Former Fashion Editor for Glamour Magazine (Suze Yalof Schwartz) on How to Become a Proactive Person

Audio Transcription

Do you feel overwhelmed as your business or organization grows? Is your level of anxiety increasing as well? Are you wanting to become a more calm and mindful person? Will on today’s show, the much-celebrated fashion editor and makeover guru who earned her reputation as a result of working at Vogue Elle Marie Claire and a Glamour magazine for 14 years where she covered the red carpet events for the Oscars and she was on television all the time. On today’s show, Suze Yalof Schwartz shares with us practical steps that we can all take to dial down the anxiety and the stress is that many entrepreneurs like you feel throughout her career. She’s worked directly in the world of publicity for Giorgio Armani. She’s been regularly featured on Good Morning America, the today show, CBS early show, and many other media outlets and now today she is now known as the bestselling author of the new book on flow, a simple guide to meditation for busy skeptics and modern soul seekers.

What? Yes, yes, yes. And thrive nation. I must confess, I am nervous for today’s show. On today’s show, we are interviewing and incredible businesswoman who was once the fashion editor, any quote-unquote makeover guru working at Vogue Elle Marie Claire, getting more nervous Glamour magazine. This incredible lady made, has made regular appearances on the good morning America. Show the today show, the CBS early show and many other media outlets. And now today she is known as the best selling author of the new book. Unplug a simple guide to meditation for busy skeptics in modern soul seekers. Suze Yalof Schwartz, you’ll live for shorts. Welcome onto the show. How are you ma’am?

Great. Thank you so much for having me cry. I’m really excited to be on the shower with him because that means you’re going to feel super calm or here we go. Now you’re your, throughout your career, I mean you’ve had massive success, but I’d like to start off from the bottom and let love you to share with the listeners out there were, where do you believe your career first began or when did you start to gain some career traction?

Um, well I started off when I was in college working for free for a lot of different people and I worked for free searches I have in Paris when Patrick Kelly and I started off just sitting in a corner gluing tins onto the back of black baby dolls that he used to give to all the editors. He was black and he thought that was good luck. And after about two months of just doing that nonstop, I said, seriously, I need to do something else. And he said, okay. And then he literally had leukemia, everything, sewing clothing to going out and buying the fabric, all the supermodels, like the mom and you know, all these amazing people running the runway shows and doing a lot. So really starting with him was my first entree into metal, into fashion. I got to meet a lot of celebrities like Bette Davis. I got to dress her and Goldie Hawn. And there are a lot of interesting people at the time were in Patrick Kelly clubbing. So that was really my, my big break.

Now, my understanding is that after that, at some point you started working at Vogue magazine as an assistant accessories editor. Um, could you explain how you landed that job and what that experience was like?

Well, I used to, before that it was working in publicity for a designer named George [inaudible] and I’m stressing all the celebrity news. So what happened was my boss had to leave and he set up an interview for me to meet with the accessories director, candy clouds price. And so I met with her, um, she was asking me all these questions about fashion and like you all about them because I used to do all the editorial reports for Giorgio Armani and then I had to go interview with Anna Wintour. Hmm. So do you know Ana went toward,

I know I know of the name, but you have to educate me because I’m like, uh, I’m like a, I live, just see, you know, clarify or I live in Oklahoma and we call it Camp Clark and chicken palace. I’m married with five kids. I live on acreage and so I’m Kinda, I live behind a wall. I’m kind of a recluse. I just happened to own a bunch of multimillion dollar companies. And so I’ve been researching as much as I can about you. And the more I researched, the more I get nervous. So you have to educate me about these different people cause I’m like, Mister anti-fashion are you, you need to help me.

There’s a movie, you see the movie called Devil Wears Prada about that movie.

I do know that Anne Hathaway is in that movie and a Meryl Streep. Okay.

So well that was kind of all about the fashion industry. So we’ll call this very powerful woman. I ended up getting the job and then I just kind of worked my way up from there. It started small as an assistant and then I ended up as a fashion director and then the second at my house and I ended up at glamour for 14 and a half years doing a lot of think over covering the red carpet for the Oscars on television all the time. And it was a very exciting, fun career and job. And I laughed because my husband wanted to move to California. We were living in New York City at the time and I moved here for his job with our three kids and it was the first time in my whole life, but I wasn’t working and I’ve never not worked before and it felt very uncomfortable for me and I was really stressed. Um, and that’s kind of how I found meditation.

So Suze Yalof Schwartz, let me, let me ask you this. Is it your husband and financial planner? Like a very high-level financial guide of some kind of, I am. I, am I getting correct there? What does he do?

Yes. He basically helps manages family offices and foundations.

So you guys move out there. And just for the people up to the listeners, we have so many listeners in California and so many listeners in New York, uh, could you contrast living in New York versus La that had to feel like a huge jump but that’d be stressful.

Well, I, you know, you can come from New York City to Los Angeles. I love Joe Sides. Like you’re missing out on the action of the, you are very action packed and it almost makes Los Angeles feel like a suburb, but they needed out here and it’s sunny and 79 [inaudible]. There’s orange trees and lemon trees in my backyard. People are running around hockey with their yoga mats everywhere.

Very, hopefully, I’m happy posts are less so. And people are amazing. I mean the, the myth of the not smart female out in Los Angeles is just that a myth that women are really smart, they’re really interesting and they’re very into health and wellness. Um, I definitely got the bug when I came out of here for that.

You know, for the listeners out there that, that, no, I don’t expect you to do a ton of exhaustive research on me cause I’m interviewing you, but, uh, you know, my partner and I who a doctor Robert Zellner and then I, we have a 13 multimillion dollar companies. So there’s like an optometry clinic, there’s auto auction, there’s a chain of men’s grooming lounge is like, it’s like a country club for men’s haircuts. Ah, we’ve got a big photography company we built back in the day. There’s a lot of stuff. And um, the feeling of overwhelm, you know, could happen where you just go, oh my gosh, there are hundreds of them. I mean, did your Andrew, this year’s Christmas party, there had to be with 400 people there. Yeah. At least 400 was like 400 people at our Christmas party. You know, Susan, you’re, you’re, you’re, all these people are, um, they, they all work for you and they’re all dependent upon you for paychecks, right. And you can get old, very overwhelmed. Thinking about that. Soon as you can start to think of, okay, these businesses, I’m glad they’re profitable because they support all these families and all these kids and if it fails, what’s going to happen? I think you’re mother-in-law began to notice that you were starting to get overwhelmed. Am I getting that wrong? I mean it wasn’t your mother in Law noticed, Huh?

Hundred percent. 100%. Wanna hear what you’re saying. It’s really hard when you run a business and you’re still responsible for a lot of people. I’m in the same boat as you are. Um, like the truth is, is stress, anxiety and overwhelm is optional. And when you learn the practice of meditation, which is what my mother in law actually taught me, you can actually pause stress any time, anywhere, any day. You want me to try to do it in 16 seconds?

I would love to.

Yeah.

Okay. So just quickly close your eyes. Yup. Fine. And Andrew, you should do it too. I want you to just think about one thing that causes you stress and overwhelm. And tell me when you have that thing.

I have that thing. Got It. Okay.

Okay. And I now want you to follow what I’m about to teach you, which is breathing in through the nose to the count of four seconds. Two, three, four. Hold your breath for four seconds. Two, three, four. Odd. The black sail out and want to hear it. That’s four seconds. Three, four and hold for four two, three, four. One more time. Breathing through the nose

support

post, report a lot of Alexa and open your eyes. Were you thinking about that thing that caused you stress when we were farming and grieving?

No, I was not.

Exactly. We just paused your stress. We just had a pattern interrupt. So when you’re hearing activated and when you’re feeling stressed at any moment in any place at any time, you can press your inner clause button and do the 16 second Breck.

Okay, that’s a move. That is that right there. Andrew. I’m going to give her 40,000 to mega points. Wow, that is awesome. That’s a moat to you. Just so you know, Susan mega point is not redeemable for a tangible gift on this planet, but we believe in the afterlife. You can claim your prizes. So you’re going to do it.

I agree. I appreciate that we gave up. So, so I hear what you’re saying about the one I’m, so I’ve literally created a meditation app so that you could click a button and have a video of a teacher talking directly to you. Um, meditation for overwhelmed meditation for anxiety medications. If you’re happy, quick, there’s basically a button for any emotion you could ever possibly have on the I’m guided meditation APP.

Uh, so how do people find it? What do we need to search for to, to find us? I know there’s, there’s thousands of people right now. They’re going, I want to find that right now.

Yeah. If you go to, um, I tune and you plug in, unplug says it like that before, but if you take an unplugged, you don’t see it. It’s called unplugged guided meditation APP. And it is all of our teachers from our studio, which is the world’s first drop in meditation studio teaching all of the best classes that get packed here on anywhere from one-minute meditations to 35 minutes.

Can I share with you a grievance that I have about meditation real quick? Can I do that quick? Can we argue potentially? Maybe. Yeah, of course. I grew up in a Judeo Christian home and I am a Christian. That’s my world view. And in the Bible it talks a lot about meditation. Now I think that a lot of people, all of our listeners, we have a lot of Christian listeners. I think a lot of people like immediately toss it out and they go, ah, meditation is, you know, horrible cause it’s not prayer or whatever. And I think there’s somebody out there who’s wrestling with that idea. I don’t personally think it’s bad, you know what I mean? I don’t, I don’t think it’s like a, uh, an anti Christian thing to meditate. But I think people immediately discount it for a religious reason or reason. Number two, susans.

They say the person teaching meditation is a little bit woo woo. You know what I mean? Like this person’s a little bit, Whoa, whoa. You know what I mean? The kind of person that’s a, it hasn’t had a job ever and they’re out there levitate attempting to levitate rocks mentally, but you are not a mystic on unemployable person and you don’t strike me as a mentally unstable person. You’re, your book really is practical and that’s why I like it. So I’d like for you to help kind of debunk the idea that meditation is, is just for mystical woo Woo’s that can’t hold a job because there’s a lot of people thinking that. You know what I’m saying? There’s people who have that stereotype.

Well, clay, I hear what you’re saying. A lot of people do things that, but the difference between religion and meditation and religion and prayer, when you’re praying to something like, God, I’m meditation is really when you’re just getting quiet and listening to yourself and that’s all it is. Amen. It’s the opportunity to be quiet, experience, the feeling of breathing, being present in the moment that you’re in. And when your mind wanders or goes off into prayer, then you’re no longer meditating anymore. So you notice it and you just bring it back to the experience of breathing. So there is a separation. Um, prayer. I look, I, I’m, I definitely do pray but I don’t do it when I’m meditating. So, you know, the two separate things for me, meditation is more like a brain hub where I can pause, stress, I can be present, I can get more focused.

I mean people come to it for all different reasons. I use it to kind of be more focused and crush it in life. Yes. More present while I’m here. But some people come here because they feel pain and instead of focusing on their pain, they move away from it, from experiencing the breath. Um, and yeah, there are some people who are blue and you know, religious and you know, kind of come to it from a different place. And those are, those are usually lineages. So there’s, you know, a lot of meditation in India where they’re using Sanskrit mantras and people might feel uncomfortable with that. We don’t do that here. We kind of say, breathe in, breathe out, let it go and wanders, come back.

And frankly, that is why I wanted to have you on the show because I feel like that you, uh, do you meditation the way that I do. And I think that your book is so practical. It’s the book unplug a simple guide to meditation for busy skeptics and modern soul seekers. What first inspired you to write this book? You can, you know, you have so many opportunities. What, what inspired you to first write this book?

Well, meditation’s helped me so much. It’s changed my entire life. It slowed me down. I’m one of those people that will go at 200 miles per hour and it’s not pleasant to be around people like that. And they’re kind of like, I guess I’ll ask you, I have to do that. You know, you want someone who’s present with you, you want to be present for your children, your family. And so meditation has given me that yes,

you have three kids, right? At last count you have three kids. Uh Huh. Are you gonna have any more kids you think? Or how many kids is it? What’s the gold number? Okay.

You didn’t have grand kids, that’s for sure.

Okay. All right. All right. Now you’re, you’re, you’re my wife and I, we have five kids and people are always, always there. We’re always concerned. For us, it’s almost as if they believe that we’re not aware of how we create kids and that they are there to warn us and to cautious about having any more kids to the people out in La. You look at you weird when they discovered that you have three kids.

Not at all. Okay. Three kids seems like abundance theory now.

Okay. Five at Tulsa makes people worried they’re going to have five kids. What’s going on?

Bad now. I love it. I feel so lucky to have three healthy kids and yeah, it’s been amazing.

Now your in your book, um, you break your book down into different sections and one of the sections, the first section is titled, ready, set, unplug. What does this chapter all about?

It’s really about taking the time to actually unclog. We wake up in the morning and we immediately race off to kind of accomplish your goals. Check the boxes, live lights. Actually, a lot of us live in reaction, but when you’re proactive, you accomplish so much more. So what I say is ready, sat on plot the second year on plug, the whole world slows down and then you can take control of your day instead of having your day control. Yeah,

that is a powerful idea. There’s somebody out there writing this down right now that it’s so powerful that you can be an intentional instead of being reactive, you know, psychology today I was doing some research for today’s show. They show an Andrea, we’ll put a link on the show notes. The average American is now interrupted 85 times per day by their smartphone. And many people are interrupted while they’re trying to sleep. You know, people are not never turning their phone into airplane mode. Sue Sue’s. So they’re getting calls and texts all night, you know, push notifications. Could you talk about the dangers of keeping your phone on while you’re trying to sleep or having, being interrupted all day? Every day.

100% and I mean, it’s dangerous than the fact that you’re going to look back and say what happened. Right. You’ll miss your entire life.

So what are your rules for managing your, your phone? How do you and your husband do it?

Oh, I mean, unfortunately when we run a business like we do, we need our phones boss all the time. But just like I can turn off my phone, I can turn off my phone and meditate. So I put my phone on silent every single morning and I just anchor in. The storm is in silence is now, and I have my morning practice or I just get quiet. I fit, I usually play something from me and then I’ll turn it on. I’ll have a Cappuccino and I’ll go on with my day when I get home. I tried one plots, so I’ll leave my phone downstairs and I’ll go upstairs or I’ll hang out with my kids. There’s no phones allowed at the dinner table.

No phones allowed at the dinner table? No. When did you institute, yeah,

that rule. Oh, ever since the, ever since it became an issue, like that’s our time to connect and that’s our time to bond.

That is that. That’s a, that’s a powerful new for somebody out there. Now in your book on page 31, um, this title of this, this section of your book is titled, uh, Meditation Debunked demystified in totally doable. What does this section of the book all about?

Okay, so the biggest myth in meditation is I can’t do it because I think too much. So I find when we taught people that off the bat, that thinking is actually part of the team. She had 50 to 80,000 thoughts every single day. The idea is that you recognize your thoughts and move away from them by experiencing your breath. They feel so much better. Like, nobody’s ever told them that before, but they’re going to think in meditation

soon as I got one. So that’s, so that’s, that’s one I w where else do people get wrong about meditation? They say, Gosh, you know, I just had my, I’m thinking too many thoughts. What else are they, what else did they get it wrong?

Yeah. I can’t sit still run by the way. It’s really hard to sit still. So they’re walking meditations and you’re welcome to, if you have an edge, you can scratch it and nobody’s gonna whack your hand unless you’re doing never occasion. But in the modern day knew like applied. You can sit and meditate, um, and switch feet position if your leg falls asleep. So that’s another one that they love hearing. Um, and I have no time. And the truth is, is nobody has time. So you have to actually make time to meditate. So I like habit stacking where you wake up and let’s say you drink coffee every morning, so you decide that you’re going to actually meditate for five minutes and then teach your coffee. So you, you kind of take two habits and you put it into one. That’s a move. We are other habits that already exists becomes a reward for the other habit.

Susan, on page 99 of your book, you, you titled this section, Unplug and recharge, unplug and recharge. What, what, what should our listeners expect to find when they, when they buy this book and open it up to this section?

Well, Anne Lamott says everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. And I love that quote so much because it’s worth going all the time. We’re going to look one out. We’re going to look holes, we’re going to feel old. We’re not going to be happy. So when you take time, it’s just like going to the beach. But you can have an intervention. It actually, and it rejuvenates you and it makes you feel better. So for instance, right now everybody’s getting sick in la, but I have not gotten sick and I’ve been around so many 60 parks and it’s because I, my cortisol levels are not going up. So I am not experiencing the stress hormones. Even though there’s a lot of action going on in my life, I am able to compartmentalize and put stress in a garbage can and move on with my day.

That right there, the ability to compartmentalize is so life changing for entrepreneurs when they learn how to do this. But it was a little bonus gift. I did not expect it on today’s show. Now Susan, page one 27 you talk about what to do with the thoughts. What? What do you mean by this?

Okay, so thoughts. What happened as I mentioned, 50 to 80,000 of them every single day and they have to during the meditation. So, so if I start breathing and then I start thinking about dinner and what am I making for dinner and Bella, like the Chinese gesture in my brain to go on a hike, it could go to another zip code I do is like, I press pause on that. I know that I’m thinking, I name it to tame it. So I’ll say thinking and then I’ll come back to my breath. So what to do with your boss is kind of how to handle the thousands of thoughts come into your head while you’re meditating. And once you recognize that everything that happens, it’s not, you’re experiencing the now is just a thought then. And it’s very easy to manage.

[inaudible] you seem a very, very, um, thoughtful and intentional person, but you also are a mother of three, a a wife of one. Uh, which by the way, we have of all men. I apologize. Uh, women have it figured out. We don’t. Uh, but anyway, so, um, how do you organize the first four hours of, of each day? We, we, we interview so many super successful people. We had John Maxwell on the show the other day. Uh, we’ve had, you know, Michael Levine, the big PR guy for, he was the PR consultant for Michael Jackson and Prince. And we’ve had what Lee Cockerell, who managed a Walt Disney world. Seth Goden. Everyone. Yeah, Seth Godin. Everyone keeps telling us, you know, this is how I organized the first four hours of my day. Seems like people have like a daily routine that’s very common. I’d love to hear your routine for the first four hours of your day.

Wake up, grabbed my son, go downstairs to my kitchen, play the unplug APP, meditate for 15 minutes, make a Cappuccino, drink it upstairs, take a shower, come downstairs and on all three blaze up. Then make their breakfast, go back, make sure they’re actually up, get them dressed, take them to the best stuff to my office and let them usually here by 8:00 AM and then the next day to Yam is meaning meaning.

When you say here, do you have an office separate from your home or do you work? Do you like to work at your house?

Oh, I’m at the office right now. In fact, you and I, I’m sitting inside the meditation studio.

How do you decorate your office?

I everything’s white. It’s white on white, on white. There’s now it’s simple. It’s clean and it’s blank. It’s minimalistic. I don’t want to look at anything. I want it to be so blank that I have to stare at my work.

Do you, do you drink a lot of fish oil?

I don’t drink any fish oil.

You look like you’re getting take any vitamins. I don’t do any gene. You look like you’re getting younger every year. You know, I’m going online trying to look you up and you move. When did you move to la? What year did you move to la?

I’m 51. So take a read of the master. Yeah. Okay. I’m, I’m, yeah, I definitely like probably late thirties.

What’s going on? Are you doing it? Is it the meditation? Is the fish oil? Is the California said, what are you doing?

It’s definitely meditation because I don’t want to stress on my face. You’re not going to see wrinkles all over my forehead or Blanco.

This is true.

I do have wrinkles around my eyes from smaller line.

I couldn’t see him. I could, I couldn’t see and I, I don’t see him at all. And now, uh, the next 12 months, your life, what are you, what are you working on? Tell our listeners out there. Listeners are, are, are becoming a big fan of yours. They’re going, hey, I want to know what she’s working on and how can I learn more about you? They want to interact, interact and engage. Tell us about the next 12 months and how our listeners can engage with you.

Well, I’m definitely on a mission to teach all of your listeners you to yeah. How to meditate. And so we have created this incredible program. It’s come to the 30 day meditation program and literally it’s an from me every single morning what comes into your inbox and all you have to do is read an inspirational quote cause like play and then y’all be connected to a meditation that’s under 10 minutes. It’s designed to be like super easy, inspirational and actually fun so that you wouldn’t want to meditate every day. And we started it about I think four months ago and people were going crazy. They didn’t want it to stop. So we ended up taking our 31 meditation and making it to 150 days till my sister’s like, I can’t do this anymore. Um, and so now we’re doing monthly meditation challenge. So January is going to be meeting you. I knew you February’s going to be south wives and wanting to go on there.

I just could tell you generally speaking, this interview has been so insightful and so, uh, I’m just going to have to listen to it again and again and again. I just, it’s so many knowledge bombs per capita. Um, what’s, what’s the one website you want to direct all of our listeners too?

Unplug it.com.

Well, that’s pretty easy, Andrew. That’s pretty easy. That’s a pretty easy move. Then I got carpal tunnel. I don’t know if I can type it and have someone else type it in for you. Check it out there soon. I appreciate you so much and I, and I hate to be the guy that mispronounces names. So I’ve tried to watch a lot of youtube videos there. Can you, can you educate me on the correct pronunciation? Is it you laugh? Am I getting that right?

Yeah. La

Y’all off y’all off. Oh, y’all off. Homina Homina Huh? Y’All off the I as soon as, I appreciate you so much for taking time out of your schedule and a, for being here with all of our hundreds of thousands of listeners and, and uh, it absolutely means the world to me.

Well, I appreciate you so much and I love it. You’ve read the book. I’m glad. Um, I just think people, I was very lucky because it was in the airports across the entire country. Every airport in the USA, right? People have really kind of grabbed it and basically you read it cover to cover, you know how to meditate so you know what you’re doing now. Clay.

Well, thank you so much. It’s helping me de stress and you are the best.

You too. Nice to meet you too, Andrea. Thank you guys for having me on the show. I was really excited to be here.

You’re welcome. If you learned something from today’s show, I would encourage you, uh, ask you, maybe even beg you to share the show with a friend, family member, or a colleague, because the thrive time show a nation that the thrive nation is growing as a result of great people like you sharing each and every show with somebody that you know who would benefit from learning what we taught on today’s program. And because we’re now on iTunes and Spotify and Iheart radio and thrive time show.com, it’s super easy to do, but I would ask you today, who can you share today’s show with? And now is that any further? I do three, two, one.