissed at me because i nervously made

a joke out of context and that broke my

heart every day did you have anxiety at

the time i developed it during season

one of the show

is the struggle worth it for me yes it

is i believe in what i believe so much

more than the hurt that i feel

so without further ado

i'm stephen bartlett and this is the

diary of a ceo usa edition i hope

nobody's listening but if you are

then please keep this to yourself

[Music]

lily

thank you for being here it's a real

honor and we've got a mutual friend jay

shelley who's really spoken so

incredibly highly of you and then when i

got a chance to delve into your story i

became pretty fascinated by many things

i want to start because i always i

always believe that the foundation of

everybody that i sit here with and also

myself having studied some childhood

psychology is their childhood so i guess

the question i had for you is

when you think about 10 year old lily

and the lessons she had learned by that

age about the world and life

what were those lessons and where did

she learn them from

the lessons at the age of 10 i don't

think were necessarily beneficial ones

um

i was

born into the reality of

being a disappointment right away being

the second daughter in an indian family

i was told in my adult life that my

grandparents great grandparents and

india didn't find out about my birth for

about two weeks because they had said if

it's not a sun is not worth calling home

about so that really colored in a lot of

my childhood because whether it was

ridiculous things like

oh you know girls aren't supposed to

talk that much ridiculous things like

girls aren't supposed to whistle

whatever girls weren't supposed to do

was very apparent to me from a really

young age so the lessons i was taught

that there were rules about being a

woman there was expectations about being

a woman

and i had to

fit that mold if i wanted to be

not even accepted but if i want to make

people proud i think more than anything

i never felt like i wasn't accepted but

if i wanted to be

extraordinary in the eyes of people that

were disappointed in me i had to fit the

mold and so a lot of my upbringing was a

little bit of this

uh simultaneous i need to fit the mold

but then this rebellious side of me

being like but i don't want to and kind

of negotiating that balance

what you said about your grandparents

wanting a boy and generally in an indian

culture they're being a desire to have a

boy how did that impact you

i i read that you were a tomboy growing

up yes yes yes yes i was obsessed with

doing the rock johnson i loved wrestling

i wore baggy clothes i rebelled in every

such a way because of this expectation

that was set upon me i think in my adult

life i have learned and i don't think i

knew this growing up i don't think i

even knew this years ago i think this is

a quite recent revelation

that experience has put a very heavy

chip on my shoulder that i carry in my

adult life and i think for a lot of my

life i was

scared to admit that or i was

embarrassed to admit that because no one

wants to admit that they have this chip

on their shoulder but now i fully

embrace it that ship on the shoulder is

for most of my life i always felt like i

had to prove myself in every instance no

matter what it was whether it was school

grades whether it was my dancing ability

whether it was

how i could speak up at a family party

no but in every instant i always felt

like i had to prove myself worthy

because i was born into this reality

where

being a girl is lesser in indian culture

and that has followed me into my adult

life and if you look at the pattern of

everything i've done in my career i've

only now connected the dots that the

common thread between all of that is

proving myself

and so even when i started making

youtube videos in 2010 a lot of people

asked me why did you do that and i can

give you the answer that i think people

want to hear which was i wanted to

create a path and no one else was doing

what i was doing and sure that's all

true to some extent but the real reason

was i wanted to be

powerful and to have influence because i

wanted to prove people wrong i think

that has always been that chip on my

shoulder i wanted to prove that being a

girl

was worthy of celebration and so that

has been a thing that has followed me so

so that is truly the chip on my shoulder

that now i'm just fully transparent

about

when i think about my own insecurities

and the things i pursued at like 18

years old they were all the opposite of

the thing that invalidated me when i was

a kid so when i was a kid only black kid

in an all-white school parents with a

broke family and a perfect white picket

right you know neighborhood and so my

pursuit in life was like if i had the

things that i'd missed as a child if i

had money and if i was i'd know famous

or whatever then it would be filling

some kind of childhood void i wonder

when you said then i wanted to be

powerful and have influence is that

because you

you didn't when you were younger as well

is that part of it i think it's more so

that the people who are the most

powerful in my upbringing were men

they were

the men in my family the men at a family

party that were in the corn they got to

control a conversation what they said

goes

men notoriously in indian culture are

the decision makers the powerful people

and i know one thing that the men in and

i don't want to paint all indian culture

or men but i'm just saying as a kid it

was evident to me that the uncles made

the decisions they got to decide what

was acceptable not acceptable and so i

knew one thing that the men would

understand was power money and influence

and so i think i strived for a career

that would give me those things so i

could kind of prove a point to them

being like you may not understand my

value in any other way aside from money

power and influence and to some extent i

was not wrong i've done a lot of cool

things in my life but the things that

really

made my dad and my uncles go wide-eyed

were things like the forbes list where

things like oh she's in a headline she

has her own show those are the things

that they understand to be of value and

i'm not saying that's right or wrong and

i'm not trying to dissect if it's right

or wrong i just knew they would

understand that and so for me to have an

impact

of course i want to help people of

course i want to pave the path that's

all true

but those are not the things that the

people that had power as a kid for me

would understand they understand power

money and influence so i would be lying

to say that that wasn't a driving factor

and you so you moved to la your youtube

career starts really gaining traction

you said it a second ago that you

pursued youtube because of your very

honest power and influence right but

when you start on youtube there's no

guarantee of power and influence right i

know your first video did like 70 views

or something crazy yeah yeah

so when you started youtube a very

strange thing to be doing back then

recording yourself especially doing like

funny stuff in your room or whatever for

sure what what were you thinking like

what was that yeah i was thinking a few

things one was that i was always a very

creative kid i was the kid that wanted

to be the center of the dance circle at

a family party i wanted i watched ace of

cakes i wanted to bake cakes i wanted to

be creative through any means necessary

but i think i was convinced that

creativity was a phase that it's

something you do as a pastime as a kid

your career shouldn't be creative you

let go of that you get a real job et

cetera et cetera when i was in

university and i discovered youtube it

was a glimpse of

i could be creative as an as an adult i

could

express myself in a way that's like on

my own terms there is no gatekeeper

there's no rules this was

something that i got to make the rules

about i got to decide i built a little

community of people that also were in a

little bit of a dark place so i got this

sense of connection that i wasn't

getting in real life um and the real

real talk of it is that i'm an obsessive

person

once i started making youtube videos i

was obsessed with it i was obsessed with

learning how to do it well

exploring how else i could be creative

learning how to get more views learning

how to market myself i with everything i

do i'm a very all or nothing person

which has been

a great pro but also very detrimental in

my life um this type of obsessive

personality especially if you you become

obsessed about something that isn't

fully aligned right which is possible

right because there can be two

conflicting forces the force can be i

want to be really successful and then

the other force can be saying well this

isn't my purpose and

they can surely come into it's also very

problematic when you're obsessive over

something that is governed by numbers

that is a very dangerous combination

when you're obsessive and your success

is measured by views and subscribers and

stats that is a bad recipe right there

because i would actually

be this is 2010 before youtube had a had

very complex analytics now you can see

and now you can you can know how many

people with dogs on their laps are

watching your videos like it's intense

how many analytics you can get now back

in the day that wasn't the case i would

actually have my own spreadsheets like a

crazy person just on my wall

every day tracking okay how many views

this video did this many subscribers

there's people like an obsessive degree

and i don't regret that because it

got me great success but i've had to

slowly unlearn a little bit of that to

not go completely crazy in my adult life

before that youtube phase with the

spreadsheets and stuff like that

did people consider you to be a lazy

person did they do they like count you

out

one thing i can say is i've been called

a lot of things in my life

i have never been called lazy so when

you were because that that phase before

the youtube and the spreadsheets right

what were you doing with your in your

life at that phase so i was applying to

grad school i had just finished

graduating and i was applying to grad

school and let me let me put an asterisk

to my last comment i'm sure my parents

would call me lazy from time to time

it wasn't lazy as much it was as it was

my heart is not in this thing so i do

not

i do not think it is worthy for me to

put my energy into it that's what i was

getting at yes which is how someone can

go from being perceived by their parents

or in my case by school as being i got

kicked out of school for the same thing

and then just years later they can see

that i'm obsessed when something is in

line with something has caught me like a

fish on a home right exactly better or

for worse maybe it's caught one of my

insecurities and dragged me off into the

future whatever

but i just thought that was interesting

that like maybe in that phase of your

life others would look at you and go oh

she's lost because

the moment i walked into my parents room

and i said i want to make youtube videos

um what i actually was doing five

minutes before that is i was right

trying to write an essay to get into

grad school and it was bad and i was

like i'm not this makes no sense i don't

even care about the outcome of this i

closed my laptop right then and there

and i said if i don't care about this

i'm not gonna do well in this and so i

really had to shift my focus somewhere

else and that literally five minutes

later i went to my parents room and i

said i can't do this

i want to try making videos on the

internet and they were like

say what now um this was in 2010 and

they gave me the best advice ever and

the best blessing ever which was you

have a year so they also give me a bit

of a ticking time bomb they said you

have a year to try whatever you want to

try whatever this youtube thing is you

have a year and if it doesn't work out

you will go to grad school and you will

do exactly what you were doing five

minutes ago and so i also had a bit of a

a time period that i had to figure

things out in which was a huge blessing

because it made me every moment for that

year work on making this pop off

when you had that conversation with your

parents how big were you on youtube if

at all

not that big not that big at all i think

i had like my views were in the

thousands probably okay um and this was

2010 like i said so i vividly remember

when i hit 1 000 subscribers now your

cat can meow and you will have like

10 000 subscribers but this was a

a lot of hustle to get to even a

thousand i know this because i made a a

justin bieber never seen every parody

when thousands of breakfast i was like

i've made it baby

when you reflect now on the role that

your parents were playing in your life

like even then like having to go to them

and then like granting you this year

it all sounds incredibly like imprisoned

you know what i mean

yes i think for a lot for a lot of my

teenage years my young adult years i

probably viewed it like that i no longer

do i've done a lot of work to try to

figure out and respect my parents

context which has really really helped

me in their circumstances and really put

value to it not just dismiss it so i

actually think a lot of what they did

although the moment didn't seem right

and even now a little questionable

sometimes it actually really helped me

like this one year if they were so

liberal to me and let me do whatever i

might have not worked as hard in that

one year to be honest

you know and if they did not teach me

the value of a lot of the things that

they value i probably wouldn't be the

person i am today so i actually don't

hold that against them at all it's

really interesting mo god a guy that

came on this podcast said that when he

used to work at google when they

interviewed people and said would you

erase the most traumatic or difficult

moments of your life um

knowing that it would erase all the

lessons it taught you as well and

everything that came with it would

people do it 99 of people said they

wouldn't no and there's an interesting

thing about how we look back on our

trauma because we also don't know the

other outcome because it's interesting

it's

and i agree when people ask me in

interviews what would you say to your

younger self and what would you change i

always say i wouldn't change anything

because even those like horrible

decisions those questionable moments

they have all resulted in something

really really great that's the exchange

of the universe and that's just how

things work magically um

and it's interesting how knowing that

right now i can sit here and tell you

that i would not change anything about

my past any trauma any pain even knowing

that

i will still sit here today and think

that the pain i'm experiencing today is

intolerable

and not acknowledge that 10 years from

now i will probably say the same thing

about the pain i'm experiencing today

something to always keep in mind

we have this way of humans as humans of

thinking that whatever pain we're

experiencing right now is for sure

definitely the worst pain and it cannot

get worse it always does

and we always think that it's still the

worst pain when you were a kid you

thought i remember when i was a kid my

mom i said i couldn't get this shirt it

said backstreet girls on it and i

remember thinking this is the worst day

of my life and my life is never gonna

get worse than this i remember thinking

that i'm gonna run away my mom hates me

she won't let me be a backstreet girl

how dare her and then years years later

something else happened i thought that

was the worst and we keep doing that as

humans don't we we keep thinking that

whatever this is today this is the worst

that perspective completely true

completely true been through it myself a

million times i always say you know this

is

the current crisis always feels like the

fatal one until hindsight tells you that

the current one is the failure right um

but what does even knowing that it still

doesn't seem in my case to stop the

current crisis feeling

faithful it helps a little bit takes the

edge off but when we're in the heart of

the storm for whatever reason

what else helps you to gain perspective

on the situation i mean like really i

don't mean like the advice that we give

in our books and stuff i mean right what

actually helps

what actually helps me when i'm going

through pain and i can't see myself

coming out the other side

is

truly to i'm a very

logical person in the sense that i

always think about things through

to the best of my ability

facts or like diagrams i just have this

brain that likes processing things and

so i think about

okay

what is my success rate of getting

through things

it's actually 100 right now i sit here

at 100 we all sit here everyone watching

actually you sit at 100 right now no

matter what yeah 100 is where you said

that so i think about things through

that lens but i also think about

just is the struggle worth it

and

for me yes it is i believe in what i

believe so much more than i the hurt

that i feel and that's the balance i

think we need to keep in check is it

worth it is your struggle worth it and i

think you really need to do the work to

make that answer yes

and i didn't always

operate from a yes

but i think now i do i believe

i found my purpose and i know jay talks

about this a lot but finding your

purpose and what your purpose is on this

planet helps you get to that yes so for

me

i think my

my struggles are worth it i think the

pain is worth it to get on the end

you became

a hugely i'm going to look back to that

sort of topic in a section but to give

the listeners a context you became a

hugely hugely successful

social media star creator whatever you

want to call it

um

built one of the biggest youtube

channels still to to this day some

millions of millions of subscribers yeah

that is uh that makes you in the 0.0

whatever percent anomalies in the world

so i hear the obsessive thing you said

about the spreadsheets i guess that i

thought for her to get there she must be

pretty obsessed i walked in here and you

were like ooh she has google doc written

all over her well like there's like but

we all i think at times in our lives

probably look back and think i was also

probably toxic obsessive you know

because the things that i was ex you

know especially when you're in the

numbers business right and the metrics

business so what else about you when you

think about that phase of your life from

2000 and

you know maybe 13 when you hit a million

subs to where you hit

14 point whatever seven million subs

what was it about lily outside of the

obsessive part

that made you

such an anomaly through that phase of

like

career success in youtube

this has required a lot of reflection

because um

i was trying to think recently

what my purpose is going back to our

previous conversation what is my purpose

because i i thought my purpose was

specific projects i would work on

specific things in the industry and i

kept thinking that's too small that's

that's such a in the moment purpose like

what is your greater purpose so i had to

go look back through my life recently

like what is the common thread here and

the common thread between everything

especially during this time period

you're talking about can be summarized

in one word and that is disrupter

i think my purpose is to disrupt and i

think i've done it continuously in my

life from being a tomboy as a kid to

being outspoken in a room full of uncles

to getting into the entertainment

industry not through an agent not

through moving to la but through youtube

where there are no gatekeepers from

the first late night host wherever that

historic moment was like i continuously

feel the need to disrupt not because i

am actively trying to disrupt because it

is just who i am as a person and i know

this even on the personal side

um

the first

openly queer person to host a late night

show the first woman of color first i've

just been associated with so many firsts

and i used to hate it like i used to i

remember thinking and telling my

therapist

i don't want to be the first i don't

want to be the first anymore i hate

being the first i don't want the

pressure of all this i just want to do

what i love doing

and my therapist joked and said yeah you

need to pick a cause you got a lot of

things going you have to pick an issue

but i have since embraced that instead

of looking at it as a

thing that i hate about myself and i

want to change about myself and that

causes me stress i haven't accepted that

it is my purpose to disrupt it is just

how i am built i am built to break

systems and molds again not because i'm

actively trying to stir the pot but

because it is just how my brain and my

being operates i have to break molds

so when you ask me that question between

that time period what was it about lily

it's that lily always would ask the

question of how else can this be done

and why isn't this being done this way

and maybe there's a different way of

doing it and when she gets told that

this is the way things usually are done

i just simply do not accept that i

everyone on my team knows that's the

worst thing you can say to like this is

how things are traditionally done i just

don't accept that with anything

clearly you're someone who's built a lot

of evidence that the look you just gave

me is the look my parents give me just

like no yeah do you know there was so

much going on in my head and then i was

thinking about different ways to take

that and different feelings i got from

that yeah one of them honestly was like

especially hearing the obsessive thing

listen when i ask these questions i'm

not because i think because i relate to

so much of what you're saying yeah i'm

asking the questions to to pick dig

deeper not because i no i love it i love

it but it's just

the look is like my parents looking at

me like yeah right she likes to distract

her yeah because my brain went my brain

went oh my

she's so even when you were delivering

it so passionate that i felt i was like

that's exhausting to be obsessed it's

exhausting on the other hand i was

thinking

why is your brain wired to disrupt

things like why so i understand the from

an innovation perspective it's going to

be fruitful you're going to create new

things but why is that your

predisposition is it going back to your

childhood and saying i think still like

the system i have asked that question to

myself as well why is that no matter and

this is where it can be to a detriment

sometimes because sometimes i'll take

simple simple tasks that are don't need

that much effort but i will make it so

i'm disrupting even those small small

things maybe there's a different way to

throw a party maybe there's a different

way to have a friendship maybe there's a

different way to decorate my house and

every aspect i have to disrupt and it is

exhausting it's absolutely exhausting

and i've tried to figure out why why

what is it in me

i'm still trying to figure it out but i

think

from my work thus far i've determined

that it's just that from the moment i

was born i was already a disruption i

was already that and i think that's just

me stepping into my power fully

embracing that's who i am and being like

fine i'm not gonna

reject that i am going to fully embrace

that's my purpose in life because

another thing is

you know when you ask me about the chip

on my shoulder

the part of the story i didn't say is

that i actually did come out the other

end so in my adult life when i announced

my first world tour after becoming a

youtube success i very purposely

announced it in india i was like i want

to announce the tour in india i want the

first stops to be in india i know that's

where you know my great-grandparents are

now that's where my parents are from i

know it'll mean the most there to have

the biggest impact so after i announced

that tour i went and did the eight-hour

drive to visit my grandfather for the

first time in my adult life i had never

met him as an adult before and

this was the the grandfather where and i

hold nothing against him because i again

i respect people's circumstances but he

was the one that didn't want to hear

about a daughter who didn't believe a a

daughter in the family would be

worthwhile

he was standing outside of his house and

greeted me with a flower garland and he

said the words to me this is like an 80

year old indian man said the words to me

i was wrong you have made this family

more proud than anyone else could have

ever done and he showed me all these

newspaper clippings he had saved with me

so that moment for me

also validated

what disruption can do

it can make progress

progress comes from disruption and

breaking systems and so i think that for

me was a very and i i remember it so

vividly because it did leave such an

impact on me but that for me was like

look this is what disruption can do this

is what the uncomfortable

process results in

and am i right in therefore concluding

that that disrupt the the fuel of the

disruption was that chip on your

shoulder

and it creates almost a bit of an

injustice and a sense of anger in people

that i've seen so many times in myself

and thinking about my friend umar who's

come comes from a somewhat similar

background an indian guy went on to

create a billion dollar company he he he

grew up with this internal just almost

frustration anger this sense of trying

to correct an injustice and that

manifests this chip on its shoulder and

i guess life

if you start with that predisposition

and you go through life with that idea

of like disrupting the status quo

you will win and that will reinforce

that yes so now imagine when i work with

you if i came up with a conventional

idea you know from 33 years of

experience that the rewards are on the

other side of the disruptive you know

what we call first principle thinking

when you go to the extra effort of

thinking about something from fresh

right and that's um it's that

i also will be really honest i thought

that that moment of

uh my grandfather knows now he knows

what's up he knows my name would

eliminate the chip on my shoulder it

didn't

i don't think it will ever actually go

away why um i'm still trying to figure

that out i think it's because that same

chip is still reinforced in so many

other places in the world

it's still that i'm was the only female

late night host and so when i was at

that seat in that table surrounded by

men that chip was just reinforced it's

like a neutron exactly so i think it

keeps getting reinforced it was never

just about my grandfather it was just

about the system but that is also i

would just say i have to get really

honest and say that mixed with ego once

you get a bit of success i think jay-z

says success is the most addictive drug

it is once you disrupt and it comes out

the other end and you see how amazing it

is you're like i just keep doing this i

keep doing this i need to keep

disrupting i need to that's been

something i've had to

really

meditate on in my adult life is that

when does that stop when does that

desire just more and more and more and

more disrupt disrupt when when when when

does that stop yeah that can be the real

enemy of happiness right absolutely

yes happiness is often right here but we

can't see it because we're still trying

to chase it that way we're still trying

to it's always the

it's in the future mentality you know

happiness will come success will come

these things will come maybe it's like

right now

right even saying that there is not

enough right now yeah because i say that

to a lot of people but still struggle

with it you have to do a lot of work

it's a lot of work it's not just where

it's a lot of work and how you assign

value to yourself how you assign value

to other things for most of my life i've

hustled so i built an entire brand out

of hustling anyone that knows anything

about me it's a hustle harder hustle she

wrote how to be a boss or first book

it's a

now

over the past two years i've done the

work to not hustle less i still work

very very hard but it's what does all

this stuff actually mean what is the

value you tied to this stuff is what you

thought it was going to be i think you

can only learn that once you get there

and you get it and you're like oh it's

not giving me the feeling i thought it

was going to give me and it probably

never will because of this value we've

assigned to all this stuff

have you gotten to the point where you

you know that you are enough

who this is turning to therapy what did

you think it was gonna be clearly never

listen to this vodka okay i'm gonna

cancel my therapy appointment

i saved myself 300 um

we charge

um

i am just now actively right now in the

process of believing that

through writing my latest book my latest

book was a lot about that it was about

am i enough right now because i think

i'll be honest it's a buzz word oh you

are enough like for example kids are

born these days and we it's the first

words we tell them are you enough you're

not you're great just the way you are

i think we need to find the balance of

hard work and spirituality of business

and spirituality there's intersection of

these things where yes i think now i'm a

full complete human being does that mean

i don't have goals and aspirations i

don't want things i still have all of

those things but i'm at the point right

now where

those things whether i have them or

don't have them will not impact the way

i define myself

see a lot of

my life i've defined myself as youtube

sensation

late night host actress who has this

role

i am doing the work to realize that i'm

actually a complete human being that has

value aside from that and those things

are just cool things and experiences i

get to do and i can strive to be great

at them i can perfect my craft but i'm

not

lesser if i don't have those things and

i'm not more if i do have those things

this is an active thing i'm working on

and when you get to that place if we are

lucky enough in our lives to get to the

place where we realize we're enough

that's you know i had this really

interesting conflict in my life which

i'm sure that listeners have heard about

before where

when someone said to me one day maybe

seven years ago they said you need to

realize that you're already enough i

remember thinking what a load of

[ __ ] yep i'm not gonna get out of

bed if i have that viewpoint i don't

need to strive for anything [ __ ] get

out my office right and then upon

reflecting on that writing my book

whatever

i realized that my thought that knowing

you're enough inhibits ambition is

actually false what it does knowing your

enough kills fake ambition the minute i

knew i started to get closer to

realizing that i was enough my ambitions

were all things that i actually wanted

that were actually in line with my so

it's this weird paradox of when you know

you're enough it doesn't inhibit

ambition it's the foundation of real

ambition it gives you a lot of clarity i

think and you're absolutely correct

because

when you don't feel like you're enough

everything feels important

everything feels like something you have

to obtain everything feels like a

challenge you know when i didn't feel

like i was enough and i felt like i am

the late night host i am this actor i i

am my job this is what defines me if

anyone asks me who i was i would never

answer as

i'm patient friend i'm a nice i would be

like i'm

in this show i mean that's how i would

or i would define myself by my struggles

which is another whole thing not by ever

my potential i would never say i'm

someone who's gonna change the world

because of xyz i would say i'm someone

who had a really tough childhood we

either define ourselves by our struggles

or by these other external validations

and accolades that we think are

important

when i did that i would care so much for

me what was so important was i need to

prove this troll wrong on the internet i

need to that's that's my priority i need

to prove this troll wrong i need to get

this rating i need to and then the

second i was like you know what

my purpose is to disrupt uh i know what

my values i'm a complete person already

suddenly that stuff became way less

important to me

suddenly i was like oh actually my

priority is going to be

i want to tell stories that i think are

really

meaningful i'm not saying that it has to

be a box office breaker

in that i'm saying i just wanna tell

stories that are important you things

become a little more clear when you

accept you make space for priorities to

become clear when you stop pretending

that all this other stuff is important

so i totally agree that is something i

struggled with where i thought and i

think that was my resistance against it

when people would tell me you're enough

and when they just tell kids they're

like no that kid's gonna grow up and

they're not gonna they're not gonna

become anything if you just tell them

they're enough

again i still think that there's

a intersection between hustling and

spirituality i don't think we have to

pick one or the other i really don't i

think there's a way for both of those

things to co-exist but i do it has

become apparent to me that

being mindful

feeling like you're enough

it actually allows you to hustle with

more clarity

i had a few words to say about one of my

sponsors on this podcast as the seasons

have begun to change so has my diet and

um

right now i'm going to be completely

honest with you i'm starting to think a

lot about

slimming down a little bit because over

the last couple of probably the last

four or five months my diet has been

pretty bad um and it started to show a

little bit really over the last two

months i go to the gym about 80 of the

time so i track it with 10 of my friends

in a whatsapp group and this tracker

online that we all use together we call

it fitness blockchain and i'm currently

at 81 percent um so 81 of the days i've

done a workout in the last 150 days

right so i'm going to the gym about six

times a week

that's been a little bit impacted by the

derivative live tour but i'm trying to

stick to it

and so one of the things i'm doing now

to reduce my calorie intake and trying

to get back to being nutritionally

complete and all i eat is i'm having the

heel protein shake thank you hill for

making a product that i actually like

the salted caramel is my favorite i've

got the banana one here which is the one

my girlfriend likes but for me salted

caramel is

the one you know when people are saying

oh you need to get this rating and

you're thinking well i'm going to prove

them wrong and whatever and you're

getting dragged by external you know

measurements or validation and then you

get to the point where you say you know

what i actually just want to tell

stories

people reach that crossroads a lot in

their life where they've kind of like

built an identity in your case tens of

millions of followers by doing something

and then you know in other people's

cases it could be they're working in as

a lawyer and then they they catch sight

of what their purpose might be and at

that crossroads life says to you if you

go down that route you're going to lose

a lot of this stuff that you've built i

know it's not aligned with you but

you're going to lose friends a network

an identity don't go down that road

right and you face that so clearly in

your life that crossroads

and even leaving youtube

you know when you have

14 million

you have your damn mind yeah but yeah

totally but tell me so like at that

crossroads in life what advice would you

give to people when in your case you're

one of the ones that really had

you know i don't want to say a lot to

lose because that's a presumption right

so it's like

the public would think that you had a

lot to lose by taking a different route

right

you're absolutely correct i think one of

the reasons i for so long kept holding

on to the strings of youtube to be like

no i want to do other stuff but i'm

still going to do this i want to do that

stuff but i'm still going to make these

videos i'm still going to dress up as my

parents was that it was that i didn't

want to lose this traction i had this

audience i had this instant

gratification i had of having this

massive audience at my fingertips i also

to be honest i was scared of this

term relevancy i think relevancy is used

as currency these days like you're not

relevant so you're worth less now and we

have this

this way to measure people based on

relevancy this

can be summarized in one easy sentence

which is you cannot expect to grow and

also stay the same

it just cannot happen you have to make

room for growth and so

in order for me to fulfill my ambitions

of i want to do stuff with movies and

tvs and i want to i want to just do all

this other stuff that is me growing in

my craft i cannot stay the same i can

you have to make space for that you know

i also always think about if i have

again going me going back to diagrams

and the way my brain thinks if i have

100 energy at the start of a day i can

only spend 100 energy no more energy is

coming i you have a hundred so where are

you going to put that energy it can be

to old habits it can be to holding on to

the relevancy but then that limits how

much energy is left for growth so it

really is just a decision you have to

make of making room for growth

and when you did

make that decision back in 2019 to to

was it 2019 you left youtube

i still ok

yeah but yeah i think around 2009 to

where i stopped consistently uploading

videos yes so um

when i read about why you left youtube

there was clearly some symptoms of life

saying to you

you're [ __ ] up here in some way what

were those symptoms

i think doing things because you feel

like you have to doing things because

you feel like you owe people doing

things that you're not really passionate

about um and feeling like you don't you

haven't given yourself permission to

grow and how does it emotionally feel

um

stagnant i felt like

i was trapped i felt like i owed people

this version of myself that was stuck in

space and that was not allowed to grow i

felt not creative i felt um

not free

and i felt like

even though i what i loved about youtube

was freedom i can post whatever i want

whenever i want there's no gatekeepers

i felt trapped in that system it became

the exact opposite of what i loved about

youtube which was you have to serve

every monday and thursday you have to

post a video you have to appease these

fans it has to be like this has to be

this long if it is the algorithm it

became the exact same thing i never

wanted in the first place which was to

be trapped in something like that and so

um it just it stopped feeling right to

me it stopped feeling like a place that

i could grow and learn and thrive the

lily that i would see on camera at that

point in the lead up to you deciding to

depart versus the lily that would be

there right after you stopped recording

tell me the difference between those two

people yeah she's just as weird in both

instances i can tell you that she's just

as weird she's just as quirky but one of

them was definitely a bit more

performative

pretending to be a little bit more

passionate than she was

pretending not to be tired and exhausted

and pretending to be excited about what

she was doing i think after i turned off

the camera i was like oh god i gotta

edit this thing i gotta do this thing i

gotta go through these there was no

growth it was just such a repetitive

pattern and

as a creative i didn't want that that's

if i wanted that i would have just done

the grad school thing right

and then obviously you get this big um

opportunity which is well written about

and i've watched the episodes i've

watched season one and season two first

grapes no no

why did you say i'm so sorry

so first of all the context of the for

people that don't know so you got given

a late night show you were the first

woman of color

to be like over 30 years yet and over 30

is to be led into that

boys club

on a major network

when i said that you said i'm so sorry

tell me why you said that because i

don't think the thing was good

and i'm not

necessarily proud of it you know

when i

got the show

again me being the streptor the whole

first season the the advertising was

we're gonna break the mold we're

knocking down the doors of late night

we're gonna do things differently and

then i proceeded to do things pretty

much exactly how they've always been

done why um because

for the first time in my life i was in a

situation where i could not call the

shots

i couldn't make the decisions i didn't

have the resources to do things

differently the system is not built to

do the issue the system is not built to

do things differently

it's hard to do things differently when

you're told okay so the episode has to

be exactly 22 minutes and 23 seconds it

has to be that amount of time can't be a

second over it cannot be under the acts

have to be broken down like this because

our commercials have to go in these time

things so you had a joke that went there

can't go there anymore you have to do it

like this oh you're following jimmy and

seth and the audience is kind of used to

their formats you can do things

differently but it has to start with a

monologue so you have to come out you

have to hit the mark you have to do the

monologue

so many times when i did that monologue

which was the worst part of the show it

was like a 10 minute monologue of

mediocre jokes because i had a

tiny writer's room and very few

resources this is to no discredit to the

writers i just had such few writers that

were too overworked

there were

episodes where i would miss the mark and

i would mess up and it was the best part

of the show and i would have to do it

again

to get it right and i would always think

why can't we just put the mess up on air

the best part of the show even beyond

that was before we were even rolling i

would go out and i would warm up the

audience and i would just riff with them

and talk some jokes and it would be so

just natural and funny and you would

never see that in the show

why

we didn't have enough cameras to shoot

the audience so

we couldn't put it in the show so the

system was not built for

breaking the mold

at that time did your gut tell you

something was wrong absolutely from day

one i thought

this is going to be very hard

it's gonna be very hard to make

something that i'm proud of here and i

when what i hated about it was the

proudness and the pride was of something

superficial i was proud of the headline

i was proud of the historic nature of it

i was proud that i got to make history

but none of

the work could back it up and that broke

my heart every day to know that i'm just

riding this headline and i'm not going

to be able to deliver on this there was

episodes i visually remember this there

was a several episodes where i would be

with my

we didn't even have a showrunner it was

my head of development for my production

company who acted as the showrunner for

the show and i would be walking and the

show would be starting in five minutes

and we would be going over the monologue

and i looked at her one and i said

this is not funny

and this is not good and i don't want to

go out there and i don't want to have to

pretend it is

and she looked at me and she said

it's a quantity game it's not a quality

game and that broke my heart because

late night is a quantity game it's i

shot 96 episodes in three months and i

don't want to come across if i'm

complaining and all this but

i'm trying to highlight that

it was very difficult for me to go into

the system being the control freak guy

and being the disrupter and just try

everything to disrupt it and it's just

too rock solid to be disrupted

i asked these questions in part because

i've just joined a show called dragon's

den okay which is like shark tank yeah

yeah five of us that investor walks in

and since then i've been offered a lot

more shows right

and

i mean you've been there right loads of

[ __ ] loads of proofs coming in for shows

big promises whatever

and some of them are really tempting

because it says oh you're gonna be on

netflix but then my gut says to me

that's a [ __ ] show though that is a

piece of [ __ ] so i'm asking from a

perspective of advice when you find

yourself in the

in the shadow in the shadow of a great

temptation i'm you know steve butler

might be the first whatever whatever

whatever but i but i look at what's

going on the system in which i would be

operating as you did

what advice would you give to me based

on the lesson you've learned in

hindsight

i will answer this question by telling

you exactly that the lesson i learned

which is

it wasn't until the show finished that i

really had to reflect on that experience

be like what am i gonna do differently

you see when i was offered the show the

first time it was brought to me i

actually said no people don't know this

i said no

and it disappeared for like a month and

it came back to me again and i thought

okay the universe is sending this back

to me again let me let me evaluate this

the reason i said no first was because i

never grew up with the dream of being a

late night host i know some people have

that experience where they're like i

grew up with late night television

watched every night

i don't think my mom could tell you what

jimmy's last name is like she they never

watched late night they i never grew up

with that experience so it wasn't my

desire it wasn't my passion to be a host

um so that's why i said no but when it

came back around and it was explained to

me the historic nature of this

three things came into play one my sense

of responsibility and duty and to my ego

those things together i was like i want

to be part of this historic moment that

would be really cool also i have a

responsibility for this because what if

i say no and it goes to someone else

then this history is never even made and

we never even got this shot so all of

these

reasons that i thought were so valuable

and valid is why i said yes i was naive

to think that that would be enough to

get me through those long shoot days it

wasn't because i would come home at the

end of

96 episodes in three months

broken and i would think

that

was not fun and i didn't enjoy that and

i have no memory or no positive thought

to even show for that hard work

i learned the value of having fun

and doing things you're passionate about

i believe more than anything else those

are the things that actually contribute

to longevity more than anything else

even money ask any person with a lot of

money

you'll go tired of money you'll go tired

of buying things you will never grow

tired of having fun and being passionate

about something and so since i wrapped

that show any project that comes to my

desk now

my agents will be on the phone and we'll

talk about the money for a while we'll

talk about the schedule for a while and

then i'll dedicate an amount of time

i'll say okay now we're going to talk

about if i'm going to have fun and if

these people are actually nice to work

with and do i even care about this do i

care about this and what is this do i

even care about the message here what

this is saying if my answers are no

my definition of success right now is

that i will not say yes to it i have to

have fun right now where i am or i'm not

successful so that's my advice to you is

don't undervalue fun and passion because

those

you will never go tired of those things

it makes it even more difficult in that

situation where you're coming home after

filming those nuts by the way which is a

ridiculous number of anything

this should do the math for everyone

that's two to three episodes a day

and traditionally late night house do

one a day

so you're coming home exhausted after

doing something that you didn't find fun

right and then

the exacerbating factor of all of that

which i i reflect on and i say to myself

steve you've been able to deal with this

part as well is the show was by some

people well-received but by others

heavily criticized

specifically the community which is the

youtube community you'd come from

people made very hurtful very

shallow

criticisms sometimes your personal

criticisms about you in the show yeah

unless you're

the superwoman

which is the pseudonym i think he used

to go under that has got to

doing something you don't enjoy that is

not aligned with you and then being

criticized for it

is like the holy trinity of a bad place

to be right 100 even you saying this has

given me a fourth pimple on my cheek and

i'm sweating because it does it does

evoke an emotional response out of me

and it's not just the youtube community

it was the south asian community that i

got critics from it was a queer

community that chris says

every and every community there was

people not all but there were some

people that were criticizing me that's a

really hard pill to swallow when i just

finished telling you that part of the

reason i said yes to the show was to

help pave a path i felt a responsibility

to communities

the tough part about being a minority

anything

is that so many people are counting on

you to reflect their experience the best

you can do is reflect your own the best

i could have ever done is talk about my

experience

and my lived circumstances

that's never going to satisfy over a

billion south asian people

queer people women that's half of the

population right there there's no way

and that's the hard pill to swallow to

know that you can go out there try your

best and still because you're the only

one

people are going to criticize you i

think that is not discussed enough about

why it's so hard to break through it's

because

so many people are counting on you it's

an unrealistic expectation i also had to

and this is way easier said than done

and i'm still working on it i had to

learn

not and i mean this with love but i mean

this very bluntly not to take advice

from people giving it from inside their

comfort zone

the amount of people

especially on youtube that would

criticize

the jokes on my show the delivery on my

show the

sound quality of my show without ever

never having stepped foot into a late

night studio

as a logical person i have to i have to

shut that down

because that's the equivalent of me

watching basketball and being like you

missed that three-point shot oh my god i

could never make that shot so i really

had to retrain my brain

to

take away value from certain people and

add value if jimmy fallon wanted to give

me critique on my show i would have been

all ears and taken notes and been like

thank you so much but if some person on

the internet has never done this i

simply cannot take their critique

seriously and i know some people hear

that and they think that's a really

perhaps

snobby way of looking at things but not

really no practically speaking you

cannot take advice from people

who are doing it from inside their

comfort zone because they actually don't

know what they're talking about

in that period and especially in this

sort of the cloud of that criticism

was there a particular day where you go

that was my hardest day emotionally how

i felt where it all just got because

i've had those moments in my life where

all the factors just line up on one

particular day and i think yeah yeah

this one's hard to talk about but for

the sake of having honest conversation

in my first season

the first season was by far way tougher

than the second the second i

tried to make it more fun i put more of

my team into the staff i trust but the

first season was really tough this was

the 96 episodes in three months i talked

of

this was um we didn't even have a show

runner

we had half a dozen writers which is

half of what usually late night shows

have

i was just worked

to such an extreme like my from morning

to night was just at that studio i was a

writer i was trying to produce i was

trying to host i was just in such a bad

state

and

one of the tasks that was on my plate

because of me i said i had to do this

was i had to watch every single episode

before it would air so at the end of a

shoot day at like 10 p.m

i would sit alone in that studio and i'd

watch the episode to be like

is this good and then

one of the eps said you don't need to do

this we can watch the show for you take

this off your plate and after much

convincing i was like you know what

today

i'm so tired i'm not gonna watch this

episode

this episode was my interview with

jessica alba

and even though it was not the first

episode to air it was the first one we

shot because we shot out of watch was

the very first episode we shot i'm

obviously so nervous i'm so new to this

i'm trying to be funny

jessica alba had made a comment about

her kids and how they tied towels on

their head with cherby twists and

in an effort to try to be funny and try

to sound personable and make her kids

not embarrassed i said oh i have lots of

friends that tie turbans and in my head

when i said it i was like it's the

coolest thing ever there's nothing to be

embarrassed about like i'm so familiar

of course not hearing the sentence of

towels on heads and turbans in the same

sentence and how that could be really

problematic historically

that was the one and only episode i did

not watch before it aired the one out of

96 episodes and the very next day i was

getting dragged on twitter

the sick community was so upset at me

i apologized profusely

and

i remember that day i was just the

lowest i've ever been where i thought

the community that i did this show for

is pissed at me because i nervously made

a joke out of context

i didn't watch that one episode so i

beat myself up about that and then i

watched every single episode after that

again and tortured myself all over again

but that was really tough for me to to

to feel like i let so many people down

to feel that i didn't get the benefit of

the doubt of just being a human being

that was nervous and misspoke and to

also

have this idea validated in my brain

that oh if you don't do 300 if you don't

watch every episode if you don't do

every job it's gonna come back to bite

you so that was a very unhealthy moment

for me um and that was a really tough

day if i was a flow on the wall that day

in your room in your bedroom what would

i have seen

a lot of crying i think i cried though

like

in my green room that day

i remember my friend actually came to

visit me because he was like oh i know

you're in bad state i didn't even

realize he was there i was just staring

into space the whole day just

i just felt like crap

the whole day

for weeks i still do talking about it i

still feel like crap

did you have anxiety at the time i

developed it during season one of the

show she developed here i never was an

anxious person

um

i think

2019 this show maybe even leading up to

the show i definitely developed anxiety

for sure where i would like be in my

green room not

being able to control

my body's responses not being able to

control my thoughts like that definitely

was something that developed during that

first season of late night

and then the second season you enjoyed

it much more i enjoyed it much more

because

i was able to make some changes i

thought we're not gonna shoot a studio

i'm gonna shoot in a house i'm not gonna

do a monologue i'm gonna do a rant these

things alleviated some of the pressure

from me um did i still think it was the

most amazing thing we ever made no i

thought it was better but the thing is

people had already made up their mind

after the first season

after that first season because it

wasn't instantly which is another tough

thing about any new voice trying to do

every anything

if you don't impress people right away

they're giving up on you

like the second season of the show

i truly believe if that was the first

season of the show

people would have been like oh she

actually broke the mall she's doing

something different but you can't get

there you gotta go through the process

trial and error you gotta every show in

history has taken many seasons to find

his voice and find its footing

but it's the when you are a minority

you're just not given the benefit of the

doubt you know

there's something that i really take

away from this as well which kind of

goes back to the first question i asked

on the topic which is um that even in

the face of like temptation i need to

make sure that i hold on to my values my

professional you know my personal values

and you know people offering me a

netflix show whatever if it compromises

my like creative and personal values

then i have to say no regardless of

temptation until they are going to allow

me to do it in line with who who i am

like the creativity that you have that

made you successful

may i offer you a please a devil's

advocate perspective here because i've

also had this conversation my brain lots

and lots of times

i wish

that

i'm just i'm going to speak from the

south asian experience specifically as

well because that's my lived experience

but i wish

we could hold out for when we're allowed

to do things exactly how we want to for

them to get done

i truly believe if we were to all do

that nothing would get made

and i think that everything is progress

and so i think it's balancing the line

of like i want to be true to my passion

my vision but there is a little bit of

compromise i have found has to happen

and as painful as it is that's why i

don't regret the late night show i think

that compromise had to happen

because when you when i'm in rooms right

now with my production company and i'm

having meetings with netflix and the

hulu's and all these people

the room of people giving me notes

do not look like me they still do not

so the option i have is to

mold the show into a way that is

slightly palatable for them so it gets

made

so that another show like this could

potentially get made and i use never

have i ever as an example the historic

show on netflix is number one in 30

countries because of that show other

shows like that will get green light

other south asian stories will get

greenlit because of that show so that

show has proved to be

a great

path paper for sure

do i believe in my heart that that's the

exact show the creators wanted to make

and that they didn't have to no i think

they had to understand that progress

has to be made so often when i'm in

these rooms

i get irked and i think

you're not understanding the cultural

nuance i don't want to cave on this i

don't want to explain to you what diwali

is i don't want to have to phrase this

like this i have to ask myself the

question

is it better to hold my ground and have

the show not be made or is it better

to get it made

seventy percent of the way i wanted to

be made so that the next iteration of

the show can be 80 and then 90 and then

100 that is the reality of minority

storytelling right now and i wish it

wasn't but that's what it is so it's

negotiating those that reality a little

bit as well and that's not just a

just a minority storytelling thing

that's like i was thinking about various

facets of life and business and

negotiation when there are multiple

factors at play there are stakeholders

who have a say they're investors there's

a timeline that constrains you there's a

limitation on resources right as you

described all of these factors cause an

unavoidable compromise where you have to

go

you know but i guess it's that balancing

act of like what are my non-negotiables

then what am i completely not willing to

negotiate on um

after the second season of the call you

get a call saying that the show's not

going to be continued

tell me about that day

so

i'm gonna describe it as mutual although

yes the network does control like what's

what they're gonna put money towards or

not

i was secretly hoping two things and

they're both completely contradictory

half of me was like

i know this show is a win for the

community it has to keep going it has to

keep going or else it's going to be a

fail for the community so i wanted it to

keep going the second part of me was

i really hope this show doesn't keep

going because i'm going to literally

collapse and die if this keeps going

um

and i always

judge things by what my gut reaction is

to them so when i got that call

my gut reaction was actual relief that's

how i knew that it was the universe

doing me a favor i would never do for

myself because if they let me i would

have tortured myself for 10 more seasons

honestly i would have the universe gave

me something to never got myself

i got that call

i felt a wave of relief

knowing i would never have to torture

myself in that exact situation again but

it also going back to what our purposes

and getting clarity it made things a lot

more clear in my mind and in that moment

i was able to see oh this has been a

huge distraction from what i actually

care about and i actually want to do

this was an obligation this was

something i thought i had to do this is

not my passion it was never your passion

never once did i say i wanted to be a

late night host i did say i want to act

i did say i want to tell stories i want

to produce all of those ambitions paused

during the late night show i couldn't

audition i couldn't do anything else i

literally sacrificed two years of my

life for something that i didn't even

want to do that's a sad sad thing that's

a sad realization so i think i was

rewarded with a lot of clarity in that

moment but what did your ego say in that

moment well obviously my ego was bruised

of course my ego was bruised i didn't do

i didn't do good enough if i had done

better um

i've let people down

i

should have gotten more seasons this is

a bad look how do i make myself seem

like a winner all of that stuff

yeah very honest yes

same thing yeah i have things in my life

at the moment where i'm in the exact

same position where i'm like i don't

know if i

love doing this but if i was fired from

doing it or if they said they don't want

to continue

i would be in the same conflict like i

think there's certain things in my life

that aren't aligned with me completely

but at the same time you kind of want to

make sure it's done on your own terms

and that's the ego right no one wants to

be rejected no one wants to be canceled

no one wants to feel like they could not

do something especially publicly

right it's not a private rejection it's

a public it's a very public type of

rejection so definitely my ego was

bruised um

and i think

more than anything

i learned from that experience that part

of the problem

is that i

easily put labels on myself and i think

we do this to ourselves and do with

other people as well i just kept calling

myself first late night host first this

first late night host has to do this and

i have to do this and that pressure like

i'm not just that i'm someone who

tried really hard at this new thing and

had to learn a new like all that contact

is it's worthwhile context so now when i

think about myself through that context

i have more compassion for myself

and it pains me that other people also

didn't give me that context but i can't

control other people i can control

myself i do that to myself as harsh as

other people were to me i was way more

harsh

i had to put way more pressure on myself

and

since that experience i have also

learned to not label myself so i just

got this new show this muppet show that

i was like wanted so badly and i was

like oh my god i have to get this i have

to get this is gonna be a life-changing

thing and the day i got it

i had to have a talk with myself to be

like you are not now

the lead of the muppet show that's not

now your label you will not now describe

yourself as this thing because then

that's just gonna be the late night host

again it's going to be the youtube

sensation again you are lilly you are a

complete human being this is a cool

thing you get to do that's one of your

goals great you get to do it you take

experience but this is not now your

definition i think part of that struggle

with late night was it just became every

part of who i was and so people weren't

criticizing the show they're criticizing

me they're criticizing every part of me

and who i was and that's just a really

unhealthy boundary amen you know and

people do that i've noticed i've done

that more in my life when

i didn't think i was enough so my

identity or the label would make me make

sense to the world it would make me

you know put me in a community i would

become

social media ceo and then the problem is

social media or any of these labels you

described comes with a set of implicit

instructions on how to behave and how to

be and how to act and that can be really

imprisoning generally i wrote this

chapter in my book called resisting your

labels because of how imprisoning

they've been in my whole life and also

you know as we're going to get on to

with you now when i left my label so

when i was no longer a social media ceo

i had a bit of an existential crisis and

life goes well just go be another one

again because that's what you are and i

think that's when people have these like

midlife crises where they realize they

spent the last 10 years or whatever

being the label and not the person

you leave

the late night show

how was life like for the next year

well in the pandemic role exactly that

was right around the time of the

pandemic so i think that was

a very strange time because i couldn't

bounce back into anything else really

everything was shut down

and my plate was pretty empty because my

gigs were cancelled my travels were

canceled projects were canned everything

was

paused so it was a very hard time to let

go of something that was keeping you

busy and that was how you defined

yourself

through the pandemic and i think a lot

of people can agree with this the

biggest silver lining was the work i was

forced to do on myself

and is when i wrote this second book be

a triangle because the thing about the

pandemic was it wasn't just that i

didn't know what to do with my time

it was that was the first time i was

faced with the reality

of

me not believing i had any value because

i didn't have work

and that was a sad scary realization for

me it was the first time my schedule

allowed me to sit there and be like now

i'm alone and i'm with my thoughts and i

feel like i'm ceasing to exist as a

person because i don't have a purpose

and i don't have value and that's really

sad because that means every time work

goes away i will feel this way and

that's not

that's not what i want

that's not setting me up for success

that's not setting me up for a

spiritually happy life and so i did the

work to really dive deep into my soul

and be like

you're gonna figure this out and what i

came to the conclusion of is that

i

don't have any original thoughts when it

comes to who i am as a person and what i

want out of life and what i value out of

life everything i've operated on has

been what people have told me whether

it's school whether it's my parents

whether society

i have never given thought into what it

is i actually want i never thought that

was an option it sounds ridiculous to

say but i guarantee you people that are