Feeling Behind? Laura Belgray’s Advice for Late Bloomers & Aspiring Authors

Laura Belgray:

Anything that you put out there, there's going to be somebody out there who doesn't like you or it, and that is okay. It's not going to ruin you, and it is still worth putting out there. And you are still worth being a person and alive and being 100% yourself.

Marie Forleo:

Hey, it's Marie Forleo and welcome to another episode of the Marie Forleo Podcast and Marie TV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. And look, if you ever feel like you're a late bloomer in life or that you don't have the drive or the willpower or the discipline to be a success, I think you're going to find today's conversation very refreshing. Laura Belgray is the founder of Talking Shrimp and my partner on the Copy Cure. She's been featured in Fast Company, Money Magazine, Forbes, Vox, and Business Insider. She's also written for Fandango and Bravo and NBC and HBO and Nick at Nite, Nickelodeon, TV Land, VH1, Lifetime, and so much more. Belgray lives here in New York City and except for college has never lived anywhere else. Can you believe it? Her book, Tough Titties, is available wherever books are sold. Dude, Belgray, you did it. Congratulations. We're going to talk so much about this.

Laura Belgray:

Thank you.

Marie Forleo:

So for everyone watching or listening right now, there's likely going to be explicit language. So if you're super sensitive, we're going to talk about some things, you need to put your headphones in or just choose not to listen to this one. But do not send me, dear Marie email, like, "Why are you so unprofessional?" No, I don't want to hear it. So back to you, Tough Titty. You know what we would say to them?

Laura Belgray:

Tough titties.

Marie Forleo:

Tough titties.

Laura Belgray:

You got complaints about the language.

Marie Forleo:

Tough titties.

Laura Belgray:

Tough titties.

Marie Forleo:

That's what we're saying.

Laura Belgray:

Honestly, I have never been on a podcast that didn't have an E next to it for my episode.

Marie Forleo:

Really? Are you serious?

Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

That's really cool. I didn't know that.

Laura Belgray:

Good track record.

Marie Forleo:

Really good track record. So I know Tough Titties was tough titties to actually write, and we're going to talk about that. But before we get into process and all the fun things, what was the core inspiration to write this particular book and what are you hoping that readers get out of it?

Laura Belgray:

Yeah, great question. Well, as you know, I always wanted to write a book.

Marie Forleo:

Yes, forever.

Laura Belgray:

Yes, forever. And I wanted to write a book of my stories and I was writing my stories and I still didn't know what is this, what is the theme, what is the title, what is this book about? That was the biggest struggle for me. And I found myself saying one day ... The working title was New Dork City.

Marie Forleo:

Oh really?

Laura Belgray:

Yeah, coming of age. I mean, that was how I thought it was shaping up, like coming of age story of a dork misfit in New York in the 80s and 90s. But then it was so much more than that. And I found myself saying something that I say all the time, which was, "Well, tough titties" which is to me kind of the ultimate, sorry, not sorry for in my view and in my life, for being a not supposed to person. You want me to do things this way? You want me to drive a car, learn how to roast a chicken, have children? Tough titties.

Marie Forleo:

Ain't going to happen.

Laura Belgray:

Ain't going to happen. You want me to do my business this way? You want me to work nine to five? Tough titties. So that's where the impetus and the title came from. And then as I was writing it and thinking about who's going to read this book, what is it going to do for them? I mean, most of all, I wanted people to laugh out loud and tell me, "You kept me up till four, three nights in a row. Thanks a lot." And I'd say tough titties. But I also wanted to give people a feeling of relief, of good, I'm not alone. And feeling behind and feeling like a late bloomer in doing things, in taking the windy path in life, or not defining success the way everybody else defines it. So that's where it started to shape up when I realized these are the themes in my book, and this is what I want someone to get out of it when they read it.

Marie Forleo:

And you and I have known each other over 20 years now, which is crazy pants.

Laura Belgray:

It's our anniversary.

Marie Forleo:

It is our anniversary! Oh my God, that's so cool. That's really fun. We're going to have to do lots of fun things about that, but here's what's so cool about us. And I feel like we both have so many things in common and we love each other so dearly, and we're also so opposite in so many ways, which is awesome. And I think where we align so much is this notion of defining success on your own terms and being a little different, and also having very sophomoric humor and you know what I mean?

Laura Belgray:

Being 12.

Marie Forleo:

Yes, being 12 like all the time. And when Stephen, your husband and Josh, they'll like say, we're just like "Shut up. Leave us alone." It's so fun. But the process of writing this book, which I always think is so interesting, because as you and I know we have The Copy Cure, we know the stats. I think up to 80% of people say they have a book in them and they want to write it. And so many people, I think it's 92% actually don't do it. And people read your emails, people engage with your writing. You have such a beautiful, unique, funny voice. You're brilliant as a writer. And I know because we're super close friends, this book was fucking hell to get out of you. So do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because again, the impetus of the book is to help people feel less alone, and if they admire you, so many people are like, "Oh my god, Laura Belgray is writing" and then they know how tough it was, I think it'll make people feel better.

Laura Belgray:

I totally agree. I think sharing your struggles and the moments when you were crying and maybe considering giving back your book advance.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. We talked about that.

Laura Belgray:

... To people. We did, yes. Because I mean, it was so helpful to me to hear from you, "You know what? I went through the same thing."

Marie Forleo:

Oh my God, that book almost killed me. Not legitimately, but soulfully and ego-wise, it was like ...

Laura Belgray:

Yeah, and this book almost killed me. I mean, you saw me, it was almost a full year and definitely a full summer of me blocking off every day for book. It would say on my calendar, book, that's it. Book writing day. And I would open my laptop to the manuscript in a Google Doc, look at it for a minute, and then get up and pace, and then watch some Netflix, and then watch some Vanderpump Rules, read a book that would either make me feel like I'll never be able to write a book like this, or that was just garbage. That made me feel a little better. Cry, worry my husband, consider like, oh, so this is why people do drugs. I remember saying to a friend like, "Oh, I wish there were a pill I could take that just made me feel super confident about my writing" and just so I would just power through it. Just sit down and pour out writing onto the page. And they were like, "I think that's called cocaine."

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. Or no, there's the one like the Limitless drug. Remember that movie? Did you not see that movie with Bradley Cooper? It was like the whole Limitless thing. Oh my God. Yeah. No, I remember in some ... I don't know, years ago, but it was like this pill that he took that made him like super. And I think it's actually based on, I don't know if it's Adderall or something like that. I've never taken it, so I have no idea, but I get it. And I also remember just feeling, because I love you so much and I know you so well when it was so struggly and not being able to do anything. You know what I mean?

Laura Belgray:

I was so stuck. And you kept reminding me, "You do this every day, you write emails so easily, and they're so awesome." And my friend Susie, also, who is British, so she said it like this. She said, "Well, you write emails like that, you know you write emails every day. These are just emails with a spine." And I was like, but it's not, it is not the same. You know this. A lot of it had poured out of me for like several months. I'd written all this stuff that I thought was really good, and I had been kind of not really workshopping it, but submitting it in this pod, in this group of writers I was in. But our instructions were only to give each other positive feedback. This is where it's really strong. And I believe in this, it's called the Gateless Method, and it's awesome and it points out what you're doing right, and it does not involve the inner critic.

But then there comes a point, and this point came from my editor when you do, when it does require some criticism and structure. And so I handed all this. My editor had said, "Give me a couple sample chapters by X date." And she probably meant two or three. And I had been working on all this stuff that I liked, and I didn't know the shape of it yet, didn't know where it was going really. But I was like, this is good stuff. So I handed her more than two or three chapters. I handed her everything that I had been working on that I liked. And the book was contracted for 75,000 words. That was supposed to be the manuscript length. And what I gave her, the working stuff was 85,000 words. And she came back to me, she kept calling it the manuscript. I'm like, "No, that's just the sample chapters." But she kept saying, referring to the manuscript, and she was like, "The manuscript is a little bit all over the place. Where's the voice here? What are you trying to say?" I was like, "Where's the voice? I am voice. That’s my thing.”

You're asking me where's the voice? And she was like, "Your readers, yes, they say they want your stories, they love reading your stories and anything that you write, but they want your wisdom. They want takeaways. They want to know ..."

Marie Forleo:

That was really hard for you.

Laura Belgray:

It was super hard to feel like I had to go into the material and to every chapter, every story that I was telling and realize that it wasn't a story yet. It was an anecdote. And asked myself, why am I telling this story? What is the point here? What do I want to say? And sometimes it was not evident. I didn't know why. I don't know why I'm talking about this adventure that my friends and I had with a world-renowned director who was a little bit of a sleaze bag. And we got into a little thing with him. I'm like, it's just funny. I just think it's a funny story. And I had to find the meaning, where's the meaning in this? I had to make every chapter arc to some kind of meaning, which is what we all have to do when we write. When we really want to tell a story, you can't end it with, and it was really funny.

Marie Forleo:

In a fry voice. Okay, so let's get into some of the stories. So you're super brutally honest about so many things in the book, but especially your younger years, and it seems like there was some pivotal lessons that carried you forward. So you write, "The key to creativity, business, art, self-expression, and the kind of success I value is to remind yourself that life is not sixth grade. In fact, it's the opposite. Standing out is where it's at." Tell us more.

Laura Belgray:

Yes, "Standing out is where it's at." And this is when you’re a grownup, in business or just in life itself, I think all of us learn, especially in middle school, that fitting in is where it's at. When you're growing up ...

Marie Forleo:

You tried to fit in so bad.

Laura Belgray:

I tried so hard to fit in.

Marie Forleo:

I had no idea.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah. And most of it was a flop. So what you're reading is from the chapter called Deb Fishbone Likes This, and it is about me hate following my sixth grade bully on social media years later, in current times. And what she did to me, and it's your pretty standard fair. She didn't beat me up or anything like that, but she stole my best friend and got me kicked out of my friend group. And then the worst thing that she did, that was horrible. It was a year of hell. But I had written this piece for English class, like a creative writing assignment, and not at all autobiographical story I like to say about someone named Liddy, not Laura, because it was totally not me who went to a different private school in New York City. Totally not my school. And I was really pleased with it.

So it was called, yeah, Liddy and Me." And I had, it was handed back to me probably with an A, and I had it in the lunchroom, and Deb Fishbone, my sworn enemy, grabbed it out of my hands while I was like, "Hey, hey, that's mine." And she started reading it aloud to everybody. And she just had a knack, like a radar for your vulnerability, your hot buttons. And she flips to a page where it says, "I have good friends, but I feel like I'm losing them slowly." And she read it out loud and goes, "This is you." And I was like, "What? No, it's not. It's fiction. Duh. You never heard of fiction?" And she was like, "No, this is you." And I have never felt so called out in my life, just so very vulnerable.

And it was one of those moments that taught me falsely. But it's a lesson that I learned in that moment, it is not safe to be me. It's not safe to express myself, to stand out. Fitting in is everything. Standing out is death. And I'm pretty sure that's why A, I stopped writing for a very long time. I just didn't want to put myself on the page. And B, I tried so hard to fit in for so many years, and also we all want to belong. So I still love the feeling of belonging. I'm still always looking for that feeling that I call The Peach Pit feeling based on 90210, which didn't exist at the time, but it was something I always wanted, like of gathering. They all gather at this coffee shop, in a malt shop called The Peach Pit after school. And I always wanted that feeling of a group, my group and belonging.

But as an adult, I have come to understand and remind myself constantly whenever I have that feeling of somebody's not going to like this, someone's going to be mad at me, someone's gonna tear me down for saying I like this thing, life is not sixth grade. And one person disliking you or several people disliking you cannot ruin you when you're an adult. It can when you're in sixth grade, it can ruin your life.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. It’s very true.

Laura Belgray:

And when you're an adult, you're okay. You just have to remind yourself of that. And I like to say, unless they sue you and then they can ruin you.

Marie Forleo:

We'll stay away from that one.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

So you finished college and you gave yourself some space and some time and you write this, I love it, "Be a disappointment for a while. It could be the best thing you do for your future." What do you mean by that? You know for me, I love also talking about, I'm like the queen of disappointment. Another thing we have in common, but tell me what you mean by that in terms of being a disappointment for a little bit.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah. I mean, that was based on my full year after college where I lived at home. I lived at home till 26, so that was not unique, but I lived at home, went semi-looking for bartending jobs. I wanted to be a bartender. I had this image of having fistfuls of cash and making it rain and pouring shots down people's throats even though I didn't drink. And working side by side with Tom Cruise and maybe Rob Lowe.

Marie Forleo:

Your dream. That would've been everything.

Laura Belgray:

Totally. And having this wild social life. I didn't try that hard looking for bartending jobs. I finally scored one, but I spent most of my days going out, my day, my workday would start at 11:00 PM when I would shower, get ready to go out, then show up at my favorite bar, hang out there till maybe four in the morning. Again, I didn't drink. I was drinking Diet Cokes, but I think everyone thought I was like the town drunk. And then wake up next day around noon, eat chow corn flakes in my childhood bedroom, watching ABC soaps, go to the gym.

Marie Forleo:

Laura Belgray.

Laura Belgray:

Buy Lycra tops because he could never have too many Lycra crop tops for going out in 1991. And my dad and my mom would both come into my room every day and say, "How's the job hunt going?" And I would say, "I'm pounding the pavement."

Marie Forleo:

Did you actually believe that? When I read that, I was like, Laura Belgray.

Laura Belgray:

I did, because I did go out one or two days with a stack of resumes under my arm and in a very work-appropriate dress and earrings and walk up and down Columbus Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue asking bar owners if they needed any help. And that took so much out of me. I felt so exhausted and accomplished from doing that, that I really felt like I was pounding the pavement. And sometimes I would open the paper and look in the classifieds and any job that appealed to me because I wanted something creative and a word I think I might have coined, “entertainmenty.” It would say requires a self-starter or must be detail-oriented. And I was like, nope. That rules me out. And I learned that self-starter meant it was either printer sales or phone sex.

Marie Forleo:

Oh, wow.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

That's a whole different thing. So taking your time and really not being successful, not getting a job and being a disappointment for a little while, what do you feel like that led to for you? Was there a bit of healing? Was there a bit of recognition of what you actually wanted to do?

Laura Belgray:

Yeah. Well, for one thing, it left me open to an opportunity that I never would've been able to take advantage of if I had been out working a job, like my friends who are paralegals and working in a bookstore and doing all the things you're supposed to do. A friend called me around 11:00 AM, I like to say 10, but I think it was more like 11, and was like "Sorry for waking you." I was like, "I'm not asleep. I'm awake." And she's like, "Well, I'm here with this author Lisa Birnbach" who wrote The Preppy Handbook, which was a huge book back in that time during the preppy years. "And we're fact-checking her guide to colleges,” a new book that was coming out,” and she needs more fact-checkers. Can you come in?" I was like, "Today?" Because I had planned to go to a step aerobics class and do my thing.

She's like, "Yeah, we need you now." I was like, "Okay, I will get dressed and go in and do it." And I did. And that job, first of all, it was really fun. It was exactly what I had kind of hoped for in a job, and it was entertainmenty and it led to everything else in my life. So for one, just being home, sleeping late, and available for that opportunity, that's the reason I have the life I do now. But who knows? It's a Sliding Doors thing. I would have just a totally different life if I had pounded the pavement the way I should have. But also I do feel like I had that year under my belt. I never felt, I didn't feel like, oh, I didn't have time to just loaf around and be me. And I think I needed that, and I needed time to get a little squirrely and feel like I need to be productive. So yeah, I think it was healing, but also it left a door open for me for other opportunities.

Marie Forleo:

And for an opportunity that really led to everything that you have become. Okay. Real fast, if you are loving this conversation, then you're really going to love my free audio coaching program called How to Get Anything You Want: You Need It in Your Life. You can go over to marieforleo.com/subscribe right now. It'll give you three steps to turn any dream into reality. Let's talk about how both your parents are a source of inspiration and sometimes a cautionary tale. You saw both your dad and your mom switch careers. Tell us about that because it seems like it planted a seed that it's okay to have a relaxed timeline, and it's also okay to change things up, which is very different than what I think a lot of the cultural messaging is.

Laura Belgray:

Yes. And especially back then. So my dad, when I was little and from the 60s into the 70s was an industrial engineer for the airlines, who worked for American Airlines and then Eastern Airlines and had great perks, travel, could hop on a plane standby with my mom and us when we were really little, first class sometimes, and traded all that for becoming a therapist. He realized that he liked helping people more than he liked tallying theft of little mini liquor bottles on planes, which was part of his job. And so he went back to school and became a psychoanalyst. And the drawbacks of that ... Well, there were a couple of drawbacks. One was that I got probed all the way up my butt hole for my feelings constantly. He constantly demanded to know my feelings. He thought therapy was the only answer to everything. He was obsessed with it, obsessed with Freud. He called the book ... It's called Lets Go Europe. It's a travel series. Let's Go Europe. Let's go whatever, he called it Letting Go when I went off for the first time as a teenager. He read into everything.

So that was a pain in the ass. But what I saw was the courage to switch careers. He was in his 40s when he did, and it was a big switch and pretty courageous. And he had a good gig working for the airlines.

Marie Forleo:

Stable.

Laura Belgray:

Right. Stable, benefits, et cetera. It took him forever. Another late bloomer to write his thesis and get his PhD. Took him like 10 years. But another thing that I saw in him was this obsession with what he did for work that I wanted. He was so into what he did that he never wanted to retire. And he worked until pretty much almost his dying day. He still had clients and he would say, "I never want to stop working." And I always felt like, so this was a positive and a negative. I won't settle for anything less than work that makes me feel like I want to do this till my dying day. And I would do this even if nobody were paying me.

And then my mom partly, and possibly inspired by my dad and pushed by him a little bit, she also switched careers in her 40s. So she had her PhD before he did. She was a musicologist and she had worked in the recording industry. Then she taught music a little bit. She wasn't really sure what she wanted to do anymore, and she took those diagnostic tests. He made her take a class on finding your thing.

Marie Forleo:

And What Color Is Your Parachute?

Laura Belgray:

What Color Is Your Parachute!

Marie Forleo:

That book frigging tortured me in the late 90s. Oh my God. I hated that book.

Laura Belgray:

God. Oh, my dad would never stop pushing that book on us. And my sister and I used to joke that it was called What Color Is Your Phlegm? Because he would also ask that whenever we were sick. So my mom discovered that she loved children's books and she was always a great writer and really good editor. So she got into the publishing industry by way of an internship when she was in her 40s. And can you imagine starting as an intern?

Marie Forleo:

I love that.

Laura Belgray:

Me too.

Marie Forleo:

In your 40s to say, yeah, I don't know anything about this industry. I'm coming from a completely different world. I will be an intern, and I'm sure it was probably unpaid.

Laura Belgray:

Unpaid and getting someone's coffee who's way younger than you.

Marie Forleo:

Absolutely. The humility and also just the clarity to know I want to be in a different field and I'm going to have to kind of be really humble for a little bit and do this and make it. I think it's amazing.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah, me too. And she’s still, she’s is 85 and really still into children's books, and she works on the Bank Street Children's Book Committee. She was president of it and now is just still very involved in it. She is obsessed with children's books. Every conversation turns to children's books, that's another story. But I have always been inspired by both their timelines. Felt like, oh, good. I have time to figure out my thing. Maybe if what I'm doing right now isn't it, I still have time. I will find it eventually and find that work that I could do for the rest of my life even if I weren't getting paid.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. So you're super, super, super honest in the book. And I think one of the questions you and I have heard a lot, especially from our Copy Cure students, is like, "Oh God, how much of my own personal stories am I allowed to tell? What if they're messy? What if they're painful? And the people that it could impact or that might be involved are still alive." So you have a whole chapter on BJs that you gave in the early 90s, and Yes, I just did say what I said. So take that for a moment. Did, and I know Steven so well, we all spend so much time together, but I never asked you this. Did you actually talk to him about writing this chapter about all the guys you went down on before you actually decided to write it? Do you know what I mean? You're like, "Honey" because it's a lot. I have to say as your friend, because I've known you for 20 years, so I didn't know this part of you right. In the 90s, you and I were doing very different things.

Laura Belgray:

We sure were.

Marie Forleo:

And I was like, damb girl. You talk about being lazy. That's not lazy. That's a level of ambition that I was like, shit, I didn't know you had in you. But did you talk? Seriously, I was like, go, Laura.

Laura Belgray:

I like to say the job part of BJs is accurate.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, that's actually very true. It felt like you were like, yeah, this is a duty thing.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

Did you talk with him before writing that?

Laura Belgray:

I didn't.

Marie Forleo:

Not to ask permission, but I know how beautiful your relationship is and you guys have so much love and respect for each other.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah. It was nothing that he didn't know about already. He doesn't know the details. He still doesn't, because that's the chapter that he skipped.

Marie Forleo:

He won't read that one.

Laura Belgray:

He won't read that one. In the dedication, I warned my mom not to read it. She read it.

Marie Forleo:

She was like, "I thought you were pounding the pavement." You're like, actually.

Laura Belgray:

She said it confirmed a lot that we suspected. They would say, "What are you doing out till four?" And I would say, "I'm networking."

Marie Forleo:

You're networking. You sure were networking. You were networking.

Laura Belgray:

I was networking.

Marie Forleo:

But was it like a thought process? Because again, we've been asked this question so many times and in different context, if there was some type of really traumatic experience, some type of really difficult story. I just think it's always helpful for people to hear examples just so that you have different things to bounce off of to find your own path and your own truth. So was it a concern for you or were you like, no, I definitely want to tell this?

Laura Belgray:

I really wanted to tell it. I feel like for me, it was really easy to write. And I do feel like this is weird where maybe it'll sound dark or maybe not, but I do feel like my dad dying in 2018 freed me to write a lot. I did not want him to read this stuff. I didn't want my mom to read it either but so be it. But I really thought about him I think in the back of my mind, I think that was part of what was holding me back from writing my book in general. But I wasn't worried about Steven, even though there are people who will read it and think about him, but it's not like it was happening when he knew me or when we were together.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, this was the early days of all of us when we're partying, and the hormones are frigging ... For many of us, not all of us, many of us, the hormones are raging and you know, we're little animals, all over the place.

Laura Belgray:

Exactly. And boy, has he shared some stuff with me from his life.

Marie Forleo:

Well over dinner, I know sometimes we're having dinner, I'm like, "Steven." I'm like, "What's going on?"

Laura Belgray:

"Know what I was doing when I was 12?" Like yeah, we know. So I wasn't worried about that so much, but there were stories I told in it that I was worried about, where I was a little nervous about certain one person or another reading it. And certain people who are in that chapter, I've changed their names, but they're going to know it's them. And so that made me a little nervous, but I really enjoy sharing my truth, honestly. I love being honest in my writing. And so there's very little that I won't put on the page. About my current private life that's not up for grabs, that's off the table. But my past, I also feel in a way, that was a different person. It was a different time, a different person. I mean, a lot of what I wrote made me think who was that person, that's so far from who I am? So in a way, it felt like fiction, like a character.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. Super interesting. So one thing that surprised me actually when I was reading the book was the baby fever chapter, because I learned that you actually struggled a little bit with your decision not to have kids. And like you and I, famously, we walk around all the time and we're both childless by absolute choice. And I just always thought, for whatever reason, I don't know if we ever really discussed it. I always thought that you kind of knew that it was a no for you. Do you know what I mean? That was just your truth. But let's talk about how happy you felt when you actually checked in with Steven. Do you know what I mean? And you guys had that conversation, like "Hey, would you be okay if we didn't have kids?" And you're like, "Yay, we're actually not going for it."

Laura Belgray:

Yeah. It was such a relief for me because I did spend so many years wanting to want them and waiting to want them. And I knew that I didn't want them.

Marie Forleo:

Like deep down, you knew.

Laura Belgray:

Deep down I knew. And when someone was like, "You want to hold the baby?" I was like, "Oh, sure." And I'd be like, "Okay, hold the baby. That was fun. What a sweet baby." I never felt… I never had.. It's called baby fever because baby fever is something everyone else had and our whole society has.

Marie Forleo:

So many of them but not all of them.

Laura Belgray:

So many, but not all. But there's still pressure on everyone to have baby fever. And I know somebody who told me that she told her doctor that she didn't want to have kids. I think she was ready for ... She wanted a hysterectomy. I think she had problems. And her doctor said, "Well, you're too young. You're probably going to change your mind." And so no one is allowed to know until they're past the age where they can conceive.

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Laura Belgray:

So I wasn't given really any encouragement to come to a hard no until after I came to a hard no. And I was able to say, I don't want them.

Marie Forleo:

Did you have like experiences babysitting or anything? Because I'm curious to hear what yours was. Mine was like, that was actually my first job. So babysitting was my very first job. And I was super young. I was nine, but I was a very responsible nine-year-old, which is probably not hard to imagine. Like running shit, you know what I mean? And I just remember after a few experiences, I literally could hear both my inner voice and even my ego. I was like, there is no fucking way in hell. I just knew. I was like, this is not my path. This is absolutely not my path. And then as the years went on and I would have relationships, not Josh, and they'd be like, "Oh, I can't wait to get married and have kids." I'm like, "Do you have any idea? You're not seeing me at all because that's not on the table. Not a bit." And my mom was even like, "What's wrong with you?" In my early 20s or whatever. I was like, actually, what's right with me? I'm super clear.

Laura Belgray:

I am so envious or younger me is so envious of you for being that clear that you just didn't want them. Because it was always posed to me as a someday. Like someday when you have kids, and I felt like, oh God, I hope someday is really, really far off.

Marie Forleo:

Do you know who was telling me I was going to regret it the most?

Laura Belgray:

Who?

Marie Forleo:

Older men.

Laura Belgray:

Oh, of course.

Marie Forleo:

They loved telling me cause I would make such a good mom. I was so loving. I was so caring. I'm like, yeah, of course I am. And no.

Laura Belgray:

Yes. Just because you can ...

Marie Forleo:

Doesn't mean you should.

Laura Belgray:

Right. I mean, I would like to say to them, you would be an awesome ferryboat captain. Why aren't you one? You sure you don't want to be one? You sure you don't want to become a professional wrestler because you'd be so good at it? Yeah, just because you would be good at it doesn't mean that you have to. And it's such a big thing to have kids. It's not just like, oh, I'm good at this, so I'm going to love it always. And I feel like being on the fence was an invitation. It was the way I expressed it. When people said, "Are you going to have kids? Do you want kids?" I'd be like, "No. Well, not sure." I might say I'm on the fence. And that was always an invitation for them to convince me, to persuade me that I would want them someday and I should have them. And it's the greatest joy you'll ever know. And it's the only way you'll ever know true love. And I personally feel content with my off-brand faux version of love that I experience in life.

Marie Forleo:

That's why I love you. So I'm going to ask you a question back to process and stuff. So you have this incredible memory Belgray, and details come so naturally to you. We've known each other for so long. And you'll be like, "Marie, remember when we did this? And then you said that and you were wearing this?" I'm like, "I don't remember what the hell we did last week when we hung out." Do you keep journals? Do you write in journals and do you write down details? Because I feel like for anyone who's like, first of all, wants to be a great writer, we talk about this in The Copy Cure, details, details, details are everything for effective writing. But especially if you're writing memoir, you want to write a screenplay, anything like that. So just curious about your process.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah. Well now for the last, I'd say six years, I have been writing every morning, sometimes little breaks, sometimes I break my streak. But every single morning that I can I write in 750words.com. And that is where I like to journal, but it's called that because it when you hit 750 words, it turns green. The word count at the bottom, and you're like, I did my words. And so I use that for record keeping. I like to write down the details of what I ate last night, what we did, what somebody said, because you forget all these things. I happen to have a really good memory for them for what happened a long time ago, but nobody's memory gets much better as they get older.

Marie Forleo:

Let's try and crack that code.

Laura Belgray:

Yeah, exactly.

Marie Forleo:

Let's get some supplements going.

Laura Belgray:

So I'm glad to keep a record of them in that. And I think journaling is so important for being a writer. And God do I wish I had started when I was like 10 and had all those journals too.

Marie Forleo:

We were just cleaning out out east and Josh discovered this whole, I don't know, 20, 30 journals from when he was 10 or 12. And you know me, I throw out everything. Yes. So I'm always like, "Dude, let's lose the clutter." And I don't have hardly anything. And I see him about, I'm like, "Don't throw those out. Those are gold dude." I was like, "Do not touch those at all."

Laura Belgray:

Thank God.

Marie Forleo:

Thank God.

Laura Belgray:

It is gold.

Marie Forleo:

Gold.

Laura Belgray:

I can't believe the things that I thought I would remember but just don't at all. I'm so happy for everything that I wrote down. And I did keep journals in a spotty way over the years in my 20s a little bit, in my 30s when I was in a terrible relationship. I'm very happy to have records of that. First of all, a lot of it made it into the book, was so happy to be able to mine that stuff.

Marie Forleo:

I guess young people now, who knows, depends on how much they share on social media, but maybe some young people who overshare, they'll have that as a record. But I really wish I had journals for my early 20s because what a shit show, what a mess, and how much fun that would've been, all my tortured like ... It would've been so great. I mean, hell, the torture that I've put myself through in recent years, I have at least some of those. But anyone watching keep your journals, your tortures going to be awesome, at some point, you're going to want to go through it. Laura, I love you so much. Is there anything that you want to wrap with today? The stories are hilarious. You are so funny. You're such a brilliant writer.

Laura Belgray:

Thank you.

Marie Forleo:

As your friend I'm just so happy for you that this is out in the world and I know it's going to make so many people laugh and feel so good and feel so not alone and be like, oh my God, I did not know that side of Belgray and it's awesome. It's so beautiful.

Laura Belgray:

Thank you so much. I would say since you opened on the idea of being you, and standing out, that what I'd like to tell people is that for anytime you're afraid that somebody's not going to like this, someone's not going to like what I have to say, anything that you put out there. I want to think that for any person, brand, work of art, TV show, song, anything that you love and are so glad exists, there is at least somebody out there who will say, "It's garbage or not for me or I don't like that person at all." And that doesn't mean that they're not worthy. It doesn't mean that it's not perfect. It means that it's just not for that person. So the same goes for you. Anything that you put out there, and you as a person, there's going to be somebody out there who doesn't like you or it, and that is okay. It's not going to ruin you, and it is still worth putting out there. And you are still worth being a person and alive and being 100% yourself.

Marie Forleo:

And we say to those folks who don't like it, tough titties.

Laura Belgray:

Tough titties.

Marie Forleo:

So I'm curious, what's the biggest takeaway from this conversation? And how can you take that insight, that aha and put it into action in your life starting right now? I want you to leave it a comment below and let me know. And if you haven't already, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. I'm telling you, it helps so much. So thank you in advance. Plus, it makes sure that you never miss out on a thing. Until next time, stay on your game and keep going for your really big dreams, because guess what? The world really does need that super special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for tuning in, sending you such a big hug, and I'll see you next time.

Now, if you enjoyed that one, I think you're really going to love this next video, which is about how to get more done without burning yourself out. It is so good. Click here, watch it now. I'll see you there.

I know precisely what I need to get done in order to feel successful for the day. And, by the way, that’s not 25 things, that’s usually like two or three. And I know anything beyond that is a bonus.