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Danielle LaPorte: White Hot Truth: Clarity for Keeping it Real on Your Spiritual Path from One Seeker to Another
158 Plays8 years ago
Today we have Daniel LaPorte joining us. Danielle is the author of the Fire Starter Sessions, The Desire Map, and now her latest book, White Hot Truth: Clarity for keeping it real on your spiritual path, from one seeker to another.
Danielle was invited to be a member of Opera Winfrey’s inaugural Super Soul 100 and she has a website that has had over five million visitors every single month for her #truthbombs, which are daily little inspirational concepts from Danielle that come to your inbox. Danielle has also been named one of the top 100 websites for women by Forbes and called the best place online for “kick ass spirituality”. She runs a multimillion dollar company made up of women and one guy, and Danielle is all about keeping it real and this episode was as real as it gets.
We dove into her background, how she ended up getting fired from her own company, how she picked herself up from that place, how she went from 60 subscribers on her email list to a multimillion dollar business, as well as the inspiration for her latest book, White Hot Truth. I know you’re going to love today’s show, so let’s jump in and get started.
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Transcript
Introduction to Danielle LaPorte
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome to this week's episode of the Art of Authenticity. I'm Laura Coe, your host, and as always, thank you so much for joining in. Today we have Danielle LaPorte joining us. For those of you who have no idea who I'm talking about,
00:00:33
Speaker
I can't believe it, but you are in for a huge treat. Most of you know who Danielle is. She is the author of the Firestarter Sessions, the Desire Map, and now her latest book, White Hot Truth. If that's not a great title, what is clarity for keeping it real on your spiritual path from one seeker to another?
00:00:59
Speaker
Danielle Laporte was invited to be a member of Oprah's inaugural Super Soul 100, a group who, in Oprah Winfrey's words, is uniquely connecting the world together with a spiritual energy that matters.
Building a Multimillion-Dollar Business
00:01:13
Speaker
She has a website that has had over five million visitors every single month for her hashtag truth bombs. If you haven't checked those out, you'll love them. They're daily little inspirational concepts from Danielle that come to your inbox.
00:01:27
Speaker
She's got amazing books, as I mentioned, The Desire Map, beautifully designed, absolutely practical and high value. She's been named one of the top 100 websites for women by Forbes and called the best place online for kick-ass spirituality. She runs a multi-million dollar company made up of women and one guy, and it's working virtually from five countries.
00:01:50
Speaker
I know you're going to love today's show. Danielle really, as always, she's all about keeping it real. And this episode was as real as it gets. We dove into her background, how she ended up getting fired from her own company, how she picked herself up from that place, started with 60 subscribers to her email list. Anybody out there that feels like they don't know if they can make it 60 subscribers to a multimillion dollar business.
00:02:16
Speaker
And, you know, the inspiration for her latest book, White Hot Truth, which you can find available today. You can grab it at Amazon. You can preorder it on her website. By the time this comes live, I think you can actually order it. Go over to danielleport.com for all the information. And again, thank you so much for tuning in. Welcome to this week's episode of The Art of Authenticity. Today we have Danielle LaPorte joining us. Hey, Danielle, how are you today?
00:02:45
Speaker
Hi, I'm feeling pretty awesome today, yeah. That's awesome. We were just talking before the show and Danielle was telling me how she has a nice little landing at the top of her stairs
Career Path and Lessons Learned
00:02:54
Speaker
where she has a nice place to chat. I love that image.
00:02:58
Speaker
So I'm perched at the top of my stairs by a window. It sounds lovely. So Danielle Laporte, for anybody out there that hasn't somehow come across her work at this point, The Desire Map, it's an incredible, gorgeous, amazing book filled with content and practical tips, but it's also just stunning.
00:03:18
Speaker
has moved on and has got a new book, The White Hot Truth, which I love that title. And we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about this new work and what you guys can learn from her latest thoughts. But before that, Danielle, I was hoping
00:03:34
Speaker
It was just such an amazing story. I was reading about you and, you know, I've known about you for quite a while because you've just done such beautiful work in our space. But this podcast is really about authentic success. And, you know, it's like, it's not just like dream the dream and, you know, it's ice cream and poof, like the world is yours. You've had like a really incredible journey even getting fired from your own company. Can you
00:03:59
Speaker
Can you give us a bit of that story of how you sort of got your way towards your first book and this chapter of your life? Well, I'll go back a little further and I'll do this quickly. So I was a publicist. I was a book publicist for a while and I didn't even really know I was a publicist. These are the days when I feel so over 40 saying this, but like, you know, I had a little bachelor apartment and a fax machine and you faxed.
00:04:26
Speaker
your press releases to people, you know, and your invoices to people. And I was at a party one day and somebody said, what are you doing? And I'm like, well, you know, I get some friends on radio shows and I get them articles and magazines. They're like, you're a publicist. I was like, oh my God, I'm a publicist. And I became really well known for promoting futurists. And that led to me directing this think tank in Washington DC on future studies. And that was bizarre. And I had like first level security clearance at the Pentagon and
00:04:55
Speaker
All of our funding came from the dot com boom in the nineties and that bombed and we fired 21 people and packed up and I came back to Canada. And then that, you know, the next incarnation began of, I was doing something with a friend who became my business partner that really would best be summed up as like this soulful holistic approach to personal branding.
00:05:25
Speaker
And we created this process and you know, it was like we had IP and we ran you through this Q&A and you got this, you know, you got this statement that was who you were and how you should design your life and Oprah called and we raised a bunch of money.
00:05:40
Speaker
to take the company to the next level. Wait a minute, Oprah called? What do you mean? You're like, so you have this brand, you have this IP and just... Yeah. So we came out with a book and over producers called and we're like, you know, they're in exploratory production mode, wanted to know who we were and what we were about and looked at doing a show with us. And that was right before they were about to go off air for the season and never happened.
Coping with Firing and Legal Battles
00:06:05
Speaker
but I leveraged that opportunity. I mean, like, you know, when Oprah calls you, it actually becomes really easy to raise money. And I'm like, you know, Oprah just called and why don't you just sign a check for a hundred grand? And why don't we get a whole bunch of you to do that? And I did that. And part of raising that money was contingent on all of my investors were male. I think it's an important part of the story because we are women founded
00:06:33
Speaker
and led company and, you know, all the dudes got together and said, Hey, if you hire this one guy over here, who's this tech wonder kind, then we'll all sign our checks. We're in. I did the smart thing. I hired the tech genius guy to come on as CEO. I think I thought I was a CEO, but then I was informed that he was actually a CEO. That was an interesting day. And I got fired.
00:07:02
Speaker
So, you know, I'd incorporated the company and it was my name on the parking stall and, you know, so-and-so and danielle.com. And they informed me that I was just going to write for the site and they were going to change the model. Oh my God. You know, the whole revenue stream is going to be based on.
00:07:20
Speaker
clicks and advertising instead of all the other things that we wanted to develop, you know. And you had a big enough company that, like, was there a board and stuff? Like, how did they have the leverage to fire? There was a small board. Well, I'd made myself an employee of the incorporation. So that was one legal reason that enabled them to do that. You did have a board of advisors. You just need, I can't remember actually if it was three or five people. I think it's five has to be an odd number. And, you know, they just made this unilateral, like,
00:07:49
Speaker
both myself and the other founder, like we were out, they kind of gave us this choice. And there's this really, you know, fancy term called constructive dismissal, which means they really are firing your ass, but they're going to let you do 10% of your workload. So it's not like they're really firing you. So they told me to like go home and write blog posts one a week. And they just give me like a couple hundred bucks a month, that kind of thing. And I was like, you know what, you better get a lawyer, except the lawyer they were going to get was the lawyer I had hired.
00:08:19
Speaker
to paper deals for the company and now that lawyer was like giving me my walking papers. Oh my God. Oh my God. What a betrayal. I mean, how did you feel at this point where you just blown away? I can't even imagine. Yeah, it's pretty, it is unimaginable until it happens. Well, the second thing you realize after the rage and how doable it is, you start to hear all of these stories about how many times this has happened where somebody, you know,
00:08:47
Speaker
Like a designer, a fashion designer really just becomes the face and still a creative talent of their empire, but it's owned by shareholders and they don't like the direction she's going in and she's out and they own her name and they bring in another designer. Like this shit happens all the time. And you know, the incorporation owned my social media identity. So I had to, I had to surreptitiously
00:09:10
Speaker
go to Twitter. This was like in the very early days of Twitter and go back and forth with them. Like these are the days when you can actually get someone on the phone at Twitter and I'd be like, it's at Danielle report is me. I'm the human that is that. So this new email address, you need to link that to my account so I can tweet as me. Anyway, a lot of courage, a lot of betrayal, big revelation.
Rebuilding with Resilience
00:09:33
Speaker
And I mean, this really is the lever to the next level, the depth of authenticity.
00:09:39
Speaker
You know, all that external betrayal was just a reflection of my internal betrayal. And all the times that I wanted to say something and I didn't, the times that I signed things were, you know, I really felt like I was internally hyperventilating. Like my body knew this was really wrong. You know, like I gave away signing authority in the bank account because, you know, the dude was a CEO. And that's the way, and I was told this is like only two people can have signing authority.
00:10:06
Speaker
No, not, you know. And so I would just silent and I paid for it. But you knew, you knew in your body, like you had that sense, but you just, you just would railroad over it. A hundred percent. Absolutely. Like I railroad is the right word. Just denied. Like I just told myself, there's a lot of money on the line now. Yeah. And it's not just my life. I mean, it was my business partner's life.
00:10:31
Speaker
who I love deeply at the time. I still love her deeply. We haven't talked in a long time because of that. We had to pick sides. We weren't on the same side. And yeah, it was a lot of oppression, self-oppression, repression, I guess is more accurate.
00:10:48
Speaker
I mean, as somebody who's been there, I just feel like I had an internal steamroller. Every time my voice would creep up, I would just steamroll over it with justifications. What was your biggest justification at that point? The money. The money. Yeah. The money. We just raised half a million dollars, and that was a lot of money for us at that time. It's a lot of money, period. And I had a young son.
00:11:16
Speaker
my now ex-husband, you know, just started his job. Like we had to make this work. And I was hungry. I'm just as hungry now for, I want to make things in the world. I want to be of service. And that was the way I was going to do it at the time. And yeah, I wanted to be rich and famous as a result. Wasn't what drove things. I've always been very clear. It's not money and fame first. It's that if I do my job well, those things are part of that package.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And when you get things to a certain point and you kind of know when your bones, like something's off and I, it's hard to walk. I mean, it's just right. It's just like, it is. It's hard to listen to that internal voice. I've learned to be much better at it, but those external rationalizations, you know, they get very loud and, and well, and you're talking about across the board destruction, like you're going to tear the company apart.
00:12:12
Speaker
People are going to be without jobs. Not only that, okay, not only that, you're going to owe. Like, how am I going to make money, period, just for groceries? And how am I going to make enough money to pay off this debt? And then, you know, the first time, you know, when you're a rookie raising money, and when you have integrity, and I would add to that, more likely when you're female, you think you owe everybody that money back.
00:12:41
Speaker
because that's the right thing. Now that's luckily and not so luckily, that's not how it works. I mean, people invest and they risk, they go along for the ride with you. I mean, I had some really tearful conversations of like, I wish I could pay you back. And the seasoned mature people who'd invested, you know, in some cases 10 grand here, 40 grand there, a hundred grand, they're just like, you know, D sweetheart, this is how it works. You know, you lose, I lose. It's okay.
00:13:10
Speaker
We wish we didn't lose, but like it's over. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I love that you said the season people because it is, right? We did a little friends and family round in our company and it drove me crazy. And I, I think you're right. Like as a woman or a man with very high integrity, it bothers you so much to think that you may lose these people's money, but this is, you know, this is what they signed up for. It's not a guarantee. Yeah. And you know, I just want to go back to, you just made this distinction as well, you know,
00:13:40
Speaker
a man with very high integrity. So I'm not saying that women have more integrity. I'm saying that the feminine leans more towards taking care of everybody as opposed to just like A to B objectives. And I think both traits are brilliant and necessary, but it's my feminine inclination that has me worry more than a typical male about everybody's feelings, let's say. So I just want
Navigating the Publishing Industry
00:14:08
Speaker
to
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Great distinction. And I think very true across the board, something I've certainly struggled with. So how do you get from there to starting over with, I mean, 60 subscribers? Is that, is that the right number? Well, I, I hit the ground running and it doesn't work that way for everybody. You know, after a major loss, some of us are going to need to take time and lick our wounds and all of that. But for those of us who,
00:14:38
Speaker
are inclined this way. Like, I highly recommend it. You know, like, just don't take a day. I didn't take a day off. It just, you know, I cried for a week. And then I was on the phone that same week with a web designer, creating my new identity and registering my new URL. And because I want to keep going and I needed money. Like I left with the damn Blackberry, you know, that's all I had. And a lot of debt. I signed a lot of loans. And then I would go
00:15:08
Speaker
I was like, well, what can I do? I can help women start businesses. I know how to help entrepreneurs like create their online presence. I can do that. So I'm going to call these fire starter sessions and I'm going to do these one-on-one. And so I did two things. I did one-on-one consulting sessions. I was very clear. I'm not a coach. I'm not here to guide you to find, you know, your own answers. I'm just going to give you my opinions because technically I wasn't a coach. I wasn't trained.
00:15:39
Speaker
straight up strategic counsel was what I was craving at every point along the way. You know, I just would go to people I thought were smart and be like, just what would you do if you were me? That was a magic question. And I think that is it. When you were raising money, anything, anything, what would you do if you were me? Doesn't mean I'm going to take your advice and you're not me, but you know,
00:16:03
Speaker
And so I did these one-on-ones, I started at $300 an hour. By the end of my run of doing these one-on-one sessions, I was $1,000 an hour and I had a six month waiting list. And at the same time, yeah. And at the same time, I was like, hey, who will have me? I will come to your city. If you can get 20 chicks in a living room at a hundred bucks a pop, I'll pay my own flight, my own hotel. And I'm just gonna, I'll talk.
00:16:31
Speaker
I'll jam with you for four hours. Four hours? And I'll come with, I actually, this was nuts. I reviewed everybody's website and their business objectives in advance. And I went with specific ideas for each person in that room, mostly women. And I did 16 cities in a year. Oh my gosh.
00:16:52
Speaker
really where everybody I sometimes you know I get to the airport I didn't know where I was going and I was like whoever's gonna pick me up from this airport take me to the yoga studio or they're living I don't know if they're like a crazy cat lady or what and at the end of that I had a book I was totally fried but that became the fire starter sessions
00:17:10
Speaker
Amazing. And I love that you're so honest because with the internet in particular, but think about this a lot, I'm 45 and it's like when I started my company, the downside was there was nothing to compare ourselves to, but now there's so much. And I think one of the things that happens is you start comparing somebody's end game with your beginning, right? Because there's nowhere to look to hear that you got on an airplane and went to a crazy cat lady or a
00:17:35
Speaker
or a yoga room, right? You can't see that process. You just see this amazing end result. So, you know, I think that's so important for people out there who are starting something, right? It doesn't, it doesn't start there. It's not that glamorous at the beginning, right? Not so glamorous. I mean, one woman who brought me, I think I was going to Minneapolis. She was like, Hey, you can, you can sleep on my couch. And I strongly considered it. Cause I was like, well, it's going to cost me $149 or a hotel room for that night.
00:18:04
Speaker
And I would just go in the city. I would get in and get out as quickly as possible. One, because I had a small kid, you know, my son was a toddler. And two, I couldn't afford to stay for two nights in a hotel room and I would not.
00:18:18
Speaker
You know, I did have some standards. I would not sleep on someone's couch. I'm good. Holiday and express. I got discovered. Yeah. I love it. I love it. So you grew from 300 an hour to a thousand, a six month waiting list. You have a book. How does the first book do? Does that. Yeah. Well, one chunk of that story is I got fried on the one-on-one sessions, which is a pattern I've seen every
00:18:43
Speaker
you know, so-called coach strategist. The one on work burns you. You can't do it for more than 18 months. You need a break. You're going to switch up your business model. And so I quit that pretty much cold Turkey. I was like, Hey, got 10 more slots open and then I'm never doing them again. And I didn't know where my money was going to come from. And then I got a book deal and book deals are never as glamorous as they sound. You can say, Oh, I got a six-figure book deal. You're going to get 150 grand advance. But you know what? You pay your agent 15% and then you get your book advance in thirds.
00:19:12
Speaker
So it's basically rent money. The book did okay. I mean, the book is actually, here's some perspective too. I'm just like, this is so unglamorous. People right now are just like, I'm never writing. And so should I say, keep writing. But it's like this in entrepreneurship. It's like this everywhere, right? Like the beginning phases, it's like pull back these myths of this stuff. I think there's nothing better you can do than to hear the realities of it because then you don't feel bad when you're not hitting it, right? Okay, so here's the not hitting it reality of this one.
00:19:42
Speaker
So I get a deal with an imprint at Random House. So Crown, I mean big, right? Yeah. And we worked really hard to hit the New York Times bestseller list because, you know, that's like winning an Oscar and you sell more books. So, okay, okay, we're going to do this. We're going to hustle. And I'm sitting in my car the day, everybody knows that it used to be this way. Maybe the time has changed. You would find out on Tuesday evening who hit the New York Times list for that coming week.
00:20:12
Speaker
So Wednesday morning I get a call from my editor and she says we didn't hit the list. I'm stunned because we moved thousands of books in advance and I saw the numbers of who hit the list that week and I actually sold more books than the guy who was number four on the New York Times list.
00:20:36
Speaker
So what happened? Well, there's some mysterious algorithm and there's some opinions, just personal opinions involved in the books that get chosen for the list. It's very political and it's very mysterious. It's much like winning an Oscar minus the numbers. There's theories and
00:20:57
Speaker
you can talk to any of the major five publishers and they're obsessed with cracking the code. It's like papal and secret secrecy, you know? And they're just like, you know, well, sometimes they like to put you on the list on your second book. And I'm just like, okay. And you don't want to say anything nasty about the list in case you ever want to get on again. Just like you don't want to, you don't want to piss off the academy, you know, like it's great. And I just sat in my car and cried. And then, you know, what happens because of the way the very broken,
00:21:26
Speaker
publishing system works, you know, my publisher just, they didn't dump me, but they pretty much take the foot off the gas and they're like, well, you didn't hit the list.
Redefining Goals and Authenticity
00:21:37
Speaker
We got to move on to our next book. And I was like, well, aren't you guys going to try and get me like another, on another talk show or wasn't Maddy Claire magazine going to do something? I'm just like, yeah, well, you know, we're, we're doing 12 books a month and we go and like got one publicist. And so, so, but.
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah. So it took five years for me to start making royalties on the Firestarter sessions. And now the checks are lovely and beautiful and they just show up. But that's the reality. It's a good thing I didn't...
00:22:08
Speaker
I want to make my whole living on that book. Yeah, I thank you for sharing that because one of my personal pet peeves is the internet has all this stuff like, I'll show you how to make six figures in two months. Join my program. Pay me 10 grand. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. Suck it.
00:22:27
Speaker
I mean, come on, maybe somebody has figured out, you know, there's the Instagram, you know, instant hits, but like mostly it's a grind. And so, yeah, I heard also the Amazon book numbers don't get added to the New York Times list. Well, no one will confirm or deny that. Because no one really knows what I have heard. And this, I've heard this, I'll put this in past tense that Amazon sales numbers aren't weighted.
00:22:57
Speaker
in the same way as brick and mortar sales. I don't know what that means. Maybe they cut the numbers in half and those get counted, but I've heard, you know, the pendulum is swinging and the times and various bestseller lists have realized that, oh, brick and mortar bookstores are dying and people are actually buying the majority of their books online. So maybe we should count the sales as clean sales as actual, you know, in actuality, the numbers. So, you know, with my next book coming out,
00:23:27
Speaker
You know, after that, I was just like, screw the system. I'm going to just do it my way. And you have to like really do this. I'm like crazy marketing sales stuff. And you have to be so demanding with your audience to try and get on the list. You know, like bulk sales don't count. So someone could love you and be like, I want to buy 50 books for my company and be like, thanks, but you know what? It's not going to count towards a list. So really I'd rather just 50 people went into stores and bought one book. So stuff like that. So.
00:23:57
Speaker
It really, the upside of that happening, it really forced me, like just held me to the ground to face what my true goals were. And now we're really, you know, as a team, we're like really clear. We consider ourselves light workers. We want to get, we want to broadcast light to as many people as possible. And that's what guides our decisions. So.
00:24:26
Speaker
it means we give a lot of way free that we could make money on because it's as many people as possible. It means that we're going to invest a lot in marketing actually, because it's as many people as possible. And it means for the next book, do I want to get on the list? Sure. Are we going to try and work that system? Yeah. But there's things I'm doing that are in conflict with that goal. So, but you know, I'm,
00:24:57
Speaker
committed to the primary goal, as much light to as many people as possible. I love that. I love that at some point you have to, right? Because I mean, clearly, Danielle, you're like somebody who has huge hustle, right? And you're making it happen for yourself over and over. But so many of these systems are just not what they really appear and finding that deeper purpose can help ground you, right? And in the midst of all of this, you know, nonsense about lists. Super grounding is the word because
00:25:25
Speaker
You know, also in the, in that kind of journey, that kind of hustle, you know, you learn about the politics of favors and I'm not down with it at all anymore. Like, you know what? If you want to read my book and endorse it, great. I barely ask for endorsements anymore. And you know, like yesterday was a really, had a beautiful moment. I got this FedEx package and I didn't know what it was.
00:25:51
Speaker
It was the first, see, it's a delayed reaction. Now I wanna cry. Yesterday I was just like, oh great, I gotta cook dinner. But it was my book. And it was like finished, off the press, you know, just got off the boat. And my kid's with me and he's in the kitchen doing his math homework and I was like, wow, what do you think? And look at that. And I felt a little, I was like, am I numbed out right now? I was like, no, had a full day. I'm just paranoid, there's typos. And I'll feel emotional about it tomorrow while I'm doing this awesome podcast.
00:26:21
Speaker
But I looked at all the testimonials in the back and I think maybe out of 10 endorsements, I really only made a pointed request for about three of them. Yeah. And I was so, I wasn't nervous. I felt so shy and humble because, you know, you get it. I cried when I got Eve Ensler's endorsement for the book because, you know, she's a hero to me and
00:26:51
Speaker
I wanted that. I wanted that seal of approval. I wanted her. And of course, even, I mean, we, you know, we're friends. And Marianne, I was like, if she can do this, great. I know you're busy. Yeah, that was been a lot to me. Yeah, that's beautiful. And, and what a moment and to have that with your son and to have that, how old is your son? He's 13.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah. So one question for you is mostly I find that there's this segment of the world that does their work around feelings, desire, love, and then there's kind of this practical brass tacks, you know, like five steps and do it this way. You have this incredible ability to blend the two. Have you always been attracted to like high design, the emotional stuff and like all this practical, like how does it balance all that?
00:27:39
Speaker
Well, I can tell you when to design because, you know, at the beginning you're like, and the book is beautiful. She knows the difference between a serif font and a sans serif font. Oh my God, true story. When I write, I have to change the font to like something that I think is beautiful in Word. Right? Yeah, can't do it. Right? And ideally, I write with really wide margins so I can see what it's going to look like on a printed book page.
00:28:05
Speaker
Stealing. Yeah, steal. You just do, yeah, you just do like 2.5 at the bottom. And it changes everything because you're just like, you know, it changes your flow. But yeah, well, I just couldn't have it any other way. That's it. That's all I couldn't. And I haven't had to fight that hard. I mean, this isn't one thing about just doing your own books. I mean, now I publish myself, I've started publishing company. But you know, like when I was doing the Firestarter sessions,
00:28:34
Speaker
They knew, it was actually, this is the teachable in this, you bake your aesthetic value into the deal. Like I actually, I had it written into the book contract that I would have, we would have to be in agreement. I wanted, I wanted the clause to read that I had final say on book cover and interior design. And they wouldn't give me final say, but they would give me the language read in agreement, which meant if I didn't like it, it wasn't going to go to press.
00:29:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's huge. That's hard to get done. That was very hard to get done. And they just knew. And so that's where the love and the heart comes. I'm an artist.
Motivation and Spiritual Exploration
00:29:13
Speaker
And I love to do it this way. And then the strategy comes in. I didn't have to push too hard. Me saying to the publisher, you all know that this is part of my brand and identity. And this is part of what sells. And people know that if they see this kind of Helvetica, this is Danielle style.
00:29:32
Speaker
And they're like, yeah, we got it. I was like, you mess with my brand. This book is not going to sell my copies. And
00:29:38
Speaker
Nobody could argue with that. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. It's like you're like the artist with a hustle. It's like amazing. Just got this like, you know, like entrepreneurial hustle with you at this like deep, deep soul of an artist. So your latest book, white hot truth, right? Clarity. I love this tag clarity for keeping it real on your spiritual path from one seeker to another. Why, why this title? Why this book? What was the motivation behind this next one? Well, I think the most important part,
00:30:07
Speaker
of the whole title is from one seeker to another. So like this is my journey on the self-help path and all the crazy and sensible and desperate and really noble things I've done to be better and out of spiritual curiosity. Like I've done it. I've been to the Tantra workshops. I've juiced. I've had the colonics. I've gone to ashrams.
00:30:33
Speaker
I've been in really terrible, coercive group workshops where they force stuff out of you because you're sleep deprived. And I looked around and it wasn't only me. And so many of the book is dedicated to my girlfriends. So many of my girlfriends and my clients and readers, you know, we're just like knocking ourselves out to be good spiritual women. And I think
00:30:59
Speaker
you know, the self-help was kind of backfiring a bit to become part of it is, you know, it's another addiction, but it's another way of pleasing. And I got really clear. I was just, you know, I'd replaced that image of a Catholic male God, male judging God. You know, I dissolved that over all of my years of searching. And I thought I wasn't really trying to please anybody, but I was really just trying to please this,
00:31:28
Speaker
other God, this like new age, cosmic, much more esoteric, you know, much more progressive, but still very judgmental. And, you know, I wasn't really listening to my body and I wasn't really free. That's it. I wasn't really free. And I think you say there's this sneaky self hatred that drives spiritual lovers. I was like, I got to ask what that's about. Is this what you're referring to? Yeah, yeah, that's
00:31:58
Speaker
That's the heart of it. I think so many of us, and I'm going to include, I'm just going to make this big assumption. I'm going to include you in this. You know, we're getting shit done. We make things happen. We have a great design sensibility. We know what it means to love ourselves, respect ourselves. We understand the idea of self compassion. We are into self care because we, you know, we get massages and, but don't you just,
00:32:27
Speaker
Just a little bit, don't you hate yourself? Just a little, some days. And it turns out that this is really not okay. It's not cool at all in terms of, well, I mean, obviously in terms of self-love and compassion or what it means to be really spiritual. And one story I tell in the book, it's a legendary story of, in the 90s, the Dalai Lama was having a meeting with
00:32:58
Speaker
some psychologists and scientists and very advanced meditators. And Sharon Salzberg is a very popular Buddhist meditation teacher, asked him what he thought of the concept of self-hate. And he did not know what she meant by the question. He didn't understand the concept. And he went back to her in conversation like a number of times in that event. And he was just like,
00:33:28
Speaker
this is perplexing. Are people like this subject, are they prone to violence? Like really could not wrap his enlightened head around this. And when I read about this, I thought to myself, I had made this assumption that self-hatred to some degree, even like just this microscopic degree, I just did assume that
00:33:52
Speaker
it was like this part of the human condition.
Suffering as a Spiritual Lesson
00:33:55
Speaker
You know, like it was some Freudian thing like, yes, all humans have some degree of self hatred, not according to the Dalai Lama. And yeah, yeah, that was a philosophical showstopper for me.
00:34:08
Speaker
Yeah, so in the driving for spiritual attainment and next level, it's like being mindful that it's not coming from a self-hate of some kind, right? Like that I'm doing this to fix something that's imperfect and you can stay in that space indefinitely, right, if you're not watching for it.
00:34:27
Speaker
Yeah. That's so thoughtful and helpful. And I just, you start your book with, I mean, it's broken out into all these incredibly cool segments, but I couldn't believe like the ending section, suffering and devotion.
00:34:44
Speaker
Why suffering? Why, you know, I got it. I had this moment, I had this sort of Oprah moment one day when I was like, oh my God, pain is pain is pain is pain. We're all comparing pain and we're all sort of thinking about pain. And mine was this and I'm telling my story and you're telling your story. But everybody's pain is really,
00:35:03
Speaker
The same way, you know, if you're having a painful experience, my pain is like your pain and we're all connected in that way. But what was it about suffering and pain that you felt was important to sort of roll towards the end of the book and then move into devotion? Well, I mean, just in creative sequence, I put suffering at the end of the book because I don't want to lose you. And because I take a really clear stand about my perspective on suffering.
00:35:30
Speaker
And I want you to feel some good stuff and then you can handle this really, really heavy sobering, potentially sobering treaties on suffering. And why write about it at all? Because I think we're suffering all the time. I think life is hugely about suffering and we're in pain. And that's why we're searching for answers outside of ourselves. That's why the planet is so messed up. It is all just, you know, it's part of our mortal coil.
00:36:00
Speaker
And, you know, this gets, it's a sensitive subject, at least the way I handle it, because I believe that the soul chooses its suffering. And, you know, the next question, the pushback from that, I mean, I so love philosophical pushback. The next pushback is, I mean, some people that is like aghast with that, they would say, so you're telling me that
00:36:28
Speaker
the woman who's being beaten by her husband is choosing this, to which I am saying, yeah, on a soul level, yes. But that is based on a belief, and this is more than a belief. This is a worldview, this is a paradigm that guides my life. I believe we live many lifetimes and we will, we must, the soul must have every experience possible to return to wholeness.
00:36:56
Speaker
you are going to be the victim and you will be the victimizer. You will be the justice keeper and you will be the murderer. You're gonna work on the light side, you're gonna work on the dark side, all to return to the light. Now, do I say to somebody who's in a clearly victimized place of injustice and just intolerable suffering, do I say you attracted this? No. Does it make me any less compassionate? No, I mean,
00:37:25
Speaker
I bleed. I'm a stand for justice. I'm here to help to do everything I can to heal, to bring people to the light. But this is how I make sense out of the world because I do not believe, I cannot believe that life is a lottery system. I will not believe. I mean, I will, I'm sure I burned many times at the stake for this one. I will not believe that there is a God
00:37:53
Speaker
giving preference to some earthlings and not to others. And I will never buy into the notion that God is punishing. Yeah. So, you know, I've had some terrible things happen in my life to me. And I know that my soul is choosing those things and doesn't make it any easier, but it just gives me just a little edge of comfort.
Defining Success with Integrity
00:38:18
Speaker
to know there's some meaning. There's some journey. There's a journey. And then you move on to say, hey, give yourself some credit. You made it this far, which I love because there comes a point in your life when have you ever looked yourself in the mirror and just said, you're doing okay.
00:38:40
Speaker
You're in it. You're moving through it and give yourself some credit because, you know, we're really good at spending all day long doing the opposite, reminding ourselves of the things we're not getting done. I mean, humans are just so creative and gorgeous and loving. And I mean, the majority of people I see, I know, I observe, I experience, they're good. They're good to the bone. Like we all want to love.
00:39:09
Speaker
and we keep showing up and you know like in the context of this self-help space it's like for better for worse we keep going to the workshops you know we keep trying a new juice and we're trying to get better and it might be not you know it might be ill motivated but like we're trying and it's so beautiful it's so
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, hopeful. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, do you feel successful at this point in your life? And what does that mean to you? What does the idea of success mean? Well, I was at a dinner party, I don't know, a couple months ago, and this was the question. And I asked the same question of like, they're about eight people at the table. And it's, you know, a table of, you know, quote, socially successful entrepreneurs. And then the question got turned on me and
00:39:56
Speaker
I say, yes, I feel successful because I have mostly, not always, mostly throughout my career been kind. I have never intentionally screwed someone over. I have never maliciously lied to anybody ever. And I've had some, you know, I would say I've had some cowardly goodbyes that created messes. You know, I just could have been straighter and more direct. Other than that,
00:40:26
Speaker
I'm really, I stand by how I've handled things. And so I feel successful because of that. And my mortgage isn't paid off. And I don't think I, I don't think I have enough money in the bank because I just keep putting it back into the company. It's okay. It's okay. Just take it and we'll figure it out later, you know? And the people on my team a lot, they're just like, Dee, you need to save some money.
00:40:52
Speaker
I'm like, it's going to happen. It's okay. And I mean, you know, we're making millions of dollars, but I'm just like expensive doing what we're doing. Right. You keep investing into the company. I mean, it was like, yeah. You know why I feel successful? Because today, right before this podcast, I walk my boy to school. No, actually I have to rephrase that. I walk with him. I, he doesn't need me to walk. He's made very clear. You can walk with me, but don't kiss me goodbye in the corner. I walk my kid to school.
00:41:22
Speaker
It's nine o'clock. And while I'm walking, I'm just going, I'm going to do one lap around the local park that has a lake. And I've run into a friend and Pete says to me, you got some time for a walk? I go, I got all the time in the world for you, Pete. And Pete and I did two laps this morning talking about the state of the world and what it means to make a good documentary. And I go, holy shit, Pete, I got to go. I got a podcast. And that is why I feel successful. I can do that.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And so this podcast is really all about the idea of having success and doing it in a way that's authentic to you. So what does an authentic life mean to you? Or is this answer sort of one in the same? Freedom, freedom, freedom. Yeah. Yeah. Freedom for the walk, freedom for the run into Pete. Freedom for the contract that I want, you know, screw boilerplate, screw template, screw Excel documents.
00:42:20
Speaker
And yeah, I say what I want. I feel there's times I can be really vulnerable on stage. I never feel vulnerable. I'm just being honest. And people come up to me afterwards and say, you're so vulnerable. And I was like, well, I'm just telling you the truth. And, but at the same time, the freedom comes in. I also feel really divinely protected to do what I'm doing. And, you know, I don't do it for the money. Like I make it a living, but,
00:42:48
Speaker
I don't do anything for the money because if you do, it's really hard to keep that psychological purity to just say what you want and not worry about pleasing people. I get invited to speak places. I'm like, you will not be happy with what I have to say. So I'm a no. I'm actually a no. I don't need the conflict.
00:43:08
Speaker
Wanna go where there's grace. Learning to say no, right? Everything. Yeah, yeah. Danielle, I just could talk to you forever. Your authenticity and honesty is just so refreshing. Your new book, White Hot Truth, Clarity for Keeping It Real, on your spiritual path from one secret to another, it is coming out in May, is that right? May 16th. May 16th, and people can pre-purchase. Yeah, the pre-ordering is going to start
00:43:38
Speaker
I don't know. Actually, secretly, you could go to Amazon right now and order. It's been up for months. I just haven't told anybody.
00:43:46
Speaker
Awesome. All right. Well, if you're listening, go to Amazon and you can also go to Danielle Laporte's website. All the information she is. I mean, again, if you haven't checked her out already, I don't know what's taking you so long, but there's truth bombs and there's books and there's blogs. There's just everything. It's so much fun. It's like a little space in itself. And thank you Danielle so much for coming on today's show. Oh, thank you so much. It was a pleasure.